THE TIME RECESS TAUGHT US CAPITALISM

T.J & his Monsticker Glory

One night I'm on my favorite social network "Snapchat" (Add Me: SkinnySantiago) and I'm just watching Recess and it happens to be the episode "The Economics Of Recess." As I'm watching it I realize it was just flooded with gems of information so I start snapping it and breaking down the episode bit by bit. It was the most activity I got on Snapchat ever. People were showing a lot of love for those snaps. I didn't save them so I decided to share it with the people who don't follow me or don't have Snapchat at all on here.

The episode is about T.J Detweiler's rise to being the ultimate capitalist on the playground. T.J misses a week of school from being sick and when he returns he finds out things that used to be free and he had the right to use he couldn't use anymore because he didn't have "Monstickers."

Monstickers are stickers that had become currency on the playground. You had to pay in Monstickers just to walk into the school. T.J missed a week so he was the poorest kid on the playground. He tries to go and get some Monstickers from the local store but they're sold out because they're the hottest fad at the moment. T.J makes some moves because he was tired of being broke and he made his rise to power. Let's take this step by step and compare the steps to reality and how they could be useful for anyone. 

MONEY CHANGES PEOPLE, PLACES, & THINGS

T.J couldn't walk into the school, drink from the water fountain, or do anything on the playground. He went from the most liked kid in the school to a nobody because he had no monstickers. His homies Vince and Mikey gave him a few monstickers but it wasn't enough for T.J to prosper. He seen Menlo (A nerd/enemy) walking with friends. Since when does Menlo have friends? When you have money, friends just appear. Menlo had monstickers because of his parents who bought him a whole case of them. This was a metaphor for generational wealth. Generational wealth gets passed down and is very rare in the black communities (I'll explain more in depth later). Everything changes when you have lot's of money. 

THEY LOVE TO KICK YOU WHILE YOU'RE DOWN 

T.J tries to buy Monstickers but they're sold out. So he's still poor. Menlo sees T.J sitting on the curb and mocks him. Degrades him. Tells him he's not shit. He offers to buy T.J's hat to further mock the legend that is T.J Detweiler. He offers T.J 5 monstickers and T.J accepts the offer because he's broke as fuck. It's not much but it's a start. Menlo then shits on T.J by making it rain monstickers on T.J's head. He kicked T.J while he was down but T.J vowed to rise up and overcome being broke. We all been there we just gotta keep it positive, go through the hell and get to the other side which is where our goals are. Some may laugh at us when we're going through hard times but fuck em. Success is the sweetest revenge. Pick yourself up. Dust yourself off and grind. It's time to come up. 

9-5'S ARE A RAGGEDY BITCH

T.J starts doing 9-5 type labor to get stickers. He's basically being underpaid for the labor he's putting in. Sounds familiar right? I'm sure you're workload doesn't add up to what you deserve at your job either. 9-5's are a bitch but you need to pay rent. You may have mouths to feed. You stick it out for the time being. Use them as a stepping stone to get to what you truly love to do. 

SACRIFICE THE SOCIAL LIFE

T.J tries to put his friends on to make a few monstickers with him but they decline his offer because they don't want to work during recess. It's like how we all want a social life but complain about not making six figures. You have to sacrifice the fun sometimes to put the work in. This is what T.J did. You're gonna have to miss the parties, functions, concerts, etc if you want greatness. Just chill, work, and stack money. It'll pay off in the end.  

YOU REALIZE IT'S ALL BULLSHIT & A TRAP

T.J quickly realizes that there is no way he can build wealth in stickers doing 9-5 labor. It's impossible. He'd be working forever. A lot of us don't realize this. It's a dead end. Bullshit. A trap. We slave at these jobs that are not appreciative of us. We hate everyone we work with. We get paid shitty wages just to make someone else rich who don't give a fuck about us. If you're happy doing that then great. You've won If not and you're complaining, then stack enough money and quit. Go do what makes you happy. T.J does this and everything changes for him. 

JUST FINESSE

T.J starts finessing. He starts making side deals to the point where the stickers are working for him instead of him working for the stickers. He's doing less work but making more stickers. Let's look at the deal he made with the doorman. 

It cost 3 stickers to get into the school. Let's say 100 kids come in per day. That's 300 monstickers per day. T.J offers to pay 30 monstickers to the doorman if he let's T.J watch the door but split half of the days take 50/50. The Doorman agrees. T.J just paid 30 stickers to make 150 stickers on the spot. T.J then pays a younger kid 2 stickers a day to do the job he just made a deal for while he still gets the split of the profits from the door while not even working it. This is how you finesse. He struck a deal and hired his first employee. Always finesse. Always look for a deal that helps you in the long run. 

KEEP FLIPPING YOUR MONEY

T.J could've settled with his door deal but he didn't. He kept making more deals. He started paying more younger kids to do his labor. He's running up the check. He's bossing up. Don't just sit on money. Make it work for you. 

INVEST

This was the key for T.J. This what separated him from every kid. T.J corners a popular market. He buys all the balls on the playground with all the stickers he had from Randall and puts Randall out of business. He then hires Randall to run it for him for which Randall was already doing but now doing it for less stickers. In street terms, he took over Randall's trap. Thanks to that investment the market now belongs to T.J. It's the most popular object on the playground so he will always have stickers because of it. He invested because he knew those stickers would come back to him at a fast rate. He basically tripled his worth in the long run. You have to put your own money up. Don't take loans. 

if you really passionate about something you want to do invest in it. You can't shortcut this. If you don't invest in yourself, nobody will. 

PUT THE GANG ON 

T.J made a huge deal and immediately put his squad on like a real one supposed to. 

BOSS

T.J is now the wealthiest kid on the playground. A true rags to riches story. He has hired security. A hired assistant and even took over "Old Rusty" as his office. Boss moves unlocked. 

THEY ALWAYS COME CRAWLING BACK

Menlo returns. He's now a broke boy. He wants to sell T.J his hat back. Well, Well how the mighty have fallen. He offers to buy back his hat for 1 sticker. Mocking Menlo and even called him a "Cootie-Head." Menlo has no choice but to accept because he's poor and T.J proceeds to laugh at the fuck boy that is Menlo. Don't burn bridges. Trust me it'll always come back on you. Don't be that person that comes crawling back. 

T.J controls 4 of every 5 monsticker on the playground. He basically has a monopoly in his sights all from taking advantage of Capitalism. 

WHY IS THIS EPISODE IMPORTANT TO ME? 

Good question. 

Growing up I was never taught to be a boss. This is no shade to my parents they were just passing down what was taught to them in society. They taught me how to be a good person but not how to be a boss. In almost every black household you're not taught to be a boss. Why? It's because we weren't taught how to be capitalist in a society that is ran by capitalism. All that is taught in the household is go to school, get a job, and slave until retirement. We highlight being independent like having your own house and car but we never talk about how we're dependent to attain that independence. We're not taught to buy or own resources. School damn sure didn't teach me how to be a boss or about capitalism. It taught me lies about white men that they claimed were great people when in reality they were tyrants. Your job not going teach you how to be a boss. They want you as an employee forever. Not a owner. The media don't teach you about being a boss. I had to research myself. 

The goal is generational wealth. This is what Dame Dash was talking about on his breakfast club interview. A lot of people overlooked the message cause of the context he presented it in but he was absolutely correct. I can't pass down a job to my future children. They can't inherit that. No matter how nice your job is or how much you make they can't inherit it unless you own the business. They can't live off that. The goal is to pass down resources to our children. A 9-5 job doesn't build wealth it just maintains the situation you're in. This shit is all a trap like I said. We need to pass down resources. White people do. Asian people do. Indian people do. We don't. Part of the reason we don't is that we're at a disadvantage because we're not born with shit in the black community. We waste our time with shit that isn't inheritable. 

There are more hispanics, asians, and whites in business than black people and it's because we're lacking in knowledge of economics. We're also the most consumer based culture. All we do is buy, buy, buy the wrong shit. It'd be different if we bought land all the time but that's not the case. Consumers hold no weight in a capitalist society. ZERO! ZILCH! NADA! The producer has the power. If we're going to be consumers the least we can do is consume within our own culture but we're against that. We spend money with every other culture but our own. If it's black owned black folks run away from it. Money has to pass through our culture at least 8 times for us to prosper. We're lucky if it passes through twice. That's how bad it is. When we see other cultures come to America from their homelands they don't come here for college or jobs. They come here to start a business. Build an economy. This is how the Asians usually do things. Pay attention to this. 

Typically in a Asian household they start out by teaching their kids the importance of school. They just want their kids to get straight A's. Nothing less. If not, they're punished. That's why they go to school everyday of the week over there in Asia. 

After graduating, whether it's high school or college they get jobs in a specific field to learn a specific aspect of that job like management or how to maintain inventory flow and they don't stay at that job longer than 3 years. After 3 years they quit and go to another job to learn another specific field like sales and marketing and they don't stay at that job longer than 2-3 years. After all that they have at the max 6 years of management and sales experience and they have a choice. Get hired anywhere or take a gamble and start their own business. 

They usually start their own business and that's why you see asians with their own businesses everywhere. They also spend with their own no matter what. Even if they can get a better deal outside their culture they will still spend with their own. They're loyal to their culture. Jewish people are the same way. They spend money with their own. They put their culture above everyone else. Black folks can't be mad about gentrification if they're not keeping the money within the culture that's why they can come in and just take over our neighborhoods. We don't own shit. This shit is real. The reason why we lose so much is our lack of knowledge in economics and capitalism.

This Recess episode taught me a lot and opened my eyes. Please. Wake up or the days ahead will get darker. I promise you.