CHAPTER V Myself," said the Minor Poet. I read the book with the most intense enjoyment. I found it inspiring. So inspiring I fear I did not give it sufficient attention. I must read it again. I understand you," said the Philosopher. A book that rarely interests us makes us forget that we are reading. Just as the most delightful conversation is when nobody in particular appears to be talking. Do you remember meeting that Russian man George brought down here about three months ago? asked the woman of the world, turning to the Minor Poet. I forget his name. As a matter of fact I never knew it. It was quite unpronounceable, and except that it ended, of course, with a double F, equally impossible to spell. I told him frankly at the beginning I should call him by his Christian name, which fortunately was Nicholas. He was very nice about it. I remember him distinctly," said the Minor Poet, a charming man. He was equally charmed with you," replied the woman of the world. I can credit it easily, murmured the Minor Poet, one of the most intelligent men I ever met. You talked together for two hours in a corner," said the woman of the world. I asked him when you had gone what he thought of you. Ah, what a talker! he exclaimed, making a gesture of admiration with his hands. I thought maybe you would notice it. I answered him. Tell me, what did he talk about? I was curious to know. You had been so absorbed in yourselves, and so oblivious to the rest of us. Upon my word," he replied, I really cannot tell you. Do you know I am afraid, now I come to think of it, that I must have monopolised the conversation. I was glad to be able to ease his mind on that point. I really don't think you did," I assured him. I should have felt equally confident had I not been present. You were quite correct," returned the Minor Poet. I have a distinct recollection of having made one or two observations myself, indeed, if I may say so, I talked rather well. You may also recollect," continued the woman of the world, that the next time we met I asked you what he had said, and that your mind was equally a blank on the subject. You admitted you had found him interesting. I was puzzled at the time, but now I begin to understand.  A good book, I added. A good talk is like a good dinner, one assimilates it. The best dinner is the dinner you do not know you have eaten. A thing will often suggest interesting thought, observed the Old Maid, without being interesting.  Something said, something hinted at, will stir a memory, start a chain of thought. I once, I said, sat next to a countryman in the pit of a music hall some years ago. He enjoyed himself thoroughly up to half-past ten, songs about mothers-in-law, drunken wives and wooden legs he roared at heartily. At ten-thirty entered a well-known artiste, who was then giving a series of what he called Condensed Tragedies in Verse. At the first two my country friend chuckled hugely. The third ran, little boy, a pair of skates, broken ice, heaven's gates. My friend turned white, rose hurriedly, and pushed his way impatiently out of the house. I left myself some ten minutes later, and by chance ran against him again in the bar of the Criterion, where he was drinking whiskey rather copiously. I couldn't stand that fool! He explained to me in a husky voice, Truth is, my youngest kid got drowned last winter skating. Don't see any sense making fun of real trouble. I can cap your story with another, said the philosopher. Jim sent me a couple of seats for one of his first nights a month or two ago. They did not reach me till four o'clock in the afternoon. I went down to the club to see if I could pick up anybody. The only man there I knew at all was a rather quiet young fellow, a new member. He had just taken Bates's chambers in Staple Inn. You have met him, I think. He didn't know many people then, and was grateful for my invitation. The play was one of those pale royal farces. It cannot matter which they are all exactly alike. The fun consists of somebody's trying to sin without being found out. It always goes well. The British public invariably welcomes the theme, provided it be dealt with in a merry fashion. It is only the serious discussion of evil that shocks us. There was the usual banging of doors and the usual screaming. Everybody was laughing around us. My young friend sat with rather a curious fixed smile upon his face. Fairly well constructed, I said to him, as the second curtain fell amid yells of delight. Yes, he answered, I suppose it's very funny. I looked at him, he was little more than a boy. You are rather young, I said, to be a moralist. He gave a short laugh, oh, I shall grow out of it in time, he said. He told me his story later, when I came to know him better. He had played the farce himself over in Melbourne, he was an Australian. Only the third act had ended differently. His girl-wife, of whom he was passionately fond, had taken it quite seriously, and had committed suicide. A foolish thing to do. Man is a beast, said the Gertan girl, who was prone to strong expression. I thought so myself when I was younger, said the woman of the world. And don't you now, when you hear a thing like that? Suggested the Gertan girl. Certainly, my dear, replied the woman of the world, there is a deal of the animal in man. But, well, I was myself expressing that same particular view of him, the brute, to a very old lady, with whom I was spending a winter in Brussels, many years ago now, when I was quite a girl. She had been a friend of my father's, and was one of the sweetest and kindest. I was almost going to say the most perfect woman I have ever met. Though as a celebrated beauty, stories dating from the early Victorian era were told about her. But myself I never believed them. Her calm, gentle, passionless face, crowned with its soft silver hair, I remember my first sight of the Matterhorn on a summer's evening, somehow it at once reminded me of her. My dear, laughed the old maid, your anecdotal method is becoming as jerky as a cinematograph. I have noticed it myself, replied the woman of the world. I try to get in too much. The art of the raconteur, observed the philosopher, consists in avoiding the unessential. I have a friend who never yet to my knowledge reached the end of a story. It is intensely unimportant whether the name of the man who said the thing, or did the deed, be Brown or Jones or Robinson, but she will worry herself into a fever trying to recollect.  She will tell you why she ought to recollect his name, how she always has recollected his name till this precise moment. She will appeal to half the people in the room to help her. It is hopeless to try and induce her to proceed. The idea has taken possession of her mind. After a world of unnecessary trouble she recollects that it was Tomkins, and is delighted. Only to be plunged again into despair, on discovery that she has forgotten his address. This makes her so ashamed of herself she declines to continue, and full of self-reproach she retires to her own room. Later she re-enters beaming with the street and number pat, but by that time she has forgotten the anecdote. Tell us about your old lady and what it was you said to her. Look impatiently the Gertan girl, who is always eager when the subject under discussion happens to be the imbecility or criminal tendency of the opposite sex. I was at the age, continued the woman of the world, when a young girl tiring of fairy stories puts down the book and looks round her at the world, and naturally feels indignant at what she notices. I was very severe upon both the shortcomings and the overgoings of man, our natural enemy. My old friend used to laugh, and that made me think her callous and foolish. One day our bond, like all servants a lover of gossip, came to us delighted with a story which proved to me how just had been my estimate of the male animal. The grocer at the corner of our room married only four years to a charming and devoted little wife, had run away and left her. He never gave her even a hint, the pretty angel Solzhan informed us, had had his box containing his clothes and everything he wanted ready packed for a week, waiting for him at the railway station. Just told her he was going to play a game of dominoes, and that she was not to sit up for him, kissed her and the child goodnight, and, well, that was the last she ever saw of him. Did Madame ever hear the like of it, concluded Jan, throwing up her hands to heaven? I am sorry to say, Jan, that I have," replied my sweet Madame with a sigh, and led the conversation by slow degrees back to the subject of dinner. I turned to her when Jan had left the room, I can remember still the burning indignation of my face. I had often spoken to the man myself, and had thought what a delightful husband he was, so kind, so attentive, so proud, seemingly, of his dainty fam. Doesn't that prove what I say, I cried, that men are beasts? I am afraid it helps in that direction," replied my old friend, and yet you defend them, I answered. At my age, my dear," she replied, one neither defends nor blames, one tries to understand. She put her thin white hand upon my head, shall we hear a little more of the story? She said, it is not a pleasant one, but it may be useful to us. I don't want to hear any more of it, I answered. I have heard enough. It is sometimes well, she persisted, to hear the whole of a case before forming our judgment. And she rang the bell for Jan. That story about our little grosser friend, she said, it is rather interesting to me, why did he leave her and run away, do you know? Jan shrugged her ample shoulders. Oh, the old story, madame," she answered, with a short laugh. Who was she? asked my friend. The wife of Monsieur Savaree, the wheel-right, as good a husband as ever a woman had. It's been going on for months, the Hussie. Thank you, that will do, Jan. She turned again to me, so soon as Jan had left the room. My dear," she said, whenever I see a bad man, I peep run the corner for the woman. Whenever I see a bad woman, I follow her eyes, I know she is looking for her mate. Nature never makes odd samples. I cannot help thinking," said the philosopher, that a good deal of harm is being done to the race as a whole by the over-praise of women. Who over-praises them? demanded the Gertengirl. Men may talk nonsense to us. I don't know whether any of us are foolish enough to believe it, but I feel perfectly sure that when they are alone most of their time is occupied in abusing us. That is hardly fair," interrupted the old maid. I doubt if they do talk about us among themselves as much as we think. But it is always unwise to go behind the verdict. Some very beautiful things have been said about women by men. Well, ask them," said the Gertengirl, here are three of them present. Now, honestly, when you talk about us among yourselves, do you gush about our virtue and goodness and wisdom? Gush," said the philosopher, reflecting, Gush would hardly be the correct word. In justice to the truth, I said, I must admit our Gerteng friend is to a certain extent correct.  Very young men, lacking in experience, admire perhaps indiscriminately. To them anything in a petticoat is adorable. The milliner makes the angel. And very old men, so I am told, return to the delusions of their youth, but as to this I cannot as yet speak positively. The rest of us, well, when we are alone it must be confessed, as our philosopher says, that Gush is not the correct word. I told you so," chortled the Gertengirl. May be, I added, it is merely the result of reaction. Convention insists that to her face we show her a somewhat exaggerated deference. Her very follies we have to regard as added charms the poets have decreed it. Maybe it comes as a relief to let the pendulum swing back. What is it not a fact?" asked the old maid, that the best men and even the wisest are those who have held women in most esteem. Do we not gauge civilisation by the position a nation accords to its women? In the same way as we judge them by the mildness of their laws, their tenderness for the weak, uncivilised man killed off the useless numbers of the tribe, we provide for them hospitals, arms houses. Man's attitude towards women proves the extent to which he has conquered his own selfishness, the distance he has travelled from the law of the ape might is right. Please, don't misunderstand me," pleaded the philosopher with a nervous glance towards the lowering eyebrows of the Gertengirl. I am not saying for a moment woman is not the equal of man, indeed it is my belief that she is. I am merely maintaining she is not his superior. The wise man honours woman as his friend, his fellow labourer, his compliment. It is the fool who imagines her unhuman. But are we not better," persisted the old maid, for our ideals. I don't say we women are perfect, please don't think that. You are not more alive to our faults than we are. Read the women novelists from George Elliot downwards, but for your own sake, is it not well man should have something to look up to, and failing anything better? I draw a very wide line," answered the philosopher, between ideals and delusions. The ideal has always helped man, but that belongs to the land of his dreams, his most important kingdom, the kingdom of his future. Those are earthly structures that sooner or later fall about his ears, blinding him with dust and dirt. The petticoat-governed country has always paid dearly for its folly. Elizabeth cried the Gertengirl, Queen Victoria. Were ideal sovereigns, returned the philosopher, leaving the government of the country to its ablest men? France, under its pompadours, the Byzantine Empire under its theodoras are truer examples of my argument. I am speaking of the unwisdom of assuming all women to be perfect.  But chivalry, I argued, has surely been of service to mankind. To an immense extent, agreed the philosopher, it seized a natural human passion and turned it to good uses. Then it was a reality. So once was the divine right of kings, the infallibility of the church for cumbering the ground with the lifeless bodies of which mankind has paid somewhat dearly. Not its upstanding lies, they can be faced and defeated, but its dead truths are the world's stumbling blocks. To the man of war and rapine, chained in cruelty and injustice, the woman was the one thing that spoke of the joy of yielding. Woman, as compared with man was, then an angel, it was no mere form of words. All the tender offices of life were in her hands. To the warrior, his life divided between fighting and debauchery, his women folk tending the sick, helping the weak, comforting the sorrowing, must have moved with white feet, across a world his vices had made dark. Her mere subjection to the priesthood, her inborn, feminine, delighting form and ceremony, now an influence narrowing her charity, must then, to his dim eyes, chained to look upon dogma as the living soul of his religion, have seemed a halo, deifying her. Woman was then the servant. It was naturally to her advantage to excite tenderness and mercy in man. Since she has become the mistress of the world, it is no longer her interested mission to soften his savage instincts. Nowadays it is the women who make war, the women who exalt brute force. Today it is the woman who, happy herself, turns a deaf ear to the world's low cry of pain. Holding that man honoured, who would ignore the good of the species, to augment the comforts of his own particular family. Being in despite as a bad husband and father, the man whose sense of duty extends beyond the circle of the home. One recalls Lady Nelson's reproach to her lord after the battle of the Nile. I have married a wife, and therefore cannot come, is the answer to his God that many a woman has prompted to her lover's tongue. I was speaking to a woman only the other day about the cruelty of skinning seals alive. I feel so sorry for the poor creatures, she murmured, but they say it gives so much more depth of colour to the fur. Her own jacket was certainly a very beautiful specimen. When I was editing a paper, I said, I opened my columns to a correspondence on this very subject. Many letters were sent to me, most of them trite, many of them foolish. One, a genuine document I remember. It came from a girl who for six years had been assistant to a fashionable dress-maker. She was rather tired of the axiom that all women at all times are perfection. She suggested that poets and novelists should take service for a year in any large drapery or millinery establishment where they would have an opportunity of studying woman in her natural state, so to speak. It is unfair to judges by what I confess is our chief weakness, argued the woman of the world. Woman in pursuit of clothes ceases to be human. She reverts to the original brute. Besides dress-makers can be very trying. The fault is not entirely on one side. I still fail to be convinced, remarked the Gertengirl, that woman is over-praised. Not even the present conversation so far as it has gone altogether proves your point. I am not saying it is the case among intelligent thinkers, explained the philosopher, but in popular literature the convention still lingers. To woman's face no man cares to protest against it, and woman, to her harm, has come to accept it as a truism. What are little girls made of, sugar and spice and all that's nice? In more or less varied form the idea has entered into her blood, shutting out from her hope of improvement. If a girl is discouraged from asking herself the occasionally needful question, am I on the way to becoming a sound, useful member of society, or am I in danger of degenerating into a vain, selfish, lazy piece of good-for-nothing rubbish? She is quite content so long as she can detect in herself no tendency to mail vices, forgetful that there are also feminine vices. Woman is the spoilt child of the age, no one tells her of her faults. The world with its styles and voices flatters her, sulk's bad temper and pig-headed obstancy are translated as pretty fanny's willful ways. Cowardice, contemptible in man or woman, she is encouraged to cultivate as a charm. Incompetence to pack her own bag or find her own way across a square and round a corner is deemed an attraction.  If she give a penny to a street-beggar, selecting generally the fraud, or kiss a puppy's nose, we exhaust the language of eulogy, proclaiming her a saint. The marvel to me is that in spite of the folly upon which they are fed, so many of them grow to be sensible women. Myself remarked the minor poet, I find much comfort in the conviction that talk, as is responsible for much less good and much less harm in the world than we who talk are apt to imagine. Words to grow and bear fruit must fall upon the earth of fact. But you hold it right to fight against folly, demanded the philosopher. Heavens, yes! cried the minor poet. That is how one knows it is folly, if we can kill it. Against the truth our arrows rattle harmlessly. But what is her reason? demanded the old maid. Reason? I don't believe any of them have any reason. The woman of the world showed sign of being short of temper, a condition of affairs startlingly unusual to her. Says she hasn't enough work to do. She must be an extraordinary woman, commented the old maid. The trouble I have put myself too in order to keep that woman, just because George likes her savories, no one would believe. Continued indignantly the woman of the world. We have had a dinner-party regularly once a week for the last six months, entirely for her benefit. Now she wants me to give two. I won't do it. If I could be of any service, offered the minor poet. My digestion is not what it once was, but I could make up in quality. A recherche, a little banquet, twice a week, say on Wednesdays and Saturdays, I would make a point of eating with you, if you think that would content her. It is really thoughtful of you, replied the woman of the world, but I cannot permit it. Why should you be dragged from the simple repast suitable to a poet merely to oblige my cook? It is not reason. I was thinking rather of you, continued the minor poet. I've half a mind, said the woman of the world, to give up housekeeping altogether and go into a hotel. I don't like the idea, but really, servants are becoming impossible. It is very interesting, said the minor poet. I am glad you find it so. snapped the woman of the world. What is interesting, I asked the minor poet. That the tendency of the age, he replied, should be slowly but surely driving us into the practical adoption of a social state, that for years we have been denouncing the socialists for merely suggesting. Everywhere the public houses are multiplying, the private dwellings diminishing. Can you wonder at it? commented the woman of the world. You men talk about the joys of home. Some of you write poetry. Generally speaking, one of you lives in chambers and spends two-thirds of his day at a club. We were sitting in the garden. The attention of the minor poet became riveted upon the sunset. Ethel and I buy the fire. Ethel never gets a chance of sitting by the fire. So long as you're there, comfortable, you do not notice that she has left the room to demand explanation why the drawing-room scuttle is always filled with slack and the best coal burnt in the kitchen range. Home to us women is our place of business that we never get away from. I suppose, said the Gertengirl. To my surprise, she spoke with entire absence of indignation. As a rule, the Gertengirl stands for what has been termed divine discontent with things in general. In the course of time she will outlive her surprise at finding the world so much less satisfactory and abode than she had been led to suppose. Also her present firm conviction that given a free hand she could put the whole thing right in a quarter of an hour. There are times, even now, when her tone suggests less certainty of her being the first person who has ever thought seriously about the matter. I suppose, said the Gertengirl, it comes of education. Our grandmothers were content to fill their lives with these small household duties. They rose early, worked with their servants, saw to everything with their own eyes. Nowadays we demand time for self-development, for reading, for thinking, for pleasure. Household drudgery, instead of being the object of our life, has become an interference to it. We resent it. The present revolt of women, continued the Minor Poet, will be looked back upon by the historian of the future as one of the chief factors in our social evolution. The home, the praises of which we still sing, but with gathering misgiving, depended on her willingness to live a life of practical slavery. When Adam delved and Eve span, Adam confining his delving to the space within his own fence, Eve staying her spinning wheel, the instant the family hosiery was complete, then the home rested upon the solid basis of an actual fact. Its foundations were shaken when the man became a citizen, and his interests expanded beyond the domestic circle. Since that moment woman alone has supported the institution. Now she, in her turn, is claiming the right to enter the community, to escape from the solitary confinement of the lover's castle. The mansions with common dining rooms, reading rooms, their system of common service, are springing up in every quarter. The house, the villa, is disappearing. The story is the same in every country. The separate dwelling where it remains is being absorbed into a system. In America, the experimental laboratory of the future, the houses are warmed from a common furnace. You do not light the fire, you turn on the hot air. Your dinner is brought round to you in a travelling oven. You subscribe for your valet or your lady's maid. Very soon the private establishment, with its staff of unorganised quarrelling servants, of necessity either over or underworked, will be as extinct as the lake dwelling or the sandstone cave. I hope, said the woman of the world, that I may live to see it. In all probability, replied the minor poet, you will. I would I could feel as hopeful for myself. If your prophecy be likely a fulfilment, remarked the philosopher, I console myself with the reflection that I am the oldest of the party. Myself, I never read these full and exhaustive reports of the next century, without reveling in the reflection that before they can be achieved I shall be dead and buried. It may be a selfish attitude, but I should be quite unable to face any of the machine made futures our growing guild of seers prognosticate. You appear to me, most of you, to ignore a somewhat important consideration, namely that mankind is alive. You work out your answers, as if you were a sum in rule of three. If man in so many thousands of years has done so much in such a direction at this or that rate of speed, what will he be doing? And so on. You forget that he is swayed by impulses that can enter into no calculation, drawn hither and thither by powers that can never be represented in your algebra. In one generation, Christianity reduced Plato's Republic to an absurdity. The printing press has upset the unanswerable conclusions of Machiavelli. I disagree with you, said the Minor Poet. The fact does not convince me of my error, retorted the philosopher. Christianity, continued the Minor Poet, gave merely an added force to impulses the germs of which were present in the infant race. The printing press, teaching us to think in communities, has non-plust, to a certain extent, the aims of the individual as opposed to those of humanity. Without prejudice, without sentiment, cast your eye back over the panorama of the human race. What is the picture that presents itself? Scattered here and there over the wild, voiceless desert, first the holes and caves, next the rude built huts, the wigwams, the lake dwellings of primitive man. Lonely, solitary, followed by his damned brood, he creeps through the tall grass, ever with watchful, terror-haunted eyes. Satisfies his few desires. Communicates by means of a few grunts and signs, his tiniest door of knowledge to his offspring. Then, crawling beneath a stone or into some tangled corner of the jungle, dies and disappears. We look again. A thousand centuries have flashed and faded. The surface of the earth is flecked with strange quivering patches. Here, where the sun shines on the wood and sea, close together, almost touching one another, there among the shadows, far apart. The tribe has formed itself. The whole tiny mass moves forward, halts, runs backwards, stirred always by one common impulse. Man has learnt the secret of combination of mutual help. The city rises. From its stone centre spreads its power. The nation leaps to life. Civilisation springs from leisure. No longer is each man's life devoted to his mere animal necessities. The artificer, the thinker, his fellow shall protect him. Socrates dreams. Phidias carves the marble, while Pericles maintains the law, and Leonidas holds the barbarian at bay. Europe annexes piece by piece the dark places of the earth gives to them her laws. The empire swallows the small state. Russia stretches her arm round Asia. In London, we toast the union of the English-speaking peoples. In Berlin and Vienna, we rubber salamander to the Deutsche Bund. In Paris, we whisper of a communion of the Latin races. In great things, so in small. The stores, the huge emporium, displaces the small shopkeeper. The trust amalgamates a hundred firms. The union speaks for the worker. The limits of country, of language, are found too narrow for the new ideas. German, American or English, let what yard of coloured cotton you choose float from the Misenmast, the business of the human races there, captain. One hundred and fifty years ago, old Sam Johnson waited in a patron's ante-room. Today, the entire world invites him to growl his table-talk, the while it takes its dish of tea. The poet, the novelist, speak in twenty languages. Nationality, it is the county-council of the future. The world's high roads run turnpike free from pole to pole. One would be blind not to see the goal towards which we are rushing.  It is one huge murmuring hive, one universal hive just the size of the round earth. The bees have been before us. They have solved the riddle towards which we in darkness have been groping. The old maid shuddered visibly. What a terrible idea, she said. To us replied the minor poet. Not to those who will come after us. The child dreads manhood. To Abraham roaming the world with his flocks, the life of your modern city-man, chained to his office from ten to four, would have seemed little better than penal servitude. My sympathies are with the Abrahamitical ideal, observed the philosopher. Mine also, agreed the minor poet, but neither you nor I represent the tendency of the age. We are its curiosities. We and such as we serve as the break regulating the rate of progress. The genius of species shows itself moving in the direction of the organised community. All life welded together, controlled by one's central idea. The individual worker is drawn into the factory. Chip and Dale today would have been employed sketching designs. The chair would have been put together by fifty workers, each one trained to perfection in his own particular department. Why does the hotel, with its five hundred servants, its catering for three thousand mouths, work smoothly, while the desirable family residence, with its two or three domestics, remains the scene of waste, confusion and dispute? We are losing the talent of living alone. The instinct of living in communities is driving it out. So much the worse for the community, was the comment of the philosopher. Man, as Ibsen had said, will always be at his greatest when he stands alone. To return to our friend Abraham, surely he, wandering in the wilderness, talking with his God, was nearer the ideal than the modern citizen, thinking with his morning paper, applauding silly shibboleths from a theatre pit, guffawing at coarse jests, one of a musical crowd. In the community it is the lowest always leads. You spoke just now of all the world inviting Samuel Johnson to its dish of tea. How many read him, as compared to the number of subscribers to the hapened joker? This thinking in communities, as it is turned, to what does it lead, to mafficking and draper scandals? What crowd ever evolved a noble idea? If Socrates and Galileo, Confucius and Christ had thought in communities, the world would indeed be the anthill you appear to regard as its destiny. In balancing the books of life one must have regard to both sides of the ledger, responded the minor poet. A crowd, I admit, of itself creates nothing. On the other hand, it receives ideals into its bosom and gives some needful shelter. It responds more readily to good than to even. What greater stronghold of virtue than your sixpenny gallery? Your burglar, arrived fresh from jumping on his mother, finds himself applauding with the rest, stirring appeals to the inborn chivalry of man. Suggestion that it was right or proper under any circumstances to jump upon one's mother, he would at such moment reject with horror. Thinking in communities is good for him.  The boulevardier, primed with absence, chatting conspire les juifs. The motive for stirring them in its origin was an ideal. Even into making a fool of itself, a crowd can be moved only by incitement of its finer instincts. The service of Prometheus to mankind must not be judged by the statistics of the insurance office. The world as a whole has gained by community will attain its goal only through community. From the nomadic savage, by the winding road of citizenship, we have advanced far. The way winds upward still, hidden from us by the mists, but along its torturous course lies our track into the promised land. Not the development of the individual, that is his own concern, but the uplifting of the race would appear to be the law. The lonely, great ones, they are the shepherds of the flock. The servants, not the masters of the world.  It is unfortunate that the hapenny Joker and its kind should have so many readers. Maybe it teaches those to read who otherwise would never read at all. We are impatient, forgetting that the coming and going of our generations are but as the swinging of the pendulum of nature's clock. Yesterday we booked our seats for gladiatorial shows for the burning of Christians, our windows for Newgate hangings. Even the musical fast is an improvement upon that, at least from the humanitarian point of view. In the southern states of America, observed the philosopher sticking to his guns, they run excursion trains to lynching exhibitions. The bullfight is spreading to France and English newspapers are advocating the reintroduction of bear-baiting and cock-fighting. Are we not moving in a circle? The road whines as I have allowed, returned the minor poet. The gradient is somewhat steep. Just now maybe we are traversing a backward curve. I gain my faith by pausing now and then to look behind. I see the weary way with many a downward sweep. But we are climbing, my friend, we are climbing. But to such a very dismal goal, according to your theory, grumbled the old maid. I should hate to feel myself an insect in a hive. My little round of duties apportioned to me. My every action regulated by a fixed law. My place assigned to me. My very food and drink, I suppose, apportioned to me. Do think of something more cheerful. The minor poet laughed. My dear lady, he replied, it is too late. The thing is already done. The hive already covers us. The cells are in building. Who leads his own life? Who is master of himself? What can you do but live according to your income in, I am sure, a very charming little cell. The buzz about your little world with your cheerful kindly song, helping these your fellow insects here. Doing day by day the useful offices apportioned to you by your temperament and means. Seeing the same faces, treading ever the same narrow circle. Why do I write poetry? I am not to blame. I must live. It is the only thing I can do. Why does one man live and die upon the treeless rocks of Iceland, another labour in the vineyards of the Apennines? Why does one woman make matches, ride in a van to Epping Forest, drink gin, and change hats with her lover on the homeward journey? Another pant through a dinner party and half a dozen receptions every night, from March to June, rush from country house to fashionable continental resort from July to February, dress as she is instructed by her milliner, say the smart things that are expected of her. Who would be a sweep or a chaperone were all roads free? Who is it succeeds in escaping the law of the hive, the loafer, the tramp? On the other hand, who is the man we respect and envy? The man who works for the community, the public spirited man as we call him, the unselfish man, the man who labours for the labour's sake and not for the profit, devoting his days and nights to learning nature's secrets, to acquiring knowledge useful to the race? Is he not the happiest, the man who has conquered his own sordid desires, who gives himself to the public good? The hive was founded in dark days before man knew. It has been built according to false laws. This man will have a cell bigger than any other cell. All the other little men shall envy him. A thousand fellow-crawling mites shall slave for him, wear out their lives in wretchedness for him and him alone. All their honey they shall bring to him, he shall gorge while they shall starve. Of what use? He has slept no sounder in his foolishly fanciful cell? Sleep is to tired eyes, not to silken coverlets. We dream in seven dials as in Park Lane. His stomach, distended as he will, it is very small, resents being distended, the store of honey-rotts. The hive was conceived in the dark days of ignorance, stupidity, brutality. A new hive shall arise. I had no idea, said the woman of the world, you were a socialist. Nor had I, agreed the minor poet, before I began talking. And next Wednesday, laughed the woman of the world, you will be arguing in favour of individualism. Very likely, agreed the minor poet, the deep moans round with many voices. I'll take another cup of tea, said the philosopher. End of Chapter 6 and End of Tea-Table Talk by Jerome K. Jerome Recording by Ruth Golding


They really appreciate the opportunity to be here today to talk about an issue that is very important to quite honestly the entire world, but certainly people who are a part of SOCAP. We have seen the nation struggle with what is quite honestly a triple crisis, not just the incredible pandemic and the health consequences. But we also confronting a economic crisis that many of us would have never expected to see. We just got on the other side of the financial crisis, which challenged a great depression. And now we are confronting social justice issues that we thought we were on the other side of, you know, the combination is put us in a very precarious position as a globe, and certainly here in the United States. And with this in mind, I really appreciate the opportunity to be here with Margaret Atadue and Aaron Mitchell, two of my favorite good troublemakers. And I want to thank you both for joining this conversation. Thank you, Bill. Thank you for having us. Let's just jump into this. You know, with that background of the triple crisis in mind, we're here to talk about decisions made by Goldman Sachs and Netflix, two very different type of companies to focus on creating an economic opportunity in communities of color. And Margaret, I'd like to start with you. We've worked together for several years, and we see a lot of tough companies, a lot of corporations engage in different types of social impact work. Why did Goldman Sachs, one of the world's largest investment banks, why did you decide to focus on small business several years ago with the 10,000 small business program and how did you arrive at a decision to work with CDFIs to deliver capital into underserved, to underserved entrepreneurs? Sure, absolutely. And Bill, thank you so much for inviting me to this conversation. And Aaron, really looking forward to getting to go back and forth with you. So, so, so Bill, you mentioned that a lot of our work over the last six and seven months really came out of a foundation of efforts that we started over a decade ago with our firm-wide initiative 10,000 small businesses. So, this is an initiative that provides small businesses with education, access to capital, and business support services. And the thesis behind it was actually pretty simple, especially coming out of the crisis. We wanted to do something that would move forward our economy as a whole and be a real important part of the economic progress that we all wanted to see coming out of the downturn. And I'm glad that it's such a focus today, but 10 years ago, we were thinking about the fact that small businesses employ half of our private workforce, right? So there's a lot in our economy where we focus on the big entities, quite frankly, like a Netflix or Goldman Sachs, but in the communities that we're focused on, it is the local daycare, the restaurants, the graphic designer, all of these businesses that are important institutions and communities because of the services they provide, the amenities they provide, but also the employment that they provide. And so, the thought behind the initiative was how can we, as Goldman Sachs, provide access to capital, our intellect, really roll up our sleeves and see what we could do to really advance the growth of small businesses all around the country. And so, we're incredibly proud of those efforts. We've been able to check to almost 10,000 businesses with our education.  And so, as we thought about who we wanted to be, our capital partners in this initiative, right, to the education, we work with community colleges all around the country. And we chose very purposefully to work with community development financial institutions. Of course, Bill, like the one you run, Hope, to deploy that capital for a few reasons. We wanted to make sure in the same way that we were focused with our education, but also with our access to capital that we were reaching businesses that traditionally have been underserved. And in working with CDFIs who have the expertise, the proven mission, the local know-how and really being on the ground to work with businesses and really roll up their sleeves, not just to make them alone, but really be a part of every step along the way. What is the kind of loan that you need? What's important for the growth trajectory of your business? Helping put together business plans. All of those things that are just as important as the cash itself until we wanted to work with entities like yours that really have that as part of their mission and DNA to really reach the businesses, whether it's in rural areas who are traditionally underbanked, low income communities, small businesses that are run by people of color. We've seen the disproportionate impact to those types of businesses in this environment. And so, for the last 10, 12 years, we've been working with institutions like yours who are the folks who know how to get it done for those types of businesses. And those are the businesses we wanted to reach. And so we know we needed to work with institutions that do it best. But Margaret, and I'm going to get to Erin, but just, you know, me, I'm a little, I want to know the why. And the Mississippi Delta, the Black Belt, the rural communities, entrepreneurs, small mom and pop businesses, that's not who you think about when you think about Goldman Sachs. Why is this important to Goldman Sachs? You know, it's incredibly important to Goldman Sachs. You know, we talked about this in our investor day back in January. We see our core mission and purpose as a firm to advance economic progress for all, right? And that can't just be on, you know, midtown Manhattan, right? That has to be in the areas like you mentioned in the rural south. And we know that there's great opportunity, there's great values, there's great business ideas, there's great communities. And unfortunately, they just don't always get the capital that they need. And I know that we're focusing in the session on small business because that's been such a significant focus, especially through the last several months in COVID. But we work with community development financial institutions across a variety of our work. We work with CDFIs actually, you know, Bill, we've done housing work together. We've done healthcare facility work with CDFIs. We have done, you know, a ton of financing of educational facilities. And so it comes from the basic thesis that we do not look at the status quo of a business, of a community, of an entrepreneur, and assume that where they are is where they should be or where they can be. We know that there are gaps in access to capital for women, for people of color, for smaller institutions, for certain geographies in the country. You mentioned the rural south. And so what we want to do is when we see those gaps, where there's a mismatch between what the opportunity should be and where the capital is flowing, we want to step in and fill those gaps. And so, you know, it's interesting that you would say that, you know, you wouldn't always associate that with Goldman Sachs. But even in our work around housing and schools and education facilities, you know, the business I run, the urban investment group, this dates back over, you know, almost 20 years at this point. And so it's something we've been doing for a long time.  I want to dig into what's been going on over the past few months shortly. But Aaron, $100 million when you called me, I was hoping you were going to invite me to be the next star in a Netflix movie, but that wasn't the case. You know, $100 million, that's, that's, that's significant. You talked about it as a meaningful first step. Obviously, this is not Netflix's core business. Talk about your decision to move into this space and make that meaningful first step. Well, first of all, thank you, Bill for for the invite. Thank you for including me in this discussion alongside Margaret, the work that you're doing at Goldman is amazing. And I'm just happy to be a part of the conversation. And Bill, I apologize for getting your hopes up on the Netflix thing. I, there's still time, there's still time. It's just, I'm just not the right person. Well, the $100 million, you know, when I first reached out to you, Bill, it was, it was, it was still a seed of an idea right like how do we use our banking relationships are capital to directly impact economic development in these communities. And I think right at the time that I first contacted you, I just, I had just started reading Marisa Baradaran's book, The Color of Money, to really understand the role that black banks and black CDFIs and, and institutions that focused on these communities of color, their role in economic development, you know, so going back, I would love to say that this has been a sort of work in progress over the last 10 years and we've been sort of deliberately at this but this idea didn't really come to fruition for us until between April and June of this year. And so the reason we got there and how we got there is, you know, we started really examining systemic inequality, and we started examining where our practices intersect with that systemic inequality. And one of the big ones was on our banking relationships right you know we bank with major money market banks for all the obvious reasons they allow us to be a global player. They allow us to generate operating accounts which are required for a company that's doing up to 1000 productions across the world at any given time so we just need that horsepower and that sophistication. A lot of these banks just weren't on the radar for us when we started asking the question, and when we started understanding the problem it became, it became a bit of a no brainer, we can do some real meaningful good by just expanding our business relationships and so it's an extension of supplier diversity of sorts right where, where you spend your money in those communities, you can directly impact their growth and banks play this as both of you all know so I'm preaching to the choir. We just have the ability to create a multiplier effect that simply sort of investing in a particular business wouldn't generate. And so, as we started to look at the problem and we started to figure out, you know, how do we how do we participate. Unfortunately, we ran into some issues where, because of how these banks are capitalized, they could not receive the funding directly they couldn't receive our deposits. So, our call to you bill was really like, how do we, how do we solve this problem when our solution is not the solution. And, you know, through the conversation with you through the conversation we had with folks at list we were able to align our very specific restraints or constraints around our investment policy, such as the duration of our capital being a company that is still negative free cash flow. We needed something that was shorter in duration, we needed something that could be used within communities that need them most, but while also working with institutions that under our investment policy we deemed as safe. And so CDFI became an extremely attractive option for us because they had a track record for doing work in the communities that are most impacted by these disparities. The relationships they have the longevity, and they have a record for impact. We selected you bill because of that sustained impact, specifically, when we look at the there, there are about 16 states in the US that have 65% of the black population. A subset of those states make up the bulk of hopes business. And so it was important for us, if we were going to do this work to do this work in communities where are the limited amount of capital we could make available would have disproportionate impact would be positive impact. So that's why the hundred million. In fact, you know just going back to the number, the number, to be honest was a bit arbitrary. It needed to be large enough to be meaningful, but it also needed to be benchmarked to something so we landed on the 100 million because it correlated with 2%, which, as we thought about it isn't is a significant enough of our cash to really make an impact in these communities, but not a significant enough amount of our cash to be operationally challenging for us to overcome. And so that's why we landed on the 100 million. It also give us an opportunity to use our brand as a bit of a motivator to the business world to say look, if we can do 2%, if everybody did 2%, that's 20 to $40 billion of capital now available in these communities. So it may be a small sum. When you think about your entire cash holdings, but the accumulative, the cumulative amount can actually change the direction of this economic situation where there may be a small sum, but it's game changing in places where wealth has been extracted for generations. This is as was defined in the color of money and where it's been prohibited from people not being able to save and to grow wealth from build wealth.  And I think that is certainly what you have accomplished and have stimulated with Netflix. As you said, there's been a lot of people paying attention to that and really appreciate the the pride that you've given to other populations around the country. Margaret, as you mentioned, we've been doing this for a while we work together initially after Hurricane Katrina, another crisis that we thought was a crisis to end all crisis and here we are. Again, when you started looking at paycheck protection program payroll protection program and how do you as Goldman Sachs, make a difference in helping small businesses get tools they need to stay afloat, you again focused on CDFI is talk a little bit about that decision and and how it evolved and what Goldman has done to help entrepreneurs navigate this crisis. Sure. So, yeah, it's funny, my heart starts to beat fast when you when you talk about it because as you know that was a very, you know, intense few weeks and months for all of us even thinking about how to how to really get our facility set up so. So, you know, to be to be fully transparent as, as the design of the paycheck protection program really started to come to light and more details came together. We were very concerned. We knew and I think like, you know, like all of us the sort of situation that small businesses were in. It was a unique crisis and that we could all see and feel it right everyone could walk down the street and think about their favorite restaurant or, you know, businesses that are that are part of our daily lives and they're just absolute inability to be to be open because all of our shutdowns all over the country and so we started to pay a lot of attention to what stimulus was going to look like. Coming out of the federal government and even prior to that, we'd actually already started to set up emergency lending facilities we did one in New York City we did one in Chicago, even prior to PPP, knowing that these businesses. They were going to need resources and they were going to need it very quickly. And, you know, I won't, I won't go on for too long about this but you mentioned that we started to do work together right after Hurricane Katrina. And so we had lessons learned from our work that we did post Hurricane Katrina, Hurricane Superstorm Sandy here in New York and then some facilities that we actually set up down in Texas after Hurricane Harvey. The name of the game with those facilities, again, very different disaster that we're dealing with today, but some of some of the lessons were the same. Small businesses, especially our mom and pop main street businesses, they are not sitting on, you know, a year worth of cash reserves to get through the kind of revenue drought that we saw and are continuing to see in many of these businesses today. So we knew they were going to need capital fast. And we knew that that capital was going to need to be deployed with folks who know those businesses, know those communities know those entrepreneurs and know how to roll up their sleeves. And in many cases, work with businesses who through no fault of their own may have never even taken out along before. And so as the details started to come together. And we knew that there was going to be this was right and before the first round and the first allotment of capital. That much capital deployed through a program that if you looked at sort of what goes through the typical kind of 7a and SBA lending channels that were going to be utilized for PPP. It was doing like 70 X the typical volume in a shorter time frame. And we knew that that was quite frankly could potentially be be a disaster in terms of businesses inability to access that capital. If you don't have a mainstream banking relationship with the large banks who are going to deploy the majority of that capital. And so we said, we got to move quickly. Obviously the large commercial banks, right? They're, they're able to use their own, you know, internal liquidity and resources to lend fairly quickly.  That was not going to work in this environment. We knew that the CDF eyes needed upgraded technology. You know, very quick liquidity facilities very soon. And so even before the first PPP bills were finalized. We reached out directly to the SBA and said, hey, we're going to want to get a lot of capital to CDF eyes that is what's going to be required to get capital to the smallest of businesses, those rural areas, those low income communities and absolutely those businesses.  And so what we did pretty quickly, we started with a $250 million commitment, which we then increased to 500 million, which we then increased to 750 million to structure lending facilities. And again, obviously one, one with you. Hope we worked with industry, another black run CDFI out on the West Coast pursuit here in New York City, a lift fund down in Texas, CDC, CRF, all CDF eyes who deeply mission driven, significant expertise around serving underserved small businesses. And we, you know, put together, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars of lending facilities to get that to get that capital in the hands of institutions like yours to of course get it to the businesses where we needed it to go. The other part that was really important and, you know, Bill, you could obviously tell tell the audience about this and even more detailed than I can.  I think actually bill the average, the average loan size that you were in your team were able to deploy. I think was something like $40,000. That requires the same amount of work as those larger loans. And so we also wanted to couple our lending capital with the philanthropic capital that was going to be required to hire more people, right, to really bring on additional staff to actually help people get through those applications, understand the process, put together the paperwork and really have that high touch approach that is a significant differentiator between a mission driven lender like hope and, you know, some of the just larger lending institutions. And so we knew that it was about speed. It was about efficient capital, right? We did all those lending facilities at 0% because this, you know, this was about kind of urgency in this moment. And then of course that philanthropy as well.  You know, the median employee count of the businesses that we reached was just two, right? These are small, small businesses. The average loan size was, you know, less than half the national average. And over a third of that capital was deployed in low income communities. These same communities that are many of which are banking deserts. And so, you know, we are still very much aware that more support is needed, more capital is needed. You know, we are still in the, I don't know which inning, but it's certainly not the last one of this crisis. But we are very, very thrilled and proud that by working with Hope and the other CDFIs, we were able to reach thousands and thousands of these very small businesses that in many cases would be closed otherwise. That's just really exciting to think about the journey that we've traveled together over these past few months, 17,000 businesses. And I would certainly bet that 90% of those could not have gotten financing through traditional channels, certainly in the first round. And we saw so many who would turn back when they knocked on doors of traditional banks, large banks, small banks, traditional lenders. It just was not built to serve entrepreneurs of color. Many of them very small, as you said, in the retail and service sector. They hit hard by the shutdown and it had a devastating effect on communities of color. The, you know, we've had so many mom and pop businesses from little barbers and daycare centers to service, nonprofit service providers led by people of color that provide critical support services. But for the lifeline that was made available through CDFIs would not be alive.  It may not reopen. So this is a crisis of economic proportions and really appreciate both of you stepping up and helping to open these doors.  What the playing it forward in a year in a few years down the road, what type of progress would Netflix like to see as a result of the effort you talked about others who have been inspired but talk, talk a bit about what your optimist. What would you like to see on the other side. So, without being too lofty and grandiose. The reason that we were able to get excitement around this initiative, one, we would be able to sustain this into perpetuity, unless we had a real honest change of heart about its importance. And as far as I can tell, that is not in the cards right like we can commit to doing and sustaining a percentage of our cash moving toward communities of color as a starting point and we'll continue to examine where our capital can directly impact other communities of need, where there have been extractive practices in the past that we can sort of play a role in restoring what I think about two years three years five years 10 years forward. I think about it in terms of not only looking at the racial wealth gap and starting to see the racial wealth gap close because the capital that we've made available and the capital that a number of organizations have made available are actually becoming a base to small businesses and homes and communities that did not have the capital you talk a lot about importing capital into communities where the capital base and the entire community is less than $2 million. Right. And I think about the importing capital into those communities in the effort to create jobs because their talent everywhere right, creating jobs creating housing creating safety that then creates prosperity. And I, and the desire is that this also opens up newer opportunities because the truth is small businesses make up a majority of businesses within America. 98% of those businesses that are owned by black people specifically our sole proprietorships. I love to start to see that number shift downward so that more of these sole proprietorships are starting to employ people, the more people they employ, the more opportunity for larger amounts of the community but again there has to be sustained capital available for those businesses to draw capital on for expansion right because businesses don't grow by themselves. So that's one, one piece of it. Another piece of it would be seeing more entrepreneurial capital available. And for us, that's not a risk that we can take with our investment policy now, but over time, we're what we'd like to explore ways to make that capital available for entrepreneurs because that's where these big pops in the economy take place the number of, of potential unicorns that exist within these communities of color is untapped and unknown because these are services that haven't been provided and these are entrepreneurs who haven't previously been funded. So there's an opportunity there, but we also know that the communities need more than just loans and housing, they also need medical services they also need education. These are things that our funds aren't necessarily directly providing, but by providing capital into these communities, you create the opportunity for others to come in and solve these problems. One of the reasons that we worked with lists, in addition to hope, in addition to a number of other partners that will be onboarding in the next month or so. We just we selected lists because they actually provide means for these wraparound services they don't just do housing loans they don't just do personal home loans or auto loans they also do infrastructure investing. So they provide these wraparound services so that communities can actually prosper because it's a multi prong effort that needs to take place. Personally, Netflix is in the business of making content. We're going to focus our effort and our energy and our investment dollars into producing more inclusive stories that tell the stories of people around this country and around the world. And as we do that work, and we continue to generate capital, we can put more of that into these communities for this sort of virtual cycle to take place. But again, I'm impatient. So as much of that capital that we can unlock today. Ensures that that capital will be available a year to 510 years from now. That's encouraging. I think you, you talk about the wraparound services to comprehensive needs of communities. That's really important. And I think it speaks to the fact that you made a good decision to focus on CDF eyes. I often refer to see if I as a Swiss army knives. No capital is a tool that we use, but we exist to make sure that race gender where someone's born does not live. I'm the economic ladder, but whether it's education or healthcare or housing or a grocery store in a food desert. At some point, all of those economic ladders require capital financial resources, which is disproportionately absent in communities of color. So, and that's what CDF eyes do they bring capital into these communities. But as we said that, you know, in a place like it'll be in Mississippi or Selma, Alabama, the total deposit potential is just one or $2 million. 10 million deposit from Netflix. That equates to several thousand jobs, several businesses homeowners and that those local well star communities just cannot capitalize themselves. The wealth has been extracted so this is a form of repairing the wealth disparities, you know, call it reparations call it whatever you will is is bringing capital back into these communities many of them that are, you know, they're Netflix of people, particularly in the last few months while we're sitting at home. You know their investments that support Goldman's, you know, businesses, but often those funds don't go back into these communities so thanks to both of you for reinvesting in these places that are so well star, which takes me to your peer corporations is my review made mention of why it's important to go man, and the business round table. We've already talked about the purpose of a corporation being an economy this economy that works for all Americans and has recently come out with an agenda for racial equity, which is exciting. I'd like to hear both of you speak about what why is it important and what my other corporation investors be doing more of to invest in social change. You know, maybe maybe I'll start and but I'll piggyback a little bit on something Aaron said that I that I actually thought was was kind of deserves to be underscored. I think that I think that the work that we're doing around CDFI and sort of, you know, very specific initiatives related to cobit and this moment that we're in. That's all really important. But I also think it's really important for corporations to be thinking about racial equity and just all just over around like overarching income and equality from the perspective of the core activity of the corporation. Right so so Aaron and I obviously I love the $100 million I love the $10 million deposit with hope. I also love that Netflix is is focused on black content and black producers and you know black artists and black filmmakers right and people of color like because that is Netflix's core business. So if you think about our core business and what we've been doing for, you know, 150 years at this point fairly successfully is we work with individuals corporations governments all sorts of institutions, and we help them we work around capital we provide that capital directly we provide access to the capital markets and we know, like, painfully that that system is not working appropriately for many demographics, certainly black Americans, certainly women, certainly, you know, different groups geographically. And so, while providing capital to to CFI and the work that we're doing in these communities, you know might seem like an initiative or something that's off to the side like providing access to capital is our core business. And if we are not doing it in a way that is thorough, and that is inclusive, and that is thinking about all sectors of our economy, then we're failing. That's your question about what other corporations and I know we obviously talked about CDFI is what there's the work that we're doing around asset managers or the work that we're doing about sort of, you know, people of color and venture and, you know, founders of color and the capital that they get. There's of course all the work we're doing around place in the built environment and so, you know, I don't view this as something that is charitable or something we feel like we need to do it is our core business. But as I think about, you know, other corporations, I think it's important to recognize how all these large institutions have benefit from the, you know, broader economy and society and do what they can to give back. And I think what's even more important again is the core activity. So if you are a, you know, food company, right, what, what's your role in this is the food healthy is the food fresh how are you, how are you marketing to certain demographics, if you are a large, you know, consumer products company with a very significant retail footprint and you disproportionately employ people of color. What does that look like? What do the wages look like? What do the benefits look like? And so I think, I think it's, it's great to do work that looks like it's on the side or it's charitable or it's philanthropic. But I think the number one place to start has to be with the core activity of the corporation. And so one of the things and I was, I was very, you know, proud and excited as obviously an employee of Goldman and a senior leader within the firm was, you know, what we said about our own institution, right? There's how you, there's a business you do, there's how you operate and then the things that you have to do to fill in philanthropy policy, etc. Where, and this is, you know, predates COVID and predates, you know, the tragic events that we all sort of, you know, witnessed in the past, witnessed earlier this year, but thinking about the diversity of our, of our own institution. And it was a big moment for two things that our CEO did. One, where we are, we're a premier investment bank, we are top of the lead tables always and it was important for David Solomon to stand up and say, we're not going to take companies public anymore if there's not at least one diverse board member, right? That's our core business, right? We advise companies, we take them public. And so to think about, you know, diversity in that context was really important. And then our own firm, our own employees, right?  But then also took that a very significant step forward and said, you know, our vice president population, which is the most significant in terms of numbers at the firm, what we wanted that diversity to look like and putting numbers out there and goals out there and holding ourselves accountable, you know, doubling the number of students that we're going to hire from HBCU. So I think it's a long-winded answer, but it's a full-prong approach. It's philanthropy is important, core business is important, you know, representation matters within the old firm. And I think we have to do it all. And then none of these things independently. Yeah, and I love everything you said, Margaret. My riff on that is, you know, kind of going back to your comment about what's core to the company, right? Like, to put it real simple. What is good for, what is good for all companies is for our economy to be healthy, strong and growing as healthily and strong as it can be. Mackenzie produced a report in August of 2019 that said that closing the racial wealth gap will generate an additional one to $1.5 trillion by 2028. An additional four to six percentage points of GDP. There's no country on the planet that would be like, hmm, I pass on GDP growth, right? So literally, if we do this, and we do this holistically and systemically, we can generate economic growth, which we absolutely 100% would not pass on. And that's good for all. So by helping the most vulnerable communities in this country, which are among them black communities, Native American communities, and helping those individuals who have been discounted from the economy, whether they be women or LGBTQ or any of the folks that I've mentioned, we can generate an additional one to $1.5 trillion. That seems like a no-brainer to me. In a country that is becoming rapidly majority black and brown, it's in everyone's self-interest to make sure those people are equipped to be productive, prosperous contributors to the economy. So that's exciting. I'd like to welcome Keisha's Center of SoCAP, who's going to help us take and see a lot of questions coming from the audience, and I think you all are willing to help us navigate responses from those questions. So Keisha, tell us. Thank you. This has been such a lively conversation. I've been jotting down all of the questions that I can, but there are so many. So continue to put them in there, and just thank you, Erin, Bill, and Margaret, for that dynamic conversation. And yes, Erin, I was about to say someone asked, because you put the link for the study, so that was the first one. So I'm sure you all have seen them. And the question is in quite frankly, through the dynamic conversation, you've got to a lot of them, but I'm going to just touch on one that I thought was really interesting. Margaret, to you, they said that has Goldman Sachs seen other banks follow their lead in committing meaningful capital to CDFIs, and are you all looking to push other institutions and your peers in that direction? Yeah, you know, I think that there have been so many announcements over the last few months, and I know that, and I think, you know, and Bill specifically I know has a relationship with Bank of America just as one example. I have seen other banks make commitments to CDFIs. I know that Bank of America does. I know that Chase does. I'm pretty sure that Wells does as well. So we have seen announcements coming out and continuing to flow from other financial institutions who've either worked with CDFIs before previously, or certainly it's a big part of what they're going to be doing going forward. I do think the financial community more broadly is really wrapping themselves around CDFIs. And one note I'll plug and I know I said a little bit about it earlier. I'm so excited about kind of like this moment that CDFIs are having and there was that great New York Times piece and people are really recognizing all the good work that they do. And Bill, I hope you'll beat this drum with me as well, right? It's not just small business, right? We work with CDFIs on healthcare facilities, grocery stores, not-for-profit schools, housing. We've actually done industrial deals, you know, creating real, you know, mill income jobs in black and brown communities. So CDFIs are definitely the heroes of the moment as it relates to these underserved small businesses, but they do so much more, so much more. I'll just add that, you know, I really appreciate what you said about making corporations looking at their core businesses and thinking about how they can use those assets to make a difference. It's really important because while it's an important rounding error, it is a rounding error. What your investments in CDFIs is transformative to the CDFIs sector, but in the scheme of the economy, we know that we are really the R&D arm until we're more adequately capitalized. So, you know, you both are at the top of the food chain in your respective industries. You can really make a difference with companies, use their assets to- So, can you hear me now? Yes, Keisha. Did we lose Keisha? I think we did. Oh, we did. I could actually, I can play with you in a moderator. I see a lot of them. Let's see. Yeah, we did cover a lot of this. I invited someone in. Got a couple of people who said they wanted to make questions. I invited them to join. I think Penelope Douglas. Oh, this is an interesting one. Bill, what about this? So this is from Courtney Riley. It says, could more be done to educate entrepreneurs and future entrepreneurs before how to speak the language, know their resources, learn to plan sustainable businesses, social impact business. What does it look like to inform black and brown folks about the industry so they are not catching up on disaster heads? I want to make one point about this because I, you know, obviously every small business could use, you know, some technical assistance, some help. But I just want to like correct a little bit of the record around sort of what happened with PPP and what was needed to get capital to these businesses. And especially on the on the topic of black owned businesses.  So these are businesses that have survived and, you know, serve their communities and employed people, even despite all of the systemic issues around access to capital relationships with the banking sector, etc. And so what you saw happening in PPP was not, you know, like, like it, like it was lost on these business owners that mainstream banking relationships would be helpful. In many of these cases, they tried, right, and been rejected for a whole, you know, host of issues that would be a much longer panel than this. And then to, and I think this was not well covered in the media. You had many businesses, you know, for example, take actually this is one in Harlem that I'm really close to. Great guy, you know, is a florist started his business probably, you know, six or seven years ago, very successful. He had his own sweat, never got capital and so had just never taken out alone. And so if you've never been through that process of getting alone and have succeeded and even, you know, really excel despite that. You know, it's not like you did something wrong along the way that you just don't necessarily have been through that lending process and so I think it's, I think it's important to know just how incredible these businesses are. You know, and having such success despite a financial system that doesn't, that doesn't always market just add to that. Just add, I think, you know, building on that and john Rogers talks about this sort of concept of business diversity, sort of as an extension of supplier diversity right so instead of just focusing on people who make stuff, focusing on individuals who provide services whether it be consulting or banking etc. One of the acknowledgments is the lack of exposure, right like a lot of these entrepreneurs of color, don't have access to even know what they don't know right and so the education in some instances is not like this monumental lift. It's not like, Oh, we have to show them how to open their books. Oh, we have to. It's, you, they just needed to know what number to call, and they didn't have that directory. So in a lot of cases, exposure and creating those access points is like 60 to 70% of the work. It's not, it's not like they're, there's such a lack of sophistication because like you said, these are individuals who hustle who resilience is just in the DNA, but you don't, you don't have a business to open the next day. So, how do we as corporations create the access points, how do we create the connectivity, where this capital exists, where this experience exists where this expertise exists and bring these communities together. I think that's, that's part of what needs to be part of the ongoing discussion. I just want to just jump one point. I think the point both of you made is so important because there's a really false narrative about the lack of capacity in communities of color and entrepreneurs of color and it sometimes is attributed to CDFIs led by people of color. But if you've got family, a parent who make your loan to start a business or a cousin who's an accountant that can help you navigate financial challenges or neighbor who's an attorney, then you have a network that can, that a lot is built in for a lot of non black and brown entrepreneurs is just not available to people who've been so systemically discriminated against and disenfranchised. And so just what these organizations and these businesses and entrepreneurs have been able to do with two hands tied behind their back is incredible. So I really think those points are critically important. And Bill, one great question that we got that came in for you is what strategy do you recommend for leveraging future investments in the, in the south, which is often underrepresented in spaces like this and the opportunities for investors in doing so. And it's somewhat of a two part because they also asked Margaret, you know, $1 million can go really far specifically in South Carolina with a place with only 5 million residents how can we get more corporations to support CDFIs in the south so it's kind of the same question but for each one of you. I'll quickly say I've always founded the data and every now and then yes people do play attention to data and science but the data, as you see this increasingly brown black country. If we don't invest in this segment of the population. What's our future workforce going to be who are who are the people who's going to buy products and services and from the companies and so I think connecting those dots has been critically important. And I find that when I've had a lot more success engaging the business community, you know, even though they're not disconnected from politics, they, they have shareholders they have to take a long review, they know how important markets are to their success and so I think that's a really opportunity to close the gap, particularly in the deep south, which is quite honestly becoming more diverse, diverse quicker than other parts of the country. Margaret, did you have anything to add one of this, but specifically they were just wondering how do we get large companies to as yours to start looking at, you know, geographically the south more and that might be some work that you're already going. Oh, we. You muted Margaret. Yeah, we can't hear you. Margaret can hear you. I think I was on mute. Gosh, you guys missed it. What I said was so eloquent. Let's see if I can try again. I was going to say I didn't. You know, steal any thunder from some of the things that, you know, the, the bill and I expect to announce pretty soon, but we are, we're nowhere near done. In the south, we deployed probably a good third of the capital that we did in PPP in the south and some of the same communities that have that have struggled the most to get capital and we think there's a lot more to do. I think to the question around kind of corporations and how you, you know, encourage them to do more. You know, I think the, the world is evolving not fast enough, but, but it is. And this is not just important to our shareholders. It's important to our employees. It's important to our clients. It's important to our partners like this real concept of kind of stakeholder capitalism. I don't think that maybe sounds a little ominous. I don't think that corporations, as we move forward, if they want to attract the type of investment that they need, public and private markets attract the kind of talent they want in their employee base, have the kind of clients that they want can continue to sort of, you know, only focus on, you know, their, their, their products and services, right? I think companies kind of role in society and, and what they're doing in their communities more broadly. I think it's only getting more important. And so I, I think that you will see more and more corporations doing really thoughtful and intentional work around inclusive growth. Not just within their core business, but also in all of the extra work that they do outside of it. Sorry, go ahead, Bill. I think you're muted. Now, I know we're coming up toward the bottom of the hour and I do want to, as in, and Margaret, just to search briefly, we've got a room full of, of, of, we've got the choir here, quite honestly. And so what would you suggest that folks on this call can do to help move the ball further toward the goal line? What, what to probably build on some of the examples, what would you suggest other investors, potential investors, my action that they might take? I'll say this from the, from the, from the corporate side and my wonderful partner in crime and treasurer Shannon Aldwin will probably hate me for saying this. But, you know, we've gone through a lot of trouble to try to make it really easy for others to replicate our model. So one thing that we've done is we've documented just about everything. So that the challenges that we experienced going through this process, folks won't have to sort of hit those same walls. And some of those challenges for us were just things like our investment policy are sort of the accounting challenges, timing, etc. So we've worked through all that we have a blueprint and we're happy to share it. So I'd say, connect with our treasure if you're like, working through some challenges, because we were able to go from zero to announcement in 10 weeks. And so we, we were able to figure it out fairly quickly like I said, I'd love to say that I've been working on this for the last 10 years. And I know Margaret has said, but, you know, we woke up in 2020, like this is terrible. What can we do, and we were able to make that happen so connect with our track as one point to connect in with the folks at list right because the reason that we settled on this in addition to working directly with folks like Bill and other CDF eyes, we can't, we can't provide all of the needs that the CDF eyes have. For instance, we can't provide equity in the cases where equity is required, but list can. List is raising a $250 million fund this is not an advertisement for list but list as a as a potential solution because honestly we almost hit the wall on moving forward with this initiative until we work with list on creating something that frankly didn't exist before. And so I know that there are in addition to list a number of investment firms that are that are creating products to help solve these problems and there's a lot of ingenuity and creativity in this space. So, feel free to reach out to me feel free to reach out to Shannon all in our treasure. And feel free to reach out to the folks at list specifically George Ashton and Maurice Jones you can tell him Aaron Mitchell sent you like we really want to change stuff so like there's no there's no introductions or, you know, preamble required just make it happen. Yeah, I think I guess we only have one one minute left I guess maybe maybe change in a little bit so I think I think Aaron covered well sort of from a from a from a corporation perspective in terms of capital and CDFI specifically. I guess what I would say is that there's their their their initiatives and their moments in time and then they're sort of like the work and decisions that we're all making. Each and every day and I think if we're going back to just sort of the core issue of the racial wealth gap right that's around. You know bill mentioned it's about where you grow up and your community and education and access to entrepreneurship capital and healthcare like there's so many. There's so many places and ways that the racial wealth gap has compounded and become quite sticky. And so I think that all of us in who we hire the businesses that and I mean this is individuals. The hiring decisions we make the businesses we choose to support the everyday like actions that where where we buy clothes where we buy food I think there's an opportunity for even individual citizens in their everyday lives to make decisions that are that are more inclusive and and that make a dent in racial equity and so I think it's in the first thing you got to do is just to think about it and be thoughtful about it all the time right I don't.  And I think that more that people have it in mind and are thoughtful about it I think that you can make decisions every single day that move the needle. And vote and vote absolutely Margaret Aaron thank you you made two of the major companies on the planet, better. It's just shows what people can do so thank you for all that you do to address these issues. I want to thank everybody for joining us and invite you to join my colleagues in our virtual booth, right after this session, go to the expo, and also will be there Wednesday and Thursday I guess at noon so we can continue the conversation but. Thank you vote and keep making difference. Thank you, Bill. Thank you all. Good. Thank you. All right, see you later though. All right, take care of my friend.