Media
audio-visual document

Oral History Interview with Kylie Greer

Title
Oral History Interview with Kylie Greer
Interviewee
Kylie Greer
Interviewer
Kaila Seger
Description
Kylie Greer of Murfreesboro, Tennessee was interviewed by Kaila Seger, a Sewanee student, on November 26th, 2023 in person. While their conversation was primarily on the Black Lives Matter Movement, other topics included reactionary politics in relation to the Black Lives Matter Movement and the future of Black Lives Matter. We hope that this conversation will assist scholars with a further understanding of race in the United States during the early twenty-first century. Please click on the link to see the full interview.
Transcript
0:00:30 Kaila Seger: Ok, Ok, *musical noises* Stop. Oh, the baby is meowing. Okay. *humming* What'd you doing? Oh, okay.

0:01:06 Kylie Greer: I didn't know she was in the chair. I was confused. She was in the chair.

0:01:12 Kaila Seger: Oh, she's in the
0:01:13 Chair. Okay, let's get started. This is Kaila Seger from Sewanee, the University of the South. It's 2:42 PM on Sunday, November 26. 2023. I am with

0:01:31 Kylie Greer: Kylie Greer.

0:01:33 Kaila Seger: And you are from

0:01:36 Kylie Greer: MTSU, Middle Tennessee State University.

0:01:41 Kaila Seger: Sure.

0:01:43 Kylie Greer: I you said your school

0:01:47 Kaila Seger: True.

0:01:48 Kylie Greer: You
0:01:48 Didn't tell me what you expected.

0:01:49 Kaila Seger: Okay. Thank you Kylie, for being here for doing this with me today.

0:01:56 Kylie Greer: Of course

0:01:57 Kaila Seger: I really needed it. We're going to go ahead and get into the general question pool as the cat screamed in the background,

0:02:13 Kylie Greer: She's a little emotional today.

0:02:15 Kaila Seger: She's- she's going through it. Go ahead and say where are you originally from?

0:02:22 Kylie Greer: Nashville, Tennessee.

0:02:25 Kaila Seger: Is that it?

0:02:28 Kylie Greer: I mean, pretty much. I never moved anywhere else until college so.

0:02:36 Kaila Seger: Did you- did you move anywhere like in Nashville?

0:02:42 Kylie Greer: I moved from the Antioch side of Nashville to the old Hickory side of Nashville. It was very exciting.

0:02:50 Kaila Seger: I see. And that's all. And then you've just moved to college and then to a different college?

0:02:58 Kylie Greer: Yeah.

0:03:00 Kaila Seger: Okay. Alright. I feel like I'm going to be pulling teeth from you.

0:03:16 Kylie Greer: Well I haven't moved places.

0:03:16 Kaila Seger: Well y'know, it's- it's like that. Let's go ahead and do, what is your occupation? What is your journey to this role

0:03:31 Kylie Greer: Journey? So I'm currently a froster at Nothing Bundt Cakes. My journey to that was I had a bunch of other completely unrelated jobs and then my cat is sneezing and I applied at like 18 places when I moved to Murfreesboro

0:03:51 Kaila Seger: 18?

0:03:53 Kylie Greer: It was a lot. It was around that. I don't know exactly. That might've been hyperbole if we're being completely truthful. It was at least 10

0:03:59 Kaila Seger: Ok

0:03:59 Kylie Greer: and then I got hired at two of them on the same day and picked the one that seemed more fun, which was frosting cakes.

0:04:07 Kaila Seger: What was the other one?

0:04:08 Kylie Greer: It was an Italian restaurant. They hired me for $18 an hour to make pasta, but when I interviewed in there, everyone seemed really sad, so I didn't take that job.

0:04:22 Kaila Seger: How much does, how much does Nothing Bundt Cakes do better than the 18?

0:04:26 Kylie Greer: No, it's 12.50 an hour. I'm going to get a 50 cent raise after they do my 30 day evaluation. I've already been there for well over a month, but it's been busy. They haven't done my 30 day. That's fine. You don't need to include that anywhere. But

0:04:44 Kaila Seger: Do you- do you actually want that cut out?

0:04:47 Kylie Greer: It doesn't really matter. We're just, they're supposed to do a thing after 30 days, but everyone knows it always takes way more than 30 days for them to actually do it.

0:04:55 Kaila Seger: Yeah, I guess that's true.
0:04:59 Okay, Ok. All right. Where did you find community as a child?

0:05:06 Kylie Greer: Whoa. Well, when I was a little kid, I did dance. I had friends in my like ballet and tap class. I had friends in school. I- a lot of people talk about having trouble with like friends early on. Most of the friends that I made early in life are still my friends to this day. As you might be familiar with my best friend from fifth grade.

0:05:35 Kaila Seger: Uh-huh

0:05:35 Kylie Greer: So I've never really had issues with friends in school. I did some activities outside of that, like Girl Scouts, gymnastics, et cetera,

0:05:57 Kaila Seger: Continue on with the et cetera. You can go in depth, you can keep going.

0:06:03 Kylie Greer: I was mainly just trying to, oh, I did encore when I was like three. That was my first, before I started school, I was in a weekly class where we just went and I built with blocks. That's where I like gained sentience. You know that moment where you just wake up and realize you're alive. That happened for me in Encore when I was that in Encore.

0:06:26 Kaila Seger: That happened for you in Encore? Were you building blocks?

0:06:28 Kylie Greer: Yes, because that's all I did. Me and this one other girl built with these wooden blocks, we built towers that were taller than our heads and decorated them with plastic dinosaurs. And one day I built such a good one and I like told my mom about it and she was like, yeah, I actually have scrapbook from your teacher of you building these massive towers every day this whole time. And I was like, I did things before. This is like the first day to me. I just became alive today.

0:07:03 Kaila Seger: I just became a person whatcha talking about.

0:07:05 Kylie Greer: And she showed me pictures of all of these very similar wooden block towers that I had built covered in dinosaurs. It was just instinct I guess that I did that

0:07:15 Kaila Seger: you just knew that you were made for building tall wooden block towers. Anywhere else?

0:07:27 Kylie Greer: I didn't really do extra cirriculars in high school.

0:07:36 Kaila Seger: You did chorus.

0:07:38 Kylie Greer: That was part of school and I didn't like most of them.

0:07:43 Kaila Seger: That's true. That's true I guess.

0:07:46 Kylie Greer: I was in the show choir. I hate it though. Let the record show. Mr. Fuller is a terrible man.

0:07:56 Kaila Seger: Show choir in parentheses. Hated it.

0:07:59 Kylie Greer: Yeah. I mean most of my community was just from school

0:08:09 Kaila Seger: Ok.

0:08:09 Kylie Greer: Because even the extracurriculars I did later on, a lot of it was just like, oh my friend's doing this, so I'll go do it. That's how I got into Girl Scouts.

0:08:19 Kaila Seger: Yeah

0:08:19 Kylie Greer: It was literally, I would play Minecraft on the phone with Madison Eddins and there was like every Wednesday she'd be like, I can't play Minecraft. I have Girl Scouts. I was like, well this is boring. I can't play Minecraft so I may as well go see what's at Girl Scouts.

0:08:40 Kaila Seger: Is that legitimately why you started-

0:08:41 Kylie Greer: Tthat's literally why I started Girl Scouts

0:08:42 Kaila Seger: -because you couldn't play.

0:08:43 Kylie Greer: I couldn't play Minecraft with Maddie.

0:08:45 Kaila Seger: And so you were just like, I guess I'm going to go to Girl Scouts.

0:08:50 Kylie Greer: Yes.

0:08:50 Kaila Seger: If I want to hang out with my friends on Wednesday, then I, I'm going to have to go to Girl Scout.

0:08:54 Kylie Greer: Precisely.

0:08:55 Kaila Seger: And then you went this sucked and you left.

0:08:58 Kylie Greer: Yeah. We didn't have a troop leader.

0:09:02 Kaila Seger: My mom!

0:09:03 Kylie Greer: I think that was later. I left during the window of time where the moms were just kind of like gathering us and we would just sit there and talk

0:09:14 Kaila Seger: I suppose. I suppose. Ok.

0:09:19 Kylie Greer: I'm thinking of trying to like pick her up and soothe her because she's literally crying in there.

0:09:25 Kaila Seger: You can try and see if she will allow you that

0:09:30 Kylie Greer: Because she doesn't- I think I'm going to bring her food and see if she'll eat on her own if she knows you're Oh, food today. That's a

0:09:38 Kaila Seger: That's a block of food

0:09:49 Kylie Greer: -sitting the middle of the-

0:09:53 Kaila Seger: She wants attention! Alright. Where do you find community today?

0:10:03 Kylie Greer: Today?

0:10:04 Kaila Seger: Today.

0:10:04 Kylie Greer: Well many of the friends that I still have are friends that I made in school. Like you, or like I just went to a party last night with friends from high school. I still find community with academics. Like I'm in college. I meet people in my college classes. I keep talking to 'em. I just like have found a lot of people through different relationships in my life at this point because like my roommates right now are good friends of mine, but I never would've met them if I didn't date someone that I ended up breaking up with. So it's just a network, everything. She's just yelling.

0:10:54 Kaila Seger: She just- she wants attention,

0:10:56 Kylie Greer: But if I go in there, she looks scared.

0:10:58 Kaila Seger: Aww.

0:10:59 Kylie Greer: She's scared of me

0:11:00 Kaila Seger: Poor baby.

0:11:03 Kylie Greer: But yeah, I have community that way. I- when I was still at Sewanee, I was kind of trying to be involved with like a couple of clubs and stuff. I haven't really done that here at all,

0:11:22 Kaila Seger: Yeah

0:11:22 Kylie Greer: but I've considered it. They have like yarn buddies, like these little activities where people go and just like crochet and knit together.

0:11:33 Kaila Seger: Yeah

0:11:33 Kylie Greer: LIke I could just show up to one of those

0:11:37 Kaila Seger: Craft and gabs. Yeah, I miss that a little bit. But then my roommate right now knits. So then we can just knit and crochet together in the dorm. Alright... who inspires you and what traits do these individuals have?

0:12:14 Kylie Greer: So one person that definitely inspires me is my mom because even though there's a lot of things about how her life has worked out that I'm like, boy, I will learn from this and not let it happen to me. There's also a lot about her as a person and her work ethic and her like desire to constantly be learning as like a lifelong journey that is very inspirational to me and I aspire to be like her in that way. She's currently learning Spanish

0:12:51 Kaila Seger: Oh!

0:12:51 Kylie Greer: and getting ESL certified?

0:12:54 Kaila Seger: Yes ma'am.

0:12:54 Kylie Greer: Just because why not? Why wouldn't she be?

0:12:58 Kaila Seger: Yeah,

0:12:58 Kylie Greer: She got her Master's plus in special education and then she was-

0:13:01 Kaila Seger: She did

0:13:01 Kylie Greer: just like got to learn something else and just kept going.

0:13:06 Kaila Seger: And then didn't she do- didn't she learn ASL as well?

0:13:09 Kylie Greer: She used to be fluent in ASL. She's still like conversational but not fluent and that was just like she joined a class and just decided that she wanted to do it.

0:13:23 Kaila Seger: How does your mom find these things?

0:13:25 Kylie Greer: She just is. She's just like that. That's why she's an inspiration to me. I also think she's just a very loving and like kind person and I find a lot of my traits to be mirrored from hers. And sometimes that's good. Sometimes it's less good, but such is life.
0:13:52 I'm also inspired by a lot of my friends.

0:13:56 Kaila Seger: Oh, she's got little socks.

0:13:59 Kylie Greer: Yeah, now she's under the couch. Where I thought she was originally. She just moves between a few spots most of the time. Right now we're hoping she'll get more acclimated

0:14:11 Kaila Seger: Yeah

0:14:11 Kylie Greer: and use everything. Yeah I'm inspired by my friends, especially the ones that are like still in school and working hard because I know a lot of people that have just gone to school for a bit after high school and just went like, it's not for me and have just like gotten some job. Or other, I caught up with Ruby last night at Ayla's party and I was like, so what have you been up to? And she was like, yeah, I went to MTSU for like less than a semester and I've just been like doing my music stuff and working at a cafe and I was like, word.

0:14:54 Kaila Seger: Okay, girly pop.

0:14:56 Kylie Greer: So all of the friends that I have made in college and all of the old friends that are still pursuing it, we're fighting through. We're getting that degree.

0:15:08 Kaila Seger: We are getting it one way or another

0:15:10 Kylie Greer: We're academic weapons life is a nightmare. We're getting that bread. Yeah. I also just in like life, I'm inspired by my little brother and his like positivity because he just radiates happiness and an amount of social comfortability that I have never experienced even at his age

0:15:42 Kaila Seger: Yeah

0:15:42 Kylie Greer: because as a kid I already had anxiety. I was already terrified of everyone. Ethan has down syndrome and that's part of it because they do just tend to be like very exuberant, but he just- he is a friend to everyone that he sees. He is never in his life met a stranger and he is just having a grand old time living. And if you ask him what he wants to be when he grows up, he says he wants to work at Chuck E. Cheese

0:16:19 Kaila Seger: Oh!

0:16:19 Kylie Greer: and that's such an attainable goal.

0:16:22 Kaila Seger: I love that.

0:16:22 Kylie Greer: So that's- those are my inspirations.

0:16:27 Kaila Seger: I miss my random calls from Ethan. Seeing your name pop up on my phone and knowing it is not you calling me. It is Ethan calling me from your phone.

0:16:39 Kylie Greer: I can give him your number.

0:16:46 Kaila Seger: I don't know if that's a good idea or a bad idea. I'm not going to lie.

0:16:50 Kylie Greer: He has a Google duo on his iPad, so if you put your Google account in there, he can call you.

0:16:55 Kaila Seger: Oh, all right. We're gonna go move on. We're going to say how have you experienced international cultures in your life?

0:17:07 Kylie Greer: So as far as like people that have been around me expressing their own cultures, I feel like I've seen a fair amount of diversity as far as actually going and experiencing different cultures in their places of origin. I would definitely experienced less because I have only been out of the country once and it was very much to like a tourist trap place. I went to Aruba for a destination wedding.
0:17:39 We didn't- my nana talks about the part of that trip where they got lost and accidentally ended up in real Aruba and they were like, it was so shocking to like go on these back roads and all of the houses are in shambles. They're so poor. And it was like, yeah, it's because the only industry is the destination over there.

0:18:02 Kaila Seger: Yeah

0:18:04 Kylie Greer: So I was like five at the time. I didn't actually see that side of it or process that that was what we were doing until way later. But yeah as far as like just people around me, I went to an elementary school that was like very diverse for that area. So I was like just seeing a lot of people. I would see like girls that were wearing like different, what's the word when you're just vaguely, I know specific words, but I was trying to just say in general.

0:18:46 Kaila Seger: Like veiling?

0:18:46 Kylie Greer: Yeah,

0:18:46 Kaila Seger: Veiling is I think the closest that you get.
0:18:49 Yeah, there were different types
0:18:50 Yeah

0:18:50 Kylie Greer: of veiling that were going on and I'd just be like, oh, yours is kind of different than hers. What's going on? And we were like seven. So they'd just be like, oh, I'm this thing and this is what we do and here's why. And I'd be like, oh, I don't do that. And they'd be like, you should try it. Sometimes I'd be like, maybe. Yeah. So it was very, like being little kids in that kind of environment

0:19:13 Kaila Seger: Yeah

0:19:13 Kylie Greer: I think is very, very healthy.

0:19:16 Kaila Seger: I agree.

0:19:17 Kylie Greer: Because everyone is just kind of like hanging out and there's no judgment because you don't know yet that there's even supposed to be judgment,

0:19:28 Kaila Seger: Yeah

0:19:28 Kylie Greer: which there shouldn't be, but societally it's kind of baked in. So the fact that you can just put a bunch of kids together and they see the differences, but they don't know why and they'll just ask and learn. That's very good.
0:19:47 And then I grew up still in fairly diverse like school settings, but I think having that as a little kid was most important. Cause by the time you get older, you already kind of start to have any prejudices that you're going to have like in middle school. My dad started like saying things that I'd feel like that's kind of weird. That's just my friend. Why are you always mentioning her as the black girl that I'm friends with? Oh, strange.

0:20:23 Kaila Seger: Yeah.

0:20:25 Kylie Greer: So you kind of start to notice things as you get older, but when you're a little kid, that is when you can get that mindset of just like everybody's a person. I can make friends with any of these people and it's fine.

0:20:40 Kaila Seger: Would you say that there was a big diversity difference between Donelson Middle and DuPont or conversely like McGavock and online school, which I know the online school is very different, but like I want to know if there's a sort of like different diversity shift.

0:21:02 Kylie Greer: Yeah so between Donelson and DuPont Hadley, I think Dupont Hadley was a little bit less diverse, but not by a lot. It was fairly similar demographics. I think Donelson had more of a reputation for being like a, I'm doing air quotes for the record "ghetto school". Dupont Hadley has like more funding,

0:21:30 Kaila Seger: Yeah

0:21:30 Kylie Greer: so they were seen as like a more outstanding

0:21:36 Kaila Seger: Yeah

0:21:36 Kylie Greer: kind of place, but the actual kids there were fairly similar demographics. It was just kind of how they were perceived. You just out and about.

0:21:48 Kaila Seger: She's curious

0:21:49 Kylie Greer: -the laundry room before the doors are really closed, but yeah, I think online school going to be honest, I didn't see my classmates, so I really don't know. The only time that we were all in person was when we took the ACT and I just wasn't looking aroun

0:22:25 Kaila Seger: Yeah

0:22:25 Kylie Greer: I really couldn't tell you the demographics there, but it was an online public school, so there wasn't a like fee for attendance that might've skewed the demographics. So by all accounts, it should have been similar to a public school that was in person, yeah but middle school's fairly similar, both fed into a high school that was about the same ratios.

0:22:57 Kaila Seger: Yeah. What about between Sewanee and MTSU? I'm sure that's probably a-a huge shift.

0:23:03 Kylie Greer: That one is very different. Sewanee, you also don't even notice it as much when you're there, or at least I don't notice as much someone that is in the minority there would probably notice it quite a bit. But for me it's that kind of thing where you can end up in a room full of white people and not notice that it's all white people because you're just like, they're all like me. So these people are standard, but then you don't necessarily- you don't think that it's like weird if there's a diverse room, but if there's a fully one other demographic room and then you're the only white person, then you'll notice so it's kind of I didn't notice while I was there how much diversity was lacking until I ended up somewhere where I look around and like right now half of my chemistry class is Coptic Orthodox Egyptians. How did that happen? I don't really know, but they talk about it quite a bit and it's very interesting.
0:24:09 It's just like groups that you don't even necessarily think about

0:24:15 Kaila Seger: Yeah

0:24:15 Kylie Greer: because like that's one where I have one friend, we both do Jazzy that like came from that same background,

0:24:22 Kaila Seger: Yeah

0:24:22 Kylie Greer: but she's not practicing it anymore, so doesn't actually talk about it. She doesn't talk about it a lot has been like, oh, there's a lot more of these than I thought. I had only met one person before that even mentioned it,

0:24:36 Kaila Seger: Yeah

0:24:36 Kylie Greer: and now I'm in a class full of people that are actively discussing it. That's really cool.

0:24:43 Kaila Seger: Yeah

0:24:43 Kylie Greer: So that's the kind of thing that I never really got at Sewanee, but I think there are several reasons for that. MTSU is kind of viewed as the funnel from McGavock as well. So

0:25:00 Kaila Seger: Yeah

0:25:00 Kylie Greer: coming from a more diverse public school to the public university, it's going to kind of feed in that way.

0:25:08 Kaila Seger: It is a big funnel for a lot of the public schools in the surrounding area.

0:25:13 Kylie Greer: And then there's also, I think there's international students in both. But

0:25:17 Kaila Seger: Yes,

0:25:19 Kylie Greer: like the visibility of international students at MTSU is very different because at Sewanee its like there's so few students overall that you'll be like, who's that one Irish guy? And everyone knows who you're talking about here. It'll be like, oh, I have two different guys in different classes that are both from Saudi Arabia and it's like, that's normal, but it would not

0:25:51 Kaila Seger: Yeah

0:25:51 Kylie Greer: kind of translate between schools. So that it's definitely very different just like culturally and in demographics, just in sheer numbers. It's different.

0:26:04 Kaila Seger: Yeah

0:26:04 Kylie Greer: But yeah, it's definitely a shift, not a bad one, just different.

0:26:11 Kaila Seger: I think this year in particular, it looks like Sewanee has taken a big step towards being more diverse, which I certainly appreciate, but I was like, you left. I'm like, you left before this year. Alright, so then let's go ahead and get into the meat of this. And we are going to start with how do you receive the news?

0:26:56 Kylie Greer: Mostly through different social medias. And then if there's something that I see on social media that I'm like, that doesn't sound right, or Oh, I need to know more about this, then I will like do research on it and read news articles from actual like news sources. But I don't usually I don't have like any subscriptions to news sources or like watch news on the tv.

0:27:25 Kaila Seger: What social media?

0:27:28 Kylie Greer: Instagram, Twitter, sometimes Facebook, I use Snapchat. Sometimes people post about things that are happening on there. I feel like the big one is Instagram just because that's where people will be like, we post this to your story to spread awareness. So anytime something's happening, you see it everywhere.

0:27:51 Kaila Seger: Then what like- what news sources do you tend to gravitate towards?

0:27:59 Kylie Greer: I tend to go towards ones that are like recognizable but not the big ones that everyone's always yelling about. So I avoid like CNN and Fox, but like if like there's something from NPR, I'll be like, those are letters that I agree with. And just similar things to that where it's like ones that are more known for being neutral and like actually saying what's happening and not just word like vomiting, buzzwords.

0:28:37 Kaila Seger: Alright then I have an idle dance, that I have to do when I'm being idle. How did you first encounter the Black Lives Matter movement?

0:29:09 Kylie Greer: That's actually a very good question.

0:29:13 Kaila Seger: We're trying to get deep.

0:29:14 Kylie Greer: Yeah,

0:29:14 Kaila Seger: We're trying to dig in.

0:29:18 Kylie Greer: It's one of two things. I don't know which one came first.

0:29:22 Kaila Seger: That's fine.

0:29:24 Kylie Greer: They were around the same time. But one was my dad was talking about it

0:29:30 Kaila Seger: Oh, Ok

0:29:30 Kylie Greer: And he was very much Black Lives Matter, what about me? Like that kind of like ramblings. And that was early on when it was not necessarily brand new, but starting to kind of make news stories not until like 2020 where everything's like big. And if it was not that first, then it would've been on Instagram because in like late middle school, early high school, I was very much following a like bunch of activist pages and absorbing all of the world news and like everything that was happening from those because I hadn't figured out how to like develop a healthy load of media consumption without completely overwhelming myself.

0:30:30 Kaila Seger: Fair. Okay. So then do you remember for like the Instagram stuff, was it things like the blackouts on it?

0:30:46 Kylie Greer: I don't remember the black outs.

0:30:47 Kaila Seger: That was maybe the first thing or like what do you- what do you think was the first sort of information that you might've received on Instagram?

0:30:57 Kylie Greer: I think I was following pages like the now it's called like So informed.

0:31:05 Kaila Seger: Yeah.

0:31:07 Kylie Greer: I was following those types of things that would make like multiple slides that were just like, here's an issue, let's talk about what it means. Does this mean that white people should all die? No. Like that kind of softly spoon feeding you the information. It was most likely one of those like prior to the blackout where it was like, here's why you might see people posting black squares. Because I knew by the time people were posting the blackout stuff, I had already seen it and I was like, well this seems counterintuitive. And then people were all like, stop posting the black squares. It's counterintuitive. And I was like, yeah, that's kind of what I was thinking. Not to say that I was a genius or like super invested at the time, but I was like, why would this do anything except for like push the informative posts away. I had that level of understanding.

0:32:15 Kaila Seger: Okay. So more of- more of like then I-I suppose the started discourse between posting the blackout screens or just the like here's a- here's a bunch of information on it.

0:32:32 Kylie Greer: I mostly saw the information about it. I wasn't like involved in the discourse. I just saw some of it as it was happening.

0:32:41 Kaila Seger: Okay. Lemme see. Go. And what is your opinion on the Black Lives Matter movement?

0:32:58 Kylie Greer: I did a big thumbs up for the

0:33:01 Kaila Seger: Can I

0:33:02 Kylie Greer: Audio recording because it sounded like I just laughed.

0:33:05 Kaila Seger: Can I elaborate? Verbal response. Any elaboration, please?

0:33:10 Kylie Greer: Yes,

0:33:12 Kaila Seger: I need more than thumbs up.

0:33:16 Kylie Greer: I think it very important, there's a lot of debate about the justifiability of different actions and everything. I am not necessarily a pacifist when it comes to like revolution and social change. So I don't really have so many restraints there. If you're like burning down a small business for fun, don't do that. If you're throwing bricks at a target, go for it y'know. But Black Lives Matter. The systems that we have in place are fundamentally broken and racist and they're calling that out and pushing for social change and that's really important. So I think anyone that doesn't have a like positive view of Black Lives Matter is either taking it as a personal attack against themselves and not looking at the bigger picture or just is racist and does not think that Black lives matter because they're not saying they're all lies, all lives can't matter until Black Lives Matter. Wow,

0:34:46 Kaila Seger: Oh my God,

0:34:46 Kylie Greer: What a crazy concept.

0:34:51 Kaila Seger: What's some of the examples of the broken system that you see to kind of elaborate on what you mean by that?

0:34:58 Kylie Greer: I mean the police as a whole were made like the system as we have it was developed to catch runaway slaves. So there has always been racial prejudice involved in the police system, the prison industrial complex, the skewed ratio of black bodies in prison versus the amount of crimes that are committed. It is all, it's so cool wage gaps between people of color and they're white peers is there's like gender wage gap and then like racial wage gap and then you put like all of it on a graph and you can see it.

0:35:47 Kaila Seger: Have you put it all on the graph before?

0:35:48 Kylie Greer: Not me personally. I've seen people put it on a graph.

0:35:51 Kaila Seger: It's like, okay, Ms. Stem,

0:35:54 Kylie Greer: No. We've looked at, in like my stats class, one of the charts that we looked at was like, here's white males, here's black males, here's white women, here's black women. And it's like, oh, look how the more minorities you add, the less money you make. That's kind of wrong. Crazy how that happens. But yes, there's issues with that getting employed in the first place, the likelihood that you're going to be admitted to different colleges, which is now getting better, but used to be there was less of a likelihood of you getting in if you were part of certain groups that they didn't necessarily want, which wacky enough involved black people.

0:36:51 Kaila Seger: Yeah

0:36:51 Kylie Greer: So there has pretty much always been racism in America and it's kind of cooked in at this point. Like they can't really just be like, oh, we're done being racist now. It's part of how the country was built.

0:37:13 Kaila Seger: So then I'm going to loop back around to what you said at the beginning of your response to just get what is your like difference between burning down mom and pop shop and throwing bricks through a target? I already know because we've had these conversations before, however I want to get that deep dive, I want to get that out here.

0:37:41 Kylie Greer: Understandable.

0:37:43 Kaila Seger: I feel like we're having a conversation, we're having trouble going deeper because we're on the same page.

0:37:50 Kylie Greer: Fair enough.

0:37:51 Kaila Seger: Elaborate.

0:37:52 Kylie Greer: Okay. So whenever you have a corporation, they Are you ok?

0:38:00 Kaila Seger: Yeah. Trying to my leg up.

0:38:05 Kylie Greer: They are intentionally trying to be like treating the business as its own entity and because of that they get like legal protections to behave in certain ways. And whenever you kind of create a corporation and it grows super big, you can kind of exploit all of your workers and the people at the top just make profit and they are the ones, the people at the top and the people involved in the stocks of the business are the ones that are actually making money off of it. The people at the bottom that are working class people aren't necessarily benefiting from the business doing better or worse, and they're also not the ones that have to pay for any damages to the business that is involved in the like insurance and the repair costs to the higher ups. So there is not necessarily an ethical dilemma when it's just between, oh, this might take a fraction of the paycheck of someone in the 1% versus like this is a family run business. Their livelihood is this place. If you are destroying it, it is coming out of their pocket to fix it, then you are hurting working class people that are trying to make a living versus all of the working class people in the target would absolutely love to throw a break through the window if there were no repercussions for 'em.
0:39:44 So that is kind of the, yeah.

0:39:48 Kaila Seger: Okay. Alright. I'm trying to get us to do the whole elaboration thing because I know that the two of us are on the same page about everything about what is being said. I'm like, elaborate for me. Let's go ahead and do, how has the Black Lives Matter movement impacted your life?

0:40:20 Kylie Greer: Honestly, pretty minimally because I am not of the mindset that other people getting the same like rights and opportunities that I already would've had is taking them away from me. So progress that has been made and like pushes for more black inclusion and opportunities and things of that nature, those being made available changes, pretty much nothing for me. I'm glad they're happening. Big thumbs up. Doesn't really do a whole lot to change my life one way or the other. I attended one of the like rallies and that was kind the extent of my actual involvement because I was there and then my parents were like, please come home before I get late. They might make it a riot. And so I had to go home.

0:41:30 Kaila Seger: So it hasn't impacted your life in the sense of like white fragility or you being threatened about it. However, has it impacted your life in the sense of developing your own like political opinions, your own opinions on the state of the world, the news, social media like bias, like other things that extend past the what could be the direct consequence of what these people are fighting for being met?

0:42:13 Kylie Greer: That's a very good point. I think especially around 2020 because I was like still a teenager, just becoming more able to process media and learn about biases and how to interpret them and everything. That was definitely something like summer of 2020 when a bunch of things were happening. It was a very big time for BLM I was seeing that and then I was seeing a bunch of positive posts about this is what we're doing, here's what's going to happen. And then I would see news people being like, they're burning buildings, they're savages, they're destroying everything. And I would be like, now these two things aren't lining up, I suppose I will now have to make my own critical thinking choices about what to believe. So I know I've seen that in a lot more situations, especially like since then. But that was one of the first big events where I was kind of seeing that. So that was something that was an introduction for me and understanding, hey, the news people might not always be telling the truth.

0:43:40 Kaila Seger: Developing that critical thinking brain. Alright, let's do, how has Black Lives Matter affected how you talk with family and friends, if at all?

0:44:05 Kylie Greer: So my older brother and I have this general rule where when we are talking to our dad and he starts to bring up something like Black Lives Matter or like religious things, racial issues, anything of that nature, no matter what he says or how insane it sounds, the fastest way to make him stop talking is just going, oh, okay. So we have learned that and do utilize it more recently, and this is less about Black Lives Matter and more about the fact that I've just become an adult that no longer lives in their house for any windows of the year. I have started debating with my dad just because it's funny and he's wrong, but I don't think we have specifically discussed Black Lives Matter. It's usually things like transgender women in sports and how they're totally just crushing the competition because men are such natural athletes and all of the world records are being taken by trans women. No they're not. But yeah, Black Lives Matter itself. Whenever 2020 was happening, I was living at home and there were protests happening, my parents would be like, don't go downtown, there's rioting. And I'd be like, have you like checked? Have you looked? Or are you just taking their word for it? But they haven't really changed their viewpoints.

0:46:11 Kaila Seger: Ok so that's family. What about friends?

0:46:15 Kylie Greer: Friends? If I'm friends with people, they usually agree with me to at least a certain extent politically. I have friends that are a little more liberal, a little more, I don't think I have Republican friends.

0:46:39 Kaila Seger: I don't know.

0:46:39 Kylie Greer: I can think of any I used to, but then we grew up,

0:46:45 Kaila Seger: Not anymore, not that I would know of and not anyone where it's like they could be, but neither of us know their actual political orientation, like their political beliefs. They could have changed.

0:46:59 Kylie Greer: Most of the people that I was friends with that I would say were Republican grew up and read a book and then they stopped that. So I think I didn't really have that much debate or like back and forth with my friends about Black Lives Matter, just because if we did discuss it, it would usually be like, Hey, did you see that this is happening? And they'd be like, oh, for real, cool. And then we'd move like on. So it didn't change a whole lot about how I talk to them. The same like media literacy stuff applies there where it's like we were all kind of learning at the same time. So everybody was kind of in different places with that as teenagers. But now as adults, I feel like everyone has about the same perspective

0:47:55 Kaila Seger: Yeah

0:47:55 Kylie Greer: like in the long run. We all settled in the same range.

0:48:04 Kaila Seger: We've had many a discussion, many a discussion about the state of the world and other such things. Alright, I'm not going to do the community reaction because I feel like your community was mostly your family and friends and we've already kind of gone over that.

0:48:31 Kylie Greer: Yeah.

0:48:37 Kaila Seger: So let's do, how has the Black Lives Matter movement changed how you interact with people of other races if it has at all?

0:48:49 Kylie Greer: I think just like a product of the movement has been a lot more like consciousness on the whole for people that maybe wouldn't have thought about certain things. So like I'm more aware of issues and more likely to be able to discuss them in like an intelligent manner. And I can be like, Hey, I know that my opinion on this isn't like the end all be all, but we can talk about it. And I also feel like it's important to have that kind of general awareness because otherwise you're leaving it up to them to be their job, to educate you whenever you are ignorant on certain things.
0:49:42 I think that is something that is very helpful. It was a big effort that spread that awareness on large so that they now have to do less individual work with every person they come across, including myself, which is good. I think there is, I feel like there's differences in like language used as well, like certain terms that are more or less acceptable, but I cannot think of specific examples that I would've been using that I now don't, like my dad is still someone that occasionally says colored people, and then I go, that's not right. And he goes, no, that's what they like being called now. And I go, no, you mean people of color? And he goes, that's what I said. And I said, no, same words, different order, big difference. And he goes, ah. And I go, not ah!

0:50:57 Kaila Seger: No!

0:50:58 Kylie Greer: So it's things like that where like a lot of those types of people may have at least or not those types of people, but people who may have thought those terms were okay and maybe been using it well-meaning because they think it's the same thing, realize that it's not the same thing and kind of learn from it. So I think that's important.

0:51:25 Kaila Seger: Has that sort of, like I guess perspective shift or like change, how has it filtered over into like other issues that you educate yourself on or try and educate others about?

0:51:42 Kylie Greer: I think there's definitely a similar awareness of if I don't learn about this myself, then it becomes someone else's job to educate me. That's something that I encountered with my former partner was there would be issues like abortion where he'd be like, oh, I don't know enough about that to have an opinion. And I'd go, well, do you want to learn about it? And he'll go, I mean if you want to like explain it, you can. And it's like, well, I as someone who this affects shouldn't have to be the one sitting you down patting you on the head and giving you a lecture. You have full access to the internet and it's many informative sources. You can peruse that at your leisure. And so I do make an effort to when there is an issue that I feel like I do not know enough about to have an opinion on, for a long time Israel and Palestine were kind of issues that people would be like, I don't know enough about that to talk about it. When I noticed that I had done that more than once, I looked into it

0:53:06 Kaila Seger: Yeah

0:53:06 Kylie Greer: because I was like, it is going to keep coming up. I don't want to be someone that just has to be like, oh, I don't know. Because then if there is an issue that is real and depressing, you're complicit in it, if you're not knowledgeable on that subject.
0:53:29 So I think that's important and it has spread to many developments over time.

0:53:37 Kaila Seger: Would you say that that's a byproduct of technology today and the access that we have to technology today?

0:53:45 Kylie Greer: Very much so. I think that would be a lot harder to do and to expect people to do if they did not have that full access at their fingertips like every day. And there are some people that don't and that's not something to skip over. Access to like education and internet and those resources are very important and you should not hold it against people that don't have that opportunity that they can't do the same. But whenever you know that people have that full opportunity to learn and they're just choosing to stay ignorant because it's easier to withdraw from an issue than to actually learn about it. I don't think that's good.

0:54:30 Kaila Seger: Okay. Let's do a broad one that I feel like we've kind of already touched on, but regardless, what is the state of race relations in the US right now?

0:54:50 Kylie Greer: I think they're better than they've been previously and still not good. There have been several events over time that have been a big setback. 9/11 comes to mind.

0:55:09 Kaila Seger: I was about to say feel free to say what you've got. Thinking up there.

0:55:19 Kylie Greer: Like we kind of started with a deeply racist and messed up like foundation and then we kind of casually were like, oh, there's no more slavery, everything's fine now. And then we look back at that time right after slavery and we're like, oh, that was still really racist. And then we move on a little bit, we're like, okay, we're not in the super racist part anymore, now it's fine. And then we look back at it today and we're like, uh oh! That was still racism. And so we kind of do that in steps where it's like it becomes less blatantly racist out loud and visibly in kind of waves as social pressures kind of force more under the rug. And then we go, all right, now it's all better. And then a decade later you look back and you're like, we were saying that. Oh God. So I think very much so we're still in a period of time where we will look back and be like, oh Christ, why was that okay?
0:56:31 And the answer is it's not. But we're so desensitized to certain like racist sayings or like things being a certain way that we don't think about it so much or the people that are thinking about it and talking about it. We're like, everybody knows this is just how it is. We don't need to worry about all that. There are real problems because there are problems. There are so many problems all of the time. We can think about more than one per year if we don't, nothing will get better

0:57:08 Kaila Seger: Per month even you can think about more than one per month

0:57:12 Kylie Greer: On the daily. Perhaps we could rotate, but it's- we're at a point now where it's like, okay, on an individual basis we are usually able to acknowledge that any person of any race is a person that's progress.

0:57:39 Kaila Seger: Yeah

0:57:39 Kylie Greer: We- things are better than they have been in the past. That does not mean they're good. That does not mean there is not still a huge amount of work to do to get to like true equality. Excuse me. But it's better there. Some reasons that things are better now, might not be the right reasons. That doesn't mean that it's not an improvement. The fact that police are now like more cautious to be super aggressive to black people because they know that there will be a big fuss about it. If they are, it's still happening a lot that they are overly aggressive because the system is built on racism, but perhaps they're more cautious now because they don't want to get fired and stab in prison like a certain someone

0:58:59 Kaila Seger: Thank God he did really rejoicing it that personally.

0:59:07 Kylie Greer: Yeah so it's like is that the right reason for them to not want to kill black people? No. Is it good that they're not killing black people? So things are improving whether or not they're improving for the right reasons, who knows? But progressively and in small increments things are still moving towards a people being more aware and actually being treated with some semblance of respect no matter who they are or what they look like.

0:59:48 Kaila Seger: Would you say that we've been knocked back with the introduction of things like critical race theory that's experiencing a lot of backlash and stuff. Like when you say that we kind of get pushed forward, like social factors push progress forward. Do you see it more as like an incoming tide where it's like it comes in and then it draws back, it comes in and it draws back? Or is it just that continuous push?

1:00:21 Kylie Greer: There are definitely. I think if you zoom out on a really big scale of time, we're on a continuous up in terms of equality and awareness and fair treatment for people individually looking at it. A lot of the times there are drawbacks, A lot of that is reactionary. Certain people that never caught up with the last wave might do a big push in response to like panicking and realizing that change is happening. Especially because a lot of times there's lobbying from those people or those are the old people that are still in power in the government. So things like that will a lot of times have an effect and there will be pushback from progress pretty much always for anything ever. But I think in a grand scale it's still forward movement, which is

1:01:32 Kaila Seger: A general upward trend.

1:01:33 Kylie Greer: Yeah, that's kind of what you have to look at. If you don't, it'll go crazy.

1:01:38 Kaila Seger: Yeah, that's fair. I'm certainly going crazy. So then you don't- I suppose don't place much value on a lot of the reactionary like politics that are happening, especially when it comes to things like critical race theory, that's a response to this racism and a sort of program to how can we better ourselves is kind of see that as that's the reaction, it'll go away or like is it a genuine issue that we need to devote focus towards fighting that reactionary politics?

1:02:25 Kylie Greer: I think it does kind of depend. There are times where reactionary politics are kind of just throwing stuff out and seeing what happens and trying to make some big effort. They recently tried to outlaw public homosexuality in Murfreesboro. I don't know if you know about that.

1:02:50 Kaila Seger: I heard about that.

1:02:52 Kylie Greer: And because it was ruled that homosexuality is super vague and you can't categorize what counts as being publicly homosexual and that's ridiculous. They just went, we're not going to enforce that. That's not a real law. You can't do that. So I think some of the time if it's kind of clear that hey, they're just kind of being old men yelling at a wall, you can leave 'em to that. If there are things like, especially in the education system, that is one where it's going to affect what happens happens in Florida right now, they like can only have approved books in schools and that's a big problem because everything else had to be taken out. You can't interact with other perspectives or learn anything from other literature if it is not pre-approved by the Florida government, that's bad. Whenever things like that are happening,

1:04:08 Kaila Seger: 1984

1:04:12 Kylie Greer: when things like that are happening, there has to be some kind of pushback because if there isn't, then a generation of kids will grow up with the perspective of the old people instead of growing up socialized normal and interacting with a regular amount of different perspectives and coming to the regular conclusion that racism bad.
1:04:36 If they are on the track of landing like the older people, then that's going to change public opinion and that general upward trend, which is what they want.
1:04:49 So it's kind of a case by case basis of is this something that is just yelling old people or is it something that can have very real repercussions that are major and impacting the future, messing up a whole generation of kids and forcing 'em to wait until they are old enough to like reach out on their own to gain perspective. Because that's not to say that those kids are hopeless. Once they're old enough, they very well can still like learn and grow and cycle back around. But a lot of times it takes time to work through any prejudices that are already in place. And if you're cooking them into the system, then they're going to be getting only that through their whole education. That's going to be an issue. Like our friend Kyle went down an Alt- right pipeline on the internet at about 13. Very easy to do, very unfortunate. You then have to interact with other perspectives, learn better. You have to rewire your brain a little bit and go, I'm being kind of crazy. And that's hard sometimes. That's very difficult. And so we're very proud of Kyle for not being very-

1:06:10 Kaila Seger: Very proud of Kyle for getting out of that

1:06:14 Kylie Greer: For

1:06:15 Kaila Seger: So does it become more pressing when like you get to more federal and state governments is overseeing a lot of area indifference with the city of Murfreesboro trying to introduce this ridiculous law that's like how are you going to enforce that? That's just dumb. We're not going to do that. Versus y'know Florida or the federal government perhaps passing a law that objectively is just as dumb because I mean what qualifies in the terms of books and stuff, what qualifies a book is inappropriate,

1:06:55 Kylie Greer: Whether or not they read it and say it is

1:06:57 Kaila Seger: Yes. But like what are those exact guidelines within those governments? Does it become more of a pressing issue to push back when it's state and federal governments that are doing these sorts of laws versus local governments that might not necessarily have the power to the power or the time to devote like how are we going to fully flesh this out to where we have the control?

1:07:22 Kylie Greer: Yeah, I think that's definitely the case, but it's also working outing that on a local scale, you're more likely to get things where you can be like, ah, they're just being kind of wacky because it generally has gone through more hoops by the time the public sees it on a federal level. So if they're like, this bill is being discussed, it's like by the time it gets to the point that we can even see that many of them that are wackier should have been shot down or like they made an iteration that a bunch of other people went, well, you definitely can't do that, but how about this compromise that sounds a lot more normal.

1:08:09 Kaila Seger: Ok

1:08:09 Kylie Greer: So I think that's also part of just checks and balances in general and how they're supposed to work.

1:08:17 Kaila Seger: Hey guys, you're being a little bit kooky

1:08:19 Kylie Greer: Yeah,

1:08:20 Kaila Seger: Let's reign it back in.

1:08:22 Kylie Greer: Let's think about this for a second perhaps.

1:08:24 Kaila Seger: Let's put on our thinking caps and use our brain cells.

1:08:30 Kylie Greer: But yeah, I think it's definitely there is more of an opportunity for larger damage to occur whenever it is on state or federal levels. And it has gotten that far and still nobody stop it and it's not looking like they're going to stop it and then everybody starts going, uh-oh I thought somebody else would've stopped this by now.

1:08:55 Kaila Seger: Uh-oh

1:08:55 Kylie Greer: Whatcha going to do?

1:09:07 Kaila Seger: Womp womp alright, I'll stop picking your brain about that particular one. How do you think the Black Lives Matter movement succeeded?

1:09:21 Kylie Greer: I think it is still a work in progress, but there was definitely,
1:09:49 I think it is still a work in progress, but there was a very large amount of people that became aware for the first time, and that's huge. People got involved in ways that they previously hadn't like shown up before, and people who generally didn't know that much, but just kind of trusted the system because it's the system, it's how we do things. It's normal, it's fine. Kind of saw for the first time, like oh my God, the cops are just like coming out and messing people up for saying, Hey, maybe the cops should stop doing that. And so a lot of people's perspectives kind of turned and I think that's the biggest way that they succeeded was having that mass like awareness come into play. Because now people have a very different view of police officers on the whole than they did a few years ago.

1:10:58 Kaila Seger: Yeah

1:10:58 Kylie Greer: It used to be a kind of like very young or alternative view to be like, fuck the police and now,

1:11:08 Kaila Seger: Or you grew up listening to NWA.

1:11:11 Kylie Greer: Okay, I'll take your word for that.

1:11:14 Kaila Seger: I just mean that because of the song that was supposed to be a joke that didn't land. But I'm sure that plenty of people who listened to NWA growing up hold that sort of belief. But maybe not. I could be just complete conjecture continue.

1:11:36 Kylie Greer: But yeah, I think even during that time I was talking to my older brother who I previously was, this guy is probably going to be a republican, unclear but probably

1:11:52 Kaila Seger: Unclear but hmmm.

1:11:55 Kylie Greer: And I was talking to him that summer and I was like, so what do you think the cops, because I was just curious where he stood and he was like, all cops are bastards. And I was like, damn, right, thank God. So now it's like that is a common opinion and like a relief to hear from someone because you're like, oh, okay, you're normal

1:12:22 Kaila Seger: Good.

1:12:23 Kylie Greer: Which is like totally different from how they were perceived before, especially by white people.

1:12:30 Kaila Seger: Yeah

1:12:30 Kylie Greer: White people were very overtrusting of the police for a very long time. So I think that is the biggest way that they succeeded. There are many like programs that have been set up for like more inclusion and equal opportunity and things like that that have kind of been sporadic. There hasn't been one major like aha, we did it, but a bunch of businesses have kind of in response to that, set up their own programs. But I think the biggest thing is just the awareness and the social shift shift that occurred because of that year.

1:13:10 Kaila Seger: Do you think that Covid in particular with everyone being inside and off work helped to take that spark of awareness and turn it into a flame?

1:13:23 Kylie Greer: Very much so. Especially because like all of the protests that were happening, all of the rioting, which some of it was rioting. I'm not saying that to make it like, oh, nobody was rioting. There were riots. But because that was able to take place in a space where it was like, okay, nobody else is out. All of the people here are here for this purpose. That kind of made it where you could watch from an outside perspective that happening. It wasn't like, oh my God, what about the children on the streets? The children are at home, nobody's in school. It's a safe area where people can come out, hold up their signs, and then would you look at that? The cops are already spraying tear gas. Nobody was doing anything, so now they're going to fight back a little bit and now we're going to see this whole thing play out. And because everyone was at home, everyone's on social media. That like blew up. I think very, very much. That was a big factor. And I think it was already going to be big that year. Like so much had kind of been shaking up for so long. It would've been big either way, but I think the way that it played out was very heavily influenced by what was going on at the time.

1:14:56 Kaila Seger: Yeah. Who do you think are some of the major players or major sparks then like people wise, incident wise, that sort of fed into it? Because obviously social media played a huge part in it and covid with everyone being home and being on social media and also being able to watch TV played into it. Who in your opinion, do you think is like some of the main figures that really helped fan that flame or start that spark?

1:15:35 Kylie Greer: That's a really good question. I don't know if I know like individual names. Like I don't there definitely were activists that could be pointed to by people who are more knowledgeable than me. And as far as like news and spreading it and everything, I don't know very much, but-

1:16:03 Kaila Seger: Not even just activists, but like people who lost their lives to police violence. Any of that sort of-

1:16:14 Kylie Greer: That feels like a very guiding question. There is very clearly George Floyd.

1:16:18 Kaila Seger: Yes. But I want to know if there's anyone else, and then if you knew any activists.

1:16:25 Kylie Greer: Yeah, I don't necessarily know the activists. The people that died were absolutely like treated as martyrs that were like fanning that flame because there was very big responses to multiple things that happened. Like Breonna Taylor, where it was like, Hey, this was clearly the cops in the wrong and somehow they're still not getting punished for it. And that kind of whole thing kept making it a little bigger and bigger, I don't know, individual activist names. I also, the fact that it was all happening originally under the Trump presidency kind of crazy kind of made that whole thing even weirder because if that happened under Biden, we probably hear some lukewarm thing from him where he just kind of stumbles through a statement that they made for him. And then Kamala Harris would be like, I can't believe we're saying this about my favorite people, the police officers. I was once a police officer, would you say that about me? I love the police officers. They have my full support. And then that would kind be the end of it. But Trump was being made into a joke when he was talking about throwing cans of soup and how they're the perfect projectile.
1:18:01 He was scrambling about that, and people were making videos like lip, lip-syncing to him talking about cans of soup. He was not helping himself or instigating any kind of like, okay, guys, let's settle down. He was like, they're violent. They're rioters. They're throwing the soup at the police officers we have to shoot them. It was like, sure, bucko. It was insane. So yeah, that was a whole ordeal. Okay. Yeah.

1:18:44 Kaila Seger: Wasn't necessarily trying to lead your own, but trying to get you to think past the just activist thing. Conversely, how do you think the Black Lives Matter movement failed if you think it failed at all?

1:19:06 Kylie Greer: I think some of the rioting that did happen was kind of prompted and they were like trying to beat it. They were trying to make the protest more violent so that BLM would look worse. And because you can't really control who's in a crowd at a protest, some people just showed up because they were like, yeah, I hate cops. And then whenever they were given an opportunity to throw things at cops, they were like, I would love to. And then other people were like matching the energy. So I think in some instances, rioting did happen that wasn't necessary, only because people were kind of matching the energy that was shown to them. And that made the public perception worse, not by people that like got it, but by the people that may have been on the fence. They might've lost quite a few of them because there was violence. And that's not to say it wasn't very, very warranted, but rather just that like if we're looking for things that were failings, then that would be something that might've lost a lot of public support, was how quickly the protest could turn into riots, especially once the sun went down on all those days, because some people were genuinely scared away. They were like, this is like they're hurting people. They're out here for blood. They want revenge for slavery. And it's like, that's not what we're doing. That's not what the point is.

1:21:16 Kaila Seger: Okay. Let's see. The last one, because I genuinely, we have gone through every question. What do you think the future, or what do you think is the future of the Black Lives Matter movement?

1:21:38 Kylie Greer: I think in all honesty, there will probably be another big event at some point. Whether it is another death of a person that was innocent or something of that nature, that kind of rekindles that, because there is- it is not that the people that are affected have forgotten, it's that the people who aren't affected have gotten distracted by other problems because there are so many, and we are so aware of everything in the current age that a lot of the public focus has been shifted to other things right now. And so the wave of like big change happening all at once has kind of ebbed right now. But I don't think it's gone forever. People are way more aware than they used to be. They will be very willing to continue to protest for change once something kind of brings everyone back in. So I think it is very likely that at some point in the future, not to say that other things will settle down per se, but everything kind of goes through the public eye in phases, even if the issue isn't over yet. So like people will be starving and having a humanitarian crisis and we'll go, oh my God, and we'll try and give them support, and then the news will stop covering that. That doesn't mean that they're not having a crisis anymore. But in America, what do we know about?

1:23:24 Kaila Seger: It seems like that crisis doesn't exist anymore.

1:23:26 Kylie Greer: Yeah. So not to say that other issues will die down, but the news cycle will kind of end on some of them. And when something else happens that kind of brings everyone back in focused on BLM, I think that that will kind of continue pushing. And I think that'll probably be the way that it moves for kind of the main part of its life is just because I don't know how long that will be the name. A lot of times with big social movements, it goes through name changes. I don't know if it will be Black Lives Matter forever, but that kind of sentiment, I think big changes towards equality for racial justice and everything are going to kind of move in phases of like big thing happened. Everybody talks about it and now we're thinking about this other thing. But oh my goodness, look, let's do it again. That's kind of my prediction. I could be totally wrong, but you never know.

1:24:32 Kaila Seger: Do you think that there's a con to having so much information readily available in front of us all the time in the sense of you can get distracted so easily from issue to issue?

1:24:44 Kylie Greer: Absolutely. I think the fact that we can see so much is helpful in many, many ways. It is changing so much worldwide. We are able to change so much worldwide because we can see it. But then there are also things that we cannot see that sometimes are the biggest problems because like whenever a group of people is being oppressed, sometimes the oppressors have the power to keep that completely under wraps for many, many years or just enough under wraps that some people will come out and be like, Hey, does anybody want to do anything about this? And then you go, well, I've never heard of that problem before. Look at all these other problems I'm already dealing with. That one's probably not even real. So you get distracted by whatever thing is the biggest and loudest and shown to you the most. And a lot of times that's not even the problem that's like affecting the most people because there will be things that people are starving and dying and like getting killed, but that might be getting covered up more. And then they're like, can you believe that pink tax exists? My razor costs 7 cents more than my husband's. And people will be like, that is so messed up. Wow. Wow. We're going to talk about this for the next month. And it's like there are people dying. Sure. Razors should be priced the same.
1:26:48 Are they going to be perfectly matched? Always? No, because the products are different. It's just its silly. The new cycle is kind of a nightmare and everything is very messy. And we need- everyone has to learn individually how to consume media in a way that won't make them go crazy. Because if you consume all of the media all of the time and all of the news and all of the stuff, you're going to explode. You're going to get depressed and you are going to blow up just pop like a balloon.

1:27:38 Kaila Seger: I'm about to blow up and act like I don't know nobody. Not dead.

1:27:44 Kylie Greer: Yeah.
1:27:48 So you have to individually learn that. I think societally over time, I am hoping that there will be more of a grand awareness of that to where we can kind of learn how to make our news about things that matter, but not in a way that's entirely doom and gloom that makes everyone want to die. But that's very tricky because there's a lot of issues that are all really important. So it's very easy to just go, this is happening, this is happening, this is happening, and you are doing nothing. So it's something that there's not an easy answer to, but

1:28:48 Kaila Seger: I think sound effects for the lack of visuals.

1:28:52 Kylie Greer: Yeah.

1:28:52 Kaila Seger: Okay.

1:28:55 Kylie Greer: It's messy. There's no easy answers. All you can do is individually our best and hope that society does not influence society.

1:29:10 Kaila Seger: Okay. Are there any final closing remarks that you want to make about Black Lives Matter or the state of race relations or anything else that we discussed about anything that you talked about earlier that you want to loop back on to say a last word on any juicy opinions up in there? Don't laugh at me like that!

1:29:47 Kylie Greer: The fact that you called my opinions juicy. I don't think so. I think we're not going to be able to heal until we acknowledge that there's not just a new,
1:30:25 People divide up a lot by age and they're like, wow, old people are racist, and young people are not racist because we know better. And I think if you live by that and you expect just all of the old people will die off and suddenly we'll be in a utopia, you're not acknowledging how the system works or how we've ended up where we are, or the fact that literally every generation before us has thought the same thing. Whether it be about the same issues or not, they'll be like, wow, we're way more progressive than these old freaks. It'll be better when we are the only ones still alive. And I think that until we like acknowledge that we do have to work with everyone, not just the people our age and wait it out, then nothing's going to happen. You're not going to be able to fix the system if you are only working from outside of it and waiting for the people in charge to get old and rot.

1:31:34 Kaila Seger: Alright. Wonderful way to end everything by using the word rot.

1:31:44 Kylie Greer: Thank you.

1:31:46 Kaila Seger: Thank you so much for being here and for being one of my people and for answering my questions. You're

1:31:53 Kylie Greer: You're so welcome.

1:31:53 Kaila Seger: That I kept hitting you with once again. Thank you. Imma end the recording.

1:32:07 Kylie Greer: Okey dokey.

Part of Kylie Greer