WEBVTT - What is the "Promised Land"? 0:00:11.760 --> 0:00:14.560 Good morning, Keeps, and welcome to woke F Daily with 0:00:14.680 --> 0:00:18.680 Meet your Girl Daniel Moody recording from the Home Bunker. Folks, 0:00:18.720 --> 0:00:23.880 I'm very excited to introduce this guest to you today 0:00:24.079 --> 0:00:29.120 who is making their first time appearance on WOKF, Esa McCauley, 0:00:29.240 --> 0:00:32.800 who is a New York Times contributing opinion writer and 0:00:32.880 --> 0:00:36.520 the author of a new book out today entitled How 0:00:36.560 --> 0:00:39.760 Far to the Promised Land? One Black Family Story of 0:00:39.840 --> 0:00:45.919 hope and survival in the American South. Esa McCauley is extraordinary, 0:00:46.120 --> 0:00:49.199 and you will hear that as we get into the 0:00:49.240 --> 0:00:52.920 conversation around his book, but around what it means to 0:00:53.680 --> 0:01:01.800 be black, to be a theologian, to write a story 0:01:02.200 --> 0:01:07.680 about the narrative of your family, but a lot, hundreds 0:01:07.720 --> 0:01:13.440 of thousands, if not millions, of Black families whose experiences 0:01:13.680 --> 0:01:17.400 mirror your own. At a time and in a society 0:01:17.640 --> 0:01:21.119 that doesn't want to see us, that doesn't want to 0:01:21.200 --> 0:01:27.200 hear us, that wants our capitulation to white supremacy and 0:01:27.480 --> 0:01:35.200 our pended knee to their power. It is an extraordinary time, folks, 0:01:35.440 --> 0:01:40.039 that we are living in where I got to say, 0:01:40.720 --> 0:01:45.880 you know, I know that in dark times, a lot 0:01:45.920 --> 0:01:48.720 of art is created, a lot of literature is created, 0:01:49.120 --> 0:01:54.720 and there are cracks of light that break through. There 0:01:54.720 --> 0:02:00.720 are just some days though, that as a black queer 0:02:01.320 --> 0:02:07.280 woman in America, that some days are just too much, 0:02:07.880 --> 0:02:11.560 you know, like they're just it's just too much. It's 0:02:11.600 --> 0:02:15.880 like every headline everywhere you look, is just something to 0:02:16.000 --> 0:02:22.400 erase the scraps of rights and equality and freedom that 0:02:22.480 --> 0:02:28.119 you've gained, that your ancestors gained, and to really understand 0:02:28.160 --> 0:02:33.400 and put it into perspective. Folks, it was four hundred 0:02:33.480 --> 0:02:41.440 plus years of enslaved brutality terrorism that was state sanctioned, 0:02:41.919 --> 0:02:47.639 country sanctioned, president after president after president, and even after 0:02:48.200 --> 0:02:55.280 the practice, the abhorrent, disgusting practice of slavery was condemned, 0:02:56.639 --> 0:03:02.040 there is still past. Jim Crow, after one hundred years 0:03:02.120 --> 0:03:10.000 of again state sanctioned terrorism, thievery of work of labor, 0:03:10.720 --> 0:03:15.280 rite in justice, and indignities that black people experience at 0:03:15.280 --> 0:03:20.320 the hands of white people in this country, still in 0:03:20.400 --> 0:03:24.600 the twenty first century, fighting to have their acts of 0:03:24.720 --> 0:03:33.720 violence against us be on record, be known. Ask yourself 0:03:33.720 --> 0:03:37.640 that if white people are so goddamn proud and so 0:03:37.880 --> 0:03:42.720 goddamn exceptional, then why are they so fucking afraid of 0:03:42.760 --> 0:03:48.160 the truth. They want to talk about everyone who wants 0:03:48.200 --> 0:03:55.760 to highlight and make people aware of the terrorism, the brutality. 0:03:56.720 --> 0:04:01.200 You're talking about people that lynched pregnant women and cut 0:04:01.640 --> 0:04:05.600 babies out of their stomachs. You want to talk about 0:04:05.760 --> 0:04:12.600 people that blew up children, that beat them that, let 0:04:12.600 --> 0:04:18.200 me tell you something, that sent them to alligators as bait. 0:04:21.839 --> 0:04:30.320 There are mass gravesites all over this country, soil soaked 0:04:31.640 --> 0:04:38.360 with the blood and bones of Black people, enslaved and 0:04:38.400 --> 0:04:50.840 free children, women and men. So this story that Isa 0:04:50.960 --> 0:04:54.680 McCauley tells in his new book is a story that 0:04:54.760 --> 0:04:59.520 needs to be told of so much so I hope 0:04:59.520 --> 0:05:03.240 that you will click the link in the bio of 0:05:03.279 --> 0:05:07.839 today's episode and buy his book for yourself, for your family, 0:05:08.240 --> 0:05:12.039 for your friends. It is entitled How Far to the 0:05:12.080 --> 0:05:16.200 Promised Land by Esau McCauley. My conversation with him is 0:05:16.240 --> 0:05:22.960 coming up next, folks. I am so excited to welcome 0:05:23.080 --> 0:05:27.600 to okaf Daily for the very first time, doctor Esa McCauley, 0:05:28.000 --> 0:05:31.960 who is the author of the new book How Far 0:05:32.320 --> 0:05:36.600 to the Promised Land, One Family, One Black Family, story 0:05:36.640 --> 0:05:39.760 of hope and survival in the American South He is 0:05:39.800 --> 0:05:43.840 a contributing opinion writer at The New York Times and 0:05:44.120 --> 0:05:51.799 a theologian in residence in Chicago. I want to start 0:05:51.880 --> 0:05:55.799 off with what I just said before we started recording, 0:05:55.960 --> 0:05:59.560 which is that I read one of your pieces and 0:05:59.600 --> 0:06:03.280 you have any and I will say that your ability 0:06:03.440 --> 0:06:10.000 to weave a story is absolutely beautiful, Like I just 0:06:11.040 --> 0:06:16.000 arrive in the place that you're describing. And as somebody 0:06:16.000 --> 0:06:19.960 who you know reads a lot of opinions, writes a 0:06:20.000 --> 0:06:23.440 lot of a lot of my own opinion, it is 0:06:23.480 --> 0:06:26.279 never lost on me when a piece can bring me 0:06:26.360 --> 0:06:30.080 to tears at a time when I feel like I 0:06:30.120 --> 0:06:36.000 am almost dried out from tears. So my first question 0:06:36.200 --> 0:06:42.200 for you is as a theologian in residence, as someone 0:06:42.440 --> 0:06:47.479 who is writing and is putting out a book at 0:06:47.480 --> 0:06:51.480 a time when books are being banned, a book on racism, 0:06:51.680 --> 0:06:54.720 a book on being black, a book on the black 0:06:55.000 --> 0:07:00.240 family that is provoking questions and thought, What is it 0:07:00.480 --> 0:07:07.760 like to be an author, a theologian, a Christian during 0:07:07.839 --> 0:07:08.480 this time? 0:07:09.760 --> 0:07:12.720 I would say it's very hard and one of the 0:07:12.760 --> 0:07:16.160 things that I had devoted myself to do it even 0:07:16.160 --> 0:07:19.360 if it cost me, Like readers or viewers or cliques 0:07:19.440 --> 0:07:22.080 is to say, with all of the noise that's going 0:07:22.160 --> 0:07:27.960 on around, I want to tell distinctively black stories rooted 0:07:28.000 --> 0:07:31.520 in my community and my experience, and tell stories that 0:07:31.560 --> 0:07:33.640 don't edit out the things that are important to me. 0:07:34.000 --> 0:07:37.800 And things that important to me are my faith and 0:07:37.920 --> 0:07:40.480 being black and actually being Southern. I remember when I 0:07:40.480 --> 0:07:43.600 first got to college and I would have these teachers 0:07:44.000 --> 0:07:46.720 and they would tell me about They would use analogies, 0:07:46.840 --> 0:07:48.800 but the analogies I never got there. They would talk 0:07:48.800 --> 0:07:53.480 about what's that British show Monty Python or whatever, or 0:07:53.520 --> 0:07:57.320 they talk about Seinfelder France. No shade to those shows, 0:07:57.520 --> 0:07:59.680 But growing up I wasn't watching France in China, but 0:08:00.040 --> 0:08:02.360 I felt in Monty Python. And so I always felt 0:08:02.400 --> 0:08:05.880 like my culture and our stories and our narratives weren't 0:08:05.920 --> 0:08:09.160 worthy of being the center of attention. And I said 0:08:09.200 --> 0:08:11.320 to myself when I began writing, at first, I tried 0:08:11.320 --> 0:08:14.280 to tell stories that everybody would identify with whether you 0:08:14.320 --> 0:08:15.160 were black or you're white. 0:08:15.160 --> 0:08:16.200 Then everybody would get it. 0:08:16.600 --> 0:08:18.480 And I realized that the best way to tell the 0:08:18.600 --> 0:08:20.960 universal story to tell the true story from the place 0:08:20.960 --> 0:08:24.200 that you know. And I can't describe the only thing 0:08:24.240 --> 0:08:26.640 I can say this is I can't describe any of 0:08:26.680 --> 0:08:29.720 the place like I can describe the Black South. I know, 0:08:29.840 --> 0:08:31.840 I know what like what the food tastes like, I 0:08:31.920 --> 0:08:33.920 know what like the neighborhood feels like. I know the 0:08:34.000 --> 0:08:36.720 rhythms of the jokes and all of those things. And 0:08:36.760 --> 0:08:39.600 so for me, I felt like, in this moment when 0:08:39.600 --> 0:08:43.080 they're erasing our stories, it was crucial for me to 0:08:43.160 --> 0:08:47.080 tell our story as a way of saying it's with 0:08:47.160 --> 0:08:49.560 us as the protagonist. You know what I mean by 0:08:49.600 --> 0:08:51.360 that is that it's easy, and this is no shade 0:08:51.440 --> 0:08:54.520 how other people do their writing, because all of it's necessary. 0:08:54.920 --> 0:08:57.640 It's easy to tell the story of black response is 0:08:57.880 --> 0:09:01.160 to whatever's happening to us. But to put this in 0:09:01.200 --> 0:09:03.720 the center of the narrative over and over again is 0:09:03.720 --> 0:09:04.520 something I strived to. 0:09:04.520 --> 0:09:05.040 Do as a writer. 0:09:07.679 --> 0:09:13.720 I love the idea of first as a writer right 0:09:14.480 --> 0:09:18.520 trying to recreate other people's stories. I think I can remember, 0:09:18.840 --> 0:09:24.040 you know, listening to one of Oprah Winfrey's many interviews 0:09:24.440 --> 0:09:26.439 where she said that when she got in front of 0:09:26.480 --> 0:09:28.960 a camera, she tried to be Barbara Walters. Yeah, because 0:09:29.000 --> 0:09:31.320 that's what she that's what she knew. She's like, I'm 0:09:31.320 --> 0:09:34.559 just gonna try and be her, and then through course 0:09:34.600 --> 0:09:37.679 of time realife there is already a Barbara Walter. Then 0:09:37.679 --> 0:09:39.880 I can't be that. I can't be her, and I 0:09:39.880 --> 0:09:45.200 can't be her. And I think that for black writers, 0:09:46.000 --> 0:09:51.800 particularly those who find themselves inside of legacy newsrooms and places, 0:09:52.480 --> 0:09:57.240 are often told that by telling our stories or making 0:09:57.320 --> 0:10:01.160 ourselves the protagonist, then we are and the ability to 0:10:01.240 --> 0:10:05.480 be neutral. Yeah, so I want to yeah, so please please, 0:10:05.920 --> 0:10:06.240 I think. 0:10:06.440 --> 0:10:06.800 I think. 0:10:06.880 --> 0:10:09.120 I remember when I first got the job and I 0:10:09.240 --> 0:10:12.120 was writing these opinion pieces, and I said, I need 0:10:12.120 --> 0:10:16.040 to write these big, huge, universal stories with these grand, 0:10:16.080 --> 0:10:21.240 sweeping themes. And then I realized, actually, the most important 0:10:21.240 --> 0:10:26.280 stories are the small stories. And so whenever something happens nationally, 0:10:26.679 --> 0:10:29.000 it's not that I put myself at the center of 0:10:29.040 --> 0:10:31.480 the narrative. That's not what it's about. It's I try 0:10:31.559 --> 0:10:34.400 to provide a way in that it's actually authentic. So 0:10:34.559 --> 0:10:38.720 when all Made Aubrary was murdered while he was out 0:10:38.720 --> 0:10:40.480 on a run, I thought about what it was like 0:10:40.520 --> 0:10:43.000 to run as a black man in a white neighborhood. 0:10:44.720 --> 0:10:50.520 When when the children were murdered in at the Covenant 0:10:50.559 --> 0:10:54.560 School in Nashville, I thought about, like what it would 0:10:54.559 --> 0:10:56.480 be like as a parent to have to pick out 0:10:56.840 --> 0:11:01.800 funeral clothes for your children. And because I thought about, 0:11:01.800 --> 0:11:03.160 you know, one of the things you do with children 0:11:03.200 --> 0:11:04.480 when you have them is you get them dressed in 0:11:04.559 --> 0:11:07.480 the morning, and like you think about them. And there's 0:11:07.520 --> 0:11:09.120 an a ridiculous part at least we go to church 0:11:09.160 --> 0:11:12.000 on Sunday, when you have like a little person in 0:11:12.040 --> 0:11:14.959 a suit, it's like it doesn't match right. It's like 0:11:15.000 --> 0:11:17.560 they're too little, they shouldn't be in those outfits. And 0:11:17.600 --> 0:11:19.520 so what I was, what I was trying, what I've 0:11:19.520 --> 0:11:22.960 tried to do, is tell the truest stories I know 0:11:23.040 --> 0:11:27.840 how to tell. And I wanted, I wanted so much 0:11:28.559 --> 0:11:33.360 for a black person who who opens one of my 0:11:33.520 --> 0:11:38.440 articles and clicks through them to see themselves and to 0:11:38.480 --> 0:11:42.360 imagine themselves being represented. I'm not all black people, and 0:11:42.360 --> 0:11:45.000 I'm a particular black person I think is recognizable to 0:11:45.080 --> 0:11:46.320 people who grew up like I did. 0:11:48.440 --> 0:11:51.560 I want to talk about your book How Far to 0:11:51.600 --> 0:11:58.760 the Promised Land and its title first, and as a 0:11:58.800 --> 0:12:02.080 person who this is me, as a person who has 0:12:04.480 --> 0:12:10.920 struggled with organized religion. Yeah, I am a black queer woman, 0:12:12.040 --> 0:12:18.480 child of immigrants, and I have struggled with organized religion 0:12:18.880 --> 0:12:23.440 for all the ways that it has showcase nos in 0:12:23.559 --> 0:12:30.240 people's lives right and because of those no's, people have 0:12:30.400 --> 0:12:36.560 in fact minimized their lives or ended their lives. So 0:12:36.640 --> 0:12:40.400 when you say how far to when you talk about 0:12:40.400 --> 0:12:44.080 the promised land, we know in biblical terms what the 0:12:44.120 --> 0:12:50.760 promised land is, but I'm also wondering, in our daily lives, 0:12:50.920 --> 0:12:55.560 in regular life, is there a promise land that we're 0:12:55.600 --> 0:12:58.439 actually reaching and seeking for. 0:13:00.280 --> 0:13:03.880 Interesting because it's a religious book, and well there's religious 0:13:03.880 --> 0:13:08.160 elements in the book, but the term promised land here 0:13:08.200 --> 0:13:14.360 doesn't actually refer to heaven or like the hereafter the origin, 0:13:14.559 --> 0:13:19.000 the kind of the beginning event that kind of starts 0:13:19.840 --> 0:13:23.559 it starts the book is. My father dies in twenty 0:13:23.600 --> 0:13:26.360 seventeen in a single car accident. He was a truck 0:13:26.440 --> 0:13:29.880 driver in California. We grew up in the South, and 0:13:30.000 --> 0:13:32.240 he was far from everybody that he knew and he loved. 0:13:32.880 --> 0:13:34.000 And when he was a part of. 0:13:33.960 --> 0:13:38.600 Our life, he was often dealt with drugs and addiction 0:13:38.720 --> 0:13:40.640 and abuse, and that kind of marked with my experienced 0:13:40.640 --> 0:13:43.480 it for that reason I didn't know him, and to 0:13:43.480 --> 0:13:45.160 be honest, I didn't like him very much because of 0:13:45.160 --> 0:13:47.480 the things he did growing up. But my family had 0:13:47.520 --> 0:13:51.200 asked me to do the eulogy for which required me 0:13:51.360 --> 0:13:54.200 to learn about his history and the things that shaped him. 0:13:54.559 --> 0:13:56.600 And anyone you know, you gotta know about their life, 0:13:56.640 --> 0:13:58.160 and so I didn't know about my own father's life 0:13:58.160 --> 0:14:01.400 in his background. So I sat down with members of 0:14:01.640 --> 0:14:03.479 my family and found. 0:14:03.240 --> 0:14:04.280 Out about who he was. 0:14:05.000 --> 0:14:08.240 And in the process of finding out about his past 0:14:08.240 --> 0:14:10.560 and this background, for example, I found out that his 0:14:10.679 --> 0:14:12.679 father one of the last days, his father said to 0:14:12.760 --> 0:14:14.480 him that he wasn't no good and he was never 0:14:14.520 --> 0:14:17.800 going to be anything. I learned about my family's history 0:14:18.480 --> 0:14:21.920 and what I saw in this story that ended up 0:14:21.960 --> 0:14:25.080 becoming a multi generational epic. He said, a lot of 0:14:25.160 --> 0:14:28.360 people in my family were struggling to arrive in this 0:14:28.480 --> 0:14:31.120 place that I described as the Promised Land. And the 0:14:31.160 --> 0:14:33.960 promise Land is just a place where you can be loved, 0:14:34.080 --> 0:14:37.000 safe from harm. Right growing up in the gymical South, 0:14:37.000 --> 0:14:38.720 it was just like there. It was just dangerous, and 0:14:38.760 --> 0:14:42.840 a lot of people in my family don't arrive what 0:14:42.960 --> 0:14:45.480 the American dream describes as the promised Land, kind of 0:14:45.480 --> 0:14:48.760 this safe middle class life. But Nonetheless, the lives that 0:14:48.800 --> 0:14:52.080 they lived mattered. The struggles that they went through to 0:14:52.280 --> 0:14:53.960 live with dignity and respect. 0:14:53.600 --> 0:14:54.960 And honor matters. 0:14:55.000 --> 0:14:56.680 And so what I was trying to say in hel 0:14:56.760 --> 0:14:59.480 Far to the Promised Land is here all of the 0:14:59.520 --> 0:15:02.520 ways in which society push these roadblocks in front of 0:15:02.520 --> 0:15:05.840 black flourishing. And here's the ways in which their struggle 0:15:05.880 --> 0:15:08.720 to find meaning and purpose matters, even if they don't 0:15:08.760 --> 0:15:10.880 arrive through what we describe as the Promised lad And 0:15:10.920 --> 0:15:13.000 so it's really not a book about a bunch of 0:15:13.040 --> 0:15:16.480 people trying to find their way to happen. It's about 0:15:16.560 --> 0:15:20.080 people struggling in the South, across generations in my family, 0:15:20.520 --> 0:15:23.400 to find meaning and purpose in their lives. And because 0:15:23.600 --> 0:15:27.160 it's a black family spanning from the nineteen hundreds all 0:15:27.200 --> 0:15:30.000 the way up to the present, like every black family 0:15:30.040 --> 0:15:33.440 experiences all of America, in the sense that the traumas 0:15:33.480 --> 0:15:36.800 and the brokenness and the dysfunction of America always lands in. 0:15:36.800 --> 0:15:39.120 A lap of Black people. So Jim Crow's in. 0:15:39.040 --> 0:15:42.160 Abstraction, it's something that actually happened. Tendant forming happens, Brown 0:15:42.200 --> 0:15:46.200 red boy of education happens. And so it's the journey 0:15:46.520 --> 0:15:48.480 of all of these people are trying to try to 0:15:48.480 --> 0:15:51.440 find meaning and purpose. Now where God comes into it 0:15:51.520 --> 0:15:54.040 in my family's life is that I have to tell 0:15:54.080 --> 0:15:56.920 the stories that occur in my family across these generations, 0:15:57.120 --> 0:16:00.080 and for many of those people, God, for them and 0:16:00.880 --> 0:16:02.760 for me, was a source. 0:16:02.520 --> 0:16:03.440 Of comfort and. 0:16:05.160 --> 0:16:08.280 Encouragement in the world that often traumatizes black people. So 0:16:08.320 --> 0:16:11.520 I know that that's not everybody's experience with religion, but 0:16:11.560 --> 0:16:13.920 in my family, for many of us, God was a 0:16:13.960 --> 0:16:16.520 helper and not necessarily a burden. 0:16:16.600 --> 0:16:18.360 And that's once again not even universal because. 0:16:18.120 --> 0:16:20.880 The people in my family who like you, reject or 0:16:20.880 --> 0:16:23.880 have troubles with make a system organized religion. So it's 0:16:23.880 --> 0:16:26.680 not like a story of all Christians. It's about people 0:16:26.880 --> 0:16:30.200 who make different decisions about how to even deal with 0:16:30.280 --> 0:16:31.160 things like God. 0:16:31.000 --> 0:16:31.840 And faith and religion. 0:16:34.440 --> 0:16:39.400 When you think about the legacy of your family that 0:16:39.480 --> 0:16:44.760 you learned through this book, through your conversations, and you 0:16:44.880 --> 0:16:49.640 juxtapose it coming out at a time when those very 0:16:49.880 --> 0:16:58.480 stories are being erased, are are literally Governor Rohn des 0:16:58.560 --> 0:17:03.320 Santis stood in a front of a podium yeah and said, 0:17:03.800 --> 0:17:09.920 there's no merit to it. There's no merit to their experience. 0:17:10.000 --> 0:17:13.440 There's no merit to their story. 0:17:15.800 --> 0:17:18.439 One of the weird things are the odd things about 0:17:18.480 --> 0:17:23.160 being black in America, is that our stories are always 0:17:23.280 --> 0:17:26.680 under attack, and so they're always tinily like. There's always 0:17:26.720 --> 0:17:31.200 this persistent effort to erase our narrative. And so when 0:17:31.240 --> 0:17:33.119 I wrote, when I started writing Half Out to the 0:17:33.119 --> 0:17:35.159 Promised Land, I didn't know that it was going to 0:17:35.240 --> 0:17:36.600 come out in a time. 0:17:36.440 --> 0:17:38.359 Where these stories were being pushed back. 0:17:38.520 --> 0:17:41.160 But one of the narratives that I that I talk 0:17:41.200 --> 0:17:44.440 about is my grandfather on my mother's side of the family, 0:17:44.800 --> 0:17:47.400 who grew up in the nineteen forties under Jim Crow 0:17:47.840 --> 0:17:50.199 and he started he started as a tenant farm when 0:17:50.240 --> 0:17:51.160 he was four years old. 0:17:51.520 --> 0:17:53.360 Four years old working on the tenant farm. 0:17:53.440 --> 0:17:56.879 And him and all of his siblings would like pitt cotton, 0:17:57.119 --> 0:17:58.479 and then they would go to school and they were 0:17:58.800 --> 0:18:02.840 they would they would let them out for extended breaks 0:18:02.880 --> 0:18:06.240 so they can come back and pick cotton during harvesting season. 0:18:06.600 --> 0:18:08.560 And no matter how well the crop did at the 0:18:08.600 --> 0:18:10.840 end of the year, he said that his grandfather who 0:18:10.920 --> 0:18:12.840 raised him, would come and they would tell him, you 0:18:12.960 --> 0:18:15.440 just broke even. And all my grandfather got in the 0:18:15.520 --> 0:18:19.320 nineteen forties, now where a pair of overalls, some shoes, 0:18:19.359 --> 0:18:22.399 and some books. It's almost like functional slavery. And because 0:18:22.400 --> 0:18:26.000 of that, he was sent to segregated schools and he 0:18:26.119 --> 0:18:28.360 was sixteen or seventeen years old when he's a freshman 0:18:28.480 --> 0:18:31.600 in high school. Not because he was under educated, because 0:18:31.600 --> 0:18:34.080 he was economically exploited and mistreated. 0:18:34.280 --> 0:18:35.280 Now because my. 0:18:35.200 --> 0:18:38.679 Father, my grandfather, went to segregated schools and he was 0:18:38.720 --> 0:18:42.520 overworked and under educated. We all know that the biggest predictor, 0:18:42.600 --> 0:18:47.560 the biggest predictor of college future is the education of 0:18:47.560 --> 0:18:51.920 one's parents. That means my mother became was educated, but 0:18:52.480 --> 0:18:55.479 was raised in the household that was directly impacted by 0:18:55.560 --> 0:18:58.560 Jim Crow economically and as relates to education. And my 0:18:58.640 --> 0:19:01.600 mother becomes the first person in generation in my family 0:19:01.640 --> 0:19:04.320 to go to integrated schools. This is the nineteen sixties, 0:19:04.359 --> 0:19:08.679 in nineteen seventies, your massive resistance. And she goes to 0:19:08.880 --> 0:19:10.639 school and see the half to teacher don't want to 0:19:10.640 --> 0:19:12.200 teacher because they don't want to teach the black kid. 0:19:12.600 --> 0:19:16.400 And so we talked about this like long history of segregation. 0:19:16.800 --> 0:19:20.240 We tend to believe that integration happened and there was 0:19:20.359 --> 0:19:24.320 no long term economic or social impact, and that even 0:19:24.400 --> 0:19:28.280 the integrated school integrated. Children with the integrated schools were 0:19:28.440 --> 0:19:32.400 treated fairly. And when the schools integrated, the school integrated. 0:19:32.640 --> 0:19:35.960 You know what happened. All of the money left Northwest 0:19:36.000 --> 0:19:38.679 Hunstville I was from, and I came into a failing 0:19:38.720 --> 0:19:42.119 school academically. Why because all of the money and the 0:19:42.119 --> 0:19:45.280 resources left in redlining. And so all I have to 0:19:45.280 --> 0:19:49.480 say is through the narrative history of my family, my grandfather, 0:19:49.880 --> 0:19:53.719 my mother and me, you see the long economic and 0:19:53.840 --> 0:19:57.800 social tale Jim Cruw. The funny thing about it, we 0:19:57.880 --> 0:20:00.280 do health far to the problems land Part two would 0:20:00.280 --> 0:20:03.480 see that now my exact my same neighborhood is gentrifying. 0:20:04.040 --> 0:20:05.240 If they tore down. 0:20:05.080 --> 0:20:07.480 My school where I went to school, and now there's 0:20:07.960 --> 0:20:11.080 literally a white neighborhood right there where the place where 0:20:11.080 --> 0:20:13.080 I used to play football with this re county in 0:20:13.160 --> 0:20:15.399 their store. I went to where my football field was 0:20:15.480 --> 0:20:18.159 last weekend and there was a park and there was 0:20:18.280 --> 0:20:21.159 one black family at that park. And so this is 0:20:21.160 --> 0:20:24.080 a long legacy of the economic legacy of Jim Crow. 0:20:24.160 --> 0:20:26.159 And this is the story we need to tell. Is 0:20:26.240 --> 0:20:28.760 of course you have to ask ourselves, is this justice? 0:20:29.320 --> 0:20:32.000 This actually what we want? America? To do or we're 0:20:32.000 --> 0:20:34.639 comfortable with America doing this to black people. And so 0:20:34.760 --> 0:20:38.919 I wanted to tell my family story as a way 0:20:39.160 --> 0:20:45.520 of highlighting not through statistics and argument, because that stuff exists, 0:20:45.600 --> 0:20:49.120 but through the story of one family what America. 0:20:48.800 --> 0:20:49.600 Does to Black people. 0:20:52.320 --> 0:20:58.800 How do you stay faithful? I mean, in all honesty, 0:20:59.040 --> 0:21:03.000 like I guess, and this is a place that I struggle, 0:21:03.680 --> 0:21:06.600 and you know, but I tell people, I obviously wouldn't 0:21:06.600 --> 0:21:10.120 turn on a microphone every single day to talk about 0:21:10.160 --> 0:21:13.880 the issue, to talk about injustice, to talk about the headlines, 0:21:13.920 --> 0:21:16.399 to try and wake people up if I did not 0:21:16.560 --> 0:21:18.919 have faith in the fact that people can change. 0:21:19.520 --> 0:21:19.800 Right. 0:21:20.680 --> 0:21:30.000 However, it is the consistent cycle of trauma and violence 0:21:30.720 --> 0:21:35.120 and erasure that this country gobbles up the same way 0:21:35.160 --> 0:21:40.800 they do fast food. And so, how do you stay faithful? 0:21:40.920 --> 0:21:45.359 And what advice do you have for others that find 0:21:45.400 --> 0:21:47.960 themselves struggling so much? 0:21:48.240 --> 0:21:53.760 Right now, I'll give you two answers. One is the 0:21:53.880 --> 0:21:55.960 kind of practical one and the one that's whatever I'm 0:21:55.960 --> 0:21:56.800 going to call the second. 0:21:56.960 --> 0:21:57.720 The first one is. 0:21:58.000 --> 0:22:02.280 I remember that when George full Actually this goes all 0:22:02.280 --> 0:22:04.760 the way back to twenty sixteen, when my writing career 0:22:04.840 --> 0:22:07.960 really begin to they seriously, we're heading towards we're heading 0:22:07.960 --> 0:22:10.119 into what was Donald Trump elected? 0:22:10.160 --> 0:22:11.119 My goodness, it feels like this. 0:22:11.119 --> 0:22:14.000 Is January seventeen. 0:22:14.600 --> 0:22:18.159 Yeah, so I remember heading sorry, I remember heading into 0:22:18.560 --> 0:22:21.159 the summer before that, and it was the rise of 0:22:21.200 --> 0:22:24.800 anti black violence, and if anyone knows anything about history, 0:22:24.880 --> 0:22:27.960 felt a lot like Red Summer when the African Americans 0:22:28.000 --> 0:22:30.520 came back from World War One and they said, can 0:22:30.560 --> 0:22:34.000 we have justice? They were responded, they met with a 0:22:34.080 --> 0:22:36.639 large way with anti black racism. And I saw the 0:22:36.720 --> 0:22:38.879 end of the Obama presidency and I saw what was 0:22:38.920 --> 0:22:42.000 coming and I said, oh no, we're about to go 0:22:42.040 --> 0:22:44.520 through it. And I didn't think that anybody would listen. 0:22:44.600 --> 0:22:47.840 But I felt I have small children, and I felt 0:22:47.880 --> 0:22:50.080 there needed to be a record. They needed to be 0:22:50.119 --> 0:22:52.920 a record that there was somebody who said, we see 0:22:52.920 --> 0:22:56.000 what's happening, and we understand what you were doing to us. 0:22:56.040 --> 0:22:57.840 Because for me, even if there was no one who 0:22:57.880 --> 0:23:00.520 could change it, something like the existence the Souls of 0:23:00.600 --> 0:23:03.080 Black Folks, the existence of that book by W. E. B. 0:23:03.200 --> 0:23:06.760 The Boys, the existence of some of James Baldwin's writings 0:23:06.960 --> 0:23:08.800 was a comfort to me. There was someone who could 0:23:08.840 --> 0:23:12.040 explain to us what was happening. And I felt like 0:23:12.119 --> 0:23:14.600 one day I was going to have my children going 0:23:14.640 --> 0:23:16.840 to reach the age of kind of like that point 0:23:16.880 --> 0:23:19.840 as a black child where you kind of go this 0:23:19.920 --> 0:23:23.040 world is messed up and it feels like it's riggered 0:23:23.040 --> 0:23:26.240 against me. And I had this real idea that what 0:23:26.280 --> 0:23:29.000 if my son or daughter looks at me and says, Dad, 0:23:29.040 --> 0:23:31.320 what did you do? And I really want to be 0:23:31.400 --> 0:23:35.400 able to say here like, this is a literary output 0:23:35.400 --> 0:23:37.439 that I put out in this moment to help make 0:23:37.480 --> 0:23:39.320 the world a little bit better for you. Maybe nobody 0:23:39.359 --> 0:23:41.440 read it but you, But I wanted to have something 0:23:41.520 --> 0:23:44.000 I can say. I'm not an activist, I'm not their 0:23:44.080 --> 0:23:45.840 skills that I lack. All I can do is right. 0:23:46.320 --> 0:23:49.520 So I wrote in some sense for my children. And 0:23:49.760 --> 0:23:53.040 on one level, I can't give up hope because I 0:23:53.119 --> 0:23:55.480 can't just say I'm going to give the world as 0:23:55.480 --> 0:23:58.199 it is to the next generation, because I felt like 0:23:59.000 --> 0:24:01.960 other black people did do that. This may get to 0:24:01.960 --> 0:24:04.479 the second reason why I have hope. One of the 0:24:04.520 --> 0:24:06.920 interesting things to do is to go back and read 0:24:07.080 --> 0:24:11.520 African American literature at these key turning points in history. So, 0:24:11.560 --> 0:24:14.080 for example, if you go back to the Emancipation Proclamation. 0:24:14.560 --> 0:24:17.200 You can see black people gathering in churches all over 0:24:17.240 --> 0:24:20.840 America and they will say, clearly, it wasn't Abraham Lincoln 0:24:20.840 --> 0:24:24.840 who freed the slaves, it was God. And they seemed 0:24:24.920 --> 0:24:27.240 to say that at each moment when they got a 0:24:27.280 --> 0:24:30.240 little bit of freedom, they saw the hand of God's providence. 0:24:30.600 --> 0:24:32.520 Now we might look back and say they were naive 0:24:32.560 --> 0:24:34.720