THE INVOICE: America's $9.2 Quadrillion Bill (Episode 143)

Reparations debates often collapse into heat, defensiveness, and shutdown. So we tried something different: we followed the money. I’m joined by Susan Burgess-Lent (author and executive producer), Troy Jones (co-producer and co-director), and Dave Lent (co-producer and co-director) to unpack their documentary series The Invoice, a project that frames 250 years of racial injustice as an economic crime with receipts, not a culture-war argument. When you separate people from the problem, the evidence gets harder to dismiss and a lot easier to act on. 

We talk through the mechanics of wealth extraction from slavery forward and why it’s not “old history” when the racial wealth gap is still with us. We dig into the policies and systems that kept compounding harm: Reconstruction reversals, Jim Crow, redlining, discriminatory lending, unequal GI Bill access, and mass incarceration. Dave shares striking scale, including estimates that put stolen labor plus interest in unimaginable territory, and the team discusses a $20 trillion reparations proposal alongside the idea that restitution could lift the entire economy (including a cited projection of GDP growth if reparations were paid). 

Then we widen the lens. Troy explains why a 16-year-old in Nigeria, Brazil, or South Korea should care: power, capitalism, and history travel, and what gets normalized in one country becomes a blueprint elsewhere. Susan lays out the vision for The Invoice as a “detective” series led by expert investigators and built to spark community discussion groups that can translate awareness into coordinated federal pressure. The team also shares where the film is in fundraising and how listeners can support the work. 

If this conversation shifts something for you, subscribe, share it with a friend who avoids the topic, and leave a review so more people can find it. What’s one “receipt” you think the country still refuses to look at?

Learn more about THE INVOICE:

https://www.theinvoiceseries.com/

Donate to the cause:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/trudat/the-invoice-settling-the-debt-with-black-america

Transcript

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Welcome And Guest Introductions

Fatima Bey 0:04

This is Mind Shift Power Podcast, the number one critically acclaimed podcast where we have raw, unfiltered conversations that shape tomorrow. I'm your host, Fatima Bay, the Mind Shifter. And welcome everyone. Today we have with us Susan Burgess Lent out of Oakland, California in the USA. She is an author and an executive producer of The Invoice. Something we're going to talk about today. We also have with us Troy Jones out of California in the USA. He is the co-producer and co-director of The Invoice. And we have with us as well Dave Lent out of California in the USA. He is the co-producer and co-director of The Invoice. This is a conversation about both the past and the future. So this is going to be a little bit different. And the reason I wanted to have this conversation is because this generation is the next generation to carry on this conversation. How are you guys doing today, Susan, Choi, and Dave? Oh, we're good.

David Lent 1:12

Wonderful time.

Fatima Bey 1:14

Well, I'm really glad to have this uh have this conversation with you guys. So I like to

What The Invoice Actually Is

Fatima Bey 1:18

dive right in. So let me start off by introducing, make sure the audience knows what we're talking about today. So can you please tell the audience what is the invoice and how did it get started?

David Lent 1:28

The invoice is a uh a proposed series uh uh about the relationship between black Americans and white Americans, but the money part only. We're interested in in explaining to people how much wealth was extracted from black Americans over the last 250 years. Uh the origin of this was a moment during COVID when I got a hold of a book called From Here to Equality about uh reparations. It contained a comprehensive plan for national reparations, but it also tracked the extraction of money. Uh and I was reading this book in in portions to a a Zoom group of of young white people. And every time I would read a paragraph, I would cry a little bit, weep a little bit. And this had this has never happened. And I realized that because the tone of the book was not shaming or blaming me or shocking me, that I was open to understanding what was what had been going on in a new way. And and it made me realize that as a filmmaker, making a documentary or a series about this subject um of of of the financial relationship between black and white people, um would open people up if the tone was similar, uh uh separating the people from the problem. If the tone was similar, I believe that people would open up the way I did.

Fatima Bey 3:10

That's very interesting. I I something that I was thinking about as you were talking is something that I know about life. When it comes to important topics, there absolutely should be different perspectives. It should be presented in different ways. And the reason is different person different presentation is gonna reach different people. And the people that you were talking about that need to be reached by that tone, I completely agree with you. Uh, the people that need to be reached by that tone aren't going to be reached by the angry tone, they're not gonna be reached by the blame tone. Um, so I I get that, and I think I find that very interesting that that was your motivation to get started.

David Lent 3:51

Yeah, we want people to understand the scale of what what has happened. Yeah, we want people to understand and appreciate I love that.

Fatima Bey 4:02

Um I love that you are coming at it from that perspective. Well, and so we're gonna dive a little more, a little bit more into that in a minute.

Why Call It A Financial Crime

Fatima Bey 4:12

So tell us um why you chose to frame 250 years of racial injustice as a financial crime instead of a social one. You gave us a a little bit just now, but give us the deeper answer.

Susan Burgess-Lent 4:26

Well, all the all the wealth that was extracted from black Americans since slavery, and that's probably the biggest chunk of wealth that was extracted or denied, I should say, because all of this unpaid labor uh made it impossible for any black people to accumulate wealth. And and then it continued through Reconstruction, it continued through Jim Crow, through uh uh redlining, through mass incarceration, the same things are in play is extracting wealth, and wealth broadly defined as not only money but talent, uh, expertise, um, imagination. Uh, all of these things were denied uh full expression from black people over because of the policies of the federal government. We're not talking about individual people. We're talking about a government that consistently denied, found uh all kinds of excuses to deny black people what they should have had, like 40 acres in a mule never happened, you know? Yeah. Because uh the change of after Lincoln was assassinated, his vice president decided, well, you know, I really want to curry favor with the Southerners, so I guess we're gonna take that land back. Never mind. And so that was a huge missed opportunity to fix this problem early in the game. And it's continued and gone underground in so many ways. And it we still have a serious discriminate uh problem with discrimination uh against black people in all levels of society, in my opinion.

Fatima Bey 6:11

We gotta fix that. Uh absolutely. It's been in it's been ingrained and for gener for many generations, and you don't just flip over a generational cultural norms uh overnight, unfortunately.

Why A White Producer Cares

Fatima Bey 6:24

But Susan, let me ask you this. You're a white lady, why do you care about what happened to black people? I'm asking you that. That's a really good question. Because people really think that and they say that in at their kitchen table. This those are the questions people actually say at kitchen tables.

Susan Burgess-Lent 6:39

Well, you know, my feeling is whoever's gonna take up the challenge, good on them. You know, this is a big battle. And I think that we need all the white people and all the black people can muster the hope. And I wouldn't be very hopeful if I was black, but anybody who wants to muster the energy, I think bring them on. We we all have to be part of the solution. And if we don't step up because we're not the right color or we don't care, then nothing will change. Nothing will change unless we unite. And um, you know, for a long time we were battling with the idea that America has a broken heart because white people have denied themselves because of following blindly all the uh goodies that the federal government threw at them that they took from black people. We don't know. We don't know as fully as we can the richness of black lives. And we know through music and other other uh c contributions, but when I was growing up, I didn't know any of that, and I feel bad about it. I feel bad that I did not know the lives of black people. It would have been enriching. It would have been huge for me. And I think we don't sorry, go ahead. No, I I d I I think that uh we've created a a barrier that shouldn't be there.

David Lent 8:07

Could I add something to that?

Fatima Bey 8:08

Oh, absolutely.

David Lent 8:10

Um can you imagine what this country could be like if $20 trillion, which would be a a a proposed settlement uh uh as reparations, $20 trillion were flying around in the economy, a half a million dollars for every black American. Can you imagine how much this country would benefit by all that money flying around? The Federal Reserve Bank has said that if reparations were paid now, the gross domestic product would increase by 8.5% within the next eight years. The country would be richer, better, friendlier, more prosperous. Uh, everybody would benefit from reparations. So that's uh another reason to care about what happens to black people. This is a debt. This is money we owe them.

Fatima Bey 9:04

I love that you gave some concrete, you came with receipts. You gave some concrete numbers and not just ideals and concepts. The one key thing that you said, Susan, that I think is worth repeating, and it just really sums it all up in one sentence. We all need to be part of the solution. Well, we do. And I and I asked you that because there are people that will say, why are you two white people heading up this thing about black people in America? Why aren't black people doing it? And some some already have. Some definitely already have. But you're absolutely right. It doesn't matter what your background is. If you see a problem and you want to be part of the solution, you should be. Period.

Susan Burgess-Lent 9:43

Yes. I mean, there's right now there's like 350 plus organizations in this country that are looking at the issue of reparations, uh, either as a study thing or as an active advocacy for their local government to pay reparations. I I really don't think that local governments can possibly handle the the demand. I think it's a federal government issue, and that's what we need to take. Absolutely.

David Lent 10:11

Now, Troy, let me I'm just gonna say, Troy, uh uh Troy and I on the on the uh the production side, we're sharing decision making equally. So it's not a it's not Susan and I heading it up. It's on a on a production level, it's Troy and I heading it up. Um so let's hear from Troy.

Troy Jones 10:33

Well, thanks, Steve. Yeah, I I was just gonna add in, I I appreciate your and Susan's passion for this project. Um that's what really brought me on and and made me want to be a part of it. Um as uh as a youth growing up myself, I was um able to study a lot of um African American culture and also was um brought up to have a lot of I guess um to be really proud of being being black in America, even though you know, as an older black man, um I have seen a lot of discrimination and face some. But um, you know, I think this this film gives me an outlet to channel that um passion that I that I had as a youth growing up, fighting for civil rights, seeing my own parents fight for civil rights. Um, I my dad was uh activist and he was um a conscience conscientious objector to the Vietnam War um because of his belief that black Americans weren't given equal rights, so he was refused to fight for this this country against um you know the Vietnam War. So he spent two years in prison over his belief. Um so, like I said, I come from that background. And when uh I heard Jay first um approach me about this project, um I was in the middle of a career transition and was looking to pivot and doing something more impactful. And so when when I heard that he was working on the reparations film, I was I was immediately attracted to it. And um, like I said, I you know the the passion hearing it from uh, like you said, two white people that had this much um passion about fairness and and repairing the the harm to black Americans, even though as you said, as a black person, I sometimes still don't have hope that this this is something that you know will will ever happen or that you know this country is is uh the federal government, I should say, would ever go along with this. But I I do think we need to put in as much effort as we can and and hopefully attract the young people to get involved and take up this this fight because it is important and you know it can change so many lives.

Fatima Bey 13:10

Here's the thing I want to add to what both of well all three of you just said. I think people don't realize economics are why so much of American culture is the way it is. Economics are why slavery existed, economics are why we buy the products we do, why our culture tells us that we must be obsessed with beauty, economics are why our food system is the way it is, so that we can eat the problem and they can sell us the solution as pharmaceuticals. This goes beyond just the black and white issue. And this in this episode today, we're talking about specifically the the you know black Americans. But what I want the audience to understand is that there's a pattern here, and this is a part of that pattern and why it matters. It matters because this is a part of the bigger conversation of economics, and we need to stop falling for and believing everything so so someone else someone else's economics can benefit. You agree?

Susan Burgess-Lent 14:22

Oh, absolutely. I mean, you know, we're seeing a real consolidation of billionaires uh running the country, and I think it it can only get worse if we don't say, you know, that these things can't stand. We have to, you know, tax the wealthy, you know, we have to make it fair. And reparations is only one small part of a bigger piece of of restitution, which is to make things is to make things right, is to return what belonged to somebody to them. And that's the wealth, the accumulated wealth that um was denied. Um, you know, uh we have one interview interview subject who talks a lot about uh if we can just begin to imagine the scale of this, that's where the that's where the crime part comes in. It's a massive financial crime. The scale of this affected every black person who ever showed up in the United States as a slave or a free person. And um, you know, we we owe a debt. We owe a debt, and we can't we have to pay it

Answering Reparations Skepticism

Susan Burgess-Lent 15:32

back.

Fatima Bey 15:32

We just have to. So let me uh speaking of that, there's a lot of people, including including some young people, who hear the word reparations and they either shut down, roll their eyes, or they're just they're dismissive. Some say, well, you know, that happened a long time ago. And some say they I never owned any slaves. What do you say to that? And what what does the evidence actually show about people about who benefited and who is still paying? Like what are the details of that evidence?

David Lent 16:04

It's it's happening now. It's been happening uh constantly for the last 250 years. Uh slavery was one major, uh, the major extraction. Uh if you calculate the well, estimates calculated by economists that figured out that if you add up the amount of hours stolen, and remember, these slaves are working 24-7 uh on call all the time, over time, the amount of day uh uh work effort that was stolen, the freedom that was stolen, the dignity amounted to with interest over the last 250 years, 6% interest amounts to $9.2 quadrillion dollars, which is impossible to even imagine what that number is. And and so that's just that was just slavery alone. Uh when you add up other things like Jim Crow laws, uh redlining uh G.I bill, uh mass incarceration, systemic racism that goes on constantly right now in banking and finance and home loans, uh, you name it, it's happening, it's been happening constantly. So this is nothing old at all.

Susan Burgess-Lent 17:20

Yeah, that's the thing. It's not old. It's key, it's it's still continuing.

Fatima Bey 17:24

And here's the thing people benefit, well, certain people benefit from the narrative of that's old. Because if we can get you to believe that it's old and irrelevant now, then we can get you to not pay attention and and and go and watch a reality TV show or or get or get a BBL, one of those booty injections instead. We get people to focus on dumb stuff instead of instead of real stuff like this. You're absolutely right. I love the fact that you guys are covering the financial end of it. I I really do, because a lot of times when you hear this, it usually is coming from a black person. It usually is about the injustices. And you're like, yeah, it was injustice, but let's talk about some numbers because people don't think about it that way. And I love that you you you come with receipts and your whole documentary comes with receipts.

Susan Burgess-Lent 18:15

And I'm coming with we're coming with the bill, right? Here you go, pay it off. Here's the end noise. Dr. King said, What is it? He said the next time we come to Washington, we're coming with the bill.

Troy Jones 18:24

Coming to pick up our check. With our check.

The White Bonus And Wealth Policies

Troy Jones 18:27

Yeah, I'll I'll add that I um, you know, again, I think being a little more pessimistic that I I sometimes feel a little bit uh, I guess, I don't know, wary of the word reparations too. And we've had internal discussions about well, maybe we should focus on the racial wealth gap because that's something, you know, that's still ongoing. It's still wide, widely um, there's a huge disparity still. Yeah. And you know, we one of our interview subjects uh wrote a book called The White Bonus, going back to your previous question. And and she uh was a white woman named Tracy McMillan who um detailed in her own family the um I guess you know the the white bonus or privilege of you know being white in this country, and she explained how her parents inherited a million dollars and that that came from her grandparents, her grandfather who you know went to school on the GI Bill, I r I I believe, and then became uh worked at a a bank and worked his way to be the president or uh one of the executives of the bank for all things that were not opportunities that weren't given to black Americans, but because he happened to be white, he got to go to you know college for almost nothing. And and another family member, they they were able to get property through the Homestead Act, which was you know a huge way the middle class was created, where land was given to mostly white Americans, and as long as they were um able to have uh productive use that land productively, they were given that land. And and so these are just different ways that um w wealth was accumulated that black Americans were um denied. Um so you know, part of the film is is to educate on on on that too, how we got to this place where there's such a disparity of of wealth in this country. And um, you know, I think ultimately we we think the only way to help kind of alleviate that is through restitution and reparations. Um that's yeah, that's the goal of focusing on the the economic part of it.

Why Global Youth Should Pay Attention

Fatima Bey 21:00

I wanna I have a question for Troy. This documentary covers this documentary covers events that happened long before the youth that that are alive today were even born. Why should a 16-year-old in Nigeria, Brazil, South Korea, or wherever care about what the United States governments did to black people, black Americans over 250 years?

Troy Jones 21:23

Uh that's a great question, Fatima. I think that it's important because the uh as we know, capitalism and the um the power of the US is still, you know, it's it's impacting the whole world. And there I'm sure there are examples of you know, indigenous um folks in in those countries and things that are being um land that's being taken. There's corruption in I'm sure in the resources that um you know I'm sure the US government is a part of trying to take resources from you know countries um based on the the you know military might and the economic might of the of the US that these things you know if we don't know our history um history just repeats and I think it's important that you know the youth uh are aware of what happened in the past and realize that you know it's still going it's still ongoing and that you know it's it's important for um supporting um people of other countries and making sure that the same thing doesn't happen to them is uh I think that's why it's important.

Susan Burgess-Lent 22:52

Well it it has happened in a lot of these places where we're indigenous people in particular disenfranchised from their from their land. I I think uh there's a lot of this going on and we can we can set standards we can set a level of awareness that says look at what's happening where you are and try to decide what's the fair thing to do and then work on it. I mean one of the real important goals of this documentary uh which which will also we we hope be a series is that we create an environment where community groups get together and they talk about what's happening here in our community and how can we grow this awareness beyond just our neighborhood into the state into the region and and we and then we take it to the federal government and say you know we have a unified front here uh we want you to do this and you know the Germans paid reparations the German government against the popular sentiment about it they paid reparations to the Jews there's a lot of reparations movements that we can take examples from but but but you can't give up is the point. And those examples are in the documentary? Well they will be to some extent um you know we want to stick with what's happening here but you know the the Japanese received some reparations the Native Americans received a paltry a very paltry reparations settlement and they deserve so much more because you know their land was stolen basically but you know we have to speak out against this kind of uh rampant injustice that took its its really most one of the most hideous forms in this country beginning with slavery you know it's not that slavery was was confined to the US it was popular everywhere actually but the US made made its it made itself on the bedrock of slavery.

Funding The Film And Kickstarter

Susan Burgess-Lent 25:02

It was it's it was uh a startup from hell as Dave likes to talk about it.

David Lent 25:08

Also on the subject of money I have something I I hope will be of interest to the young people that might be listening to this podcast and that is we need just for the documentary maybe a a half a million dollars uh $400 and something thousand dollars we need to raise to produce this thing. It's hard to raise money these days. So we have to have an attitude about getting this project done and I call it the philosophy of when and how. It's not if it's never if this is going to happen. It's when it's gonna happen and how we're gonna make it happen. We're always figuring it out. Troy and I uh have a beautiful relationship we play volleyball together we like plan together uh we blend well together and that's why I knew he would be an excellent co-producer director with me. Uh we we are figuring it out as we go along little by little day by day. And the same goes for reparations. That's what the country will need to do though we'll have to figure it out together black and white people.

Fatima Bey 26:10

Yes as Susan said in the beginning we have to be a part of the solution and I think that that is just true for um m most topics that we can talk about um we we look at women getting their rights our rights here in the US you know when that happened when men started joining us I mean when it it there was movement before then but I mean when it really started happening when it really started the movement started to really take hold and grab you know put some teeth in it so to speak when we got when we got men to say yeah let's vote for this let's do that and I think it's the same thing with any other topic. It has to be more than just the people we're talking about that rise up um I was think I was also thinking about what you said earlier Troy about um when you responded about you know people follow suit with what they see on the big stage and the United States has been on the big stage for a long time. I think that's changing but it's we've been on this big stage for a long time and what we do does affect the rest of the world whether we want to admit it or not whether we like it or not it's just true. And when I look I think I was what I was thinking about was Haiti. The Haitian slaves the Haitian African descendants that were on that island when they overthrew France and said get the hell out this is our place now I'm rephrasing that war when they did that it it inspired it took decades later but it was part of the inspiration for us to get our freedom here and one small place affected another that's why and I'm saying this for the for the audience that's why things like this matter it's not just about having a conversation and leaving it there. It's about the inspiration that the conversation can create that can cause movement even if elsewhere even if a girl in Nigeria a boy in Cambodia just name a country name a culture whatever can right the wrong of some of the injustices that have done to them like children in Uganda there are so many things there's so so many things that this can apply to but when when people see us stand up and us can be different depending on what we're talking about but when people see others standing up and making a fuss standing up and you know for something it may it can influence and inspire others to stand up for their own re version of reparations. And I love Dave how you brought up the fact that reparations have actually I think it was Dave that brought it up have actually um in fact happened in other countries and other cultures that we know about who were wronged but yet we want to turn a blind eye here in the US and pretend like we we don't know nothing. We we like to pretend as a culture I mean as a culture because do you I want to bring this up too I don't think the audience knows this and and I I got this from Trevinova but then he said it in his book and then I researched a little bit and realized oh my God he was exactly right apartheid do you know that when they designed apartheid they fashioned it after American racism after American Jim Crow they studied the US racism to create their own for the people who think that it's not real open up your eyes take your head out your butt it's real they studied American racism and that was the basis of their uh their uh campaign of elimination I didn't know that about the Nazis oh I think it is true they studied American uh racism and said whoa they got the s systems all worked out let's do it here did you know that that many of the algorithms and the systems for uh for surveilling workers in U.S.

David Lent 30:22

manufacturing and uh plants today uh were techniques that were created during slavery. You know the amount of the length of a break somebody gets and yeah a lot of these systems were came from slavery.

Susan Burgess-Lent 30:38

Yeah it's a long legacy of of bad behavior.

Turning Experts Into Onscreen Detectives

David Lent 30:42

Yeah well you know can I say something that will help you visualize the invoice and what it's going to look like um the people that we've interviewed so far and and the others that we will interview they are going to be our detectives they are telling us what they have found uh in terms of mass incarceration or systemic racism or a redlining because they're experts in that field of study. And then we will have a chief a chief detective and our hopes is that we can get um uh uzo adobu or uh Nisi Nash from uh from Reno 911 and Never Have I Ever uh as our chief detective so she will lead the investigation and and drop in occasionally to narrate and be on camera to show what the uh her detectives are doing. You like that?

Susan Burgess-Lent 31:34

Uh yeah that's our wish list yeah yeah we have a big wish wish list but um yeah we're m we the thing is we move ahead every week we meet every week and we move ahead every week with some new thing that um uh helps us keep our faith in this because you know the the odds aren't really great we uh understand that and the and the raising money is a is a real pain a real pain let me ask you this for what has being a part of this project done for each of you personally?

Legacy, Mentorship, And Daily Practice

David Lent 32:15

Well I it's given me the knowledge of how I'm going to spend the rest of my life. How so uh I'll be working on this until I die. This will be my daily practice I I'm I'm I'm a student in the in studying the mastery of reparations. Wow that's I'm getting better at it every day and I hope that I'm good at good enough at it to convince uh audiences to help convince audiences that this is worth this is worth checking out what a way to leave a legacy.

Fatima Bey 32:51

What about you Susan?

Susan Burgess-Lent 32:53

Well I I think I I have multiple legacies. This one I care about because I feel that uh if you the more you dig into black history and and that's a then another crime of this country is not featuring the enormous contributions of black people over the centuries. Yeah yeah is um how can we how can we participate in in fixing something that's been so terribly wrong for so long? To me uh there's no really higher calling than to than to write an injustice that's uh longstanding. I I I feel I feel it's really important. You gotta stand up for the right things. Do the right things you know?

Fatima Bey 33:45

Given what I know about you Susan and you were on a previous episode this falls right in line with you because writing injustices is something you care very deeply about. And I love the fact I I I love the fact that you do that but I also I respect it because you're not somebody that just says that as says that as a concept you've lived it um you've lived it more than most people who just talk about it. So it's it it's kind of I see it as a continuation of really just who you are as a person. It is a continual and interesting one. We need some junior Susans being you know raised up right now because this world needs more people like you who are who are younger full of energy and can carry on the next generation you know what I mean?

Susan Burgess-Lent 34:27

That's flattering and I also want to say this point is I love to mentor people and um I I'm open to people asking me directly how can I do this? I don't always have answers of course but I do know a lot of stuff actually definitely do.

Troy Jones 34:46

They do I I'll say for me I mean I um even though I'm not a young person um I think I do look at Dave and Susan as mentors in some ways to me because I um like I said I I was born in the civil rights era I was born in 1965 um when I was in grade school my parents sent me to a um African study school or I I guess a school where we learned about African history. I am it was we've learned some Swahili I was given a Swahili name as I I still remember to this day Otto was my name which I believe stands for brilliant which I don't know about that but um but I had uh that legacy um and then I you know due to a uh you know a lot of internal family dynamics um moved from Columbus Ohio out to California and and experienced um a whole new culture and coming from a f uh an area that was predominantly black and in um lower income I moved to a county in California that's predominantly white and upper middle class um and so it it I had to adjust at the you know at the age of 12 at 12 or 13 I think I was to you know that whole social dynamic but it showed me um a lot about our country and our society how there were like you know two different worlds and I grew up feeling comfortable and well eventually became comfortable in in in both worlds. So I spent like I said the majority of my career doing more corporate work and not working on social impact projects. And then in the last two years now I had known Dave through like you said a social group we have playing playing volleyball together with a group of uh other film producers. So I always lived vicariously through all of my film production friends who talked about the projects they were working on and the you know the different areas of uh social impact campaigns that they worked on. And so when I got involved with this project I'm learning a lot from Dave and Susan about you know their experiences with working on you know campaigns that are um focusing on uh helping uh people in social impact like I said so it kind of came full circle it brought me back to what I remembered as a youth of being involved in civil rights movement to now this new project for me is my way of reconnecting to my past and and then you know continuing the ongoing fight for equality in this country basically and for you know I've always kind of also been um against bullying so you know I think that this in some ways how people have been bullied all and it just that is something I I'm always passionate about fighting against bullying and you and you see that now in this country's gotten even worse with the the current administration as we all know and they're trying to you know ban books as we talked about and also change history and and and you know not to mention the immigration policies and um yeah it's just it's just a huge fight right now for people that are um trying to stand up to this wave of of uh anti-black and anti-brown and just anti-trans anti-everything and so I think it's important that we have voices that are counter to that movement.

Fatima Bey 39:10

Oh I was just gonna say that that's what this uh working on the invoices provided me an outlet to to fight against um you know all of that that I just talked about the the racism and okay can I add one little thing uh you were speaking of legacy and and that's important but um even more important for me is um is getting my satisfaction from the daily practice of my craft uh not the money not the celebrity not the promotions uh uh other rewards but just the daily practices where uh it's the only it's the only place where you really can get your satisfaction from you know yeah I mean it's it's the best place to get it from yeah yes from not just not money because money can only satisfy you to a certain degree it can satisfy some things but only to a certain degree but that internal satisfaction that you're talking about that can't be that there's no amount of money that can do that. Yeah at the end of the day you're tired but you're good tired you know yes I understand it because that's kind of like the way I feel with some of the stuff I

How To Find The Team

Fatima Bey 40:22

do. So where where can people find you? And um you also said you need some more funding for uh for this this particular documentary do you are are you looking you accepting donations?

Susan Burgess-Lent 40:35

Well we we we accept donations at this point uh through a crowdfunder but we're starting uh on August 4th is our debut date for a Kickstarter and uh one of the benefits that we're going to offer is a coin a a one quadrillion dollar coin that um uh celebrates both the effort of the invoice and Callie what's her last name House the the mother of the reparations movement um back in okay so the coins are are uh more like um emblems of the reparations movement that we want to support okay so how can people find you uh our website is the invoiceseries.com and you can email us at the invoiceseries at gmail.com and uh yeah we'll have a Kickstarter up pretty soon and it'll be on the website great you know and i should I should add that that um Susan keeps this project uh fit and healthy on dead mother yeah thank you for having it she keeps Troy and I believe it I believe it we filed a quarterly report yeah she's she's she's an executive producer who actually does the job of executive producer well I'm I'm grateful that you guys came on uh Susan Dave and Troy thank you for coming on the show and my hopes are that it's a pleasure episode just this conversation uh that this conversation will be a mind shift for many thank you I hope so I hope so and and we're also very much open to people contacting us about this helping us out and now for a mind shifting moment I rarely on this podcast talk about the past I'm constantly talking about the future because after all this is about our youth and their future however this episode we specifically focus on the past because it matters for your

A Direct Challenge To Under 24

Susan Burgess-Lent 42:56

future.

Fatima Bey 42:56

So if you're under 24 I'm specifically talking to you and I don't care what country you're in Mongolia Nigeria New Zealand Mexico just name pick a place wherever you're listening from if you do not understand the history of your country you do not understand the history of your people you're almost guaranteed to repeat it. The ones who make a difference in history are the ones who pay attention do you know the history of your country do you know the things that have gone wrong in your country what made them go wrong? Do you know the things that went right in your country that the pit the the pivots in history where wonderful things happened what made that happen studying that is how you are going to make a difference for your generation you're the one that's gonna have to make this world better than the messed up world we left you young people. Generations before you, we left you the mess you're living in right now. But if you want to make a difference and you don't want to see history repeated you're gonna have to pay attention to what the history was not just oh what happened but how did it happen? Use your critical thinking skills that you were born with and pay attention so that you can be the one to make a difference in your generation you've been listening to Mind Shift Power Podcast for complete show notes on this episode and to join our global movement find us at fatimabay.com until next time always remember there's power in shifting your thinking