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Bill Maurer: This evening's panel. Before we get started, I'd like to thank our co sponsors, which are very numerous indeed. And if Ryan could show the sponsorship slide, we can recognize them for their support of these events. Bill Maurer: You Brian, the chance. There we are. Bill Maurer: We have a wide number of supporters from across the entire campus that have helped make this series of events possible. I'd like to recognize them and acknowledge them in deep appreciation for their support. Bill Maurer: Now the students are welcome to share their reflections on this series of events and tonight's event through short video reflection submissions. Bill Maurer: I think Ryan, if you could put up the next slide that has the instructions and website for submitting your videos, there's going to be an award of Bill Maurer: 10 $50 amazon gift cards selected at random and the videos will be featured on on social media. So check that out. This information is also available on the UC Humanities Center website. Bill Maurer: And with that, let's get started. It's my honor to introduce our moderator for this evening he aka Yamada Taylor. Bill Maurer: She's an assistant professor in the Department of African American Studies at Princeton University and the author of race for profit, how banks and the real estate industry undermined black homeownership Bill Maurer: Which was long listed for a National Book Award for nonfiction and 2020 and was a finalist for the Pulitzer in history. Bill Maurer: Her book from hashtag Black Lives Matter to black liberation Wonderland and cultural freedom Award for an especially notable book in 2016 Bill Maurer: She's the editor of how we get free black feminism and the Columbia River collected which one the lambda Literary Award for LGBT Q nonfiction in 2018 Bill Maurer: And is a columnist for The New York at you for The New Yorker younger. Thank you so much for moderating tonight's panel and I will turn it over to you. Keaanga-Yamahtta Taylor: Thank you, Bill. I'm very happy to be here from the east coast in Philadelphia. Keaanga-Yamahtta Taylor: And so let's let's get started I want to introduce our panelists for this evening, and they are going to speak for roughly 10 minutes each, and then we will have Keaanga-Yamahtta Taylor: A robust discussion between the panelists and then open things up as well to those of you who have tuned in to join us tonight. Keaanga-Yamahtta Taylor: To begin with, we have Peter Hudson, Peter, James Hudson is an associate professor of African American Studies and history at UCLA. Keaanga-Yamahtta Taylor: He isn't a historian who completed his PhD and the American Studies Program at New York University. Keaanga-Yamahtta Taylor: His research interests are in the history of capitalism white supremacy and US imperialism, the intellectual and political economic history of the Caribbean and black world. Keaanga-Yamahtta Taylor: And the history of black radicalism in global anti imperialism. He is the author of banks bankers and Empire how Wall Street colonize the Caribbean. Keaanga-Yamahtta Taylor: Next we have Murcia bear Darren, who is an associate dean and Professor of Law at the University of California at Irvine. Keaanga-Yamahtta Taylor: Bear Darren is the author of the color of money black banks and the racial wealth gap. And if you are in on Instagram, you will have seen Tallahassee coats raving about this book. Keaanga-Yamahtta Taylor: Over the last couple of weeks, every opportunity that he gets. She's also author of how the other half banks exclusion exploitation and the threat to democracy. Keaanga-Yamahtta Taylor: Her research focuses on financial inclusion racial inequality and banking regulation. Keaanga-Yamahtta Taylor: And then we have bill Maura bill is the Dean of the School of Social Sciences and professor of anthropology at UC Irvine. Keaanga-Yamahtta Taylor: He's the editor of the six volume series a cultural history of money and the author of How would you like to pay how technology is changing the future of money. Keaanga-Yamahtta Taylor: He has been conducting research on monetary alternatives and the financial technology industry. So with that we will begin with Peter Peter Hudson: Thank you for the introduction and for the invitation to take part in this project. It's, it's good to Peter Hudson: Be able to kind of digitally break bread with with so many smart people who work on on banking. So let me get started. The 1619 project begins with the historical provocation and a geographical caveat. Peter Hudson: On the text of the cover. The New York Times Magazine. The project is inaugurated by the following sentences in August of 6019 a ship appeared on this horizon. Peter Hudson: Near point comfort a coastal port in the British Colony of Virginia. It carried more than 20 enslaved Africans who were sold to the colonies, America was not yet America. Peter Hudson: But this was the moment it began. Peter Hudson: The provocation is what is upset so many people about the project. It is created strange political alliances and uneasy historical bedfellows. Peter Hudson: Of those who refuse this writing of US history, a rewriting that locates the origins of the United States in the history of slavery and the arrival of Africans and of those who quite simply hate that. This story was inaugurated by a black woman. Peter Hudson: But the caveat, America was not yet. America has also drawn a certain criticism for it suggests an inevitability, a TV ology about the formation of these United States and it suggests, as others have pointed out. Peter Hudson: A sentiment were in not only was America destined to become America, but those 20 Africans and their descendants were destined to become African Americans. Peter Hudson: 400 years later, we can force this narrative into being. But in 6019 that is doubtful that anyone, especially those Africans saw their arrival as the first sentence of the first chapter of the origin story of the United States. Peter Hudson: It is this almost Messianic historical forward motion. Get that gives rise to gives rise to the geographical caveat geographical caveat that I mentioned. Peter Hudson: This while there is no inevitable preordained history of the United States. There's also no inevitable proven to ordained geographical Peter Hudson: Geography of the United States. Put another way, while we have in our minds come to naturalize the current political boundaries of the United States. Peter Hudson: Even though people are already talking about it breaking up after this election. But will we can leave that for the discussion. Peter Hudson: For many, many decades, the geography of the US was shaped by an expansion is forever enabled by but also redirected and tempered by world historical conjunctions, and geopolitical forces outside of the president boundaries of the United States. Peter Hudson: But I think this geographical or spatial caveat can be further expanded upon Peter Hudson: For the space the territory of the United States was also shaped by a force that unfortunately receives but short shrift in the 1619 project. The fourth Peter Hudson: And history of imperialism in shaping what the United States was to become but also what it is. Peter Hudson: Where is the history of certainly domestic settler colonialism, but also the US territories overseas in this story of national origins and identity. Peter Hudson: Of those colonies Neil colonies and protectorates Puerto Rico Guam and Hawaii. Peter Hudson: But also at different times, Cuba Haiti, the Dominican Republic, the Philippines and also those nominally sovereign nations from Canada to Mexico to Argentina. Peter Hudson: That have fallen under the sway of US commercial policy and trade agreements of dollarisation and often of military intervention and occupation. Peter Hudson: To speak, then a financial legacies to use the title of this panel is not only to speak of the domestic League. Peter Hudson: legacy of slavery within the death domestic organization and history of finance and banking. Peter Hudson: It is also to understand the capital accumulation reaped by banking institutions through the economy of slavery that would, in many cases spur and support us financial and political, economic, Peter Hudson: Expansion abroad. In other words, the financial financial legacy of slavery can be found in the history of US imperial banking. Peter Hudson: And by accounting for the history of both we both extend the conversation is initiated through the 1619 project while offering a certain critique of the story of US identity and origins Peter Hudson: Let me talk briefly about three such imperial us imperial banking institutions, each one of these institutions has origins in the slave economies of the 19th century. Peter Hudson: Each one has played a major role in the history of what is the for mystically known as the era of dollar diplomacy of the early 20th century, that is in the history of US imperial expansion in the Caribbean. Peter Hudson: And today, each one remains among the most important financial institutions in the country. Peter Hudson: These institutions are Brown Brothers Brown Brothers Harriman JPMorgan Chase and the city group all emerged, or we can go back to the Brown Brothers slide. Peter Hudson: All emerged. Thank you. In the mercantile world of the 19th century Atlantic and the blood washed animals of capitalism and slavery. Peter Hudson: First round Brown Brothers Brown Brothers began his Irishman and merchants who success led them to money lending, especially to the slave owners of the South. Peter Hudson: The banking business properly began to the establishment of independent merchant banks in Philadelphia, New York and Liverpool. Peter Hudson: But the success of their investment activities led them to abandon their mercantile operations by the 20th century looking to to further expand Peter Hudson: They partnered with J. W. Seligmann another private banking house with ties to slavery to form the mercantile bank of the Americas. Peter Hudson: largely forgotten. Today the mercantile Bank of America was at one time, one of the largest international banking institutions in the United States. Peter Hudson: Through a period of rapid expansion it organized branches and affiliates affiliated institutions in almost every country in the Caribbean and South America, while controlling outright. The National Bank of Nicaragua. Peter Hudson: It's fall with a spectacular as its rise. Peter Hudson: The Post World War One drop in commodity prices, especially that of sugar found the mercantile bank of the Americas over leveraged and it and it would collapse almost bringing Brown Brothers down with it. Peter Hudson: And its assets were liquidated and absorbed by other banking institution. Peter Hudson: But during its brief heyday. It was an important and influential force Nicaragua was dubbed the Republic of Brown Brothers because of its influence in that country. Peter Hudson: Well bank directors were instrumental in calling for US military intervention in the Central American Republic second JP Morgan Chase. Peter Hudson: The origins of JP Morgan Chase are too convoluted to recounts here built has it was through dozens and dozens of mergers over the past century. Peter Hudson: But it is worth noting that among the predecessor institutions are to Louisiana banks, the Citizens Bank and the canal bank. Peter Hudson: Both institutions were established in the 1830s. Both were deeply involved in the economy of slavery between 1830 in 1865 together they directly owned 1250 slaves, while the records show that they accepted more than 13,000 slaves as collateral. Peter Hudson: The Citizens Bank and the canal bank merged in 1924. In 1931 the resulting institution was absorbed by the chase. Peter Hudson: Significantly at that time the chase. At the time, the chase absorb the Louisiana institutions. Peter Hudson: It was not only engage in the spree of acquisitions as a sought to become the largest bank in the US attempting to overtake it's great rival the Citibank, but it was also expanding overseas, especially Peter Hudson: Into the Caribbean and Latin America, like Brown Brothers and it formed an international bank holding company this time called the American foreign Banking Corporation Peter Hudson: At the end of the First World War and like the mercantile bank of the Americas. The American foreign Banking Corporation collapse collapse with the end of the commodity. Boom. Peter Hudson: Later in the decade the chase turned away from international branch banking as a means to expansion and turn to sovereign debt financing. Peter Hudson: In Cuba, especially. They did everything possible to secure the nation's debt, working with Cuban Peter Hudson: Dictator Geraldo Machado supporting him and funding his repression of the Cuban people once Peter Hudson: Machado was removed from power the Cuban people decried the audience debt imposed on the country by the bank and sought to renounce it Peter Hudson: The Chase remained in Cuba for the next three decades. However, an important ally to power it wasn't until the Cuban revolutions waves of nationalisations of US industry that acrimoniously left the country. Third and finally City Group. Peter Hudson: Founded in 1812 by a group of wealthy New York merchants, the Citibank as it was then called quickly played an important role in the US political economy slavery was always a part of its history. Peter Hudson: Textile importer Isaac right director of the bank from 1825 to 1827 and President from 1827 to 1932 owned a line of clippers, the black ball shipping line initiating regular packet service between New York and Liverpool Southern planter. Peter Hudson: Charles Stillman father of Lake Bank President later Bank President James Stillman use the bank as a depository. Peter Hudson: Stillman ran cotton around the blockade of the South and made a lucrative business during the last years of the Civil War supplying Southern cotton to Liverpool and many Peter Hudson: Manchester manufacturers and provisioning, the Confederate Army Moses Taylor president of National City Bank from 1856 until his death in 1882 Peter Hudson: Extended this connection beyond the United States as the most prominent sugar broker in New York City, he derived most of his profits from his dealings with Cuban sugar plantation planters and Cuban slavery. Peter Hudson: By the 20th 20th Century City was at the for the internationalization of Wall Street. Peter Hudson: And by 1914 it took a leading role in the establishment of branch banks abroad, especially in the Caribbean and Latin America. Peter Hudson: Cuba and Cuban sugar was key to its expansion, but it also became entangled with the National Bank of Haiti eventually taking control of it. Peter Hudson: And the bank was instrumental in the call for US military intervention and the occupation of Haiti and occupation THAT LASTED SOME 19 years from 1915 to 1934 and left thousands of Haitians dead. Peter Hudson: No more can be said about the city banks operations in the in the Caribbean. Peter Hudson: As well as those other banks, but for the sake of time, I will leave it there. But there are a couple of ideas that I hope this brief admittedly cursory overview can point us to and help spur some discussion. Peter Hudson: First, in my opinion, we need to do more work to understand how the legacies of slavery in US finance institutions not only continued domestically but enabled internationalization. Peter Hudson: The question of the US. Peter Hudson: Second, excuse me, we should always ask the question of the ties between racial capitalism and finance Finance Capitalism or financial capitalism. Peter Hudson: Or perhaps develop an analytic that allows us to see them as one and the same thing. Third, how does this racial financial capitalism. Peter Hudson: The racial financial capitalist nexus enable us to to understand the forms of US military violence and the loss of sovereignty of the peoples in the Caribbean and elsewhere in the world. Peter Hudson: And finally, what questions can we ask of black identity and of the nature of anti blackness. If this question is rendered through the Nexus and history of US imperialism. Thank you very much for your time. I look forward o the discussion. Keaanga-Yamahtta Taylor: Thank you. That was great. Next we have Marisa Vera Darren. Mehrsa Baradaran: And thank you and I, you know, have two different instincts is one is to, you know, present. But the other is just to hear you all talk because nobody does better work on the intersections as Peter said of capitalism and race as Mehrsa Baradaran: Peter and counting and Bill. So I'm going to try to just share quickly what I Mehrsa Baradaran: Came to share and then really hope that we can have a conversation about this and Mehrsa Baradaran: My you know my initial contribution to the 1619 project was the ways in which capitalism specifically certain money forums and the way that we do banking and credit in the United States is not understandable doesn't make sense. But for Mehrsa Baradaran: How a built on slavery and what came after. So I'm actually going to start with the after and I you know I Mehrsa Baradaran: Think that the myths that we tell specifically about markets and credit and money present some of the biggest obstacles to closing the racial wealth gap and toward Mehrsa Baradaran: achieving economic justice. For example, the problem of free market capitalism, be it you know Adam Smith promise or the Marxist even Mehrsa Baradaran: You know critique is that money doesn't discriminate that free markets are to offer opportunity to all based on one skill and ability to produce Mehrsa Baradaran: Yet history reveals and in fact markets do discriminate or, alternatively, that the American economy has never born any resemblance to a free market. Mehrsa Baradaran: For most of our history black men and women have been excluded from occupations schools neighborhoods and trades and the property was not protected by the law. Mehrsa Baradaran: And in each specifically in each historical moment when wealth is being created. It was created with the subsidization and the credit mechanism of the federal government in tandem with, you know, as Mehrsa Baradaran: Peter eloquently explained the banks that were the essentially the invisible hand of the state and market. So, whether through the Homestead Act FHA mortgage credit GI bill. Mehrsa Baradaran: Housing finances as Congress and Britain Britain brilliantly about black communities were shut out the land and wealth accumulation and this young explained men were Mehrsa Baradaran: exploited by predatory inclusion. That's her phrasing, and moreover at Mehrsa Baradaran: Certain pivot points in history, specifically during Reconstruction, and the civil rights era. And this is where I'm going to focus quickly on the Reconstruction era where black communities were demanding. Mehrsa Baradaran: Justice and capital to remedy past injustices. The rhetoric, a free market capitalism is used as a weapon. Mehrsa Baradaran: So instead of real reform the black community was offered a self help market of segregated banks and businesses. In other words, Mehrsa Baradaran: Leaders upholding the dominance of white market institutions promise that the market will fix the problems that were created by law, backed by violence and Mehrsa Baradaran: The Imperial arm of the state as Peter I referenced so quickly. I want to demonstrate that, you know, and I do this more expansively in some of my other work but Mehrsa Baradaran: Insofar as the levers of power were helped by right and the economy was based on racial subordination markets would perpetually block a capital accumulation in the black community and that was essentially the point. And so starting with. I'm just going to share Mehrsa Baradaran: The Confederate struggling with reconstruction. So, so one of the things about slavery is not just that it's a labor economy is not black labor that is creating wealth. It is also capital in Slate so slaves are treated and they are Mehrsa Baradaran: Used as collateral for further loans and wealth and that is wealth that is not just in the south in the slave owners themselves, but that goes north and east to Mehrsa Baradaran: To Europe and, and after Adonis emancipation, you know, black Friedman and and women weren't Mehrsa Baradaran: Supposed to transition from being capital being the basis on which the southern currency is essentially based to becoming capitalist and the Civil War was really a Mehrsa Baradaran: Competition obviously between the Union troops and the southerners, but it was also a currency battle, and there were different countries bought the southern Confederate currency that was sleep back and and the northern currency. Mehrsa Baradaran: One. One. The, the war and one because they were able to have their currency accepted by foreign Mehrsa Baradaran: Governments and Friedman and the abolitionists allies demanded land as a form of reparation and as a punishment for a treasonous Confederates Mehrsa Baradaran: Without land they reason freedom and justice would be meaningless and participation capitalism would be a farce. Mehrsa Baradaran: The President Andrew Johnson veto the land grant and the Freedmen's bill except one provision, which was a bank, which I'll talk about in a second. Um, and he reasoned and this is the first time we're we're capitalism is used as a weapon. Mehrsa Baradaran: He reason that the freedmen would protect would protect themselves. Mehrsa Baradaran: By contract law, and then they would just bargain for fair wages and buy their own land and that that was the right way to do it. So this was either unbelievably naive or incredibly cynical. Mehrsa Baradaran: The Southern economy was nothing like a free market whites refused to sell property to blacks and southern legislators lawyers and judges drafted laws governing every aspect of black labor. Mehrsa Baradaran: They restricted black men and women from skilled trades vacancy laws were prevalent prevalent wages were capped by law, and by cabal between employers. Mehrsa Baradaran: And violations let to conduct labor and further exploitive extraction of labor. Mehrsa Baradaran: By the end of the Reconstruction Era most Friedman were left landless bootlace and with practically every profession barred and blocked the property not protected by law to the extent that they could buy any Mehrsa Baradaran: The only choice was to grow cotton and of course that was the point as a worldwide cotton market was heavily dependent on cheap and abundant cotton from the United States. Mehrsa Baradaran: And in order to have cotton exports, the freedmen had to grow it for the shadow on around which the laws and this this exploitive sharecropping system was Mehrsa Baradaran: Created was what happened in Haiti, not just the violence of the of the of the revolution but the fact that once they got land they refuse to grow. Mehrsa Baradaran: Sugar as the primary vehicle, because if you have land, you're going to grow some subsistence props for your family and you're going to grow the debt crop. Mehrsa Baradaran: Just maybe a portion of your land and that is what every there's every reason to believe that black men and women would also do. And yet, if they did that the cotton prices would increase and the exporters' would would suffer as would the Mehrsa Baradaran: The, the mills. And so in order to have kind of exports, the freedmen could not get land and Mehrsa Baradaran: So, so that that was the actual impetus for not providing land. And in the meantime, of course, the federal government was actively providing freelance private railroad expansion. Mehrsa Baradaran: And to, you know, white men and women through the Homestead Act. So blacks were denied land, not because the government was constrained by laissez faire economics, but because as Andrew Johnson explained, America was and should remain a white man's government Mehrsa Baradaran: And this white man's government had control over capital and land because it had control over lawmaking. Mehrsa Baradaran: And enforced it through the state's monopoly on violence. So instead of getting land freed slaves got a bank in 1865 Mehrsa Baradaran: And Union General Oliver Otis Howard explain to the bank was better anyway because it would teach them about thrift and savings and Friedman should earn land and not receive it as a gift. Mehrsa Baradaran: The Freedmen's Savings Bank was the only tangible creation of the Mehrsa Baradaran: Freedmen's Bureau and no bank before or since has resembled the Freedmen's think it was created by Congress signed into law by Lincoln with a special Charter. Mehrsa Baradaran: The Federal Reserve was still decades away and the bank was immediately successful, it was embraced by the freed slaves, because of the Mehrsa Baradaran: The, the money that was advertised essentially as being backed by the federal government, the bills and the notes of the building were covered in government insignia Mehrsa Baradaran: And they were seems to be backed by the government, which at the time of made them much more valuable. So at the time, you know, if you have JPMorgan Chase hundred dollar note you would buy it for $100 on the market. Mehrsa Baradaran: Yet, if you had a note from some, you know, random bank in Michigan, you would discount it because you didn't know if it was going to be Mehrsa Baradaran: Available to the fact that these notes were had Lincoln face on it. It seems to Mehrsa Baradaran: Indicate backing by the government and the mission of the bank, according to the Congressional Charter. Mehrsa Baradaran: Was not to make loans, but to safeguard the deposits of the freed slaves. So was not to be a commercial bank. Mehrsa Baradaran: But it was supposed to be a glorified and piggy bank and for decades and in the South. They disseminate this propaganda that this was the safest place to put your money and to buy Mehrsa Baradaran: Land and and the capital grew to what would be about $1.5 billion today too much for the white managers at the time to resist that big pool of stagnant capital. Mehrsa Baradaran: At the bank president was Henry cook, brother of the infamous Wall Street speculator Jay Cooke, he took the deposit he looted the bank. Mehrsa Baradaran: And he speculated them on personal profit in the railroad bond market, which was a subprime market of the day depositors lost about half of their deposits Mehrsa Baradaran: And the significance of this failure reverberates and lingers in the community. Mehrsa Baradaran: For decades, black leaders and bankers for almost a century, repeated the assertion that the bank had caused the black community to not only distrust white banks, but they're Mehrsa Baradaran: The federal government and their own banks WB Dubois hasn't Black Reconstruction and not even 10 additional years of slavery. Mehrsa Baradaran: Could have done so much to throttle the Thrift of the freedmen as mismanagement and the bankruptcy of the Freedmen's bank charter by the nation for their special aid and by the time this is the the Mehrsa Baradaran: He also, you know, the voice talks about how they lost the vote essentially that they've been given the 15th Amendment what they got was this bank and Mehrsa Baradaran: And by the time the Freedmen's bank failed disenfranchisement the black population was complete. Mehrsa Baradaran: The rights ran into the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments were notified by legislators courts police power and the paramilitary violence of the clan. Mehrsa Baradaran: And in a series of decisions from 1873 to 1898 the Supreme Court WEEKEND. WHAT LITTLE rights remains and bless Jim Crow disenfranchisement outlawed the Civil Rights Act of 1875 is unconstitutional and as a Chief Justice wrote 20 years after emancipation. Mehrsa Baradaran: While black men were lynched without due process. And while Jim Crow was Mehrsa Baradaran: The law of the South that since slavery. It was high time for for black men and women to stand on their own two feet and stop being the special favorite of the law. Mehrsa Baradaran: And for the next century, the 14th Amendment came up more to defend corporations against state overreach than it did black men and women against the hostile arm of the state. Mehrsa Baradaran: The state use use its power to uphold property rights for corporations out wallet deprive them of black men and women and showing actually the corporations where their special favorite Mehrsa Baradaran: Of the law. And so I'll stop there. But to say that this was not the only time that this Subversion happened that capitalism was used as Mehrsa Baradaran: A weapon, it happens again post civil rights through Nixon's law capitals and program as neoliberalism becomes the rhetorical weapon against any demands for justice in the late 60s. So I look forward to the conversation. Thank you. Keaanga-Yamahtta Taylor: That's great. Thank you. Marcia, next we have build more Bill Maurer: Thank you. And I also am looking forward to our conversation a little bit Bill Maurer: I'm going to be talking about payment. And when I say payment. I mean something very specific. I mean, the technologies, through which we access money. So for instance, through using cash using a check a credit or debit card or some kind of app or a watch or something. Bill Maurer: And Ryan. If I could have just my first slide, that would be great. I'm going to start with the current pandemic. Bill Maurer: And one often overlooked aspect of the racial ization of the current pandemic being the politics of payment that is how people are able to access their own money. Bill Maurer: And the relief funds that they're entitled to you from federal, state and local governments. Bill Maurer: And you may have seen on the news or just by walking and driving around the long lines at some ATMs when the initial stimulus payments were dispersed on prepaid debit cards for people without bank accounts, which is up to a quarter of US households. Bill Maurer: They had to figure out how to get the money off the debit card and Bill Maurer: Ended up through word of mouth spreading information about the ATM that would charge you. The lowest amount of fees and allow you to withdraw the highest amount of money so you can get your cash out out of the ATM using that debit card. Bill Maurer: To then do things like pay your rent. Because again, if you don't have access to a bank account. You're paying all of your bills. You're paying your band. You're paying medical bills in cash. Bill Maurer: For people who live in a cash economy and, again, about a quarter of American households are on or under bank. Bill Maurer: If you don't have access to a bank account, then you don't have access to the credit cards and debit cards that allow you to use things like Ben mo or PayPal or a delivery app or whatever and getting cash is absolutely crucial to your survival. Bill Maurer: And all of our current digital payment methods essentially like these ATMs are expensive gated communities that exact a tight in the form of fees for the privilege of accessing your money. Bill Maurer: Now this has a history and given this panel, you won't be surprised that it is a history seeped in American racism. Bill Maurer: Those fees. We pay at the ATM and that merchants pay when we use our credit and debit cards. Go back to a time when the US Federal Reserve forced banks not to assess fees for the clearance of paper checks. Bill Maurer: When the Fed was first established and most banks. If you brought a check, you would be assessed the fee called interchange Bill Maurer: Which would diminish the amount that you got in return, and the Fed stamped out that practice over a period of time in the early part of the 20th century. Bill Maurer: And eliminating those fees on checks was one of the first important achievements of the fed it smooth interstate commerce. Bill Maurer: But it also represented an extension of federal power over the states in the name of a democratization of payment. The idea being that my check that I deposit or bring the cash at one bank should be the same should be I should get the same amount of cash at one bank as any other bank. Bill Maurer: Bankers and other industry groups responded Bill Maurer: To the abolition of these fees on checks by creating new payment systems that escaped. Bill Maurer: The Feds ban on those fees and those new payment systems are familiar card networks, beginning with the Diners Club. Bill Maurer: And eventually Visa, Maste Card, Discover and American Express and I could go into the history of each one of these, but I want to focus instead on that period of the feds getting rid of the interchange fees on checks and Ryan. If I could have the next slide. Bill Maurer: Banks that assessed those fees were called non par banks because they didn't clear checks for their face value. They didn't clear them at par Bill Maurer: And what do we see yours, our map of nonprofit banking in the 40s when the Fed was just completing just before the Fed completed the process of eliminating this practice, the majority of nonprofit banks were in states that were historically members of the Confederacy. Bill Maurer: Assessing interchange on checks was a way to essentially justify segregation in banking. Bill Maurer: I'll talk a little bit about those great plains northern states in a second, because they're also kind of interesting. Bill Maurer: It's instructive to hear how people talk about this at the time, Southern bankers to fight the Fed establish something called the National and State bankers protective association. Bill Maurer: And fiercely defended nonprofit banks and went to Congress to argue their case. And I just want to quote one bankers. Bill Maurer: testimony before Congress. So you get a flavor of the kind of rhetoric and argument involved. So here's a southern banker talking about this fed project to eliminate these interchange fees on checks. Bill Maurer: He says the country bank needs no eulogy its money cleared the forest made the countryside livable in the city possible Bill Maurer: As a rule, that's life has been honestly spent with one object in view and that objective was the preservation of the physical values and the character values of its community. Bill Maurer: It should not die for with it will go. The last bastion of states rights and freedom will shriek from its fall Bill Maurer: Um, so, I mean, this is like pretty intense rhetoric for a conversation and Congress about bank fees. Right. Bill Maurer: But but think through what was just said here again for physical values and character values. This is all about whiteness and the whiteness of the community that the southern makes support it for states rights read, of course, segregation Bill Maurer: For long and our country's history. The states rights rather has been in support of segregation and Rachel capitalism. Bill Maurer: Now when Federal Reserve agents went to try to, you know, visit banks to see if they were actually adhering to the new fad policies, eliminating non part banking. Bill Maurer: They had to arm themselves like with weapons with guns going bank to bank and frequently would actually be chased by the vigilantes that had been mentioned already, and run out of town. Bill Maurer: The chairman of that Southern Bankers Association, the national and state bankers protective association compared them to socialists now on the northern plains states here. Bill Maurer: similarly situated to the south, with respect to monopoly country banks and driven by its agricultural sector. Bill Maurer: You had a lot of the same racial rhetoric, but also pretty intense anti semitic rhetoric. So a local paper. Bill Maurer: A pint about this fed process of eliminating non part banking quote the Federal Reserve System is divisible hand of the invisible empire. Bill Maurer: Capitalized invisible empire, taking the pockets of the producers of real wealth of quote Bill Maurer: Now fast forward to today, the debit and credit card networks and the apps that depend on them all. Now it says various fees for the privilege of separating you from your money. Bill Maurer: Those fees for the banks response to the abolition of interchange and non par banking. Bill Maurer: Now, I might brush off a 3% fee on a vendor co payment, but that's a lot of money. And those long ATM lines tell a different story from my casual Bill Maurer: Person to person payments corporate payment providers business model rests first on those fees that legacy of non par banking. Bill Maurer: And now increasingly second on the harvesting of transactional data and we could spend a whole other session of the 1619 project here on the legacies of deification in Bill Maurer: In the account books and insurance policies that Peter mentioned of slavery as well as the contemporary racial politics of algorithmic governance, whether in policing or in marketing. Bill Maurer: So during the pandemic. We've heard a lot of rhetoric about how this is the end of cash and cash is dying. Bill Maurer: Even as cash demand is actually way, way up in part again because so many Americans are unbanked Bill Maurer: Brett Scott, who's a journalist and a strong critic of corporate efforts to create a cashless future says that digital payments are a gentrification process. Bill Maurer: I'd only add to his comment that they have a deep connection to Jim Crow era exclusion of black people from the financial system as well as schemes to exactly the equivalent of a type from them in the form of interchange and other fees as well as our also personal data. Thanks. Keaanga-Yamahtta Taylor: Thank you thank thanks to all of you for Keaanga-Yamahtta Taylor: These really great presentation. So I guess the you know what these things that the first thing that Keaanga-Yamahtta Taylor: I would ask is, is, do any of you have a Keaanga-Yamahtta Taylor: Reaction question or comments for Keaanga-Yamahtta Taylor: Your co panelists because your talks you know obviously overlap but Keaanga-Yamahtta Taylor: There's some interesting divergences so Mehrsa Baradaran: And I do I, you know, Phil, I wonder if you think one of the things I've been toying with the idea that the FDIC, so there was a pivot point Mehrsa Baradaran: In during the New Deal and, you know, obviously, you know, the, the New Deal was kind of put together by, you know, Southern Democrat kind of white supremacy and also the Mehrsa Baradaran: You know, the good progressive I sort of movement, the north and and I wonder if you think Mehrsa Baradaran: You know, and then there's the this you know do postal banking, we could do FDIC insurance and the South really wanted FDIC insurance. I wonder if that you see as a way that payments and the banking system gets kind of Mehrsa Baradaran: In that moment, is it also Bill Maurer: Sort of bifurcated Mehrsa Baradaran: Yeah, yeah. So I don't know, I often go back to that moment, no wonder we have gone the brand ice and way of like a Mehrsa Baradaran: Treating banks as public utilities and treating payments as a public utility, which wouldn't have, you know, favored this localism of the FDIC insurance and allow the southern bankers to actually just maintain Jim Crow, which is what maybe they wanted. I don't. I wonder about that. Bill Maurer: It's, it's a great question because the other thing that these other bankers were very caught up in and this gets to the money debates in the 19th Bill Maurer: Century and coming into the Bill Maurer: 20th was that idea of sound money right they cried credit money and and you know many people on the left and right. Do the same thing today and to cry. The way that banks can create money. Bill Maurer: out of thin air, so to speak, but but they did that, from a position of a belief that you know money. Bill Maurer: Is a sort of natural law type thing that has a value in itself and that depository institutions reflects that kind of soundness with the idea that, you know, Bill Maurer: The money, you have to be backed by bullion it'd be locked up in a vault or something. Right. So the, the whole FDIC scheme is really tilted toward depository institutions not credit institutions and if I'm the person with all the money. I want to Bill Maurer: In what I want to hoard it and hold on to it as opposed to the more kind of a on you. You said it. Bill Maurer: Very well about how like the whole thing is never actually been a free market right as opposed to the kind of more free market vision of let there be credit and let's go which we can also criticize. I think it's a great observation of that that that bifurcation right at the start. Keaanga-Yamahtta Taylor: So I have a question before I ask it. I just want to also encourage people who are watching, if you have questions, to use the question and answer box to Keaanga-Yamahtta Taylor: To pose your question. Um, so this summer. This past summer, there was quite a bit of Keaanga-Yamahtta Taylor: Discussion about systemic racism in some ways, it became the phrase. Keaanga-Yamahtta Taylor: Of it there. There's, there's the slogan of define the police, but almost as a corollary, everyone was discussing systemic racism is something that we need to get rid of. Keaanga-Yamahtta Taylor: And the most curious thing that I have found about this, especially listening to your presentation presentations is the decided absence of any discussion of what the system in systemic racism actually is. And so I think each of your talks either specifically Keaanga-Yamahtta Taylor: Invoke ratio capitalism or infer ratio capitalism. And so I'm wondering, one if you can discuss what is meant by racial capitalism, because in some ways I think it has become Keaanga-Yamahtta Taylor: Like neoliberalism, which is this thing that everyone mentions but 10 people mentioned it and 10 people mean 10 different things. Keaanga-Yamahtta Taylor: When they raise it. So if you could say something about what is meant by racial capitalism and how its invocation or use might change or bring some depth to a discussion about systemic racism. Peter Hudson: Should I can turn Whoever Peter Hudson: I mean, I guess, for, for me, the discussion by understanding of racial capitalism is increasingly Peter Hudson: emerges out of my reading of South African scholars who started writing on racial capitalism in the 1970s and they Peter Hudson: Use it, we're using a specifically and these are people who were obviously affiliate with the anti apartheid movement. Many pan Africanist many people involved in black consciousness. Peter Hudson: Who were really try to understand the kind of limits of both traditional liberal and Marxist analysis of race in the South African context and they understood following Peter Hudson: Bernard bug bounty that that South Africa was what he described as the citadel of racial capitalism in in Africa, largely because of its kind of node as an intermediary of international finance capital I mean both for the kind of domestic situation of Peter Hudson: white minority rule. Peter Hudson: In South Africa but also in South Africa is it note for finance capitals expansion into into the rest of the consonants. And so I think the Peter Hudson: The, the thing for me to kind of try to abbreviate this and get to the point about the system of systemic racism. Peter Hudson: The thing that I'm trying to push and work through and I don't feel like I've Peter Hudson: Come to any kind of profound conclusions about this, but we can't understand the system of systemic racism without understanding its international Peter Hudson: Implications. And what I've learned from the South Africans is when they talk about racial capitalism, they also understand the system of imperialism and finance capital. Peter Hudson: As part of it. And unfortunately for me. I feel like a lot of the kind of domestic US invocations of racial capitalism see it as a kind of self contained continental phenomena. Peter Hudson: doesn't have that that critique of imperialism alongside the critique of that kind of the domestic invocation of racing racing class. Mehrsa Baradaran: I kind of want to connect tempted to connect neoliberalism generation capital Syria because the neoliberals also saw the international threat this anti colonial threat linking up with the black power movement in America as as very much Mehrsa Baradaran: I think the impetus for the neo liberal turn in US politics and by neoliberalism. I mean, that conjunction with the state with the Montpellier society and Hyatt I mean high it Mehrsa Baradaran: Comes out of Europe and very much is is radicalized towards neoliberalism by the South African apartheid. Mehrsa Baradaran: Struggle and the Pan African. So what's happening with your friends fanning and and and you know the the way that Europe, all of a sudden, there's a Star Trek and Star Trek. Mehrsa Baradaran: Info to the van book. I think in the 1961 where he's like it's done. Mehrsa Baradaran: We're done with the West, the West is done. Mehrsa Baradaran: It is the next era will be you know the the era of that these anti colonial struggles and and you know fans being translated into Farsi, where you know that you wanting revolutionaries and the Chinese revolutionaries in Cuba and then Mehrsa Baradaran: And here in the black power movement. And I think that is so destabilizing to the, sort of, you know, Mehrsa Baradaran: Those who had their hands on empire that I think that is what leads to Mehrsa Baradaran: That neoliberalism and when I talk about racial can I didn't talk about racial capitalism, per se, but I I focus on the black capitalism framework, the literal black capitalism of the Nixon administration, he, he, his the other side of the southern Mehrsa Baradaran: Strategy law and order and is is black capitalism and what he means by that is Mehrsa Baradaran: Again, using capitalism as a weapon here. He's saying, you know, long order so heavy arm of the state, and then to demands that you have, you know, for economic justice. He's saying Mehrsa Baradaran: Yes, black power and black capitalism. So, you will have your businesses and they will be segregated and it's a way for him to oppose integration and oppose reparations using this very nebulous term with black capitalism and and the people who call Mehrsa Baradaran: Like BS on it is your Angela primrose the first black Federal Reserve Board governor Mehrsa Baradaran: Who says this is snake oil don't buy this because it's not natural capital so so so I do think that that term, as you said, gets very tricky and it gets misused. Mehrsa Baradaran: Especially when it migrates over to you know Nixonian, you know, you see the opportunity zones opportunity zones are very much a Nixonian right Bill Maurer: And I just added this is something that I got from reading Peters book actually is that, you know, racial capitalism sort of names a relation, but doesn't specify what that relation is right and then Bill Maurer: And that's actually okay because it might be a whole bunch of different relations that sometimes come together sometimes don't so Bill Maurer: You know, we can talk about racial capitalism in a historical sense that you don't get the thing that we call it capitalism until after you had all of the Bill Maurer: Periods of experimentation in the Caribbean with various forms of forced labor, factory type arrangements on you know plantations and sugar and blah, blah, blah. Bill Maurer: So historical relation. You could also think of it as, as you know, an accidental relation. It just so happened that the interests of these people who were trying to make this thing that came capitalism. Bill Maurer: Also aligned with the interests of these other people who had sort of, you know, white supremacist colonial kind of agenda for other kinds of reasons having to do with, you know, white working class agitation. Bill Maurer: In the colonial countries in a way to kind of deal with all of that. Bill Maurer: You know, for, for some of the stuff that I worked on. I see as pretty clearly a sort of relationship of just half dependency, right, the people who are setting interchange rates on our credit cards. I don't think are actively thinking Bill Maurer: At all about, you know, anything having to do with race, much less capitalism, because, you know, going back to something here so sad. Like, what they're doing is not capitalist their, their respects it right there doing Bill Maurer: A whole different kind of thing from sort of free market. There's no free market and interchanges pollution and when this stuff goes to court. It's always found to be Bill Maurer: You know, basically anti trust activity, but nevertheless, there's the sort of path dependency where that that legacy of nonprofit banking. Bill Maurer: In the south kind of fed right into the development o the card industry which maintains the structures of fees, which then Bill Maurer: O, lo and behold, they happen to have the effect of excluding people. Oh, and it's mostly black people and other people of color, right. How did that happen. Bill Maurer: So, you know, it's that that kind of thing. And I think it's okay to let it be all of those options and then to make it the kind of analytical problem for us to specify what relation we mean when we use the phrase, when we use the term Rachel capitalism. Peter Hudson: Can I just Keaanga-Yamahtta Taylor: Piggyback very quickly. Peter Hudson: Because I think it's really important because I feel like we're we're sometimes asked to Peter Hudson: To almost, you know, de limit in a very specific way a definition of what Rachel capitalism is and and i think falling would bill saying what's what's more important is how is it used Peter Hudson: What does it do and and understanding that in in the in the context of Peter Hudson: A series of historical conjectures where that relationship between race and class is never a given it has always been reworked and remade according to different forces and again for me reading people like Neville Alexander Peter Hudson: And and others from South Africa is they're very, very clear about the kind of transformations in the state structure of South Africa, its relationship to Peter Hudson: To the changes in South African industry to the changes of the International Political Economy always reworking and remaking what what Rachel capital is how racial capitalism operates and what it means for for for South Africans in particular. Keaanga-Yamahtta Taylor: So, Keaanga-Yamahtta Taylor: I have a few questions in the in the queue. But I feel like it would be criminal neglect. If I don't ask and you know we have we have about eight minutes left here, but Keaanga-Yamahtta Taylor: Given the way that all of your work. Keaanga-Yamahtta Taylor: Really uses a historical frame to help us understand contemporary issues of Keaanga-Yamahtta Taylor: Inequality. Keaanga-Yamahtta Taylor: To say the very least about it. What is your opinion about the ongoing discussion about reparations. Keaanga-Yamahtta Taylor: And you know that that was one of the obvious sub subtext of the Keaanga-Yamahtta Taylor: Projects. I think that's, you know, also part of the explanation for the kind of vitriol that is being espouse but I think particularly in your work, Peter. Keaanga-Yamahtta Taylor: And Bill, what you have described today that, you know, not only is history, a kind of lens to understand the present moment. Keaanga-Yamahtta Taylor: But you can literally look at the organizations and institutions that were complicit in the colonial arrangements in the Caribbean in slavery. Keaanga-Yamahtta Taylor: Itself and often we hear as a rejoinder to claims for reparations that oh, we don't know, and it's too far away and it's too murky and too confusing and to figure out both who was involved in the slave trade, let alone, who, who were the actual Keaanga-Yamahtta Taylor: enslaved people. And so I'm wondering Keaanga-Yamahtta Taylor: You know your responses to those kinds of Keaanga-Yamahtta Taylor: Answers, but also more generally, what are your thoughts on reparations. Keaanga-Yamahtta Taylor: Any order. Peter Hudson: I'll jump in. Again, I say yes to reparations. I think the there's a couple of things here. One is, I'm inspired by the the legacy of the CARICOM Peter Hudson: reparations committee, the Caribbean communities reparations community which is drawn on the work of people like Nicholas Draper and Matthew Smith at the University College London who have this Peter Hudson: British is legacies of British slave ownership project which has done incredible genealogy work into the Peter Hudson: reparations. That was were given to the British planter class and they're able to now kind of trace the dividends on that money throughout British society. And I feel like Peter Hudson: We in the United States need to do the same work with American institutions. So I'll say very, very quickly. Peter Hudson: When I was doing some archival research as a graduate student for bankers and empire. I had a very brief moment of access to the JPMorgan Chase archives. And I remember Peter Hudson: Some bank executive called the archivist and I could hear their, their conversation the background and they were asking the archivist to find out who the earliest ancestors of the chase. Peter Hudson: Bank was so that they could stave off any bad publicity around Peter Hudson: Possible links to slavery. What happened in is in about 2004 they released a document that talks about what I mentioned in my paper with the canal and citizens banks and their ties to slavery. They made a big claim about Peter Hudson: Paying reparations to support schools in Louisiana and other things. Peter Hudson: Within about a year of that information coming out the document had been scrubbed from the internet. And I don't know if any of those reparations came. So, to the point about. We don't know. We don't have the records. Peter Hudson: The records are there. We have to do the work. The Banksy to open up their vaults, so we can have access to them and pay goddamn reparations. Thank you. Mehrsa Baradaran: Yes, I agree. I have a pretty really really uncomplicated and, uh, you know, there's no like quibbling about this. The question is which which remedy. Mehrsa Baradaran: Theory, do we use under any theory of justice if we're looking at sort of philosophical theories or just any, any way, the courts calculate damages today if a company, you know, Mehrsa Baradaran: makes a mistake. There's either unjust enrichment. What did you gain unjustly, or there's, you know, compensation is how do we make you whole from the thing that we took. Mehrsa Baradaran: Under any way that you want to look at American history. Mehrsa Baradaran: There was not just unjust wealth, creating. There was also a deprivation that links. Exactly. I mean you you made this connection. Can you hear Keller's book she talks about. There are 400 because there are 400 billionaire's because there are Mehrsa Baradaran: You know, hundreds of millions of what I'm butchering the, quote, but they are very directly linked the fact that you have, you know, this Mehrsa Baradaran: That white wealth accumulating is because you there has been an extraction. The reason why white properties gaining equity in white neighborhoods is because they are not black properties and and that segregation Mehrsa Baradaran: Affects housing prices to this day. It's such a not pay for it is an unjust game. And that I think is sort of destructive to the American soul, whatever it is. And I think we're going to see these radical Mehrsa Baradaran: Shift in in politics, until we just deal with, you know, as Madison said America's original sin. Bill Maurer: And I just add, I mean, you know, you can you if you do the work. You can trace right the history through the documents if you do the work. You can easily calculate out even not based on the history Bill Maurer: Ongoing return on whiteness, right. You don't even sorry Peter historians. We don't need that historians being calculated. Now, just based on now right and figure it out. We want to do it that way. Bill Maurer: The two things. The first thing that you know people will say is, Oh, but we can't possibly afford it. The answer to that is we are the sovereign issue or have our own currency. Bill Maurer: We can go forward, whatever we want to. Right. I mean, we can. There's a. You don't even have to do any huge you know redistribution thing. Bill Maurer: And it probably won't cost as much as people imagine, unfortunately. But there's an argument made about the tax haven economies of the Caribbean that you know just paying reparations in the Caribbean. Bill Maurer: Is less than the amount of tax revenues lost to the United States and Europe through those tax havens, that's an argument that Jason Charmin makes but so so Bill Maurer: You can calculate it. The money's there for me the huge big like warning sign thing is how is it actually going to be dispersed, right, because we know from other cases of Bill Maurer: efforts at restorative justice that have involved transfers of money or transfers of particularly title Land Title Bill Maurer: That the way that it's done often is, in a way to immediately give the thing, but then build people have it right after you've given them the thing, right. Bill Maurer: So, and that that's where other solutions have to be brought in as part of it, like some of the stuff that you know America has written about around postal banking or, you know, fed accounts or whatever. Bill Maurer: To ensure that it's done in a way so that really is dispersed to the people who deserve it and that it's not immediate there's not some sneaky way of, you know, Bill Maurer: Taking out bits or making it easy for some of the expert immediately upon it's being given Peter Hudson: I think it's also important to to remind the world that that the people from in Cobra to the CARICOM Peter Hudson: To others who are advocating reparations aren't trying to write the script of a Dave Chappelle episode where people are just given Peter Hudson: truckloads of money to spend that will, and it's kind of free for all people are very systematic about reparations would mean Peter Hudson: And it's a repair for the crimes of the path, but also the continuous crimes of the presence so reparation and that repair comes through. Peter Hudson: Protection of voting rights through expansion of healthcare through expansion of proper schooling and all these kind of things that I see Lauren Horner from South Philly down in the in the comments asking about the kind of spiritual Peter Hudson: Questions of repair and we had there has to be that element of it as well. How do you repair the history of of of the psychological wounds of of anti blackness that were tied to the levels of economic and physical exploitation. Mehrsa Baradaran: And I think even with trillions of dollars and closing the racial wealth gap. Mehrsa Baradaran: We cannot make people whole. And I think that's, I mean, no matter how much Mehrsa Baradaran: reparations we pay and all that is necessary, and more. There are going to be deep psychological and and just, you know, a physical trauma and life expectancy rates, all of that stuff has that embedded racial history and Mehrsa Baradaran: And there isn't you know when when a company does wrongful death, they can pay money millions of millions dollars, but you can't make up for the, the, the impact of Mehrsa Baradaran: losing someone unjustly, and that that is something will never get all the men lost all the men and women loss to police violence will never get that the you know the the lynchings and the property theft and and the Mehrsa Baradaran: The, the children lost in the mother, the mother, the mother, so it's it's not possible to heal it is possible to pay gap. Keaanga-Yamahtta Taylor: Alright, we are at time. I want to thank you guys Murcia berra them Peter Hudson bill Mauer Keaanga-Yamahtta Taylor: Thank you all for tuning in, apologies to the folks who submitted questions we ran out of time. Keaanga-Yamahtta Taylor: I have a couple of announcements. Here, there will be a post event survey that you will receive in the email. I'm sure the organizers would be very happy if you fill that out. Keaanga-Yamahtta Taylor: The city, you have the last date to complete the census is October 31 please do that the deadline to register to vote online was October 19 but it's still possible to register in person. Keaanga-Yamahtta Taylor: The organizers will share the links for that and there's more discussion to be had about this issue. So we encourage you to stick around afterwards. And again, thanks to to our speakers for a very important informative set of presentations tonight. Thank you guys. Peter Hudson: Thank you. Bill Maurer: Thank you.