WTW33: America - Where Even Bread is Racist

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:41 Thomas: Hello and welcome to Where There's Woke. This is probably episode 33, if I were to guess, just plus or minus. I'm Thomas Smith. That's probably Lydia, if I had to guess.

0:00:52 Lydia: I think you're right. I think that's who I am.

0:00:54 Thomas: Okay, some accuracy being demonstrated here. Good. How's it going?

0:00:59 Lydia: Pretty good. How are you?

0:01:01 Thomas: I am just, you know, I love doing this show and I'm realizing like the biggest challenge, challenge. I've probably said it before, but the biggest challenge is just the minute you start researching literally anything, it somehow all comes back to a massive web of right-wing bullshit. Like, and yeah, and you just can't even, I was trying to do, I have another topic that hopefully I'll get out soon. I was like, oh, this'll be a good, you know, I need something where it's kind of going to cut itself off. It won't go forever. I can just do this thing.

0:01:14 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah, I have some of that on today's episode.

0:01:32 Lydia: Can't do a hardcore history.

0:01:33 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. No. And then I just start on something and it's like, God, all roads lead to right wing nut jobbery. But, you of the job and make we'll it work. So I'm excited for today's episode.

0:01:34 Lydia: Yeah... Yeah. So I want to give a shout out to our Facebook group because that's actually where where I got the lead for this story. I you want to send leads tips our way, you know, the Facebook group is a great place to do that. Check us out there, or you can always email us too. But this is about what happens when flour, not flowers that grow from the garden, but flour for baking, goes woke.

0:02:07 Thomas: OK, How does it do that, though? It's like we can't I can't be white anymore. I have to be non-white flower. Is it going to involve something stupid like that?

0:02:12 Lydia: Yeah, great question. Well, gosh, that I

0:02:19 Thomas: What?

0:02:19 Lydia: Mean, that's a whole other thing that I have in my research, too, that we can talk about. But, you know, why don't we turn to this guy, Dixon Hexenhammer, whatever his name is. Over on YouTube, I sent you a clip to kind of explain what's going on here.

0:02:30 Thomas: All Okay, right here we go. Okay.

0:02:37 Clip: Right, everyone. Now we have some Vermont news, actually. A tale of racism from a state that's 97 % white, but it's not racism aimed at people of color or colored people, whichever the liberals choose is the politically correct term of the week. No, it's aimed at white people, again, which is interesting.

0:02:55 Thomas: This Guy's dressed like a hippie. What's Going on here? I only say that because, like, clearly he's some right-wing nutjob, but, like, what's the, what's The Aesthetic.

0:02:57 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah, he No. He is A right wing nut job. So he shows up on, like, Rational Wiki, um, name is Tarle Warwick and he, he was like kind of these alt-right views, he considers, well, now, now he considers himself a libertarian, but everyone's like, "No, dude, like you're you're right. Not I don't know. Are they the same tomato, tomato?

0:03:03 Thomas: Yeah. Uh, Well, Yeah. Not, yeah. Well, It's Not mutually exclusive. I Wouldn't say they're the same, but I would say that often those people hide behind, behind, oh, I just, I think government should get out of our way. And then it's like, also, they believe in fascism. So it's, you know, so yeah, it takes kind of a moderate tone on that whole thing. Like, I'm not saying it didn't happen. Just, you need to do some revisions in our understanding of it. Okay.

0:03:22 Lydia: True. True. Yeah. He's a Holocaust revisionist. So, you know, a serious person. Yeah. Yep. Yep,

0:03:48 Thomas: Yeah, sure.

0:03:48 Lydia: He's yep.

0:03:48 Thomas: Very reasonable.

0:03:48 Lydia: Very anti -immigration. He says that Muslims have a vested interest in attacking us. And, you know, obviously he's like pro -border wall. I don't I don't know. Yeah. He's interesting because like he's, you pro -legalizing all drugs and he's pro -LGBT rights.

0:03:55 Thomas: Huh? What, What is that alleged vested interest? Okay, of course.

0:04:07 Lydia: He doesn't like transgender people that, you know, that's kind of the typical TERF LGB.

0:04:08 Thomas: Yeah. Oh, So it's again pro-LGB rights. And we don't know, there could be a Q in there, but we're not sure. Wow.

0:04:14 Lydia: Yeah, exactly. Yeah exactly. And then he supported the January 6th.

0:04:22 Thomas: Good.

0:04:22 Lydia: Yeah it said that, for them. He didn't participate But yeah, yeah, big.

0:04:26 Thomas: For them, okay. And he's not just like, this guy has 500,000 subscribers. Looks like on YouTube, pretty big. Yeah. Bigger than us, as always. Yeah, okay. Well, well, let's get back to his thesis.

0:04:33 Lydia: Yeah.

0:04:39 Clip: Arthur Baking, over in, I can't remember exactly which town they're based in. I've actually been there before. You'll find their flour and so forth on shelves all the time, around the state, and people from other places buy it too. It is reasonably good quality, but they've gone completely berserk, and somehow they think that their baking pitch fest thing here is not going to result in a boycott.

I know if I have to buy flour for some compelling reason, I'm not going to buy it from King Arthur at this point. Not going to happen, because I don't want to contribute to racism against white people, and that's exactly what it is. For their baking contest, basically, businesses are going to use the King Arthur flour and then bake stuff, and then they're having a contest, and it's to uplift communities of color, and the way that they're doing that is by precluding any white-owned business from actually taking part. So basically, literally segregation against whites is now accepted. And in Vermont, it'll pass the smell test. By the way, the white NIMBYist liberals won't complain about this. They'll say, "Oh, that's very, very, very good of them. I think I'll go buy more flour." That's the way that they are. Basically,

0:05:50 Clip: They don't care because it'll look good on paper. It makes them feel better about themselves to have contributed absolutely nothing to race relations and actually damaged them. But it looks woke on paper, we've seen this as a trend, by the way, with a left wing movements lately anyway.

0:06:06 Thomas: I love this.

0:06:07 Clip: So they're going to have their pitch fest, but no whitey need apply. No whites allowed. This This is a safe space for the tiny minority of Vermonters that are non-white. Virtually all Vermoners are white, just to be clear. It's like 97%, so I don't know. I mean, they're not going to take much of a hit in sales in a woke state like Vermont, but there are people from outside of the state that buy King Arthur flour. I'm seeing many calls for boycotting already.

0:06:35 Lydia: Creaky chair.

0:06:35 Clip: It's pissing people off, and Vermont's a high -tax state and shit like that, Betso, you know, the profit margins on a business owned in this state tend to be smaller than elsewhere, so can you weather a 10 % reduction in sales? What about when you have to lay off employees? Are you only going to, are you going to pledge to only lay off white ones when you have to downsize because you're not selling as much flour? I'm not part

0:06:35 Thomas: Yeah.

0:06:57 Lydia: Yeah, so

0:06:54 Thomas: Jesus Christ. God, they're all one guy. It's amazing how it's all one guy.

0:07:00 Lydia: Yeah, you know, there hasn't been like huge amounts of coverage here. A lot of it's been on Twitter, but OutKick picked it up. They're affiliated with Daily Wire. And Outkick says King Arthur Flour is hosting an upcoming baking competition. The brand will provide financial support to the winners of the bake -off. The competition is a grand opportunity for and baking companies. Everyone is eligible to join the competition. Well, almost everyone. One.

0:07:27 Lydia: According to King Arthur Flower, white people are not allowed to compete. The company calls the exclusion of white people a form of inclusion. How about that? So that was the article they wrote.

0:07:37 Thomas: Also, I got the creaky chair. Why does his sound sound like it was Skype from 2005? It's like got the tone that something that only seems to bother me.

0:07:45 Lydia: You'd think with five hundred thousand subscribers,

0:07:48 Thomas: Yeah. Like what? What?

0:07:48 Lydia: You'd be able to invest a

0:07:49 Thomas: How down sampled is this fucking audio? It's awful. Anyway.

0:07:49 Lydia: Little bit. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And then, you know, things on Twitter. Someone said, I will never use King Arthur racist flour. Disgusting. Too bad for them as my one woman baking business is growing. King Arthur Baking Company, you're getting the Bud Light treatment. I'm so angry right now. My breads and cakes aren't worthy of their support.

0:08:07 Thomas: Boy. Yeah. Cancel culture at work here, as usual.

0:08:13 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah. And then Libs of TikTok chimed in, too, about this on Twitter, of course. And it says, bakeware company is holding a competition for bakeries and the winner receives mentorship and financial support. Only Black -owned bakeries are eligible to participate. No whites allowed. Anti -white discrimination is the only type of hate that's permitted. Do not give this company any of your money. Instead, go to official, you know, at official PSQ, which provides products from founders who share your values. Don't give money to people who hate you and everything you stand for. Check them out here, publicsquare.com.

0:08:19 Thomas: Yeah, I

0:08:49 Lydia: And then the Daily Wire's headline is, once we break this down, I, let me know what you think, baking company host competition barring white participants. Okay, yeah.

0:08:59 Thomas: Just I know we're going to debunk, but you can't. I don't even think you can do that like I do. But OK, we'll humor them. Oh,

0:09:05 Lydia: And And it's written by uh, named Spencer Lindquist, who writes for the Daily Wire. Now, he previously wrote for the Federalist and Breitbart. He's the president of his College Republicans group at Pepperdine University, and he actually grew up around me. So here I am like trying to find him and where he went to high school. Some of his other pieces include things like, the left has a pedophilia problem and it's out in the open. My high school taught me critical race theory six years ago and tried to re-educate me when I fought back. Critical race trove from California district tells students how to use witchcraft on people who say all lives matter. Matter, academics call for critical race theory to be taught in kindergarten warn of racist three-year-olds. So this is a serious journalist. Do you want to know what's what's really going on here?

0:09:44 Thomas: My God.

0:09:58 Thomas: All right. And thanks for that episode, everybody. Thanks for listening to Where There's Woke.

0:10:01 Lydia: Yeah. Yep. We're wrapped up. See you next time. King Arthur Baking Company was just just a little bit of...

0:10:07 Thomas: They sent a cup of flour to a trans person. Is that what happened?

0:10:08 Lydia: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. A little bit background. They were founded in Massachusetts in 1790. They're actually like the first flower company in America. And they were the Henry Wood Company, then later the Sands, Taylor and Wood Company in 1895. And then George Wood, who was the Wood at the time of the company, saw a musical production of the King Arthur story in 1896. And he was like, oh, my God, you guys, we have to change our name.

0:10:38 Thomas: Wow. Yeah.

0:10:39 Lydia: They changed their name.

0:10:41 Thomas: What an inspiring story of this corporate birth.

0:10:42 Lydia: Yep, yep. Behind it was they wanted their company to exude the same qualities as King Arthur as purity, loyalty, loyalty, honesty, superior strength, and a dedication to a higher purpose.

0:10:56 Thomas: Yeah. What I need in my baked goods. A

0:10:57 Lydia: Yeah. Their company, you know, it interesting kind of watching the evolution of their marketing and everything and what the Sticks, Hexen, Hammer guy talked about in his video a little bit later is like the logo. He says, you Know, it's the logo of King Arthur riding on a horse and he's He's holding, you know, the the Knights of Templar.

0:11:18 Thomas: Piece of bread or.

0:11:20 Lydia: No, like the Red Cross flag thing and like coming back from battle. And and there are elements of like, you knows, kind of a little weird and concerning there. They not their logo anymore. And so I know that he doesn't use it or buy it ever because he would know they've they've actually changed their logo fairly. Moved their headquarters to Vermont in 1984. And in the late 1990s, the owners of the company really wanted to make sure that it wasn't being passed off to, you a random group of other people. They, they had a lot of pride in their company. And so, so they began transitioning to an employee owned company, and they made 100 percent employee owned in 2004, and they've been that way ever since. Yeah.

0:11:20 Thomas: Oh, yeah.

0:11:38 Thomas: Wait, Well, That's interesting, and

0:12:02 Lydia: From their website, as employee owners, we're not beholden to outside shareholders who care only about the bottom line. We have the freedom to emphasize other values like social and environmental responsibility and the wellness and satisfaction of our employees. That's why King Arthur shares its profits both inside and outside the company. We invest in sustainability, support community groups nationwide, and offer every employee 40 hours of paid volunteering time per year. Regularly named one of the best places to work in Vermont. They, know, offer that 40 hours if paid volunteer time. They offer eight weeks of paid parental leave.

0:12:36 Thomas: That, that's meaning you can go volunteer for a cause of your choice and you still are just getting it's like time off. That's actually really cool. I have enjoyed that as back when I worked for the man. Wow.

0:12:41 Lydia: Yep. Yep. It is really cool. I know. I do tuition reimbursement up to a certain amount. They do charitable contribution matching. They do, you know, matching retirement savings. They offer all their employees free flour and two loaves of bread a month.

0:12:53 Thomas: Only problem is white's people shot on sight if you try in the building. Sounds like a great place to work. If you're not white, that's why they are in Vermont. And

0:13:00 Lydia: Yep, yep. Yeah 97 % white. They Right. Have a flagship bakery and a school that offers classes and demos at all skill levels. They've like paid classes and things. But then they also partner with schools to do classes virtually in person. And those are all free. The students leave with two loaves of bread and they encourage the students, you know, it's one for you and one to for you to give to someone in need or as an act of kindness. And so this

0:13:32 Thomas: One more for the next white person you kill.

0:13:34 Lydia: Is something that what this company is. Those are their values. They are, you know, a certified B corporation. They have things related to efforts that they're making for sustainability and and renewable agriculture and, you know, these various things where they're invested in people and the planet. And we'll get into more of that, too. But what exactly is this competition that they're saying that no whites are allowed? Is called Baking Pitch Fest 2024, This is actually an that they are providing in partnership with a nonprofit organization called Project Potluck. Project Project Potluck is a 501c3 that was founded by people of color for people of color, and what it is is it's a free community that provides access to resources, mentorship, events in the consumer packaged goods industry.

0:14:31 Lydia: This matters because, you been a lot of discussion about the pervasive racism in the restaurant industry, racism in venture capitalists funding opportunities, right? And so these are efforts within Project Potluck to address those inequities. And this is a little sidebar, but what you were talking about earlier when we kicked off the episode about how everything is connected, bear with me. So late last summer, Edward Bloom, do is the guy that is behind the the ending affirmative action through SCOTUS. So last year, when SCOTus ended affirmative action for college campuses, he is the guy behind those cases, Students for Fair Admissions.

And he created a new organization in Texas in June 2021 called the American Alliance for Equal Rights. And just recently, they sued a venture capital firm that's owned by Black women because they they have a grant program that's for Black women. And they're suing under Section 1981 of the 1866 Civil Rights Act. And the reason why that's important is because that language, was it originally intended to protect Black people from economic exclusion after slavery. It specifically says, you know, that Black people are afforded the same rights and benefits enjoyed by white citizens in contractual relationships. And so now they're flipping it on its head,

0:14:42 Thomas: Yeah. Okay. Yeah, yeah.

0:16:01 Lydia: Reverse discrimination, and saying these grants are contracts and you are violating Section 1981 of the 1866 Civil Rights Act by not allowing white people to have access to these opportunities. So this is something that is being fought right now. It could have dramatic impacts if this is something. We know he has money. We know he is connections. Edward Bloom, there's coat connections there with some of his other organizations. He can take this financially to the Supreme Court if the Supreme Court wants to hear this, assuming it makes it the way there, which I think it could. What you might be looking at is like a will be seen as a contract now, and then grants are open to everybody, everywhere. Like, what?

0:16:13 Thomas: Huh.

0:16:49 Lydia: How would that even work? Yeah. Nonsense. This organization, the American Alliance for Equal Rights, is on my radar now because obviously it includes him. It includes Kenny Zhu, who is an anti -DEI, 26 -year -old conservative activist. He's also on the board for students for fair admissions. And then Richard Fisher is on the the board of this too. And that's Abigail Fisher's dad. And Abigail Fisher is, yeah.

0:16:49 Thomas: I don' - Yeah. Oh, God. Yeah I remember that name.

0:17:16 Lydia: Yeah. University of Texas.

0:17:17 Thomas: Is the B minus average student that complained about not getting

0:17:19 Lydia: Yep. Yep, that complaint. So and then that whole story, just so you know, they didn't seek that out. I guess Richard Fisher and Bloom were friends, longtime family friends. And Bloom had been seeking out the right student to sue the college system. And then Richard was like, Like, how about my daughter? She just got rejected from University of Texas and she's really, really sad.

0:17:21 Thomas: - Yeah, uh -huh. Oh God. Jesus. Jesus.

0:17:43 Lydia: You help coach her for the media?

0:17:44 Thomas: I feel bad for her a little bit. I don't know. I mean, it just.

0:17:46 Lydia: Yeah. It feels like she was used a little bit.

0:17:48 Thomas: Oh, yeah, for sure. I mean, I'm sure she'll turn out to also be terrible. But like, I

0:17:49 Lydia: Yeah. She is. She's on the board for Student for Fair Admission. So, yeah.

0:17:53 Thomas: Yeah. Like, it's just also like a bad draw in life. Like You have some asshole racist dad that's like, "Let's use you as a poster child for this." And then I'm sure she got a bunch of like, you treatment by a lot of of people for that and will harden in her, you know, views too, what?

0:17:57 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah, So that's really like what we're talking about in terms of what's happening in the real world. And Project Potluck is attempting to bridge those gaps in a way, but I do have concerns with things later down the line and the potential impact there. So back to the contest. They must be members of Project Potlock, and in order to be a member, you have to be A Person of Color. Have two different opportunities for this contest. They have a bakery opportunity and a baking product opportunity. The baking product is offered nationwide, and the bakery is limited to Washington State for some reason, and then Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island, and Vermont. Specifically there.

0:18:54 Thomas: Have to do with some sort of state law stuff.

0:18:56 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah. What Yeah. The opportunity here is, $10,000, the opportunity for mentorship, the financial support of King Arthur Baking Company moving forward. And it's it is specific to people of color because King Arthur is partnering with a 501C3 in which that is their mission. Is not unlike other things that King Arthur does King Arthur I guess not King Arthur the person but King Arthur Baking Company I talked about their culture and their values at their company level and you know they sponsor baking contests all around the country every year you basically just write in and say I would like to hold a baking contest and they say okay OK. Your only requirement is you either have to do one adult competition, one youth competition or one of both. Then they cover the prizes. And granted, the prizes are small potatoes, but they the ones paying for it.

0:19:17 Thomas: Oh.

0:19:52 Thomas: Good you get some small potatoes in it, okay. And then you bake, use those with the flour, you win enough of them, you get som other ingredients, chives, sour cream, got yourself a stew. Yeah.

0:19:55 Lydia: Yeah. Potato flour. And yeah. Yeah. You got yourself a stew. Do. Yeah. They also do rising partner grants, which is something they do on an annual basis. These are offered as three -year agreements with or organization that's been awarded the grant. It includes financial support, mission elevation, engagement opportunities with their company. You we talk about opportunities, because that's what what this is. This is not something where it's like, you McDonald's is doing their monopoly thing. And if you're white, they're not going to hand out, the you the fries with the monopoly piece on it. Yeah, yeah.

0:20:30 Thomas: Yeah. Do not pass go white people.

0:20:37 Lydia: This it's in the same way that in Silicon Valley, there are accelerator opportunities, and they become specific to a group of people. I just, just mentioned right there, we have a Black women-owned venture capitalist firm that is offering grant opportunities to Black women and their work. And this is not unique to King Arthur Baking, and this is not unique to the work that they have done and continue to do. Other accelerator programs are being done similarly to this through Whole Foods. They do accelerator programs. Target does accelerator programs, Kroger, Pepsi. Just not a unique thing to King Arthur Baking specifically. It's just because that they have partnered with this 501(c)(3) and their particular mission and that they are trying to address the lack of diversity in these spaces by encouraging innovation and entrepreneurship from communities that traditionally don't have access to those things. Yeah.

0:21:26 Thomas: Yeah, I don't really know. It's not a lot show. So I don't know how the law on that works, especially given like how much this conservative Supreme Court has ruined everything. Like I don t I d n't have any sense anymore of like how that fine you relative, know, to the way the law has been ruined. I don't know, I assume it must be in some way, but yeah, it's freaking out about a tiny program that might help like a bakery of color, you know, even and ignoring anything else they've ever done all forever just to focus on this one thing. Who knows how many other previous programs they had was, you know, that taken advantage of by white people, is not in any bad way, but just like, because again, the state they're in is 97% % white, I'm sure most of what they do, like, probably benefits white people or not, and it doesn't really, like, you can't just ignore the broader context of what the mission might be.

0:22:47 Thomas: Yeah, you

0:22:58 Lydia: Impact reports. And I imagine that this is something, it's just important to them. Think I mentioned they're B Corp certified, or maybe I didn't.

0:23:06 Thomas: Did But I was gonna ask what that meant, but I

0:23:06 Lydia: Yeah, so B Corps certified means that you meet a metric that addresses like and economic progress and like, you have to earn a certain number of points out of 200 in order to go through the certification process. And I think it's 80 out of 100. And King Arthur Baking Company continues to increase their B Corp score. So they're at like 123.

0:23:36 Thomas: Is it, again, how do you earn point? What are you trying to do? What is it? Did

0:23:39 Lydia: To if you are B Corps certified, it's indicating that you are dedicated to social and environmental impact. And it's something that, you indicator for consumers that this is a company that, um, takes ethics seriously, that takes the environment seriously, that's making efforts improve those things. And, like LEED certified, right? Like that you would get on a, no, no. So that is something that they continue to work on. Been certified for 15 years. So before it was even cool, I'm sure. Were. And yeah, yeah. Have a kind of strategic plan that they issued in 2022 called the 2030 People and Planet. And that includes goals focused on restoring nature, building

0:24:04 Thomas: -hmm, so It's one of those many certificate, like organic or Something that's like, yeah It's Not like A government Thing, right? It's just a, yeah Now it's really cool, the End

0:24:33 Lydia: A more equitable world.

0:24:34 Thomas: Of the white Race, it's All that kind of stuff

0:24:35 Lydia: Yeah. So, you a company that is doing good work. And even as as a conservative, if you were paying attention at all, this is not out of the norm for the kind of company they are. Kind of my position on it. This is not surprising at all. So let me share with you a little bit about what non -insane coverage of this looks like. Right. So this is out of bakingbusiness.com. a new collaboration, King Arthur Baking Company and Project Potluck, a nonprofit championing people of color in the consumer packaged goods and food and beverage industries have launched Baking Pitch Fest 2024. This accelerator program is elevate POC entrepreneurs in the baking industry, offering them opportunities for growth, mentorship, and exposure to the industry.

0:25:26 Thomas: Cool.

0:25:26 Lydia: Pretty reasonable. And then they go on to say, you will be accepted from this date to this date. And they have, you knows, some quotes from folks that work at King Arthur Bacon Company, as well as Project Potluck. Lawrence is the Corporate Social Responsibility Manager, and she says that the diversity of applicants and the potential for innovative products and business concepts furthers their mission to support increased racial and ethnic diversity in the field. Testament to our commitment to fostering a more inclusive baking community and empowering creative POC leaders in the industry. And Kathleen Casanova, the executive director at Project Potluck, says Baking Pitchfest 2024 is more than a competition. It's a platform for empowering people of color to break barriers and redefine the narrative in baking.

0:26:15 Thomas: Doesn't this just strike you as like one of the many little corporate events. I mean, it sounds like this company is actually pretty cool, but like one One of the many little corporate whatevers oftentimes are cynical nothing or maybe they're pretty cool. That's like, hey, we're going to help stray cats. And then someone's like like what what about fucking dogs, assholes?

0:26:33 Thomas: And And you're like it's just they're just doing a stray cat one or they're just doing whatever, you know, like it is just whatever your cause is. Hey, we are going to do, you now, lung cancer. What about breast cancer, you fucking racist? And And you are like it just a little corporate -y initiative nothing. Like can you just relax?

0:26:30 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

0:26:49 Lydia: Yeah, yeah, exactly, and it's just I so far out of proportion, that of these tweets, man, like, uh, is racism looking at you, King Arthur Baking Company, those that claim this is only natural, as it's just the pendulum swinging the other way, like, just remember remember, yeah, the pen.

0:27:01 Thomas: Yeah. What? Yes. It's the flower pendulum we all learned about that, and Martin Luther King talked about the great flower pendulum and how one day he hoped it would swing toward justice, getting

0:27:23 Lydia: And, you other piece that I learned as I was doing this and, you know, we always talk about redlining in the space of buying homes and, you Getting a for buying a house. Right. But that also applied to business loans. And this is something where, like, you have these established bakeries that that have been around for a long time. And just Black people didn't have the opportunity to start in particular areas or get the money to start them at all in same way that white people did. And so why can't this be an opportunity for $10,000? It's $10,000 to try and help out a company that is getting their feet wet now. I don't know.

0:27:35 Thomas: Mortgage yeah right yeah, good point yeah yeah yeah You should roll those feet in some flour, dry it off. Yeah, I I think that, um, very prevalent view, I mean, it's an insanely stupid view, except for it's a view held by probably six members of the Supreme Court, including the the conservative Black member of the court, which is, uh, the only way to undo racism, is this is literally quoted in decisions, the onlyway to stop making you based on race is to stop making distinctions based on race.

0:28:23 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah.

0:28:33 Thomas: And this idea that what, like, if you tomorrow is one of the you reasons that I became somewhat radicalized on issues of race in America, which is it's just an insanely stupid and non-educated and ignorant view to think that all that needs to happen is you reset to zero, like, all, even first off, that's not actually happening. But like, even if you did, even if you granted, like, oh yeah, we'll just say somehow tomorrow, snap your fingers, everything is perfectly non-racist starting tomorrow, there's no bias in anything, in any decision, blah blah blah blah blah. That does not account for the centuries of systemic racism.

You can't just leave like particular group of people vastly underprivileged in every single meaningful sense and then be like, well, now we'll just reset though. We'll just reset, which the Monopoly, uh, comparison is one is that I've always found compelling that I thought, I thought of, but then obviously everyone's thought of everything, so someone else also had thought of it. And anyway, point is, you can't just take the Monopoly board, put, let all the white people own all the fucking properties because you've redlined the black people out of owning them, and then be like, "Well, now but it's all neutral rules of Monopoly, though, like from now on, whether or not you're white, black, or what, or green." You know, they always throw in another color, or purple.

0:28:51 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

0:29:50 Thomas: If you land on Broadway, you're paying the fucking 1 ,400, whatever dollars it is in the Monopoly game, no matter what race you are. And it's like, yeah, but who owns Broadway and why? Like, oh, it's just white people mainly because they had that privilege. And yeah, it'S sure doesn't sound fair.

0:30:00 Lydia: Yeah. Because they got there first and forcibly kept other people out. Yeah. Yeah.

0:30:08 Thomas: How will we undo something like that by never talking about race again? It's the only way.

0:30:15 Lydia: Got to get a cat to jump on the table, knock over all the pieces, and then we'll actually start over.

0:30:21 Thomas: Yeah. Critical race theory is the name of that cat.

0:30:21 Lydia: Yeah. Amazing.

0:30:27 Thomas: I [slash] one of our kids to be so bored by Monopoly they can do a turn or two too. And then they're like, boy, this sure is boring. Let's do something else, even though this was our idea.

0:30:35 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah, and Just, you know, like a fun little history thing that I, I learned here is you, there, there is this element of this that's a little uncomfortable hearing about is like, um, flower, the whiter the better kind of thing. Yeah, um, King Arthur flower, you historically, their marketing, they never bleach their flower. And it's pretty white. And so that's like what they would use in a lot of their marketing materials is like, you Look at how white this flower is. It's only the best.

0:30:53 Thomas: Oh, God. Mm.

0:31:11 Thomas: Hashtag flowers. So white.

0:31:12 Lydia: Yeah, Yeah. You, a lot of racism tied to white bread, too, because I

0:31:12 Thomas: Yeah.

0:31:21 Thomas: Why is all the white worst stuff, the worst stuff, too? I don't want to get stuck with white, white bread. Does anyone still just eat like white bread? Like a sourdough, you and no other thing. There's just like, does anyone still but I'll probably find out like Like similar to how Budweiser is the most popular beer. Bad example now, but similar to how, you know, the shittiest beers are the most popular by far. Probably, I'm sure Wonder Bread is still probably like the most consumed bread and it's just the worst.

0:31:44 Lydia: It's moved into classism now because white bread is so processed and so cheap that now it's looked as a way to look down on people who can't afford something else. But initially, it was by 1930, 90 % of the bread that people were eating was made in factories. White bread was, you know, affordable, easy to buy. And they were saying like, hey, it's really clean. No one's touching it.

0:31:51 Thomas: Yeah. Oh, I see.

0:32:13 Thomas: Gotcha. Other breads made back then had like body parts in it and stuff like from the Upton jungle, Sinclair's The Jungle. You know, it's like somebody falls on the bread maker and they're like, it' Fine. It's okay, that person, they're done, also they had no rights as a worker, so it's fine. Jesus.

0:32:21 Lydia: Oh, yeah. So this guy who was a food columnist for McClure's magazine in 1906, he was also a doctor. His name's Woods Hutchinson. And he wrote something that is just horrible. No race ever yet ate black bread when it could get white, nor even brown, yellow or other mulatto tint.

0:32:48 Thomas: Christ.

0:32:48 Lydia: Yeah. And that, you know, is a pretty popular magazine at the time, widely disseminated. And so people are reading that and they're like, yeah, white bread's the best. White bread's the best and they, you know, because it's in a factory and it's packaged in a bag, it doesn't look like it's been, you out with bugs and touched by people. Whereas like if you're buying bread from, you immigrants and in other spaces or like home bakeries, you this idea that it's dirty and it just this horrible history to just bread in this country like everything else, I guess.

0:32:56 Thomas: My god. Yeah.

0:33:17 Thomas: Yeah. We turn everything racist, like, you can find a way, you look, any, any item, any, it's, it really should, be is there a subset rule to the rule, whatever the, was the rule 34, whatever the porn one is, like, it, any, anything has porn made about it or something, like that, remember that, what is that, rule 34, I don't know, some, some internet joke thing from a time before you probably remember or whatever, but like there should also, rule 35, if there's a thing then there's racism of it, like, somehow, I'm not saying like every single thing is racist all the time, I just mean, like, look into the, in this country, probably in everywhere, but like in this county, look into the history of fucking anything, you're like, well, what could be the problem with flour, how could we, we get at in any way from flower to racism, it's like, no, it's actually like two steps, it's

0:33:22 Lydia: Yeah. Hmm. I don't know. Yeah.

0:33:51 Lydia: Yeah, yeah.

0:34:07 Lydia: Found

0:34:07 Thomas: Not very yeah.

0:34:07 Lydia: A way.

0:34:08 Thomas: That's one of the easier Kevin Bacons, there's no, flower was just in a movie with Kevin Bacon, that's not even a challenge, that are

0:34:16 Lydia: But I think that Project Potluck is it's a super cool company. I want to include the link to in the show notes, just in case we have any listeners that are bakers and are looking for community.

0:34:27 Thomas: Racist against whites as well.

0:34:30 Lydia: Just so we can kind of help them connect with those resources. And to go out, I have to subject you to this. We got to go back to, no, yep, sorry.

0:34:31 Thomas: Yeah. Well on The bright side is, do I get to stop looking at this fucking guy's face? Jesus Christ. Nah, this is.

0:34:45 Lydia: We're going back to Dick's Hexenhammer.

0:34:48 Thomas: This is, I gotta say, I mean, we cover some hateable folks. This is one of worst. Like this guy's face. I just fucking very punchable. This guy. Oh, could they, could they afford a 10 % reduction? Shut the fuck up.

0:34:53 Lydia: Yeah, yeah. Also, he was like, where are they going to find the people to do this contest? Vermont's 97 % white. And it's like, that's not accurate. It. Like, this is all just wrong. You're wrong, you're wrong you're, wrong. Alright, go ahead and press play.

0:35:18 Clip: Of the country at the moment. I'd prefer to just go over to New Hampshire myself. Basically, you get Vermont with a lower cost of living, no sales tax, of course, and beach access. You know, you live reasonably close to the beach and take a half hour drive and go take a weekend and on North Hampton. Yeah, I always liked the Wind Jammer there, that was the little hotel that we stayed at. It's convenient because it's literally like you walk across the road and one little strip of parking and then you're at the beach and it's right next to the area, right, it's a, right between North Hampton's, the rocky side, and the other side is the, like, the, the long sandy tourist beach.

0:35:46 Thomas: Okay.

0:35:56 Clip: I I preferred the rocky one for the title pools.

0:35:53 Thomas: What? Uh -huh. Uh -uh. Can you give me directions to

0:35:56 Lydia: 25 % of this movie, or movie this video.

0:35:59 Clip: You don't get that in Vermont, but you can get good flour. It's just that it's racist. It's extra funny because, of course, flour is really white.

0:36:00 Thomas: It? Yeah. So I turn on... You

0:36:09 Clip: And their packaging is white, and a Templar soldier, a deus volter, literally King Arthur is their brand logo. So everything about it is painfully white, but then you're the company that decides to have the black -only baking contest. Test.

0:36:11 Thomas: Have to make a joke though.

0:36:18 Lydia: There it is. Wrong. Yeah. Wrong.

0:36:19 Thomas: Yeah.

0:36:24 Clip: By the way, what do you define as a person of color? What about someone who's a quarter black?

0:36:27 Lydia: Yeah, you can end it there.

0:36:32 Clip: Do they qualify or are they too white? What if they're like Nikki Haley or something like that?

0:36:33 Lydia: Okay, yeah.

0:36:32 Thomas: No, I want to hear him out. God, he's making so many good points. I really... What? Yeah, how do you do that? It's just like Like these people have, they don't ever talk to other humans in a way where the other human can talk back, you know, like me a favor, got sticks and hammer this fucking asshole. Just go to potlick. Project Cause that's where the thing, that's it's not like the, the flower people were like, we hate whites only, non-white people. It was that they're backing Project Potluck, right?

0:36:40 Lydia: Your mind has been changed.

0:37:06 Lydia: Yep.

0:37:06 Thomas: And so somewhere in Project Potluck, they will have had to figure this out or do, you know, like, I don't know if they'll have some membership rules or some crap, but like, or if it's just, you know, in general, people are like, oh, oh I understand that's not for me. Okay, that's for other people. Cool. You do a thing that's for you and I, a white asshole, will not make a fucking stink about it because I recognize that for all time, most of society was specifically for me. So I'll be like, oh, that's an organization that's not for me.

0:37:35 Lydia: Well, there's so many members groups that are that way. Right. There's, you know, like Asian-American Pacific Islander lawyers groups. And, you Know, those.

0:37:43 Thomas: No, I must be allowed to join them. Yeah, and so if this guy just fucking talked, just ask him, hey, what if I were a quarter? But they'd be like no, you probably qualify as a person of color in our mind. I mean, we don't put a specific, this is just me imagining. They'd be, like, well, I don't know. Do you identify as non-white? No.

0:38:03 Thomas: Okay. Well, then, then what are you talking about? There's somebody who wants to apply and they identify as non-white and it's Rachel Dolezal or something, well, then, yeah, they'll be like, hey, we just kind of didn't question your self-identification because we take it for granted that people aren't fucking cynical assholes trying to commit fraud. But it turns out you're a cynical asshole trying to submit fraud. So you're out of the group. That's probably what would happen. Doesn't seem like that hard of a question. But I love when these people get spun out in the show. And well, now what if, okay, what if you're cloned and part of you is is black, they use just like the forearm of you as black and then the, it's just like, dude, who are you talking to, what even are you fucking talking about, it's amazing, there's there's a whole industry of this exact white idiot, like it's it's crazy to me, they're so dumb, paid for this we're

0:37:45 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

0:38:50 Lydia: My conspiracy theory is that New Hampshire tourism paid him to do this. It's just like a really weird ad.

0:38:57 Thomas: Unraveling this conspiracy, it goes all the way straight through big flower on to big beach access

0:39:03 Lydia: Yeah, I know. I started this video and I was like, oh, he has a lot to say about this nothing burger of a story. And it's, you know, seven and a half minutes long. And I get to a two minute pitch about why we should go to New Hampshire, where we should where we could stay, why it's a great.

0:39:14 Thomas: Yeah fucking New Hampshire, that's the next, the next time on, Where There's Woke, the new Hampshire connection action

0:39:22 Lydia: Yep. A shout out to Sam Pranger over on our Facebook group for giving me this lead. Yeah. Yeah, and looking forward to hearing from other folks to send them my way. I I like digging into this stuff.

0:39:23 Thomas: All right. It, when we blow up this New Hampshire conspiracy, Sam, your name is going to be a household name, you're gonna, they're gonna be like, you know, the whistleblower who no one thought to, well, that was kind of us though, you got to give us credit, like you tipped us off, you know, you're like our informant, but I mean, it's really the intrepid journalism of Lydia Smith has gotten to the bottom of this New Hampshire, this vast underground New Hampshire conspiracy, for the New Hampshire travel, uh

0:39:46 Lydia: Whistleblower. Yeah yeah.

0:40:04 Lydia: Yep yep. We're we're going going to figure this out.

0:40:27 Lydia: We have what?

0:40:27 Thomas: N -A -A N, insane. Nevermind. N A A N insane coverage. I was making a bread pun. It's fine.

0:40:32 Lydia: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's a bread pun. Got it. I gotcha.