Before it was the American dream, pull yourself out of boot straps, and
you can make it in America, all these lies that America told us our whole life.
And then when we start getting it, and they try to lock us out of it,
they start inventing words like, capitalists, things like that.
We've been called monkeys, don't care, those words,
y'all gotta come up with stronger words.
>> You just heard Jay Z conflating racial slurs with the word capitalist.
And the point that he was really trying to make there,
was that he finds it wrong that capitalist is now considered a bit of a smear.
And you can understand why he would feel that way as someone who's doing pretty
well for himself as a capitalist.
[LAUGH] So Jay Z said, in this Twitter spaces conversation hosted by Rob Markman,
which was meant to promote DJ Khalid's new album, God Did.
This is when the conversations happening, right?
So let's listen to more of Jay Z's rant,
because he went on to complain about the phrase Eat the Rich, as well.
>> We're not gonna be tricked out of our position, y'all locked us out,
y'all created a system that doesn't include us.
We said fine, we went our alternate route,
we created this music, we did our thing, we hustled,
killed ourselves to get to the space and now it's,
eat the rich, man, we're not stopping.
>> So I'm curious what you think about this Cenk,
just to give you some more background info, Jay Z is worth $1.3 billion.
He feels that he is being victimized because of his success.
He doesn't like the fact that capitalist is considered a smear.
And look, I can understand why he's feeling attacked, but
he should also understand what the reality is for the vast majority of Americans.
Because the opportunities that he might have had to succeed in the way
that he has aren't really afforded to a lot of people these days.
And there seems to be an unwillingness to ever really acknowledge that.
And if you're wondering, okay, well how did he make his money outside of music?
He's been involved in real estate.
He has an ownership stake in the nets.
He's got a fine art collection.
Title, is a company that he owns, Roc Nation Entertainment and Sports Agency,
he also owns, and he has his own champagne brand, because of course he does.
So he is very much a capitalist who's involved in many business ventures.
>> Yeah, so I think this story is interesting on a couple accounts.
The first one is, jay Z, one of the most popular
performers in America, thinks that capitalist is
a slur word equal to calling a black man a monkey, wow!
Okay, so Frank Luntz, the top Republican pollster, talked about this six years ago.
He did a poll of young people and he was like, my God, his hair was on fire,
his non existent hair was on fire.
He wears a toupee.
[LAUGH] He was like, my God,
young people in this country hate capitalism, they like socialism.
Watch out, we're all gonna lose.
It's only a matter of time.
Panic, panic!
Was one of the most panic things I've ever seen a Republican say once he did
that poll.
And that's what jay Z is responding to.
If there's one thing jay Z is good at,
is having a finger on the pulse of pop culture.
And for young people, they hate capitalism,
they think it is one of the most offensive things there is, and
that, the older generation doesn't get it at all, at all.
They're totally blind to this.
If you told any cable news anchor younger generations don't like capitalism,
they'll go, younger generations, it's their fault!
What's wrong with them, right?
No, you're not getting it at all.
And now the second part of the story is about jay Z himself.
Listen, you gotta get better educated on this stuff.
I mean, he's like, now they're inventing a word called capitalism.
Pretty sure that was invented earlier, okay?
More importantly, he's quoting Fred Hampton,
cuz he knows that people like Fred Hampton.
He was one of the leaders of the Black Panthers, murdered by the FBI,
it's an incredibly compelling story.
There was a recent HBO movie about it, so it's got more recognition.
But Fred Hampton had a great legitimate critique of capitalism back in the day,
but obviously Jay Z never studied that critique and doesn't know what it's about.
So he's misquoting Fred Hampton, he's defending himself as a capitalist, but
saying, don't call me a capitalist, none of that makes any sense.
There is one thing that he's alluding to that does sometimes happen, for example,
with progressives.
They'll say, okay, if you ever make money, you should give away all of your money and
all of your worldly possessions, otherwise you're a hypocrite.
If really bad guy, rich right wingers have money, they're like,
you shouldn't give away any of that money, you should keep it all for yourself,
your greed is wonderful, and we have no expectations of you, okay?
so if jay Z were to say, well no deal, I'm not going to give away my money,
I'm gonna use it for great causes, then I'd love him for it, That makes sense.
And and look, Ana, when he gets the word capitalism, I think it's
misunderstood in a lot of ways, by a lot of folks, like the word socialism is.
I don't think there's anything wrong with Jay Z building all those businesses,
sometimes he will support businesses that are doing damage to the planet, and
he doesn't need to, he already has $1.3 billion.
So that's where I would ask him to be more socially conscious,
not to not have businesses, but to run business in a way that is better for
the planet, better for his community, and better for all of us.
>> I think for the longest time in this country, because of how education
is set up, you really don't learn about things like Marxist theory,
at least, in the context of our educational institutions, right?
If you've come across any curriculum that even touches on Marxism a little bit,
you are an exception to the rule, okay?
Or that was an exception to the rule.
So I tell you that because I think what we're also experiencing
is a combination of things, right?
You have all this information at your fingertips with the internet,
at the same time, we're in this late stage capitalism phase where
we're seeing systems just break down.
And we're seeing what the consequences are when there has to be a profit motive
associated with things that people need to survive.
Things like healthcare for instance, right?
Or things that you don't necessarily need to survive, but
you need to live a better life and get better opportunities, education.
Now there's the unaffordable price tag associated with that as well.
And so people are learning and actually thinking more consciously
about what capitalism is, how that system functions, and
what the real responsibilities are for the business owners, right?
And the number one responsibility, the number one fiduciary responsibility
they have, is to provide a return on investment to the shareholders.
That means cutting costs where you can to maximize profits.
That means, after decades and decades of policies that regulated capitalism
in a way that made it manageable at least,
all those things have been chipped away at.
So now we're dealing with a system in which people die because they don't have
the money for the appropriate health care, they don't have money to pay for
prescription drugs.
People die if they don't have the money necessary for the housing that they
need to put a roof over their heads and survive, the list goes on and on.
And young people aren't stupid, they have the information at their fingertips,
they know how the system works, they know how they're treated by their employers.
They see their working conditions, they see that their wages have been stagnant.
They see that jobs that used to pay really well and
used to have great benefit associated with them have been shipped
abroad to exploit cheap labor in other countries.
They see it, they know it.
So if Jay Z is curious about it, learn about it, read about it,
understand what your own fans are experiencing and why it is that
they see the word capitalist as a smear, or why they use it as a smear.
It's because that word and that system has actually terrorized them,
probably their entire lives.
>> Yeah, and by the way, there's so many great artists, both in rap and
in music, generally Chuck D, Tom Morello, Immortal Technique,
all of whom we've interviewed, who are fantastic on these issues.
So it's not hard for Jay Z to figure it out.
And you don't have to be defensive about your money,
you just have to spend it in the right way and build it in the right way.
And yes, there is a way to do that,
especially if you already have a billion dollars.
So that's a much better direction.