It is my honor, pleasure, and duty to begin this new season of Difficult Dialogues. This is Dr. Demetria Rujo Shabazz, and I'm here with the other Dr. Shabazz, Dr. Milcar Shabazz, and we are your hosts for Difficult Dialogues, which broadcasts on Amherst Media in Amherst, Massachusetts. Thank you for joining us. This is a continuation of a series on reparations, and I would just like to say welcome from our studio on the Native American Potomac homeland in Connecticut Valley on Turtle Island, named by settlers as Amherst, Massachusetts. Welcome to a new webisode of our Difficult Dialogues, where we bravely take up the questions that American amnesia and moral cowardice are too afraid to address. Dr. Shabazz, take it away. Today we have Michelle Miller and Matthew Andrews, and anyone else joining us? Just the two of us. To talk about one of the most longstanding and elusive problems in this country we live in, that is the pursuit of justice. We are particularly focused on justice for the descendants of African people who were enslaved on land that is now claimed as part of this country, as far back as 1526, not 1619. Indeed, since the end of the Civil War and the Reconstruction Era, when shadow slavery was abolished and African people became paper citizens of the USA, we have had a demand for reparations and a fight for self-determination, self-defense and self-respect. In my own lifetime, the very idea of reparations to African descendants of slavery here was unthinkable, unacceptable and utterly realistic in the minds of most people. Some of us in the New African independence movement, led particularly by people like Queen Mother Moore and Brother Mario Bedelli, we persisted nonetheless into the 1980s, demanding reparations be paid. Our movement succeeded in getting the late Congressman John Conyers to introduce a bill, HR 40. He introduced this into the U.S. Congress to study the question of the harm slavery inflicted on us, the ongoing ramifications of that wrongful harm and what it would take to repair the damage done. Conyers introduced the reparations bill in 1989 and indeed today the current form of that bill is still in Congress and is known as HR 40, the Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans Act. This bill, along with a version in the Senate, has more co-signers than ever before. In recent years and months, the topic of black reparations has become the subject of books, speeches on the campaign trail, embraced by many democratic office holders and office seekers at least. While it seems to be an idea whose time has come, at least to be taken seriously in the public sphere, polls show that across the nation as a whole, only a small minority of whites support the idea. Here in Massachusetts, ever a leader in ideas like the abolition of slavery, universal education and public schools, women's rights, science and technology and so on, reparations has shown signs of a gain in public attention. Our guests today have taken up the reparations issue and have sought to organize local support and action. I first want to welcome you, Michelle and Matthew, to difficult dialogues. And before we begin our discussion, I'd like to ask you to read your petition just to lay the groundwork for what we're talking about on this program right here in this town. Absolutely. And thank you, Dr. Shabazz and Dr. Shabazz, for having us. This is a really touching. I was very touched listening to you opportunity, so thank you. Dear town council and Mr. Backelman, the purpose of this letter is to formally request the town of Amherst's partnership to end structural racism and achieve racial equity and to establish a funding source devoted to local reparations. We understand the town has taken some preliminary steps to begin the process of ensuring equal rights for its community members, including the adoption of a human rights policy, the formation of a human rights commission and the role of director of human rights and an $80,000 investment to identify and dismantle institutional racism. And we are confident these measures are making an impact. However, we strongly believe there is much more work to be done and we are prepared to begin, we hope, with your participation. We are hereby requesting the town of Amherst to take the following steps in a timely manner. Adopt a resolution to end structural racism and achieve racial equity. A written speech act which acknowledges the existence, past and present, of racial injustice and structural racism in the town of Amherst. The resolution will specifically address anti-black racism in the town of Amherst and will affirm the town's commitment to ending it. Establish a funding source devoted to local reparations. Deform a subcommittee to assist with the reparations process and make recommendations about a fund devoted to local reparations for black citizens in the town of Amherst. Reparations as defined for the purposes of this request are a means of preparing past wrongdoing by growing equity and generational wealth for those injured by addressing racial disparities in education, housing and business ownership. It is critical that reparation efforts are directed by the injured. Therefore, we recommend the subcommittee be led by black community members. There's a growing movement of reparations for black Americans. The Wall Street Journal recently reported that house leaders are seeking to approve a commission to study atonement for slavery. In 2019, Evanston, Illinois adopted a resolution which we've used as a model to end structural racism and establish a reparations fund for African American residents. Last month, Asheville, North Carolina apologized for structural racism and approved reparations for black citizens in their community. If you'd like to learn more, please see the Did You Know document we created. I can't see the link here, but if you go to the petition itself, you'll see that there's several links, including a link to it, another document. Our intention is to create responsible and sustainable transformation in the town of Amherst. We have creative ideas like considering cannabis revenues as a possible path for funding, but we expect a meaningful percentage of the funds to come from grants and private gifts. What we're asking for is the town's sincere partnership in confronting the legacy and current manifestations of structural racism here in Amherst. The late James Baldwin said, not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced. We ask you to join us to blaze a path forward that truly embodies the vision our country was built upon. Thank you for that. Thank you for reading that. Would you each talk now about how you came to create this petition, how you came to this idea, and where are we in the effort so far? You want to start, Matthew? I can go ahead if you want. Yeah, go ahead. So, around the time of the murder of George Floyd, Matthew and I were sort of sharing some writing, and he read something of mine, and I read something of his, and we seem to be thinking about reparations, and particularly how we in our community could look at reparations, and also around that time we started seeing news from Asheville, North Carolina, and Evanston, and I think for me that was when I really became inspired, and also there was a sense of hope that this was actually happening in other municipalities, and that there was even a road map, in particular the Evanston. They are also a council manager government like we have. And so, their particular process seems something that could be very aligned with ours. And so, I'll stop there and let Matthew jump, Matthew, you want to jump in? I don't know when I first was thinking about reparations, but I remember Dr. Shabazz that you cued me in to an event that was happening in Northampton, I don't know if it was a year or two ago that was a panel discussion about reparations at the Edwards Church, and I attended that, and I remember even looking back at that time, reparations was not, it was kind of an idea, an idea whose time had not yet come, people were talking about it in very theoretical terms, as if maybe one day or probably not, that sort of thing. And so, it's definitely been in my awareness, you know, I come at this from the perspective of healing, I feel like, you know, as soon as you, like one becomes educated, and starts to look at the actual reality and not kind of the sugar coated history story that most of us got in school, if you just start kind of, it doesn't take too much digging, you know, start to learn a little bit about the Supreme Court decisions that made big, big statements about the possibilities of, or the opportunities that Black people should have in our culture. No, it's not just slavery. So just I've been informing myself, I've been learning, and I continue to learn and try to educate myself. I think once that happens, it's kind of obvious that something needs to be done. And so for me, it was kind of, you know, that something needs to be done was hanging there. And it's like Michelle said, suddenly people started doing things and it felt like maybe this is a moment, maybe there's enough collective will, maybe there's enough collective awareness of the ongoing past trauma and the current, you know, the past trauma and the current ongoing trauma and pain and suffering and disparity and oppression. Maybe there's enough awareness now that it becomes instead of a pie in the sky thing, an obvious thing, something that just needs to be done. So this, the moment that emerged after George Floyd's murder opened to me in the same way, the possibility like maybe we can do this now and seeing the Black Lives Matter signs go up all over town and seeing people really, you know, I went to the Youth March, the Black Lives Matter Youth March in Emerson. There was a lot of people there and there was a lot of enthusiasm and it was kind of like, okay, so maybe maybe there's a possibility. And I feel that about this time, I feel if we can get over denial, if we can get past denial, and we can get past despair and the idea that it's not possible, it's too big, it's too complicated, then it's just an obvious thing, it's an obvious next step. And where we're at in the process here is, well, we have, I think, close to 300 signatures, at least over 150 from the town of Amherst. And we've spoken with some of the town council members to sort of figure out what their expectations would be and kind of understand the process. We also, something really that we're excited about is we made connection with the folks in Evanston who have successfully brought reparations. And in specific, Alderman Robin Ruth Simmons we've made connection with, she has led the effort. And they are working on what they're calling a national model for municipal reparations initiative. So we have a call set up with Alderman Simmons on Tuesday. She actually told us she was going this weekend to be with the family of Jacob Blake and because he is an Evanston native. And so she has offered her toolbox to us. She has offered to introduce us to folks that are working on this. And so we're really listening and seeing where that guides us in terms of the next steps here in Amherst and bringing in more voices and collaborations and things like that. So I think, does that, Matthew, if you want to add anything else to that? Just that we're learning a lot about how our town works, about, you know, I just actually moved to Amherst. I've been a business owner in Amherst for the past five years. So I've been in town, but I was living in Shootsbury, so up the hill. And I just moved here in July, actually. So I'm a new resident and I was totally unfamiliar with the nuances of the town political structure.  Kind of, you know, we're learning as we go what the practical steps are that need to be taken to do that. You mentioned the program at Edwards Church in Northampton, and I'm reminded to give a plug to one of our Amherst media partners. Critical Conversations is a program series like Difficult Dialogues that airs on Amherst media. And they, along with the Karuna Center, organized that event. It was entitled, Writing Wrongs, The Role of Apology and Reparations for Slavery. And I was on it along with Ali Aslam, Kent Alexander, and Ted Johnson. So again, a shout out to our Amherst media partners. Critical Conversations. The tide really does feel like it's changed a lot since that time. And you all just both spoke to a couple of important connections, both the tragic murder of George Floyd, and then even now the more recent shooting of Brother Blake there in Kenosha, and how these tragedies that keep occurring, keep, you know, kind of traumatizing us in many ways. And you talked about this feeling aspect, opening a wound all over again and again and again. How do you talk a little more about the idea of healing and how things like a speech act apologizing and or what in the language of Sanidadi's and Kirsten Mullen's new book, they talk about the arc. And the first part of the arc of reparations is acknowledgement of the wrong, of the wrong, of the harm. So speak a little more about your ideas on how this acknowledgement, the speech act, just that part of it can be vital in your view to this healing and to this situation. Yeah, you know, I mentioned denial before. And I think the book white fragility was, you know, sold out at Amazon, which I think is hard thing to do these days. I don't know if it still is, but it's the book white fragility talks about fragility, human fragility. It puts it in this, the frame of race, which is very relevant. But there's this basic human fragility that we see in a kid, you know, that the kid does something wrong, my kid does something out of line, and they get caught. And what's the first, you know, not all the time, but a lot of, right, I didn't, no, don't don't look at me. So it was my sister. Yeah, exactly. Somebody, no. So I think in some ways, I don't want to say it's understandable, but I see that I see white America saying, well, no, just, it wasn't that bad. It just maybe some, I don't, they did it themselves, or, you know, whatever the things that come out of people's mouths sideways, it's this obfuscation that has to do with, you know, looking at like, oh my gosh, like, not just slavery happened, not just, you know, my ancestors bought and sold human beings for their own benefit and reaped wealth. This country was founded, well, this country became a superpower. You know, we can get into squabbles about how, under what principles the country was founded, but the country undoubtedly became a superpower in the world because of slavery and because of the cotton trade. And every city in every state was banking on that. So not, but not just that, like you said, people are being shot, black men are being shot and women being shot in the street. And just because we're seeing it now doesn't mean it just started happening. There's lots of people whose names aren't being chanted at protests who have been over the past decades, especially since the beginning of the drug war, who have been lost to police violence tragically. So the apology is this acknowledgement that says it takes away that denial. It takes away that feeling about this, I need to hide from this. And it just puts it in the middle of the room and then we can face it. But we're not, until we get through that, we can't think, okay, what does equity look like? How do we repair this actually? How do we, you know, help people who've been cut off from building generational wealth, find some footing and find some equity? How the practicalities of that, we can't get into that until we first say, okay, we did this, or our ancestors did this, or we've benefited from this, this is real, we are benefiting from it. And, you know, I don't want to go on too many tangents, but even just that, you know, the idea that there is a structural inequity of for sure, but we're all caught up in this mess, and we're all tangled up in it, and we all need healing. You know, our souls are not easy, are not resting easy with the current situation. And only denial can keep us from feeling that our souls are not easy. The soul of white America is not easy, is not peaceful, is not calm, and okay with this. But denial covers that up, it papers it over. So, you know, if we can work through that denial, and get to an acknowledgement, and an apology, then maybe we can actually start to put some practical manifestation in place. Michelle, do you think we're at a place to do, to begin to do that here in Amherst? What do you, and what do you say to neighbors who might say, hey, you know, my hands are clean, my family immigrated to the U.S. after slavery was ended, and had nothing to do with that. They derive no benefit at all from black enslavement, or that this town has no structural racism problem today, and that those complaining of racial injustices perhaps just aren't credible.  How do you engage folks on these matters? Yeah, this is something I've been thinking about a lot, and it's a really important question, particularly to make this more accessible to more people, the idea, the concept, because really the apology, the speech act, is the first critical step. And in some ways it's the no-brainer, easy step that most people, we hope, would be willing to take, right? But then we get to what do we do about it, you know? It's like, we've got to go beyond that, which is why this petition is in two parts. And as I've been thinking about this, I've been thinking about my own childhood and my own upbringing, and I, my grandfather was a 30-year captain in the Philadelphia Fire Department, and as a patriarch of the family, I was raised with this worldview that, you know, the boot is a good symbol here.  And that is a worldview that a lot of people in our country and in this town have. And unfortunately, the other message that I received as a child was that, that Black people basically weren't able to do that because where they're bad or they're, this was the messaging based on what I was exposed to in my, in my childhood. And that is really difficult for me to talk about, but, you know, I didn't have direct experience with Black community. I had what I was told, what images were given to me, what I was exposed to. And so I wanted to read, I, you know, the sort of the remedy for this bootstrap model is personal responsibility, personal responsibility to hear this. I happen to passionately and almost, I mean, my heart when I think about and talk about it, you know, I, I want to read this quote, if it's okay, by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. that he, he said this in an interview, and it really for me sums a lot up. He said, I believe we ought to do all we can and seek to lift ourselves by our own bootstraps. But it's a cruel jest to say to a bootless man that he ought to lift himself up by his own bootstraps. And many Negroes by the thousands and millions have been left bootless as a result of these years of oppression. And so my belief system is that it's racial discrimination years of oppression that have led to these disparities that we're seeking to change. And, and the remedy is reform reallocation of funds, which some, you know, there are other groups and Amherst working on those things as well. And so what I would say to my neighbors and to anyone listening is, you know, I've, I've, I've been working on these four truths. I'm writing, I'm trying to write a piece. And the four things I think that I have been able to identify as truths are that black people were enslaved and held as property by whites for nearly 250 years. Anti black racism has existed in the US since its inception. Black people have not been successful in gaining generational wealth and black people have contributed to and continue to contribute to the generational wealth of whites. And so what I would say is no matter where you fall on that spectrum, whether you believe that, you know, it's personal responsibility or whether you believe in reparations and, you know, racial discrimination here as the reason I would say it doesn't really matter. Because unless we tend to these truths, it's impossible to have a healthy and just society. And so I will just finish by saying, I found this amazing quote by an Australian aborigine activist called Lila Watson. She said, if you have come to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together. And that really sort of speaks to the heart of what Matthew's talking about in terms of healing.  It's so powerful and so true. I got a little more time there. I know Dia is in the control room. She's gonna let me know. But I want to mention this, you know, we did a program, the whole town, tuned in through Amherst media to a webinar we did with William Darity Jr. and Kirsten Mullen, the authors of a new book on reparations from here to equality. And one of the points they emphasize, strongly emphasize in their book, is that reparations, a true, a real program of reparations is really targeted at the federal level, the US government that comes about in the 1780s, under the framework of the US Constitution. That is really where slavery was sanctioned, anti-black oppression was sanctioned. And when we say the country was founded on anti-black racism, it's in the Constitution. It's right there from the very beginning, the 35th Clause, the support for the slave trade until 1808 on and on and on. I mean, and it takes an amendment in 1866, the 13th Amendment to overturn that it was founded, the Constitution itself was a document enshrining this as a slave society. So it targets, their work really targets at the federal government level. And we've mentioned the House Resolution 40 and so on. But he doesn't deny the importance of state and local action. But he wants to be very clear that that's not the, that state and local governments don't have the resource base to meaningfully address the reparative justice and to close the wealth gap and all of that. But he does stress the importance of these kinds of local actions. He lives in Durham. He and Kirsten live in Durham and they talk about how that municipality is also working in some serious ways to back reparations in North Carolina and in their own community. So just to be clear, the fund that would be, the spending of it would go towards initiatives of, by and for Black folk. But if, as we work to get the council to come along and the town to come along to that idea, and you've mentioned ideas of where these resources might come from, different revenue streams, talk a little bit more about why and how you see that local action being able to help make a difference in the healing, in the climate, in the pursuit of justice here in this town. Well, maybe be a model too in the way that Evanston is working to be a model. Yeah, you know, when this all started, Michelle mentioned that I read a piece that she wrote and I sent her a message and said, hey, I've been, I really love your piece and I've been thinking about reparations. And, you know, she had been also and what I was thinking about that that time was number one, I mean, there's nobody in Congress that's going to listen to me right now. So I didn't feel like there was anything meaningful I could do on that level. And so, but, but it was, it was what I said before about looking around seeing all the Black Lives Matter signs. To me, actually, the town thing came second. The town thing came from getting together with Michelle and talking through and, you know, she really has been the strategist here. And what I was thinking originally was just a fun, like, you know, maybe there's enough will out there, there's enough good will in the community that we could just develop a private fund. And we just find a bunch of people, you know, maybe you get 100 people to contribute a certain amount per month, $5,000 a year, $10,000 a year, you know, and build, maybe we could build a fund of $100, $200, $300,000 a year that could be used for specific equity building things. This was kind of the original thought bubble. It's like, it was, but it was really like, what could we do? What could be meaningfully done that would help to redistribute resources and build equity? So that, the town's involvement, I think, you know, it's like, that's what, when I said we're learning all about non-politics and how that all works. It is, it has, to me now at this point, having been through this, it feels equally important. It feels like it wouldn't have been right to leave it out and it feels like it's integral to it. And it's, I also see it as a possibility, like what Michelle said, Evanston is doing, they're saying, hey, we did this and other people are interested and we want to help them. And I think a lot of times that's how ideas spread, is they, you know, one place it happens and then they share the information with another place and with another place and, you know, things can grow. And then you see this movement growing to the point where people on the national level can say, okay, I see out there that there's enough will, there's enough positive feeling about this thing that we can really push it now. I mean, that's generally the sense I get is that people are, and people in Washington are looking out to their constituencies to see, you know, how much support they have for different things. So we need to show that we need to show that there's support here and that's what we're hoping to do. Michelle, anything to add to that? Everything Matthew said. Yeah, I, you know, one of the things that this is difficult dialogue, right? So I'm going to go for it. Okay. One of the things or, you know, something that I am feeling the resistance of in our community is this idea of allocation, allocation of funds and who makes those decisions and how are those funds allocated and why? And I think what Matthew and I are trying to do is just, you know, pause. Let's just, we don't have to have all of the answers right now. And even Evanston, they have put together through the subcommittee that they have, similar to what we would hope to have, they put together what they're calling. I forgot to write it down, but it's like a stakeholders group basically. And because as we said in the petition, it's critical that those injured are involved in this process, fully leading the process really. And we have our community, we don't have a large black community here. Okay. So, you know, and that to me is, and Matthew and I have talked a lot about this, that's a problem in our mind that didn't just happen, you know, that Amherst doesn't have more black people living here. So we want to really figure that piece out. We want to, you know, so that this and something that feels really important to me is that this isn't like you give $10 or you give $100 and you walk away, that will be great. But actually for this to be healing, we need to be able to sustain this. And that's why we need the partnership we hope of the town and of others. Because it's important today and it's going to be important in 10 years, 20 years, 30 years, 100 years. And so, how do we set it up, you know, so that it's a sustainable, it's a sustainable fund and initiative that isn't just for right now in this moment. Yeah, I think that's, that's it. There are, you know, as Dee and I talk with people all over town and there are a lot of ideas, but, you know, it's it is that lack of lack of equity. It's that lack of the intergenerational wealth. We, you know, butternut farm apartments and townhouses, we were here when it when it opened and this is half housing. These are apartments and townhouses where there are income restrictions as to who can live there, they have affordable rents, they don't rent to student households, but but basically with for those with these with certain income restrictions. And it's managed by it's managed by half housing out of Springfield. But idea occurs, what about, you know, a kind of cooperative housing or co housing that we could buy, buy a large home by our couple of homes and create a kind of a real communal kind of setting where three, four however many families could be part of a co housing that they would all have an ownership stake in. But again, where does the initial investment come from? Where is the initial fund that could could help create that kind of cooperative housing that people could then, you know, live in take apart of have a real kind of a state stake in developing and when they move or when they pass on to go to their children or to go to others who are in need that that come in and would live there. But again, it's these kinds of housing that issues that could increase the affordable housing and be part of a black initiative home ownership and cooperative ownership initiative fund such as what what we're discussing here that could provide the the initial funding for something like that. These are these are could really go a long way toward toward making a difference. So, you know, I'm, you know, I hope this program can play a part in extending the dialogue in extending the the conversation and really pushing people privately as well as within town government to to ask what final sort of thoughts or words might might you want to leave through this program. First, I just want to say that, you know, that idea that particular idea that you just brought up, it's not something that I had thought of or probably would have thought of. And that's the beauty of this is like, you know, there's so many good possibilities and there's so many good ideas.  And I think that's just the main thing is like, you know, I don't know if white people often think of reparations as like a slap on the wrist or somebody taking something from me or something. This is about a joyful, equal just community. This is about building together a world where there's not one group of people standing on top of another group of people. It's about creating a kind of society where we're taking care of each other. And there's the kind of universal care and, you know, collective reliance that can open possibilities for human experience that we can't even imagine right now. So this is definitely not about some kind of punishment or some kind of, you know, like, giving something away out of shame or whatever, you know, this is about building a beautiful future together. And I really believe that now is the time and that we can do this. And I look forward to all the creative possibilities that emerge along the way. Thanks for you, Michelle. Yeah, just to say, you know, I encourage anyone listening to this, if they have any resistance to the idea at all, ask questions, you know, get curious, you know, because that resistance that we feel and that feeling, as you said, Dr. Shabazz of like, this wasn't mine, you know what I mean? That is a natural, maybe a natural reaction. However, I encourage to pause and to get curious and to ask questions and not to let that sort of dictate your behavior. Because shame is a really powerful emotion and denial. They're really powerful. And so when we feel them, they're sort of like assigned to us to say, well, what might be going on here? And what else can I learn, you know? So that's sort of what I would say. We think of Amherst as having no or a very distant relationship to slavery. And a lot of people point out that, you know, Massachusetts with the lawsuit of Elizabeth Freeman, Mumbet, that in the early 1800s, it's pretty much disappears from here in the Commonwealth with Massachusetts. But it actually, in fact, there's an interesting story from the 1840s, where a young girl named Angeline Palmer was indigent. She was in what they called in that time the Alms House or the poor house. Her mother had been in the poor house, her mother had died, and then she was she had no one. And we didn't have as maybe today have foster care systems or whatnot. But what happened is she became a ward of the town. And the town government, the select men select board at that time, gave her a way to a family, the Shaw family in Belcher town, and to be a servant in their in their household. So she would kind of work for her room and board, so to speak.  But the family there got involved in some investments down south, some of the investments weren't going so well. They were planning to take a trip down to this silkworm thing they had invested in. And they were thinking to take Angeline with her young 10 year old black girl. And there was discussion of once they got there, how much they could get for her, that they could sell her for like 300, you know, what at that time, maybe $300 and modern terms, pretty substantial some maybe 10,000 times that. And, and so the word kind of got out. And the black community rose up to go back to town government to say, Hey, wait a minute, we're kind of hearing something might be a foot to sell Angeline into slavery, you know, we're not supposed to supposed to have that here. And, you know, the town being town as you as we found in 2020 was the same town back in 1840. There's a lot of lip service, a lot of discussion, a lot of debates, a lot of trying to figure it out. And meanwhile, these, these people, the Shaw's out of Belcher town at a train ticket, and we're getting ready to go and take Angeline with them. So these, some three individuals decided something had to be done. A man and he's in our in the background of drawing that was done with him from a long ago, manning Henry Jackson, along with Angeline's half brother named Frazier, along with named Louis Frazier, along with an older man named William Jennings, these three black men decided to take action. They go to Belcher town, they liberate Angeline from the Shaw's before they could take her away. And they put in and she goes from there into the Underground Railroad and just kept safe. We later find out in Colrain, she was hit out for some years because the three men, Jackson, Frazier and Jennings were arrested and did face time for supposedly kidnapping. And they did about a year, a year in prison. They were represented in court. There was the town was kind of divided. Some for law and order, law and order, like we heard at the Republican National Convention a few days ago. Some were saying, you know, no, this is unjust. And what these people did was was righteous. And, and so Emily Dickinson's father actually represented them when they went to trial. And they, they, you know, fought the good fight. Edward Dickinson fought the good fight. But he did not win their freedom. They did get a year. And it was different kind of times they actually could get food. They would work out in the community during the day, and then they had to sleep in this kind of jail at night. And people would bring, could bring them outside food, food from home. So it was a little different than the way our prisons run today. But, but all, but they did do time. And later, they're, you know, particularly as we move closer to the Civil War, they actually were kind of lionized as heroes for the action they took. But, but, you know, I really would like to think of Angeline Palmer, as these conversations go forward about this equity fund and about trying to do something, do this, this apology and do this, some type of equity fund to really think of Angeline Palmer, think of, of Jackson, Frazier, and Jennings who did time to keep her free and to really, you know, realize that this, this crime against humanity called slavery did have a presence right here in Amherst. And that's just one story about that presence here. But again, thank you for, for, for what you're doing here. And thank you for coming on Difficult Dialogues to share.


This is minor issues number three, the Fed's immaculate disinflation. Hi, I'm Mark Thornton. Today the plans at the Fed for an immaculate disinflation took a hit when the employment report was released and over a half a million new jobs were created in the United States. And this is bad news for the Fed, even though it would be great news for Americans in the labor force. The Fed's immaculate disinflation holds that they will raise interest rates known well in advance in order to bring down the rate of price inflation back to its throne at the 2% level and the 2% target of the Fed. This in the immaculate version holds that we will maintain full employment during this process that stock markets while volatile will not crash and will eventually recover fully. Likewise with housing, it will be rough, but eventually we will cut rates and reestablish robust conditions in housing and for things like investment. The bad news is that with 500,000 plus new jobs created in January, three times the estimated amount and with the unemployment rate falling to 3.4%, the lowest level since 1969, which was before we went off the gold standard, way more than 50 years ago, that suggests that the Fed has more work to do in this process of immaculate disinflation. And it really throws a monkey wrench into the Fed's process because they had just committed to their final increases of raising interest rates in the economy. They had basically announced plans to stop raising rates in the near future and then of course opened up the possibility of cutting rates even rapidly if necessary at the end of this process. And of course, for markets, such plans mean potential actions. If problems occur, say a big increase in unemployment or a stock market crash, why not just move up those plans in time by a few months? It wouldn't be reversing your options or your plans, but simply implementing them a little sooner. So if we did get bad data, we could just resort to those preset options and the Fed would be ready to pivot, ready for recovery, ready for the next boom. The announcements of the big increase in new jobs does throw a monkey wrench into those problems. The good news for the economy is bad news for the Fed. The good news for the economy means that there is probably much more price inflation ahead. And this implies more increases in interest rates beyond those previous Fed plans in order to reduce the impact of their monetary inflation, which started almost three years ago. The truth is, is that ultimately killing price inflation, which the Fed caused in the first place, implies higher rates, painfully higher rates without any controls or subsidies. For example, in European countries, they're subsidizing electrical rates. In the United States, we've resorted to, in small matters, increasing oil released from our strategic petroleum reserves. So you have to increase rates without those types of subsidies. The real process of killing inflation means much higher unemployment. It means businesses having to shut down or close. It means bankruptcies, personal bankruptcies and other misfortunes. And it involves housing foreclosures as well. It means pain for us. So yes, the pain of higher prices from the Fed is spread evenly across, impacting us to one level or another in terms of higher prices for gasoline, eggs, and so forth. That's what ultimately brings price inflation down, is pain for us. But that pain in the Fed's eyes is necessary to protect its constituencies, which of course includes the banks. It includes wealthy people and owners in the stock markets. It includes the political elites and, of course, most especially government bondholders. So what looked very plausible midweek here in the U.S. economy now looks like an open question. And the probability of the Fed's immaculate disinflation now seems far away and far less likely.


guys this is Jason Zach from Nathaniel School of Music. Now I'm here in this lesson to answer probably the most common question which I've got from students of all ages and also in our YouTube channel, comment section, Instagram and wherever people approach me. How do you improve the coordination or how do you build hand independence? Well it's asked in all sorts of ways. Essentially how do you play with two hands on the piano or how do you improve your hand independence? Now I think the important word here is how do you improve it? It's not how do you achieve it because I don't think you can ever achieve hand independence. I don't know what the end goal is. It's like saying I have reached the maximum level or the maximum speed as an athlete or something like that. I mean that's very very infinite isn't it? You can go as much as your mind and body wants to take you. So hand coordination or hand independence the first thing is let's look at a few reality checks about it, how you can practice it and what you need to do when things are tough during the process of achieving it. The first point I'd like to mention about hand independence is don't do specific exercises all the time to develop it rather just go with the flow. Play music just freely and just do what you have to do. If you're doing a song there are two ways of playing a song if you think about it. You could play the melody line in the right hand that would be a melody section which is more or less played in the right hand and there will be some kind of a chord pattern to support that melody in the left hand. So all through a solo pianos journey you're gonna want to do that for example. So if you observe the melody is in the right hand and there's some kind of a support for that melody given in the left hand. However I could consider another way of playing piano which is more of the accompaniment style wherein I go just the chords along with some kind of a pattern. In this case I'm just blocking chords and playing that in a pulse. Or some arpeggios and you just support. So your job is not to play the melody which you can by the way. But it's essentially for a choir or a singer or a group or another lead instrumentalist like a violin player to play alongside the piano support. So first of all there are two ways of playing the piano. There's no it's not melody is only you also accompany or it's not just accompaniment it's solo piano as well. So when you're in either mode of playing the piano there are certain challenges that you might face for both. But the way I look at hand independence from a macro perspective is look at the two hands more like a vehicle. You know you get into a car and you trust the fact that the engine is running fine that all the parts are oiled everything has been serviced well so to speak. So you get in and then you have the controllables you control the steering to move it around and accelerate and brake and what not.  So think of the one hand which you are in control of and trust that the other hand you know is going to deliver and going to do its job. So this is the common problem which people have when we play a line. Let's say we do any kind of melody. Now this is probably going to be in my conscious brain. You know I'm thinking of the tune. You know while this the other hand if this also has to be conscious then how are you going to put them together. It's not going to be feasible. It's the same thing with life in general. You can't focus on two things at the same time. You may be able to do two things at the same time but you're generally focused on one you know. So for example you can talk to a delivery guy on the phone while doing some other work or you know you can cook food while talking to your friend or if you are an Indian and if you are used to our extremely busy and chaotic streets you can probably cross the road while having some momos while doing so. It is possible. I wouldn't recommend it but it is possible to do two things because you're used to one thing. The thing which is important the thing which takes more time to develop like crossing a road which is very important. You have to know the logistics of crossing a busy road right. It's very dangerous if you don't. So that gets committed to our subconscious brain or our instinctive skills so to speak and that is how I would look at your two hands on the piano. One hand should be instinctive. So a good way to practice that would be I want to learn a pattern. I don't care which melody that pattern is going to be used for. I just want to learn a pattern. So let's take for instance the anapageo maybe this one. Just that. Now this could be used for so many songs you know and this should be almost subconscious instinctive. I'm just playing an E minor chord and just rolling it you know and I am able to talk to you also right now that means I'm not even thinking of my left hand or giving it very minimal thought. The only thought I'm giving it is when to change it. See I'm doing a little bit of a change in the middle here that I'm even that now I want to slowly commit to the subconscious or not think about it. You know just becomes a natural it just happens and that frees up our mind from bringing out certain things in the right hand. For example this song. See whatever melody I play it's doesn't affect what my left hand engine is up to the engine is pumped up and running and this is one of the many patterns as you know on the piano. You could do something groovy in the left hand as well like maybe this one. Even this has to now get committed and you can play a variety of music. You're freeing your mind exclusively for the right hand and technology in some cases may not help your cause in the sense a lot of the keyboards we buy these days we buy them with all these technological features and I wouldn't even call them as features because they are just existing drum loops and samples that you trigger by hitting a play button then you have the accompaniment button. Now if you do all that how are you actually playing the piano you're not it's just the keyboard playing itself with samples and you're just pushing those buttons so if you want to develop hand independence stop using the technology don't look at anything here ever just look here look at the white and black keys and maybe here all I would do minimally is control the volume maybe use a metronome and maybe explore one or two different piano or electric piano samples or organs or whatever sounds yes but don't use all the drum beats and those other accompaniment buttons those things are going to render your technique very harmful actually and if you're mentoring children if any of you are teachers or if you're a younger person watching this what happens is that becomes a bad approach in the long run so for one year you will play like that and to get out of that bad habit becomes almost impossible right or tough I would say not impossible but very tough so try to play piano don't play other things just only focus on the piano so that's a very important idea wherein one of the hands gets committed to the brain and the to the subconscious and the other hand is going to explore or improvise and so on and so forth however you will have to go with a chord progression so even the chord progression the shifting try to work on that first and a great way to do this is to sing the melody line before you play it on the piano so if I'm playing maybe this sort of a pattern or let's change the pattern on maybe this one maybe this one and if I come up with a melody okay now before you even consider playing that sing that with the piano going and then now keep that same pattern slowly changing the chords and once you get that singing with the piano the right hand becomes an extension of your voice come to think of it whatever you sing you just play because that becomes good ear training because I'm trying to play that play what I'm singing and enjoy the process enjoy the journey of doing this you know and start simple or just whatever you have to do start with singing so the main point I'm trying to make here is focus on getting one hand to be an engine and then the other one will be the actual work which a driver of a vehicle would do steering wheel and so on and so forth that is how you conquer it and you may think oh I should always engine my left hand no you should all you can even engine your right hand in cases for example when you play a pattern like this you know something like this my creative hand is now the left hand so and so on so now my entire focus is given to the left hand now the things which may not help when practicing and independence one thing I told you yeah using technology to aid with the left hand then you're not really playing piano right technology should should make things faster for you to learn it shouldn't stop you from learning which a lot of the keyboards out there seem to have these arranger workstations are the ones I don't like because they're just expensive the buttons break in any case you'll have to give them you'll have to spend a lot more on service you'd rather get something with limited buttons and just good piano sounds on them okay right so while you practice hand independence you'll obviously have road blocks along the way in the sense your eventual goal didn't actually happen or is not happening right now so what you need to do is have a kind of a reality check a reality check in the sense I am not able to do this particular level of coordination right now so for instance if I just play a few cards in the in the left hand maybe just E major E major E major and then a B seventh in this nice dominant seven shape so if I do this and you want to now explore some kind of improvisation in the right hand let's say your end goal is maybe that may not be working maybe you're getting only the right answer what do what some of the students I teach end up doing is then they'll nail that melody and simplify the left hand so sounds good but it'll sound 100 times better once you get the chords and the rhythm pattern there don't you think so what you should then do is rather than playing or rather than simplifying the left hand you should simplify the right hand and have a kind of a reality reality check currently in this moment of time I cannot play the right hand so let me bank the left hand and start slow let's increment I would I wouldn't say start slow start simple so if you take a standard left hand pattern maybe just keep it simple maybe just block it for now and maybe go in the right hand everything you're gonna ever play will be semi-brieves 3 4 2 3 or 1 2 3 4 2 3 4 2 3 see this I'm sure you can do just stay on the E major scale otherwise it'll sound a bit wrong so back to me now semi-brieves sound nice but it's a bit boring because it's not the chord now semi-brieves are nice but it may end up being a bit boring if you keep using it over and over especially because the chords are changing so what's after semi-brieves maybe two minutes just following one of the notes of my left hand chords I'm staring here or in my book I would have had E G sharp B as the chords written so there's no new note and that's another challenge with hand coordination if you have different stuff to play all of a sudden the chords change it's not only the pattern or the rhythmic framework it's also the melody if you just suddenly change notes that's a job so the coordination of the hands is a challenge melodically harmonically and rhythmically you're you're dealing with all the three departments as one on the piano so understand have a reality check and then what can I do at the current moment maybe minims I'm sure you can do crotchets which are quarter notes that's on the pulse itself just realize that this is not very much hand-independence because the two hands are hitting at exactly the same time so you want the hands to kind of do different things and if this is a challenge for you or if this is not a challenge for you change the notes maybe the scale maybe jumble things and then slowly move forward to other rhythms like maybe a minimum and two crotchets or maybe flip that around two crotchets and a minimum let's see what am I doing now I'm doing a crotchet and a dotted minimum dotted minimum last three counts maybe flip that around also the dotted minimum following up with a crotchet and keeping my decisions in the right hand fairly simple I'm just fooling around with a chord tone of the left hand you can even write this down writing things down before you play right either writing the notation let's say you already have the notation for an exercise you're practicing I would still urge you to hand write it on your own rewrite the whole thing and it's your own work which you put in right to write all that down that itself in turn internalizes it and notation is a good way to visualize the way the two hands are linking up with each other so you'll know the right hand is doing minimum minimum the left hand is doing crotchet crotchet crotchet crotchet I call these as hand ratios you could practice things like one is to four four is to one two is to four four is to two so for example what will be a two is to four left hand is to right hand will be one two hits over four counts and this will be for it so it'll be one two three four one two and you can practice these hand ratio drills anywhere you don't need a piano you can do it on your leg or on some kind of a table or wherever to so I'm practicing the two is to four ratio and when I take it to the piano this could be harmonic one two three four and the right hand could be playing double of that now you could even visualize a two is to four by going left hand as crotchets and then the right hand will be double of that so that'll end up being quavers right what about one is to three those are triplets for you so hand ratios is another great reality check so one reality check was whatever you're doing in the left hand you're telling yourself I cannot play the right hand with respect to the current left hand but I will not simplify the left hand I will simplify the right hand I know that melody is a really catchy one I know you want to play that but trust me this takes time and another important thing as you practice you need to enjoy the process I wouldn't say you need to you will rather if you plan things well if you write it down and if you tell yourself the reality check which is I have to simplify my right hand the common thing is students will simplify or most of us myself included we simplify the left hand so if you want to grow hand independence do that the tough yards first finish the tough work which is the non-glamorous work so that will be the left hand for the most part if you're doing a solo arrangement and then the right hand will eventually you already know the right hand the right hand is that catchy tune but get you can't get that with the sophisticated left hand pattern so work on the sophisticated left hand pattern with a very very simple right hand melody and thus you're going you're basically going step by step realizing what challenge you have and the advantage of going step by step you take a few steps back do something simple and if you can do a dotted minimum and a crotch it in the right hand alongside some kind of a left hand pattern some arpeggio you have not only got it for that song you've got it for life you've got the hand coordination pretty much for life and the things which we get very good at other things we don't obsess over every other day for example if you're playing a racquetball sport like badminton table tennis or the tennis or the like you don't actually keep telling yourself I have to serve this is how to serve this is what I do yes there'll be a basic posture but you have to keep doing it and you will on the job or in the game realize that your serve is not good enough the opponent is able to smash you any at any point of that particular court so then you have to think your survival instincts have to kick in and then you realize where should I serve then you get into placements you get into you know angles and spin and the speed variations and bouncing and all of those things so the point I'm trying to make is you should learn it on the job by going in a stepwise manner and the advantage is you will know how to deliver that rhythm pattern for anything in life it stays with you for life the thing about music is we have our three departments rhythm melody and harmony knowledge of rhythm stays with us forever at any age whichever age you decide to pick up music this is not you know age-dependent rhythm stays with you for life if you practice it well you have to practice it with a lot of lot of respect in a very very stepwise stepwise manner right and the thing with piano practice is if you're looking at practicing something on the piano it's not supposed to be easy isn't it practice is supposed to be tough it's supposed to get you to sweat it out and get better progress forward to the next stage so I understand the frustrations of practice but I will say a few things when it comes to the the the way we practice or the mindset of practice what always happens is the first few minutes it could be if your practice session is about one hour it's going to be near impossible to just at least for me that first ten minutes is crucial I need to give the first ten minutes to the the piano I have to just go there and just give it the time and what I tend to do is I'll do something which I don't know very well I'll do an exercise but I also want to get into the mindset of being a piano player and taking myself away from the other parts of the world around me like the social media my phone with Instagram and whatnot so to get me out of that space I try to write down what I have to do get into that mindset and then play something you don't know never start with something you know because if you do that then you'll only do that for ten fifteen minutes and because you're damn good at that your mind will wander away and it's the same with all instruments it's also the same with anything if you're a music producer or songwriter composer never the first time you get into that into that environment do something you don't know do something which you absolutely suck at okay and that gets you into that mindset of respecting that one hour and saying oh I'm gonna make that one hour useful so that first ten minutes is very very crucial so that first ten minutes to kind of get into the zone as I call it is very important and then the time will just fly and when you practice there are two things you need to keep in mind practice is an exponential job and sleep is very important so what I mean by that is if you're practicing one rhythmic permutation between the right hand the left hand and it's an absolutely grueling process it's taking you almost 40 minutes of the practice let's say now do that you should not give up because in your original goal you have about 20 rhythms to do but this one rhythm itself has taken you 40 minutes don't worry you've put in time the others are going to be just binary permutations here and there you're just gonna move the e to the or the and to the e or something like that it's just gonna be one or two displacements and the rest of the rhythms will just fly it's always gonna be an exponential curve whenever I practice or any student who I've taught practices I asked them to follow this and just observe at which point is the peak of the exponential curve where is it actually skyrocketing you know that's not the time where you need to shut off your piano and have a good meal that is a time you need to finish it off because there's literally a light which you're seeing at the end of this tunnel so it's an exponential thing and let's say at the end of a piano practice session you feel absolutely horrible that you have achieved nothing this is where you should never focus on the goal the goal is something I don't like to keep in my mind when I practice I like to keep it as at the back of my mind rather if I have a process I want to enjoy the process and stay in the present and then the result will come so don't practice with the mindset that I have to get the result it's not coming it's not coming not at all if you have practiced the result and if you got it to let's say some form of skill trust me your brain your subconscious brain also needs to practice what you've done in that half an hour was practice for your conscious brain your active brain what you're observing you need your other brain to also work and that happens when you have a good night's sleep so after having a good night's sleep wake up and don't stop playing the piano don't go with a negative mindset go back to the piano with positivity and what will happen is your brain will reward you go with a positive mindset always saying doesn't matter I'm gonna eventually get it no matter what okay and this sleep pattern is very important by sleep I don't mean actual sleep well I recommend it for all of you but I don't mean I just mean taking a break it could even mean dividing your practice maybe you have your work at about 9 a.m. so you do a little bit of early morning practice go to your office come back then you're a bit tired just before dinner given a maybe 20 more minutes you'll realize what you did in the morning is just gotten better in the evening even though ironically you're supposed to be more tired in the evening but then you're playing the piano better in the evening and to build hand coordination I always like to think that every one of us piano players are playing it as an even playing field we are all given the same keys the same key size the same instrument and we are all the same species so at the end of the day there's a guy who is working harder than you who you should start striving to kind of become so even for a person like me I don't think I even know 10% of what I need to know I maybe a 10% itself is an exaggeration so in one lifetime you're never going to be a master of an instrument it's the same with a sport it's same with anything it's a process there will be days where you feel that you cannot even play the instrument but it's just a cycle you have to just go with the flow and just realize that we are just one individual trying to play this instrument and give it the best of what we can give it so to speak you have to practice it will sound really really airtight and the thing which you're doing get that to be really good you don't want to say I want to master hand independence that doesn't make sense if I want to say that to myself I'll do I'll do about 20 things then there'll be a 21st thing which puts me back to the drawing board and then you will be you'll be very clear and certain that hand independence is a it's a process you have to keep doing it you have to keep trying it and that's some of the challenges of learning in today's you know fast-paced YouTube like environment where you just what are you gonna type generally you're gonna type how to play this song how to do this how to master hand independence you know we've also done titles like that so don't be misled by such things those are kind of ways to get people to watch our videos but the truth about hand independence is it you cannot explain it in one video you can't explain in even hundred YouTube videos you have to dive into the sea for yourself and develop the skill okay so my main issue with YouTube videos is we have to kind of give you a final goal at the end of the video but at that point you'll also think that that is your final goal and it shouldn't be your goal should be to practice your goal should be the process and finally you you get this really good feeling that you're just organically getting into that song and it just one day just hits you just one day comes to you and it's a very good feeling you shouldn't force the result right guys so before I conclude this talk I just wanted to mention a few very important points I've said a lot but I'll just revise it and focus on five things which you need to keep in mind when you're dealing with hand independence the first thing which I've talked about earlier is sing and play very very important when you're playing the piano it avoids frustration it gets you to be in the zone and you're in the game you're playing the sport you're not going to some simulation or learning how to play badminton in a classroom you learn it by going to the court and actually playing and then losing winning and sweating and falling and whatnot that's how you do it so sing and play and whenever you play the piano and you're trying to work on hand independence you need to always focus on one of the most probably the most important thing in music the pulse so if you go if you see what I'm playing on the piano it may be a lot of notes a lot of subdivisions but look at my head it's just going with the pulse it could be my head my upper body my foot I can't clap because I'm playing the piano but feel the pulse focus on the pulse that's very important and I know it's a tough thing to say but try to relax when you play the piano and it sounds a bit strange how do I relax you know it's a bit tough because it is a physical job your back is being used your whole upper body is being used to play the instrument so I would just say one thing focus on your breathing whenever you feel things are very tense whether job is too difficult to achieve try to just focus on breathing in and breathing out breathing in and breathing out also ends up making the music very organic and very dynamic I would say so see if you focus on breathing as you breathe in it gets louder as you breathe out it gets softer science biology it's what happens when we breathe so focus on that and also what I like about breathing is you take yourself to the bigger picture of the song you're at the end of the day one musician playing a song you're just one guy on this earth play you so you tend to avoid being too possessive and you don't think about yourself you're thinking more about your song and what you're supposed to work on so breathing is a more kind of a bigger perspective on the whole music which you're trying to play okay and basic things like slowing down simplification is very very important slow down what you're playing you can use a metronome to help you see if you're playing on time and another thing I like to do when I use the word simplify I also say don't judge yourself while you're playing a musical instrument be it a piano or guitar or whatever because at the time of playing it there is a lot of energy you know there's a lot of you know emotions being thrown at you or flowing by you so you you're also jamming with people they may also tell you many things so never judge anything real time record it on a cell phone or any kind of recording device listen to it the next morning and then decide and then be a judge and say oh yeah my timing is not so good I should work on that a bit more while you play it's always nice to not judge and if you're new to the pianos even more important that you should never judge yourself let a teacher judge judge you or or something like that or put up a couple of recordings and share it with your friends and family see what they think the last person to judge oneself in this field should be us it should be others because ultimately music is for others it's an entertainment business at the end of the day right and lastly the reality check build up to the eventual goal focus on the process rather than the result or that final song so have a reality check coordinate your hands with simpler things rather than you know just trying to climb Mount Everest without having any basic training or having a backpack which can handle the the climatic conditions right guys I hope this video gave you some insights into practicing the piano and I hope you can use some of these concepts and some of these tips in your journey let me know what you thought about it in the comments and if you like the lesson there's a like button somewhere there do consider hitting that and for future videos there's a subscribe button don't forget to hit that and there's a bell for regular notifications all of our content is supplemented on our Patreon page for as low as $5 a month and then you have other tires you can get video courses you can get personalized lessons with me and if you'd like to do a full-on course a semester style learning at Nathaniel School of Music where you may want to improve on your year training your piano theory composition production or whatever it might be head over to Nathaniel school.com and reach out to one of our course advisors cheers and catch you in the next video


Hi, I'm Jason Kretner. I'm the Chief Hospital Executive at Hackensack Meridian Health at Ocean Medical Center. Ocean Medical Center is an incredible organization. I'm so impressed with the culture. So I've got a chance over the last few years to meet several members of the Ocean Medical Center team. This opportunity became available. I quickly jumped upon it and it's been great. I'm blown away about the warm welcome I'm receiving here. What impresses me most at Ocean Medical Center is really the team. It's an incredible culture here. Just walking through the hallway, so many folks have come up to me and just welcoming me. It's just really a great feeling here. And going back to the reputation of the organization and taking a look at the great place to work scores, which is number one throughout the entire network. So just looking at that and that's two years in a row, it really is a special place. And I feel really privileged and honored to be here. My management style is I really like to walk the halls and really get to know people informally. So that's really important to me. So I'm sure a lot of folks will be seeing me at all different times of the day. I'm going to just be spending some time on the overnight as well as the morning, just to really get a chance to sense the culture here and not really get a chance to meet as many folks as I possibly can. I'm very transparent. I'm very open. So what I plan to really be doing is we're talking about the vision that I have. I'm working very closely with Dr. Ken Sable and Bob Gard as well. So we're excited to really talk about our plans and vision for the future.


But the stuff in there run pretty slow. It run a little. Yeah. It's not that many. I don't know. I don't know what I'm talking about. It's not that many. I don't know. It's not that many. Thank you. Good to see you. Good to see you. Good to see you. Good to see you. What would you think? In Chinatown, a free car, I suppose. There's a lot of people here. We're both my friends. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.