Brea Baker Talks Black Land Ownership, Reparations, New Book + More

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Breakfast Club – Brea Baker Talks Black Land Ownership, Reparations, New Book + More

Release Date: February 6, 2025

In this compelling episode of The Breakfast Club, hosted by Charlamagne Tha God and DJ Envy, Bria Baker delves deep into the critical issues of Black land ownership, reparations, and her newly released book. The conversation is both enlightening and thought-provoking, shedding light on historical injustices and proposing actionable solutions for economic equity within the Black community.

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1. Introduction and Guest Introduction [02:43]

Charlamagne Tha God kicks off the episode by introducing Bria Baker, emphasizing the importance of discussing her latest work on Black land ownership and reparations. The hosts welcome Bria with warmth, setting the stage for an in-depth conversation.

Notable Quote:

• Charlamagne Tha God [02:43]: "Yep, it's the world's most dangerous morning show. The Breakfast Club Charlemagne."

---

2. Bria Baker's Journey and Motivation [03:02 – 15:26]

Bria Baker shares her personal journey, highlighting her family's legacy as sixth-generation Black landowners in North Carolina. She recounts her grandfather's dying wish to preserve the family land, which fueled her passion to write about Black land ownership.

Key Points:

• Family Legacy: Bria's great-great-great-grandfather, Lewis Baker, acquired land shortly after the Emancipation Proclamation, establishing a legacy of land ownership that has since dwindled.
• Inspiration for the Book: Witnessing the erosion of Black land ownership inspired Bria to document and advocate for the preservation and reclamation of land within the Black community.
• Educational Background: Transitioning from a pre-med track to political science at Yale, Bria was influenced by the socio-political movements of her time, including Black Lives Matter and Occupy Wall Street.

Notable Quotes:

• Bria Baker [04:11]: "The book is about Black land ownership. The fact that we owned more land 100 years ago than we do now... that's why we have this racial wealth gap."
• Bria Baker [15:26]: "Activism was the Black Panthers, Angela Davis, being in a city with a bullhorn... But in the south, activism was buying land, holding onto it, employing people, giving people a job, feeding themselves."

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3. Historical Context: Land Ownership and Systemic Dispossession [05:45 – 11:58]

Bria delves into the historical context of land ownership among Black Americans, illustrating how systemic disenfranchisement has led to significant land loss over generations. She references pivotal events like the Tulsa and Wilmington Massacres, detailing how these atrocities were not isolated but part of a broader strategy to undermine Black economic stability.

Key Points:

• Eminent Domain Abuse: Government-sanctioned land seizures, often justified as eliminating "blighted" areas, disproportionately targeted Black communities, leading to the destruction of thriving Black neighborhoods.
• Economic Consequences: The loss of land ownership hindered wealth accumulation and perpetuated economic disparities between Black and White Americans.
• Interconnected Movements: Events in Wilmington inspired similar actions in Tulsa and Atlanta, creating a blueprint for white supremacist tactics to dispossess Black landowners.

Notable Quotes:

• Bria Baker [10:59]: "Tulsa became this big example of it, and it deserves to be, because you still have survivors who are going into court at like, 105, 106 years old, trying to get their just due."
• Bria Baker [11:58]: "There is, like, on paper proof of this. The folks in Tulsa went to the people in Wilmington because the Wilmington massacre happened in 1898, and Tulsa massacre happened in 1921."

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4. Land Banks: Opportunities and Challenges [06:04 – 07:19]

The discussion shifts to land banks, exploring their potential as a tool for redistributing land to marginalized communities. Bria acknowledges both the benefits and the shortcomings of current land bank initiatives.

Key Points:

• Positive Impact: Some land banks successfully aim to place land in the hands of Black and Indigenous people, promoting equitable access and stewardship.
• Systemic Barriers: Despite good intentions, land banks often inadvertently exclude those without substantial financial resources, limiting broader accessibility.
• Reparations Potential: Bria posits that land banks could serve as a form of reparations if they are explicitly designed to benefit Black families with historical ties to the land.

Notable Quotes:

• Bria Baker [06:04]: "Land banks could be a form of reparations if you dictate that it has to be going to Black people and Black families who come from this history."
• Bria Baker [07:19]: "They just got to make sure it's accessible to the right people."

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5. Debunking Myths About Reparations [07:32 – 09:18]

Bria tackles common misconceptions surrounding reparations, emphasizing their necessity for true racial and economic justice.

Key Points:

• Historical Promises Unfulfilled: Referencing the ungranted promise of "40 acres and a mule," Bria underscores the ongoing denial of reparations and the disingenuous comparisons made by skeptics.
• Broad Support Opportunity: She argues that anyone who recognizes the injustice of slavery should support reparations, challenging the notion that it's an unattainable or unnecessary endeavor.
• Economic Realities: Highlighting the inadequacy of high-profile Black individuals as evidence against the need for reparations, Bria stresses that systemic inequality persists despite individual successes.

Notable Quotes:

• Bria Baker [07:32]: "That's where reparations came from was right after the Civil War... we talk about 40 acres and a mule or reparations as pigs flying like, oh, that's never gonna happen."
• Bria Baker [09:04]: "How come we have to be superstars to live next door to a dentist, an accountant or whatever? Any Black person should be able to access it the same way that White people can."

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6. The Role of Activism and Modern Movements [12:41 – 21:16]

Bria reflects on the evolution of activism within the Black community, drawing parallels between historical movements and contemporary efforts to reclaim land and economic power.

Key Points:

• Self-Reliance: Inspired by movements like the Black Panthers, Bria advocates for autonomous community initiatives, such as backyard farming and local food production, as means of economic empowerment.
• Education and Awareness: She emphasizes the importance of educating younger generations about land ownership and economic justice to sustain the movement.
• Solidarity Among Communities: Bria calls for unity among marginalized groups, including Indigenous and Latino communities, to collaboratively pursue land and economic equity.

Notable Quotes:

• Bria Baker [18:00]: "We gotta build stuff out, and we gotta defend the programs we're building and make sure that it can't be dismantled so easily."
• Bria Baker [19:13]: "We're seeing this literally in our family group chat. They're like, I'm only shopping in Bria's backyard from now on until they get this land thing together."
• Bria Baker [21:16]: "There are Mexican Americans, Chicanos in California, they're in a similar boat... we have to be really vigilant, too."

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7. Practical Steps Toward Reparations and Land Ownership [21:17 – 28:04]

Bria outlines actionable strategies for advancing reparations and increasing Black land ownership, offering tangible steps listeners can take to support the movement.

Key Points:

• Support Local Efforts: Encouraging listeners to back state and city-level commissions exploring reparations, such as those in New York, California, and Illinois.
• Community Engagement: Advocating for participation in initiatives like WhereIsMyLand.org and supporting campaigns that seek to return land to rightful Black owners.
• Economic Redistribution: Highlighting the importance of dismantling wealth hoarding by affluent entities to ensure equitable land distribution.
• Educational Outreach: Urging the documentation and dissemination of historical injustices to build a robust case for reparations.

Notable Quotes:

• Bria Baker [23:52]: "There are a lot of people trying to attack this from different areas. And I think it's all important... everybody deserves a piece of land with at least a backyard."
• Bria Baker [27:52]: "How we get there, there are only, I believe, New York State is the third state to have established a commission and a task force for actually exploring what reparations would look like."

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8. Conclusion and Call to Action [30:21 – 31:22]

As the episode wraps up, Bria provides listeners with resources to further engage with the reparations movement and acquire her book. She emphasizes the importance of supporting Black-owned businesses and opting for alternative purchasing platforms that benefit the community.

Key Points:

• Book Acquisition: Bria's book is available through Black bookstores and platforms like bookshop.org instead of mainstream retailers like Amazon, aligning with the movement's boycott efforts.
• Community Support: Encouraging investment in local Black businesses and reinforcing the message of collective empowerment.

Notable Quotes:

• Bria Baker [30:46]: "If you're like I don't want to go in person, bookshop.org will let you buy it from a local bookstore and make sure that your money is going to someone who also wants to see us win."
• Bria Baker [31:22]: "It's Bria Baker. It's the Breakfast Club."

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Final Thoughts

This episode of The Breakfast Club serves as a vital discourse on the intersection of race, land ownership, and economic justice. Bria Baker's insights not only illuminate the historical context of Black land dispossession but also offer a roadmap for future activism and reparative actions. Her passionate advocacy underscores the necessity of reclaiming land as a cornerstone for bridging the racial wealth gap and achieving genuine equity.

For more information and to support Bria Baker's work, listeners are encouraged to visit her website breabaker.com and follow her on social media under the handle @reckledwhileblack.

Transcript

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[Charlamagne Tha God]

Yep, it's the world's most dangerous morning show. The Breakfast Club Charlemagne.

[Just Hilarious]

The God.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

Just hilarious. Envy is out, but Lauren LaRosa is in. And as promised, her mama called up here and said, you better have my baby up there to talk about that book. Okay? Brea Baker is here.

[Bria Baker]

Thank y'all so much for having me. And thank you, Mommy, for making sure.

[Unknown Speaker 4]

That's why I said, is Mommy the manager?

[Bria Baker]

Mommy needs to be the manager. She's on payroll now. She on payroll now.

[Just Hilarious]

To be honest, you, Bria, your mama fine. And I mean that respectfully.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

I mean that respectfully.

[Just Hilarious]

You are a beautiful woman. Okay?

[Charlamagne Tha God]

No disrespect to Mr. Baker Baker.

[Just Hilarious]

Okay. Yes, yes, yes. I'm just saying.

[Bria Baker]

Listening.

[Just Hilarious]

I'm just saying now.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

Rooted. Sim is your best friend.

[Just Hilarious]

Sim works here at the Breakfast Club. How far do you and Sim go back?

[Bria Baker]

We went to middle school together. And like, from then on, we've just been locked in. We thought we were both gonna be in medicine, and now she's obviously up here doing this and I'm writing books. So it worked out exactly as it's supposed to be. But, yeah, we've been locked in for years.

[Just Hilarious]

She's the one who gave me a copy of Rooted. Yes, that was a while ago. How long ago was that? I don't even remember.

[Bria Baker]

And she said you was pretending like you didn't read it.

[Just Hilarious]

I did read it.

[Bria Baker]

I know, but you did. You was playing with her.

[Just Hilarious]

You know, I'm always playing with them.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

Because she didn't. She only gave it to me once. And then she. It was two books she gave me.

[Just Hilarious]

And she kept asking me, did I read them. Did I read them? I read this one.

[Bria Baker]

Yeah.

[Just Hilarious]

Because it was interesting to me because I'm from South Carolina, where this happens a lot in the Low Countries, and.

[Bria Baker]

Our family's land is In North Carolina. So I was peeping that.

[Unknown Speaker 4]

That's amazing. I didn't read it, but I'm just captivated by the title. What is it about?

[Bria Baker]

Thank you. Okay, so in general, the book is about black land ownership. The fact that we owned more land 100 years ago than we do now. And I'm sure the people in this room and the people listening know land is where you really build wealth, like property, real estate. That's where it goes. So the fact that we've been losing land while white America has been continuing to get these gains means that this racial wealth gap we keep talking about is because of this land loss. So I started writing this book because my family has land in North Carolina. My grandfather passed away in 2019, and on his deathbed, he was like, don't sell the land. Because that happens a lot of times. An older black person passes on, and they're not sure if someone in the next generation values it enough to keep it in the family. And so it's just really important to us. Like, no, we're not letting this go anywhere. That land means everything to us. There's no price that we will accept for it. But what we have now is still a fraction of what we used to have. Even, like, my great grandfather owned. And, like, I'm a sixth generation black landowner, so the first person in my family to own land was my great, great, great grandfather, Lewis Baker. He bought land, like, 10 years after the emancipation proclamation was signed. And so to go from that legacy to now, it's like, how could I not value this? And unfortunately, in this country, black is kind of like, they equate it with urban, so they think we only live in cities. But most black people live in the south. And most black people come from grandparents who lived in these rural areas but were disconnected just around the time when we could have made some money from it. So that's really what I wanted the book to be. It's like, we need to be championing black land ownership, whether you getting it on your own, whether we fighting for reparations. But that needs to be a conversation in our community, because that's where real equity comes from.

[Just Hilarious]

I'm glad.

[Unknown Speaker 5]

Okay, I was gonna ask you, with all that history, how do you feel about, like, land banks and what they do today? Because there's, like, the pros of it. I think people are inclusion, and people can get the land easier. But then there. There's cons of, like, people feeling like the land banks only sell and, like, work with different people. Certain people Certain developers, like you kind of get closed out if you don't have a certain amount of money. So how do you feel about land?

[Bria Baker]

Yeah, I think some of. I love that you brought that up. I feel like some of the land banks are really good and they're trying to get land in the hand of black and indigen, like people who don't historically get a chance. But in anything in this country, there's always gonna be people who are doing it. And it's like their way to get cheaper stuff to people who really don't need the cheapest stuff, like they already good. But I do think that some people are doing it in a really good way. Where climate justice conservation groups will give land to black and indigenous people because you'll treat the land better than this company will. You'll treat this land better than this private developer will. But it's kind of rare to find these land banks that will do it in that way. But again, that's why I'm a big champion of reparations. Because land banks could be a form of reparations if you dictate that it has to be going to black people and black families who come from this history. But if we all got to save up the money, scrounge up the money to buy, I mean, it'll take forever for us to all become landowners in that way. Because not everybody has the down payment money. Especially when you're talking acres. That's not just a house, right. Like that's not just a condo. That's. That's really going to cost like 10k plus per acre that you want. So if you want a lot and to have buildings on it, it gets expensive. So I think the land banks are just a good way of making it more accessible to people. They just got to make sure it's accessible to the right people.

[Just Hilarious]

You know, in the book you talk about how reparations is a racial and economic justice policy as well as a climate imperative. So how do you outline the common myths about the difficulty of enacting reparations? But also too, I wonder why we.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

Got away from wanting the 40 acres.

[Bria Baker]

Right, exactly. Cause that's where reparations came from was right after the Civil War is like, we want our 40 acres and a mule. And we still talk about that. You know, Spike Lee has the production company, but it's almost like we talk about 40 acres and a mule or reparations as pigs flying like, oh, that's never gonna happen. They never gonna do that for us. And it's like, why are we defeating ourselves? We have to demand it. To me, anyone in this country who believes that slavery should not have happened should support reparations. It should be that simple. Cause how you don't believe in slavery, but you won't actually do anything to change it for the people who are the descendants of not having benefited from it. So to me, it's just. That's one of the biggest myths is it's just like, oh, it'll just never happen. And it's like they give out money like it's nothing all the time. Ukraine got the money that should have been our reparations. Israel got the money that should have been our reparations, like the Pentagon. So the money is out there, they just not giving it to us. And we have to start demanding our fair share of it. Especially because every election cycle, they coming around begging for our votes. What are you offering in exchange? And why is reparations such a bad word? And then the other thing that gets used is black celebrities actually are used as an excuse. Oh, you don't need reparations. You got an Oprah, you got a Michael Jordan. Black people are already making money. The fact that you can name them means it's not widespread enough. That's right. Right. Like if I was saying, oh, white America has money. I think Chris Tucker or Chris Rock, one of them has this like standup where he's like, yeah, in my neighborhood, it's like me and a bunch of black comedians and then. Dentist.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

Dentist, Mary Janet.

[Bria Baker]

Dentist.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

Yeah, I think Derek Jeter.

[Just Hilarious]

A rod.

[Bria Baker]

Is that crazy? So, like, how come we have to be superstars to live next door to a dentist, an accountant or whatever? Like, any black person should be able to access it the same way that white people can. And the fact that you have to be exceptional to get your fair share in this country is ridiculous.

[Just Hilarious]

I want you to speak to the land thing for reparations a little bit more. Cause, you know, Aaron Magruder had created this show called Black America. And it was an alt history drama that black Americans had received the sovereign states of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama as reparations for slavery. And with that land, they were able to shape their freedom. And the show never came out, but it was an idea that he had. How do you think that would have played out?

[Bria Baker]

Oh, yeah, it would have been major because those states that you're talking about had predominantly black majority like populations. So that's where black people were. So if you actually like thinking, especially at that time, agriculture was the economy. Now you can make your money in a lot of different ways, but back then, you needed land to be able to compete in any way. So if you didn't own the land, you was a sharecropper. Like, you're not making no money that way. You barely making. Even. So, I really. I think if those things had happened in the timeline when it should have, it would have been monumental, because that's where most of us was. And there are some places where we saw that there was examples of former plantations that, after the Civil War, had been burned to the ground. Confederate widows were like, I can't afford to rebuild this. I'll just sell it for pennies on the dollar to this black people thinking, I'm getting over on them, but we always make a dollar out of 15 cents. And so you had these formerly enslaved people turning their plantations into communities that were so vibrant. And then when they see us doing well, they're like, wait, let me get that back from you. Actually, that's what happens in places like Tulsa, Wilmington, even Atlanta. Like, you had these predominantly black communities that somehow, without having their 40 acres and a mule, were able to figure it out. And it's like, even when we pick ourselves up by our bootstraps, they still waiting to take that. Like, wait, you wasn't supposed to do that. Well, black Wall Street, I didn't expect. Exactly. Black Wall street.

[Just Hilarious]

Exactly. People don't talk about Wilmington, North Carolina, at all.

[Bria Baker]

@ all.

[Just Hilarious]

When they talk about. When they have those conversations about things that they took from us.

[Bria Baker]

Yeah. And it needs to be talked about, because actually, and this is, like, something I talk about in the book, there is, like, on paper proof of this. The folks in Tulsa went to the people in Wilmington because the Wilmington massacre happened in 1898, and Tulsa massacre happened in 1921. They literally were like, teach us how you did that and learned it. They did that, too, in Atlanta. In 1906, there was a massacre in Atlanta where they were like, hey, black people are getting into positions of power here. We got black politicians, black entrepreneurs. This is crazy. Oh, but in Wilmington, they just figured out how to. How to get them out. Teach us. And so it was like they were. It was like a think tank for how to be a white supremacist. Like, okay, teach us how to get black people out of here. And Tulsa became this, like, big example of it, and it deserves to be, because you still have survivors who are going into court at like, 105, 106 years old, trying to get their just due. We're not even Just talking about descendants.

[Just Hilarious]

They were not here no more.

[Bria Baker]

Right, right. And they. And they got museums. And if you go through Tulsa in the. In the. In the, like, sidewalks, it'll tell you. There used to be a barbershop here, and it was burned down in 1921. It used to be a dry cleaners here. It was burned down in 1920. So you know exactly which businesses were where. Why are you not giving reparations to those direct. Like, these were people who were kids running for their lives when it was happening. But, yeah, Wilmington was definitely the blueprint. And I think people ignore that because they don't want to be accountable, especially in, like, the Carolinas. They don't want to be accountable to the fact that, like, we. We did that here. And what would it mean to have to give it back? What would it mean to have to say, sorry?

[Just Hilarious]

I read. I read your book, and I hear you talk, and you're so passionate about this. Like, where did that passion come from? Like, it's one thing to know about something, but to be passionate about it and want it to be your life's work, in a way.

[Unknown Speaker 5]

And you're, like, an historian, too.

[Bria Baker]

Thank you. I appreciate that.

[Unknown Speaker 4]

Speak so fluently on that. I appreciate y'all so girl, you know, dates and everything. 19.

[Unknown Speaker 5]

I was definitely sitting here like, I wonder how she. Like, damn.

[Just Hilarious]

Okay.

[Bria Baker]

I'm so weak. Well, I will say, like, I've always been very studious, so I think I do have that memory for stuff like that. But my mom used to joke, like, oh, we sent you to Yale to be a doctor. You came back a Black Panther, but you went to Yale. How was that? I went to Yale. It was horrible. I did not like it. Yeah, I mean, I think so. Growing up where Samantha and I grew up in Long Island. But we're in this, like, black and brown bubble. Everybody's kind of on the same footing. Like, I'm the lightest person in the room in that part of Long island that I'm in. Going from that to Yale, where I was like. I remember growing up and thinking. Cause by the time I was conscious of it, I got a black president. You know, Obama became president when I was in middle school. And so I'm thinking, like, minority. That's an out dirty term. I'm not a minority. Like, all I see when I look around is black people. And then I got to Yale, and I said, oh, this is where y'all were. Like, there is this white majority and the amount of wealth. Like, you can't even Wrap your mind around how much money some of these people have. The institution. When I was at Yale, they had a $20 billion endowment, which is their investment portfolio, sitting in a bank account somewhere, making money. Now, eight years after I graduated, that is a $45 billion endowment. Like, it's so much money there. But you still. So anyway, it was a very, like, radicalizing experience when you realize there's people with enough money to completely change the lives of people you grew up with. But they would never open up their bank accounts to do it, because their job is to just keep collecting, collecting, collecting, and never make it in service of anybody. So I would say that was a big moment for me. And also I'm going to college at Yale when the Black Lives Matter movement is popping off, when Occupy Wall street is popping off. So there's just a lot of conversations. Bernie Sanders is talking about this top one. And it just has you really thinking, like, I'm going to school with them, though. Like, they're here and what do I want to do? So, yeah, I just remember thinking, I cannot sit in nobody's lab for the next 10 years while we're being killed in the streets. And then as I got older, because my grandparents are from North Carolina, I felt like, to me, activism was the Black Panthers was Angela Davis was being in a city with a bullhorn. But I had to realize growing up that I had been kind of like, downplaying the activism of the south, that there are people who. Their activism was buying land, holding onto it, employing people, giving people a job, feeding themselves. Even now, during the pandemic was the first time a lot of people realized how dependent they are on somebody else to eat. If the grocery store shelves are empty, what are you gonna do for your family? You don't know how to grow. Nothing.

[Just Hilarious]

That's what all activism was. That's where the civil rights movement was.

[Bria Baker]

In the south, right? It was all in the south. But it was in Southern cities, though. It was in Selmas and Birminghams and Atlanta's Atlanta. But black people were as far as, like, working class. Black people were in the boonies. Where my family is, is still very rural. When we were K, they didn't have no WI Fi. And I was like, I want to go home. I don't want to be here. But you grow to appreciate it when you're like, but they're breathing fresh air, they're drinking clean water. And it just sounds so theoretical to an extent. Until eggs is. The price of eggs is going up. Until they doing recalls on chicken. And then all of a sudden, people want to talk about, where's the farmers at? And then you realize, like, oh, they've been fighting by themselves for a really long time. So I really have to credit my grandparents, because it was after my grandfather died that I was like, man, I wish I'd asked you more questions while you were alive. And my grandmother was like, I'm here. And I just sat there, asked her question after question after question. She was my research partner for the book. She would take me around, you gotta talk to Uncle Ed. And we gonna ask him these questions. Cause he remembers this better than me. And then I would corroborate it by going into these different places to like, okay, but where on paper can I find that that really happened? And there are records out there. So I would say to anyone who's thinking, like, that's so cool that she did that. Talk to your elders. Talk to your grandparents, your great aunts and uncles. Like, they're still. If they're still alive. Talk to them. There's stuff that they've survived and they've lived through and things that they're probably like, yeah, that got taken from us, too. That's our story, too. And with this reparations movement going, the more proof you have of that, the more you can actually try and get your land back. There are black families getting their land back. And, like, it's happening in little pieces here and there, but we can be that movement that brings it together.

[Unknown Speaker 4]

And to your point, like you said, you know, you don't even know. It takes, like, a pandemic or something to happen where. Where you'll be like, damn, like, I don't know how to. I can't go to the market. How am I going to feed. And, you know, how am I going to buy food and everything like that. And it wasn't until I met my fiance, he was taught. I used to. Craig jokes on him all the time. He would talk about farming. You know, we got this land. Let's grow this on. And I'm like, grow.

[Bria Baker]

I don't know how to.

[Unknown Speaker 4]

But he's also messy. Do all of that. I'm sorry, he's also messy?

[Just Hilarious]

Yeah.

[Bria Baker]

Why you got to bring that up?

[Unknown Speaker 4]

No, I'm just saying he is a clown, right?

[Bria Baker]

Isn't that what.

[Unknown Speaker 4]

Yes, but he is messy and black as well. But yes, he still. He's saying that, like, yo, you got all this land. Let's grow everything. What are we gonna do? And I'm like, dang, you sound like the movie let's not leave the world or leave the world behind, but it's a real thing, and you have to. You have to do that type of stuff.

[Bria Baker]

And if you wait until you need it, it's too late. You have to learn the skill before you need it. And I'm actually glad that you did bring it up, because I will say, like, black people, historically, we are the ones who were forced to work this land. So the fact that we're so far removed from what it means to work this land is, like, systematic. It's intentional. Because when we were working the land, we were doing it forcibly with no pay. The moment we could start making money for it, it's like, actually, we could find somebody else to do it. It's like, wait a second, now we don't know how to do it. But I really think that, like, Mexican Americans, Chicanos in California, like, they're. They're in a similar boat. They're the ones picking strawberries out in California with the Wilson.

[Unknown Speaker 4]

You don't have to stay the most.

[Bria Baker]

It's crazy. Well, see, now you did.

[Unknown Speaker 4]

I wasn't in that. We in the same boat.

[Just Hilarious]

We are.

[Bria Baker]

We in the same house, whatever you want to, but we in the same situation where it's like, they want us to work the land when they can profit off of it. And then the moment that we start to be entrepreneurial and get our own farms off the ground, all of a sudden it's like, actually, I got a machine that can do that. Actually, I got some. Like, I could take advantage of an immigrant community, and they can do it, because I don't want to pay you your fair share. So we gotta be able to own our own land to decide what actually happens on it.

[Unknown Speaker 5]

How do you. Go ahead.

[Bria Baker]

Okay.

[Unknown Speaker 5]

How do you feel like what's happening right now with Trump and, like, DEI and the mass deportation? Like, do you feel like that's gonna remove us as black people or just people of color from things? Or do you feel like it's gonna make us try and figure out the roots and the land, like, all that more like, what do you think is about. What do you predict?

[Bria Baker]

Honestly, I feel like it's gonna be a little bit of both. He's definitely eliminating our ability to do this through the federal government. Like, people who are working for the usda, trying to make change in this agency that has historically discriminated against us are now not being able to do that work. Anything that's in the guise of equity or justice for us is, oh, we don't need that program actually anymore. So I think, though, that that's going to make us turn and do other things to bring back the Black Panthers. They were the main ones saying, listen, they not feeding our people. We gonna feed our people. That's right. They not educating us. We'll educate us. They not providing us healthcare. We gonna open a clinic. And I think sometimes it's not like you're wishing for the situation. We don't want a Trump administration. But sometimes it's like the juxtaposition, the contrast of him, that orange man in the office doing this makes us more creative and innovative. To say, I'm not gonna wait around. Cause I don't got for you. We don't got four years to wait. Like. And we seeing this literally in our family group chat. They're like, I'm only shopping in Bree's backyard from now on until they get this land thing together. But it's like, for real, though. Like, what if we were all growing something and we could just afford to say, let's share what we growing? You growing potatoes and tomatoes and cucumbers. So I'm gonna come to you for that. I got the chicken, so we provide the eggs. So. And so got this. So they can provide. Like, what if that was the thing? Or for those who don't live in a place where they have the land to do it, if you find the black farmers. Because in New York State, we're downstate, but there's so many farms upstate.

[Unknown Speaker 4]

Yeah.

[Bria Baker]

Like, what does it mean to find the black farmers upstate and shop from them? Because they still growing. They still got their land. So I think it's gonna make us remember that we can be autonomous. We can be doing things for ourselves. And a lot of those programs that the Black Panther started, the federal government was like, oh, we gonna do that too. Y'all doing a free breakfast program. We gonna do that. Y'all doing educating your young people. We'll do a head start. Like, the government learns that what black people do will benefit everybody. And so they will pick it up later. But we can't wait around for them.

[Just Hilarious]

I want us to learn that what we do will benefit us. You know, when you talk about the Black Panthers, you gotta talk about the Nation of Islam. You gotta talk about Marcus Garvey movement. They've been teaching us to do for self forever. That should have never not been our model.

[Bria Baker]

But I mean, talk about the moment that we're in now. Marcus Garvey's movement was killed because they deported him, he was Jamaican, and they said, let's find him in anything we can catch him in. They got him on mail fraud or something like that. Something like, what harm is he doing? But we're seeing that now. It's like, in the name of. We're deporting criminals. No, you're deporting people who are working, who are keeping food on our table. And so we have to be really vigilant, too. Like, we gotta build stuff out, and we gotta defend the programs we're building and make sure that it can't be dismantled so easily. And sometimes I feel like social media makes it very easy for us to fight away at our own. Like, you see black people building a movement, and there's more critique in the comment section than offers of help. And we gotta be willing to actually. From us, too. You know? Like, I saw that with blm, some more people. I'm mad at the. And I'm like, wait, but what if we. Like, we can do more together.

[Unknown Speaker 4]

Yeah.

[Bria Baker]

And do more together.

[Just Hilarious]

I wanted to ask you about Yale, right? Because were you always a political science major or was everything that was going on in the world at the time. Did that make you.

[Bria Baker]

That made me political science. I actually entered Yale, a physics major and pre med, and then I switched sophomore year, and, like, never looked back. Emma's political science. Yeah, it was just like. I mean, especially at Yale, like, you see now a lot of the people doing this stuff. J.D. vance, Yale grad. Like, so I'm looking around like, which one of y'all is gonna be on protesting one day? Like. Cause I know it's gonna be one of y'all, but, like, that's where it is. So it's like, in essence, it's like, my job as a Yale alum is to be a traitor to what the other alum's about to do and to resist them full force. Because they're built. These institutions are built to consolidate power, and they only want people who are going to keep power in the same places. And I'm really all about, like, no, I want the power. The information that I've gotten from Yale. I want to siphon it away and bring it to us, like, for more of us to know this. And I love that through the book, like, people will say, oh, yeah, like, my grandparents did have this land. Or maybe I don't come from a family that had land in this country, but I want to. I want to be the generation that starts that. And what's the path to it? Oh, I got to put My land in a trust so that it doesn't ever get taken after I pass away. Like, it takes information to get there, and we gotta get into those rooms and bring the information back out with us. Not get stuck in the room thinking, I'll be the only one in there. Like, no, it probably would've been easier to graduate Yale and try and just be a doctor who did it on her own and whatever the case may be. But. And not to shame. I mean, we also need black doctors, so we need all of that. But I also was just like, we need people to, like, speak truth to power. And I wanted to be one of those people.

[Just Hilarious]

I just got two more questions because, you know Jess, she got approved around 10:45.

[Unknown Speaker 4]

Excuse me.

[Just Hilarious]

Listen, in the book, you talk about returning equity to dispossessed people can heal both the land and our nation's soul. What are some things we can do to make that happen? And why do you feel that way?

[Bria Baker]

Yeah, so I feel that way because America is obsessed with getting. We want to be post racial. We want to be post racial. You cannot do that without addressing the problem. And one thing that I've noticed is like, I think there's a lot of people in America who don't understand black anger. And to me, it's like, but if you address the issue, I might have nothing to be angry about. But when I was in Detroit for the book tour, I was talking about this, an eminent domain especially. And there was an older black woman in the audience who was like, yeah, when I was a kid in the 60s, they came through our middle class community and took the whole community. It was like 100 families there. So many black owned businesses. Took the whole community through eminent domain. Didn't build anything in his place for 50 years. It was just vacant. And what that does to a person. She said her uncle owned three properties in that neighborhood. And she was like, what it did to my uncle. When you. When you spend your whole life savings building this out.

[Unknown Speaker 5]

Yeah.

[Bria Baker]

And watch the government take it, why would that make me want to be an upstanding citizen? How can I go from that and want to be like, I can't even be around it. Like, it would make my skin crawl to be around people thinking like, you did this to me and like, it. You know, and as a man, as a provider, thinking like, wow, like, I did everything the way they told me I'm supposed to do. And they still took it. And they said, it's 100% legal and there's nothing I can do about it that will make you angry for a lifetime. So if y'all tired of black people being angry, do the thing to make us not angry. I promise you, if they started giving out reparations, legalizing, like, there's. I ain't got nothing. I'm gonna be on my land doing my own thing. I don't got no beef. Go on, do what you gotta do. But if you don't address the problem, it's always gonna be there. So how we get there, there are only, I believe, New York State is the third state to have established a commission and a task force for actually exploring what reparations would look like. California already has one. Illinois has one. There's some cities, like, there's a city in North Carolina that is also building it out. But it's very locally happening right now, and we have to support those things. So for those who are in New York, you can support that. NY, the number four. Reparations.org, newyorkforrepareparations.org and you can learn more about how to support that movement, because I think we have to stop acting as if it's never going to happen, and we have to make it happen. There's a global movement right now for reparations. It's not just us. In America, you got African nations saying, I want my stuff back, and I don't want to be a part of the Commonwealth no more. You got places in the Caribbean saying, yeah, actually, I don't acknowledge the British crown no more. And we want to be. There's this movement happening. Give us our stuff back from the museums. Give us our art back, Give us our jewels back. We got to get our wealth back, too. And we can't wait for. I hope it happens. No, we got to work for it to happen. And in the meantime, be doing everything you can to get you a little piece of land. So that's really where I'm at. I think there's also another organization whereismyland.org they had a successful campaign, if people are familiar. The Bruce's beach in California. Oh, yeah, yeah. So there was like, a Bruce. The Bruce family had built a hotel and a resort on the beachfront in LA in, like, the 30s. And their land was taken through eminent domain. The city did absolutely nothing with it. And in 2020, a brilliant organizer named Kavon Ward was like, I'm tired of Californians acting like they're better than the rest of the country. And y'all have racism right in your backyard. And until y'all Give this black family their land back. Like, you have no moral authority to be telling nobody else from anywhere else anything. And that family got their land back, $20 million worth of land back. So, like, it is possible, but we have to support it. So I would say some of the easiest ways are emine domain reversals, because you don't need a President Trump to sign off on nothing. All she had to do was go to Los Angeles county and say, hey, this happened in this county. Y'all signed off on that. Now y'all can sign off to give it back. They have dozens of campaigns going around, so you can sign their petitions, you can donate to support them. There's a lot of people trying to do this work, and they kind of doing it by themselves, or they're building these coalitions, and they don't have a lot of visibility. So for people who are saying, wow, I've never even heard of this stuff, like, yeah, just look it up. New York for reparations. See what the California task force is doing. And if you're. If you're listening from another state and they don't have that, y'all should. And you don't have to. It's not like you're starting it from scratch. The blueprint is already elsewhere. Say, how did New York do it? Can we learn from them? How did California do it? Can we learn from them? And how can we start getting land bad for you?

[Just Hilarious]

Have you been paying attention to what's going on in places like Chicago? Like, you know, we had Zoe, my homegirl, Zoe, up here, and she's been talking about how the Chicago Housing Authority has stolen so much land, including her mother's property. Have you paid attention to that?

[Bria Baker]

I didn't specifically hear about her campaign, but I have heard about this happening in Chicago because, yeah, in urban communities. Happens, too. Whether it's through eminent domain or they'll take a blighted property, but it's a difference. If the home on it is abandoned, the land under it should still belong to whoever owned that land. They should never be taking the land from someone. Even if they say, hey, we got to tear down this house and build something up better cool. Do that on my land for me. Right? Like, you shouldn't be taking my land. And also in Chicago, I think they were doing pretty good work about the fact that homeowners, like, if a black homeowner is saying, oh, I'm trying to sell my house, how much is it worth? Their houses are being appraised for, like, six figures less than what A white family is like, if you took down all the pictures of your black family in your house and then tried to sell it, they would value it more. So there are people trying to shift that policy, shift tax codes. Why are we paying more taxes in communities that have worse schools, worse roads, no infrastructure? So there's a lot of people trying to attack this from different areas. And I think it's all important. Like, not everybody needs to move to a farm and grow something, but everybody deserves a piece of land with at least a backyard in the back. There's enough to go around. If Bill Gates didn't have all of it, like, we could all afford to have a nice piece of something. And this scarcity mindset they try to teach us is we have to push back against, like, this idea that even sometimes what I see is they try to pit our groups together against one another. Where when I start talking about reparations, someone's like, well, actually, it's all indigenous land. Well, there's enough for us all to have. Some indigenous folks should have their land back too. Black people should have some land. Latinos, whether they are coming as workers, like, there's enough for all of us to have something. And in this richest country in the world, why are we accepting, oh, there's not enough to go around? I just don't believe that. I don't believe that, and I'm not gonna ever believe that. And so actually, to the point of New Yorkers for reparations, there's a collective, I'm a part of bliss, Black liberation, indigenous sovereignty. And we're trying to be in solidarity with one another and say, hey, they can never pit me against you. I want you to have land too, and I want me to have land too. And both of our ancestors acknowledged, like, there's enough for us to get this, get to it together. We don't gotta fight over it. Because while we fighting over it, they vacationing on their Wyoming ranch, they in Hawaii with it. They everywhere own the land, and we fighting for two acres over here. I'm not here for that. There's enough for all of us to go around.

[Just Hilarious]

I got one. Well, I think we can end it at that. I did have one last question. We can end it. That was good.

[Bria Baker]

I appreciate you.

[Just Hilarious]

Bria Baker rooted the American legacy of land theft. And the modern movement for black land ownership is out right now. Where can they get at you, Bria?

[Bria Baker]

Listen, you can follow me reckledwhileblack on social media. I also have a website, breabaker.com, and the book is in stores everywhere. Don't buy it from Amazon though. We boycotting them too. Red shirt, I was just about to.

[Unknown Speaker 4]

Ask you, was your book on Amazon?

[Bria Baker]

It is on Amazon, it is on Target. But we boycotting both of those places right now.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

Your Instagram name, right?

[Bria Baker]

So you can find it there.

[Just Hilarious]

Meta. Meta's.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

They got rid of their DEI initiatives.

[Bria Baker]

For sure and I might be off of them too. So that's why I said the website briabaker.com that's not on none of us use it. You know, just until she needs but there's black bookstores everywhere. Get it. A black bookstore. If you're like I don't want to go in person, bookshop.org will let you buy it from a local bookstore and make sure that your money is going to someone who also wants to see us win. Cuz buying a book about black land from a company that don't want to see you own no land is a little crazy. But listen, if you got to get it, you got to get it. Where you got to get it, you got to get it.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

It's in Target too.

[Just Hilarious]

And Walmart, right?

[Bria Baker]

Yeah.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

Shut up.

[Unknown Speaker 4]

Shut up.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

It's Bria Baker. It's the Breck Breakfast Club.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

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