Right Quick Ep 3 Transcript
Nandi K I made up a word today at work. Somebody was like, I never heard of that. I was like, because language is all made up. I said, like, “wondermous”. What even is that? I don't know where “mous” must come from, I don't know.

Vance Gowe Like the day before “mous”?

Nandi K I was like, “wondermous”, like wonderful and smart. I don't know what I was mixing it with.

Vance Gowe But what does it mean?

Nandi K Like great, wonderful.

Vance Gowe Oh oh “wondermous” okay. No, I mean in context. Okay. Got it.

Nandi K Yeah yeah yeah. I was like “wondermous”.. She was like, oh I haven't heard that before. I was like, I made it up just now I guess.

Vance Gowe Beautiphous.

Nandi K Correct. Not a word. Now I have heard people call people “Beautimous”. That's a country thing to do. Like, (in accent) “Oh, you so beautimous!” “You’s just so beautimous to me!”.

Vance Gowe I was like, what? Okay, I got it, but context always. Anyway, we're, uh-

Nandi K Anyways, we're gonna start. It's okay. We can have, you know, fun, cold opens because, you know-

(Right Quick Theme plays)

Nandi K Welcome back to Right Motherfucking Quick bitch!

Vance Gowe A (laughs) pop size pop culture conversation with your favorite queer unfriendly black baddies.

Nandi K We're unfriendly because the Bush family has yet to pay for their crimes against every child left behind in the US education system. I'm Nandi K.

Vance Gowe And I'm Vance Gowe.

Nandi K This is an important episode. I think that this is one of the most important episodes we'll ever have of this show. Because today we're talking about something we're both extremely passionate about.

Vance Gowe Yes and that is illiteracy.

Nandi K I would almost say that this is something that, like, bonded us over the internet.

Vance Gowe Yeah. I mean, it feels like it's just been like a constant, like, theme of our, uh, online, uh, fuckery a mess, you know, like, you'd be talking about illiterate people. I talk about illiterate people. We have both been vocal about literacy. Like, just like you niggas need to be reading. I think, um, our liberal like our liberal, um, adherence to. Is it liberal? It is liberal. Our liberal adherence to English.

Nandi Sure. Oh I mean yeah. “Liberal“ is being gracious.

Vance Gowe Our liberal like adherence to English I think makes people think that we would not be pro-literacy as we are. But it's like no bitch, like making up words is a part of it, right? Because you understand what I meant, which is part of the literacy.

Nandi K Well, yes. So like I want to talk about when was the first time you realized that, you know, something wasn't quite right? I know when I first realized, but when do you think you first realized, like, people I don't know can't, couldn't read or that there was some kind of disconnect?

Vance Gowe I think honestly, Facebook, um, because Facebook is a written medium, right? Like you have to communicate with your words that you write. Um, I think it was very clear, like, I mean, what year is it? It's 2025. So I think like, I don't know, I think when I started noticing it had to be around Trayvon Martin. Right. Like that's when like we've had discourse online where we're actually talking and the, the lack of literacy just shows when like, niggas is like arguing with words and it ain't making sense or like the meme you sent me earlier where it's just like it could, uh very well be a misunderstanding, because this person cannot. Like, they misunderstood what you meant.

Nandi K Yes. Oh my God I hate that. I hate when people misunderstand. I think the first time I realized Facebook was an indication. Right? But I'll never forget in 2019, I used to have back when I used to be an employed person. Back when I used to have a job. Now, as we know, I don't have a job, but back when I did, I had a job at this construction tech company and they hired someone to come in and help me doing my thing. Basically, he was supposed to be, like, my equal, but I was supposed to train him, right? You know, get him up to speed. I would send him a message, and then he would respond with something that had nothing to do with my message. The first couple of times I was like, okay, maybe this is a weird thing, but like the fourth or fifth time it happened, I said, oh my goodness, this man can't read. He can't like, read what I'm saying to him. Like he doesn't understand.

Vance Gowe What happened with this was he fired?

Nandi K He was not fired because of course I later quit. I soon quit after because why do you have me working with someone who cannot read? I was burned out and I was constantly burning out at that job. Um, and I was overworked and super underpaid. I only made like fifty thousand dollars.

Vance Gowe Which is poverty.

Nandi K And I had to go into the office in New York City. This is New York City right before Covid. Then in Covid, we took a pay cut, ten percent pay cut for quite a while. Everyone did.

Vance Gowe Not LESS money.

Nandi K Yeah. So anyway, that cracker could not read, and it shook the hell out of me. But then it did, like,. make things start making more sense. Like, I think it made all my Facebook experiences, the dots really started connecting. I said, oh, I was right. Mind you, I had already been saying people were illiterate. I was already going full force into it even before every dot connected.

Vance Gowe But it was always, I think, when you'd be saying that people think you're being funny because, you know, you say ridiculous things all the time,

Nandi K But I’m not being funny though.

Vance Gowe That's right. Yeah. That's why, um, I looked at the stats. Yes. Tell us. California. So this, uh, I'm gonna put on our NPR bag. Uh, according to the 2024/2025 literacy statistics from the National Literacy Institute, uh, on average, 79% of adults are literate. Okay, that's good-ish. Uh, 21% of adults in the US are illiterate as of last year.

Nandi K This is the one.

Vance Gowe 54% of adults have illiteracy below sixth grade, and then twenty percent are below fifth grade. So they're kind of teetering between 5 and 6, which is crazy. And then low levels of literacy costs. Oh so it costs to be illiterate. It says it cost us 2.2 trillion per year. And then the state, I don't want to read this on the air, but we hear the state with the lowest literacy rates is California.

Nandi K I just want to say Florida baby vindicated, honey. Oh, yeah. How are you more illiterate than Florida? I want to say. I want to say Florida gets so much shit. First of all, Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama right there. Not sure why Florida's getting all the fucking heat. Okay. But the fact that California has the lowest literacy rate in the country. Don't they boast like some of the best schools?

Vance Gowe Yeah. Yeah, I, I don't know. I looked at some of the reasons. So some of it was like there's a lot of English learners in California. So that makes sense to me. But it was just like they were blaming the communities. They were like, yeah, the school is just not that good. And there's no standards for, you know, for, uh, English in the state that that too. So there were a couple reasons, because I was looking at ways we could combat it.

Nandi K But yeah, it does sound like institutional failure, though. What you just said does sound like institutional systemic failure.

Vance Gowe But that's always a secret. Like, you know, like we're talking about NPR. Every time I listen to an episode of NPR or anything, it's just like, you know, the reason this is happening is because institutional racism,

Nandi K That's why I don't listen to NPR. They piss me off. I'd be like, yeah, I know I'm black, right?

Vance Gowe Right. I think it's for white people to understand that, like, institutional failings and racism is true. So I'm like, hey, this is for somebody.

Nandi K Listen, Ronald Reagan, another one who will pay for his motherfucking crimes. He's another one who we should be blaming right now. Speaking of California, that's the reason why

Vance Gowe Wore us out.

Nandi K And Gavin Newsom is trying to be a new Ronald Reagan right now. Also that just recently clicked for me. But yeah, reading. Do you know how young you were when you first started reading?

Vance Gowe Oh yeah. So I started reading. I don't know if it's early. I was about four.

Nandi K Yeah, same. I think most black kids learn how to read like early in they house.

Vance Gowe I heard black kids are more advanced up until school. And then school kind of evens them out because, you know. But. Yeah. Um, yeah, I was. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, when I was four, I would just, uh, drive around when we'd be. I was driving…no. When we were driving, uh, I was-

Nandi K No you was driving the car when he was four years old. Vance been a boss. Vance been a boss. Vance was pushing the Astro van. Vance was pushing the Astro van. Sitting in the lap.

Vance Gowe Fresno culture, baby. Hey, uh, no, but I would just recognize words and say them, and then my mom and then be like, is that, like, what'd you say? And then I would say what I said, and they were like, is this reading? So I would spell.

Nandi K That's memorization. Yeah. The foundation, the starting point for reading that's really important. I'm so glad you brought that up, because it's really important that we discuss the components of reading. You know, some people think that what you just described, like a child seeing a stop sign and being like that means stop, right? There's a difference between seeing a stop sign reading stop, but not being able to read stop in a book. Know what it meant when it's not on a stop sign. Comprehension is a big part of reading. I would say it's about a seventy over thirty split because sure, you can know the letters and maybe you can even pronounce them. I can pronounce Korean words. I don't know what the fuck I'm saying. I'm not reading. That's not reading. Right? Like that's not reading. And that's probably the biggest thing that I see is the comprehension that's lost like that.

Vance Gowe That is the main part, I think. So like, yeah, it's like, yeah, like you said, I don't want to repeat everything you just said. But yeah, it's like, sure you could recognize the words, but like if you can't put them together, um, there's something that happens online when arguing where like, people act like you're not supposed to be able to infer what the what the author was talking about. That's part of literacy.

Nandi K So glad you said that. The inference is they want you to spell everything out, and they also want you to say, and I don't mean these people, if I was talking about that, then I would have said have said that in a sentence. I would have said it, God damn it,

Vance Gowe you would have communicated it. Yeah. So, uh, at one, at one of Vance’s jobs. Uh, ten minutes, ten minutes. Thank you, thank you. At one one of his jobs, uh, there's, like, this thing where we have to like, it's an investigation, and you have to, like, you know, prove that this thing happened. And I can't tell you how many times people will be like, this person's not being racist because they didn't say they were doing this because that person was of a different race to them, or they're not being sexist because they didn't say that I'm doing this to you because you're a woman. And I said, well, if they're treating everyone else a way and not treating they're treating this person differently. Like that doesn't mean they ARE sexist, but that COULD definitely mean that.

Nandi K There's some strong evidence there.

Vance Gowe Yeah. Like there's a role that has a role in it. Right. But um, and when we argue online, same thing like, oh, they're not racist. They didn't say that they're doing this because of race. And I'm like, is that how that works, y'all? I think they're gaslighting us. But I also think that they're illiterate.

Nandi K I mean, they are. I think that that's a big part of it is that they're illiterate, right? It's like. They're illiterate and they don't. The inference like, and I want to like go to books at this point because I want us to talk a little bit. I know we've been reading a lot this year. We've been talking I've been recommending a lot of books to you this year. But like even watching like, people talk about books and them not getting like the underlying message because it wasn't said explicitly. This is also a problem in TV and media now. And I've even heard that, like, studios are, like, wanting you to spell everything out. Now they don't want to pick up stuff that has like that makes the audience think.

Vance Gowe Um, but, well, what's one of my favorite, uh, Nandi quotes is, uh, “literacy is literacy”? No, because I'm always talking about media literacy. Yeah. You're you're you're the one that's like “literacy is literacy”. I mean, I agree.

Nandi K It's just like it's all the same. They can't do it. And if you can't do it in a movie, you're definitely not going to be able to do it in a book or in conversation.

Vance Gowe There's pictures. There's like color. There's a bunch of other stuff informing music!, right? Yeah. No, I mean, I shouldn't even say this on here. I watched the movie. I watched the movie about, uh, there was a trans allegory, and everyone in the room said they didn't get it because they didn't spell it out. And I'm like, what are we doing?

Nandi K And I remember you telling me about that. But yeah, that was devastating. Devastating. Well, let's talk a little bit about books. Do you know how many books you've read this year?

Vance Gowe I'm gonna go with ten, so I read. I've been kind of hopping all over the place I have. I'm in two book clubs at the moment, so I think I've read three books with the book club. Uh, well, one book club, one with the other book club. And then I fell into a, um. There's a Buffy the Vampire Slayer, um, book that I kind of fell into, and, um, I would say Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Just saying this ain't Buffy podcast. But my favorite thing about it is-

Nandi K We should take a turn one day, though.

Vance Gowe What about Buffy?

Nandi K One day we should have a Buffy episode, for sure.

Vance Gowe Period. Yeah. Um, my favorite thing about Buffy is, like, the, like, the the the subplot of Buffy is a public libraries will save you, right? Because like the high school library, every episode they would find the answer to how to beat the monster in the library. And like that subliminal messaging really means something to me. Like, I if you need to figure out something like, go read about it..

Nandi K Oh my God, Lance, you're preaching. I almost got out of my seat and started shouting. That is so good! That's so true. I never thought of that. They did because Giles probably lived in the library, I don't know. Yeah, he lived in the library. And so, like they did, always have to go to Giles and go to and go through the tomes and the books. Yeah, yeah, I've been tracking my books this year. I started tracking my books last year. This year I've read twenty-three books.

Vance Gowe Commendable, but also eye emoji. But continue.

Nandi K I've been reading. It's not that crazy. It's not that crazy because some of them were really short. I read some really short books that were like. And also this year I switched to audiobooks because physically, as someone who has chronic pain, I'm unable to physically read books like that anymore. Do I still buy them?

Vance Gowe We know you do.

Nandi K Who can say? Who can say?

Vance Gowe Let's ask your partner.

Nandi K Who can say? But I've been utilizing the fuck out of my local library. My Libby app. Because sometimes when I'm in between books on Libra. Because I also left audible. Because I'm trying to disentangle myself from Amazon. Left. Audible went to Libro.fm. Another audiobook. And it's like people of color owned. Switch that to that. So when I'm in between books there. And then also audible sometimes has a monopoly on some people's books. So that's the only place you can buy it. Sometimes they have that. But my local library, I have the Libby app and I that's where I've gotten most of my books, like the past few books I've read, have actually been from the library. Very, um. So, like, I just read their eyes were watching. God. I got that from the library. Um, and then I just started reading. I just finished this Octavia Butler bio. I was telling you about. Because reading about writers is like, I don't know, the best. We've been reading about writers because I've been telling you about telling you to read these books.

Vance Gowe Right? Yeah. So I want to read that one. Um, the book that me and you both read that I, you know, that we-

Nandi K Zora and Langston and Langston Hughes, it's us. Except you're Black and he’s black. That's the difference between you and Langston.

Vance Gowe Right? Langston. Mulatto. I tried to talk. I keep going off, but I tried to talk to some people about how Langston Hughes, uh, was simply light skinned and not fine, like, uh, like the history-

Nandi K They wasn't trying to hear that.

Vance Gowe They was not.

Nandi K I saw pictures of him. He was not giving.

Vance Gowe Right? I mean, I don't want to say what I think Langston Hughes looks like, but. Come on. Listen. And I said, I said I was like James Baldwin. I don't think James Baldwin is traditionally attractive, but I'm like James Baldwin to me.

Nandi K I'm more attracted to James Baldwin type. I'm not personally attracted to light skinned people. I told my friend, actually yesterday she sent me the, um, new Kehlani song folded that everyone was listening to, and I was just like, love Kehlani. Peripherally, I don't support lesbians. I was like, light skins have enough support. Um, I won't be participating in that. I love peripherally, I wish her the best. She's not getting my fandom. Personally, I don't fan anyone these days. I mean, look, they don't know how to read. She knows how to. It seems like Kehlani knows how to read, though. I'll give her that.

Vance Gowe That's good. Look, I don't know much about Kehlani. Um, she'd be eating. She'd be bumping boxes. That's what she be-

Nandi K I don't know. Yeah. She be bumping boxes. But, you know, the all of them are like, I don't know, Tiana's with a man. Now again, like, I don't know, recession indicators like, people are like going back straight and also like being not, I don't know, thinking critically about the choices that they're making. Speaking of trying to go back to illiteracy, like, oh yeah, it's like because people can't infer, right? And because people think that they're individuals and that they have complete control of every decision that they make, and it's all made up in their own heads. They make these like decisions publicly and don't understand how like it reflects. I be like, yeah, no you don't. You don't hate fat people again now just because you think they need to get healthy, like that's not your thought. Thor, like, right? You don't think that you've been like. You stopped thinking. They're not.

Vance Gowe They don't think that their thoughts and ideas come from nowhere. It's the, um. You weren't born in a coconut. What? What's the Kamala?

Nandi K Did you just fall out of a coconut tree? You exist in the context of everything that came before you.

Vance Gowe That's it. Hey, like you did not just show up in a coconut tree thinking that fat people are gross. Like there's a reason, right?

Nandi K Oh, my God, that is, like, one of the best things she ever said. What a great clip. Well, I guess we're starting around now. The, uh, episode. We're about to wind down here, but there is hope, you know, reading rainbows coming back. Yes, with our favorite librarian, Michael. A light skin I do support, but he's not just light skin, he's biracial and that's different. There's nothing you can do about that.

Vance Gowe Bye Rachel he's Bye Rachel.

Nandi K I'm very excited. I think he's the best person to take over. Um, Reading Rainbow since LeVar can't do it right,

Vance GoweI like him. I think he's great with kids. Um, we need to be reading. I thought they I thought they got rid of PBS, so I'm glad that, uh, all of that still happening. So.

Nandi K Yeah. No, they couldn't totally get rid of PBS. It's just a bunch of their local stations will close, but the big stations won't close. Okay? They get a ton of money. They have a ton of money on their own. It's just the government provides a lot of the smaller, uh, funding for the smaller local stations. So those are the ones that will go away. Some of them are already gone. Right. Okay, good. Because I'm like, we need Reading Rainbow. Um, other resources we talked about already.

Vance Gowe Your local library. Yeah. Go, you know, go down to it and get a car. Um, most libraries. Yeah.

Nandi K And most libraries. You can actually sign up for a library card online. I'm immunocompromised and I live in Florida, so I don't like to go and be where the people are. Unlike Ariel, you know, I don't want to be where the people are. So I signed up for my library card online, and I get all my books from Libby. So you can get ebooks there. You can pick up books from your library if you want, and they have a bunch of audiobooks. My local library has forty four thousand audiobooks. Um, and then if you have Spotify, even though I know we're starting also to disentangle ourselves from there, they also have audiobooks if you have a subscription included. I'm reading Fledgling by Octavia Butler on there right now.

Vance Gowe Right. And then you said Libby. Is that the other one? Libro FM. Yeah, I need to go to Libro FM.

Nandi K Libro.fm. None of these people are sponsoring this, but this is what I use and I feel better about disentangling myself from, uh, Amazon and the Bezos. Yep. And then one more thing about Libby.

Vance Gowe The more the more library cards you get from different places, the more access to books you have.

Nandi K Yes. I'm going to get a New York one when I go back.

Vance Gowe Yeah, exactly. So you can get more access if you have more library cards. So just collect more library cards.

Nandi K. Read a book and read a book. Read a book. Read a book. Alright, last but not least, Lance, do you want to recommend the people a book? Do you want to tell them what your favorite book was? What do you think people should read from the books you read this year?

Vance Gowe Ooh, okay. Honestly. Parable of the sower. Um, I read I read a bunch of books this year, but I think that book is actually helpful. And what I mean by it is like, um, there's white people reading a book with me because this is my book club, uh, book at school. And, um, the white teacher. Well, I want to put it on all of them. One, they keep talking about how depressing the book is and you know, this and that and I, I really I'm having a hard time with that take because I'm like, I get it. But also like, I feel like this book is a framework for resistance. So like it's showing us how we resist, how we fight back. Like the answer is, y'all, the group community, right? The answer is literacy. In the book, everybody's illiterate and mama is literate and a teacher, and she's getting the girls together. That's it. Right. Um, accumulating information through literacy. But like, she knew how to desalinate water. I don't know if I said that. Right. Uh, salt the water. Um, because she because she read about it. She knew how to navigate maps because she learned. Right? So, like, they were able to survive better because of all of the because she was literate, because she accumulated this information also being ready, being prepped. Come on. Doing, doing drills, coming up with plans, actually talking about like if something were to happen with you and your people going to do. Where y'all going to meet? How y'all going to communicate all of that? Right. So I think I'm choosing that book because it's topical. It's on point, I think like our answer for it is us.

Nandi K Amen. I'm recommending Sky Full of Elephants. Yeah. This is a speculative fiction book I've been reading. So and so is Parable of the Sower. It's a big speculative fiction year, just with the world. But all white people walk into the sea. And I just love to see, uh, one blackness in all its richness, learning in all its forms, the way that black people learn and like when we're not, like, strapped into these fucking racist ass institutions. And also that getting rid of white people does not a black utopia make, um, we still have our own problems and we still have issues ourselves. But that one, that book gave me a lot of hope for the future. I have never felt so hopeful than after reading a book where all white people walk into the ocean one day.

Vance Gowe It felt special now, like I was reading it and I felt like this, this, this sense of joy and serenity is really the word because it was just like this, calming in the back, serene feeling. And I was just like, what is this? And yeah, I love that book. Uh, we read that on book club. Uh, some folks, I think they never mind whatever. Uh, we read that in book club. I really liked it.

Nandi K Yeah, it was really great. Well, today's episode is sponsored by your local library and the Libby app. Get loaded up on library cards, folks. Uh, big thanks to our producer and audio adonis, Aaron Ram Freeman .

Vance Gowe I'm Vance. Go. And you can find me at your local library.

Nandi K And I'm Nandi K you can find me on Instagram and threads @NandiKayyy. We’ll see y'all next time.

(“Read A Book” by Bomani Armah plays.)