Hello everyone and welcome to talk nerdy. Today is Monday, February 2, 2026, and I'm the host of the show, Dr. Kara Santa Maria.

And as always, before we dive into this week's episode, I want to thank those of you who make talk nerdy possible.

Remember, we follow a user-funded model here on the show.

I use Patreon as my platform, and so if you're interested in learning how to pledge on an

episodic basis, at least for the for like the immediate future, I know that Apple once again is

trying to change their model, which may force us all to change this to a monthly pledge as opposed

to a per creation pledge. Sorry to be on the weeds on that. Those of you who are already

patrons, you probably know what that means. Those of you who are not, don't worry about it just yet.

But if you are interested in pledging your support on a per episode basis, any amount helps. All you've

got to do is visit patreon.com slash talk nerdy. That's p-a-t-r-e- patreon.com slash talk nerdy that's p a t-r-e-on-com

slash talk nerdy this week's top patrons include chuck blell david j e smith daniel lang

mary niva annu baravage david compton brian holden gabbo jay uly haggman pasqualej Jalati, and Joe Wilkinson. Thank you all so, so much.

All right, I've got a good one for you this week. I had the opportunity to chat with Professor Mersa Baradaran.

She's a law professor at the University of California, Irvine, and she's written several books in the past,

including The Quiet Coup, The Color of Money, and How the Other Half Banks.

She has a new book out, it's so important, called The Racial Wealth Gap, A Brief History.

And let me tell you, we get into it. So without any further ado,

here she is, Professor Merza Baradaradaran. Well, Marisa, thank you so much for joining me today.

Thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure. I am excited to talk about your new book,

The Racial Wealth Gap, a Brief History. It's not your only book, though. You're a law professor at UC Irvine, and you've written several books. Is your kind of focus on, I guess, social justice and, like, economics, banking, kind of how those

things interplay?

Yeah.

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