1 00:00:11,720 --> 00:00:14,880 Speaker 1: Good morning, peeps, and welcome to wok F Daily with 2 00:00:14,960 --> 00:00:21,080 Speaker 1: Me your Girl. Daniel Moody recording from the Home Bunker, Folks, 3 00:00:21,560 --> 00:00:26,360 Speaker 1: I'm in a heavy space today as I record this show. 4 00:00:27,480 --> 00:00:33,680 Speaker 1: I'm recording this after finding out about the passing of 5 00:00:34,880 --> 00:00:42,760 Speaker 1: poet writer professor Nikki Giovanni. And for those that do 6 00:00:42,880 --> 00:00:49,240 Speaker 1: not know Nikki Giovanni, please do yourself the incredible favor 7 00:00:49,560 --> 00:00:56,040 Speaker 1: of googling her and her extraordinary work and life. I 8 00:00:56,200 --> 00:01:00,520 Speaker 1: was introduced to her poetry when I was sixteen years old, 9 00:01:01,160 --> 00:01:08,520 Speaker 1: and interestingly, for me, I was in high school, and 10 00:01:09,440 --> 00:01:12,480 Speaker 1: as many of you know, I grew up in a 11 00:01:12,720 --> 00:01:20,360 Speaker 1: majority white community school district where I could count the 12 00:01:20,440 --> 00:01:25,880 Speaker 1: black people maybe maybe there were ten of us. And 13 00:01:25,959 --> 00:01:32,240 Speaker 1: I say that because it's hard to understand if you 14 00:01:32,319 --> 00:01:37,640 Speaker 1: are not black. So I will just offer this episode 15 00:01:37,800 --> 00:01:44,399 Speaker 1: as just a kind of stream of consciousness around what 16 00:01:44,480 --> 00:01:50,760 Speaker 1: it means to exist inside of a white community as 17 00:01:50,800 --> 00:01:55,600 Speaker 1: a black person. And for me, at sixteen, I wasn't 18 00:01:55,680 --> 00:02:07,040 Speaker 1: really conscious of my blackness as a marker of negativity, criminality, indecency. 19 00:02:07,880 --> 00:02:11,040 Speaker 1: I didn't see it as something to be ashamed of. 20 00:02:12,120 --> 00:02:16,240 Speaker 1: I saw my blackness as something that I didn't quite 21 00:02:16,440 --> 00:02:22,320 Speaker 1: understand given the fact that my family was not from 22 00:02:22,360 --> 00:02:30,320 Speaker 1: the United States, and for me, my relationship to my 23 00:02:30,480 --> 00:02:35,240 Speaker 1: blackness as a child of immigrants is one that I 24 00:02:35,280 --> 00:02:38,480 Speaker 1: think that I have spent a lot of my life 25 00:02:39,240 --> 00:02:42,760 Speaker 1: grappling with, and by grappling, I mean trying to understand 26 00:02:42,800 --> 00:02:49,160 Speaker 1: and make sense of. So when my white teacher, male teacher, 27 00:02:49,720 --> 00:02:57,760 Speaker 1: mister Leogrand said, Danielle, go and check out this poet. 28 00:02:58,080 --> 00:03:01,920 Speaker 1: Go to the library and check out this poet, Nikki Giovanni. 29 00:03:02,360 --> 00:03:06,520 Speaker 1: And so in my sixteen year old ignorance, I'm like, 30 00:03:06,720 --> 00:03:12,359 Speaker 1: why is this dude telling me to go and research 31 00:03:13,160 --> 00:03:18,320 Speaker 1: an Italian man? Like I give a damn. And mister Leogrand, 32 00:03:18,440 --> 00:03:23,720 Speaker 1: my teacher, was one of the coolest fucking people on 33 00:03:23,800 --> 00:03:29,480 Speaker 1: the planet. In hindsight, I realized that even though I 34 00:03:29,560 --> 00:03:34,519 Speaker 1: grew up in a majority white area ninety six percent 35 00:03:34,639 --> 00:03:40,000 Speaker 1: white school district, by great fortune or probably alignment of 36 00:03:40,040 --> 00:03:48,160 Speaker 1: the universe, I had some of the most enlightened white teachers. 37 00:03:48,560 --> 00:03:53,080 Speaker 1: I think that I could have had mister Leogrand being 38 00:03:53,160 --> 00:03:56,880 Speaker 1: one of them, because one he kind of ran our 39 00:03:56,960 --> 00:04:01,640 Speaker 1: high school classroom like a class There was a lot 40 00:04:01,960 --> 00:04:05,920 Speaker 1: of freedom. He treated the students as if they were 41 00:04:06,480 --> 00:04:10,360 Speaker 1: as if we were young adults, right, that didn't need 42 00:04:10,920 --> 00:04:15,640 Speaker 1: the conformity of rules and oppression. That if he recognized, 43 00:04:15,840 --> 00:04:20,680 Speaker 1: right that if you treat people young people as you know, 44 00:04:21,480 --> 00:04:26,680 Speaker 1: young adults, and give them responsibility of themselves, their space, 45 00:04:26,760 --> 00:04:30,960 Speaker 1: what they're learning, you can open up a universe inside 46 00:04:30,960 --> 00:04:34,000 Speaker 1: of them. And so when I went to the library, 47 00:04:34,720 --> 00:04:38,200 Speaker 1: and now in hindsight, of course, speaking on this at 48 00:04:38,240 --> 00:04:43,120 Speaker 1: a time when again books are being banned and librarians 49 00:04:43,160 --> 00:04:47,359 Speaker 1: are leaving the profession and libraries are no longer sanctuaries, 50 00:04:48,000 --> 00:04:50,919 Speaker 1: I realized how profound it was to go into this 51 00:04:51,040 --> 00:04:56,159 Speaker 1: library where I spent so many weekends with my mom 52 00:04:57,080 --> 00:05:00,560 Speaker 1: and my sister and they go when I look up, 53 00:05:01,480 --> 00:05:05,520 Speaker 1: who I think is this Italian author? And come to 54 00:05:05,600 --> 00:05:13,039 Speaker 1: find on the cover of this book this beautiful, seemingly 55 00:05:13,080 --> 00:05:20,880 Speaker 1: petite black woman with this small spherical afro, and I 56 00:05:21,480 --> 00:05:28,800 Speaker 1: just devoured her poetry, took it in like air, and 57 00:05:28,880 --> 00:05:35,040 Speaker 1: it was the first time that I felt seen. I 58 00:05:35,160 --> 00:05:41,000 Speaker 1: felt this articulation that my spirit had been wrestling with 59 00:05:41,880 --> 00:05:47,200 Speaker 1: about what it meant to be black in this place 60 00:05:48,160 --> 00:05:52,479 Speaker 1: that feels the need to categorize, to minimize and to 61 00:05:52,640 --> 00:05:57,520 Speaker 1: sort people and assign value based on your skin color, 62 00:05:57,760 --> 00:06:03,640 Speaker 1: based on your gender, And it was a wild ride. 63 00:06:03,800 --> 00:06:10,560 Speaker 1: And I'm so grateful to that teacher because I would 64 00:06:11,240 --> 00:06:18,039 Speaker 1: read so many of Nikki Giovanni's poems, and I would 65 00:06:18,080 --> 00:06:21,839 Speaker 1: consume so much in my world would be opened up 66 00:06:21,920 --> 00:06:31,840 Speaker 1: to this just portal of black literary geniuses, American literary 67 00:06:31,880 --> 00:06:39,160 Speaker 1: geniuses who again categorized and minimized because they spoke and 68 00:06:39,279 --> 00:06:45,360 Speaker 1: wrote and taught on the varied black experience. And what 69 00:06:45,560 --> 00:06:50,960 Speaker 1: was so dope about Nikki Giovanni and being introduced to 70 00:06:51,040 --> 00:06:56,400 Speaker 1: her as a teenager was there was so much friction, 71 00:06:57,360 --> 00:07:02,760 Speaker 1: right that comes with youth and growing and growing up 72 00:07:02,839 --> 00:07:08,840 Speaker 1: in your mind expanding and you beginning to question the 73 00:07:08,880 --> 00:07:15,360 Speaker 1: world around you. Why is such a profound question. And 74 00:07:15,440 --> 00:07:21,760 Speaker 1: for me, as a young black child of immigrants woman, 75 00:07:22,600 --> 00:07:27,840 Speaker 1: I could see all of the ways that society had 76 00:07:27,920 --> 00:07:32,000 Speaker 1: already decided who I was and what I could and 77 00:07:32,040 --> 00:07:35,440 Speaker 1: could not do, what I could and could not dream 78 00:07:35,520 --> 00:07:39,640 Speaker 1: and aspire to be. And that in and of itself 79 00:07:40,440 --> 00:07:45,560 Speaker 1: is so deep to shoulder and to recognize at such 80 00:07:45,600 --> 00:07:50,440 Speaker 1: a young age. And now, granted, for me, I had 81 00:07:50,520 --> 00:07:58,080 Speaker 1: sixteen years of relative ignorance. And when I say ignorance. 82 00:07:58,600 --> 00:08:04,440 Speaker 1: I do actually meet bliss where because my family came 83 00:08:04,480 --> 00:08:08,600 Speaker 1: from Jamaica to the United States at a time when 84 00:08:08,800 --> 00:08:16,120 Speaker 1: there was a unbelievable racial recogning that had been tearing 85 00:08:16,200 --> 00:08:21,480 Speaker 1: this country apart for decades, if not centuries prior. They 86 00:08:21,680 --> 00:08:27,800 Speaker 1: experienced it to a certain extent from arm's length, inappropriately 87 00:08:28,480 --> 00:08:35,880 Speaker 1: also sorting themselves outside of American blackness, which in hindsight, 88 00:08:36,120 --> 00:08:41,200 Speaker 1: was a way to distance themselves from Black American pain. 89 00:08:43,440 --> 00:08:51,960 Speaker 1: And so it would not be until that day in 90 00:08:52,040 --> 00:08:59,319 Speaker 1: eleventh grade, in my Honors history class, second day of school, 91 00:08:59,679 --> 00:09:05,320 Speaker 1: where for the first time, I was called a nigger, 92 00:09:06,360 --> 00:09:12,360 Speaker 1: which that word is in and of itself used as 93 00:09:12,400 --> 00:09:17,360 Speaker 1: a weapon, used as a way to cause as much 94 00:09:17,840 --> 00:09:25,720 Speaker 1: psychic harm and emotional damage as possible. Now, if you've 95 00:09:25,760 --> 00:09:29,480 Speaker 1: been listening to me for all of these years, and 96 00:09:29,559 --> 00:09:33,800 Speaker 1: I've read anything that I have written, then you know 97 00:09:33,920 --> 00:09:40,600 Speaker 1: that my response in that moment was pretty classic Daniel 98 00:09:40,679 --> 00:09:44,560 Speaker 1: Moody woke as fuck response before I even knew who 99 00:09:44,640 --> 00:09:48,640 Speaker 1: I really was and what it meant, and would articulate 100 00:09:48,880 --> 00:09:52,960 Speaker 1: what it means to be woke so many decades later. 101 00:09:54,000 --> 00:10:01,360 Speaker 1: But I remember looking at that sixteen year old white 102 00:10:01,400 --> 00:10:07,280 Speaker 1: boy who was admonishing me for sitting in a seat 103 00:10:07,320 --> 00:10:12,360 Speaker 1: that he wanted but was not yet assigned, and thought 104 00:10:12,400 --> 00:10:17,280 Speaker 1: that by intimidating me and trying to humiliate me and 105 00:10:17,600 --> 00:10:23,880 Speaker 1: remind me of my place as the sole black person, soul, 106 00:10:24,040 --> 00:10:30,640 Speaker 1: black woman girl in that class, that I would then 107 00:10:31,559 --> 00:10:36,880 Speaker 1: relinquish my sense of self and give up my seat 108 00:10:37,559 --> 00:10:40,480 Speaker 1: so that he could sit with his friends. I didn't 109 00:10:40,520 --> 00:10:43,200 Speaker 1: even know those people that I was sitting next to. 110 00:10:43,280 --> 00:10:46,080 Speaker 1: It didn't matter, but I decided that I was not 111 00:10:46,559 --> 00:10:51,120 Speaker 1: going to move, and so I looked at him very clearly, 112 00:10:51,760 --> 00:10:55,680 Speaker 1: and I said, the seats have not been assigned, so 113 00:10:55,800 --> 00:11:00,360 Speaker 1: go sit someplace else. And that's when he responded with 114 00:11:00,440 --> 00:11:04,800 Speaker 1: the word nigger, and I said, go fuck yourself and 115 00:11:04,880 --> 00:11:09,080 Speaker 1: literally fuck off. And in that moment you heard like 116 00:11:09,160 --> 00:11:14,880 Speaker 1: the screeching of the desks, not away from me, but 117 00:11:15,000 --> 00:11:18,920 Speaker 1: away from him. But no one in that class, no 118 00:11:18,920 --> 00:11:22,280 Speaker 1: one in that moment stood up for me, no one 119 00:11:22,360 --> 00:11:28,640 Speaker 1: admonished him. And the silence in that moment allowed me 120 00:11:29,400 --> 00:11:34,640 Speaker 1: to really understand that I was indeed alone. So in 121 00:11:34,760 --> 00:11:39,920 Speaker 1: another class, when my teacher would say to me, go 122 00:11:40,080 --> 00:11:48,000 Speaker 1: find Nikki Giovanni and I would find her book Black 123 00:11:48,200 --> 00:11:55,720 Speaker 1: Talk black feeling, black talk, black judgment. And when I 124 00:11:55,920 --> 00:12:02,920 Speaker 1: tell you that that book of poetry changed my world 125 00:12:03,679 --> 00:12:09,200 Speaker 1: view and empowered me in a way that till this 126 00:12:09,480 --> 00:12:16,520 Speaker 1: day I probably really don't understand. But my sheer existence 127 00:12:17,040 --> 00:12:23,560 Speaker 1: as a very bold young black girl in an all 128 00:12:23,640 --> 00:12:29,280 Speaker 1: white school to question, to ask why, and stand resolute 129 00:12:29,400 --> 00:12:34,640 Speaker 1: waiting for an answer. Nikki Giovanni's words made me realize 130 00:12:34,640 --> 00:12:41,280 Speaker 1: that I wasn't alone, that there were so many generations 131 00:12:41,320 --> 00:12:48,160 Speaker 1: of bold black voices that had come before me, and 132 00:12:48,559 --> 00:12:53,760 Speaker 1: whether or not I knew them, I was them. So 133 00:12:54,840 --> 00:12:59,320 Speaker 1: to wake up to the news of the passing of 134 00:12:59,360 --> 00:13:06,520 Speaker 1: this extraordinary giant at a time when the world feels 135 00:13:07,080 --> 00:13:11,439 Speaker 1: like it is in just this dark place of regression, 136 00:13:12,240 --> 00:13:17,680 Speaker 1: I felt pain and a heaviness because in her eighty 137 00:13:17,760 --> 00:13:23,439 Speaker 1: one years, she had seen and experienced so much grief, 138 00:13:24,280 --> 00:13:31,320 Speaker 1: so much death of other black brilliant giants, whether through 139 00:13:31,480 --> 00:13:37,520 Speaker 1: murder by the state or disease poverty. But I realized 140 00:13:37,520 --> 00:13:44,240 Speaker 1: that she also equally saw and created so much art 141 00:13:44,400 --> 00:13:49,880 Speaker 1: and beauty and joy. And not to be alive is 142 00:13:49,960 --> 00:13:55,840 Speaker 1: to live straddled between light and darkness. It is to 143 00:13:56,080 --> 00:13:59,080 Speaker 1: try and seek out the light when you are in 144 00:13:59,160 --> 00:14:03,280 Speaker 1: a place of darkness, and when you are in that 145 00:14:03,480 --> 00:14:06,600 Speaker 1: place of darkness, to recognize that you are, in fact 146 00:14:06,600 --> 00:14:09,680 Speaker 1: the light that you are seeking. And that is what 147 00:14:09,840 --> 00:14:15,959 Speaker 1: hit me today, is that there is really no escaping 148 00:14:17,000 --> 00:14:23,680 Speaker 1: the depravity that is humankind. There is really no running 149 00:14:23,720 --> 00:14:27,840 Speaker 1: from it, because both that darkness and that light exist 150 00:14:27,920 --> 00:14:32,200 Speaker 1: in all of us. And when we see it acted 151 00:14:32,280 --> 00:14:36,120 Speaker 1: out in front of us, the reason why it sets 152 00:14:36,120 --> 00:14:41,960 Speaker 1: off alarms is because we know that it exists inside 153 00:14:41,960 --> 00:14:45,960 Speaker 1: of us as well. And she wrote about it all 154 00:14:46,600 --> 00:14:52,680 Speaker 1: to help us make sense of just such senselessness. I 155 00:14:52,720 --> 00:14:57,280 Speaker 1: think about it too, inside of the context of where 156 00:14:57,360 --> 00:15:01,600 Speaker 1: we find ourselves over the last week or so, where 157 00:15:02,560 --> 00:15:09,880 Speaker 1: this uber, wealthy white CEO is murdered in broad daylight 158 00:15:10,760 --> 00:15:15,280 Speaker 1: in midtown Manhattan, and now we know or the media 159 00:15:15,320 --> 00:15:19,680 Speaker 1: and law enforcement are leading us to believe that the 160 00:15:19,720 --> 00:15:27,880 Speaker 1: person responsible, another white, wealthy man, shouldn't be hailed as 161 00:15:28,200 --> 00:15:32,080 Speaker 1: some type of folk hero. And you see corporate mainstream 162 00:15:32,160 --> 00:15:37,480 Speaker 1: media admonishing those that had narro a tear to shed 163 00:15:38,640 --> 00:15:41,880 Speaker 1: for the murder of Brian Thompson, and then you have 164 00:15:42,120 --> 00:15:47,360 Speaker 1: politicians and media personalities saying this is not who we are. 165 00:15:48,040 --> 00:15:52,080 Speaker 1: All America has ever done is hail and celebrate murderers. 166 00:15:52,720 --> 00:15:56,920 Speaker 1: Think about it. If you kill one person, you're a murderer. 167 00:15:57,480 --> 00:16:02,960 Speaker 1: You kill tens of thousands from money, you're an extraordinary ceo. 168 00:16:03,320 --> 00:16:07,880 Speaker 1: You kill generations, they call you a president or a 169 00:16:07,920 --> 00:16:12,400 Speaker 1: prime minister. How is it that we are being told 170 00:16:13,080 --> 00:16:20,280 Speaker 1: don't celebrate this Luigi Mangione who murdered this ceo, he's 171 00:16:20,320 --> 00:16:23,440 Speaker 1: a murderer. But Biden and net and Yahoo are not. 172 00:16:24,080 --> 00:16:29,320 Speaker 1: And yeah, I said Biden, because without our weapons and 173 00:16:29,400 --> 00:16:34,480 Speaker 1: our tax dollars, fifty thousand plus Palestinians wouldn't be dead, 174 00:16:35,200 --> 00:16:39,440 Speaker 1: murdered in broad daylight and at midnight. But I am 175 00:16:39,480 --> 00:16:45,640 Speaker 1: somehow an anti Semite if I articulate that reality out loud. 176 00:16:46,320 --> 00:16:53,760 Speaker 1: We have statues made of marble to insurrectionists flags that 177 00:16:54,720 --> 00:17:01,440 Speaker 1: has hung on state capitol buildings until recently that celebrate 178 00:17:02,160 --> 00:17:08,560 Speaker 1: white enslavers, rapists, and murderers. We'd say that this country 179 00:17:09,240 --> 00:17:10,720 Speaker 1: was created by these. 180 00:17:10,600 --> 00:17:18,560 Speaker 2: Great men who all owned other people, who bore children 181 00:17:19,320 --> 00:17:23,919 Speaker 2: that they turned into property. So don't talk to me 182 00:17:24,920 --> 00:17:29,600 Speaker 2: about depravity and about what we should and shouldn't celebrate, 183 00:17:30,480 --> 00:17:35,640 Speaker 2: because there is ne'er a thing, a person, a place, 184 00:17:36,080 --> 00:17:40,320 Speaker 2: a holiday in this country that is not steeped in 185 00:17:40,520 --> 00:17:46,560 Speaker 2: someone else's blood and suffering that has been sanitized to 186 00:17:46,760 --> 00:17:52,160 Speaker 2: make white men seem like the victor and the heroes 187 00:17:52,240 --> 00:17:58,040 Speaker 2: to be hailed. Nikoi Giovanni spoke and wrote about all 188 00:17:58,080 --> 00:18:02,199 Speaker 2: of this and so much more, and right before I 189 00:18:02,280 --> 00:18:07,119 Speaker 2: turned my microphone on, I had just finished being quiet 190 00:18:07,880 --> 00:18:12,600 Speaker 2: for the last few hours, lighting candles and incense and 191 00:18:12,640 --> 00:18:18,720 Speaker 2: giving deep gratitude for her life's work and for her 192 00:18:18,880 --> 00:18:23,639 Speaker 2: life while watching her one hour in fifty six minute 193 00:18:23,880 --> 00:18:28,520 Speaker 2: conversation with James Baldwin from nineteen seventy one in London. 194 00:18:29,160 --> 00:18:33,480 Speaker 2: I've seen it so many times and everything that they 195 00:18:33,560 --> 00:18:41,119 Speaker 2: say continues to ring true today, if not deeper since 196 00:18:41,160 --> 00:18:52,640 Speaker 2: I was sixteen years old. We are nothing without artists, poets, writers, sculptors, 197 00:18:52,680 --> 00:18:58,479 Speaker 2: those that use their mediums to try and make sense 198 00:18:58,680 --> 00:19:04,600 Speaker 2: out of enselessness and provide hope in the midst of hopelessness. 199 00:19:05,080 --> 00:19:10,400 Speaker 2: So I encourage all of you, during times of despair, 200 00:19:11,040 --> 00:19:14,960 Speaker 2: to go to a library, go to a bookstore, take 201 00:19:15,000 --> 00:19:20,159 Speaker 2: a name that you haven't been taught about, particularly a 202 00:19:20,280 --> 00:19:25,800 Speaker 2: name of a person that is black that has offered 203 00:19:26,560 --> 00:19:32,280 Speaker 2: critical analysis on who we are as humans. Because black 204 00:19:32,320 --> 00:19:39,520 Speaker 2: people have endured so goddamn much and their critique. Our 205 00:19:39,680 --> 00:19:45,520 Speaker 2: critique allows people to see themselves, both the light and 206 00:19:45,600 --> 00:19:51,960 Speaker 2: the dark clearer, understanding that we make choices every day 207 00:19:52,560 --> 00:19:55,320 Speaker 2: deciding who we are and who we want to be. 208 00:19:55,920 --> 00:19:59,439 Speaker 2: It isn't that we are inherently better because we have 209 00:19:59,520 --> 00:20:04,359 Speaker 2: been categorized as such. It is because we choose to 210 00:20:04,480 --> 00:20:10,600 Speaker 2: continue learning, to continue growing, to continue questioning and challenging 211 00:20:11,040 --> 00:20:16,439 Speaker 2: ourselves to know more, and choosing to be bold. 212 00:20:17,320 --> 00:20:22,239 Speaker 1: May Nikki Giovanni rest in great power. That is it 213 00:20:22,320 --> 00:20:26,200 Speaker 1: for me today, Dear friends on wok f as always, 214 00:20:26,720 --> 00:20:29,919 Speaker 1: Power to the people and to all the people. Power, 215 00:20:30,560 --> 00:20:33,160 Speaker 1: get woke and stay woke as fuck.