Pick up the pen, Joe! Matter of Life and Debt producers Emma and Nikki, and host Shanna are on the scene at the Debt Collective’s April 4th Day of Action in Washington, D.C. Protestors from all over the country turned out to demand that Joe Biden sign an Executive Order to cancel student debt. Hear from student debt cancellation advocates Nina Turner, Marianne Williamson, Briahna Joy Gray, Astra Taylor, and other Debt Collective members.

Reference with links to articles

[1:00] Nina Turner‘s end of the speech
[10:31] Briahna Joy Gray‘s interview starts
[19:00] Marianne Williamson‘s interview starts
[23:58] Astra Taylor‘s interview starts
[35:10] Tiffany Dina Loftin‘s short chat
[35:42] Annie Wilson‘s chat
[37:56] Braxton Brewington‘s end speech

Transcript

[00:00:00] (Music)

[00:00:05] Shanna Bennett: Hi, we are with the Debt Collective in DC at the Eisenhower Memorial, making some noise. There is an awesome brass band going. We’ve got people in shirts. We’ve got signs. We’ve got Debt Collective Co-Founders. We’ve got snacks. It’s a good time. It’s a good time.

[00:00:32] For a lot of people, this is Monday morning going to work and here we are making noise in their front yard.

[00:00:38] Welcome, welcome, start making your way towards the stage.

[00:00:39] Okay. We are gathering around a stage that the Debt Collective has put up. There’s a sign behind it that says “Pick Up the Pen, Joe”, with an exclamation point. Underneath it says, “Cancel Student Debt” and all of the rally attendees, all of the protesters are now gathering at the stage.

[00:00:59] Nikki Nolan: I’m going to listen to it.

[00:01:00] Nina Turner: I was a college professor at the very institution where I received my first degree. And on the first day of class, I would ask my students, what do you want to be when you grow up? And I have never had “anyt” as my grandmother would say, “anyt” of my students say the following: Professor Turner, when I grow up, I want to be poor. I want to have a lot of student debt. I want to be on public assistance. That’s life for me. Everybody has hope and a dream for the better. And part of creating better is being able to advance your education if you choose to do so. And you should not be penalized for doing it.

[00:01:49] So what we are saying is cancel the debt, cancel it all, cancel it all.

[00:02:00] I want to cancel it all. and You got people like me and Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley and Congresswoman Corey Bush, some other folks I’m calling out names who said cancel it all.

[00:02:16] Oh, they just did an omnibus budget. Am I right, am I right, am I right, am I right, or am I wrong? Did not hesitate to put more money in the Pentagon. Can I just say to you, what’s more, powerful than the Pentagon? You and you and you. Let’s go and make that same investment. That’s all Sister Turner said, make that same investment and if it cannot be done and we need to get folks in office who understand how and are willing to get it done. It is time.

[00:02:49] Let me close this thing down. I don’t know what else is on my notes. So let me just say, because the walls of oppression must come down. The walls, the predatory capitalism must come down. The walls of justice must come down. And they’re going to come down because the people like us gathered to hear from all walks of life, from all identities, demanding that the walls of injustice come down, I’m going to leave you with these three things.

[00:03:21] And I thank y’all for the testimony spirit that we have here. I shared my story because I want you to know that I share lived pain. I didn’t just come to this. I share a lived pain. And until other folks are lifted, I can’t get no peace. That is what this is all about. No one should want to get peace until everybody can have some peace.

[00:03:43] Hello, somebody and part of having peace is being able to be viable economically. That’s peace. And I could go a whole lot of ways with this, but I’m going to close with this-preachers and politicians get five or six closes. I’m going to try to narrow it down to three or four.

[00:04:02] I believe. My sister, Marianne Williamson. Y’all shout her out.

[00:04:10] My sister Bri Joy in the house, shout her out!

[00:04:17] Let me close with this. And there’s a tie between student debt and healthcare in the United States. I mean, having that kind of debt can drive you absolutely mad. Is that right? That’s what Sister Turner got. It’s not on my notes, but just occurred to me, I’m trying to figure out how I’m gonna close this thing out.

[00:04:35] Okay. I got it. I was just can y’all just listen to me. We going to walk around this building and let it shake under the pressure of people standing up for justice. That’s what you’re doing. Canceling student debt is justice. Don’t let anybody tell you that it’s not. Everything that I need to know about politics and life, I’m learning from a toddler. Now what I am in the 21st century, they call us G-ma.

[00:05:04] I got a nine-month-old and a two-year-old. The two-year-old loves to put together puzzles. Everything that I need to know about life and politics I am learning from a toddler. Now my two-year-old likes to put together puzzles. I don’t like to put together puzzles. He likes to put together puzzles.

[00:05:23] I hate putting together puzzles. He likes to put together puzzles. So guess what? Now I like to put together a puzzle. That’s how it goes. Two-year-olds run the world. Whenever there is a piece and this is right here- whenever there’s a piece to the puzzle missing my two-year-old loses it. And he says the following words, “ya-ya piece missing, ya-ya piece missing, ya-ya piece missing.”

[00:05:51] He’s looking at that puzzle. And what he understands is that we can’t get some grown folks to understand that the beautiful picture can’t come together, if ever there’s a piece missing.

[00:06:09] That boy got me all on the floor, contorting myself in ways that I didn’t know this G-ma still could do.

[00:06:17] I’m under the couch. I’m under the pillows. I’m under the chairs trying to help him find this piece so I can get some peace. Hello.

[00:06:28] Cause what my two-year-old knows, and this is it- every piece is distinct.

[00:06:35] Every piece is different. Every piece is unique, but every piece is necessary. You are that piece. You are that piece. You are that piece, you are that piece or that piece, you are that piece. You are unique. You are different, you are distinct, but baby, you are necessary. So that the beautiful picture can come together.

[00:06:54] Everything that I need to know about life and politics, I’m learning from a toddler. And this is my final point on that point that I can’t get no peace until we cancel student debt. I can’t get no peace. Until we have universal health care. I can’t get no peace until a woman gets their whole damn dollar. I can’t get no peace until we reform our legal system that is rotten to its core. That sees black men as somehow more criminal, than anybody else. And then black women and other people of color and poor people all across the racial spectrum. I can’t get no peace…

[00:07:43] I can’t get no peace, until those unique and different and distinct pieces of the puzzle come together so that the beautiful picture can be formed. And until we deal with climate chaos, until we legalize cannabis, until we have humane immigration reform. Hello! Ohhhhhhhhhh, I can’t get no peace.

[00:08:15] And what I am asking our 45 Million closest friends and the people who love them. To reconcile themselves on this day, not to allow anybody who don’t believe that we should Cancel Student Debt to get any peace.

[00:08:43] Now, I want you to doubt what a conscious-minded people can do on the move when we can do, because our mission is so high, we can’t get over it. And our mission is so low. We can’t get under it. Our mission is so wide, we can’t get around it. Everywhere you look the mission is there. And what is the mission Sister Turner?

[00:09:07] I’m glad that you asked. For power to bend towards the wheel of the everyday people of this nation, starting with Canceling Student Debt. We can’t get no peace.

[00:09:23] So we can’t get no peace and in the immortal words of Chairman Fred Hampton. All Power. Let me see the fist in the air. All power to all people. All power to all people.

[00:10:31] Shanna Bennett: So tell us what your name is, as if we don’t already know.

[00:10:35] Briahna Joy Gray: Briahna Joy Gray.

[00:10:36] Shanna Bennett: Thank you for being on a Matter of Life and Debt podcast. To start off, what brought you here today?

[00:10:41] Briahna Joy Gray: Student debt cancellation is one of those issues that is just closest to my heart. I think about it a lot. A lot of us fight for a lot of things that don’t necessarily pertain to us personally, the whole ethos of the Bernie campaign was of course, to fight for someone you don’t know. But student debt is one of those issues that pervades a lot of folks with various economic strata, geographic distributions, all of those kinds of things.

[00:11:02] 44 million Americans have student debt. Going to college, getting an education has been held up as a panacea by both parties as they abandoned social programs over the last 40 years of neo-liberalism or so. So everybody has turned to taking out loans and going into college because we were told that is why you’re failing in life.

[00:11:20] That is why you’re failing. Now everybody who wasn’t already affluent is saddled with these loans that they took out in the hopes of having a better life for themselves in the next generation. And so now we’re all in this together. As we face an average of $30,000 of student debt, each of us have many times more than that present company included. And so I don’t know how I can not come given that I live in DC.

[00:11:44] Shanna Bennett: Would you mind sharing with us how much student debt you have?

[00:11:46] Briahna Joy Gray: Yeah, one of the speakers just said I think it was India Walton, said she had $88k plus with the big question sign next to it. Because she stopped checking the balance.

[00:11:52] I’m similarly in that space where I’m not checking the balance. I think I have just under a hundred thousand, probably at this point.

[00:11:58] Shanna Bennett: When someone says to you just pay back your debt, what’s your retort to something like that?

[00:12:03] Briahna Joy Gray: Well, I’m paying back my debt, right? Due to interest, right? I have done some quick back of the envelope math and I believe I’ve paid more than what I took out in the first instance. Right? Because of interest, I will never forget the first year after I started paying back my loans. Opening my tax form that had my interests spelled out clearly and seeing that I had paid $18,000 of interest and about $5,000 of principal, my first year paying my debts after law school.

[00:12:28] So on the average course of the loan, as it sets out for you when you graduate, when they explain to you what it is that you’ve gone through, it’s ambiance, it sets the scene to have scooters going off in the background. That you know, on a $180,000 of debt, you’re expected to pay like $250,000 back.

[00:12:47] So at this point, for many people, it’s not an issue of, have you paid, it’s how much are these companies profiting? How much is the government, in this case, with these federally backed loans, profiting from you having gone to college. And remember affluent people are getting to pay the sticker price to go to college, whereas people who don’t have money are paying that additional premium. Another thing is people will say, well, I have this kind of debt and that kind of debt, why shouldn’t you cancel those kinds of debts? To which I say I will support you in those causes. I absolutely think there’s many, many types of usurious debt and you should not be having to pay it either.

[00:13:20] The reason that we’re focusing on student debt in this particular instance is because it is federally held debt. And so that an executive order and a stroke of a pen, this is one of the few things Joe Biden can do despite having very narrow margins in the Senate. And uncooperative slash depending on if you subscribe to a more rotating and fill in theory of the case, just personally not wanting to actually cancel our debt.

[00:13:41] Like this is it man. He can do it and has no excuse to hide behind. But generally speaking, if you feel like you are being disadvantaged by our economic system, you are likely right. And we absolutely should have movements to talk about canceling all kinds of debt, which is why I usually, when I talk about it, couple the student debt cancellation conversation along with medical debt.

[00:14:01] Because to me, it is particularly egregious in the context of this pandemic. We are spending such huge amounts of money on military spending. When a fraction of that money could cancel the entirety of student debts. I don’t know what the contemporary numbers are, but during the campaign in 2019, it would only have taken $81 billion to cancel all medical debt.

[00:14:21] And, in 2007, There was a bipartisan vote, including many Democrats, including people like Elizabeth Warren who voted to increase Trump’s military budget by the exact same amount of money. And when you look at it side by side and think about what we could be doing to help our fellow Americans, with these kinds of issues and how easily we just raised the military budget, another $31 billion, like last week.

[00:14:43] It really shows you how much it’s a matter of will and not a matter of ability.

[00:14:47] Shanna Bennett: You’ve said so much. Okay. So I am a follower of yours on Instagram. And I remember a conversation. It was either between you and Ashley Taylor, one of the co-founders of that collective, or there was someone else you had on the podcast, but I think it was you that started having a conversation about morality and debt cancellation. And can you speak on that?

[00:15:04] Briahna Joy Gray: I think it was an episode with both Astra and Sparky Abraham, who I was a co-writer with at Current Affairs magazine. And he is a consumer finance attorney and is just such a compassionate, wonderful, and articulate person on the subject. Yeah. It is a moral issue. It is a moral issue for several reasons.

[00:15:21] I, as I already mentioned the idea that we were all kind of conscripted into taking these debts because we were told that, but for going to college and going to vocational school or whatever it is. It’s whatever happens to you, bad financially is your own fault. Like you should have bootstrapped yourself through this.

[00:15:36] So literally we live in a society that’s told us that this is your way out and really pushed us to take on these debts. They told us it was a good bargain and when other and in other, kind of historical contexts where we feel like people have been cheated and misled to take out debt, that we’re serious, there’ve been bailouts. The housing bailouts weren’t where they should have been, bank bailouts are always complete and bankers are made whole. The people who have the money to lobby are made whole. But historically there has been this idea of a Debt Jubilee where every seven years, all debts were canceled because people understood the pernicious effect of those long-term debts on society and individuals and human beings.

[00:16:11] And if people cannot pay their debts, they cannot pay their debts. It’s not a moral failing, locking someone up in a debtor’s prison. It’s not creating money. It’s not paying off the debt. It’s a vindictive, evil purpose. A lot of people also don’t understand how much worse the interest rates are for most student debt than other kinds of interest rates.

[00:16:33] Again, because of some of these lobbying efforts. So I could take out a mortgage, I could buy a million-dollar home. I can buy a $1 million home and write off the interest payments on my taxes right down my textbooks. If I take out a hundred thousand dollars worth of debt, if I make over $60,000 a year, I can write off nothing.

[00:16:49] If I make under $60,000 a year, I can only write off up to $2,000 of interest. And as I mentioned before, so when like me $18,000 of interest, and that’s the way our laws are structured to benefit certain kinds of debts over others. And that’s not me trying to come for homeowners, but I don’t know how old you are.

[00:17:04] I’m a millennial, my generation doesn’t see homeownership, because we are already paying mortgages in the forms of this student debt. And so we did article after article about how we’re ruining the diamond industry cause we’re not proposing, we’re ruining the housing industry and it’s being blamed on avocado toast.

[00:17:16] But really the culprit is a system that purposefully keeps people in this kind of debt slavery. And that is immoral.

[00:17:27] Shanna Bennett: If Joe Biden was here right now, what would you say to him about wide-scale student debt cancellation?

[00:17:32] Briahna Joy Gray: I wouldn’t tell him anything he doesn’t already know.

[00:17:34] Cause he knows he could cancel student debt and all of the posturing about there being this constitutional issue and all about is complete and total malarkey and Joe Biden’s parlance. And he knows better. What I would say to him is that I would do everything in my power to make sure that nobody whom he promised Debt Cancellation to votes for him or any other Democrat until he fulfills that promise. And there are some people that are going to that’s harsh and oh my God, what if Trump wins, what if Republicans win? First of all, Republicans are going to win in the fall regardless. His only saving grace would be to throw a Hail Mary like this and get people excited enough about him actually delivering for his constituents, that they would actually feel the need to go to the polls.

[00:18:11] However I would want him to know that there are people actively, actively working to make sure that there are consequences for Democrats not following through on their campaign promises. And I strongly feel that “vote blue no matter who” is a real impediment to getting any sort of accountability from the party that doesn’t deliver and the bar is so low, it might as well be a Stripe of paint on the sidewalk.

[00:18:31] Shanna Bennett: Thank you so much.

[00:19:00] Excuse me. We have a podcast. Talk about student debt. Would you mind if we asked you who you are and why you’re here today?

[00:19:07] Marianne Williamson: I’m Marianne Williamson and I’m here today because I feel the canceling of student debt is a very significant part of any agenda for fundamental reform of an unfortunately very rigged and unjust economic system. I think that the role of government is to help people thrive, to support people in actualizing their God-given potential, not to thwart them.

[00:19:39] Statistically, when people are educated, they can make more money, which not only serves them, but serves the entire economy. When people are more educated statistically, they can create and produce more of what they feel lies within them, which helps not only them, but the entire society. And the fact that higher education has become so expensive and such an economic burden on people is an aberration.

[00:20:08] It wasn’t this way when I was growing up. And it is part of a systemic and massive transfer of wealth and opportunity over the last 40 years. We are now normalizing an aristocratic paradigm where only the privileged get healthcare. Only the privileged get education. Only the privileged get the opportunities that we should be striving as a society to make universal.

[00:20:36] This is America in this sense is like a car that has careened off the road. And we absolutely must course correct. And I think it’s the responsibility of every American to do what we can to right that very, very listing ship. And rallies like this, what we’re trying to do is to inconvenience the system.

[00:20:59] What our goal is, is to have enough people at this rally that the Secretary of Education would know we were here. To have enough people at these rallies that the president starts finding it an inconvenience, not to respond. That’s what it’s all about. And that’s why I’m here.

[00:21:14] Shanna Bennett: And if Joe Biden was here right now, what would you say to him about wide-scale student debt cancellation?

[00:21:19] Marianne Williamson: How are you going to expect to win? Come on Joe, how are you going to expect to win in 2022? You promised. You’re telling people who stood in a line for seven or eight hours to stand in line again? You’ve got 44 million people who’ve got student loan debt, cancel it, and then say to them, hey, you bring the Republicans back.

[00:21:40] They’re going to put it back. What are you thinking, Joe? Do you really want to win? Because if you really want to win, let me tell you what you do, Joe. You get out that pen. You cancel all college loan debt because you could do it tonight. You declare a medical emergency and expand Medicaid for all, cause you could do it tonight.

[00:21:57] You declassify marijuana from a schedule, one drug. You could do it tonight. Come on, Joe. Come on.

[00:22:05] Shanna Bennett: Lastly, what do you say when people say you took out a loan, just pay it back?

[00:22:10] Marianne Williamson: That’s the main thing, like saying to somebody- see, this is the thing that perhaps some people don’t realize. Although I think certainly people do on some level.

[00:22:19] They should never have existed to begin with. So if I was treated unjustly, I’m not happy to think that injustice will continue just because I had to suffer it. I don’t want other people to have to suffer as I suffered. I mean, they’re all kinds of things where you look at terrible things that happened and then they changed.

[00:22:43] And it’s very unfortunate for the people who were living at a time when the injustice occurred, but that’s not a reason to continue the injustice. Right?

[00:22:52] And there was another thing that I didn’t say, but okay. I’ll add it. Americans have been trained to expect too little, right? The average American might not realize that in most, every advanced nation on earth, there is either free college tuition or very, very low college tuition. This is just one more area where Americans have been trained to expect so little from our government compared to what the citizens of other advanced nations now expect and receive

[00:23:27] Nikki Nolan: Thank you so much. Thank you so much for your time. We appreciate it.

[00:23:31] Shanna Bennett: What a day.

[00:23:32] Nikki Nolan: Tell us what’s been going on.

Shanna Bennett: Okay. We just interviewed Marianne Williamson. And she had some really stern words for our friend, sleepy Joe. I look forward to listening to that and hearing that back. We are on a corner right now from the US Department of Education. And our protesting group is doing three circles around. So we’ve, we’ve lost them right now, but we will catch back up.

[00:23:58] Astra Taylor: H,i I am Astra!

[00:23:59] Nikki Nolan: I’m Nikki.

[00:24:01] Astra Taylor: I know, I know you are!

[00:24:07] Shanna Bennett: Shanna!

[00:24:07] Astra Taylor: Thanks for everything. Y’all I really appreciate what you’ve been doing and the comradery and solidarity and creativity.

[00:24:17] Shanna Bennett: Okay. So we are walking around the US Department of Education protesting for wide-scale student debt cancellation.

[00:24:25] Astra Taylor: My name is Astra Taylor. I’m one of the folks who organizes with and helped found the Debt Collective they have. And I am walking around the Department of Education, kicking a can on a street that symbolically, here’s some sound.

[00:24:42] That symbolically represents the fact that Joe Biden and the Democrats just keep kicking the can on debt cancellation instead of doing the very simple thing of signing an executive order and canceling student debt so that we can go on and protest other things.

[00:24:58] Shanna Bennett: If Joe Biden was here right now, what would you have to say to him about wide-scale student debt cancellation?

[00:25:03] Astra Taylor: Well, I would definitely say, come on, man.

[00:25:08] You know, I think at this point I would put it in sort of crassly electoral terms. You know, he’s losing the faith of people who voted for him. People are actually still really struggling with the economy. People are still struggling with COVID, even though they like to pretend that’s not the case. And you know, he made a very simple, clear promise to cancel student debt and it’s one he can keep.

[00:25:32] And so I think at this point, you know, I don’t know what’s in Joe Biden’s heart. I don’t think he’s particularly persuaded by the moral argument that college should be free, even though it basically was for him. You know, he paid next to nothing for his undergraduate and law degrees. But, you know, you would think he would be persuaded by the political argument.

[00:25:53] Astra Taylor: And so we’re six, seven months out from the midterm. So I think there’s a lot of things I would like to say to Joe, but I think if I saw him right now, I would say, we’re trying to help you, you know? And we’re trying to help everybody because canceling student debt for everyone would lift all boats.

[00:26:12] Right? So this is like a win-win and it’s super easy to do because he can just pick up the pen.

[00:26:19] Shanna Bennett: What are you saying when people say you took out a loan, just pay it back in regards to the overall movement?

[00:26:24] Astra Taylor: But this, you know, we have bankruptcy protections in this country out of an acknowledgement that sometimes debts need to be written off.

[00:26:33] I get our whole legal system is structured on the basis of that recognition. The fact that the debtors need relief is actually hardly radical. It’s written into a pretty conservative legal code and debt cancellation happens all the time. It just tends to happen for those who have savvy lawyers, you know, and who engage in strategic corporate defaults or, you know, who are, who crashed the economy and got our big bank bail out.

[00:26:57] So, you know, and let’s not forget that Donald Trump called himself the “king of debt” because he’s so strategically defaulted throughout the course of his career. So the truth is, debts always are negotiated and renegotiated, and the debts that can’t be paid. You know, there’s more and more economists saying these debts that can’t be paid, won’t be paid.

[00:27:15] And so there’s a kind of economic realism, even though the Debt Collective is motivated by a much bigger vision of society that is equitable. And rooted in racial and economic justice, which we see as one thing, right? The fact is there’s actually, you know, just a kind of pro economic growth argument here.

[00:27:35] Right? We know from the research that this debt burden, student debt burden is keeping people from retiring, from starting families from buying homes. And so this is why we keep saying it’s good for everybody, you know? And so people might say, oh, you took it out. You know, you signed on the dotted line. But, you know, contracts are not, you know, they’re not laws of the universe. Especially when there are contracts between two parties that have very different power and a 17 year old signing a student loan has a lot less power than a loan servicer or the department of education. You know?

[00:28:12] Shanna Bennett: Would you feel comfortable speaking to the concept that if student debt was wiped out, that it would raise taxes, would you feel comfortable speaking to that?

[00:28:20] Astra Taylor: Oh, I mean, there’s absolutely no correlation between canceling student debt and raising taxes. I mean, they increased the military budget this year by 30 billion.

[00:28:27] They’re not raising taxes to cover that. So, you know, the federal government has the ability to spend according to its priorities. And the thing is we actually should raise taxes. We should raise taxes on people who have disproportionate wealth. But there’s no one-to-one correlation. The fact is, you know, what’s interesting about canceling student debt is all of the money’s out the door when they lend it.

[00:28:51] So we’re actually not asking the government to spend new money. We’re asking them about basic, economic reality, which they know. That’s why they have income driven repayment and these programs that let people not pay. We’re saying, look, instead of saying, you’re going to forgive the debt 20 years down the road, forgive it now. We’ll get an economic boost. People will be able to invest in their futures and then you should raise taxes on people with wealth. There’s something else, very interesting too, when the Democrats talk about not raising taxes on the middle class, they always set the income at $400,000. And with student debt, they’re like, oh, well it should only be for people under $125,000.

[00:29:26] So there’s a real hypocrisy. The tax code is just incredibly messed up, but I think the point you’re getting at is that people think canceling debt costs money and it doesn’t.

[00:29:39] Shanna Bennett: Yeah. I don’t know. I think when we had our first podcast episode with the Debt Collective, most recently, I think it was two episodes ago.

[00:29:49] We want to use the opportunity just to say thank you. You weren’t there. So I want to use this opportunity to say thank you so much for everything that you’ve done. I think. There’s something to having an idea that seems fringe at first and kind of sticking with it and kind of having to deal with all of it, the oddness that I think comes with that and kind of just sticking to that.

[00:30:08] So we really appreciate it. I mean, look at us now, like you said, it’s nothing. Everyone is onboard seemingly and it’s not this outlandish idea, wide-scale student debt cancellation. Furthermore, watching political debates and having it be front stage, on a national stage, I mean, unreal, unreal.

[00:30:28] So thank you so much. We really appreciate it.

[00:30:30] Astra Taylor: No, that means so much to me because I mean, I think the reason I stuck with it, cause I read a lot about social movements. And reading about social movements, you realize how hard people have to work for how long. Now you realize that like, you know, today’s April 4th, right?

[00:30:43] It’s the anniversary of Martin Luther King’s assassination. Well, at the time of his murder, people in general, according to polls, despised Martin Luther king, they were over civil rights. You know, and so once you learn your history, you realize that good ideas take a while. You have to organize, you have to put on the pressure, you know, and you have to kind of endure those years of being in the wilderness, I guess.

[00:31:07] But if the thing is that the ideas that we’re talking about are just, and that’s why now when they poll people, something like 63% of likely voters, Democrat and Republicans are for student debt cancellation because actually people realize that it’s fair. But I don’t think I could have stuck with it if I hadn’t studied other movements and other, and learned from other organizers who I saw, like being unrelenting and tenacious.

[00:31:33] And so that’s another way like movements teach each other I think. You know, that you just take that bone and you don’t let go, you know. And you just have to find other people who have that tenacious spirit to do it with you. Yeah.

[00:31:47] Nikki Nolan: I’m so sorry. I’m jumping in here. I’m just curious. What, what keeps you inspired?

[00:31:53] Astra Taylor: I mean, well, A, I just really enjoy the collaboration of organizing. So I have my life as a writer and a filmmaker, so I can be the director or the author on my own. But with the Debt Collective in this movement, we’re building now with all of these other organizations and other allies. Part of something that’s bigger than me that I could never do on my own.

[00:32:31] The other thing that keeps me going is, yeah, I don’t have student debt personally now. I mean, I did, when I began. But I don’t want to live in a world where people can’t afford education and healthcare and rent and where people are jailed because they’re poor. Like it, it makes the world shittier and more stressful for all of us.

[00:32:47] And so I, I’m definitely just not, “I’ve got mine” mentality. And also the last thing I’ll say is I love ideas, but I think ideas actually really need to be enacted. And that’s how you actually learn more. And that’s how you refine them. You know, it’s like, it’s one thing to have your radical theories about how the world should be, but it’s really interesting to test them.

[00:33:11] And so to me, what’s really like, oh, you know, there should be a debt forgiveness. There should be a Debt Jubilee. And then we start to figure out like, how could we do that? Like, it’s just that it’s a really satisfying intellectual puzzle. And it brings me into a community with all kinds of people I wouldn’t otherwise meet.

[00:33:26] Shanna Bennett: Thank you so much for hanging with us and answering our questions. I’m so glad I had a chance to meet you. I’ve seen you from afar several times now, I think, but it was nice to see

[00:33:35] Astra Taylor: This was the best possible place for an interview with you. All right. How’s that?

[00:33:40] Have you ever seen my movie?

[00:33:43] Okay. I made a film in 2008 called Examined Life that is all walks with philosophers and my little sister who is a disability theorist and activists and I anyway, so you’ve got to watch it. And it was like, it was just like you did an Examined Life interview.

[00:33:59] Nikki Nolan: Yeah. That was amazing. How do you feel?

[00:34:04] Shanna Bennett: I feel I’m blown away specifically by the fact that we’ve talked to so many tenacious, well-educated, well-spoken women who are like out to get this done. You know, so if you’re at home and you’re listening to this and you’re thinking, you know, I couldn’t make it, what a bummer. No, we’re here. We’re representing you.

[00:34:26] These women are organized and they’re focused and we will get this done.

[00:34:30] Nikki Nolan: So what are we looking at right now?

[00:34:33] Shanna Bennett: So people are taking chalk and they are writing things on the pavement, like dollar signs and oh, the writing, some of them are writing how much they owe in student loans actually, which is really interesting. I’m looking at one that says $22,000. One says $60,000. I’m seeing $27,000, $50,000, $100,000 in debt, $5,000, $185,000. Holy cow.

[00:35:07] Nikki Nolan: What can you tell us? Is this how much debt do you have?

[00:35:10] Tiffany Dina Loftin: I graduated with $29,000. I have $22,000 left. I’ve never missed a payment. I won’t be done paying my student loans til I’m over a hundred. So I’m out here because I want my student loan debt canceled. I want everybody else’s student loan, debt canceled, and more importantly, I want to make education a right. So it’s affordable and accessible to everyone.

[00:35:28] Shanna Bennett: Okay. So the effigy of Joe Biden is now in front of, is now in front of the US Department of Education. He’s been given a pen, he’s waving his hands at us. It’s larger than life.

[00:35:42] Annie Wilson: Oh, hello, my name is Annie Wilson.

[00:35:46] Shanna Bennett: Why are you here today?

[00:35:48] Annie Wilson: Because Joe Biden needs to cancel all the student debt. I’m a choreographer and a volunteer with a PA Debt Collective. Yeah. Based in Philadelphia,

[00:36:02] I had so much debt throughout all of my twenties that absolutely shaped my adult life. I managed to pay a lot of it down and having that ease of life that having so little student debt gave me something that every time. Everybody should have.

[00:36:17] Shanna Bennett: Okay. If Joe Biden was here right now, Annie, what would you say to his face?

[00:36:20] Annie Wilson: Pick up a pen. Sign the executive order we wrote for you. It’s a huge political win. It is massively popular. Yeah, go for it.

[00:36:34] It would mean that the, that me and the people in my community have a future, that debt is stealing from them right now.

[00:36:43] Shanna Bennett: Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts. I’m glad we got to see each other. I was hoping I would see you. You called my sister, or texted her. And she was like, can you guys tell Annie I’m not on my bus? Cause she signed up originally for the Philly bus. Cause we’re from Philly and she just kind of made a mistake and I was like, I’ll tell her, I’ll tell her.

[00:37:00] And I just never told you, so I’m glad. So my sister drove from Chicago to Cincinnati, and then we flew from Cincinnati to New York to be on the New York bus, to come to DC, to hang with Nikki and Emma, the producers and creator of the podcast. And to get some content for the podcast, which is great. We’ve got to talk to a lot of great people with a lot of really interesting stories.

[00:37:56] Braxton Brewington: The Debt Collective has roots in Occupy Wall Street. We use a lot of biblical frameworks. We’ve been walking around with the Department of Education as they walked around the walls of Jericho and now the walls are about to fall.

I am not a pastor, I can’t really do like Nina. But they say the last time you blow the horns, that’s when the walls fall.

So we’re going to blow the horns one more time. On the count of 3. 1, 2, 3.
(horns blow)

Shanna Bennett: If you liked this 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.

It is edited by Nikki Nolan, transcripts and writing is done by Emma Klauber. Efe Akerman created the theme music.

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.

Thanks again for listening.

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