Episode 28: You can eat turkey any day of the year!

Chase:     Welcome to Neurotakes, I'm Chase!

Courn:     This is Courn!

Chase:     Let's get into it. Turkey Day is coming up in a couple weeks here in America. Courn, how do you feel about that name?

Courn:     I mean...

Chase:     For Thanksgiving.

Courn:     I'm not super fond of it. I mean, I'm not the 1 who's gonna decide what is inherently harmful as a non-indigenous person, but I definitely think is like, I don't know, as an Asian person and so on who deals a lot of appropriation .Renaming stuff isn't always like the hot take I think it is, especially with that 1 in particular because it feels like if you're renaming it to Turkey Day, you're not actually like accounting for like genocide and appropriation like if anything you're just trying to get rid of that connotation that has to do with indigenous people which clearly they've marketed it as that for so long. Separating it from that without any type of like acknowledgement doesn't feel any better.

Chase:     Yeah.

Courn:     Whether you call it Thanksgiving or Turkey Day if you're still sobering it like it's problematic. It's racist like, respectfully.

Chase:     Correct, and we're gonna get into all those intricacies today folks cuz this is a hot topic.

Courn:     It is but it shouldn't be. It really shouldn't be.

Chase:     Really? Okay, go on!

Courn:     Why has this come up? I feel like this was like a really hot topic in 2020. I feel like that's the year it came up and I think that's because that was like a big racial awakening for a lot of white people in America.

Chase:     Okay. Like BLM and all that shit.

Courn:     Like they very much got thrown into BLM and they're like, wait, the holidays we've been celebrating are now problematic when they've always been.

Chase:     Always been. Yeah. Okay.

Courn:     I think there was a big movement that year for people to stop celebrating Thanksgiving. And then I feel like it just kind of died off. Not on lack of people advocating for it, but I definitely think a lot of white people have laxed up on it. And I know it's going to come up more this year, obviously with election news and stuff. It's at top of people's mind, but should it really be a hot topic to not celebrate a holiday that is literally built on cultural appropriation?

Chase:     Okay! That’s where you’re going with it!

Courn:     Yeah, cultural appropriation and genocide. I just don't think that's that hot of a take. Of all the holidays that you're like, oh, is it that big of a deal to get rid of? That 1 feels like it's really not a big deal at all.

Chase:     Especially, okay, so we're not like a history podcast here so we're not going to go into the intricacies and like history and the origins of it but I did do some research on like, it's not even at all what it kind of originally started as and kind of what it turned into and now people's excuse is like it's just my day to get together with family. Okay. But you can do that any other time of the year. Come on.

Courn:     Yeah, I think that was interesting to me cause I'm thinking about how many times we've had to like learn about it in school. How many times we had to dress up.

Chase:     Did you have to make a headpiece in school?

Courn:     Yeah, I said that in a separate episode that I had to dress up and I wanted to be a pink Native American so my mom made me a whole pink gown. Yeah, it's actually super disrespectful cuz I tried to make a headdress. It didn't look anything like an actual headdress, even if it did that would still be super cultural appropriation. But yeah, the origins were like really weird. The more I looked into it, it actually wasn't even celebrated that occasion. Like it's something that got twisted over the years.

Chase:     Yeah.

Courn:     And a few presidents like reinforced it cause they just wanted to like reinstill American values.

Chase:     Yeah.

Courn:     So like there's definitely a lot of weird agendas in there.

Chase:     Definitely.

Courn:     The most, just erasing indigenous horrors.

Chase:     And that's I think most of our focus with the conversation is just like our experiences with it and how we feel about it. What we maybe wish people would do differently. What we do differently. I want to go into what I do differently. I don't have to I guess tell people what to do.

Courn:     What you should do!

Chase:     Yeah. Cuz yeah I'm not indigenous so I get in that regard but like as a native Hawaiian, I got some leeway with that.

Courn:    What are some reasons you would give why someone shouldn't celebrate it? If you were a complete newbie to this discussion and you were like, oh well why is that? Why is that so bad? Because I feel like sometimes we do have to back up and talk about that stuff because people are at different levels of education.

Chase:     Totally.

Courn:     The education system intentionally is designed to not get people's information. It's kind of your fault if you haven't learned it this far but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt.

Chase:     Okay I mean there's so many reasons to go into like why it's so problematic and I know you have some of your own reasons so we can try to cover the spread here and hit the main points. For me though, and like kind of growing up not celebrating holidays, like I think I have a whole thing about sticking to like the trueness of the original holiday. And so like how many of our holidays in America have just really like changed and gone so far from the original that like why do we like what is the original purpose of this and then from there assessing if we should continue to celebrate or not and like obviously me and my wife do not, but we know the impacts of indigenous people from this holiday and how it originated and maybe even the stories from that so we can start on the impact of the original American settlers and how it like really murdered a lot of them.

Courn:     Pilgrims were absolutely horrible.

Chase:     Horrible. I forget they're called pilgrims. Ugh, that's such a weird word.

Courn:     Yeah, which also like tries to make it seem like it's like almost cute. People are like, oh the pilgrims. Like, no, these people were like colonialists. They came in here. They absolutely just trashed everything. Absolutely destroyed everything. I think there's a lot of like focus too in that this is like indigenous trauma but it's also very intentionally also like violence that is enacted by white people and I think that has to be held accountable. It's not like these people experience trauma because of nothing. No no no no this was very intentional. Like they did not sit down and have this nice dinner together.

Chase:     They were, like my understanding was when pilgrims started to come over, hit like the first landmass of the Americas, right, it's like Massachusetts, I think, right? Maybe?

Courn:     That sounds right. That feels right.

Chase:     Somewhere around there. They did not have the tools and supplies and skills to literally survive, like they were starving, they were running out of food, they were like they were not having a good time but like oh guess what there's people who have originally settled the land and who have lived here their whole lives, they're thriving because they know and they have the skills so I think it's always pitched like that in schools now right because the winners always write the history of like oh they came over, we helped each other it was such a nice meal, we was a it was like an even exchanging of help, like wow. No like they absolutely leveraged indigenous people and used it to their own benefit and like my understanding too was that they used some chiefs right to and like basically allied with them to kill the other indigenous people in the areas is that correct, does that sound right?

Courn:     I can't fact check that, I don't know that but-

Chase:     But either way just like the lying and sheer violence towards people even though they did try to help. Like they were trying, that's my understanding.

Courn:     Yeah, but there's also just, I think there's a lack of accountability on the intentional violence. A lot of people like to think that, oh, just like Europeans brought disease and they did, and that was a really big killer to indigenous people, but they also just straight up assaulted and murdered people. Like you wanna just talk about like manifest destiny and all that shit that happened as a result of whatever European people coming here, becoming Americans whatever claiming this land. How many people had to die to make that to happen and it didn't have to happen that way.

Chase:     Yeah, yeah maybe for me, that I think is what really stings the most growing up in like a Christian cult and like the extremist like Christian community in that way that like so much of their their actions behind everything was purely because they felt justified out of God's will for them to be doing these atrocities to people and like that gave them the excuse to be incredibly violent and just horrible to these people for like literally no reason. Literally.

Courn:     Literally. Because you wanted the land.

Chase:     Yeah and you've like felt entitled so for me that probably is the main problematic piece that I would stick with if no 1 knew anything about it. And like there's there's been so many instances of that. There has been so many instances of that in history that people are justifying their shitty actions because of their belief in their 1 god.

Courn:     Yep or just the idea that it's in the past either I think that's a lot of excuse to be like well that happened so long ago!

Chase:     No, it wasn't that long ago!

Courn:     No it wasn't and also we're doing the same things today like colonization has not slowed down 1 bit it just got a little bit more like malleable and easier to brand in terms of just like, oh, well, we're protecting our interests or we're protecting the economy doing this stuff. Like we're not, we're doing the same shit that we were.

Chase:     Yeah. And I guess maybe that's a pain point, like not considering other people's impact from your actions, it's just like really hard to deal with like yeah, just because it doesn't directly affect you doesn't mean you're like impacting and hurting a ton of other people by this.

Courn:     Yeah it's just that's lack I think of just like empathy and also just like, I don't know, like you're not celebrating being thankful, you're not celebrating this fictional dinner, you're literally celebrating the colonization genocide of Wampanoag people like that is the displacement of all indigenous people across the US like that is what you're celebrating. Like you can say that it's about how they came together but like at the end of the day that's what it means to indigenous people. They're telling you that. You should listen to it. Like I just don't think it's that hard of an ask.

Chase:     It's the selfishness maybe, right? And like it's too hard to then and granted this has spun so large and like capitalism has really like blown this up where like it is a federal holiday like the entire country gets this day off and now like they've worked towards getting that like next day off as well also why was the holiday on a Thursday? That's so weird to me. But-

Courn:     I have no idea.

Chase:    I don't know either. But like, you know, like how big it is, it would be hard to like scale it out. It would take a long time. It doesn't mean it can't and doesn't mean it shouldn't, but like it's, it's a big machine to like pop and stop.

Courn:     Yeah, I think it's always in federal holidays because like no 1 wants less federal holidays we all deserve to have time off.

Chase:     But you should just have a day off just for the day off. It doesn't need to be tied to some all these celebrations.

Courn:     Yeah but it's like what is the feasible like next step like what do you do?

Chase:     Yeah I don’t know!

Courn:   Do you rename it? Do you cancel it? I don't know. I feel like the way of Columbus Day was just changing it to Indigenous Peoples Days and like a lot of people fought for that and I'm not gonna like downplay how what a big of a win I think that is for a lot of Indigenous people.

Chase:     Like a step in the right direction.

Courn:     Yeah, But it's just like it's still on the same day. It kind of sucks, I think that's a little bit different because like I think you're celebrating a specific person. Like I just don't know what you would change Thanksgiving into and the only thing I've heard people talk about is like saying it's turkey day or I’m like what does that even mean or if you just go the route of like being thankful? It doesn't get rid of the origins of what it was built on and like what are you being thankful for cuz like that connection was always very weird to me I don't quite understand, that's not like I feel like a lot of my family says like oh I don't really understand the origins but like I'm just so thankful to have all of you, you can do it any other day of the year!

Chase:     You can literally get together any other time and be thankful for each other.

Courn:     You can eat your shitty turkey and mashed potatoes literally any day of the year. It doesn't have to be this Thursday.

Chase:     This got real grim, so let's spin into food. The food is terrible.

Courn:     Yeah, actually.

Chase:     Tell me it's good. Who out there?

Courn:     What is the propaganda that's like, I love Thanksgiving food. Dude, I don't want some dry ass turkey. And respectfully, I will catch hate for this, but I hate mashed potatoes. They are not top tier potato dishes.

Chase:     Me too.

Courn:     Cranberry sauce. What?

Chase:     From the can, it's basically jelly.

Courn:    Literally.

Chase:     Jam.

Courn:     I know people like gravy. I'm indifferent.

Chase:     When I also did some research on like what the original food might have consisted of there's the argument 1 of like the actual foods you would harvest at that time and like celebrating that but also food within the region. Lobster was a huge thing because there's so many like seafood like there's a lot of lobster on the East Coast. So like they often ate lobster. Where's my lobster dinner? I don't like lobster but-

Courn:     I mean that sounds a little better. I know turkeys actually so foul. When I was looking it up apparently turkey was like popular at the time when they were trying to launch that holiday.

Chase:     I was gonna say because it wasn't a popular bird at the time it originated like small fowl like birds were like a little more common but like turkeys were not a big thing back in the day back originally according to like the internet, which could be wrong too.

Courn:     I read there was that person who's like the mother of thanksgiving who literally just said on a whim that based on science that she thought there was turkeys around and because turkeys were like already gaining traction in the uk she was like yeah they probably had turkey so we should have turkey to celebrate.

Chase:     Tell me why you're trying to be different from England but then you're going to do the same foods? That doesn't make sense. The whole point was to be different and do your own thing. Also the people who originally tried to settle America were the like extremist most extreme like not good, radical folks like to the point where they're like the kingdom had or like what is the government was like get the hell out of here like that's how wild they were and they were the people who settled this land. Anyways the food is so mid turkey is terrible 1 of my clients is like I love turkey it's 1 of my favorite meats and this other person was like, I'm so sorry to hear that!

Courn:     That's actually so true!

Chase:     Yeah I'm like have you had a steak or have you had anything else?

Courn:     Have you had any other meat? Like I'm not even that big of a meat eater, but like I could tell you turkey is like not even on my list.

Chase:     No. Not even top ten!

Courn:     I could think of like 5 birds I'd eat instead. And I don't even like birds that much.

Chase:     Not even chicken!

Courn:     I think a Cornish hen, that's already better than a turkey and smaller. I don't know. What's up with that?

Chase:     Turkey is so dry. No matter what you do, it's not a fatty meat. So there's not a lot of like flavor in it yeah you got a soaking a basic you got a constantly tend to it, terrible!

Courn:     Yeah anything that takes up your whole oven to cook is very annoying to me.

Chase:     And I can't yeah I mean I'm sure the environmental impact on that is like ridiculous too.

Courn:     I know there's a lot of activists that are just like oh the animal cruelty aspect of killing so many turkeys and stuff I'm not going to invalidate that, it's not my pressing reason for getting rid of Thanksgiving but I think it's important but.

Chase:     But so Eeen going back to like some of the harvest foods, like that was some of the like rumors or thoughts that people had of like actually celebrating like yeah a big feast with the foods you had harvested for that year so like that would have just been like seasonal foods, which-

Courn:     Corn! Just like me, maize!

Chase:     Maize!

Courn:     옥수수 (ogsusu)!

Courn:     Oh, is that how you, yeah?

Courn:     That's corn in Korean.

Chase:     Oh.

Courn:     Ogsusu.

Chase:     The more you know. So, I mean, the foods could have been different each year even it might not have even been the same meal. Depending on what what grew well what you had a surplus of.

Courn:     I just think I'm really biased as an autistic person with a restrictive diet that I'm like Thanksgiving sucks. I know the way about of like organized meals and stuff. If you're like me, you always just have your own food and you eat your own snacks and you would have your own separate meal.

Chase:     My wife hates the plates because all the food touched.

Courn:     Yeah. Get me that little zoo plate with the ears and separate. Yeah.

Chase:     Oink, oink, zoopals.

Courn:     Oh my God. I wanted those so bad.

Chase:     We're gonna put that on the list for the next episode.

Courn:     Yeah only the rich kids had those.

Chase:     We had like some brand X. Yeah no the meal is not good.

Courn:     It's really not.

Chase:     I don't like mashed potatoes. Stuffing's weird. They take like, they put it in, they like cook it in the turkey with all the other stuff. I don't know.

Courn:     Yeah, but then I feel like as a result, I feel like especially in Portland, I feel like all the queer people around here do Friendsgivings and make some most elaborate vegetarian dishes that aren't really my cup of tea either. And I feel like you're also just missing the point. The point of Thanksgiving being problematic is not just that you're eating meat and getting together with your conservative family. It's also that it's just a racist ass holiday. So whether you serve a vegetarian meatloaf or a turkey, like you're not inherently better than the other person. And I feel like a lot of queer people need to hear that in Portland because they really think they're such hot shit for putting together their friendsgivings and they're such political activists, such leftists. And I'm like, if you're still celebrating.

Chase:     Still celebrating on the day, getting together.

Courn:     Or even just a weekend after, do you like that same weekend? Like, do you think you're morally superior because you chose to do it the day after? I'm sorry. Like, I don't think you are.

Chase:    Don't apologize for that hot take.

Courn:     Like, I really don't think you are. If you call it friendsgiving, do it that saturday, you're not better.

Chase:     It's still thanksgiving. Like your rebrand didn't work. Yeah. It's still the same business.

Courn:     Yeah.

Chase:     That's a good point.

Courn:     I also just think it's a weird thing that how small an ask it is for folks, like, to not celebrate a single holiday, like how much of an indicator that is of how little people are willing to personally sacrifice and invest. And I think that's just an ongoing theme as we talk about election stuff and political activism and just activism, mutual aid in general, is that if you can't stop celebrating Thanksgiving, like how are you expecting to actually invest your time and self into mutual aid and activism? Like you don't care.

Chase:     They just want to buy the hat that says you're on native land and call it good.

Courn:     Yeah, they want to do a land acknowledgement. They want to put up their black square, wear their blue bracelet and then be like, yeah, I'm an ally. And not actually have to like sacrifice anything. Which like, if you think not celebrating a holiday is the biggest sacrifice you're making that year, you are so privileged. I'm sorry, in this day and age. Like if that's where you draw the line, you need to be humbled, respectfully.

Chase:     Humble them, Courn, humble them. I love it.

Courn:     I'm just like, if that is the most pressing thing in your life, like the idea of not celebrating a holiday with actually-

Chase:     If it's that uncomfortable to you. Yikes.

Courn:     And that is coming from someone who loves routine, who loves structure, who loves these systems that give them a lot of comfort as an autistic person if someone told me that something I love is so problematic to them, it would definitely make me think twice about it.

Chase:     Is that just because you have empathy or like learned empathy I'm just kidding like, it's really not that hard.

Courn:     No it's not. And I don't even think it's a matter of empathy. I think it's a matter of just like, I don't know, respecting people. Like I think the empathy argument is always hard for me because like there is people who struggle with empathy. I think I struggle with empathy in a lot of ways, but I think if someone told me, hey, that hurts me, I'm like, okay, yeah, I don't want to hurt them. And that's not me just being like, oh, I'm in their shoes and I'm thinking of everything that's happened to them. It's more just like, yeah, I don't want to hurt someone. Like.

Chase:     Yeah. How is that different than like offending someone and canceling them and like the whole cancel culture movement now.

Courn:     What do you mean?

Chase:     Because you were saying like, oh I don't want to like hurt someone I would be like respectful of them.

Courn:     Yeah.

Chase:     And that I feel like has gotten taken to an extreme where people now just use that as a scapegoat of like, oh well I'm just offended by that so you like, I'm offended by you asking me to stop celebrating it. You know like they almost like flip it in that way.

Courn:     I think weaponizing a lot of like, I think it's the same with people who weaponize therapy speak, they weaponize activism speak to be like, well that's my right to do this. I think for me I see a lot of people like using that almost as an excuse to not do anything like almost a way to be neutral and the fact that they don't want to get canceled so they don't say anything of meaning and that's what I see a lot of people and maybe that's just me on a tangent.

Chase:     That's like super common, I feel like that's a very common talking point right now to be like, oh well like I don't know what's going on actually over there. I don't know much about that. So I'm just like I'm not gonna say anything because I don't know anything and I absolutely used to be that person. Because I was raised in a cult, I was raised not knowing these things and so that was a lot of my like thoughts at first was like, oh I'm not gonna get involved because like I don't know much about it and then rather than being like, oh just kidding, I don't know much, I'm gonna learn a bunch and then become opinionated. I was like no, I'm just gonna avoid it. So that's a very common thing now. But I think education is always a huge topic around here for anything. To like educate yourself about it.

Courn:     I think it's a very privileged thing to be able to wait around for someone else to educate you on why something matters to them rather than just taking initiative and doing it yourself.

Chase:     Google's not hard.

Courn:     It's really not.

Chase:     It's free.

Courn:     So many questions like, why is this problematic? Why shouldn't I do that? I'm just like, I understand that not everyone has the same ability to like navigate the internet and it can be challenging, but like do a little bit of research. Just like a little bit. Like you cannot tell me you don't understand when there's just like thousands, honestly millions of people talking about this, indigenous creators have been talking about this for years and people are just like ohm I had no idea and it's like why didn't you have an idea, like what world did you live in that you didn't have to deal with that. And I know it makes a lot of people really uncomfortable, but it's just a holiday. It's literally just a holiday.

Chase:     It's not that big a deal.

Courn:     I don'tthink it's about the holiday. I think it's just people like traditions. They don't like being told what to do or what they can't do.

Chase:     Well they don't like being told they've done something that is like offensive or harmful or like bad so to speak. I don't like to say that but like it's kind of being called out you usually results in like feeling embarrassed or feeling maybe some shame because most people don't intend to be bad and like harmful to others but then when they get called and say that was harmful they're like oh but I wasn't trying to be! Okay, well, it's that intent versus impact like I know you weren't trying to but guess what it still resulted in this so time to learn better do better next time like yeah you mentioned like how families and traditions is to just be thankful. And they're like, oh, well, we're just thankful about our family and thankful about this. It's interesting how it negates all of the like original pieces. Like what were they thankful for originally? Thankful for the help of the indigenous people?

Courn:     Family, for the food? Yeah, like, I don’t know.

Chase:     I don't know. But like maybe think, yeah. So like now to be like, oh, but we're not thankful for like that part, but we're thankful for this. Like you don't get to just like pick and choose.

Courn:     No, you're sanitizing the parts that you like. It's like we just need a whole, if you want to do a holiday about thanks, like I think you just need a new 1 because that honestly has nothing to do with it. Like just picking the parts you want.

Chase:     Call it appreciation day.

Courn:    Appreciation day. Put it in another time of the year!

Chase:     Any like some other random day that we have to coordinate getting off work.

Courn:     yeah it's also no coincidence that like I don't know, america has done black friday, cyber monday right after like okay people don't even care that much about thanksgiving anymore they care about the deals which we all know have gotten worse. People aren't even that excited about Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals anymore. But like, it's just this commercialization aspect is probably the real reason why it's not going anywhere.

Chase:     That is the truth of the matter.

Courn:     And that's so many holidays.

Chase:     That's what I was trying to get at earlier, but you said it much better. Yeah.

Courn:     It's the more like the memorial day sale like they just like they won't take any excuse to put a fucking sale on something, like literally I'm just writing so many emails about black friday shit and I'm just like I don't even know what the fuck that means maybe I need to do my own research I don't know what the frick Black Friday is.

Chase:     Oh really? I learned about that 1 in school. Tell me why I remember like the origins of that more than like Thanksgiving.

Courn:     Capitalism.

Chase:     Capitalism. Well and I think when I did some research on like the history of Thanksgiving it did come up like the Black Friday piece because I'm sure it was a politician or some you know kind of popular person at the time, a businessman maybe, like they literally created it to help get businesses quote “back in the black” meaning like when you're “in the red “you're losing money and when you're “in the black” you're like making money in a way I guess so they called like so they make a bunch of sales to like boost and put them “back in the black: if they're in the red or like you know put them in the black.

Courn:     Weird use of colors but sure sure.

Chase:     Let's talk about it. So that's what it was intended to be is like kind of like inventory clear out like that kind of stuff I think. So encourage spending.

Courn:     I just I just think it's so funny that I don't know people were back in the day like fighting over Black Friday. Like I just remember in that, like we went a few times, whatever, to like Walmart or Target.

Chase:     I was gonna ask, did you do any?

Courn:     We were really, really young. I remember going to places like that because we wanted like a, you know, a deal on a vacuum or like the new PlayStation, shit like that. Now it's literally like, there's no lines because first of all, the deals just aren't even good. They just lie. They just straight up lie about deals like, yeah it's marked off $100 but it's normally $80 off every day. Like it's everyday pricing.

Chase:     Yeah. There's a lot of like pages I feel like that track prices and we'll be like, oh this went up in price like 4 months ago so that they could bring it back down to this, like it's typically had a history of being at this price and stuff. Which if you want a good deal, I just learned about the app called Koupon with a K. It'll like find promo codes for you and you can just put them in at different checkouts and it'll work almost every time. Like the leaf blower we just bought 50% off. Some random code it was like hlp91j2.

Courn:     About that!

Chase:     Yeah Koupon with a k folks.

Courn:     Random influencer codes.

Chase:     Literally because you know you can just put like hello 10 or whatever. No yeah, this like summer 10. No.

Courn:     Also app recommendation Boycat like cat meow meow. You can scan it at stuff at the grocery store and general stuff and it tells you if it's like a pro-Israel product. Like what its warning is, like how safe it is to buy that item without supporting Israel.

Chase:     I sigh heavily because it's probably all really bad.

Courn:     Yeah, it's not a good time to do it. But if you want to get violently humbled on what you should stop supporting, highly recommend it. It's really intuitive.

Chase:     Do you think there's a lot of stuff at Winco with that? I buy a lot of like Winco product.

Courn:     I mean, I'm not super familiar with where Winco sourcing stuff, but I'm assuming they're probably getting their stuff from the same few places.

Chase:    You think, yeah?

Courn:     Yeah.

Chase:    I'm not, yeah. I'm not here to argue that, but that's wild. That was a big tangent. Where did we come from?

Courn:     Black Friday apparently.

Chase:     Black Friday. That's what it was.

Courn:     Black Friday.

Chase:     Yeah, but like also why do why does everyone get Thanksgiving off but then like not Black Friday? So you gotta always go back to work after a holiday. Like that's weird to me. Right? Like you Everyone works Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday or you know folks who work like a Monday through Friday job or something.

Courn:     You got a bougie job, you got the whole week off.

Chase:     Totally. Yeah, I was like you get the whole week or you definitely get Monday or Thursday, Friday off. Yeah, I remember those folks like you'd get Thursday off and then you just go back to work Friday.

Courn:     Yeah I'm not a fan of middle of the week-

Chase:     Especially when I worked retail and then we would open like Thursday night again or whatever like at midnight or 10. Jesus Christ.

Courn:     I mean that's how it's kind of always I mean sometimes now when Christmas is like in the week I mean that's just kind of how it is. You just end up going to work the day after.

Chase:     Isn’t New Year's like on a Wednesday this year or something?

Courn:     I can look.

Chase:     Oh gosh it doesn't matter that much but I'm curious.

Courn:     Actually I think it is on a Wednesday because I was just marking off. Yeah it is on a Wednesday. Yeah that's very random.

Chase:     Do you have thoughts around Abraham Lincoln? Do you? That's a big topic, but it's kind of-

Courn:     Like on what?

Chase:     Do we like him? Is he good? Is he bad?

Courn:     No, he's not good.

Chase:     Well, I know all us presidents are terrible, but like, I don't know.

Courn:     I think there's something like weird. Like I, there's a documentary that either is coming out or came out that was like the secret gay life of Abraham Lincoln.

Chase:     Okay, that's probably really true.

Courn:     Because whateverhe had like a very close like friend who slept in the White House with him and other stuff and they were like, oh yeah, he's probably gay. And they were like, oh yeah, the Emancipation Proclamation, that was all because of Abraham Lincoln. I don't know, it literally was just in best public interest for him to do that. I'm not a historian I couldn't tell you.

Chase:     The emancipation proclamation?

Courn:     Yeah yeah like like he was just in office when that was signed that was something he did and that's a big deal that's why he gets accredited with whatever.

Chase:     Yeah wasn't he like a big slavery proponent of like not like not having slavery but also acknowledging that like Black men would never be equal in america or something ridiculous or black people would never be equal in it there's some weird shit.

Courn:     I don't know the details I'm gonna say for a person at that time a white man in that position of power that would not surprise me like I don't think you shouldn't be making these people out as saints like they're also not just a product of their time because there was radical people at the time that did not own slaves did not enslave people or were actively fighting for the liberation of enslaved people. So, yeah.

Chase:     YI think he's just a businessman who did what was best in the eyes of the business.

Courn:     Yeah, people just need to stop romanticizing presidents or any historical figures. They're all fucking problematic. They're all rich and powerful. Why do you think they're going to be good people?

Chase:     That's a good hot take.

Courn:     And that goes for anyone. Even like celebrities today, you may think that like they're down for the cause, but respectfully, the minute somebody is making millions of dollars, they don't give a shit. They don't give a shit about where they came from or their people. Like if you were a billionaire, you are not ethically existing. But what I don't want to see is a bunch of white people posting these weird ass guides that are just like oh how to avoid your racist dad or racist uncle at thanksgiving and stuff, I just hate that type of shit.

Chase:     Okay, how come?

Courn:     Well there's just so much avoiding I think I think there is so much like, I think there's misuse of therapy terms. There's misuse of like cutting people off when I think you have an obligation to like advocate for people. Like as a white person, a non-marginalized, especially a cis white person, if you have some racist ass family member, like if they are so fucking extreme, fine, you know, just cut them off. That's what you should do. But if they're somewhere in the middle, which I find is like actually a lot of conservative family members, in my case, a lot of people that end up voting right and they don't quite know exactly why, like they're just not quite educated. They have some like very outdated views, but if you actually had to talk with them-

Chase:     There's no like substance behind it or like reasoning behind it

Courn:     Yeah, or I just think that like you have a duty, I think, to talk to these people. Like if you have an impact with them. I think the idea that you just cut off every single person who's not.

Chase:     Rather than having those uncomfortable conversations.

Courn:     Yeah, and I think that's an excuse I think a lot of white people are using right now. They're just like, I'm cutting off every single Trump family member. And I'm like, well, that's why he won. It's because we were being so politically divisive. And honestly, you need to call your community in because you have the least to lose from engaging with this person. Like, because respectfully, you cut off your uncle today, the rest of us have to deal with him tomorrow and every day after that. And it's like, no, you're not responsible for this person. But I just think a lot of white people, like they want to know how they can help more. And it's like, start calling in your family members and friends and stuff. Just like stop cutting them off when you have like a small disagreement. If they think that I shouldn't exist, that's not a small disagreement. But I find that most people don't just like, I don't know, instantly enter that type of rhetoric. A lot of people are in the middle where they just, they don't understand what it means to be a trans person. They don't understand what it means to be an immigrant in this country. And like, they need to be humbled. They need to be educated. And like, you were in a position to do that. That is something you can do. Don't wait around for a person of color to do that work for you. Because like you get to opt out of those conversations. I think that's a big privilege. I don't get to opt out of those. Every single day I have to convince someone why I deserve to exist, why I deserve to have rights. And like you just being like, well, that conversation makes me uncomfortable when you have nothing to lose from it and everything to gain for my continued mistreatment is problematic to me.

Chase:     Go off. That was so good.

Courn:     That was just such a long ramble.

Chase:     No, no, that was so good. I didn't want to interrupt you. I was just sitting here nodding like, yes, great. Yeah.

Courn:     I think it's just like white people that are just like praising right now, cutting off all their family members and stuff. And I get when they get to an extreme point, yes.

Chase:     But also guess what? The rest of us have had to always do that. Like we've been doing this shit. Like, you just want us to praise you and like give you a gold star and clap because you did something hard that the rest of the fucking world has been doing?

Courn:     No, I will say this and I will say it again. It is not a hot take that you would clean your follower list or block a bunch of people because of the election. Why were you friends with these people in the fucking first place?

Chase:     I was going to say to begin with, my followers should not be. I shouldn't be cleaning out my. No, mhmm!

Courn:     Literally, it's so wild. But every day I go on some white business owner is just saying well they're so mad I voted this way and they voted for Trump, girl tell me why you've been running your page for 5 years like no 1 knows what political way you-

Chase:     Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah I got checked on that a while back and it was a good thought because I wasn't like being too active about it. But I was like, well, no, I don't support any of that but like I guess you're right I need to like be more vocal about it and just doing the things I can like every day. We're out here I'm over here looking over my shoulder, always being ready to have to say something for some microaggression or something towards me when like all these people don't have to go through their lives doing that and like you said the 1 opportunity they're then given to actually stand up for those communities that they say they like and want to protect, they just bow out.

Courn:     Yeah. It just bothers me. I just think every white person has some excuse like, well, their mind can't be changed. And I'm like, can it?

Chase:     Have you not tried? Have you tried?

Courn:     Yeah, I just find it wild. I get that there actually is people that are such extremists. Like if your dad is the biggest Trump fan there is, maybe there's-

Chase:     And your life is gonna be put at risk, you know, he might shoot you, I don't know.

Courn:     If you are at risk of violence or harm, totally. But the majority of people who just have these like off shooting people in their life-

Chase:     But also you can text them, you could call them. Like you don't have to be there in person for these. You could do it on FaceTime.

Courn:     Yeah, I just think there's not a lot of personal investment. Just like the idea that it would get uncomfortable and potentially a family member would like, I don't know, have a ripple effect in your family. I'm just like, what do you mean that's every day living as a marginalized person? We don't get to opt out of that. And the thing is, like our families aren't always great either. And that's something we don't really get to talk about because there's so much like built into I think coming from like a first generation immigrant family like having to deal with that generational trauma and stuff and I can't even get into that with like half my family members because they're so deeply entrenched. So you having to deal with your conservative random family member, like it's, yeah, deal with it. Don't just cut them off the minute it gets hard. Honestly, it's not even cutting off conservative people. I feel like people cut off like a lot of central and even left-leaning people that like just aren't perfectly aligning with your idea of activism because you're unwilling to have those conversations. Like there's so many leftist people that are cutting off third-party voters, cutting off people who didn't vote at all without having that level of acknowledgement that like you were in different places, you can agree to disagree on certain things.

Chase:     And that divisiveness honestly bit a lot of stuff in the ass. Yeah. Yeah.

Courn:     Yeah. Like there's such little political agreement on the left side for very valid reasons. But y'all calling each other out every 5 minutes is not it. Like it's not working. Especially just like as a privileged person, like what do you need to call your community in, stop calling them out stop acting like you're better than other white people because you're queer, because you're neurodivergent, you are still white. I saw a tiktok that was like being alt-y doesn't make you any less white because. A lot of people seem to think it does. If you're queer, like you're neurodivergent, you dress alternatively, that you're like suddenly better than other white conservative people. You're not.

Chase:     I was gonna say, what's the explanatory comma for alt?

Courn:     I don't know. Like alternative, like you dress like I think a lot of people would think of just like alt-y, gen z in terms of just like looking like politically leaning having colored hair like dressing in lots of layers.

Chase:     Oh so just not being like traditional? Okay.

Courn:     Like literally just dressing cool makes you like a more approachable person doesn't make you safe respectfully like There's no safety in these communities either.

Chase:     It's not virtue signaling. It's just like, what's the word I'm thinking of? It's just like all talk. I don't know. There's like a word for it.

Courn:     You gotta walk the walk. You gotta put your money where your mouth is.

Chase:     Okay but actually though, but actually though, like again posting on Instagram is a great start and like getting your voice out there but when it comes time to actually doing these things in person, the theory of these things and putting them into action, fucking do it already. Fucking do it already. God.

Courn:     Well, I think people are just, it's the same thing in 2020. People are looking for a laundry list, checklist of things they can do to be an ally instead of just realizing that the work is every single day. It comes across you every single day in very little ways. It can be these really big grand gestures, but there's never anything that you're gonna do that's suddenly gonna make you safe to marginalized people. Like there's not 1 big task, there's not 1 small task.

Chase:     Stop being so sensitive to like those things and like all the things you're not doing right and like accept that you're not like you have a white privilege. It's just what you have and like what you do with it is makes all the difference.

Courn:     And you can just tell where the motivation comes because these people care more about appearing safe to other marginalized people than actually benefiting the lives of marginalized people.

Chase:     Performative allyship. That's the word.

Courn:     That is exactly it. Because people care more about looking good or looking like you're helping than what is the actual goal, eliminating these problems in the first place.

Chase:     You talked about like calling people out for these things rather than calling the community in. They're also, I feel like calling out the wrong thing. Like calling out the smallest, most least impactful thing. And I get checked on that a lot. My wife would be like, okay, but like, is that really the big issue at what's at hand? I'm like. Oh, you're right. Like again, the naming of this holiday. People getting up in arms. We need to change the name. Okay. Yeah, maybe but like is that really the big issue here? Like is that really the issue you should be like calling and focusing your attentions on?

Courn:     No we should remove the Holiday all together.

Chase:     Probably not, exactly, and like educating more people on that.

Courn:     Yeah it's hard because I get that a lot of these things happen in very small steps, I think the naming thing could be a step to potentially moving that holiday-

Chase:     And not to minimize that holiday but like again with all the other things going on check in with that community you know last time you actually went out of your way to like speak to someone in the indigenous community and get the actual, get put your finger on the pulse, what is actually happening what's important to them what do they find a priority because maybe it is naming, I don't know, maybe it's something else?

Courn:     Yeah, it just always comes up I think especially just like with the movement for Palestine it's come up a lot where people are like, well, if we give them their land back, does that mean we have to give our land back to the indigenous people?

Chase:     Your land was never yours to begin with. Are you kidding me?

Courn:     Yeah. Indigenous people are just like, yeah, that's literally the point. Because a lot of people just can't apply these concepts.

Chase:     Where would all these white people go for land back?

Courn:     There's like actual like plans in place where they start. Like the big thing is getting national forest back. And apparently that's like all that mostly a lot of indigenous people have asked for is like getting these large central pieces of land back that they are not taking care of and allowing people to not be good hosts of the land. No, it's not just kicking everyone off of their house.

Chase:     I just all of a sudden laughed because I was like, wait, that's a good point. Where would they go?

Courn:     This is like always a critique though of land back though. Like there's actual plans in place where they're like oh but we have all this free land that we could divide up, stop forcing people under reservations to get benefits, like there's just so much like also if you think that thanksgiving is the most pressing issue against indigenous people I think that says a lot about like, I don't know, your type of activism and what it's centered around because I think that's what bothers me people talk about Thanksgiving and that's something we should talk about getting rid of but like you also don't want to talk about the impact of residential schools. Like we're still finding graves all across Canada these massive graves of children The impact like that happened a generation ago. People in residential schools. We have missing indigenous women going literally sexually assaulted, missing all the time in the rates that are so alarming that if you read them you're like, oh my god why is no 1 talking about this? And they are. You're just not listening.

Chase:     You're not on that side of the internet.

Courn:     No and instead we get these stink pieces that are just like oh this is why indigenous people voted for Trump and these super like crappy selected polls. I hate those stats going around because they're being misused and misrepresented when they're like from 22,000 people not even including mail-in votes they're only including people who went in person which is a very that's-

Chase:     That’s already biased and like certain amount of people-

Courn:     Yes!

Chase:     We don't even have in person voting in Oregon, do we?

Courn:     I think we do?

Chase:     Oh we do?

Courn:     Yeah you can do it-

Chase:     Oh I thought it was all mail-in only?

Courn:     You know maybe we don't, I've never done it.

Chase:     I'm just saying so right off the bat that would exclude so many people!

Courn:     Yeah democrats overwhelmingly vote for mail-in votes.

Chase:     In person, it's almost it's not exclusive but like it's overwhelming majority republican, yeah.

Courn:     It's just yeah there's a lot of pressing things in the world right now. You have the space to care for multiple things. You can. Doesn't mean you have to care about every single little issue out there, but if someone brings it to your attention, you can listen.

Chase:     I saw someone else who speaks a lot on like the Hawaiian sovereignty movement say like you have to pace yourself through all this and you have to like deal with it in an art you have to look at it with a lens of endurance because like if you're sprinting and like really going too hard, you're not gonna make the the fight last long enough and this stuff has to happen like continuous so like take it in small pieces but like continuously like you said day to day action do something for it!

Courn:     Yeah no one's telling you that you need to devote your life to the cause and spend every day volunteering at a mutual aid group.

Chase:     No. You don't need to spend every extra dollar, like I said, every extra second minute. But like again, this holiday I think presents a great opportunity for folks to hopefully listen to this and listen to people of color telling them, hey maybe you should reconsider or maybe educate yourself. Like use this as a moment to educate yourself. That's actually what we do a lot like my wife and I instead of celebrating.

Courn:     Yeah I mean that's a big piece and especially when you think about family planning and stuff it really starts with like educating kids, if you have young ones around you like education on this holiday can be so crucial.

Chase:     Yeah and it sets them up for like how they view a lot of stuff later on.

Courn:     Yeah, you don't need them dressing up as a pilgrim or Native American, you the turkey stuff is kind of cute, whatever turkeys are overrated but like educate your children, like that is literally where it starts.

Chase:     Education is so powerful people don't realize yeah, I mean that's such a topic right now with current Political landscape in America is like there's a reason there's talks of the Department of Education being removed because of the sheer amount of power that holds when people are educated. Coming from a cult. That's the like that is the number 1 thing is they cut off your access to outside education to essentially kind of make you stupid and like not be able to think critically. So if you cut off the information, it's easier to control people.

Courn:     Yeah it's very intentionally It's always been done. I mean not showing information is a form of propaganda and it always has been.

Chase:     Oh, that's a good hot take to you're on 1 today, I love it.

Courn:     Am I I mean, I'm definitely not the first person to say that, won't be the last but-

Chase:     I was gonna say every year this comes up. We're gonna be talking about this.

Courn:     Yeah, it just never ends, but I don't know. I don't want it to end if it's still a problem. I think people get really tired of hearing these conversations because it feels like the same things over and over.

Chase:     Because no one's listening no one's doing anything.

Courn:     They're not but you know there is little wins every day I think and that's something I'll always say like you're not allowed to not celebrate good things in your life because the world is a shit show, it's definitely always gonna have to be a balance especially for marginalized people like you can get so siloed into these holes of being depressed and mad and anxious and fearful of all the shit that's going on in the world right now, you have to find some type of joy wherever that is.

Chase:     And it doesn't have to be this big gloomy kind of like we I don't know sometimes we get on rants about how bad it is but like yeah we get to focus on some of the wins.

Courn:     No. And like-

Chase:     You have to that's the endurance piece is like if you're always down bad about everything like it's gonna suck like the long haul but like keep those accomplishments keep you motivated to keep like going through it all.

Courn:     I think it's validating to me and hopeful that people have gotten through this before. They always have through history. We've always gotten through really tough times in community. Politicians haven't protected us. We have, and we continue to be the ones who protect ourselves. Mutual aid groups are not new. They are everywhere. You don't need to start a new 1 if you're actually trying to get like invested in this type of work. Look around in your city. Look at places that are handing out meals, that are cleaning up neighborhoods, that are providing after-school programs, education. There's so many ways to get involved and none of these systems are new. There's so many great ways to find community.

Chase:     They're just becoming mainstream and even more visible. They've been around.

Courn:     I love the idea that mutual aid is trending as a topic right now. People are like, oh, you need to go start a mutual aid group. Don't go start a mutual aid group. There's people who've been doing this shit for years.

Chase:     There's plenty of existing ones, yeah.

Courn:     People don't even know what mutual aid is. They also just think like, oh then we're gonna go plan a protest. I'm like, you know mutual aid is literally everything. Any time in a community where someone is helping out each other, like that is literally the basis of how all these systems work.

Chase:     Mutual aid is gonna be the new hot, hot button word, like self-care.

Courn:     It is. Yeah, I'll jump on it if it gets people talking about these things like hey this is what mutual aid actually looks like. You probably already invest and use these systems every day, you just don't know it. Here's how you can keep doing that.

Chase:     That's a good point. What else can people do instead of celebrate the holiday? What do you do? I mean, you don't celebrate either.

Courn:     I mean, the education piece is important for me. I mean, because I have the privilege of like working from home and choosing my own hours. Usually I work through Thanksgiving and that's what I've done. I work through almost all major holidays I don't celebrate especially a holiday like that because I'm like that's not my holiday to get time off respectfully like I need to be working but I know people who like volunteer at mutual aid groups, they do education for their children, like I don't think there's necessarily like the best way to do it. As long as you're just not celebrating Thanksgiving.

Chase:     That's an interesting thought. I never thought of working through it. I mean my place of work will be closed, but it doesn't mean I can't work on other things.

Courn:     I'm not saying like, rah, rah, go work.

Chase:     No, no, no. I mean it's an interesting thought. It's not I mean your place to take the day off.

Courn:     No, I work with marginalized people That's the bulk of my clients and I do a lot of work in that activism space So for me like that's a good day to be like, okay I want to get involved in this work. Like can I do a pro bono project? Like that's-

Chase:     That's a good way to think about that. I never thought about it that nice.

Courn:     That's how I spent like fourth of July and other holidays like that I'm always like that's that's not my holiday to celebrate.

Chase:     Yeah meanwhile I think my wife and I use it's just like a day again to rest from all the capitalism and struggles of living in a ableist world too, but I mean that's a great thought.

Courn:     Which I think is all you really have to do. Just take time off. You don't have to work. Don't, don't get in the machine if you don't have to.

Chase:     But I mean, it's an interesting way to phrase it. And even just talking about that, like when people ask, cause that's like a common conversation. I'm like, oh, what are you gonna do for Thanksgiving? What are you gonna do for Thanksgiving when you do for the holiday you could even just start by saying, oh I think I'm gonna you know go help this like I'm gonna go get involved in this mutual aid or I think I'm gonna go I heard, I saw this documentary I'm gonna go watch it and like educate myself or again not really my day to take off so like I'm gonna go help these communities instead!

Courn:     Yeah and I feel like that thought that comes up a lot with like what do people do on Martin Luther King Day?

Chase:     Can you imagine if I'm gonna start I might test the waters with that and start seeing how that goes this week with my clients, see what happens. People are gonna get so uncomfortable and I can guarantee you people are gonna be like, no, you should just take the day off. No, don't work. I can guarantee.

Courn:     I'm like respectfully, it's not your day really to take off, but.

Chase:     Oh, I didn't realize you were indigenous.

Courn:     Yeah.

Chase:     I do, 1 thing my wife and I like to do we've done kind of in the past few years is actually just use it as a day to like, cause we also have the privilege of not seeing our family. We just cook special foods that have meaning to us that have like no tie to the holiday and just kind of like do a lot more education and like learning. Cause right now that's for us the best way to do it. But like I watch a lot of videos, listen to music and like think about the Hawaiian foods that I wanna make and like reconnect with my culture in that way. Yeah, what do you think about that?

Courn:     I mean, I like that. I think also people just put 2 emphasis on what you do in that day. I think it's more just like, okay. So if what are you not doing that day? What are you doing the rest of the year? Like how are you showing up for the-

Chase:     1 out of 365?

Courn:     Yeah, you can have the perfect day that day and do your due diligence, be a good little white liberal and go volunteer at the soup kitchen, whatever, donate some money to your local tribe. But if you don't do anything beyond that for indigenous liberation, like you don't give a shit.

Chase:     Dang, that's a great hot take.

Courn:     You know, I'm not trying to call people out, but I always am. That's the Gemini in me!

Chase:     Look at you.

Courn:     I know, I've become-

Chase:     A Gemini!

Courn:     I've become an astrology person. It's more just that people, also I keep getting DMs and comments that are just like, you really are such a Gemini. And I'm like, stop!

Chase:     Well once you found out jigglypuff is a gemini, done deal!

Courn:     It was done deal!

Chase:    Yeah set.

Courn:     I'm really not an astrology person at all but I am very petty and if that makes me a gemini then fine.

Chase:     It does!

Courn:     I just you know and that doesn't mean to show up perfectly every single day but you know you-

Chase:     Can you show up once? Could you show up twice? Could you show up a third time, a different time of the year?

Courn:     I just hope it doesn't take just you know this holiday for people to reconsider their actions. You don't have to wait till Thanksgiving weekend to support an Indigenous-owned business. That's something you can do every day.

Chase:     It could be a good starting point and maybe propel you into more from that. And it doesn't have to be every day or every weekend. Maybe once a quarter, every 3 months maybe you go do something. I don't know.

Courn:     But think about you buying presents for Christmas and stuff. That's what a lot of people are doing this weekend. Think about like small businesses and stuff you can support that Black Friday weekend, who indigenous owned, people of color owned, queer owned, like so many times businesses you can support that, you know, aren't shitty conglomerates that probably put money into getting Trump elected if you saw that list online, so.

Chase:     That was a long list!

Courn:     Yeah, not a surprising list at all though every time I saw people like oh my god I can't shop here. Y'all were shopping at Home Depot? You thought that they were, you thought that Hobby Lobby?

Chase:     You know what gets me? People still shopping at Target. That 1, I was like immediately easy to not shop at.

Courn:     Yeah. I have my personal horror story with Target, So I don't fucking go there. They piss me off. They're not getting my business anymore.

Chase:     Absolutely.

Courn:     It's really not that hard though. I don't know. You have so many ways to show your impact. Even if you just did absolutely nothing with your time, just alone where you shop, where you consume things has such a big impact on your ecosystem your community like-

Chase:     I heard someone say that 1 time, ironically from like a white man, to say like you have a lot of power in where you spend your time and money and attention, like just kind of think about that. So like if you don't want to watch a show cause you don't support it, don't watch it. Like that adds up.

Courn:     That literally makes a difference. People don't understand. You're like, oh, I think that show's super problematic. Don't fucking watch it. I think the thing is that gets me is that there's no perfectly way to show up and this is probably the cheesiest comparison but I actually really love The Good Place for this reason because the whole, that's a spoiler for the show if you've never watched The Good Place then you can skip ahead like 30 seconds, but the whole spoiler is that there's no way someone could get to the good place because every single action you take inadvertently plays in these systems that are super bad. So like anything you do like buying a coffee shop, oh the beans are actually from child labor and they're shipped overseas and like every single thing you do inherently will probably have a bad impact. But like that doesn't mean there's no point in not doing anything. Like there's a way to improve these systems. There are some systems that are like vastly better than other and saying that everything is there's no advantage.

Chase:     You tell me all that you tell me all the time like the all-or-nothing mentality doesn't do anything either. So like you can't strive for the perfection attitude and like having everything perfect. Like the realities, we just talked about companies that you don't want to support. Unfortunately, we still use Amazon because sometimes the convenience you just we got to do it but like we're still trying to be mindful and like cut back or like do other things to help like reduce that down because it's not you can't be perfect. Until the whole system's gone.

Courn:     There's so many different ways that you can contribute if you're going to cancel someone because they're using Amazon for a purchase. When they're not doing other things, when you're contributing to other businesses that are just as bad. Like there's no perfectly way to show up. Like no you shouldn't be proud about shopping at Amazon.

Chase:     No. Yeah no I'm not gonna be advertising it even though I just did on this podcast.

Courn:     And I hope eventually you know you can like cancel it and not have to buy products from there. But yeah also just shaming poor, disabled people for having to use these systems like-

Chase:     Because it's affordable. Yeah.

Courn:    Yeah. That's not cool either. Amazon is also the only place that some places people can get stuff delivered.

Chase:     Yeah cause like they live far out.

Courn:    Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Chase:     That's a good point!

Courn:     It's hard.

Chase:     That was just such a tangent from thanksgiving!

Courn:     It really was. I also like this out there that randomly there was Amazon ads in like so many different shows, this lineup of the fall. And it's actually making me so sad.

Chase:     Interesting.

Courn:     Ghosts. Ghosts? That's a hard word to say. Ghosts? Like scary, woooo. That show, that's like a UK remake. It's really funny, but they have like this really blatant Amazon ad and then What We Do in the Shadows, which is like 1 of my favorite shows of all time, had an Amazon ad, I think twice.

Chase:     Do the shows make those choices or does it like the streamer or like provider or show network?

Courn:     No, it's built into the show. Like they did.

Chase:     Oh, they built. We haven't caught up on the new episode. Damn.

Courn:     It actually hurt me inside. And then I think there was lowkey an Airbnb ad because they kept saying Airbnb. And I'm like to use that brand name. And I was like, oh, Airbnb is just so shitty.

Chase:     I'm not gonna lie. I learned how bad it is. Airbnb is so bad. I didn't realize.

Courn:     I mean, just to loan all the settlements that they have in like Palestine stuff that's on stolen land. That's already.

Chase:     Also not the like apartment near down the street from us who was like 1 house got turned into apartment complex that they're like have like airbnbs that are not totally documented cuz you got to check for those permits, there's the permits are in the city and you can find those public we couldn't find any records and there's just a bunch of Airbnb coming and going-

Courn:     Call them in!

Chase:     We did!

Courn:     Report their ass!

Chase:     We freaking did, that was a nightmare butgGod where do we even tangent from it you remember the original from this?

Courn:     No!

Chase:     If you could replace 1 food on the like traditional spread and meal what are you replacing and what are you replacing it with?

Courn:     That's too hard of a question because I'd replace everything.

Chase:     Okay but yeah I mean like what's the first what's the 1 thing like obviously you want to replace everything but if you were to replace 1 thing first what would you do?

Courn:     You know honestly it's the mashed potatoes I would replace it with a better French fries, like truffle fries, scalloped, potatoes, potato casserole, anything that's not mashed potatoes.

Chase:     Tater tots.

Courn:     Eww, you know I don't like tater tots, which That's what my mom did. She makes potato casserole instead of, or she makes it in addition to mashed potatoes. That's what we always did growing up because I didn't like mashed potatoes. So I eat potato casserole, which sounds gross, but it's not.

Chase:     It's fire. Do you also like the German potato salad where it's like bigger chunks of potato?

Courn:     Yeah.

Chase:     Okay.

Courn:     Yeah.

Chase:     Okay.

Courn:     Yeah, yeah, yeah. As long as it's warm though. I don't want like cold potato no because like that's-

Chase:     You’d eat it hot?

Courn:     Yeah.

Chase:     Oh my gosh

Courn:     I don’t eat any cold food.

Chase:     I knew that, I should yeah I walked into that 1.

Courn:     I got too of sensitive teeth guys. I'll eat everything warm. If I could eat ice cream warm, I would.

Chase:     We just watched the Bob's Burgers episode where he gets the soft serve. Have you seen that? He gets the soft serve machine and then Teddy's like, Bob, it's too cold, heat it up. And he's like, what, Teddy? And he's like, can you just put in the microwave for like a few seconds? It's too cold.

Courn:     That would be me. That would literally be me.

Chase:     So what you're saying is we should go microwave some soft serve, dairy free soft serve?

Courn:     That sounds gross. We should just go get something, a dessert that's already hot.

Chase:     Hot chocolate.

Courn:     Yeah, let's go make some hot chocolate.

Courn:     Okay, bye.

Courn:     Bye!

Chase:     Hey folks, a quick disclaimer here. Courn and I speak directly from our own experiences, and while we try our best to amplify marginalized voices and present accurate information, the thoughts expressed here are definitely not a reflection of all neurodivergent, AAPI, or queer folks. So, if you have any suggestions, comments, or thoughts, feel free to email us at hello@neurotakespod.com. Thanks!