Speaker 1: Welcome to the Laverne Cox Show, our production of shand
Speaker 1: Land Audio in partnership with My Heart Radio. What would
Speaker 1: it be like if people were able to not just
Speaker 1: come together with coombae y'all, but most importantly be able
Speaker 1: to engage in struggle to preserve the possibility of treating
Speaker 1: others in a humane and human way. To see, that's
Speaker 1: that's break dance, but Terry, that's hallelloja material. It's a
Speaker 1: brother fied make mc how I look like a boy
Speaker 1: scout break dancing in the name of joy and hope
Speaker 1: and justice and a deep deep love. Hello everyone, and
Speaker 1: welcome to the la Verne Cox Show. I'm Laverne Cox,
Speaker 1: and I have quoted Cornell west famous proclamation that justice
Speaker 1: is what love looks like in public so many times
Speaker 1: I have seen his words attributed to me. Justice is
Speaker 1: what love looks like in public, just like tenderness is
Speaker 1: what love feels like in private. West goes on to
Speaker 1: say that feels like the truth to me. I discovered
Speaker 1: Cornell West work through my college obsession with Belle Hooks.
Speaker 1: They published a book together called Breaking Bread, Insurgent Black
Speaker 1: Intellectual Life. Cornell West is certainly one of America's greatest orators.
Speaker 1: When I started my college tour in I obsessively studied West.
Speaker 1: West is a professor of philosopher, one of our nation's
Speaker 1: foremost public intellectuals. Always in spirit, as we say in
Speaker 1: the Black Church, Dr West allows that holy ghost spirit
Speaker 1: coupled with a deep desire for justice to enter his body,
Speaker 1: to take over and to speak through him. Dr Cornell
Speaker 1: West is a philosopher, author, professor, and activists fighting for truth, love,
Speaker 1: and racial justice. He is a familiar name in most
Speaker 1: households as a prominent democratic intellectual and frequent guest on
Speaker 1: The Bill Marshow, CNN, c SPAN, and Democracy Now. He
Speaker 1: has written over twenty books, including Race Matters and Democracy Matters,
Speaker 1: and It's taught at Union Theological Seminary, Harvard, Yale, Princeton,
Speaker 1: among others. West currently co hosts the podcast The Type
Speaker 1: Broke with Tricia Rhoes. Please enjoy my conversation the Dr
Speaker 1: Cornell West. Dr West, Welcome to the podcast. How are
Speaker 1: you feeling today? Well, I tell you I want to
Speaker 1: salute you and all that you own and all that
Speaker 1: you have done and are doing. My idea, Sister, I
Speaker 1: consider you one of the great love conductors on the
Speaker 1: love trains. Thank you, thank you, thank you so much.
Speaker 1: I love that you started with love. I was thinking
Speaker 1: about how I wanted you to start the conversation. I
Speaker 1: was thinking about how much I love you and love
Speaker 1: your work. And I want to just take a moment
Speaker 1: to invite the energy, the spirit of what you call
Speaker 1: that black prophetic fire to enter this conversation. Today. When
Speaker 1: you speak and when you write, I feel the energy
Speaker 1: of our ancestors speaking through you. I feel that you
Speaker 1: get sort of get the spirit in the in the
Speaker 1: way that we, you know, talk about in the church.
Speaker 1: And so I just want to invite that energy and
Speaker 1: spirit and today as we chat for the first time.
Speaker 1: But the beautiful thing is is that it's always already
Speaker 1: operating inside of you. And you and I are at
Speaker 1: the deepest level kindred spirits, because we come from a
Speaker 1: people who have been hated for four hundred years. And
Speaker 1: keep dishing out the love warriors, yes, terrorized for four
Speaker 1: hundred years, and keep dishing out these freedom fighters traumatized
Speaker 1: for four hundred years, of dishing out these wounded heither
Speaker 1: and anytime I get a chance to see you, the heat,
Speaker 1: your you, your spirit, your presence exudes and ex simplifies
Speaker 1: and embodies this love warrior ship, and that to me
Speaker 1: is always the bottom line in terms of the highest
Speaker 1: level of what it means to be human. Absolutely absolutely,
Speaker 1: So I did a lot of I'm reading in preparation
Speaker 1: to prepare for our conversation today. And the way that
Speaker 1: I discovered your work almost thirty years ago was through
Speaker 1: Bell Hooks, and it was through the book that you
Speaker 1: and Bell did together, Breaking Bread. I was rereading parts
Speaker 1: of it last night and I this morning, I was like,
Speaker 1: I should call Bell and tell her that I'm talking
Speaker 1: to for the other day. So I gave her a
Speaker 1: ring this morning and I said, would you like me
Speaker 1: to say something to Dr West? And she said, tell
Speaker 1: him I love him even though he doesn't treat me right.
Speaker 1: You know that that's a very Bell. I'm thinking, oh, love,
Speaker 1: she's she's so much an intellectual giant, and uh, she's
Speaker 1: one of the love conductors to on on the love turn.
Speaker 1: Of course she comes at it now through the Buddhist tradition,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? I know that I think
Speaker 1: you A and me design that right, not sig, just
Speaker 1: just just yeah. And I'm holding the most holy ghost Baptists,
Speaker 1: and so all of us come out of the best
Speaker 1: because the worst of that church is a patriarchy, to homophobia,
Speaker 1: the losing sight of non binary precious folkus form. But
Speaker 1: the best is still the love that pierces through even
Speaker 1: those structures that produces the belt hooks, produces a love
Speaker 1: Ayon cos you know what I mean, produces by the West.
Speaker 1: One of the books that I've always been most excited
Speaker 1: about in terms of dialogue has been that breaking read book.
Speaker 1: Know that about it. So kind of you to mention
Speaker 1: that book. You know, a few people even allude or
Speaker 1: refer to that book even m which is a shame.
Speaker 1: It's um It's it's thirty years old this year actually
Speaker 1: I was published. And what you and Bell were trying
Speaker 1: to do, you were both at Yale at the time,
Speaker 1: and you're both trying to sort of, you know, have
Speaker 1: this public dialogue between black men and black women. And
Speaker 1: Bell also wanted me to to ask you about patriarchy
Speaker 1: and where you are with patriarchy. I would love to
Speaker 1: hear your thoughts now at this stage in your life
Speaker 1: about about patriarchy, black men in patriarchy, and your relationship
Speaker 1: to how you where you've examined your own relationship to
Speaker 1: that in your life. Yeah, no, I appreciate that. I
Speaker 1: should add as a footnote, yes, that the the copy
Speaker 1: editor to Breaking Bread is now a towering figure the
Speaker 1: name of Imanti Perry. Oh yes, yes, yes, that Demanti
Speaker 1: was an undergrad it. Yeah, let's say that because any
Speaker 1: time we talk about any form of evil patriarchy, white
Speaker 1: supremacis home of phobia, predator capitalism, repressive communist, or whatever
Speaker 1: is a that los a side of humanity folk, that
Speaker 1: one of our responses has to be trying to help
Speaker 1: shape and mold into the best of our ability produce
Speaker 1: folks who become forces for good against that evil. That's
Speaker 1: what when I think of Remandy Perry as a student
Speaker 1: and now a towering figure, I say, well, if my
Speaker 1: work will speak for me, then the question of who
Speaker 1: we help push and affirm and encourage and empower. So
Speaker 1: anytime I think about patriarchy, one of the things I
Speaker 1: want to say is what have I done to try
Speaker 1: to kill it? Because patriarchy is killing other folk. I
Speaker 1: don't want to be narcissistic or solipsistic. It's just about me.
Speaker 1: If I come to turn the patriarchy, then patriarchy has
Speaker 1: a chance of being dismantled. Now it's got to be
Speaker 1: collectively because its systemics and institutional structure domination exactly. So,
Speaker 1: these days, I think patriarchy is running amok. You can
Speaker 1: see it in the culture. And yet we've got some
Speaker 1: strong forces, including yourself and others and Bail and others,
Speaker 1: who are countervailing against the patriarchy running amok. And so
Speaker 1: anytime we talk about patriarchy, we want to understand it
Speaker 1: as a balance of forces resistance and domination, but relative too,
Speaker 1: of the structures of domination. Yeah, and when I think
Speaker 1: about breaking bread in relationships between black men and and
Speaker 1: black women, there's so much contempt right now. Colorism feels
Speaker 1: like it's like ripping our our community apart. In relationships
Speaker 1: with black men and black women, and in patriarchy, it's
Speaker 1: tied to all of very very true. I think that
Speaker 1: colorism has always been operating in such a way that
Speaker 1: is ripping us apart. Is just an under gym crow conditions.
Speaker 1: It couldn't operate in a broader way. Now, these days,
Speaker 1: we've got unprecedented opportunities for significant slice of us who
Speaker 1: are part of a black middle class part of a
Speaker 1: black bourgeoisie, and we have to make sure that no
Speaker 1: matter what our social status is, that our spirits intact,
Speaker 1: our sensitivity with the folk catching hell is strong. And
Speaker 1: therefore the connection between patriarchy and colorism and class and
Speaker 1: even empire and homophobia has to always kick in. Yes,
Speaker 1: the capitalism peace feels very precedent right now, particularly one
Speaker 1: one thinks of colorism and relationship to patriarchy. And I
Speaker 1: think the piece to where seeing black men musical artists
Speaker 1: be such arbiters of colorism so so blatantly, you know,
Speaker 1: That's really what I'm thinking in the the pain that
Speaker 1: that causes, the pain and the trauma that that causes
Speaker 1: for so many black women out there. And you you
Speaker 1: obviously talk about the catastrophic, the traumatic and the lives
Speaker 1: and the experiences of black people all the time. And
Speaker 1: I just was there a moment for you, perhaps it
Speaker 1: was just in the text Two Boys and and Socrates
Speaker 1: and whatnot, where there was a trauma or where there
Speaker 1: was something, you know, a moment where you had an
Speaker 1: awakening of sources where you died. Where you always talk about,
Speaker 1: you know, philosophy being the space where we go to
Speaker 1: learn to die? Is that an ongoing process for you?
Speaker 1: Was there a moment, you know, in your early scholarship
Speaker 1: where something shifted for you around and was there something traumatic?
Speaker 1: I guess, um relationship to all that your question is
Speaker 1: so good and high quality. I wish we had four
Speaker 1: hours rather than whatever about the time you wanta take.
Speaker 1: But um, I mean right now, the death of my mother.
Speaker 1: That's the major traumatic he's been in my life. The
Speaker 1: be his catastrophe when I go back, certainly when I
Speaker 1: got kicked out of school and no school would take
Speaker 1: me because I was a young gangster. How old were
Speaker 1: you when you were kicked out of school? I was
Speaker 1: kicked out of school and I was seven years old.
Speaker 1: Refused to salute the flag, and I got in the
Speaker 1: fight with my teacher and we ended up with a
Speaker 1: little riot the Communion Elementary School on Chocolate side of Sacramento,
Speaker 1: and I got in very, very deep trouble. I knew
Speaker 1: that this was going to be a turning point in
Speaker 1: my life because mom was a teacher, not in the
Speaker 1: same school, but a teacher, and Dad came home early,
Speaker 1: you know, and got his belt out. That would be one. Uh.
Speaker 1: When I think of Martin Luther King Jr. Being shocked
Speaker 1: because I was trying to be a great athlete at
Speaker 1: that time and track star. It hit me so hard
Speaker 1: that I decided then that his legacy was something that
Speaker 1: I would try to always view as a stay ended
Speaker 1: of moral and spiritual excellence and aspire to and whatever
Speaker 1: form of life I pursued. Those were probably the most
Speaker 1: discernible ones beside the deeply personal ones in terms of
Speaker 1: you know, relationships to say, I won't get into all
Speaker 1: of that right now, but in the end, it's really
Speaker 1: for me and I love to hear what you have
Speaker 1: to say. My bus sister is uh, it's two black musicians.
Speaker 1: It's done a halfway and John Coltrane and Saravan Carmen
Speaker 1: McCrae and glad As Night and dramatics and whispers and thinks.
Speaker 1: They're the ones who for me provide the kind of
Speaker 1: spiritual resources, the spiritual wherewithal to withstand whatever catastrophic effects
Speaker 1: are bombarding me. Yes, and there there have been many lately.
Speaker 1: I want to actually read a quote of yours about
Speaker 1: music that is, they're so beautiful that my brother reminded
Speaker 1: me of when I spoke to him earlier about you.
Speaker 1: You've said of music at its best is the grand
Speaker 1: archaeology into and transfiguration of our guttural cry, the great
Speaker 1: human effort to grasp in time our deepest passions and
Speaker 1: yearnings as prisoners of time. Profound music leads us beyond
Speaker 1: language to the dark roots of our scream and the
Speaker 1: celestial heights of our silence. That's some beautiful prose, doctor West.
Speaker 1: You know, I was thinking, one of the main reasons
Speaker 1: I wanted to have a conversation with you is that
Speaker 1: you for over forty years, you have been a freedom fighter.
Speaker 1: You've been a love warrior, teaching at prisons, getting arrested, protesting,
Speaker 1: being canceled, you know, you know, and all of the things,
Speaker 1: and yet you still are fighting. Yet you still show
Speaker 1: up last year after you know, Porst George Floyd and
Speaker 1: post Brianna Taylor and Tony McDade and just all of
Speaker 1: what was going on in the world. And really, for me,
Speaker 1: the trauma of repeatedly seeing black people murdered on camera
Speaker 1: are nervous, since are made to see people be murdered
Speaker 1: on camera, that is not normal. Broke I broke down,
Speaker 1: and it was I just couldn't, you know, I couldn't
Speaker 1: go to a protest, I couldn't speak. I had to
Speaker 1: get myself together. How have you kept going all these
Speaker 1: years in the fight when it's hard, when it's traumatizing,
Speaker 1: when people are trying to cancel you, when people are
Speaker 1: saying all kinds of crazy stuff about you, and you
Speaker 1: keep speaking shoot to power? What keeps you in the fight? Dr? West? Well,
Speaker 1: I mean one is my dear sister, and all honesty
Speaker 1: that when I see persons like yourself and others who
Speaker 1: have made a promise to be true to their calling
Speaker 1: based on the best of a tradition that has shaped
Speaker 1: them at the deepest spiritual and moral and intellectual level,
Speaker 1: then I know that the cloud of witnesses that we all,
Speaker 1: at our best want to be a part of is
Speaker 1: always worth it. It's always something that allows us to
Speaker 1: make whatever risk and take whatever costs we need in
Speaker 1: order to keep it going, so that, no matter what
Speaker 1: the immediate consequences are, the quality of the person of
Speaker 1: period tubbing and either be wells by net and sojourn
Speaker 1: at Truths and Martin Malcolm, that the quality of who
Speaker 1: they are, their sincerity and their integrity is worthy of
Speaker 1: our preservation. Manifest in our lives, regardless of whether it
Speaker 1: looks like there will be immediate victory. And so, for example,
Speaker 1: doing the Obama years, you know, and he had a
Speaker 1: whole lot of loving folks who didn't treat me to lovingly.
Speaker 1: And that's all right, because everybody don't love everybody equally. Now,
Speaker 1: I can I tell you that was deeply painful for
Speaker 1: me to watch. So during during the Obama administration, you
Speaker 1: were very critical of the president at the time, and
Speaker 1: there was tremendous backlash from the black intelligencia from many
Speaker 1: people who took issue with you being critical of Obama.
Speaker 1: There there was so much love for him, and the
Speaker 1: criticism folks just were we're not able to receieve at
Speaker 1: the time. No, it's true. I mean I thought he
Speaker 1: was two tied to Wall Street. None of the Wall
Speaker 1: Street gangster went to jail where so many of everyday
Speaker 1: people were going to jail. At the time. I thought
Speaker 1: he was too blind when he came to dropping drones
Speaker 1: on innocent people. Those are war crimes for me, five
Speaker 1: sixty three drones dropped, two thousand and so innocent people killed.
Speaker 1: So it was hard to be critical of brother Barack
Speaker 1: Obama because he's so borried and he's so poised. But
Speaker 1: any president, no matter what color, you know, when he
Speaker 1: tied to Wall Street greed like that, when they tied
Speaker 1: the drones like that, when you're not really coming out
Speaker 1: but the critique of mass incarceration and the police and
Speaker 1: allowing the militarizing of the police take place. So you
Speaker 1: end up with a black Lies Matter movement under a
Speaker 1: black president, of black attorney general and a black Homeland
Speaker 1: Security Cabinlet secretary. That's just the people themselves expressing their
Speaker 1: own critiques. And I resonated with that critique in that regard.
Speaker 1: But that doesn't mean that Barack Obama was not its
Speaker 1: somewhere forceful good. It was just for me to milk, toast,
Speaker 1: to centrists, to moderate and too tied to the powers
Speaker 1: that be and not tied to the least of these enough.
Speaker 1: That was really what it was about. If there's anything
Speaker 1: about that period that you would do differently about around
Speaker 1: your critique of Obama, there were many people at the
Speaker 1: time who agreed with your critique but thought that that
Speaker 1: that the language and the tone was less than than humanizing.
Speaker 1: All these years later, do you and he regrets? So,
Speaker 1: how do you feel today. I think that people have
Speaker 1: people have good ground for saying some of my language
Speaker 1: was a little bit too hyperbolic, There's no doubt about that,
Speaker 1: but that's just the way I am. It really is
Speaker 1: gang I got gangster elements even in my my fire,
Speaker 1: and sometimes that spills over. So I could have said that,
Speaker 1: for example, uh, he's two tips the Wall Street, but
Speaker 1: I had reached the point where I was calling him,
Speaker 1: you know, a black puppet of Wall Street. Well, that's
Speaker 1: that's my language. Is hard not to be true to
Speaker 1: my language, you know what I mean. It's like asking
Speaker 1: Eddie Kendriy is not the same falsetto. It's hard to
Speaker 1: And yet when I listened to us, said, oh, would
Speaker 1: have me in turns before golf and and and they're
Speaker 1: right about that. So then I'd have to come back
Speaker 1: and I would use a different language. But that lagmage
Speaker 1: had already taken off next to you know, it's the
Speaker 1: internet everywhere. So in that sense, yes, I think all
Speaker 1: of us ought to be able to look back and
Speaker 1: be critical and self critical. But I certainly would not
Speaker 1: have in anywhere attenuate the orientation of where I was going,
Speaker 1: Because we're really talking about the plight of the least
Speaker 1: of these under any president, no matter what color they
Speaker 1: are or agenda they are. What was that like though,
Speaker 1: in the midst of it, right in the midst of
Speaker 1: and I've I've thought interviews that you gave at the
Speaker 1: time when you know that Michael Eric Dyson Peace came out,
Speaker 1: What was it like continuing to go on television, continuing
Speaker 1: to get arrested, continuing to go to protests, continuing to
Speaker 1: teach when there were such vitriol for me, when I've
Speaker 1: had people when I felt misrepresented right publicly as a
Speaker 1: public figure, when people are sort of misrepresenting what my
Speaker 1: attentions are, it's so painful, and I really I have
Speaker 1: this desire to be understood, and just it gets like,
Speaker 1: how can I keep going on and going out there
Speaker 1: when people are so cruel? And you kept going out
Speaker 1: there and and it was it was bad, It was
Speaker 1: really really bad. So, um, honey, what's going on? I mean,
Speaker 1: it is different. You know, we give my dear brother
Speaker 1: Dison coming at me, hit me below the bill. That's
Speaker 1: a little differ within some of the right wing folks
Speaker 1: on Fox or something. That always different when your own
Speaker 1: people are coming for you so that does hit differently.
Speaker 1: But you know, as a free black man and as
Speaker 1: a Christian, though, I always had to have a sense
Speaker 1: that I should never ever be surprised at any kind
Speaker 1: of evil or paralyzed by any kind of despair. So
Speaker 1: I could be hurt, it could be painful, I could
Speaker 1: be upset, but I shouldn't be surprised, which means that
Speaker 1: I've always got some gas in my tank to keep
Speaker 1: going and recognized Dyson still my brother, He's still got
Speaker 1: some positive things to say. I'm just coming at him
Speaker 1: tooth and nail in the name of the truth. Understand,
Speaker 1: you see what I mean and say it would be
Speaker 1: true for whatever it is right wing folks, the Nazi,
Speaker 1: same as true for you know, gangs like Trump and others,
Speaker 1: because I know I got some gangs in me like
Speaker 1: everybody else. So in that way, I can never conceive
Speaker 1: of circumstances under which I would not still come out
Speaker 1: swinging in the name of love. And I think you
Speaker 1: know what one of the things that just spell Holds
Speaker 1: myself would always say is that you see, our love
Speaker 1: for black people is unconditional. It's not quit procool, it's
Speaker 1: not If you love me, I will love you. I
Speaker 1: love you because you love me. Now, when we go
Speaker 1: into a church or a mosque or temple or community center,
Speaker 1: even a nightclub, to speak that we're loving black people
Speaker 1: because black people are worthy of being loved regardless of
Speaker 1: what they say or do to us, and nobody can
Speaker 1: take that away. Amen, Now, it feels like a great
Speaker 1: time for a short break. We'll be right back though. Okay,
Speaker 1: we're back. Let's keep the conversation going. One of the
Speaker 1: things I really and it it keeps my own moral
Speaker 1: and ethical compass, you know, sort of on track and
Speaker 1: and in the right direction. Is you always talk about
Speaker 1: the least of these. You always talk about poor and
Speaker 1: working people and what we can and should be doing
Speaker 1: for them. You've spoken how you were sort of encouraged
Speaker 1: by some of the early signs of this current current administration.
Speaker 1: And I you know, I'm worried because there's you know,
Speaker 1: there's no fifteen dollar minimum wage right that we have
Speaker 1: a able to raise them rasimum wage for poor and
Speaker 1: working people, and that um, the way in which our
Speaker 1: politicians are so corrupted by money and politics keeps the
Speaker 1: the um concerns a poor and working people on the periphery.
Speaker 1: What can we be doing now to hold our politicians
Speaker 1: accountable when they're really more accountable, seem more accountable to
Speaker 1: special interest into um, you know, big money. There is
Speaker 1: an opportunity to shift things structurally, and I'm I'm just
Speaker 1: so terrified that we're not going to take it for
Speaker 1: the least of least for the people who are most vulnerable.
Speaker 1: My Desu, you get at the heart and core of
Speaker 1: what my vision and vocation has been. I bigly appreciate
Speaker 1: that because those words in the twenty fifth chap. But Matthew,
Speaker 1: me and the world have made it because what you
Speaker 1: do the least these you do unto me. I think
Speaker 1: in the present moment, on the one hand, we got
Speaker 1: the fascist threats still operating with Trump and company in
Speaker 1: the Republican Party that's undergone a fascist expansion. So even
Speaker 1: the List Change, who has been wrong and cold and
Speaker 1: callous and and different to working people and poor people
Speaker 1: her whole career, ends up having a moment of integ
Speaker 1: because you doesn't want to succumb the fastest taking over
Speaker 1: her party. And I salute her for that moment, as
Speaker 1: it were. But when it comes to somebody like brother Biden,
Speaker 1: as sister Harris brother Biden. I mean, he's got blood
Speaker 1: on his hands. He got four crimes against humanity, mass incarceration,
Speaker 1: invasion and occupation of a rock, the unleashing of Wall Street,
Speaker 1: greed with the repeal of Glass Stigel, a vicious Israeli
Speaker 1: domination and occupation. He has been not just a supporter,
Speaker 1: but he's been an architect and bragged about it up
Speaker 1: until recently. So he can change. I believe anybody can change,
Speaker 1: and he's his capacity to change with the relief bill
Speaker 1: and the infrastructure bill and talking about white supremacy and
Speaker 1: Jim Crow. I applaud that he might have been LBJ
Speaker 1: in that regard. But also when it comes to these
Speaker 1: issues of foreign policy, like what's happening Goza, and he
Speaker 1: finally makes a decision to call for to cease fire,
Speaker 1: and people want to give him some moral prize because
Speaker 1: he's engaging in such courageous at you, I say, that's ridiculous.
Speaker 1: We got to be honest about this, and it's sad
Speaker 1: to see that. Uh, you know, we don't have forces
Speaker 1: in the Democratic Party that are strong. And thank God
Speaker 1: for Brother Bernie sound Us and Brother Rocanna and the
Speaker 1: system of read Newman and others, and thank God for
Speaker 1: Corey and the squad was trying to push this through,
Speaker 1: but it's still just it's not enough. And I must say,
Speaker 1: when it comes to our black politicians, my dear sister,
Speaker 1: it's a sad affair. We've seen coward ladness, we've seen copictulation,
Speaker 1: and it's a sad thing. And that's true, not just
Speaker 1: in terms of the way in which palestines are being treated,
Speaker 1: but when you get somebody like by and it stands
Speaker 1: up and says, this is not a racist country. You said,
Speaker 1: get off the crack pipe, brother, you can't tell the truth.
Speaker 1: And then sister Harris echoes that. Then brother Clyde Burne
Speaker 1: echoes that. And you know, if he said this is
Speaker 1: a racist country, then they would say it's racist because
Speaker 1: they're just echoes of the boss. And that's the last
Speaker 1: thing we need. We need for with integrity who willed
Speaker 1: to tell the truth, how can you even think that
Speaker 1: America is not deeply racist and not a racist country.
Speaker 1: That didn't mean every individual in the country's racial institution
Speaker 1: structures deeply shot through with white supremacy, going and tell
Speaker 1: the truth, don't deny it, and then highlight the countervailing
Speaker 1: forces against it. That's the crucial thing, it seems to me.
Speaker 1: And I would say the same thing about America being
Speaker 1: a homophobic country, and the same thing about it being
Speaker 1: a class this country, and it is an empire, it's
Speaker 1: an imperial country, but that doesn't mean anybody in the
Speaker 1: country is homophobic. Everybody in the country is sexist, but
Speaker 1: it's a deeplyst sexist society. So when you get these
Speaker 1: kind of moments of cowardliness, you said to yourself, you
Speaker 1: had a democratic party establishment is still in milk toal form,
Speaker 1: even though it's doing some very progressive things in other spheres,
Speaker 1: and I do want to support those infrastructure bills and
Speaker 1: other such efforts. It's, you know, just telling the truth
Speaker 1: about that America being a racist country. What is intense
Speaker 1: to me right now looking at the state of things
Speaker 1: is that is they they extent to which folks, particularly
Speaker 1: on the right, are being radicalized by social media based
Speaker 1: book by conservative media. There's such um persistent propaganda and
Speaker 1: misinformation happening in conservative media that feels almost insurmountable. Right.
Speaker 1: We tell you you are always talking about telling the
Speaker 1: truth and and when you know killing in conways, you
Speaker 1: know alternative facts. You know, I think she coined in
Speaker 1: on Meet the Press. The idea of alternative facts means
Speaker 1: that we're talking about misinformation, We're talking about lies, mendacity
Speaker 1: as as you would say. So in the face of
Speaker 1: mendacity of lives of propaganda, people who aren't even exposed
Speaker 1: to the truth, right, who have not developed the critical
Speaker 1: consciousness because we don't value education. And in this country,
Speaker 1: how can the truth even break through when our media
Speaker 1: has done such a bad job, you know, established media
Speaker 1: has done such a bad job of informing the public,
Speaker 1: and then there's such a concerted effort in sort of
Speaker 1: conservative media, you know, propagandies. So then how does the
Speaker 1: truth prevailed? How can the truth come in this current moment,
Speaker 1: in the current state of our media. Yes see, I
Speaker 1: think historically the truth is always a flickering candle against
Speaker 1: the backdrop of the night. Always think of what Frederick
Speaker 1: Douglas and Harriet Tubman were up against in terms of
Speaker 1: lives and crimes and mendacity and criminality, the normalizing of
Speaker 1: hatred and greed, and white supremacy and male supremacy and
Speaker 1: predatory capital. So in that sense, even though social media
Speaker 1: is a new form of technology to facilitate lives and
Speaker 1: crimes and mendacity in criminality. The truth is always headed
Speaker 1: towards the cross, So we shouldn't be surprised when you
Speaker 1: see how mighty these devilish lives are. But we have
Speaker 1: to believe in the end that there's something that's almighty
Speaker 1: or mighty year than the lies and the crimes such
Speaker 1: that it will not suffocate and saturate the world and
Speaker 1: history in such a way that there's no truth tellers left.
Speaker 1: I mean, look at Soviet Union, they thought they could
Speaker 1: just completely eliminate the truth tellers in the name of communists.
Speaker 1: And I say this as a leftist, but you gotta
Speaker 1: tell the truth. Look at South Africa, they thought they
Speaker 1: can completely do away with the truth tellers, whatever Tina
Speaker 1: Tusulu and and and Nelse Mandela and the other. Look
Speaker 1: at the United States, they think they can completely do
Speaker 1: away under McCarthy is or with Claudie Jones and and
Speaker 1: Ben Davis and the communists trying to tell the truth,
Speaker 1: not always right on everything, but certainly right about capitalism
Speaker 1: and racism and so forth. So in that way, the
Speaker 1: liars never completely wipe folk out. And I just want
Speaker 1: to be part of that cloud of witnesses that keeps
Speaker 1: alive that tradition and then pass it on to the
Speaker 1: sister Laverne Coxes because I read it in the Google
Speaker 1: that was said Sister labery Cock said justice is what
Speaker 1: love looks like in public, and it makes me want
Speaker 1: to break things, just like tenderness is what love feels
Speaker 1: like in private. I sent as a video of you
Speaker 1: I'm saying that to my boyfriend a few weeks ago,
Speaker 1: and he was like, that's exactly right. And to have that,
Speaker 1: to really know what love is, to know what that
Speaker 1: tenderness feels like in private and then have a version
Speaker 1: for what that could be in public, it's just so
Speaker 1: powerful to me. It just I always think, can you
Speaker 1: imagine what it would look like if our policies were
Speaker 1: built in love and the truth, and that we can
Speaker 1: love everyone right, That we could have the humanity, the
Speaker 1: beautiful humanity of every citizen highlighted in our the way
Speaker 1: we do public policy, the way we structure our institutions.
Speaker 1: If that was from a place of love, that could
Speaker 1: be It's beautiful, beautiful revolution. But you understand, you understand that.
Speaker 1: So I've been blessed teaching prisons for forty one years.
Speaker 1: And if there's an anthem of my brothers in prisons,
Speaker 1: it would be a zoomed by the common duals. I
Speaker 1: don't know if I know that zoo zoo. I like
Speaker 1: to fly Oh wait, well, I like to fly away.
Speaker 1: I like the fly away zoom. And the dream is
Speaker 1: the freedom dream, and it reminds us of the great
Speaker 1: classic of Robert Kelly book called Freedom Dream. And it's
Speaker 1: just dream of what things would really be like if
Speaker 1: our humanity and dignity were affirmed across race, across any
Speaker 1: form of national identity, during the sexual orientation and so forth.
Speaker 1: What would it be like if people were able to
Speaker 1: not just come together with coombae y'all, but most importantly
Speaker 1: be able to engage in struggle to preserve the possibility
Speaker 1: of treating others in a humane and human way. And see,
Speaker 1: that's that's break dance material, that's hallelloja material. It's abother fire.
Speaker 1: Make MC look like a boy scout in terms of
Speaker 1: break dance and in the name of joy and hope
Speaker 1: and justice and a deep, deep love. Yes, when when
Speaker 1: I think about I was talking to my brother this
Speaker 1: morning about that black prophetic fire and traditions and hope
Speaker 1: and and being in your blues man, of course, and
Speaker 1: that in the blues and the catastrophe of the blues
Speaker 1: is joy and there is always the joy there. And
Speaker 1: when I, of course, whenever I think about joy, I
Speaker 1: think about what Burnee Brown says about joy that she
Speaker 1: in her research, she discovered their joy is the most
Speaker 1: difficult emotion to feel. That is the most vulnerable emotion
Speaker 1: to feel, because often when we are truly in a
Speaker 1: space of being joyous, we are for bow joy, wait
Speaker 1: for the other shooter drop so to allow ourselves to
Speaker 1: feel joy. It is the most vulnerable of emotions. But
Speaker 1: that is so deeply rooted in in what it means
Speaker 1: to be black and American. There's so many people in
Speaker 1: social media now talking about black joy and how important
Speaker 1: me is to lean into that. Leaning into black joy
Speaker 1: is leaning into that black prophetic fires, leaning into the
Speaker 1: things that you know have sustained us for for centuries.
Speaker 1: And it also is incredibly vulnerable, and vulnerability is really
Speaker 1: the the source of everything that allows us to be
Speaker 1: all that we can be. I think for vulnerability, it's
Speaker 1: often thought of as weakness, and you know, number one
Speaker 1: vulnerability yield for for men is to not appear weak.
Speaker 1: And so I think that that among men that needs
Speaker 1: to be a conversation around letting go of those those ideas,
Speaker 1: like letting those ideas die so they can come to
Speaker 1: a more more in line place. But emotion of associating
Speaker 1: vulnerability with a willingness to be crushed, you see, they're
Speaker 1: not the same thing. That vulnerability is a way of
Speaker 1: allowing you to open up such that you end up
Speaker 1: being stronger. So when you do have a confrontation with
Speaker 1: Miles had had a conversation with the police and they
Speaker 1: beat him down like a doll and he was swinging.
Speaker 1: I'm swinging with him too. Why because there's moments in
Speaker 1: which your strength is not going to be manifesting vulnerability.
Speaker 1: Of strength will be manifesting the tenacity against the a
Speaker 1: force of coersion. But in terms of living and in
Speaker 1: terms of relationship, the strongest of us, whatever our intention,
Speaker 1: wherever we are, it has to be one in which
Speaker 1: we're willing to give in order to receive, and we're
Speaker 1: giving in such a way that the receiving that we
Speaker 1: have has a bottom less nets to it. That's what
Speaker 1: love is. Yes, the more you give the more you receive.
Speaker 1: The more you receive, the more you're able to give.
Speaker 1: But you can't do that without verbability. It also means
Speaker 1: you're wound the ball. It also means that you can
Speaker 1: get hurt, and that is that unfortunate or whateverything about love.
Speaker 1: It's a beautiful thing, but it means we can get hurt,
Speaker 1: and we have to be willing to risk that hurt,
Speaker 1: to be wound a ball, to really truly be vulnerable.
Speaker 1: That's true, No, but that's that's wisdom at the deepest level.
Speaker 1: Because you know Sappho a great poet from the Greek period,
Speaker 1: or at least among the Greeks, where she says, the
Speaker 1: bitter sweetness its constitutive of the love. Every love, you're
Speaker 1: gonna get hurt. The question is how you gonna deal
Speaker 1: with the hurt. Are you tied to a love such
Speaker 1: that two k survive without that love? Which goes and
Speaker 1: then add with the bitter sweetness, because if you think
Speaker 1: you can love with no bitter sweet you better go
Speaker 1: onto disney Land, stay on Main Street, drink your soda pop.
Speaker 1: You know what I mean. You won't kill us. And
Speaker 1: I think that's what I always have to remind myself
Speaker 1: of it to face the pain. And we're gonna have
Speaker 1: to face the pain, but it won't kill us. I
Speaker 1: can survive. That's exactly. Vulnerability comes from the Latin as
Speaker 1: you know, BuNos, which means wound. Yes, there is no
Speaker 1: love without vulnerability, just like there is no intimacy without vulnerability,
Speaker 1: which means the question becomes, what do you do with
Speaker 1: your wounds? And with those wounds? Will you be a
Speaker 1: wounded healer and joy spreader or will you be a
Speaker 1: wounded hurter and a joy crusher? And all of us
Speaker 1: have these poles inside of our souls. But when it
Speaker 1: comes to Black folks, you see, we are a great
Speaker 1: people at our best. We are world historical people at
Speaker 1: our best, because we have looked unflinchingly at the most
Speaker 1: grim and dim reality these of catastrophe in the modern
Speaker 1: world and has kept dishing out these persons of hiden
Speaker 1: vulnerability who look at their wounds and still want to
Speaker 1: heal others rather than just go about trashing others. That's
Speaker 1: what Martin King's about, That's what John Coltran's Love Supremes about.
Speaker 1: That's what Whya Jackson is about. That's what the tax
Speaker 1: is about. I'm telling you, because the thing is, people
Speaker 1: don't understand the connection between your historical role as transgressing
Speaker 1: some of these ugly homophobic and transgender sensibilities but always
Speaker 1: situating it in the caravan and love. But the Isley
Speaker 1: bother or the love training of any persons who are
Speaker 1: wrestling with their wounds in such a way that they're
Speaker 1: concerned about healing others. That's the cloud of what that
Speaker 1: says that I'm talking about. You know, I often think
Speaker 1: that it's not an accident at the first openly transmitter
Speaker 1: of person to be on the cover of Time magazine,
Speaker 1: to be nominated for an immediate as a black trans
Speaker 1: woman and a black trans woman who deeply understands the
Speaker 1: tradition of black folks in America, and and and I'm
Speaker 1: very clear that if I've ever done anything great in
Speaker 1: my life that it is because of the ancestors. It
Speaker 1: is because of the transcestors. And I've allowed myself to
Speaker 1: be used that I that I've allowed that. I think
Speaker 1: it's important to know when you always say the best
Speaker 1: of us, and I think to the but the worst
Speaker 1: of us though, right, you know, the worst of black folks.
Speaker 1: I think about that Sam Jackson's character and Jay and
Speaker 1: Go and Chain, and you know, we know black folks
Speaker 1: sold other black folks. We know that black men have
Speaker 1: been horribly misogynistic towards Black women, and so there, so
Speaker 1: there is the trauma piece. Hurt people, hurt people, right,
Speaker 1: there's such a deep pain. So there's all these things
Speaker 1: that we have done that we do out of pain,
Speaker 1: out of trauma. There's the accountability piece, and there's making
Speaker 1: amends and how do we heal the trauma? Build trauma
Speaker 1: resilience and shame resilience, And these are huge parts of
Speaker 1: my life and my work. And I know that so
Speaker 1: much of the transphobia I've experienced in my life, and
Speaker 1: it's been from other black people in a lot of pain.
Speaker 1: Right that that there's a that there is historically a
Speaker 1: legacy of literal emasculation of black men, right when black
Speaker 1: men were lynched off in their genitalia with with cut off.
Speaker 1: There's this this history, you know, in cinema and of
Speaker 1: the literally emasculation of black men. So there's a lot
Speaker 1: of pain I think that we are aware of and
Speaker 1: not aware of attached to that, and that has been
Speaker 1: often projected onto me as a black trans woman, and
Speaker 1: how do we reconcile that pain without becoming the oppressor?
Speaker 1: I mean, one is always recognized and a degree to
Speaker 1: which we're all on a human continual so that we
Speaker 1: never put ourselves above others even when they are morally
Speaker 1: and spiritually wrong, because we know there's elements in them
Speaker 1: that are in us, which means they have a capacity
Speaker 1: to change, Which means that at the moment with the
Speaker 1: engaging gangs activity, and we have a gangster element inside
Speaker 1: of us, and that doesn't really all the same. It
Speaker 1: just means we made different kinds of choices in this regard,
Speaker 1: you see, so that the kind of internalized oppression that
Speaker 1: the Great Arctic Lord talks about. Of course Belle Us
Speaker 1: talks about this as the great theory of radical pedagogy
Speaker 1: and education that she is. How do we attempt to
Speaker 1: kill and murder the forms of internalized oppression inside of
Speaker 1: us so that we are not in any way, in
Speaker 1: our actions and perceptions reproducing it, even though we claim
Speaker 1: to be progressive. And that's a human battle. That is
Speaker 1: a human battle. And in the end, I think it's
Speaker 1: really the arts and certain stories of great examples, because
Speaker 1: in the end, the only thing we really have to
Speaker 1: go on in terms of our ability to connect with
Speaker 1: each other with the love and the tenderness. Are the examples.
Speaker 1: You see what I mean. The sister Laverin Cox is
Speaker 1: a living sermon. It ain't just what is said head,
Speaker 1: it is what is lived. But what has lived still
Speaker 1: a human life, you know, it's not a life that
Speaker 1: somehow it's transcended. And and myself as a Christian because
Speaker 1: I go back to that palsing to do name Jesus,
Speaker 1: he's questioning the existence of God, my God, my God?
Speaker 1: Why does that? For a second, He's questioned his ability
Speaker 1: to conform to any kind of will of God. He's
Speaker 1: got a whole host of struggles going on inside of him,
Speaker 1: and it looks like, for a moment he's an atheist.
Speaker 1: For a moment he's an agnostic, because why he was
Speaker 1: the word made flash John one fourteen. It came to
Speaker 1: dwell among us. A whole lot of interpretations of that, right, Christians,
Speaker 1: that might be Jesus and other spirits for human beings.
Speaker 1: Is like the truth made flash, the embodiment of it,
Speaker 1: the concratization of examples. That's the key traditions that constitute
Speaker 1: those examples coming together, and there's those traditions that we
Speaker 1: try to keep alive. And that's why there's so much
Speaker 1: spiritual warfare against young folks, especially black young folks. If
Speaker 1: you can keep them from certain kind of loving spirits,
Speaker 1: sacrificial spirits, courageous spirits, only presented them the successful spirits
Speaker 1: who are accommodating themselves to a status quo, well adjusted
Speaker 1: the injustice, but got big spectacle, big money, big status,
Speaker 1: big position than the young folks no longer even have
Speaker 1: a perception. They can't even see what greatness is. All
Speaker 1: this is success. They can't see magnanimity, All this is prosperity.
Speaker 1: They can see integrity. All they say is cupidity. Oh
Speaker 1: I just want to be a lover of money. I
Speaker 1: just want to be a love of status. No, keep
Speaker 1: your money, have your status, but you better know something deep.
Speaker 1: But what came into the flesh, Some love came in
Speaker 1: Some justice was injected in there, some sacrifice was injected
Speaker 1: in there. And now was to exemplify that example, exemplify
Speaker 1: that kind of orientation. They got something the offer. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: they got some thank you so much of it's so beautiful.
Speaker 1: This it's the example. But I think I also think
Speaker 1: we should be in therapy, and I think we should
Speaker 1: be in therapy. I also think that we need to
Speaker 1: be dealing with addiction. If there is addiction, you know
Speaker 1: that that there's tough step programs, that there's their their ways,
Speaker 1: that we're actively engaged in a process of healing. Yes,
Speaker 1: I really is important to have that embodied in the
Speaker 1: somatic work that I do in my trauma resilience. That
Speaker 1: all of this has to be embodied to the beautiful
Speaker 1: resource of our ancests, the beautiful resource of those examples
Speaker 1: you you set forth. It is so incased, so important
Speaker 1: that that is embodied, that we feel that in our
Speaker 1: nervous systems. But then I think sometimes too, the trauma
Speaker 1: is so great, the abuse is so so real, that
Speaker 1: we have to seek seek some help too, that we
Speaker 1: have to You know, my, my, my deeply beloved and
Speaker 1: a heat she's a professor of psychology but also part
Speaker 1: of addiction studies, and so she gets a chance to
Speaker 1: reflect and give me deep wise insight as to how
Speaker 1: you come to terms with different therapeutic options that can empower,
Speaker 1: different clinical options that can empower, but even those must
Speaker 1: have a spiritual dimension. Here we go back to Bill
Speaker 1: Hooks again, and by spiritual, all we talk about is love, compassion, empathy,
Speaker 1: wrestling with hiding vulnerability, open to intimacy, because those are
Speaker 1: the only things that open we human beings up. And
Speaker 1: I'll say, and is the best spirituality that it's a
Speaker 1: sense of having a connection just and something that is
Speaker 1: greater than us. Something a connection that can be a community,
Speaker 1: that can be a tradition, it could be a religion.
Speaker 1: But but the connection to something that is bigger than us.
Speaker 1: Absolute know, the great rab By Abraham josh Or has
Speaker 1: used to know another one of my soul companions, you know,
Speaker 1: like cold Rane that he used to say, something greater
Speaker 1: than us is asking us to do something, is making
Speaker 1: a request and a demand of us. And that's something bigger.
Speaker 1: Can be a god, but atheists can play just as
Speaker 1: important roll. The more it could be an ideal, it
Speaker 1: could be a tradition, it could be a commitment to
Speaker 1: artistic vocation, all of those things, something bigger than us
Speaker 1: is asking us to do something of help to others. Own,
Speaker 1: brother d Witch, in terms of on the same love train,
Speaker 1: you just own the judaic section of it, and I'm
Speaker 1: on the Jesus loving section of it where he loved
Speaker 1: Jesus too, but not the way that I do. You don't,
Speaker 1: but but we own the same train together. The same
Speaker 1: is true with Angela David. She dead up secondar even
Speaker 1: though she come out of Black Church. She did, I'm
Speaker 1: second in the atheistic wing right on. Angela loved you
Speaker 1: love it. It's hard for the Black Church to ever
Speaker 1: really leave you if you if you were raised in it.
Speaker 1: I suspect I take a teensy break here, but I'll
Speaker 1: be fast. That wasn't so bad, now, wasn't okay? Let's
Speaker 1: get back to it. Um. One other thing you said
Speaker 1: m recently that the language of wokeness is detrimental. You
Speaker 1: recently said that if you stay woke, you suffer from insomnia.
Speaker 1: I believe in being fortified. Wokeness is a moment in
Speaker 1: our attempt to fortify ourselves to be love warriors, be
Speaker 1: wounded healers, and to be freedom fighters, all three at
Speaker 1: the same time. Can you can you expand a bit
Speaker 1: on on that and what guess what it means to
Speaker 1: be fortified, how we fortify ourselves as opposed to wokeness.
Speaker 1: Because you if you watch you know conservative news, you
Speaker 1: know or listen, they're like, no woke if killing us
Speaker 1: anti woke sentiment that it's permeating conservative media now. So
Speaker 1: I would love for you to expand on what you
Speaker 1: mean by what we need, what it means to fortify ourselves.
Speaker 1: I was saying kind of ingest that wokeness is a
Speaker 1: beautiful thing because it means you shattered the sleep walking,
Speaker 1: which means you shattered your complicity and complacency visa the
Speaker 1: oppressive status closed. But what we want a long distance
Speaker 1: runners in the struggle for love and justice. And you
Speaker 1: can't be along distance running if you just woke every second.
Speaker 1: That was part of got a joke in Joe been
Speaker 1: something you know that you got to fortify yourself to
Speaker 1: recognize when you awoke, you're seeing things you haven't seen before.
Speaker 1: You're feeling things deeper, you're acting more courageously. But there's
Speaker 1: moments in which you're gonna have to steal away, gonna
Speaker 1: need some sleep. Brother, It's just you got to pace
Speaker 1: yourself for the long run. We just lost one of
Speaker 1: the greatest track athletes of all time, Lee Evans. He
Speaker 1: was the greatest full forty and four hundred meter run
Speaker 1: ever and he had a wokenus in terms of his discipline,
Speaker 1: and when he was practicing and discipline, he was the
Speaker 1: most woke on the track field. But he knew he's
Speaker 1: gonna have to somehow have the whole life so that
Speaker 1: he could be the great track person that he was
Speaker 1: met after me year after year, and so he fortified himself.
Speaker 1: And I think anytime we think of great athletes like Lee,
Speaker 1: ever great musicians like Ben Webster or Mary Lou Williams,
Speaker 1: they were fortified. What is fortified mean put on the whole,
Speaker 1: whole on, put the whole. Any justice that's only justice
Speaker 1: soon degenerates into some the less the justice. You need
Speaker 1: a love to keep your justice afloat, Yes, Because if
Speaker 1: you're only concerned about justice and you don't have a
Speaker 1: deep love, care and concern for the folks you're fighting for,
Speaker 1: you're gonna sell out pretty soon. You're gonna get bought
Speaker 1: off real quick. But if you gotta deepcare, even when
Speaker 1: you change your ideology, like Malcolm, you see, he had
Speaker 1: a love that cuts so deep that it informed his
Speaker 1: new conceptions of justice. Embracing struggles against patriarchy, embracing struggles
Speaker 1: against any form that loses sight of the humanity and
Speaker 1: in that sense, you know, the shift from Malcolm Little
Speaker 1: of Malcolm X at the end, it hardly gets better
Speaker 1: than that. Amazing. You often talk about two Boys is
Speaker 1: four questions that that he has for young people. You
Speaker 1: often mentioned that think because I think we live in
Speaker 1: an anti intellectual era. Uh, we live in an era
Speaker 1: where predatory capitalism, where people want to make a lot
Speaker 1: of money and and greed. It's just it's rampant, right,
Speaker 1: And you've said this in other ways, that people just
Speaker 1: want to be successful but not great and and and
Speaker 1: the money motives and the integrity piece, and so in
Speaker 1: one what are your thoughts under boys is four questions
Speaker 1: now for young people? And do you still feel it's
Speaker 1: it's it's those questions are relevant. You know what what
Speaker 1: do boys asked us to? You want? Should I do
Speaker 1: you want to tell us what they are? Should I
Speaker 1: tell us? Oh? Absolutely no? And I had a feeling
Speaker 1: you'd like to. I appreciate you mentioned in those And
Speaker 1: how shall integrity face oppression? What does honestly do in
Speaker 1: the face of deception? What does decency do in the
Speaker 1: face of ind so how shall courage meet brute force?
Speaker 1: Those questions are as relevant as they can be today.
Speaker 1: The oppression is still there all parts of the world, Europe,
Speaker 1: Middle East, Asia, United States. Where is the intellectual, moral,
Speaker 1: and spiritual integrity to tell the truth? Deception lies everywhere?
Speaker 1: Where is the honesty to point it out and then
Speaker 1: laid bare what the alternative is? And then you think
Speaker 1: of the assaults and attacks micro and macro. Where is
Speaker 1: the decency? Decency is a revolutionary act and an indecent society.
Speaker 1: For me, that's what decency is. Making sure that the
Speaker 1: Golden rule is amplified across the board. I want you
Speaker 1: to do to poor folks in South side of Los Angeles,
Speaker 1: white bossist in Appalachia, Precious trans Froke in Brazil, Palestinians
Speaker 1: on the West Bank, Jews in Russia, Muslims in China.
Speaker 1: Do to them what you would want to be done
Speaker 1: to you personally and structurally. And so the vorce's questions integrity, honest, decency, courage. Oh,
Speaker 1: if we had a renaissance that those we had a
Speaker 1: more spiritual renaissance of those were on our way to revolution.
Speaker 1: But there's a price to pay. It's trickier for black politicians,
Speaker 1: I think right it's it was easier for Clinton and
Speaker 1: for Biden to talk about race, and it was for
Speaker 1: Obama because he's black, so so that the doll know
Speaker 1: it's useful Obama. But it's harder to talk. But the
Speaker 1: political calculations that black politicians have to do, that black
Speaker 1: celebrities have to do to maintain a certain level of
Speaker 1: no sort of being canceled, I guess, or just or
Speaker 1: being able to continue to have a platform, continue to
Speaker 1: be able to do some kind of work. Their choices
Speaker 1: that have to be made. And it's and it's like,
Speaker 1: are those choices anti are integrity? There's the incrementalism, and
Speaker 1: there's a revolutionary the consequences of step telling the truth.
Speaker 1: You have lived those, right, We've seen when you were
Speaker 1: campaigning for Sandra's last year and and and the year before,
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden I saw you on television again.
Speaker 1: I saw people looking to you with reverence when you
Speaker 1: said were not enough to put black faces in high places.
Speaker 1: It just there was something so beautiful about it, right
Speaker 1: that somehow the culture hits shifted and you were still,
Speaker 1: you know, saying the same things and doing the same things.
Speaker 1: But then the world kind of came around. You're able
Speaker 1: to You're you're in the academy, and I know you
Speaker 1: weren't tating your at Harvard, but you weren't your other
Speaker 1: places that you're able to, you know, continue to survive
Speaker 1: into and to take care of yourself for those folks
Speaker 1: who want to be able to tell the truth. But
Speaker 1: the consequences of telling the truth, right, there are real
Speaker 1: life consequences that you know when you tell the truth.
Speaker 1: And you know the way in which Sanders last year
Speaker 1: went right before Super Tuesday, the way all the Canadas
Speaker 1: sort of dropped out and coalesced behind Biden because Sanders
Speaker 1: was such a threat to the status quo. It was
Speaker 1: such for me an example of how the system is relentless.
Speaker 1: Bell has called imperialist, white supremacist, capitalist patriarch. Added that
Speaker 1: cis normative, heteronormative, imperialist, white supremas is capitalist, patriarch is
Speaker 1: relentle us in trying to in fortifying its own power.
Speaker 1: And so in the face of all of that, in
Speaker 1: the consequences of telling that, you the consequence that being
Speaker 1: in your anyone's integrity, everyone is unable to bounce back. Yeah,
Speaker 1: what would you say to that, Doc? Dr West? I
Speaker 1: don't really think there is a definitive answer. It's only
Speaker 1: our lives that are lived. In a response to that question,
Speaker 1: I think about the Alonious Monk, you know, one of
Speaker 1: the great geniuses, who went silent those last years of
Speaker 1: his life, every day getting up looking out the window,
Speaker 1: year after year. We don't know what went into that,
Speaker 1: but he had already given the world so much, and
Speaker 1: yet his response is going to be in the end
Speaker 1: very different than you know the ways in which Billie
Speaker 1: Holiday would respond. And she's gone through her own catastrophic experiences,
Speaker 1: but all of them are and to have enough resilience
Speaker 1: to give us, enough to help us in our resilience
Speaker 1: for the next generation. You see what you've already given,
Speaker 1: sus a Laverant is extraordinary and more to come, but
Speaker 1: whenever comes, you pushed it to the end of what
Speaker 1: you could. That's our cannosis, that's our emptying of ourselves,
Speaker 1: are giving, our donating and sacrificing of ourselves. Right and
Speaker 1: with me, I tried to do all that I can do.
Speaker 1: I dropped that tomorrow night with a smile on my face.
Speaker 1: I gave all that I could give, but it was
Speaker 1: still not enough. It's never enough, because the world is
Speaker 1: too overwhelmingly demon griment as many ways. But there's enough life,
Speaker 1: enough love, enough justice, enough compassion to keep the cloud
Speaker 1: of witnesses going from one generation to the next. But
Speaker 1: that's really not a definitive and and so because history
Speaker 1: is always open ended, you don't know, we have to
Speaker 1: wrap up, which is I'm such a shame. And I
Speaker 1: like to end the podcast with a question that comes
Speaker 1: from my therapy, from the community resiliency model, from the
Speaker 1: idea of both. And when I'm struggling there, what do
Speaker 1: I use to kind of get through? What else is
Speaker 1: true for me? What helps me to get through? I
Speaker 1: can choose to focus on what's difficult, right, and that
Speaker 1: what we focus on sort of magnified. But I can
Speaker 1: choose to focus on something that is neutral or positive
Speaker 1: in my life, something that helps me get through a resource.
Speaker 1: So Dr Cornell West today, for you, what else it's
Speaker 1: true for me? See, I believe in revolutionary piety, and
Speaker 1: piety is remembrance, it is reverence for something bigger than
Speaker 1: you is resistance allows you to want to serve and
Speaker 1: sacrifice for what is bigger and better. What are the
Speaker 1: sources of good in your life that have allowed you
Speaker 1: to preserve your sanity and your dignity in your deeper
Speaker 1: and darkest hours. And you have to have something to
Speaker 1: pull from. Doesn't just fall down from the sky. Comes
Speaker 1: out of your mom and your daddy, your grandparents, your friends,
Speaker 1: your partners, your boyfriends, your girlfriend, your teachers, your coaches,
Speaker 1: invisible folk, wol you've never seen, but you read that text.
Speaker 1: It could be played though, it could be deal, it
Speaker 1: could be dose to Avsky. It could be within the
Speaker 1: Linn Brooks. It could be Lorderca, or it could be
Speaker 1: pasta night. All of them can constitute your community of voices.
Speaker 1: And then you got to follow the Negro national anthem.
Speaker 1: Lift yo voys, not your echo, let the echo chamber.
Speaker 1: Go find your voice. Lift your voice. Be of service
Speaker 1: to others with the voice that you have given, the
Speaker 1: vocation that God has given you, such that you can
Speaker 1: allow the love inside of you to have impact on
Speaker 1: vocal feel on love. So they think of doing things
Speaker 1: they didn't even think they could do. They have possibilities
Speaker 1: that they had downplayed. But you provided a certain way
Speaker 1: of looking at the world such that they could begin
Speaker 1: to actualize them. Why because that's what the folk did
Speaker 1: for us. That's what's kept not just black pool going.
Speaker 1: That's the best of the human spirit. Amen. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: as you were just talking now, I was reminded and
Speaker 1: we started with bell hooks and yearning, bell hooks rights.
Speaker 1: Our struggle, too, is also one of memory against forgetting.
Speaker 1: How do we remember? And when we can remember? So
Speaker 1: much else is true. There's so many things that can
Speaker 1: get us through these catastrophic times, these lose infused times.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much. Dr West. You're on social media.
Speaker 1: I follow you on Instagram and we and you have
Speaker 1: the tight Rope podcast. Where can folks find find your people?
Speaker 1: Come on just Twitter and and and and Facebook and things.
Speaker 1: But I just want to thank you from the bottom
Speaker 1: of my heart. You are just beyond extraordinary in terms
Speaker 1: of your mind, your heart, your soul, your willingness to love,
Speaker 1: love and swer and you you're one of the grand
Speaker 1: examples that I talked about very much, so very very
Speaker 1: grateful Right now in this moment, I'm overwhelmed. Thank you
Speaker 1: so much, Dr West. Thank you, Thank you the love
Speaker 1: and respect which I can give you a hug virtually
Speaker 1: there there's a virtual hug. Dr Cornell West. Wow, I
Speaker 1: have to tell you I was so nervous. I've been
Speaker 1: just steeped in writings and speeches and interviews for for
Speaker 1: quite some time preparing for this, and it was just
Speaker 1: such a beautiful experience sharing ideas and virtual space with him.
Speaker 1: He's been such a huge influence on me and my work.
Speaker 1: He talked about being an example and how important it
Speaker 1: is to have those examples of how how to love
Speaker 1: through adversity, how to love through injustice, how to love
Speaker 1: through indecency and terrorism and trauma and shame, how to love,
Speaker 1: how to love, how to love? How to love? Justice
Speaker 1: is what love looks like in public, dislike tenderness is
Speaker 1: what love feels like in private. Oh, my goodness, it
Speaker 1: is such a beautiful thing. And I think it is
Speaker 1: so important for us to be respectful of our elders,
Speaker 1: even when they are imperfect, even when um we don't
Speaker 1: agree with them, that there is respect and kindness because
Speaker 1: the road that they of walked is a road that
Speaker 1: we can learn from. And I love being in the
Speaker 1: space of respect for Dr Cornell West, being in respect
Speaker 1: of Bell Hooks. Both of them are key in my
Speaker 1: coming to critical consciousness around issues of race, gender, and class,
Speaker 1: and they continue to be teachers for me, and we
Speaker 1: should be looking at their example and holding them up,
Speaker 1: holding them up and celebrating them and giving them their
Speaker 1: flowers while they are here. Thank you so much, Dr
Speaker 1: Cornell West. Thank you for being a love warrior and
Speaker 1: being a beautiful, beautiful example for us all. Thank you
Speaker 1: for listening to the Laverne Cox Shows. Please rate reviews, subscribe,
Speaker 1: and share with everyone you know. Join me next week
Speaker 1: from my conversation about the challenges black women face as
Speaker 1: they search for intimate partners and create families, especially if
Speaker 1: they're educated. Dr Sarah Adayinka, scold, social worker and assistant
Speaker 1: professor of sociology at Furman University, shares her latest research
Speaker 1: with us about black women in the dating world. You
Speaker 1: can find me on Instagram and Twitter at Laverne Cox
Speaker 1: and on Facebook at Laverne Cox for Real. Until next time,
Speaker 1: stay in the love. The Laverne Cox Show is a
Speaker 1: production of Shonda land Audio in partnership with I Heart Radio.
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