Wyatt Cenac's Problem Areas

Hey, welcome to the show.

It's our last episode before summer break,

so I guess that means that I graduated, or...

you graduated? I don't know.

All I know is that after this, one of us is putting on a robe,

getting a meal at Macaroni Grill,

and getting drunk off garlic bread!

But before that happens, let's talk about education.

People like to say, "We should pay teachers

the way we pay professional athletes."

And that's a nice sentiment.

It would be great to live in a world where teachers

got the same kind of exorbitant compensation

that we see in professional bowling,

professional darts,

even professional hot dog eating.

I mean, a dog will eat 100 hot dogs for free.

Why the fuck should somebody

get paid for that?

I mean, maybe we should start the conversation

by just paying teachers their worth,

because teachers' salaries can be pretty shitty.

Which is crazy when you think about the fact

that a teacher's main responsibility

is to try and get a bunch of shitty kids

to learn not to be so shitty.

And you might be saying, "Hold on a second, Wyatt.

My kid's not shitty."

Fine. I'm not talking about your kid.

I'm definitely talking about their kid.

Their shitty-ass kid.

Over roughly the past decade, teachers' salaries

have reached fresh levels of shittiness.

You remember 2008? Yeah, me too.

all: Yes, we can.

Obama: We will respond with that timeless creed

that sums up the spirit of a people.

Oh, there was also this recession,

and because of it, some states wound up cutting

school funding, and as of 2015,

29 states were still giving less funding per student

than in 2008.

Add to that that after the recession,

some places like Oklahoma, Arizona, and Mississippi,

they prioritized tax cuts over refunding schools.

And in Kansas, where some of the biggest tax cuts

in the nation were made,

the state supreme court recently ruled

that the state's education financing system

was unconstitutional.

It's not surprising that a lot of teachers

hit their breaking point.

Over the past school year, teachers in West Virginia,

Arizona, Oklahoma, Colorado, Kentucky, and North Carolina,

they all staged walkouts, protested, or went on strike.

While it's easy to blame all this frustration on tax cuts

and a recession, the truth is that teachers' salaries

have been stagnant for decades.

The average teacher's savings

is just three confiscated Game Boys

and a packet of stickers someone left behind

over summer break.

And a lot of teachers are dipping

into their own paychecks to help their students.

Over the course of a year, public school teachers

who spend their own money on classroom supplies,

they end up paying about $479.

That's ridiculous.

We live in a country where teachers

should have the same rights as everyone else,

to steal office supplies.

And occasionally, toilet paper.

Ah!

But even if teachers stole office supplies

like the rest of us-- don't act like you don't--

they'd probably do it to sell 'em,

because a lot of teachers are in search

of supplemental income.

And for some teachers, that second job,

it comes in the form of driving for Uber.

Which means, if you're watching this right now on your phone

in the back of an Uber, that driver--don't look!

I repeat, do not make eye contact.

Just play it cool.

But that driver, they could be a history teacher.

Quick, ask 'em when the Peloponnesian War was.

If they know, they're probably a teacher.

Or they're training for "Jeopardy!"

Which still means that they're probably a teacher.

But driving an Uber, it can be a way to make ends meet

until somebody's acting or music career takes off.

Teachers are having to do it until the profession

of teaching takes off.

And what's messed up is that the lawmakers,

who only seem concerned about growing the economy,

they would be smart to invest in teachers and education.

Republican lawmakers in Kansas, they responded

to that school funding court ruling

by hiring their own outside consultant,

presumably hoping to support the view

that greater funding doesn't lead

to better student outcomes.

And their own consultant, the person that they hired,

revealed the opposite.

That's like hiring a private investigator to find out

if your spouse is cheating, and they show up a week later

with photos of you cheating.

The bigger twist there is that you were also cheating

with the private investigator the whole time.

Like, whoa!

Fuck you, M. Night Shyamalan.

But the fact is, the more education people have,

the higher earners they become.

And all of that is good for the economy.

So, I don't know, maybe in the meantime,

the teachers who are driving Uber,

they should start making their passengers help grade homework.

If people drunkenly had to grade a paper

every time they hopped into the back seat

of a six-year-old Hyundai Sonata,

they might appreciate that there's someone who chooses

to do this when they're totally sober.

female narrator: Earth.

7 1/2 billion people live on it.

And, spoiler alert, most of them will die.

But the 50% of Americans who opt for a traditional burial

leave behind more than a coffin

full of lifeless leftovers.

They leave behind

an environmental nightmare.

If the dead knew every year, enough wood to build

4.6 million homes was used for caskets,

they'd turn over in their underground,

luxury studio apartments.

What's more, 800,000 gallons of formaldehyde-based fluid

wind up in the ground every year.

It leaches into the soil, poisons the plants,

and gets all the ladybugs high as fuck.

So what are humans to do? Become vampires?

Not with that lovely, olive skin.

Buy a wood chipper and turn the dead

into slurry for sharks?

That's specific, but probably illegal.

What about composting?

It works for other kinds of meat and bones.

Imagine saving the expense of a funeral

by simply putting grandma in the backyard.

A nutritious dead person could be composted

into life-giving dirt, to help cultivate

nutrient-rich vegetables.

Each crop a testament to the life and legacy

of a loved one.

Mmm, delicious, nutritious legacy.

And grandma can finally give back,

after she's taken so much from you.

- It's episode ten, so I guess this is the part

where I finally reveal the solution

of how to fix policing in America.

I've got the answer right here in this envelope.

So, let's find out...

right after a word from our sponsors.

male announcer: Banana in a bag.

For the gal on the go who doesn't have time to peel.

Let's go.

Oh, shit.

That took less time than I thought.

Look, this envelope, it's empty.

There's no definitive solution. And even if there was,

what kind of monster would I be to have strung it out

for ten fucking weeks?

I mean, the genius who invented the lava lamp,

they didn't just hold off on releasing it.

No! They knew they had to get those funky ass blobs

to people immediately.

When the season started, I talked about how frustrating

it was seeing the same headlines of police brutality

over and over again.

Because it feels like those headlines, they represent

a cycle that never seems to lead to any lasting change.

Like, let's say a cop kills someone.

People get outraged. They take to the streets.

Cops get defensive.

There's a promise of change.

But then it happens again.

Maybe not in the same city, but the images are similar.

The feelings are similar.

Whether it's Saint Paul, Ferguson,

or New York City,

people keep looking for an answer to break the cycle.

And while there isn't one answer,

traveling around, I've noticed that there are key elements

that have to be part of the mix for change to happen.

In the last five or six years, we've seen stories

of police violence play out all over this country.

But in the late '90s and early 2000s,

it played out 15 times in just one city.

In Cincinnati, Ohio, police killed 15 black people

in six years.