Episode 39: Dreaming the Future Into Reality

Three Debt Collective Working Group leaders Thomas Gokey, Jen Lezan, and Fred Bell speak to Shanna Bennet about their teams of volunteers and opportunities for impact in the fight for student debt cancellation. They also share details about the upcoming April 4th Day of Action in front of the Department of Education in Washington, D.C. Visit www.debtcollective.org to join them.

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Dreaming the Future Into Reality

Transcript –

[00:00:05] Shanna: Hi, I’m Shannon Bennett. And I’m here with Jen Lezan, Thomas Gokey and Fred Bell. All leaders of working groups at the Debt Collective and you’re on Matter of Life and Debt. Welcome to the podcast!

[00:00:24] Thomas: Thank you.

[00:00:25] Shanna: Hi. Glad to have you. Let’s dive right in. So, who here has student debt? And if so, how much, and what are your individual experiences with student debt? Jen, do you wanna start us off?

[00:00:37] Jen: Sure. I definitely have student debt. Have about little under $175,000 now. When it comes to student debt, it’s been a struggle from the point of graduating undergrad to attending grad school, wanting to make my life better. But the unfortunate reality is, I grew up poor, in a single mother household, we’re Hispanic. We grew up in the inner city in Chicago and the idea of my mom having savings for something like college, when all we’ve done is rented and she worked a career as a housekeeper was completely out of the picture. And the only way I could pursue higher education. Which was told to me as a door opener, a creator of opportunity, a way to change my life, was to pursue college. And I did, I went to undergrad and I went to grad school. But the cost of education is so incredibly high that my income as a Latinx woman has never, ever in the last, what, 15 plus years that I’ve been working caught up with the cost of my education, which is frustrating. But I’ve been fighting, ever since I was an undergrad, having to argue with people on the student loan hotlines, figuring out for myself that I was often being lied to or put into programs that weren’t beneficial to me. I had to do a lot of self education and in the process I learned about Debt Collective. And I get to be here now working and fighting alongside these amazing individuals. Because like they said, we’re not alone. And I felt like that for a long time. And the reality is, even our little individual numbers can be super scary, but all of us all together, the amount of student loans that are in the US right now, what is it? 1.8 trillion dollars now?

[00:02:30] Shanna: Yes.

[00:02:31] Jen: It owns the bank and that’s amazing to me.

[00:02:33] Shanna: Fred, what’s your relationship with student debt?

[00:02:35] Fred: I would say my relationship with student debt started before I even went to college. Like Jen, I came from a lower middle class, low income, family, single mother, for most of my life.

[00:02:47] And, it was never an option. I was gonna go, you know, get my undergrad. But, once, I exited high school and I was applying to colleges and whatnot, it was just so expensive.

[00:03:00] I mean, even in state, there were grants and, and things like that. But the cost of living is what hurts a lot of folks. So, I already knew that after seeing how much loans I’d have to take out, and then all these parent plus loans, which I had no idea about, my mom had to possibly co-sign. I was just like, it doesn’t make any sense to incur all this debt. So I ended up enrolling in a local community college, to get my associates degree. And so I did that. I didn’t take out any loans for that, which I’m grateful for and then transferred to a four year University of Washington. So I have about $20,000 in student loan debt. Most of it from just rent and food and technology that I needed for classes. I’ve been out of college for almost 10 years and it’s been the same balance ever since. So, yeah, that’s due to my short experience with student debt and I would say that, you know, it’s kept me from pursuing more higher education. Law school, grad school. I’ve always had this thought that, yeah, I don’t want to incur more debt. I want to live a sustainable life and not have to join the rat race and try to keep up with inflation and keep up with my bills. I just don’t wanna have any debt. I just want to live in peace. That’s my story.

[00:04:28] Shanna: All I hear is barriers. Barriers to education that should not exist. I don’t know if our listeners are familiar, but I’ve read, I think once upon a time that, black women are one of the most educated blocks in our country. And yet we’re carrying a lot of debt because we’re pursuing more advanced degrees.

[00:04:47] We tend to not stop after the four years, we continue to go. And then we end up with all this debt and it’s really unfortunate because again, it’s supposed to be something that we all have access to. Side question Fred, did community college have a stigma when you attended? Because I wish it was something that I looked to as a resource, as a way to kind of gain education at a lower cost.

[00:05:10] And I really didn’t. It really wasn’t sold to me as an option. And I’ve heard a lot of people say that.

[00:05:15] Fred: I think so in a certain sense. I think it’s mostly like your peers. It’s this competition who gets into the better school and who has the most scholarships. And I think sometimes it was deemed as, the students who didn’t have the best grades, I never found that to be true.

[00:05:34] I mean, I know students that were in the top 10 that never went to college and students that maybe didn’t excel well, in the way that our school system works, that, you know, went on and got law degrees.

[00:05:48] Shanna: Mm-hmm mm-hmm.

[00:05:49] Fred: I think the biggest obstacle I can see in going to college and succeeding is just like not having money.

[00:05:57] Shanna: Right.

[00:05:58] So I don’t think it has anything to do with your academic prowess or anything like that. Agreed, agreed. And I really don’t think it matters where you go as someone that does hiring for a living. I don’t care what school people are going to. All I care about is their experience and whether or not they can do the job.

[00:06:12] Thomas, we got into your story a little bit in our last episode, but by all means, refresh our memory.

[00:06:17] What is your relationship with student debt?

[00:06:19] Thomas: Oh, I have an adversarial relationship.

[00:06:22] I currently have about 37,000 or so. Used to have a lot more. I’ve had that my entire adult life and it has controlled every aspect of my life, since then. So, people in America like to say we’re the land of the free or so, but it certainly doesn’t feel free.

[00:06:42] It feels like something else is making all of these decisions. And, I would like to know what it feels like not to have any student debt. I don’t remember what that’s like. It might feel like childhood or something. It’s been really the best feeling in the world when we see people get their debt canceled and how life-changing it is, it’s just beautiful.

[00:07:02] It’s so beautiful. And I want it for everyone.

[00:07:05] Shanna: Agreed. I’m glad that we’re having this conversation. It’s completely worthwhile. How did you all become involved in the Debt Collective? I know Jen, you spoke about kind of, navigating the debt process and finding the Debt Collective, but how did you find the Debt Collective?

[00:07:21] Jen: So I am an educator. I worked as an adjunct for 11 years as of this year. I guess I officially retired from adjuncting since I have yet to get a full-time tenured position. And I was just tired. But because of that, I was very in tune with Facebook and Facebook groups and organizing on Facebook. And I was a student who graduated, in undergrad from a for-profit college, the Art Institute, and, we all know the story about AI and the very nefarious things that EDMC and all the other acronyms that they’re under have done over the years. And, because of the struggles with that, I joined this “I am AI” group on Facebook and through “I am AI”, I connected with other people, including some of my old students as well, because I thought I could go back to AI, years later and change things as a teacher.

[00:08:25] And boy was I really hopeful and that did not happen. But, there were a lot of people who were organizing through this group and “I am AI” was sharing information on this thing called Borrowers Defense to Repayment. And through that I learned about the Debt Collective. There are other volunteers and organizers who are part of “I am AI” who are part of the Debt Collective. They’re all connected to other for-profit colleges like Corinthian and ITT and the whole like Corinthian group, I was able to connect with and learn about this amazing organization called the Debt Collective, that was doing stuff like I was doing. Trying to educate my students on the pitfalls of higher education and why community college is a better option to start.

[00:09:09] And issues with for profit. Because even though I taught for profit, I also taught at community college and some universities in the city in Chicago, but I learned about what they were doing. And I was like, what can I do to support them? What can I do to help them? I connected with people like Thomas and Astra Taylor and some of the other admins and moderators of “I am AI” to kind of like share my story and kind of share what I was doing to help my students at the school to navigate the student debt process and their issues going into regular life and not being educated and how this is gonna impact them after graduation. And I just started as a volunteer. I help co-coordinate our chapter here in Chicago. but I had let the Debt Collective know a few years back, I was like, you know, my job as an educator, I teach things like graphic design and marketing and illustration. I’m a designer. I can help with this kind of thing if you guys are ever in need.

[00:10:07] And of course they took me up on my offer. For the last few years I’ve been volunteering, offering support and helping with branding. But it’s not just me. There’s a group of what, 10 or 15 people now that kind of support that. That’s kind of how I started dabbling in. I wanted to volunteer, help share my story, where I could, whether it was media stuff. Then take my talents and my skills and use them for what we call it in the industry “design for good”, human-centered design, where we’re utilizing information to educate, change and promote things like social justice causes. And I’ve been able to apply that to the Debt Collective. And that’s how the role kind of started to evolve.

[00:10:51] And I’m just glad that I can be a part of it and share my story and share my talents and skills to kind of help elevate it. Cause it’s amazing to see how much has grown in just like the four years that I’ve been aware of it. And then you think back to like Occupy Wall Street days to see where it was then to where it is now.

[00:11:08] It’s amazing. Like people weren’t talking about student debt then it wasn’t even like a thing that candidates would talk about. And now it’s like a driving force in change.

[00:11:19] Shanna: And I love hearing more about what you’re, what you’ve been doing with the Debt Collective, cause I’ve had one or two meetings with you. You’ve kind of touched on it, but that’s awesome.

[00:11:26] Fred, what about you? How did you get involved with the Debt Collective?

[00:11:29] Fred: I actually just came on to the Debt Collective about six months ago. So I was just working a normal nine to five corporate gig. But I’ve been organizing on the side with a lot of friends and one of my mutual friends, he has actually done some research with the Debt Collective. So, they sent me over the job description and were like, hey, we know you have a gig, but do you wanna work here? And I was like, oh yeah, work with people who are like-minded and who are capitalists that like working to really change the material conditions of working-class folks.

[00:12:03] So yeah, I just had an interview and went super well and all of a sudden I’m on board and I’m leading this, you know, this huge, April 4th Day of Action to cancel student debt. So I’m really excited to be here.

[00:12:19] Shanna: Nice, excited to have you. Thank you for all the work that you’ve done. We’re excited for April 4th, Nikki and I will be there. I’m bringing my sister with me. We’re bringing people with us, so we’ll be there with bells on. We’ll make a lot of noise. It’ll be a good time.

[00:12:32] Thomas, please tell us, remind us again, how you became involved with the Debt Collective.

[00:12:38] Thomas: I’m one of the co-founders of the Debt Collective, which sort of officially started in late 2014. But it really grew out of ideas that we started thinking about during Occupy Wall Street. Where I still remember going to very long, long meetings at occupy, where there were debates about whether or not we should have demands.

[00:13:00] Should we have no demands? Should we have one demand? Should we have many demands? And I came away from those meetings thinking, even if we all agreed on exactly what the right demands were, what power do we actually have? What leverage do we have over wall street, over the government? And just thinking in the classic sort of Gandhian, Martin Luther King nonviolent tactics.

[00:13:25] Can we identify how we cooperate with our own exploitation? And can we organize non-cooperation? And it seemed like that debt is one of these fundamental ways where we cooperate with wall street. We cooperate with the government, we cooperate with our own exploitation. If we could just somehow organize something like a debtor’s union. We would have enormous power.

[00:13:44] We could take action together where Wall Street and the government would just be at our mercy. And it was a big idea and it took a lot of years before we even got the Debt Collective off the ground and the potential is so huge and it’s in the future. I think we’ve accomplished a lot so far, but we’ve just scratched the surface of what debtor organizing can look like and what debtor power can look like.

[00:14:11] If you’re listening to this, I hope that you’re getting excited and that you want to get involved and I’d encourage you to go to www.debtcollective.org and join. I’d encourage you to talk with your coworkers, your friends, your families, about the role that plays in your life and start dreaming and scheming, cause there’s so much.

[00:14:31] Thomas: I mean, what’s fun about this work to me is that on some level we are, dreaming the future into reality. There’s just so much potential.

[00:14:38] Shanna: Let’s dive into working groups because we’ve been hinting at the working groups. We’re talking about the working groups. So what working groups are you a part of right now? And Jen can start with you.

[00:14:47] Jen: I’m a part of the art and design working group. There’s about 10 or 15 people at all times that are actively participating, whether they’re at meetings or actually creating design and, and art-related work for, the Debt Collective.

[00:15:02] So basically everything we do in terms of art and design relates to things like graphic design, marketing, social media, video, photography, and all of that supports the direction that the Debt Collective is going in. Any of the key projects that are upcoming, whether it’s the April 4th action, or anything else that may be going on. The Debt Collective needs some sort of branding or marketing materials. We are the people they can tap into, in order to design and create that. Why should people join a working group if you have a skill or talent, especially when it relates to things like graphic design, illustration art, don’t realize how we can use that to essentially change the world, right?

[00:15:43] Yes. It’s beautiful. It’s entertaining to look at things like that, but it’s also very educational and informative. And like I said, it’s based on that concept of human-centered design and “design for good”. You can utilize your skill set to create change, and we’re doing that by supporting the Debt Collective.

Shanna: Fred, I’m very excited for you to tell us about your working group. So what working group, if you don’t mind reminding us again, are you a part of?

[00:16:07] Fred: I’m part of the actions and events working group. So that covers the DC action on April 4th and also covers any local actions that are happening across the country. So, basically, we have a lot of robust chapters. Philadelphia, LA, Chicago. We also have some chapters that are just getting off the ground. So I think that these local actions are really important because we want to have distributed protests and events around the country to really show that everyone from all parts of the country are worried about this and are in this fight together. So I think that was the goal of this working group to really support those local and community events. And so, we’re doing biweekly meetings to kind of give folks materials. We don’t wanna recreate the wheels, so we have a lot of media and posters and social media content that all of the local actions can use for their own events. And then also, we have debtors assemblies, debt burns, and we have all these, ways the Debt Collective uses imagery to really, show how powerful we all are together. And the leverage that we have against these creditors. And also just to show that, we shouldn’t have shame around this debt. It’s a common thing. And, if we all really work together and fight back then we can win. We are close to the finish line. So that’s the goal of the working group, actions and events.

[00:17:42] Shanna: Can you speak to maybe about how many people are in your working group or how many people you’re working with?

[00:17:47] Fred: So we have a Slack that has about 60 folks.

[00:17:50] Shanna: Nice.

[00:17:50] Fred: It’s a good bit of folks. And say we have about almost like 10 local actions planned from Minneapolis to San Francisco. Two in Colorado, one in Tennessee. So we’re really excited and April 4th will be the first one, but you’ll see on social media a lot more popping up as the months go by.

[00:18:16] Shanna: Thomas. Tell us a little bit about your working group.

[00:18:19] Thomas: I’ve been working with those who are trying to put a student strike into motion. And so just a little bit of context for that. The Collective did organize the first student debt strike in US history in 2015 among former for-profit students. What has worked for us really well is pairing a direct action, like a strike with a legal mechanism, something that we can actually capital P pull on to cancel the debt.

[00:18:46] And at that time, we were focused on a little-known law called the Borrower Defense to Repayment that had never actually been enforced. But if it were to be enforced, it would cancel hundreds of billions of dollars of student debt from predatory schools. So far we’ve won. I don’t know what the latest number is, it might be closer to 6 billion now.

[00:19:06] So that’s not a small amount of money, but it’s still nowhere near the hundreds of billions of dollars that would be discharged if the law was actually enforced. We are now focusing on canceling all student debt. And we wanna pair a direct action with a legal mechanism, right? The Debt Collective helped research the legal authority that the president has to cancel student debt with a signature.

[00:19:34] That’s really all we need, a signature. We even wrote the Executive Order for him. You can go to www.debtcollective.org, Flick of the Pen to read the Executive Order.

[00:19:45] Then in February of 2020, before the pandemic, right before the pandemic, we were in the process of launching what we thought was going to be a much bigger bolder student debt strike in the context of the presidential election.

[00:20:02] That was the frame that we were really thinking about. But right after we launched the strike, the pandemic hit and then the pause hit. And all of these things that we were told were impossible, right? It’s impossible for the government not to collect your debt. Debt has to be, like there’s some kind of universal law that debts have to be paid back and they have to be collected. and that was never true.

[00:20:29] And now it’s really hard for them to pretend that it’s true. So the pause sort of negated the need for the strike. And since the pandemic has been going on, there has been a lot of discussion and debate among Debt Collective members, about whether or not a student debt strike is needed. It’s gone back and forth.

[00:20:48] But then we’ve put a lot of thought into the strategy and the leverage of a debt strike. But then there’s a lot of people who haven’t put as much thought or have as much experience with it who are coming at this very unique, unprecedented moment where we’ve had the vast majority of student debts on pause and a threat to restart it saying this is the time.

[00:21:12] This is the moment for a strike. And so we formed a working group specifically to start honing all of these debates. You know, there are a lot of different opinions, a lot of different perspectives on how a strike should be structured. I’m glad to say the strike is now live. You can go to Bitly slash studentdebtstrike and you can join.

[00:21:40] And I do wanna make it really clear, just so there’s no confusion. We are not advocating that anyone default on their loans. Which can cause financial havoc for you, right? The whole point of what we’re doing is to rescue people, not to harm people. Instead, the strategy here is to get people to $0 monthly payments in a way that is safe.

[00:22:04] And so if you go to Bitly slash student debt strike, you can see the different methods for doing that safely. And for some people, that’s just not gonna be an option. And that’s okay. But for a large number of people, this is an option. So we want the Biden Administration, we want Congress to know if student loan payments are ever restarted, it will be met with mass organized resistance and non-payment.

[00:22:36] They don’t realize it yet, but if we get organized, we can make sure they never turn student payments back on. We can make sure that they have to cancel the debt. So moving forward, you know, a lot of this is still in process, nothing is set in stone and part of the working group is to figure things out, but moving forward, we’re gonna be hosting some training sessions.

[00:22:58] We’ve already hosted one training session, but to a lot of people, this is a new idea to them. They’ve got a lot of questions. And our system is complicated. It’s hard to explain. Human lives are messy. It’s hard to figure out which option of getting to $0 safely works for me. So that’s the purpose of some of these training sessions and webinars.

[00:23:19] We don’t have anything scheduled at the moment, but we will have more in the future. And, we don’t know what’s gonna happen right now. The threat is that payments are going to restart on Mayday. But there’s also a lot of discussions that there might be another extension, right? If there is another extension, we can seize that momentum and have even more people join the strike and have even more of a head of steam that they will never, ever be able to restart the payments.

[00:23:51] Shanna: Right.

[00:23:51] Thomas: That’s the idea behind the strike.

[00:23:52] Shanna: Love it and wholeheartedly support it. I’ll ask you, Fred, why should people join the Debt Collective?

[00:24:00] I feel like I can like spend 30 minutes talking about this, I think people should join Debt Collective because number one, regardless of if you have student debt or if you have housing debt if you have medical debt, if you understand how capitalism works and you’re seeing how it’s wreaking havoc on our society, I think that you’ll see that all of this is connected to the problems that we are facing. So once we fight back against creditors that like to hold a lot of medical debt, once we fight against landlords who are lording their power over tenants and evicting them and charging them wild fees. And once we are really getting to the source of a lot of inequality, you see a lot of folks have debt. Like, it doesn’t matter how much money you make. A lot of folks have to go into debt to pay for things. So I think that we can see debt as something we can all come together and band together and really have leverage over folks who are giving us these loans that are predatory not really equal in how they’re distributed to folks.

Shanna: I’m gonna sneak in and answer that question for myself. The reason why I think is very much tied to what Thomas keeps saying about visualizing this future and what this system could look like. Even in the Slack channel, I think yesterday Thomas, you were talking about education being more than just preparing folks for jobs. We’re supposed to be able to attain critical thinking and this higher-level thinking. and I think ultimately everyone that wants it should have access to that. I don’t think there should be all of these barriers to higher education. I think it affects everyone. No matter what walk of life you’re in. This kind of debt and debt, in general, affects you. So I’m always encouraging people in my circle to have these conversations with friends and family. Every holiday I’m like is your grandma in town? Are your uncles and your aunties in town? Okay. This is perfect. Like around the dinner table, have a conversation about debt and student debt and how it affects the family.

[00:26:04] Thomas, I think you’ve touched on this several times, but why should people join the Debt Collective?

[00:26:08] Thomas: Because you are not alone, right?

[00:26:10] Shanna: Right.

[00:26:11] Thomas: The power of debt is that it isolates and it atomizes us. And it makes us feel like we are alone. That we are powerless. That we can’t fight back. But you are not alone. There are millions, there are billions of other people in the same situation.

[00:26:29] And when you peel back the surface, it’s the same few entities behind it all, right. The same Wells Fargo, which is the biggest investor in for-profit prisons, is the same Wells Fargo that was the biggest investor in Corinthian College Incorporated. The biggest predatory for-profit school.

[00:26:48] It’s the same Wells Fargo that helped bring down the economy a decade ago. So, you know, whatever you care about, there is a connection to all of us. Right? And so we really need to bind together to build power. To build power that is genuine, democratic, small D democracy, horizontal power.

[00:27:10] You know, one of the misconceptions that I think people have about the Debt Collective is that they think we’re trying to create a society without debt. And, we certainly do think that the vast majority of debt should not exist, right? This is illegitimate debt in a just society. There is no such thing as medical debt. But in a more abstract sense, debt is just a bond with someone else. And those bonds can be turned into a form of bondage and exploitation, right? If the 99% are all caught in these, bonds to, to Wall Street. That’s a sort of a vertical relationship. But we need each other. We can’t do anything without each other. And there are different ways to cooperate.

[00:27:59] There are different ways to tie ourselves to each other in which we’re all better off, all healthier. Anything worth doing requires doing it with a large group of people to pull off something special. And there’s so much potential. There’s so much human flourishing. As painful as the last couple years have been, as much suffering as there is, it’s also an example of just the way that people come together to solve problems. It’s been really inspiring to see the mutual aid networks that form. These are healthy, just bonds, healthy debts. What I encourage people to do is always ask, like, what do I really owe other people?

[00:28:41] What do other people really owe me? And it’s probably that if we really answer these questions, honestly, it probably looks very different than what Wells Fargo says we owe.

[00:28:50] Shanna: What is your working group currently working on?

[00:28:52] Jen: So we’ve been working on the April 4th action. So all of the branding, all the marketing materials that Fred was mentioning, like the posters, all of that stuff. We have been working on that since probably November, December. We worked through January and then we were updating for April when everything kind of got pushed back and reevaluated after the student loan pause extension. But we’re also working right now. The big project we’ve been working on is a digital zine, that we’re hoping to expand into print in the future. We’re trying to get the first issue launched by April 4th. We should be done next week sometime, but we’ll see. We’re almost there. We’re sharing debtor stories. Astra, one of the co-founders of Debt Collective, gave us permission to use some excerpts from our Debt Collective book, Can’t Pay, Won’t Pay. We’re sharing articles from Braxton, as well other individuals who wanna share their debt story and the case for canceling student debt. Then we have a bunch of amazingly talented illustrators who are sharing their talents for the issue as well. and we’re I, their artwork in there and their design work.

[00:30:01] We have a bunch of creatives who are working on the issue, so that’s been a big project. Basically anything that comes up we’re down for. Thomas will message us from time to time with a project. Right now I’m also running a table at the YBSA conference, here in Chicago.

[00:30:17] So we’ve been working on marketing materials for that. Anything that supports the Debt Collective and events that Debt Collective is a part of, that’s what we’re working on.

[00:30:25] Shanna: Do you have a place where people can locate that zine when it’s ready?

[00:30:29] Jen: Yeah, we don’t have the link up yet. It’s not live. I’ll be sure to share that afterward, but it’s gonna be on the platform issuu.com. It’s a free platform. So it’ll be a free digital zine. Then we’ll also have little business cards that we’re gonna hand out in DC.

[00:30:45] So if anyone is in DC and they wanna read it and they just wanna get a link to it, we’ll have a little QR code that they can access.

[00:30:52] Shanna: What do you think the barriers are right now in terms of us attaining wide-scale, student debt cancellation? Or, to branch off of that- what are the barriers in some of the conversations we’re having with friends and family socially, getting people on board with this concept? Fred, do you wanna start?

[00:31:07] Fred: So at this point in 2022, it is Biden, who is the barrier.

[00:31:13] Shanna: Agree.

[00:31:13] Fred: At this point, I mean, he has the power. We know he has the power to cancel the loans and the debt. So yeah, he’s just not holding up his end of the bargain. And you said a barrier for folks to get on board with student debt cancellation. Is that kind of what you mean?

[00:31:32] Shanna: Yeah. Yeah. I know, kinda a side question, but yeah.

[00:31:35] Fred: No, I like that question. Cause I think that it confuses me sometimes. Cause we’ll have these conversations about full cancellation and people will be like, well, $10,000 or $50,000. Or income-based or what, and I’m like, y’all, they don’t need the money. We need to do our jobs in educating folks about how the federal government operates. And I’ve learned so much since I’ve been at Debt Collective, about this, because maybe if I hadn’t been here, I’d have been like, okay, full cancellation. Like I’m all about that.

[00:32:10] But I’m also like, how does that work? Do we have to pay more taxes? Like what’s going on? And I think that the Debt Collective’s helped me answer those questions that no, like we’re not, we’re not gonna see a huge tax hike after, we cancel student loans. They’re not expecting the money back. And this is a whole scheme they do in order to make money, especially for these servicers.

[00:32:33] A long story short, I think we really need to just educate folks about why these loans are given out, like who holds the power to cancel them? What’s going to happen once they’re canceled? And debunk these false stories about what’s gonna happen if we cancel student loan debt and if, oh, we’re gonna be helping the rich folks who have student loan debt. There’s just so many untrue stories floating around that you know, I think that we are really hard to combat, in this whole escalation up to, you know, full cancellation and our action on April 4th.

[00:33:10] Shanna: I love that answer. I know Nikki and I have talked about it in the past. Sometimes it is a morality issue. That’s what I run into a lot when I’m having these conversations. I think whenever it’s lower-income or middle class, and we’re talking about any kind of debt cancellation, all of a sudden it’s about, you know, you’re lazy. And who are you to be asking for this, you know, this and that.

[00:33:30] But when we talk about bailing out industries and large corporations, it’s always not a big deal. It’s really interesting in terms of barriers. Thomas, do you wanna speak to barriers? To wide-scale student debt cancellation?

[00:33:45] Thomas: Just like Fred said, the barriers, we have overcome a lot of the barriers. We are sort of one barrier away and his name is Joe Biden. And we can win this. We are so much more powerful than he is. So, there’s a story that we love where we forced some debt cancellation through. That Trump and Betsy DeVos couldn’t stop. And Betsy DeVos had to sign the paperwork and right under her signature, she wrote as a note with great displeasure. Oh, it’s delicious. It’s delicious that we were able to force cancellation through on top of her displeasure. Joe Biden might have some displeasure too, and that just makes it sweeter.

[00:34:30] Then, yeah, there’s just, you know, economics is a tricky subject. I don’t claim to understand a lot about economics. I’m not an economist myself. So there are some misconceptions, that the government spends all kinds of money without raising taxes. And they don’t really spend money when they cancel debt, right?

[00:34:55] It doesn’t cost them anything to cancel student debt. This is where I wanna be cautious because I’m not an economist. And I would refer people to the economists who do explore this. But depending on how you define cost, if you take the broader economic impact into effect, canceling student debt actually saves everybody money. Because of all of the economic growth, all of the economic benefits.

[00:35:22] Even if you don’t have any student debt, even if you have already paid your student debt, you would still benefit from canceling all student debt. I do think one barrier is that there are people who have suffered very, very deeply and have been forced to pay back their debt. And I totally sympathize with that situation. That some people feel that it’s unfair.

[00:35:47] I feel like it was a grave injustice that happened to anyone. And I wanna make sure it doesn’t happen to anyone ever again. but that can sometimes be a resistance.

[00:35:56] We are winning, we have the momentum and we can bulldoze the remaining obstacles. We will win what we organize for.

[00:36:04] So again, I would say, please join the Debt Collective. Go to debtcollective.org and get involved. Because we will only win what we organize for.

[00:36:13] Shanna: Nice. We’re gonna hop back to Jen for a little bit, cause I know you have to head out soon. What’s something that you’d like to share about the Debt Collective that you think maybe people don’t know? Cause the goal is to encourage people to get to know the Debt Collective more. Get a better understanding of the organization and what it stands for. Anything you’d share?

[00:36:30] Jen: When it comes to Debt Collective, we’re often synonymous with student debt, right? Canceling student debt. That is our main cause, but the Debt Collective is so much more than that. I’m really excited about the zine because we’re gonna have an illustration with an article, “What is the Debt Collective?” And it has all of the different bits and pieces the Debt Collective is or is not just student debt. It’s medical debt. Carceral debt. There’s so many other elements that we’re fighting to kind of create this new world, right?

[00:37:03] We’re looking at the economy and we’re looking at what people are able to do with their lives without having to finance it out.

[00:37:12] And I think that’s really important. People know us for student debt, but the Debt Collective is so much more than that. And if they go to the website, they’ll be able to see and learn more about that.

[00:37:21] I think that’s what’s so amazing. That we’re looking at it, not just from this very microscopic, zoomed in perspective, but we’re looking at it from this really big, macro perspective. When it comes to impact that debt in general, all kinds of debt household debt has on people.

[00:37:39] Shanna: Fred. If you’re still with us and tell us a little bit about April 4th, what’s going on? What do we need to do? What do we need to bring? What time should we be there? Let us know.

[00:37:49] Fred: Okay. So we are meeting at the Department of Education building at 12:00 PM sharp. That’s when our run of show begins. I would say bring a poncho in case it rains, bring a mask to be COVID safe. Bring your energy, bring your passion and bring your friends. We’re gonna have some entertainment.

[00:38:12] We’re gonna have a powerful debtors assembly. We’re gonna do a small march to kind of build up power and a bit of little after party. Also some like healing and spiritual aspects to it. So, you know, for folks who are into that and they want that aspect highlighted.

[00:38:33] Because obviously we know how traumatic this work is for folks who are directly impacted by it. I look forward to seeing everyone and I think like Thomas and Jen mentioned, debtcollective.org, Strike Debt on Twitter and we post a lot about updates. So, follow us on those platforms and for any updates and more information.

[00:38:58] Shanna: Nice. And, just to reiterate this, Nikki and I will be on a bus, a Debt Collective bus heading from New York to DC. We’ll be chatting with people on the bus. We’ll be chatting with people, there, outside of the department of education. So we’re really excited and we really, suggest that you come join, join us and have fun and, and hang around some like-minded people, rallying around a cause that is worthwhile

[00:39:22] Thomas, anything to add to the April 4th fun?

[00:39:25] Thomas: So I’m not very familiar with Washington DC, for other people like me, I just wanna say, cause you might not know where the Department of Education is located. So we’re gonna be meeting at the Eisenhower Memorial right across the street from the Department of Education. It’s 450 Independence Avenue SW in Washington, DC.

[00:39:46] So it’s right off the mall. It’s not far from the mall at all. Let’s go see where all of our money disappears every month.

[00:39:57] Shanna: Yes, let’s get it back. Let’s get it back.

[00:40:01] Is there anything else you wanna, promote?

Jen: Join the Debt Collective, whether you become a dues paying union member, which we have, you can do that on the website. Or if you wanna volunteer your time, whatever your skill set is, there’s something that you can likely do to support the Debt Collective. I think that’s the big thing people are or either I don’t have the money to pay dues or, I don’t know about any of this, what can I possibly do?

[00:40:26] You’d be surprised. We can use skills and talents from every kind of industry, knowledge from everywhere. There’s always a place for you. And it’s an inclusive, wonderful space of amazing people. When it comes to art and design, we are always in need of extra volunteers who can, you know, offer up their skills, whether they’re graphic designers, videographers, motion graphic specialists, people who do things like this. We can always utilize those skills to support the cause. So I would love to have anyone interested join. I believe I don’t know if we still have it up, but there was an action network site set up at one point where people could input their information. But if not, they could always email me directly at chicago.collective@gmail.com.

[00:41:12] Shanna: This conversation was so great. Thank you for your time today. Can’t wait to see you in person in DC on the fourth.

[00:41:20]If you liked this [00:41:21] episode of Matter of Life and Debt, subscribe and share it with a friend. It really helps people discover us. Matter of Life and Debt is hosted by me. Shannon. It is produced by Shannon Bennett, Emma Klauber, and Nikki Nolan.

[00:41:34] It is edited by Nikki Nolan, transcripts and writing is done by Emma Klauber. Efe Akerman created the theme music.

[00:41:39] Visit our website www.matteroflifeanddebt.com, where you can listen to more episodes, access transcripts, and get additional context for the subjects you just heard about. Absolutely for free the website again, www.matteroflifeanddebt.com.

[00:41:55]Thanks again for listening.

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