Media
audio-visual document

Oral History Interview with Kyle Jones

Title
Oral History Interview with Kyle Jones
Interviewee
Kyle Jones
Interviewer
Kaila Seger
Description
Kyle Jones of Sewanee, Tennessee was interviewed by Kaila Seger, a Sewanee student, on November 27th, 2023 in person. While their conversation was primarily on the Black Lives Matter Movement, other topics included discussing race relations in the U.S. and his community’s reaction to BLM. 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
0:03 Kaila Seger: Okay. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Yeah.

0:10 Kyle Jones: Hit me.

0:12 Kaila Seger: Alright, so this is Kaila Seger from Sewanee, the University of the South. It is three o'clock on the dot on November 27th, 2023. I am with

0:26 Kyle Jones: Kyle Jones

0:28 Kaila Seger: From

0:29 Kyle Jones: Nashville, Tennessee.

0:32 Kaila Seger: That works. Thank you Kyle for being here on such a pinch notice.

0:40 Kyle Jones: No problem.

0:43 Kaila Seger: Taking this up in literally like 15 minutes. Alright, we're going to start into some general questions that I've got for you. We don't have to get to the hard stuff yet, and we're going to do, where are you originally from?

1:01 Kyle Jones: Nashville, Tennessee. Music City, Cashville, NashVegas known by many names.

1:10 Kaila Seger: Okay. Did you move around in Nashville at all?

1:14 Kyle Jones: No.

1:15 Kaila Seger: Or you stayed in the same spot?

1:16 Kyle Jones: I stayed in the same house until I eventually moved at the ripe age of 18.

1:21 Kaila Seger: Okay, okay. Where in Nashville

1:24 Kyle Jones: Antioch off of Percy Priest Lake, towards the Percy Priest Lake area.

1:34 Kaila Seger: Nice. Nice. Gonna do. How is where you currently live different from where you were raised?

1:47 Kyle Jones: In what way?

1:49 Kaila Seger: Just in general, like because I know that you had a big, big move. Distance wise.

1:56 Kyle Jones: Completely different, really. I mean, I grew up in like an area that was, I would say relatively multicultural and now it's just all white people, so it's kind of weird and I don't know, it's like where I live now, you'll Los Alamos, New Mexico, it's a bubble for rich, older people and there's not really much stuff for younger people to do.

2:24 Kaila Seger: Okay.

2:25 Kyle Jones: I don't know,

2:26 Kaila Seger: Just nothing for you to do if you're like 25 and under

2:30 Kyle Jones: Pretty much

2:33 Kaila Seger: LOL. Oh, what do I do? Truly. Where do you find community today?

2:44 Kyle Jones: Friends and the campus organization that I'm a part of,

2:49 Kaila Seger: Which is

2:49 Kyle Jones: as well as- the German house as well as friends online.

2:56 Kaila Seger: Okay, okay. So just mostly friends,

3:00 Kyle Jones: Yeah

3:00 Kaila Seger: Mostly the organizations as well. Friends, both here at Sewanee and back home in Nashville or like in-

3:11 Kyle Jones: Friends? Pretty much all from here or Nashville

3:15 Kaila Seger: Ok.

3:15 Kyle Jones: And maybe two who I met online years ago.

3:19 Kaila Seger: Okay. So then conversely, where did you find community as a child?

3:26 Kyle Jones: Probably school.

3:28 Kaila Seger: Okay.

3:29 Kyle Jones: I don't know. I didn't really meet a bunch of people like that. I didn't have a lot of friends as a kid. I made friends through church, which sounds interesting to say, but I haven't talked to any of them in years. And the last time I did talk to one, he was like, yeah, he's not someone I would be friends with nowadays.

3:53 Kaila Seger: How so? But why though?

3:54 Kyle Jones: So we saw one day that he changed his profile picture on Discord to like a Confederate flag or something and we're like, Hey man, what's the deal with that? And he's like, oh, it's my heritage. And we're like, oh, that's kind of rough man. And we're exactly the biggest fans of that change.

4:14 Kaila Seger: Oof.

4:16 Kyle Jones: He's kind of always held those beliefs in smaller form, just we were like, oh, maybe it was always like this when that happens.

4:25 Kaila Seger: It was always like this. We just didn't see.

4:27 Kyle Jones: Yeah, right. States rights. The state's right to what?

4:33 Kaila Seger: Alright, going to do. Who inspires you and what traits do these individuals have?

4:43 Kyle Jones: That is a heavy question, honestly. Friends who push me creatively, so a lot of those friends from online, back home, I'd say like a professor or two definitely, y'know to do my best in school.

5:01 Kaila Seger: Which professors?

5:03 Kyle Jones: Right now? Probably my German professor. That's Dr. Uheubu and my econometrics professor. That's Dr. Tao Song.

5:14 Kaila Seger: Okay. Okay. What are the traits of these individuals?

5:23 Kyle Jones: Just very like direct. They're very like forthcoming with information. It's like there's no guessing around and should I do this for this? What do I need to do for this? It's like full guidelines of everything required. Any questions I have, they answer it very like just yeah,

5:43 Kaila Seger: Just transparent.

5:44 Kyle Jones: Yeah.

5:44 Kaila Seger: Is forthcoming with information,

5:46 Kyle Jones: Which is very different from one of my other professors right now who I will not name.

5:50 Kaila Seger: Okay. Okay. Won't force you to name that professor.

5:54 Kyle Jones: Let's go.

5:57 Kaila Seger: What traveling have you done

5:59 Kyle Jones: Alone or with family?

6:00 Kaila Seger: Any, any at all.

6:02 Kyle Jones: Okay. Well, I'm just going to go in general then. We've driven out, I've traveled to all the four corner states as well as Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Virginia, Maryland. Does DC count as

6:25 Kaila Seger: It's- it's a territory

6:26 Kyle Jones: I think I'd say Virginia and Maryland. You can just assume DC then.

6:29 Kaila Seger: Yeah, but I guess some people have like been to both, but not in DC. Cause you could technically go around,

6:37 Kyle Jones: But no international travel and no travel out of the lower 48 states.

6:42 Kaila Seger: Ok

6:42 Kyle Jones: So no Alaska or Hawaii.

6:43 Kaila Seger: Okay. And do you mean four corners as in the

6:46 Kyle Jones: Arizona, Colorado, Utah, New Mexico?

6:49 Kaila Seger: Yeah. I wanted to clarify that whether or not you meant the four corners as in those or four corners as in for some reason my brain was like Maine, Florida, California,

7:00 Kyle Jones: Ok

7:00 Kaila Seger: Washington.

7:01 Kyle Jones: I, no, I got it. How you get it mixed up though? Sorry, that wasn't super clear.

7:07 Kaila Seger: No, it made sense, but for some reason my brain was like, but what if- what if it's not what I think it is. Right. How have you experienced international cultures in your life? You haven't traveled internationally, but how have you experienced those cultures?

7:28 Kyle Jones: The high school that I went to, Martin Luther King Magnet High School in Nashville, Tennessee. It's in downtown Nashville. I admit students from all over the county and there are many different people of ethnicities, nationalities, and so I'd say I met a bunch of different people there and my friend group from high school is pretty much all like non-white. So I'd say like just going to school in the city has kind of opened my horizons like that.

7:57 Kaila Seger: Ok just being able to be around a bunch of different people from a bunch of different places.

8:00 Kyle Jones: Yeah.

8:01 Kaila Seger: Nice. Okay, we're going to move into the meat of it, into the more tough questions and we're going to start with how do you receive the news?

8:16 Kyle Jones: Oh man. From what I hear from other people just talking. So whether that be people I hear just talking about stuff as I'm walking by in person or through my friends talking or our group chat, something like that, or just like scrolling social media like that. I feel like that's an extremely common way to get news nowadays. So I don't know stuff like that. But yeah

8:43 Kaila Seger: Any major like news networks or like outlets that you tend to try and watch or read from or maybe go to when you find out that something's happening?

8:54 Kyle Jones: No, not really

8:55 Kaila Seger: Okay.

8:56 Kyle Jones: If I see a story that I think is like super, super important, I might check the source and then like look at how the source leans, that kind of stuff. But I'd say that's very rare.

9:06 Kaila Seger: Okay. Okay. So in bouncing off of the social media, what is your experience with social media?

9:15 Kyle Jones: In what sense? Like just in general.

9:17 Kaila Seger: Just in general. How much do you use it? What do you use it for? Like how important is it to you?

9:24 Kyle Jones: I'd say- I wouldn't say it's important. I'd say it's more like a habit of just going on social media and just scrolling for hours or reposting things I see that I think are funny or just giving opinions on certain things. That's extremely common for me, has been for years really. But it's not important to me really. If I went a week or a month without social media, I think I'd love it.

9:49 Kaila Seger: Do you think you could though?

9:51 Kyle Jones: Yes. Humans are not meant to be scrolling like this. I feel like we're meant to be hunters, gatherers, builders, what's a dopamine addiction that's gone. We can recover from that.

10:06 Kaila Seger: Fair. So mostly just you like to scroll, just doom scroll

10:11 Kyle Jones: Pretty much.

10:11 Kaila Seger: Essentially for the entire time.

10:13 Kyle Jones: Just to pastime,

10:14 Kaila Seger: Just to pass time.

10:15 Kyle Jones: Even if I have other stuff I need to do.

10:16 Kaila Seger: Procrastination tool.

10:18 Kyle Jones: Yeah.

10:19 Kaila Seger: Okay. We're going to do, what is the state of race relations in the United States in your opinion?

10:33 Kyle Jones: Definitely, I think, I wouldn't say it's bad. I'd say it's like average or below average because I think it depends on where you go and who you talk to. Because I'd say most people in the country are just normal. They don't really have any, they're not racist or actively against people of different colors or ethnic, ethnic and nationalities, whatever. But I think it just depends how you look at it.

11:06 Kaila Seger: Okay. So then what's average to you? What is your qualification for average?

11:18 Kyle Jones: I don't know. I mean, I'm not really in a situation where I hear about a lot of race relation related issues. So it's like, I don't know, just going off, just assumptions and stuff I hear. Yeah. Are police brutality has always been an issue? I think so. I mean if you look at the more violent stuff, I'd say yeah, it's definitely not good, but it's always been not great in that sort of realm.

11:44 Kaila Seger: Ok

11:45 Kyle Jones: I think

11:46 Kaila Seger: Just average in the sense of it's always been like this. Is that sort of what you're getting at? Just like it's always been this,

11:53 Kyle Jones: It's not too far from what we've known I think is

12:00 Kaila Seger: Would you- how would you compare race relations of the past, the time that we became sentient to now? Do you still think that it's average?

12:17 Kyle Jones: I think it's gone significantly up and down to a point where now it is average, but there has definitely been the higher points and the lower points especially, I mean in the past four years, three or four years, definitely bad.

12:32 Kaila Seger: You can give specific examples if you have stuff in mind.

12:35 Kyle Jones: Oh, I mean, I'm thinking of the Black Lives Matter protests and how that was received by people who aren't sort of in those multicultural areas. Do they just assume the worst of people? How could they do this? It's like there's more to it than that. It's not, yeah, it's not like their, I don't know, but I think definitely that could be an indicator.

13:00 Kaila Seger: Okay. So then speaking of Black Lives Matter, considering this is about Black Lives Matter, how did you first encounter the Black Lives Matter movement?

13:14 Kyle Jones: Oh man. Years ago. I think long before 2020. I'm thinking when there was a bunch of police brutality stuff in 2014, 2015 when I was first on social media and I heard about it. I was like, I wouldn't say against, I just didn't understand what it was. I was like, what's the point of all this? We don't need any of this. That kind of thing. But now it's like I just wasn't smart enough to understand what was going on, I think is what it is.

13:45 Kaila Seger: How old would you have been?

13:47 Kyle Jones: 10 to 12.

13:48 Kaila Seger: Okay.

13:49 Kyle Jones: I think roughly.

13:52 Kaila Seger: Okay. So then you remember seeing it on social media. Do you ever remember seeing it on news-

13:59 Kyle Jones: Yes

13:59 Kaila Seger: and stuff around that age?

14:01 Kyle Jones: Yeah, and I don't remember the news being particularly portraying it in a great light, but I feel like it never has. Especially now, cause they always, anytime there's any protest of any kind, news is extremely quick to call it a riot and be like, all these people destroyed protestors or rioters destroyed this amount of stuff and it feels very commodified, sort of trying to veer it away from its original purpose.

14:40 Kaila Seger: Go ahead and do them. What is your opinion of the Black Lives Matter movement now that you're not 10 to 12 years old?

14:47 Kyle Jones: I mean, it makes a lot of sense. I support a lot of what they believe. I mean, at the core of it, it's like they want equality. They're tired of police brutality and being treated differently. I mean, as personal values go, that checks out. I'm like, I understand all of that. I'm like, if I were in their positions, I'd want that too. I'd be protesting. I mean, it makes no sense how police can just get away with doing so much and all they get is a slap on the wrist or that kind of thing.

15:17 Kaila Seger: Just overall positive.

15:19 Kyle Jones: Okay, definitely.

15:27 Kaila Seger: Let's go ahead and do then. How has the Black Lives Matter movement impacted your life, if it has at all?

15:35 Kyle Jones: I wouldn't say it really has. Honestly, the closest it had to impacting my life was back in 2020 when everything was going down. There were a bunch of Nashville protests. I dunno if you remember that, but my brother was almost arrested in one of those

15:51 Kaila Seger: No way!

15:51 Kyle Jones: because he was kicked out until the curfew and he had just gotten a ride as the curfew was in place.

15:57 Kaila Seger: Oh my God.

15:58 Kyle Jones: So he almost got arrested that night.

15:59 Kaila Seger: Was he out for the protests?

16:01 Kyle Jones: He was out for the protests.

16:03 Kaila Seger: I never knew that

16:05 Kyle Jones: He was out for the protests.

16:07 Kaila Seger: He was out for the protests and what? Wasn' the-

16:10 Kyle Jones: He was with a bunch of friends though, so maybe he wasn't really good. There would be a good protestor at heart. Maybe it was just to hang out with his friends. I don't really know. I'd never asked him about it, but we were all texting him and calling him, being like, Hey, you need to figure this out. We're not in the air right now. We're doing our own thing. You got to figure this out.

16:29 Kaila Seger: Yeah, he would've been-

16:30 Kyle Jones: We were with family elsewhere, so we were like, oh, what do we do? What do we tell him?

16:35 Kaila Seger: Yeah, I mean even then he would've been in downtown, right? Yeah. And that's nowhere close.

16:42 Kyle Jones: Definitely not

16:45 Kaila Seger: To where you lived or even where I lived, even though it was closer from where I lived, it's still, I don't know.

16:52 Kyle Jones: He was texting us and sending us pictures. I remember he was like, look, some people were broke into one of the buildings or whatever, and he took a picture of it. It was crazy. I don't know.

17:04 Kaila Seger: Oh, okay. So then do you think that it's impacted your life outside of the, I suppose coming into contact with it personally, more in the sense of helping shape maybe your beliefs now, if it's had any impact on that, or if you consider it to be something that has an impact on your own thoughts and opinions when it comes to politics and protesting now?

17:41 Kyle Jones: I mean, I think it definitely has, even though I'm not participating necessarily in it, I feel like it's definitely shaped a lot of my political views because we grew mean relatively our adolescent years. It's like we're watching all this happen over and over again and seem like it just gets shut down over and over again. And we're like, man, this is really demoralizing. And it's like, I wish there was a change. And that's sort of the heart of their movement is change. So definitely something that's shaped me even though I'm not, haven't been in contact with it really.

18:16 Kaila Seger: Okay. Do you, could you elaborate on what you think it has shaped within your political views?

18:29 Kyle Jones: I mean, it's especially changed how I perceive news and I feel like it's made me more cynical definitely because now I'm watching news, reading articles. What's the underlying message here? What are they really getting at? Why are they using this word choice for these people?

18:43 Kaila Seger: Diction! Diction!

18:43 Kyle Jones: Yeah, it's so important. I didn't think about it like that before. They're calling, just calling protestors riots. They're like, yeah, stuff like that.

18:53 Kaila Seger: So in the way that you consume media and interact with that sort of media, the skepticism and cynicism that comes with, okay, what are they really getting at?

19:04 Kyle Jones: Yeah, and if I see there's this Instagram page, their handle is literally rap and they post, most of their follower base is children and adolescents. So anytime they post news, which they post news a lot for some reason, even though they like a rap page, they'll just have the worst possible opinions in the comments. And I'm like, I'll look through 'em and I'm like, I can't believe that people really think this

19:28 Kaila Seger: Comments like what, what are the,

19:33 Kyle Jones: I can't really think of anything off the top of my head. I could look right now and if I scroll for a while and find one, but they'll just have, for example, if there's a news story about George Floyd or something, they'll be like, he died of fentanyl, a bunch of comments like that. And it's like, that doesn't excuse, so okay. It's like, okay, hypothetically if he did that doesn't mean that he deserved to be brutalized by police, stuff like that.

19:58 Kaila Seger: Okay, ok and then like the, so that's what the comments are saying?

20:04 Kyle Jones: Yes.

20:04 Kaila Seger: What are like the headlines saying?

20:06 Kyle Jones: The headlines are, I mean I think the headlines are designed to get reactions and comments, at least the headlines and the words that they cite to put on their little Instagram one by one block. I think it's designed to get a reaction to get you to stop what you're doing to go, oh, let me give my opinion on this real quick. So I guess social media in that sense can also influence people.

20:31 Kaila Seger: Alright. How has the Black Lives Matter movement changed how you interact with people of other races, if it has at all?

20:45 Kyle Jones: I would say it definitely has.

20:47 Kaila Seger: Ok

20:47 Kyle Jones: I think I try to be more respectful now, or at least I try to be more respectful and understanding because I don't necessarily know what goes on in these people's lives or how they are treated necessarily. Cause I'm not in that position, I wouldn't know. And I mean, there's always going to be some element of white privilege. It's just that we don't really don't know because that's how we are normally. We're just like, oh, this is normal for me. So I guess everyone else is treated this way too, which is not true at all. So I definitely don't assume a whole lot of things. And I try and be polite, especially with all my friends. But I did meet them after changing a lot of things about myself. So I've never had any big issues with that.

21:35 Kaila Seger: Ok and then before you changed yourself, and what sense do you mean that

21:44 Kyle Jones: In the sense of being understanding I think in the sense of not just taking what I hear on the news and from people I know in my life and just copying their views. Exactly. Reciting word for word what the news tells me to think about The Black Lives Matter movement.

22:07 Kaila Seger: Ok, like gaining your own critical thinking skills,

22:10 Kyle Jones: Yeah,

22:10 Kaila Seger: sort of thing.

22:13 Kyle Jones: Yeah. Yes, mostly that.

22:16 Kaila Seger: Okay. Alright. Has Black Lives Matter affected how you talk with family and friends at all?

22:42 Kyle Jones: Only the few friends who I was talking about before and the one who we were like, all right, man, that's cool, but we don't really talk to any of them anymore. And my family is definitely understanding, I think, or at least they try to be. I mean, I don't really know. I'm not going to just stop my parents and be like, well, you guys think of Black Lives Matter because I don't know, it's not really our place to, I don't know. They just don't really seem like it involves them or affects them at all. But I think that might also be a generational thing. My parents are boomers and the rest of my family is just very, the cousins that I have that aren't, I'm trying to figure how I'm saying this. I have cousins who are not really connected to that thing or have just brainwashed by their own parents' views. And so we don't really talk about any of that stuff with them or really talk to 'em very often at all. So even if we do talk to 'em, we're not going to surprised. Let's talk about politics and that kind of thing. But most of the core family members, it has not been a problem.

23:54 Kaila Seger: Okay. Is it mostly not a problem because he didn't talk about politics a lot before all of this happened? Or does it loop back around to what you said earlier of it doesn't really, or you feel like it doesn't really concern them, so you don't talk about it?

24:15:00 Kyle Jones: We definitely, my core family, my brother and my mom and dad, we definitely do talk about politics. I think it's a little bit of, it doesn't really affect them, but also we kind of agree on some level. So I think it's not really an issue in that sense because we understand. I think at the core of it, we're very much similar level of understanding and we agree,

24:40:00 Kaila Seger: But maybe not having huge conversations about it all the time. Okay. What about with friends? I think you've already kind of touched on this, but if there's anything else about how you interact with your friends that may have changed?

25:00:00 Kyle Jones: Not really, really anything more than where I'm already said. I'd say most of my friends definitely agree on that kind of thing. And I don't know if it's, I guess you could say, oh, that's a bubble or whatever. It's like you're in the echo chamber. But I don't know if it's really that. I think we all have our own levels of critical thinking and understanding. I think we all just have this sort of agreement.

25:27:00 Kaila Seger: So even if you have different kinds level of thought on it, you all have that consensual agreement

25:36:00 Kyle Jones: Yeah

25:36:00 Kaila Seger: amongst yourselves. And does it ever feel like an echo chamber when talking to your friends or your family about a lot of political issues?

25:50:00 Kyle Jones: Not really. My friends, I think there's more diversity there in the sense of we're all, so we all have, these are the most important things for human rights or whatever. Everyone of my friends is like, we support human rights and same with family, but there's definitely more variety with what my family will say. I think because of the generational disconnect, it's like they'll try and say something and my brother, who is technically a zoomer but is way more connected with the millennials, he'll drop his opinion. It's like

26:23:00 Kaila Seger: He's on that cusp.

26:25:00 Kyle Jones: Yeah, well, he's a little bit more millennial media and stuff like that than our stuff, and so he is like, he'll have different opinion. I'm just sitting if I agree with either of you guys, if I have a,

26:45:00 Kaila Seger: So then speaking about generation, which generation was the most affected by the Black Lives Matter movement in your opinion?

26:59:00 Kyle Jones: When you talk about Black Lives Matter, what year are you referring to? Are you referring to 2014? 2020?

27:06:00 Kaila Seger: Well

27:06:00 Kyle Jones: Just in general. Since

27:10:00 Kaila Seger: The movement got its big start in 2014, that's kind of where a lot of people mark the start of the movement is. I think,
27:23:00 There have been other movements in the past that are very similar, but I believe the Black Lives Matter organization started in 2014, which is what a lot of people think of. When did Black Lives Matter start?

27:36:00 Kyle Jones: I think I asked because I was going to ask how old I was going to try and figure out how old Gen Alpha would be then. But I don't really think we consider, I

27:42:00 Kaila Seger: Don't think would, some of them wouldn't be alive.

27:45:00 Kyle Jones: I don't think we can really consider them. Cause they would've been barely walking when some of this went down. I think we do have to say Gen Z would be most affected because we grew up seeing all this happen and kind of what I said before, just this movement being pushed back and rejected over and over again and not seeing any real political change.

28:08:00 Kaila Seger: Do you think that it's social media and the availability of news like internet and everything that has allowed Gen Z, our generation to be the most affected?

28:25:00 Kyle Jones: I think so, definitely. Because if I'm just minding my own business, scrolling, I'm not aware of any news that's happening in the world, and I see a news article that's like five protestors shot and killed somewhere, it's like, whoa, I would never have heard about that. Or this is something I didn't know what was going on. So I think in the sense of more of information being available, I'd say yes, definitely. But that can also really, it feels disheartening and nothing's really going to happen. So in that sense it might push back and make some people not feel like they can make a change. So if they can't make a change and they're not going to try,

29:04:00 Kaila Seger: So then what for you are the exact pros and cons of having so much information available to us at literally a snap? We can have anything.

29:20:00 Kyle Jones: I think for the pros, there's one, there's more information available. You can access it quicker. You can fact check as well, whether that you can fact check things. I'd say there's more perspective. So if you want to compare things to, but I'd say there's a lot of cons. Definitely. It can feel like nothing's going to happen. It can feel like I was saying, there's so much there that it's really hard to even know where to start, or some people don't even want to get involved because it's like, I can't do anything about this. I don't want to do that. It's scary politics. Yeah, it's like you can never really run from it too before it's like, oh, I can just pretend I'm not really in this. But now it's like it's never leaves. It's like I'm just minding my own business. Oh, something's going on.

30:20:00 Kaila Seger: You can easily just put a newspaper down that's delivered to your house every day or whatever, but you can't escape.

30:26:00 Kyle Jones: If I'm in South Dakota off the grid somewhere, I have my little newspaper, I'm seeing violent protests. I'm like, oh, whatever man. But if I'm on social media, I'm like, oh, I can't, oh, there's just, oh, it keeps going.

30:39:00 Kaila Seger: It never ends

30:39:00 Kyle Jones: Everyone's posting a black square today. I feel like it kind of also goes back to fake activism in the sense of everyone wants to do stuff, but they don't really want to go out in the streets and march. It's like, I'm going to post a black square today. That'll show 'em.

30:56:00 Kaila Seger: Okay,

30:56:00 Kyle Jones: That'll make a real difference. I mean, I think it definitely can make a difference in the sense of we're showing people that we do stand with them and support them just in sheer numbers. These are the amount of people who think the same way, but I don't think it gets anything actually done.

31:13:00 Kaila Seger: Okay. So then how much of a role do you think social media played in getting the Black Lives Matter movement out there?

31:26:00 Kyle Jones: Getting it out there? I think it definitely did had a big role because it's informing people our age and younger that this is what's going on and these are people who are protesting for the right things they want in society that they aren't seeing. But I think it can also be bad because there's a lot of misinformation that can also spread because of social media. So I mean, I was saying you'll get people who are George Floyd, do Fentanyl grow, and it's like this is just, that's not true. That's not what happens. Or just stuff like that over and over. And it's like, this isn't true. Why are people, misinformation is almost as available as regular information, which I think is not good, but there's not really any way of dealing with that besides fact-checking AI and algorithms, which is not where we should be going with that in the slightest.

32:19:00 Kaila Seger: Okay. So then what in your opinion is the difference between fake activism and actual activism?

32:27:00 Kyle Jones: I think if you try and get involved with local government, even any level of government or you protest and you're actually out there, and like you- I mean, okay, if you look at people on Sewanee campus, yeah, these people have a lot of similar political beliefs, but none of us are really doing anything about it. We're not activists. I mean, we're not really trying to be activists. We'll post an infographic here and there of this is important to send out to all of my followers, and you might feel like that's doing something. And I think it is, it's informing people, but it's not really doing anything else besides spreading information. But in the sense of real activists, I feel like they're going to go to events and try and get things done or protests, basically trying to make their voice heard as much as they can. They'll vote a lot, I think is the voting is another thing, which that kind of thing in general.

33:19:00 Kaila Seger: Okay. So just posting on social media isn't enough.

33:24:00 Kyle Jones: Definitely not

33:25:00 Kaila Seger: For you, at least in terms of if you're going to call yourself an activist.

33:28:00 Kyle Jones: I think so.

33:29:00 Kaila Seger: Okay. How do you think the Black Lives Matter movement succeeded?

33:40:00 Kyle Jones: I think it made a lot of people more aware of the issues that are going on and have been going on for years. So I think in that sense of just spreading the word and knowledge and information and making people want to look at history and see what's happened in the past, I think in that sense it's succeeded. But I think in the sense of it can feel difficult for any real change to be made or there has anything has happened. I think it hasn't really quite succeeded in that department, but I don't think that's something for the Black Lives Matter movement alone. I think in a lot of movements in American history have kind of failed in that same sense.

34:21:00 Kaila Seger: Okay. So mainly just getting word out there, the push for change, it's making people aware.

34:29:00 Kyle Jones: There's definitely always a push, but I feel like it drops off before anything can. Any super big push or change can really happen.

34:37:00 Kaila Seger: Do you think that the Black Lives Matter movement was close to reaching that pinnacle of making change?

34:49:00 Kyle Jones: I think so. I mean, it felt like something was really about to happen everywhere across the country because I mean, there was stuff going on in every major city had crazy protests. It felt like something was going to happen if there wasn't a big societal event or whatever. It felt like something was going to happen and something was going to change. It felt like something was, yeah, it felt like something was going to happen even though it didn't, but it was right on the cusp is what it felt like.

35:20:00 Kaila Seger: Okay.

35:24:00 Kyle Jones: I can't put into words as to why I feel like that. I'm remembering where I was and everything from there. It's there was that feeling,

35:32:00 Kaila Seger: Is it just maybe an overwhelming of seeing so many people mobilized?

35:40:00 Kyle Jones: I think so.

35:41:00 Kaila Seger: That kind of led towards that?

35:44:00 Kyle Jones: I think so, because I mean, every single person on social media, from what I remember, every single person was posting about it. And if they weren't posting that they just weren't online is from what I remember, or they weren't really giving an opinion on it, which is whatever. But I saw everyone on social media. Everyone I talked to had an opinion. It felt like everyone was connected to opinions and that kind of thing.

36:13:00 Kaila Seger: Why do you think it dropped off? Why do you think that they never made that final push to make the change?

36:21:00 Kyle Jones: I think it dropped off for a lot of reasons, but I would probably chalk it up the most to, I don't want to say the bureaucracy of our government, but everything having to go through due process can definitely push things back. And like-

36:34:00 Kaila Seger: Yeah

36:35:00 Kyle Jones: There's a lot of court trials. I mean, trials take forever and it's like, oh man, nothing's going to be done with this for two years. Well, or just a lot of protesters getting arrested and then being released afterwards or not being released afterwards. And that can be super disheartening. So over time it gets more disheartened like a graph. It's more disheartening. It's like the effort, the reward, it drops off,

37:02:00 Kaila Seger: It crosses, and then it just,

37:06:00 Kyle Jones: When the effort is right here, the reward's right here, or the opposite, the supply of effort in the-

37:18:00 Kaila Seger: Kyle "how will this affect the economy?" Jones!

37:22:00 Kyle Jones: It wasn't even going there at first and I was like, oh wait, I just made a supply/ demand curve.

37:31:00 Kaila Seger: Everything loops back around to how does this affect the economy for you?

37:38:00 Kyle Jones: It does. What can I say?

37:41:00 Kaila Seger: So do you think if we didn't have to go through the due process that takes absolutely forever that we would've seen this change? Is there some sort of need for immediacy?

37:59:00 Kyle Jones: I think there's more of a need for immediacy than just throwing away due process. I feel like if we threw away due process, and that could also be bad for the other side where it's like if we throw out due process, that means we would be able to do things faster. It also means they could do things faster and it's more, it's like a race of it's, I don't want to say a cold war, but it's like who can screw over the other side the fastest? And it gets very much further than, this is not what people intended from the beginning.

38:28:00 Kaila Seger: Who can push their bill faster.

38:30:00 Kyle Jones: Exactly. Who can shove the worst things ever in one bill, rush it through the house or whatever.

38:38:00 Kaila Seger: Okay. So then the other side of that same coin that you've already kind of touched on is how do you think the Black Lives Matter movement has failed?

38:58:00 Kyle Jones: I don't know if I could really, in the sense of failed. I mean, I guess it's failed in, like we were saying, it couldn't really go through bureaucracy to get anything done. And it's more of, I think a lot of politicians and people in Washington are very stubborn and require money to get things done through lobbying, which it's not corruption if we call it lobbying and whatever, but I think its just there's no place in the government for anything related to that to be able to get pushed through. Even on the people who, the politicians who support the Black Lives Matter movement and they're like, I stand with solidarity. They still feel like even they alone can't do anything on their own. Even them and their allies can't do anything. It's very much like a system built against it.

39:51:00 Kaila Seger: So do you really consider that a failure of the movement or more of a failure of our system?

40:00:00 Kyle Jones: Definitely a failure of the system.

40:01:00 Kaila Seger: Okay. I mean, that's just been attributed to the movement.

40:07:00 Kyle Jones: Maybe. I don't dunno if I could really say it was a movement was necessarily a super failure. I mean it spread the word and everyone knew about Black Lives Matter. It was inescapable. I think it just in the sense of it being such an assistant rigged against us, it was like they would never really get a whole lot of things done anyway. I mean, even there were talks for a while of defunding the police, and I think some states did in some areas, yes. But I don't know if that really did anything overall in the greatest scheme of things.

40:45:00 Kaila Seger: I think we had a few bills passed in some state governments.

40:51:00 Kyle Jones: I feel like the states that are really supportive of defunding, the police would've already done that anyway or might have gone in that direction, depending if that's something they were supported before.

41:05:00 Kaila Seger: I think California's done that. I'm not sure about other, I think there may have been some proposed bills on the federal level that might have gone through, but wasn't everything that people wanted to come out of it. But I'm not sure about that. We've talked a lot about sort of people that seeing things and how it seems inescapable when it was happening. So then what was your community's reaction to Black Lives Matter?

41:56:00 Kyle Jones: The people I was talking about before,

42:00:00 Kaila Seger: The people who you find community with, whether it was way back in 2014 or now, or anytime in between.

42:09:00 Kyle Jones: Back then. Definitely mixed reactions, including for myself because I worked with, but more recently definitely in support of for sure, just because it's a lot of the core values that we agree with as friends. We're not disagreeing about, we think people should not have equality. Nothing like that. It doesn't make sense to, I don't know. Definitely some of the friends I had online, especially back then. Definitely mixed reactions I think. But nowadays, pretty much all in supportive.

42:48:00 Kaila Seger: Okay. Did you ever have anyone who went so down the negative reaction or so on, the positive reaction from the get-go? Or is it just that sort of everyone didn't know how to feel about it until we kind get to now where it's like, yeah, we agree that this is a good thing.

43:11:00 Kyle Jones: Definitely nothing extremely crazy. I mean there were, back then, I mean 2014 or whatever, I had friends who just recite what their parents told them about being like, oh, this is terrible, blah, blah. But it wasn't so staunchly against or anti, and I mean, I remember the weirdest reaction that I got from one of my friends in 2020. He was like, it just doesn't feel like we're a real country. And that was like, I just confused with what he meant by that. But I don't know if I could just chalk that up to Black Lives Matter. I think that was just because everything that was going on at that time, because it wasn't just, that happened that year was a lot of

43:53:00 Kaila Seger: A lot, a lot was going on

43:54:00 Kyle Jones: A lot of things. So I kind of excused that looking back. I'm like, maybe he didn't mean it like that. Yeah,

44:04:00 Kaila Seger: It's like, okay. So then last question for this, Kyle, you've exhausted nearly all of my questions and I've come up with some on the spot.

44:22:00 Kyle Jones: Okay, that's good. I'll try my best. I got to be a good interviewer.

44:27:00 Kaila Seger: We're getting there. What do you think is the future of the Black Lives Matter movement?

44:35:00 Kyle Jones: I think it'll look a little grim at first, I think because it's going to have to involve something big bad happening for it to gain support again and recognition again. But I think we might be on the cusp of something big again, because I mean, I was saying last time it felt like we really, it felt like something was going to happen the next day, every day for a month. I think it's going to, something's happening seriously. I mean, I think the next time something happens, I think especially now that we're decently older and we'll definitely be able to participate in local politics and I think

45:09:00 Kaila Seger: We have the power to vote now.

45:10:00 Kyle Jones: We do. I did not have the power to vote in 2020. So we might be able to, we need to get more people to vote. We need to get more people to care about local government and we need to not have to fear protesting and public assembly, which is something that I think people don't do because they're scared of that. So I don't know. Maybe whether that involves not calling things a protest and calling it just a gathering, a

45:40:00 Kaila Seger: Get together,

45:40:00 Kyle Jones: A get together. For a lot of people who think similar things and want to help people, I think that, I do think it'll definitely be better and I think something might happen definitely going forward. But I think it will require another really tragic loss before anything gets done or before anything gets to that level.

46:03:00 Kaila Seger: Do you think it's just like a powder cake waiting to explode?

46:08:00 Kyle Jones: Not yet. I think before it was in 2020, it was definitely a powder keg and then it went off,

46:14:00 Kaila Seger: Yeah

46:14:00 Kyle Jones: I think. But I think now it's more like it's being filled back up. We're going with the metaphor. It's being filled back up. I think it's going to be a while before something big happens again. But I think it could be different, definitely.

46:29:00 Kaila Seger: Okay. Do you think that powder cake that exploded back in 2020 is large in part due to covid and social media of everyone being inside? Or do you think that's inconsequential?

46:47:00 Kyle Jones: Oh, it is definitely. I think it is definitely because of that. Because people were spending more time on their phones on social media, definitely. And it's like people are in their houses. They don't have anything to do. People are getting sick throughout the year. It's like there's this invisible virus, there's no cure for, it's after all of us and we have to sit there and deal with that. So everyone's stress levels are significantly raised.

47:09:00 Kaila Seger: It's on your groceries?

47:10:00 Kyle Jones: Yes. Oh man. I remember having to throw all the bags out, wash my hands before wash, wipe down the groceries, the bleach wipe or whatever, because you never know. But I think if Covid was not a thing that year, I think there definitely still would've backlash. But I don't think it would've been nearly as big as it was.

47:34:00 Kaila Seger: Do you think that we're going to have to have another covid or another global crisis in 2020 to achieve that sort of powder keg effect again?

47:45:00 Kyle Jones: We might. I mean, I can't say with certainty because there really is no way of knowing. But I think definitely to have that same level, probably something big. It might not have to be the pandemic or something, but it would have to be something that would require a collective societal stress level to go up. Whether that's getting involved in a world war maybe, which is more likely than we think. But that's another thing entirely. Let's hope that doesn't happen.

48:14:00 Kaila Seger: I don't want to live through World War III and Covid, please.

48:20:00 Kyle Jones: Something's got to happen every year.

48:23:00 Kaila Seger: We can never get a break. Sometimes multiple things have to happen in a year.

48:32:00 Kyle Jones: It feels like we not a country anymore

48:34:00 Kaila Seger: Like the tornado

48:37:00 Kyle Jones: Oh

48:37:00 Kaila Seger: And Covid and the Christmas bomb.

48:40:00 Kyle Jones: Oh my God, the Christmas bomb

48:43:00 Kaila Seger: That happened all within succession.

48:45:00 Kyle Jones: The Christmas bomb was the last thing. They said, you didn't have enough in 2020. Here's something else.

48:51:00 Kaila Seger: It's one more thing.

48:53:00 Kyle Jones: Just looking back, I wish the Christmas bomber had, I wish it was something that was meant to make a change, but he was just a 5G conspiracy theorist. I really wish it wasn't the case. Something could have happened. I wish, bro.

49:11:00 Kaila Seger: What do you want his philosophy to be? I dunno.

49:15:00 Kyle Jones: Pushing for change in society and not being like a person who's online going like five G's going to kill us all.

49:24:00 Kaila Seger: And then blowing up the city's electricity downtown.

49:29:00 Kyle Jones: Yeah, only downtown. Not even affecting the whole town.

49:33:00 Kaila Seger: Uh-huh

49:33:00 Kyle Jones: We had electricity that morning, bro. You failed. Not-

49:41:00 Kaila Seger: We lost power for a few hours and then it came back on. We were one of the first people to get power back.

49:46:00 Kyle Jones: That's good.

49:47:00 Kaila Seger: There were some people though. I think the range of that place went into Kentucky.

49:55:00 Kyle Jones: Really?

49:55:00 Kaila Seger: Yeah. And so people,

49:57:00 Kyle Jones: Was it actual electric service or was it ATNT? Was it just in general? Anything?

50:02:00 Kaila Seger: I'm not sure. But I do remember that the spot that he blew up was specifically over where a bunch of electrical lines were underground. And that's why he chose that spot is because there was a bunch of electrical stuff right there. And so he was like, what am I blowing up? And then Merry Christmas, Nashville. You haven't had enough of me yet. Now have you said 2020. And we were all like great. Anyways. Are there any closing remarks? Any other things that you want to yell out into the void about Black Lives Matter movement or social media or modern day politic? Anything you want to throw out there and to the void about the topics we've discussed today?

50:58:00 Kyle Jones: Not particularly. I worry I would get too much into cynical conspiracies that don't really matter.

51:04:00 Kaila Seger: You can get into those all you want.

51:06:00 Kyle Jones: That's okay. I'll pass for now.

51:11:00 Kaila Seger: You can say whatever you want, Kyle.

51:15:00 Kyle Jones: There is nothing more I have to say unless there are more questions.

51:20:00 Kaila Seger: All right. That's all I've got for you.

51:25:00 Kyle Jones: Thanks for having me.

51:26:00 Kaila Seger: Thanks so much for being one of my people. Pretty last minute. RIP the person who's fallen through.

51:37:00 Kyle Jones: #NAME?

51:38:00 Kaila Seger: Yeah. Okay. Thank you so much, Kyle.

51:44:00 Kyle Jones: Not a problem.

51:46:00 Kaila Seger: Goodbye recording.

Part of Kyle Jones