The Personal Librarian

She wasn't just organizing the library; she was orchestrating a whole life.

This week, the girls are heading back to the early 1900s to talk about the woman, the myth, and the master of the "pivot": Belle da Costa Greene, aka Belle Marion Greener. In The Personal Librarian by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray, we meet a Black woman passing as white to become the most powerful person in J.P. Morgan’s inner circle.

We’re breaking down the sheer audacity it took to navigate the world of wealth, the heartbreak of leaving family behind, and the exhaustion of keeping a secret that could ruin everything. Belle was the original "it girl" with a double life, and we have thoughts on the receipts she kept.

In this episode, we’re unpacking:

• The Cost of the Secret: We’re getting into the emotional toll of "passing" and what it means to choose your career over your identity.
• The Fashion & The Flair: Belle didn’t just walk into a room; she owned it. Let’s discuss the wardrobe and the confidence.
• Real Talk: If we were in Belle's shoes, would we have kept the secret? Was it worth it?

Pour something strong—perhaps a vintage-inspired cocktail—and settle in. This isn’t just a history lesson; it’s a whole mood.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:03

Welcome to the podcast where my presentation is crucial.

SPEAKER_06 0:11

We can get into honoring the brilliance and the power of the authors.

SPEAKER_03 0:17

We got some hot take, some spoilers, some words, always for new, and deep combo of culture, identity, and everything in between.

SPEAKER_01 0:26

Each week we drive deep into a new book to our unfiltered thoughts and celebrated writers who are reshaping the literary world one story at a time.

SPEAKER_04 0:36

Come on. This is my ugly what you're looking for.

SPEAKER_03 0:41

Your favorite drink, come up with us, and let's come up with us.

SPEAKER_01 0:50

So lower your expectations and let's get it.

SPEAKER_02 0:59

Hey, hey, hey, haul! Welcome back to Plot on the Rocks. Welcome back. Yes, season two, episode three. And we read The Personal Librarian this week. This is about the oh go ahead. No, you give better synopsis than me. How do you say that? Synopsis? Synopsis?

SPEAKER_06 1:27

Synopsis?

SPEAKER_02 1:28

Synopsi?

SPEAKER_06 1:29

Maybe? Synopsi. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:31

Yeah, you go for it, Frank.

SPEAKER_06 1:33

Okay. This is written by both Victoria Christopher Murray and Heather Terrell, which is this is actually my first time reading reading a book written by two key. I think so too, yeah. Me too. Yeah. Um, but basically it's about JP Morgan, the financier tycoon of New York, his personal librarian, Belle DeCosta Green, also known as Belle Marion Greener, who passed as white for her whole entire professional career while she was working for JP Morgan. And I didn't look it up, but I'm assuming up until recently, probably within like the what the past 20-something years, maybe it was found out that she was actually black and not white. Yeah. So yes.

SPEAKER_02 2:29

So y'all, how many clinks are we given?

SPEAKER_06 2:34

I feel like us, I feel like I was I feel like I was the only one that liked it. You might be sure. I will say I didn't dislike it. I mean honestly, I had the worst cup. I'm four, whatever, I give it four. I give it four. I will say the last couple pages I I sped right through because I literally finished it like 15 minutes before we were supposed to see.

SPEAKER_03 3:00

So I'm like, alright, she's not saying that's another four year old.

SPEAKER_06 3:04

Right, cool, yeah. So I think I mean I I liked it. I think towards the end it dried out a little bit, but you know.

SPEAKER_02 3:13

I've okay. Well, okay, I'll give it a three. What you drinking, by the way? Um, I'm drinking some sweet red blend wine. Okay, some vinyl tinto. Gotcha.

SPEAKER_03 3:30

I'll give this Ricky, show them your drink.

unknown 3:32

Ugh!

SPEAKER_03 3:33

So pretty. It's a little tequila and a mango metaly juice. She stays with like the fancy drinks and the fancy cups. Stay. Y'all, I have a cup problem. Anytime I go somewhere that has cute cups, I'm like, ooh, cups. I need to stop. I have like a irrational fear that like my mug cabinet or my cup cabinet is just gonna fall one day and all my stuff is gonna break. I don't know why I feel that way, but it just scares me.

SPEAKER_06 4:04

It's not a fear, it's not a rational fear. I love I'm that one with coffee mugs. I get any coffee mug that I like, I will get. And any Broadway show that I see I get a coffee mug from it. So I have a lot of them. And Jeremy's like, you don't even drink out of them. It's like it doesn't work.

SPEAKER_03 4:18

Right, it's pretty. Hello? Yeah, y'all.

SPEAKER_02 4:22

I got like five cups in there, and I use it. You just no back so this is true. This is true, but cheese. I mean, I kind of always been like that, even in the last house. I just I maybe had two cute glasses. I gotta do better.

SPEAKER_00 4:41

Oh we got it.

SPEAKER_02 4:41

Doing a little daily daddy.

SPEAKER_06 4:44

It's still it's still Lent for me, and this is holy week, so I cannot drink. I can really like have to fast. So I have my not Nello Super Calm, which again, Nello, if you want to sponsor us, I'm gonna keep saying this every sponsor us. This is Nello Super Balance, specifically for women to balance out hormones. It has myo andositol in it. Look at me, look at me, look at me. Give me some money, give us some money. Has myo andositol in it, some rhodiola, some magnesium, and it really helps balance out the hormones. And I think it's good for the PCOS girls. And again, Nello, give us some money. I have noticed a difference. I have noticed a difference in myself when I drink it, but yeah, and it's only been like two weeks.

SPEAKER_03 5:30

I love that. Yeah, I love that. And Tony. Me too. You have to send me a picture because I I need a visual. Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_06 5:40

Oh well, I got it on Amazon. I got there's different flavors. I got the strawberry lemony. I feel like lemony is always a safe flavor for me.

SPEAKER_03 5:47

Yeah, and like anything.

SPEAKER_06 5:48

That's what I got.

SPEAKER_03 5:49

I get this thing in the group chat. Is it three clinks? Three clinks, yeah.

unknown 5:58

Okay.

SPEAKER_06 6:01

I mean sorry for listeners at home. Her face is like killing me right now.

SPEAKER_03 6:07

I feel like that's been like a rolling thing. Yes, I don't think it got really interesting to me. Yeah, what was it? Like 100 pages, like 59. It's only 340 pages. I was like, okay now. But anywho, there were it.

SPEAKER_02 6:26

It was it was it was good in that I learned about somebody who I didn't know anything about. I thought it was very um, it was interesting to hear how the deals were made and um, you know, like the things that she accomplished. It was awesome. And I'm like, okay, go black girl, go, even though you're right now, like. She was really out here like willing and dealing with these super wealthy people with these super amazing and rare books and art pieces, and it's like that's cool. Yeah, that's really cool. But it was just it. I feel like okay, I know what it is. The first like half of the book felt episodic. Yes, yes, it felt like I was reading snapshots of and so I couldn't really get in a flow. Okay, it didn't get into a flow for me until after. Um, spoilers ahead, as you already know, if you're a regular listener, we're gonna spoil it now. Um until after Bernard and their affair started. Yeah. That's the only time I was like, okay, you know. And segueing into our first question, you know, now that we're talking about the contents of the book, what do we think about the first sentence? Because a lot of people say that the first sentence sets the tone for the book. The first sentence of the book was the old north bell tolls the hour, and I realize that I'll be late.

SPEAKER_06 8:15

Hold on. I have Ricky, if you want to go. Alright, I need to go. Because I have I have something written down.

SPEAKER_03 8:25

The bell is what kind of put me in, like, kind of set the tone for the not like the time period that we were currently in. Because now ain't nobody ringing no bell. So I was like, okay, so it's setting us into the time frame, and then I was like, she's gonna be late. And I was like, late for what? Is she gonna be late for church? She's gonna be late for work because that's typically when you you know ring the bell. So I was like, okay, I didn't get a lot from it, but it just kind of put me in the mode, I guess, of the time period of which the book is gonna be placed in.

SPEAKER_02 8:59

Mm-hmm. For me, it kind of like now that I'm thinking back to that first sentence, that kind of set the tone for all of the anxiety. It was like constant anxiety throughout the book of are they gonna find out who I am? Are they gonna find out who I am? And that first sentence is literally her rushing and being nervous about being laid and thinking about who's gonna be there and how they're gonna respond to her, and you know, so that's how I felt.

SPEAKER_03 9:32

That's good, I like that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 9:34

I think for me, I didn't I initially I didn't think anything of the first sentence um at all. But then I got to page because I read the question before I delved deeper to the book, but then I got to page 274 where she's meeting with her father, and she's looking to him for advice and was like, hey, JP Morgan's dead, he gave me$50,000. What should I do? Should I just be black again? And basically like seeking her father's approval to be like, yeah, go ahead. Because this is this is what he fought for, right? For civil rights. But um he says, one day, Belle, we will be able to reach back through the decades and claim you as one of our own. And I saw that and then connecting it to the line as that I'm gonna be late, it's her recognition as a black figure came too late. Essentially, gotcha because no one knew who she was, really. She was just a Portuguese woman. And so it's like, yes, her advancements like did help a lot, but at the time it was just like an advancement for white women, essentially. So that's so I think reading that line, I was like, oh, okay. Maybe maybe they did that on purpose, maybe they didn't. Maybe that's just my own connection of like, okay, her her recognition as who she was came late in our later in our history that we didn't know, of course, later in her life because she never got to see herself be recognized as that.

SPEAKER_02 11:16

Yeah, that's a good point. So let's talk about um her mom. And the question is, what does her mother's jealousy reveal about her own unmet desires and insecurities?

SPEAKER_03 11:40

We all just got quiet. That's hard. That's hard.

SPEAKER_06 11:47

Yeah, I didn't. I personally I didn't see her mom as jealous at all. I saw her as worried, I saw her as you need to keep this shit up for all of us. Like, don't what's the I'm sorry? This is not funny. What's that thing? Remember when Justin Timberlake got arrested and then he goes to jail, he's like, this is gonna ruin the tour, and then the police is like, what turns like the world tour? Like, that's basically the the mom's like, this is gonna ruin the tour. Like, if you mess up, you can't fuck this up. Yeah, it's giving me a lot of things. And I yeah, there were moments where I saw that her mom getting irritated at her behavior, but then I saw it as like you created that. You wanted her to live this life as a white woman, so she's acting like these other white women that you're not a part of that world, so you don't know how these white ladies act, really. Yeah, but you're mad because like she, yeah, she's gonna affect she she's she's gonna fuck the money up, basically. But I don't know if I ever saw her as jealous. Maybe she was, because she I mean she was able to pass too, but like not in the way that she wanted. But I don't know, I thought she was more concerned or worried about the image of the family versus jealousy of her daughter. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:12

I think that's my I think that's how I feel about it as well. I don't I don't necessarily feel like it was jealousy. For me, her mom reminded me of every overbearing woman in my family who just wants you to do well, and they just want you to do better than them. But the way they go about it is a little heavy-handed. But at the end of the day, they really love you and all that kind of stuff, but also, like you said, don't fuck the money up. Like, don't we done got this far. You need to keep it together, you need to hold it together, you need to do what you need to do. She was stern. But I will say, as far as her unmet needs and desires, her mama was operating off fear, period. Period. Like her whole their whole existence was literally living as a different person. She couldn't even be her own name. She had to change her whole name, her whole background, couldn't acknowledge her real grandmother. And that's so, like, you have to be so terrified. And she said that, you know, she's like, I don't want y'all to experience life black. Y'all don't know what it's like to be black. Be white, which is insane coming out of my mouth, but like at the same time, in that time period, it's like, okay, if you got the opportunity, okay, I'm not gonna say I understand, but I will say I I get the I get the the the the compulsion, I guess. I don't know. I get it.

SPEAKER_06 15:09

Which is crazy to me too, because during that time period, yo you heard how he freaking talked about Jewish people. You heard how they talked about they talked about Polish people, they talked about Italians, they talked about everybody there were groups of white people that weren't really white then too, so it's like I think I think her picking Portuguese was seen as like that was interesting to me because I was like, that's very specific. Yeah. Very specific. But I wonder if they were weren't seen as like less than as like the other white immigrants at the time were because it's European.

SPEAKER_03 15:43

Yeah, I don't feel like they had any ties to anything specific if you were Portuguese, you're not tied to like, you know, the Italians and stuff like that from Sicily, and they're you know, have like a negative connotation sometimes. I feel like the Portuguese are kind of just like like you said, the little upper echelon of the what do they call what she call them? Trop your tropic roots.

SPEAKER_06 16:05

They did they also did start slavery, so that's probably why, you know, they yes they did.

SPEAKER_02 16:14

Yes, they did.

SPEAKER_03 16:17

It's true, it's true. I was trying to, yellow. You were trying to let me know, but it was like no yellow.

SPEAKER_06 16:29

But yeah, yeah. Sorry, Portugal, sorry, Portugal. It is what it is what it is. They know what they did. What the fuck? Why are you yelling at me?

SPEAKER_02 16:43

I'm like no, this is what it is, and it's it's crazy because it's like that that book really showed me, and like it's not like I didn't know. Being a black girl in North Carolina, in the south of the United States, obviously I know, but it's like whiteness is so stupid, so fragile, and so just nitpicky. Like it was, it was it's it's one thing to see whiteness at work and see like, oh, they don't really have much of a culture, they just have a set of things that they think they're supposed to be doing, and you could see it so clear. They didn't have, I mean, what was she doing really?

SPEAKER_03 17:43

Nothing when she wasn't working, drinking drinking a lot of wine and going to parties.

SPEAKER_02 17:49

Yeah, she wasn't, I mean, there was nothing about whiteness that she said, oh, this part of their culture. No, it was literally you're from the right country. Your skin is passably light enough. You got money. Okay, cool.

SPEAKER_03 18:10

Check, check, check.

SPEAKER_02 18:11

That was literally it.

SPEAKER_03 18:13

Yeah.

unknown 18:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 18:15

Very interesting. And it's just so stupid. And it's like you said, it's still like that too.

SPEAKER_06 18:24

Girl, listen, I'm if my family listens to this, this is all a legend. Okay. I'm seeing this happen in real time with my family. With my mom likes to say that they're Anglo-Saxon, that they're not Greek anymore. Because they don't shadow. Yeah, she's like she's like, they're not Greek. They're not Greek. They just don't do things that are like culturally important, traditionally important. So to see that actually happen, because the whiteness is the absence of stuff. Yeah. And that's the whole purpose of white supremacy, is to be oneness and not and abandon your your cultural roots, basically. So like to see that happen in real time is fucking crazy. Like you read about it, but it's like, damn, like you're like you don't you don't care about like any of that. You just want to be boring. It's very boring, unseasoned. Our food is good, our music is good, our traditions are like there's so much that like ties back to like tradition. Yeah, and you're just like, no, yeah, I'm fine. That shit's scary.

SPEAKER_02 19:48

Yeah, that shit is scary. Yes, because like how and I, you know, when it's a legend, sorry. Alleged, alleged, you know, when there are alleged conversations between you and I talking about certain things that allegedly, I'd be like, wow, you know, as a black American, we do have a culture that is our own. But even still, it is something that I think about. I'm like, wow, you know, my mom did her 23andme recently, and we found out we're not Nigerian. Cool. I didn't do my dad's yet.

SPEAKER_03 20:27

Because I don't even know what they be saying.

SPEAKER_02 20:34

I was about to say that's Nigerian though. Wahala. And a Nigerian Wahala. That's what Wallace saying all the time. That's what Wallaby saying.

SPEAKER_01 20:45

Wallace. Yeah. Walla Nigerian baby.

SPEAKER_06 20:48

Yeah. I know I know. I know, I know Nash to refer to like your. That's really it. You're showing your Nash to the world. That's all I know.

SPEAKER_02 21:00

But like, I be thinking, like, wow, how amazing would it be to have the knowledge of a Nigerian tribe and the cultures of that specific tribe and how beautiful that would be? Because there's like so many tribes in Nigeria that like have their own cultures, their own languages, their own customs. And it's like, why, how could you possibly decide to give that up just to be white? Like, just to be white. And and this is, I mean, you have white people, like you say, like Greek white people, you have Italian white people, you have Russian white people, da-da-da-da. And they all have some really cool cultures. As a matter of fact, there's this YouTube channel. I'm pretty sure they are in the literal Caucus Mountains. Wow. Oh. They are it is so interesting to watch. They make all their food, they live off the land, they have their own like clothes that they wear, and it's like y'all didn't even do Caucasian right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 22:14

The people in the Caucasian, because that's like what Armenia, Albania, something like that. Yeah. Yeah. It was like it was back in. Like, they're there's some ethn, they're ethnic. Yeah. They're ethnic. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:27

The wife on that YouTube channel literally looks like a regular white lady you would see walking down the street. But she has all this culture that makes her more than just a white lady. And it's like, damn, like you really gave all that up. That's crazy to me.

SPEAKER_06 22:42

It's sad. And that that's the that's the cost of it. It's the it's the cost of it, unfortunately. And it's like, if that's what you wanna do, but like I don't know, it just it just makes me it really makes me sad because it's like, damn, you just again you just want to be a part of you wanna be like those white people like, oh yeah, like I'm I'm German, I'm French, I'm Irish, da da da da, but you you you got nothing to back it up.

SPEAKER_03 23:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 23:18

But oh well. I think going but yet they pick that's why they pick from other cultures, that's why they pick from black and brown cultures. Do research on your own and leave everybody alone.

SPEAKER_03 23:28

Like shit. Literally, you got your own, and I think that's kind of why going back to the question, I felt like the mom was kind of jealous because her family was extremely prominent. The fleets were a part of the first family back in DC. So you have all this culture, your family is well known, you are educated, you go to church, you love on one another, and you decided to leave all of that behind for what? So you lost the proximity to your culture as well as your family, you lost your husband. You're now pushing your daughter to basically be the breadwinner of the family, not allowing her to live her life, and then you're still not even happy with the decision that you made for your entire family. I feel like that's where I felt the jealousy come from because that time when um she came in from that party like really drunk, and her mom was like, Don't you have some um language classes to do? It's like I done did everything you asked me to do. I had a little bit of fun, and you're gonna try to tell me an adult when I can go to sleep.

SPEAKER_06 24:35

Yeah, yeah, that that it pissed me off.

SPEAKER_03 24:40

That end because what did he give her? Give her what 50,000 that I looked it up back in that time. That's like 3.5 million dollars now. And the first thing that they say is thank you to Mr. Morgan for thinking of us, not thank you to me for all of the work that I've been doing to make sure that we have a good life. I said, Oh, yes, y'all got me. They pissed me out, yeah. Because basically, she he gave that to her, yes, he gave that to her, not her family. Because I would have to take action on never mind, never mind that's my I wouldn't even tell them everything that he gave me because y'all literally she's taking care of her siblings, they husbands, and the mama.

SPEAKER_06 25:23

The mama, the baby, what that's what the literally but the husband, you wanted such proximity to whiteness because you thought the whiteness was greater, but your your two other daughters are married to unemployed men. I thought I thought being white meant that you were able to right. You had a Lego, but they don't got on jobs, they're looking with you, they're unemployed taking care of everything.

SPEAKER_02 25:53

So what is that during the Gilded Age?

SPEAKER_06 25:55

Ain't this the Gilded Age? Exactly, exactly. Go be an inventor.

SPEAKER_02 26:00

If you fail as a white person, you're just pissed poor. You just have to. Yeah. I mean, because honestly, you got too many highways and byways, as the old folks say, to get to success, and you ain't did nothing.

SPEAKER_00 26:17

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02 26:18

You ain't shit. I didn't like that at all. I don't like the way they treated her. Yeah. No, they they very much took her for granted, and I think you're very right about that, Rakia. It's like, I wish that they went. This is another thing about the book. Again, good book, very educational. However, it was it felt so surface level at the time. Yeah, I would have loved. I mean, if we're gonna do, I know this is based on a true person, but this is historical fiction. I feel like we could have took it deeper. Like, I would have loved to have a conversation about damn, like y'all not y'all thinking this man, and y'all not thinking me. I don't I didn't hear nobody say thank you to her at all.

SPEAKER_06 27:08

They did find they did, yeah, they did finally until then. She brought it up. And then another scene where I wish they went deeper was when they went back to Washington. Yes. After her, after her mother dies. Yeah, we got to see her siblings being mad, but it's like, no, they're home now. It's fine. No, bitch. No, but for real. No, but for real. Like you, you're not coming to see your mom. You're not coming to see us. This is what you wanted. Her sister had every right to not even talk to her at all. I would have loved them to go deeper in that. I would have loved to see the other kids that maybe didn't get to grow up as deep into the black culture as like Belle did, like Teddy.

SPEAKER_02 27:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 27:48

To interact with their cousins, to interact with their like aunts and uncles to see what that was like for them. But it was like, no, my um my uncle saw me outside talking like look looking at the tree, and then I'm back on the tree. Now back on New York.

SPEAKER_02 28:06

Give me more. Well, that and that was exactly what I meant by feeling episodic. It's episodic. I don't know how to say that, but you know what I'm trying to say. You know, like it was like snapshots of moments and then you move on. Snapshot of moments and then you move on. I didn't get a chance to really get enthralled in the story. I didn't get a chance to get emotionally connected to anybody at all. Agreed. And um yeah, there was just so many missed moments, I thought. And I know uh yeah. Well, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 28:50

And I wanna I know this is not a question. I think did I ask this question? Did I write this down? Do you think no, never mind, never mind. Ignore me. You have other questions. Okay. This might lead to what go the next one. Go to the next one.

SPEAKER_02 29:07

This might lead to what the next question How did Belle's relationship with her father affect her romantic relationships? I got thoughts about this because I'm not sure.

SPEAKER_06 29:23

She got daddy, she got daddy issues badly.

SPEAKER_02 29:25

The daddy issues was strong. Now you attracted to JP Morgan. And I looked up his picture. I looked up a picture of that man. I was disgusted.

SPEAKER_03 29:36

I was like, when it comes to e yup.

SPEAKER_02 29:41

Literally, literally. I was like, oh. Like he's like 30 years older than her at this point, right? Oh. Bernard was like 20 years older than her as well. Right.

unknown 29:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 29:56

To the top level.

SPEAKER_02 29:57

But go ahead. He was such a flake.

SPEAKER_06 30:00

Ugh, he was so and like, and like he looked at his picture, I was like, okay, I'll I'll allow it. I'll allow it. But like the scene, like I literally like gagged the scene where like her and JP like kissed. I was like, that's disgusting.

SPEAKER_02 30:20

Even like the illusion, the allusions of sexual tension, like absolutely she was definitely dealing with some daddy issues, some abandonment issues. She she had all them issues. And like I looked it up, and apparently it is true that her and JP Morgan tried to be, you know, together at some point. Although of I guess it didn't work, but like that's the other thing I hate about this. Like, damn girl, you you do you gave up your blackness. Find a fine white man. I know they rich.

SPEAKER_03 31:04

They got some and she was in proximity to so many. Even the European assistants.

SPEAKER_06 31:11

And they were all young, but she didn't. You go to Italy and you want to stay with Bernard. Bernard? And then the one the one white kid that came in and was talked about WEB Du Bois. Oh, he got me. I'm like, oh my god. Right. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 31:26

No, what you're talking about. A little bit more.

SPEAKER_06 31:27

And then she heard the two seconds they made out, and then she's like, no, never mind. I don't I don't want to do this. Bye bye. Like, stupid.

SPEAKER_02 31:36

Stupid. She she made a lot. Her personal life was extra. And in that same article that I read um about her after this, she was also bisexual. Her Barnard and his wife were actually in a love triangle.

SPEAKER_03 31:59

Scandalous.

SPEAKER_02 32:00

I can kind of see that, am I right?

SPEAKER_03 32:02

Being that the wife was so okay with them being together.

SPEAKER_06 32:07

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And she was around all that in Grand Twillers, stuff like that. Oh, okay. Actually, I don't know because the way that she described, she was dogging his wife out bad in the book.

SPEAKER_02 32:20

Yeah. I mean, they were trying to make it seem like she thought she was ugly as hell. Sweating profusely and all the type of stuff.

SPEAKER_03 32:27

Like that, let her leave if she can't be high in some way.

SPEAKER_01 32:34

The kid said she can't be high.

SPEAKER_06 32:39

No, for real.

SPEAKER_02 32:39

That was really dogging her.

SPEAKER_06 32:41

And what grossed me out too in the book is that she kept referring to JP as like paternal. There was a person like that's disgusting to me. But you you're looking at him like that and you're kissing him, but he he's a father figure to you? Gross. Okay, girl. What's that? What's that? I'm referencing. I have a lot of vocal sips. She don't love herself. What's that from Scary Movie?

unknown 33:05

Yes.

SPEAKER_06 33:06

No, for real. No, she really doesn't came. No, she doesn't. She did. Or even like She was all around town. Yes, but even with Jack, when she when she was like, Oh, even though we're closer in age, there's no attraction between us. She was like, oh that's interesting.

SPEAKER_02 33:24

Yeah. She likes zaddies. That's what she liked.

SPEAKER_03 33:29

And then with that, she was one of speaking of knowing. She was one of many. She said he had four mistresses. Plus her. And he was married. At one time. Yes. So you just took yourself all the way down.

SPEAKER_02 33:44

You thought that was cute.

SPEAKER_00 33:48

Listen.

SPEAKER_02 33:50

It was just so silly to me. Like, I feel like it was it almost like not um, and I'm not hoe shaming guys. You know, if you want to have a hoe phase, I'm not opposed. But what I will say is he respected her so much and valued her as a person in a time where women were not professionally. So it's almost like, why, you know, him of all of them. Yeah. Why him, like your employer? Why you you you like almost like validating all the rumors that are saying, oh, she must be sleeping with him. Look at what she's look at what she's in charge of.

SPEAKER_00 34:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 34:38

You know? And I kind of hate that for her, but whatever. I mean that apparently that was her personality. I almost and this is another okay. Sorry. I'm sorry. I didn't hate the book, by the way, before I say this. I didn't hate the book. I really didn't. I just couldn't get into it like that. But I had a lot, I enjoyed really reading articles about her afterwards, kind of more than I did the book. It went into her personality in a more in a in like a more um intimate way. And apparently she was, I mean, she it was alluded to in the book that she was very flirtatious, that she um dressed very flashly, and she was, you know, doing her thing, dating and everything like that. But apparently it was so much more than that. Like she was so extra, like she was a celebrity and like a personality. So wow, and yeah, like people wanted her around because she was so hilarious and she dressed so crazy, and she just would say anything. And it's like, I wish we had more of that. The book gave us a more anxious Belle.

SPEAKER_06 35:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 35:59

And while I think the real life Belle probably was, on some level, afraid somebody would figure her out. This isn't the time of the internet. It's gonna be hard if you don't have no family in a state to f to be found out. I think she was not so anxious in real life. She was doing her thing, she was living her life.

SPEAKER_06 36:22

But what if that was like a guise to because she says at one point in the book that like to take eyes off of people within her identity, she had to act like that. So like they can't say they can't say anything about my skin color because I'm I am funny, I'm doing whatever, whatever. Yeah. So I wonder if she did that because she needed like the pressure off of her in another area. Not to say that she wasn't in real life, but she could have decided to like what's a word, overcompensate.

SPEAKER_03 36:51

Yeah, but see, I had a a thing about that too, because it says society wishes to adopt me into their ranks not as an equal, but almost as a pet, like the artist they sponsor and occasionally invite out. So part of me was like, do they really like her like that, or do they keep her around because she's sort of entertainment?

SPEAKER_06 37:22

Yeah, that's that's what I thought.

SPEAKER_03 37:24

Actress entertainment. Yeah, which I mean isn't necessarily a bad thing, but I just felt like too, like you said with JP Morgan, that he held her to a highest higher esteem until he didn't. When he felt like she was getting too big for her britches, and other people are checking for her, and other men are looking for you. I own you. Yeah. Oh, oh, oh, okay.

SPEAKER_02 37:52

He tried to yank her right on back down. Yeah. And I ugh, I again, I hated that little subplot. I hated that, the romantic subplot between them. I know it's real life, but I just hated it. But speaking of him and his family, Anne. Anne hated her ass from the beginning. And obviously it's it's um revealed at the end that you know she she knows or whatever, yeah, that she's black and just didn't because they have mutual agreed destruction. But how do we feel about how strong those hostile feelings were and like how drawn out they were? Because personally, and maybe this and uh to be fair, I wrote this question after I started reading articles about her, and part of me is like, hmm, I wonder if they had something going on. Because she was getting a mad man, you know.

SPEAKER_06 39:06

Wait a minute, you know, I didn't think about that because she was really, wait a minute. She was acting like her dad went in. She was acting like her dad when her dad was getting jealous. Because initially I thought she was like mad because, like, okay, here's come this other young tart, and my dad's gonna have an affair on my mom, whatever, whatever. Mm-hmm. But and you said she was bisexual in real life.

SPEAKER_03 39:34

Mm-hmm. Cause on the end, Anne's little side piece, what was her name? Bessie. Didn't her and Bessie get cool and she was like, aren't you and Bessie friends now? And my dad kind of did her wrong. Oh I see what you did there.

SPEAKER_00 39:49

Hmm.

SPEAKER_06 39:50

Mm-hmm. I mean, I thought she was dragging it out. So I don't know what girl, what is your problem? She was dragging it.

SPEAKER_02 39:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 39:58

Is that you coming to me after the same age?

SPEAKER_02 40:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 40:02

Whatever.

SPEAKER_02 40:03

And they had what really got me was that scene when she walked in the party and just completely turned around and walked off. I was like, oh no, y'all didn't.

SPEAKER_03 40:13

No, y'all didn't. They was dogging her out mad in the book, too. They kept talking about her clothes and how frumpy she looked and how manly she was. I was like, dang, y'all just don't be carrying.

unknown 40:24

You know what?

SPEAKER_02 40:25

I got a question about these authors. I got a question about these authors because let me look up what Ann Morgan looked like.

unknown 40:34

Hold on.

SPEAKER_02 40:35

Because they was dogging out the wife too, and they was sleeping together. So now I'm like, do y'all got a pattern going on? I don't know who these authors are apart from this book, but I don't know.

SPEAKER_06 40:47

She's yeah, she's she's a little homely looking.

SPEAKER_02 40:50

Let me see.

SPEAKER_03 40:51

Okay. Like a daddy. I'm about to say she looked like her daddy. Yeah. She looked like her daddy. Uh huh. You know who she reminded me of? Um, Golden Girls. What's her name? Not um Dorothy. Dorothy, the end of the girl. Dorothy from uh Golden Girls. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I can see that. She's real tall and same energy.

SPEAKER_06 41:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 41:17

Hmm.

SPEAKER_06 41:18

Hmm.

SPEAKER_03 41:21

This little hat she got on kind of fire though. Okay, girl.

SPEAKER_06 41:24

I know. I like those stripes.

SPEAKER_03 41:28

I like that. I know I do like that. Hold on.

SPEAKER_02 41:29

I ain't seen that picture. Hold on, let me look. It's on from Wikipedia.

SPEAKER_03 41:34

Yeah, I remember back in the day we couldn't use Wikipedia as a source. They used to be so mad. Wikipedia had everything I needed to write this little essay. I know.

SPEAKER_02 41:42

Literally. Girl. Well, why? She sure does look like Dorothy with her striped hat. Mm-hmm.

unknown 41:53

I could.

SPEAKER_02 41:54

I mean, listen, if Belle was sleeping with uh whoever the authors call the ugly wife, she could.

SPEAKER_03 42:04

Yeah, Mary. That's all I'm saying.

SPEAKER_02 42:05

Yeah, that's true. Mary, yeah. She obviously got a type.

SPEAKER_06 42:11

Yeah. Oh well. Okay. So she likes homely looking women and old ass men. Yes. Yeah. You know what? Good for you, you know. Do do what you want to do. Anyway.

SPEAKER_02 42:28

So, okay. You kind of mentioned this earlier, Alicia, earlier, about like the younger siblings and their kind of disconnection from being black because of their age and everything. How do y'all think that Belle's proximity to whiteness affected the way that she looked at herself? Um, and I'm gonna combine this with the next question because it's kind of related. Whenever Belle does something audacious, she then references herself as a colored woman in a white world and how she's doing something triumphant for a colored woman. Are her efforts really revolutionary if her white counterparts don't see her as a black woman?

SPEAKER_06 43:10

I wrote that question. No, no, no, no. I would get so irritated. I would get so irritated whenever she would say that because I'm like, shut nobody knows. Shut up.

SPEAKER_03 43:22

Only you know your knows. It doesn't count. It doesn't count. And maybe the server.

SPEAKER_06 43:29

Yeah, yeah, maybe the server, like nobody, nobody knows what you're doing. Like nobody knows that it's like it's this revolutionary thing, like a hurrah for the black community. But you so like, no, don't what's the I keep referencing memes today. I'm so sorry. It's not even a meme, it's a movie in ATL, in ATL when TI snatches the necklace box from Western Face. That's like who it is. It's like give it back.

SPEAKER_03 43:58

Like, it doesn't count.

unknown 44:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 44:00

Sorry. No. Totally, totally agree. And I don't know if this is anti-feminist or feminist for me to say, but you're getting books and pieces of artwork that weren't readily available to anybody but white people who had money. So what were you really doing for the culture or whatever as a whole, anyway? Because who can see it? I mean, now at the end, after he had passed and you did all these things, they opened it up to the public. But before that, nothing.

SPEAKER_02 44:46

Yeah. I got a hot tag. Hot tag.

SPEAKER_06 44:51

But here.

SPEAKER_02 44:54

I feel like the authors went. This is hot. Okay, listen. This is no disrespect to Auntie Bell. This is no disrespect to Auntie Bell. Because you did what you had to do and what you felt like you had to do with survive. I ain't living that time, so I can't judge you too harshly. But I will say this. This was all about money. And I think the authors gave her a lot. I think they gave her a lot as far as how much she thought about being black and her blackness and what she thought she was doing for the black community. I think they they stretched it. Because, like you said, Rikia, nobody was benefiting from this art she was collecting. She was moving in and around extremely wealthy circles. The literal 1%. Pause. Pause.

SPEAKER_00 45:49

What?

SPEAKER_06 45:51

You know how it's written by two women, two authors?

SPEAKER_02 45:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 45:55

One of the authors is white.

SPEAKER_03 45:58

I thought you knew that. No, I didn't know that. I thought they were black. No, we said it was at least one, and technically the main character was counted.

SPEAKER_06 46:09

Yes. I thought we were talking about the Michael Davis book with James Patterson. We were talking about both books.

SPEAKER_05 46:25

I was like, we made a mistake.

SPEAKER_02 46:29

Listen, listen, family, listen. Y'all, y'all. We did okay, listen. Well, anyway, me and Rakeda knew one of these authors was black.

SPEAKER_06 46:38

Okay, she won't rhapsy. Okay, I didn't make that connection.

SPEAKER_02 46:42

Yeah, you know, it is it's a biracial author.

SPEAKER_06 46:48

Oh no. Oh no. Cut the cameras. Cut the cameras.

SPEAKER_05 46:54

Cut it out.

SPEAKER_02 46:57

That is funny. We we have at least one black author, so I think it counts. Now, with that being said, we're not gonna be doing a whole bunch of this uh white lady d-i d-e uh girl. I don't even have to say one thing anymore. How do you say d-I white lady d-i-i? We can't be doing too much more. This white lady D-E-I-M. However, this book felt important and it has one black character. So just in case somebody wants to try to call us out.

SPEAKER_05 47:41

Right.

SPEAKER_03 47:41

And then she's black. I mean she passing, but at the end of the day, it wouldn't little curls and everything. She, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 47:49

Girl, she was just as a much of nigga. I saw them pictures was not even a little bit white again.

SPEAKER_06 47:55

And then I saw her dad, the picture of her dad, because he was girl. Passing to who?

SPEAKER_02 48:02

Passing. White people do not under like I I still don't understand. They don't see nothing but the shade of your skin. No, and that's crazy.

SPEAKER_06 48:13

He was kind of good looking when he was younger too.

SPEAKER_02 48:15

Yeah, he was.

SPEAKER_06 48:16

He was a good looking man. I got some I got some tea. I got some tea on her daddy though. What is it, girl? What's it tea? Are you sitting? Are you sitting down? Are you are you ready? We are set. Okay, let me find her. Okay. He had now I can't find it. They okay. So you know how he had a Japanese family over there, right? Okay. Greener's great grandson through his daughter Olive is Are you ready? The neo-Nazi Charles Balsen. Yeah. Take it in. I told you the time.

SPEAKER_02 49:06

Look, oh. I know he just flipping and flopping in his buttons. He had one daughter, one daughter done passed, and then an another uh descendant then turned into a not just the daughter, the whole family passed.

SPEAKER_03 49:23

Everybody white. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 49:26

The whole family.

SPEAKER_06 49:27

Yes. Because okay, Charles Balsman is a Russian activist and American expatriate previously living in Russia. He is the a publisher of Russia Insider and Anti. Let me not talk about Russia. Because they're gonna come get me. He's a neo-Nazi. Can you know how embarrassing that is how embarrassing that is?

SPEAKER_02 49:49

Oh, that's so embarrassing.

SPEAKER_03 49:52

That's crazy.

SPEAKER_02 49:53

How do you how the fuck do you become a Nazi knowing that your ancestors literally black?

SPEAKER_06 50:00

But did he know that his daddy was black? He had to because he was black and Japanese. Really? Like let me see what this memo.

SPEAKER_03 50:08

I'm about to say, because did he come out? Because if your daddy's already black, but he's super duper high yellow and your mama is Japanese, you well and he did leave them.

SPEAKER_02 50:24

That's true. Oh no, that's when you find out that's a white man. I think it he that's a white man. Yeah. God forbid, Lord, never let my children. Never let my grandchildren.

SPEAKER_06 50:51

So he's great-grandson, so that's why he looks white. Not the great, not the grandson, the great grandson.

SPEAKER_02 50:55

Oh yeah, he yeah, he a couple reports. Oh please. That is so crazy.

SPEAKER_00 51:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 51:03

Imagine being that important of a figure in the fight for civil rights. You got a whole branch of your family, ex, wife, and children. Done pass as white. I mean, that's shit. That's hard enough. Honestly, I would have left too. Like, I'm not I'm gonna be honest with you. I wasn't mad at him at all during this book. I wasn't.

SPEAKER_06 51:31

No, not at all. And they should the mom can be a good one.

SPEAKER_02 51:34

Like you telling me my wife Yeah, no. You telling me my life's work is to advance black people, and you decided you're gonna pass and make my children pass. Bitch, you don't exist. Matter of fact, take the kids. I'm gone.

SPEAKER_03 51:50

He could have done a little bit more. You could have left, but he could have sent some money. He could have did something in what he did. He could have. But he wouldn't have been white folks, girl.

SPEAKER_06 52:02

Listen. But my thing is, and here's my thing, and I don't think I mean I don't know if you thought this. There was there was I don't know why my brain asked this question when it got to the part where like her siblings were married. I really thought there was like I went, I was like, are they did they marry a black people?

SPEAKER_02 52:19

Because they didn't say like I know deep deep down, deep down, I knew, I know, but like that and did they know that they were exactly I I just wanted I mean maybe not because she burned everything at the end. That is that made me so angry. So obviously, and this is why I say the authors they they really stretched it to give her this pro-black mentality on the inside, like yeah, I'm I'm reading all this black history and I I'm learning about my my people, and my daddy did great. Shortan but you're living as a white woman. Let me not call her low forget. Nice, and listen, but you get what I'm trying to say.

SPEAKER_06 53:14

Yes, and and that's I think and I think that's why it irritated me when she went to her dad because like her at that point, her dad was realistic, like it's it's very much a situation like this is this is the bed uh you didn't make your bed, your mama did, but this is the bed that was made for you. Now you you gotta live in it. You can't there's no going back unless you leave the country, yeah, go somewhere else. And I think she just need she wanted that permission, but I don't I think even she didn't realize like the re the true repercussions of it, but like I think that adds goes back to your question, like what like what that proximity to whiteness, what what that means is like you're you're literally giving up going back to again those traditions, your family, culture. You can't have any of it anymore because now you have and the only way that you can do is if you marry maybe marry or have kids with another black person, which we know she never she never did. She kept going back to Bernard Stancast, but whatever. But he was horrible, horrible, such a and a user, yes. Supposedly a lot of his it it's I read on his Wikipedia that his wife is credited for a lot of his writing, which is typical, typical back in the day. Because a lot of those famous writers, the wives were always the ones that did it.

SPEAKER_02 54:48

Yep. And as soon as he got to do something, he resorts to treachery to not lose his job. Ugh. Y'all, I'm okay. Y'all, I don't think I liked it.

SPEAKER_06 55:04

You keep going back and forth. Like, I like the book. I like the book. No, I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 55:08

I didn't hate it, but I didn't like it. I'm just I I think I think the more we talk about it, the more I realize I kind of just forced myself to finish. I didn't like it. I and maybe it's the subject matter, but I just, you know, it's a it's a hard thing. It's a hard thing. And like I said earlier, I was not black in the 1900s. I can't act like I know what that felt like. But I just can't imagine any scenario in which I would denounce my blackness, even if my mommy asked me to. Like, and I know she was a kid still, but at some point now you have money. At some point now you have freedom. Go home. Like, that's what I would do. But I mean, again, this is what this is kind of where my question was going in my head. Her proximity to whiteness washed her out. You're telling me you got all the money in the world now, and still your choice is to stay in New York amongst white society. That's your choice. You're now making a choice. This is pre-internet, this is pre-phones. You can literally go a couple states over and live your life. Now, granted, again, this is the 1900s. Can't act like I know what that feels like, but damn, that's so disappointing. Okay, we're gonna pause. Okay, guys, we are having a little bit of a technical difficulty, but we back now.

SPEAKER_03 56:59

We back. We back now.

SPEAKER_02 57:01

Um, so we was talking shit about Belle. No, I'm kidding. We wasn't no, we wasn't, we wasn't, wasn't. Um, but we were saying that she was dragging a little bit. Um, the authors, anyway, were dragging it for her a little bit as far as like how much she was actually contributing to the black community by doing what she was doing. Yeah. Because she chose to stay in white society even after she had financial independence. And that's just how I feel about it.

SPEAKER_06 57:30

Well, yeah, I think I remember what it was. I remember what it was. It was um, we were talking about um basically not being able to go back to anything. Cause I think I I think I I think I remember asking, damn, is my memory that bad? That just happened like five minutes ago. Basically, it was something with her, like you said, with with the whole whiteness thing of not being able to go back, and like I guess like I wonder if they really understood the repercussions of what that meant to pass. Because yeah, like like you said, like we're not from the 1900s, we know it was bad, but we we don't have a full extent of knowledge about it, but it's like really under and I I think I wonder if the mom had some guilt towards it. Yeah. Because I she didn't you you have people who choose to pass because they genuinely don't like being black. And then you have people who choose to pass because out of s out of survival. And I think that's really that's I don't want to say it's more painful, but I just wonder if they really understood the repercussions of of that, of what that really means.

SPEAKER_02 58:58

You know what? Part of me. I'm sure there was some guilt. But part of me questions how just how much. Because really, I'm looking at this story and I'm reading about her and everything, and it really sounds like it was just how can we make the most money? My daughter is educated, she's you know, very well read, very um knowledgeable about her. How can we make money from this as white people? It was hard, yes, but again, they come from a well-to-do family. Yeah, that's they are the black bourgeoisie, and during this time, especially the ones that consider themselves like um, you know, I mean, they call themselves colored throughout the book, they didn't really consider themselves black. I mean, they said they were black, but you know, they were colored. And during this time, you know, in history, quiet as is kept, them bougie blacks definitely thought they were different than regular black people. They absolutely did, and it was it was almost as bad as segregation between white and black people. They were the same within their own community. So I'm thinking about this this woman, this light-skinned woman, light enough to pass as white, and she is accustomed to a certain level of comfort, and then she falls in love and marries a man who is about freedom fighting. What discomfort would that have brought her to be out of her comfort zone outside of her, you know, because again, during this time, this is another reason why I'm just like, man, this time, this is the time in history where black people had their own industry, yes, where they had their own communities that they were safe in for the most part. Now we know they bombed us every chance they get. But you get what I'm trying to say, like there was a sense of community that we don't have today, and a sense of um, I don't know, the ins we were insular in a different way, is what I'm trying to say. So I'm just thinking, like, realistically, this this girl done grew up privileged for a black person. Um, and now she's in a situation where her husband is literally putting their lives in danger. Because I mean, that is literally what they they were. They were doing that, fighting for that kind of thing during that time. Yeah, you're putting your life in danger. And he's the first black professor of this. He's writing books, he's calling out whiteness for what it is. I don't know how well would she would she have done that if they're not. I'm conjecturing.

SPEAKER_06 1:01:59

No, but would she have done that if they ever went to South Carolina? Because she seemed to be perfectly fine until they went to South Carolina, until she saw what the South was like. Because again, racism up north is very different than racism down, it's very overt down here, it's very covert up there, so it's very quiet. You don't talk about it, whatever, whatever. And she was cool until she went down there, and that's when she's like, Oh no, we're not doing this. So I wonder if she would have not done that if they never left. Because there's even one part where she where he says, too, when they're having the argument, um Richard and the mom, where he says, Your heritage, I guess you're a daughter of you're the daughter of the great fleets. Well, I'm just the lowly grandson of a slave. You married a greener, a man far below your station in life. So back back to what you said, they were she was part of a f an already free family for god knows how many generations that ended up marrying somebody who did not have that lineage. That was even a storyline in the Gilded Age. With um Felicia Rashad's character, I wanted to beat the shit out of her. Oh, she made me so bad. But like, really see like seeing that is like is crazy to me. And even that how they talked about themselves were the f because like you said, we were a community back then. I feel like as part of the black community, we talk about ourselves in it this is in a togetherness type of way, yeah, like not in an individual sense all the time, but they did it's like a collective, yeah, collect that thank you, but they didn't. We're the fleets, we're part of the fleet family, yes, like if if Belle had never said that they were black, you could have just assumed that they weren't because they never talked about themselves as a collective, but her dad was trying to do that.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:08

Exactly, yeah, and I really think that's a huge part of it because in like I just I don't know, it's a huge part of it for me. I'm thinking, and even like y'all remember, y'all watch y'all listen to our ancestors or messy, right?

SPEAKER_03 1:04:25

Yes, I've watched the episode of that yesterday. We'll listen to episode next year. I need to catch up. Wait, is season two out?

SPEAKER_06 1:04:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:33

Oh my god!

SPEAKER_06 1:04:34

Yeah, okay, yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:37

It's such a good podcast, y'all. If y'all haven't listened to it yet, it's so good. But like, there, I mean, first season has stories of that upper class colored person marrying below their station, and how scandalous it was, and how absolutely, like, no, not okay, period. You marry within our ranks, you don't get to marry no regular black person, and like I just I just wonder what that does to the psyche of somebody, and then how that would translate into the next step. Oh, we're just gonna be white, right? Because I don't even want to deal with, you know what I'm saying? Like total flip-flop. Yeah, it's interesting, yeah. Yeah, I yeah, I don't know. I it's it's hard for me. It's just hard for me to understand, and maybe it's because I'm so dark skinned, I ain't never got a chance to pass for shit. Then I'm just saying, like, I was I just never I can't understand it. It just really is not it does, it's not clicking to me, okay? It's not clicking to me.

SPEAKER_06 1:06:00

Me that they would do that or just in general?

SPEAKER_02 1:06:03

Yeah, I mean, just the idea of passing is white.

SPEAKER_06 1:06:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:08

It's I don't know.

SPEAKER_06 1:06:12

Someone's dog is work. Is that your dog, my dog? Your dog. I think that's your dog. Elenny?

SPEAKER_02 1:06:18

That's not my dog.

SPEAKER_06 1:06:19

Oh, it's dog upstairs. I'm about to say it's okay. Oh no. Because y'all, y'all know I have I have a pat a passing in my family. My mom's grandmother came over from Jamaica and decided to pass, like got her naturalization stuff that she needed a sponsor, which was her brother. And then okay, bye. It was that situation. Bye. I didn't know, I didn't meet the grandson of my great-grandmother's brother until 2020. He found me on Facebook. And to see so he looks like he could have he could have been my brother because him and my brother look identical.

unknown 1:07:05

Wow.

SPEAKER_06 1:07:06

Like light skin, freckles, but of course like light skin black. But like seeing that and like finding out that they were over in Washington Heights, which was like 20 minutes away from like where my mom grew up, but like having nothing of that, and then seeing how that played out, I I can't speak for my again allegedly my mom's other siblings, her sisters. But I don't know if their kids know that heritage or that's even part of that because they they married white men and they're now white. Whereas my mom, she always was loud and proud about her background. She had a fro back in the 60s and 70s, she was proud about her ethnic identity. Like she would talk about how like her, yeah, her grandma wore wigs and wore a lot of makeup, but like she said vegetables, like she had an accent, okay? Like she wasn't hiding it. And even growing up, it was always like this is what you are. So like I always knew that. But then again, having the other side of the family, that's just like I don't, I genuinely don't think they have a clue about that. Wow, that's and that's crazy to me. And I think I get I'm still bitter that like that's a culture that I don't like how you talked about being Nigerian. That Jamaican culture, I don't I don't have any of that, I don't know anything about that. I want to, but it's also like it's kind of late now. The most Jamaican thing about me is I don't play about Selene Dion. Okay, me and that one while I leave down, okay. But I think like I think that and that that's what I kept thinking about reading this book was like, damn, like that's that's crazy. That's crazy to me. Or even when I have my hair straight, like people would confuse it. You know, I you know, I don't like being mistaken for anything else. Other than it pisses me off. So like so Greek people love talking about being Greek, they don't shut the fuck up about it. Black Americans love being black American, okay? And I'm proud of being both. So God forbid somebody says, oh, that you're somebody confused it for Sicilian one time, like, no, no, no, not at all. So again, to your point, like to just get rid of that and like purposefully, like I'm I'm white, like no, that's weird. That's weird behavior. I get it, they did have a survival, but like uh yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:59

It's an it's an unfortunate thing that people felt the need to even do anything like that.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:06

Yes, it's so unfortunate that the the world made them feel that unsafe that okay, yes, now we gotta get rid of an entire who we are, yes, our entire lineage, yeah, basically, and there's a part too where she kept um I don't think she really saw that what her mom did was was not okay because she never really was she kept saying like oh like she did what she had to do to give us a better life and yeah and I'm like girl like that's no the extreme that wasn't and I think something else that got me too there wasn't a specific incident that caused that, like nothing happened and was like you know what, forget all this, we need to do this. Y'all just it was just a decision she made just off a whim, because they was already in New York, yeah. They were safe, living as hotels, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:11:04

No, and you experienced the south for 2.5 seconds. Yes, I get that. That's probably very traumatic. I completely understand that was probably really traumatic, but like that quick for you to just be like okay, jumping shit.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:19

Uh I don't know, yeah, it's opportunistic. Yeah, um kind of segueing into another question. Were you shocked that her dad told her to not give up the whiteness?

SPEAKER_03 1:11:43

No, no, because what would it have done? Like, what would the end result be besides? I feel like her overall they would have done something to her because it's kind of like uh there she was pulling the wool over so many prominent people's eyes, like they would have done something to her, money involved, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:12:05

Yeah, and it's it's your they probably would have took that money, and it's a family thing too, because now all your siblings are married. Yep, so now you gotta wear that's gonna mess up their lives, too. Your your son, your son, your brother's an engineer. I don't know what engineers do, but he's an engineer, which is a big deal. So, but like I don't know that she again she would have she would have fucked the money up basically, so she really couldn't have. And it's again that situation, you made your bed.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:39

Sorry, gotta lay in it. Yeah, so this last question. Belle didn't start seeing the slave master parallels between her and Mr. Morgan until chapter 31. Even though the parallels were obvious, was she blinded by her confidence that she could pass? That's such a good question.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:17

Because that irritated me too, like girl poolies.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:20

Yeah. She was so oblivious, and that's why I say they gave her a lot. They gave her a lot as far as how much she thought about being black. Because you really, first of all, she went up in there being extra familiar with JP Morgan.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:36

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:37

And and and we did say, you know, she this could have been a affront as a way to distract from her skin color. And I'm not saying that's not true, but at the same time, she the girl won't worry about it. I mean, obviously, they didn't they didn't know anything. They may have suspected that she had tropical ancestry. But I don't know. Like, how you didn't see the slave master? Like, I you know what I'm saying? Like, as a black person, I'm all my boss can't even say tell me to do something too hard. You know, so you telling me in this time you're not thinking about it until just now.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:26

He would like call on her, and she would have to hurry up and meet him at the door and read read to me. Yes! It was giving mammy!

SPEAKER_06 1:14:37

Yes, read to me, you belong to me, who are you with? And then, like, you know what it reminded me of? This, forgive me if it's parallel, it was too ostentatious of me. You remember Django Unchained? You know the scene with Samuel L. Jackson and Leonardo DiCaprio when Leonardo DiCaprio's character dies. Samuel Jackson so different. When he died, that's literally what I thought of was You know, she was broken up all to pieces.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:12

Yes, she was in all to pieces. She was heartbroken, and again, I she had to be so disconnected from her blackness to even have those feelings for this man that you know, if he found out you was black, he might would have had you killed. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:15:29

Because didn't she say that at some point?

unknown 1:15:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:15:34

Like if he felt the way about black people as he did about Jewish people, maybe. Oh, what does he say? I uh let me see. And what about the fear inside my heart that if Mr. Morgan were to return, I would discover that he felt the same way about colored people as he did about Jews? Maybe he never talked about black people? Maybe I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:52

He wouldn't have no reason to, but he's not around here because of how segregated things were and his yeah, I thought she was very um naive and very disconnected from her blackness and again heartbreaking. Yeah, but overall, you know, it was a very educational book. I'm glad to learn about her. Um, of course, controversial subject, but overall, it I'm glad I read it. Yeah, I'm glad I learned about her.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:25

Um, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:29

I feel the same way, like you said, it was just like a little educational nugget, somebody outside of the usually that we hear about not saying anything's wrong with the usuals. We love all our people, but somebody different to gain some knowledge about. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:16:45

Yeah. I would love a show about her. So maybe. No, no, all right, I didn't ever go on having to sleep right now.

SPEAKER_06 1:17:09

Maybe I don't know. I feel like if they did it, they probably would have made like Bernard like handsome or they would her as herself.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:22

I can't wait. Listen, it stressed me out just watching Tessa Thompson in that movie. Wasn't it past the thing?

SPEAKER_06 1:17:28

It was the other sister. It was the her friend, her sister. It was her sister that was her friend of the past. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:34

Stressed me out enough. The whole show?

SPEAKER_06 1:17:37

Absolutely not. No. Absolutely not. I forgot. I already I blocked that movie from my memory. I blocked it from my memory. It was good. It was a good movie.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:47

It was good. And um, what was that other one? The the Jazz Man's something.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:55

It was on Netflix where the Jazz Man's blues. Yes.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:00

She she was passing and kept trying to worry about like what her baby would look like and stuff like that. That movie pissed me off too. Did you die behind you?

SPEAKER_06 1:18:11

Yes. This is uh really quick, really quick. Before before we leave, before we talk about the next book, did you guys look at what I sent you in the group chat about Bridget? Go look at that man right now, please. I'm gonna save her quietly. It's gonna be quiet for a second.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:31

I did see a glimpse, and he was fine. Then I need you to look at.

SPEAKER_06 1:18:35

Oh, when did you scroll it up? Right after right after she right after Rakia said charge your headphones. Click on my TikTok video. Oh, it was today? Yes, girl, it was today. Um be reading my stuff, it's fine. Oh, oh, okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:18:54

Yes. Yeah, I like him. Yes. Lord Lord Anderson. Who's oh so is that Lady Dan? Who's Lord Anderson? Is that Lady Danny? I thought that was Dan Mary's brother. Isn't that who that was?

SPEAKER_02 1:19:07

Yeah. That's good casting. Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_06 1:19:15

That is good casting. Tegan Alexander. Hold on, let me see. But he looks familiar too.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:21

Because I think y'all, real quick, my laptop is on two um two two percent. So we got we're just talking about Tegan Alexander.

SPEAKER_06 1:19:30

The next book is it's gonna stress this out again, Ruth here. You ready? I'm ready. I Don't Wish You Well by Jumata Emil. It tells a story about a teen investigative podcaster decides to dig into the truth behind a grisly murder spree that rocked his hometown five years ago, but soon discovers that this cold case is still hiding deadly secrets. So, stick around for that one. All right, yes.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:01

Thanks for listening, y'all. Make sure you follow on your socials, like and share, and we'll see y'all next week. Bye.