In which the children of the comfortable discover theft, murder, and the working class — in that order

Let us begin with the lemons.

Four lemons. Left behind at Whole Foods. The kind of oversight that happens to everyone who has ever shopped for groceries — a small inconvenience, quickly remedied. You go back. You grab them. You pay. You leave.

Unless, of course, you are Jia Tolentino, New Yorker staff writer, NYT podcast guest, celebrated essayist, and daughter of a family whose Houston immigration business allegedly charged Filipino teachers 60% annual interest on loans, housed them ten to fifteen to a room on bare floors, and — according to court documents — collected fees from 273 teachers while placing fewer than 100 of them in actual jobs. In that case, the lemons become something else entirely. They become a political act. A stand. A moment of moral clarity in an unjust world.

“I didn’t feel bad about it at all,” she tells us.

Of course not. Guilt, like most inconveniences, is easier to outrun when you’ve had practice.

The podcast is called The Rich Don’t Play by the Rules. So Why Should I? It was produced and hosted by Nadja Spiegelman, culture editor at The New York Times and daughter of Art Spiegelman, creator of Maus, recipient of a Pulitzer Prize, and owner of an estimated $10 million fortune. Nadja herself, before her Times perch, was editor-in-chief of an international literary magazine and the founding editor of a cinema journal attached to an arthouse movie theater. She attended the best schools. She has published a memoir. She lives, presumably, somewhere nice.

The third member of our revolutionary tribunal is Hasan Piker — known online as HasanAbi, Twitch’s most-watched political streamer, proud owner of a $2.7 million West Hollywood mansion, and son of Mehmet Behçet Piker, former Vice President and board member of Sabancı Holding, one of Turkey’s largest conglomerates, with revenues in the billions. His uncle is Cenk Uygur, founder of The Young Turks, the progressive media empire through which Hasan conveniently got his start. His college tuition was paid by his family. He has acknowledged he never faced true material deprivation.

Three people, in other words, who have never, not once, genuinely wondered whether they could afford the lemons.

Gathered together to explain to you why stealing them is resistance.

The conversation begins, as all great revolutionary manifestos must, with a quiz.

Would you share your Netflix password?

Yes! Obviously yes. Hasan not only shares — he has someone else’s password. Jia supports people pirating her own work. “Go off,” she says. The generosity of the comfortable toward intellectual property that is not theirs.

Would you pirate music from an indie band?

“Is it 2005?” Jia laughs. She uses Spotify, which she acknowledges is bad for musicians, “but then I go to the shows.” The peasantry, presumably, are grateful for her attendance.

Would you steal a car?

“Sure, if I could get away with it.” Hasan. Of........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)