March 22, 2024 • 27 mins
Today's special guest is Ricky Jones, the Baldwin- King Scholar-in-Residence, at Kentucky's Christina Lee Brown Environment Institute.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Raised by his grandmother in Atlanta's Carver Holmes Housing project.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Ricky L.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Jones not only became the first member of his immediate
family to graduate high school, but by age twenty eight,
he also earned a PhD. Currently, he is professor and
past chair of the University of Louisville's Department of Pan
African Studies. Jones was educated as an undergraduate at the
United States Naval Academy and Morehouse College. He was only
the second African American to receive a PhD in political
(00:27):
science from the University of Kentucky, where he specialized in
political philosophy and comparative politics.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
He is a contributing columnist for.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
The Louisville Courier Journal, on the USA Today Network, and
Baldwin King's Scholar in Residence. And he is our guest today.
This is the Black Information Network Daily Podcast, and I'm
your host, ramses Jah. All right, Ricky L. Jones, Welcome
to the show. Brother, How you doing today?
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Ah?
Speaker 3 (00:54):
Brother ramsays, I'm good man, and I'm happy to sit
with the brother with your name because my name it's
so god awful.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Plane man, stop it, stop it, man.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
You got a fantastic name and it is very marketable, sir,
And you know what, I'm excited to get to know
you better, and I know that our listeners are excited
to get to know you better.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
And one of the things that we do on this.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
Show here is we start our stories at the very beginning.
So for those who are uninitiated to do us a favor,
give us a little bit about your background, a little
bit about your upbringing and what led you to the
career path that you're on today.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
Okay, it's somebody talk about for a very long time,
but I think the story is relevant. And people have
told me my mother was impregnated the first time she
had sex, so she had me at fifteen years old.
Speaker 4 (01:44):
That's too young to be a mother.
Speaker 3 (01:48):
I did not meet my father until I was thirty five,
so you know, I grew up without a father and
grew up with without a mother who's prepared to be
a mother.
Speaker 4 (01:57):
So my grandmother stepped in to raise me.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
And my grandmother, who is really the heroin in my life,
was born in nineteen thirty three in rural Georgia. Never
had the chance to attend school, so she passed away
in two thousand and nine, still virtually illiterate, so she
always told me, you know, look, I don't know what
you can do with an education, but I you know,
I do know what you can't do without one. So
(02:22):
you know, she worked hard. She was a housekeeper in Atlanta,
raised me in Carverhomes housing project there in southwest Atlanta.
Eventually was bus to high school in one of the
more wealthy areas of the city and Buckheads, the Northside
High School, then went on to prep school at US
Naval Academy Prep School, Newport, Rhode Island, and then to
the Naval Academy. And once we came to the mutual
(02:44):
understanding that I was probably not going to be a
very good and compliance Naval Officer of Marine Corps officer,
I transported her to Morehouse College, which is another story
in a great story, because it's why I loved more
House so much. And then you know I didn't and
people have to ask, you know, how did you know
you were going to go to college? Because nobody else
in my family went. You know, it was just something
(03:06):
that was there, largely because of my grandmother. Some doors
open for me, and I took advantage of them as
best as I knew how. And you know, that's that's
the story in a nutshell, went on to graduate school
at the University of Kentucky and it has spent my
entire scholarly career the University of Louisville. You know, close
the home doesn't go work even though we have some serious,
serious challenges in the state of Kentucky.
Speaker 4 (03:26):
Now, so that's it as a nutshell without without boring people.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
Oh no, no, it's not boring at all. It's a
fascinating story. So you you mentioned that.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
You you are a scholar and you have a scholarly career.
I want to talk about this this note that we
have here you being a Baldwin King scholar in residence.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
So talk a little bit about that.
Speaker 4 (03:48):
What is that?
Speaker 1 (03:49):
What is that encompassing? And break it down for us
who are uninitiated.
Speaker 3 (03:55):
Yeah, that's really really important to me and the woman
who sits at the heart of this. Anybody who has
drank Woodford, you know bourbon or maker's mark.
Speaker 4 (04:09):
A heard of Brown.
Speaker 3 (04:11):
Foreman, which is one of the greatest, you know, more
wealthy distillers in the country. You've heard of the Brown
family and you know, one of the most influential women
in the state of Kentucky's a woman named Christy Brown.
And Christy Brown's not only rich, She's one of those
rare wealthy people who has some consciousness about her. And
(04:32):
I was so disillusioned in the last couple of years
with the direction of the University of Louisville that I
was looking to get out and try to do something
else professionally, really for.
Speaker 4 (04:43):
My own sanity.
Speaker 3 (04:44):
And the thing that was holding me here and still
is is I have a well now a teenage daughter
who's about to turn sixteen in a couple of months,
and her mother and I were very committed to not
disturbing her life. You know, she has a very good
life at a good school, and we're sending her away
from Kentucky for college.
Speaker 4 (05:04):
But the question was, you know, what can.
Speaker 3 (05:07):
We do and how could I survive here mentally and
intellectually and socially until I got my daughter out. And
so I had a conversation with Christy Brown and told
her what was going on. She actually called me up,
and that's another story, and she said, look, you know,
don't look to leave right now, don't look to work
remote somewhere, write up your dream job, let me know
(05:28):
what it is.
Speaker 4 (05:29):
And let's see what we can do.
Speaker 3 (05:30):
And she has funded a research institute called the Christina
Lee Brown and Viral Institute. And so the job that
I wrote up was a Baldwin King Scholar and residence position,
you know, and omage to James Baldwin, Martin Luther King,
Junior Baldoon, one of my favorite writers. King of course
my more House brother. And so it's an extension of
the work that I do, which I want to be clear,
(05:51):
is not DEI work, right, And I'm not saying it's
not dee I work for the same reasons that some
people are disclaiming DEI, like.
Speaker 4 (05:58):
Some university unning from it. It's not out of fear
on my part.
Speaker 3 (06:03):
But what I think DEI as is really an initiative
that lumps everybody who is not white into one category,
and in that lumping you can lose.
Speaker 4 (06:14):
Your focus on some things that are very important.
Speaker 3 (06:16):
So for me, as a black organic intellectual, a black
intellectual who comes out of the black experience and is
wholly committed to fighting for the fortunes of black people,
I do work on black people. That's no disrespect to
anybody else. So that's not necessarily DEEI. That's really really
concentrating on the Black experience. And so that's the work
(06:37):
that I do with Baldwin King. That's what that's about.
And so everything that I do, from scholarly writings to
public writings, to very consistent radio appearances to programming, all
of it is about the continued education of anybody who's
curious about the Black experience one historically, but also what
we're facing contemporarily, and then trying to build something more
(06:59):
positive for us moving forward in the future. So that's
what the Baldwin King Scholar and Residents position is about,
in the Baldwin King project that has come out of
that is about.
Speaker 4 (07:09):
And so I encourage people to check us out.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
Well, listen, you came to the right place today, sir. Yeah,
no doubt. Love how that sounds you talking to the
right one?
Speaker 4 (07:19):
Yeah, no doubt. Hey, I can feel it from the
name I talk.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
Yeah, man, yeah man, you came to the right place.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
Okay, Well, listen, you mentioned a couple of other fasts
of your career. I think they deserve a proper breakdown
as well. So those of us who kind of have
a background in radio might be familiar with your your
working radio, but you know, for our listeners who may
not be familiar, let's talk about, you know, your career
in radio, because I know you spend some time doing that, right.
Speaker 3 (07:45):
Yeah, you know, all of it is a part of
the same thing for me. The question for me, you know,
coming up in this academic game, and people have to understand,
only about two percent of the population of the country
has phgs. Only about five of the professorate is black.
They just ain't that many of.
Speaker 4 (08:02):
Us, despite what a lot of politicians are.
Speaker 3 (08:04):
Saying these days, you know, and they're quote unquote anti
DEI ANTCRT moves, and people have to understand these things
aren't about critical race theory. These folks don't know what
critical race theory is. It's not about BEI. This is
really about the maintenance of white supremacy in American education
from kindergarten through college.
Speaker 4 (08:21):
That's what they're pushing. And so you just don't have
that many black professors, you know, at all.
Speaker 3 (08:27):
And so my role for me as a professor is
to train the next generation of black revolutionary thing, whether
they be in the professorate, whether they be in politics,
whether they be in corporate America.
Speaker 4 (08:39):
Training those thinkers and allies.
Speaker 3 (08:42):
Kind of in the tradition of a John Brown, who
are not black, but they're willing to honestly stand with
black people, not in a performanceive way. But the problem
with academia is this, it's such a closed Planish elitist profession.
There's a lot of the writing we do go to
these scholarly journals in like fifty people gonna read, and
the writing quite often is so dense that nobody can
(09:04):
understand this.
Speaker 4 (09:04):
So the question for me is, even though I had
to do that stuff.
Speaker 3 (09:07):
Earlier in my career to get tenured, the question is,
in the grand scheme of things, what good is it
if you can write the most powerful stuff under the sun.
But if nobody's reading it, you know who cares? And
so I needed to develop platforms where I can move
information faster. Right, because you write an article for a
scholarly journal, it's not going.
Speaker 4 (09:27):
To see the light of day for like a year.
Speaker 3 (09:30):
So I need stuff to move fasterest So what I
did earlier in my career was to figure out how
I can reach people. One way is to write books,
but this is an anti intellectual society, So who's gonna
sit down and read one hundred and fifty two hundred,
two hundred.
Speaker 4 (09:45):
And fifty page book.
Speaker 3 (09:46):
That's a smaller audience, right, but a larger audience than
who's gonna read those scholarly journals. So how could I
build out from that? So I started writing on public platforms,
first in a local weekly called the Louisville Centric Observer,
and so I did a monthly column there, which was local.
But then I wanted to build a bigger platform, and
so I went to the Louisville Courier Journal, which you
(10:08):
know is kind of a traditionally powerful newspaper, and it
joined the USA Today network, so I can push stuff
out there.
Speaker 4 (10:15):
You know, people ain't gonna read a two hundred and
fifty page book.
Speaker 3 (10:18):
Maybe they'll read a seven hundred and fifty word column article.
And that builds out through USA Today and all these
other platforms, Yahoo and whatnot. And I'm constantly looking for places,
not for my self aggortizement of ego. I'm looking for
other platforms where I can write, where more and more
people are going to read things that are coming from
a black scholar. But I also a project kid who
(10:40):
got some different sensibilities. And another way to do that
was to do radio and so I did a radio
show through our Heart Media for a few years and
you know, it did pretty well. And like you and
I have talked about, it's award winning, but winning awards
that's a low bar. But the question is if I
can't get people to read anything, maybe they'll listen. But
then I just ran out of time, right, I ran
(11:02):
out of time. I wasn't able to do that radio
show every week and do all the other stuff. So
I had to let something go. So I let the
Ricky Jones show go. But I do a weekly appearance
through our Heart Media with on WHS on a really
a well listened to radio show here the State of
Kentucky author Terry Miners Show.
Speaker 4 (11:23):
So that's the whole thing with radio for me.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
Okay, okay, fantastic the Black Information Network.
Speaker 5 (11:29):
I think it's caused us really to focus on the
equity and inclusion piece and not just the diversity piece
celebrating black history.
Speaker 4 (11:36):
There the die is classed.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
As I said, we're not asking, we're saying this is
the way.
Speaker 4 (11:40):
It's gonna be.
Speaker 3 (11:41):
And now making sure that yeah, that was a first,
but it won't be the only time that that's happened.
We want to make sure that we can continue to
do new.
Speaker 5 (11:48):
Things because our story continues.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
We are here today with speaker, journalist, author, and the
Baldwin King Scholar in Residence, the man himself, Ricky L.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
Jones. You know, there's.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
There's something special about being in the position that you're in.
I for for some time, on this show and on
my other show, Civic Cipher, which is my bona fide
broadcast radio show, we have been eyeing this entity called
(12:40):
Praeger you which, for those that are unfamiliar, is basically
right wing and doctrination for K through twelve. In other words,
the maintenance of the white supremacist institutions, namely the educational institution.
And it exists too. It speaks to white adults' sensibilities
(13:06):
and uh, you know, there's really again, as I mentioned,
far right in doctrination.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
And so I don't think it can be.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
Overstated how important the work that you're doing is, because
you know, there needs to be folks in that same
arena who are able to defend uh teaching American history.
You know that these rebrands they're calling American history CRT.
(13:39):
You know, as you mentioned, they're they're calling uh, you know,
d I initiatives, you know, and and I get what
you mean about D and I D I lumping everything together,
but there's.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
A full on attack on it, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (13:51):
And so the idea of oh, we want to we
want to have better trained police, and we don't want
diversity programs and employment fields, it's like kind of you
can see the white supremacy in the hypocrisy, right, And
so I wanted to make sure that I mentioned that
before we move on, that this type of work is
exceptionally important. And when I said you came to the
(14:13):
right place, I really meant that this is kind of
what I'm on. I've been on this, so you know,
this is a very enjoyable discussion that we're having so far.
Speaker 4 (14:21):
Yeah, thank you, brother. And I want to be clear,
so we have a police, you know, somewhere to work from.
Speaker 3 (14:25):
When I talk about white supremacy, for a very long time,
I had a rather naive.
Speaker 4 (14:32):
Understanding of white supremacy.
Speaker 3 (14:33):
I thought the white supremacy was just about you know,
the ku kuks Klan burning promptling people's lawns, or some
white nationalists marching through Charlottesville talking about you know you
and Jew's will not replaces and all stuff. But but
that's not what I'm talking about when I talk about
white supremacy. So I told some administrators at the University
of Louisville, you know, the plantation where I've labored for
(14:55):
twenty eight years now, that the university is a white
supremacist and people took umbrage.
Speaker 4 (15:02):
They were like, you know, like, oh, how dare you.
Speaker 3 (15:05):
I'm like, but all of your predominantly white institutions are
pretty much white supremacist institutions.
Speaker 4 (15:10):
When you understand what white supremacy.
Speaker 3 (15:12):
Is in America, what white supremacy really is is the
idea among a good percentage of white folk in the
country who think that they and only they have the
right to know, think and decide. Let me say it
(15:34):
again the day and only they, because of the color
of their skined, have the right to think and decide.
Speaker 4 (15:40):
What do I mean by that?
Speaker 3 (15:42):
On any important issue, whether it be education, whether it
be immigration.
Speaker 4 (15:46):
Whether it be about race, anything.
Speaker 3 (15:49):
They feel that they have the capacity to know what
the real problems are and what they aren't to think
about the proper solutions and then decide what to do,
and they'll form committees and things of that nature that might,
you know, sprinkle a token black person in on a committee,
(16:10):
but they ain't really going to push back.
Speaker 4 (16:11):
But at the end of the day, those committees.
Speaker 3 (16:14):
Are just advisors, that's it, and the real decision makers
have the right to make the final decision.
Speaker 4 (16:22):
That's white supremacy.
Speaker 3 (16:23):
So when you look at university presidents, you know, like
the University of Louisville is a sports factory. They're high
revenue sports, high revenue sports at any school or basketball
and football. Who who have the students who primarily populate
those teams? They're black kids, And so I'm like, you
(16:43):
should always have a black basketball coach.
Speaker 4 (16:45):
That makes sense to me.
Speaker 3 (16:46):
You got a predominant majority of black players. But people
that in Louisville were very excited about getting its first
black basketball coach, and I'm like, Okay, that's cool.
Speaker 4 (16:56):
I'm supportive of the brother Noa.
Speaker 3 (16:58):
I think he's a good guy, even though they're trying
to fire every freaking day around here. But the question
for me is when you're gonna get a black athletic director,
but better than that, when you're gonna get a black
president at this university. When you're gonna get somebody black
who the black basketball coach answers to. When you're gonna
get somebody black who decides whether that black basketball coach
(17:20):
is retained or fired. When you're gonna get somebody black
that decides what other proper initiatives on race that should
be implemented at the University of Louisville or any other school.
Speaker 4 (17:29):
That's what I'm concerned about.
Speaker 3 (17:31):
And so what Louisville did and what a lot of
these schools do. They took another white president and said, oh,
but she's strong on diversity.
Speaker 4 (17:40):
Well, the hell with dad.
Speaker 3 (17:43):
Somebody who looks like me that I can relate to,
and I know they're gonna be strong on diversity. And
now I'm not talking about, you know, somebody that's comported
themselves into unrecognized racial ghouls like Tim Scott, you know,
or Diamonds Still, you know, can this owens yet?
Speaker 4 (18:00):
Don't don't Daniel Cameron, who I talk.
Speaker 3 (18:02):
By the way, you know, And don't get mad at
me because Daniel Cameron, the former former Attorney general who
here in Kentucky didn't listen to a dog one word
I said in class, obviously, But that's what I'm talking
about when I talk about white supremacy, and the black
people that they quite often will put into positions at
places like this are so weak and milk toast, right,
(18:25):
they're not going to rock the ball. We're having fundamentally
different conversations, brothers like you and me. We're having different
conversations as our clothes on this than people like them,
because you'll see them, they tweet about it all so honored,
so grateful to be in this position or this da
da da da da. They're worried about individual personal positions
(18:46):
and have no concept of developing collective black power. So
the conversations are totally different. So I want to be
clear on what I'm talking about when I talk about,
you know, white supremacy and the failure of many folk
the white folk put into these positions to fight against
that white supremacy.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
Yeah, I could see.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
You know how challenging it is to suggest to otherwise
well meaning, well intentioned white folks that they are operating
a white supremacist construct framework institution, because no one, most folks,
I should say, in their heart of hearts, feel like
(19:27):
they are a million miles away from it. But I
think to your point, it's it's invisible to so many people.
You know, something comes to mind. There was a young
man who illustrated a medical textbook and instead of it
(19:52):
being white skinned anatomical figures, these were black skinned anatomical figures. Right,
And see that invisible force and the pushback against that.
I mean, these white folks have to pause and be like,
that's fair. But you know, white supremacy positions white folks
(20:14):
as the default, yes, when indeed human beings the default
looks like me and you. Right. Yeah, here's another example.
My hair is referred to as four sea ethnic hair
instead of hair. And you understand what I mean when
(20:38):
I say that, because this is the hair that human
beings grow. Everything else is a deviation of that. Right,
And so white supremacy being the norm, being centered or
whiteness sorry, being centered and being the norm that is
out of that is born white supremacist ideas and movements
(20:59):
and decisions and so forth. And then inevitably there's blind
spots because people, again, in their hearts, they don't feel
like they're being I'm sure whoever came up with four
sea hair was thinking they were being inclusive.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
Yeah, this is the type of hair.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
We should make shampoo for these folks, and by calling
it for sea ethnic hair, they are othering. Indeed, what
is the natural state of human hair?
Speaker 2 (21:21):
Right?
Speaker 1 (21:22):
And so I'm saying that to to uh, to kind
of echo your sentiments and to suggest at least to
our listeners that what you're saying is based in a
shared objective reality when you look at a factual basis
for it all.
Speaker 3 (21:37):
So, yeah, yeah, I appreciate it. Yeah, white, you said,
you talked about invisibility, right there you go, And that's
that's just what's so crazy about white supremacy.
Speaker 4 (21:50):
It is ever present.
Speaker 3 (21:51):
I mean, it is omnipresent, but it's simultaneously invisible.
Speaker 2 (21:57):
Especially to them and the blind spots.
Speaker 4 (21:59):
That's it.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
And that's why when you said putting hiring a black
decision maker, it eliminates the propensity for these blind spots
to become cancerous, you know, and in a long journey
of an institution like like the one that you called
this the plantation, you know, on the long story of that,
(22:22):
those those blind spots become cancerous and then you have
to put together a team to try to fix it,
as opposed to dealing with it up front, early and effectively.
And at the same time you're empowering black and brown
people to be self determined, and you know, that is
one of the things that we've been asking for, at
least since the Panthers. I know it's certainly a lot
(22:45):
further back than that, but I remember it being written down,
you know.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
So, so kudos to you for that.
Speaker 1 (22:50):
I do want to to make sure that we touch
on the books that you've written, because you mentioned them, but.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
I feel like they deserve a little bit more.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
So, you know, Black Haze, I have here, Obama Mania,
there's you know, these books that you've written, you know,
just touch on them, you know, briefly, before you know,
we get too far away from that.
Speaker 4 (23:10):
Yeah, no doubt.
Speaker 3 (23:12):
Black Hayes was was was my first book, and the
subtitle is is.
Speaker 4 (23:17):
Violence in Manhood and Black Greek Letter Fraternities.
Speaker 3 (23:19):
So what it was was an exploration and I prick
people people come in thinking that the book is about
fraternities and I'm a member of Cap Alphaci, But what
the book is really about is about manhood construction, and
it uses fraternities and hazing as a foil, but that's
not really what was what it was about. And you know,
(23:43):
the scary thing for me was back in the nineties nineties,
we saw a spate of deaths, including and while I
was in graduate school, a young man by the name
of Michael Davis was killed out at Southeast Southeast Missouri
State University by members of my fraternity.
Speaker 4 (23:57):
He was beaten to death, and so it was really scary, and.
Speaker 3 (23:59):
I got to the point where I was like, you know,
why are we doing this right? And I really really
wanted to explore it and hope one to ameliorate that
type of interaction with us, but to talk about what
black fraternities and our sensively sororities could do and how
we were uniquely positioned to speak to some of the
(24:21):
socio political ills that were happening in Black America. But
we were spending so much time on this discourge of
hazing and some other things that it was kind of
weakening us.
Speaker 4 (24:31):
So that's what Black Hayes was about. And that book
did really, really well, you.
Speaker 3 (24:35):
Know, and it was it was published by the State
University of New York Press, and ten years later it
was the first book in their African American Studies series
that was published as a second edition. So I did well,
but I grew really really frustrated with it, thug Ramsey
because doing work on Hazen and talking to Black Greeks
(24:56):
about it. Look, brother, you got just as much a
chance going out telling a tree outside of the iHeart Studios,
where you are to pull up roots and walk as
you do with us changing that culture. So I got
very frustrated with that work and stepped away from it.
My favorite book after that was What's Wrong with Obama
Manion and so People. That came out in two thousand
(25:18):
and eight, So it was one of the first books
that really explored Barack Obama and what his candidacy and
presidency meant to Black political imagination at poor.
Speaker 4 (25:33):
It was a trick too, because.
Speaker 3 (25:34):
People thought it was just about about Obama and by
the title, they thought it was some critique of Obama,
but it wasn't. It was an exploration and is an
exploration of black leadership, you know, and where do we
go with black leadership in the country. So even when
we talk about, you know, the subject that we were
speaking on a little bit earlier with with DEI officers
and university offices or even politicians. Right, it's not enough
(25:58):
just to have a black person in a position. You
got to have a black person that has a particular
orientation in those positions, because if you put a black
person who is simply a token, who is milk toasting
and you know, going along to get along and as
a supporter of the status quo, they can actually be
more damaging than helpful.
Speaker 4 (26:16):
What we didn't talk about.
Speaker 3 (26:17):
So I loved the Obama Mania book, but one of
the criticisms of it was that it was too intellectually
dense for a lot of people to get behind it.
And I was pissed up, man, because I was like,
I was like, damn man, I thought I wrote this
book down where people could stands.
Speaker 4 (26:31):
I had to really.
Speaker 3 (26:33):
Checked myself on the language that I was using in
some of my books, because that's kind of a consequence
of being an academia for too long. But also during
this time when we didn't talk about I became the
youngest chair in the history of puth African studies right,
and was the youngest chair in the College of Arts.
Speaker 4 (26:48):
And Scientists at the time.
Speaker 3 (26:49):
So literally seven years after I took on the professor's
position thirty five years old, I became the chair of
my department, and that really.
Speaker 4 (26:58):
Slowed me down. Man, because I was. I w was
saddled for fifteen years. You know, I've been.
Speaker 3 (27:03):
I was the chairit of my department for more than
half of my career, and so I was dealing with
budgets and administrate or stuff and fight people off, and
so it slowed some of my long form writing down.
And so now I'm able to get back to that.
So if people go check out Black Hage, especially check
out What's Wrong with Obama Mania, you know that'd be
greatly appreciated.
Speaker 1 (27:22):
This concludes part one of our two part conversation with speaker, journalist, author,
and the Baldwin King Scholar in Residence Ricky L.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
Jones.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
Check back in with us tomorrow for Part two, where
we discuss affirmative action, white supremacy, and the erosion of
Black support for Joe Biden right here on the Black
Information Network Daily Podcast
Raised by his grandmother in Atlanta's Carver Holmes Housing project.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Ricky L.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Jones not only became the first member of his immediate
family to graduate high school, but by age twenty eight,
he also earned a PhD. Currently, he is professor and
past chair of the University of Louisville's Department of Pan
African Studies. Jones was educated as an undergraduate at the
United States Naval Academy and Morehouse College. He was only
the second African American to receive a PhD in political
(00:27):
science from the University of Kentucky, where he specialized in
political philosophy and comparative politics.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
He is a contributing columnist for.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
The Louisville Courier Journal, on the USA Today Network, and
Baldwin King's Scholar in Residence. And he is our guest today.
This is the Black Information Network Daily Podcast, and I'm
your host, ramses Jah. All right, Ricky L. Jones, Welcome
to the show. Brother, How you doing today?
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Ah?
Speaker 3 (00:54):
Brother ramsays, I'm good man, and I'm happy to sit
with the brother with your name because my name it's
so god awful.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Plane man, stop it, stop it, man.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
You got a fantastic name and it is very marketable, sir,
And you know what, I'm excited to get to know
you better, and I know that our listeners are excited
to get to know you better.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
And one of the things that we do on this.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
Show here is we start our stories at the very beginning.
So for those who are uninitiated to do us a favor,
give us a little bit about your background, a little
bit about your upbringing and what led you to the
career path that you're on today.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
Okay, it's somebody talk about for a very long time,
but I think the story is relevant. And people have
told me my mother was impregnated the first time she
had sex, so she had me at fifteen years old.
Speaker 4 (01:44):
That's too young to be a mother.
Speaker 3 (01:48):
I did not meet my father until I was thirty five,
so you know, I grew up without a father and
grew up with without a mother who's prepared to be
a mother.
Speaker 4 (01:57):
So my grandmother stepped in to raise me.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
And my grandmother, who is really the heroin in my life,
was born in nineteen thirty three in rural Georgia. Never
had the chance to attend school, so she passed away
in two thousand and nine, still virtually illiterate, so she
always told me, you know, look, I don't know what
you can do with an education, but I you know,
I do know what you can't do without one. So
(02:22):
you know, she worked hard. She was a housekeeper in Atlanta,
raised me in Carverhomes housing project there in southwest Atlanta.
Eventually was bus to high school in one of the
more wealthy areas of the city and Buckheads, the Northside
High School, then went on to prep school at US
Naval Academy Prep School, Newport, Rhode Island, and then to
the Naval Academy. And once we came to the mutual
(02:44):
understanding that I was probably not going to be a
very good and compliance Naval Officer of Marine Corps officer,
I transported her to Morehouse College, which is another story
in a great story, because it's why I loved more
House so much. And then you know I didn't and
people have to ask, you know, how did you know
you were going to go to college? Because nobody else
in my family went. You know, it was just something
(03:06):
that was there, largely because of my grandmother. Some doors
open for me, and I took advantage of them as
best as I knew how. And you know, that's that's
the story in a nutshell, went on to graduate school
at the University of Kentucky and it has spent my
entire scholarly career the University of Louisville. You know, close
the home doesn't go work even though we have some serious,
serious challenges in the state of Kentucky.
Speaker 4 (03:26):
Now, so that's it as a nutshell without without boring people.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
Oh no, no, it's not boring at all. It's a
fascinating story. So you you mentioned that.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
You you are a scholar and you have a scholarly career.
I want to talk about this this note that we
have here you being a Baldwin King scholar in residence.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
So talk a little bit about that.
Speaker 4 (03:48):
What is that?
Speaker 1 (03:49):
What is that encompassing? And break it down for us
who are uninitiated.
Speaker 3 (03:55):
Yeah, that's really really important to me and the woman
who sits at the heart of this. Anybody who has
drank Woodford, you know bourbon or maker's mark.
Speaker 4 (04:09):
A heard of Brown.
Speaker 3 (04:11):
Foreman, which is one of the greatest, you know, more
wealthy distillers in the country. You've heard of the Brown
family and you know, one of the most influential women
in the state of Kentucky's a woman named Christy Brown.
And Christy Brown's not only rich, She's one of those
rare wealthy people who has some consciousness about her. And
(04:32):
I was so disillusioned in the last couple of years
with the direction of the University of Louisville that I
was looking to get out and try to do something
else professionally, really for.
Speaker 4 (04:43):
My own sanity.
Speaker 3 (04:44):
And the thing that was holding me here and still
is is I have a well now a teenage daughter
who's about to turn sixteen in a couple of months,
and her mother and I were very committed to not
disturbing her life. You know, she has a very good
life at a good school, and we're sending her away
from Kentucky for college.
Speaker 4 (05:04):
But the question was, you know, what can.
Speaker 3 (05:07):
We do and how could I survive here mentally and
intellectually and socially until I got my daughter out. And
so I had a conversation with Christy Brown and told
her what was going on. She actually called me up,
and that's another story, and she said, look, you know,
don't look to leave right now, don't look to work
remote somewhere, write up your dream job, let me know
(05:28):
what it is.
Speaker 4 (05:29):
And let's see what we can do.
Speaker 3 (05:30):
And she has funded a research institute called the Christina
Lee Brown and Viral Institute. And so the job that
I wrote up was a Baldwin King Scholar and residence position,
you know, and omage to James Baldwin, Martin Luther King,
Junior Baldoon, one of my favorite writers. King of course
my more House brother. And so it's an extension of
the work that I do, which I want to be clear,
(05:51):
is not DEI work, right, And I'm not saying it's
not dee I work for the same reasons that some
people are disclaiming DEI, like.
Speaker 4 (05:58):
Some university unning from it. It's not out of fear
on my part.
Speaker 3 (06:03):
But what I think DEI as is really an initiative
that lumps everybody who is not white into one category,
and in that lumping you can lose.
Speaker 4 (06:14):
Your focus on some things that are very important.
Speaker 3 (06:16):
So for me, as a black organic intellectual, a black
intellectual who comes out of the black experience and is
wholly committed to fighting for the fortunes of black people,
I do work on black people. That's no disrespect to
anybody else. So that's not necessarily DEEI. That's really really
concentrating on the Black experience. And so that's the work
(06:37):
that I do with Baldwin King. That's what that's about.
And so everything that I do, from scholarly writings to
public writings, to very consistent radio appearances to programming, all
of it is about the continued education of anybody who's
curious about the Black experience one historically, but also what
we're facing contemporarily, and then trying to build something more
(06:59):
positive for us moving forward in the future. So that's
what the Baldwin King Scholar and Residents position is about,
in the Baldwin King project that has come out of
that is about.
Speaker 4 (07:09):
And so I encourage people to check us out.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
Well, listen, you came to the right place today, sir. Yeah,
no doubt. Love how that sounds you talking to the
right one?
Speaker 4 (07:19):
Yeah, no doubt. Hey, I can feel it from the
name I talk.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
Yeah, man, yeah man, you came to the right place.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
Okay, Well, listen, you mentioned a couple of other fasts
of your career. I think they deserve a proper breakdown
as well. So those of us who kind of have
a background in radio might be familiar with your your
working radio, but you know, for our listeners who may
not be familiar, let's talk about, you know, your career
in radio, because I know you spend some time doing that, right.
Speaker 3 (07:45):
Yeah, you know, all of it is a part of
the same thing for me. The question for me, you know,
coming up in this academic game, and people have to understand,
only about two percent of the population of the country
has phgs. Only about five of the professorate is black.
They just ain't that many of.
Speaker 4 (08:02):
Us, despite what a lot of politicians are.
Speaker 3 (08:04):
Saying these days, you know, and they're quote unquote anti
DEI ANTCRT moves, and people have to understand these things
aren't about critical race theory. These folks don't know what
critical race theory is. It's not about BEI. This is
really about the maintenance of white supremacy in American education
from kindergarten through college.
Speaker 4 (08:21):
That's what they're pushing. And so you just don't have
that many black professors, you know, at all.
Speaker 3 (08:27):
And so my role for me as a professor is
to train the next generation of black revolutionary thing, whether
they be in the professorate, whether they be in politics,
whether they be in corporate America.
Speaker 4 (08:39):
Training those thinkers and allies.
Speaker 3 (08:42):
Kind of in the tradition of a John Brown, who
are not black, but they're willing to honestly stand with
black people, not in a performanceive way. But the problem
with academia is this, it's such a closed Planish elitist profession.
There's a lot of the writing we do go to
these scholarly journals in like fifty people gonna read, and
the writing quite often is so dense that nobody can
(09:04):
understand this.
Speaker 4 (09:04):
So the question for me is, even though I had
to do that stuff.
Speaker 3 (09:07):
Earlier in my career to get tenured, the question is,
in the grand scheme of things, what good is it
if you can write the most powerful stuff under the sun.
But if nobody's reading it, you know who cares? And
so I needed to develop platforms where I can move
information faster. Right, because you write an article for a
scholarly journal, it's not going.
Speaker 4 (09:27):
To see the light of day for like a year.
Speaker 3 (09:30):
So I need stuff to move fasterest So what I
did earlier in my career was to figure out how
I can reach people. One way is to write books,
but this is an anti intellectual society, So who's gonna
sit down and read one hundred and fifty two hundred,
two hundred.
Speaker 4 (09:45):
And fifty page book.
Speaker 3 (09:46):
That's a smaller audience, right, but a larger audience than
who's gonna read those scholarly journals. So how could I
build out from that? So I started writing on public platforms,
first in a local weekly called the Louisville Centric Observer,
and so I did a monthly column there, which was local.
But then I wanted to build a bigger platform, and
so I went to the Louisville Courier Journal, which you
(10:08):
know is kind of a traditionally powerful newspaper, and it
joined the USA Today network, so I can push stuff
out there.
Speaker 4 (10:15):
You know, people ain't gonna read a two hundred and
fifty page book.
Speaker 3 (10:18):
Maybe they'll read a seven hundred and fifty word column article.
And that builds out through USA Today and all these
other platforms, Yahoo and whatnot. And I'm constantly looking for places,
not for my self aggortizement of ego. I'm looking for
other platforms where I can write, where more and more
people are going to read things that are coming from
a black scholar. But I also a project kid who
(10:40):
got some different sensibilities. And another way to do that
was to do radio and so I did a radio
show through our Heart Media for a few years and
you know, it did pretty well. And like you and
I have talked about, it's award winning, but winning awards
that's a low bar. But the question is if I
can't get people to read anything, maybe they'll listen. But
then I just ran out of time, right, I ran
(11:02):
out of time. I wasn't able to do that radio
show every week and do all the other stuff. So
I had to let something go. So I let the
Ricky Jones show go. But I do a weekly appearance
through our Heart Media with on WHS on a really
a well listened to radio show here the State of
Kentucky author Terry Miners Show.
Speaker 4 (11:23):
So that's the whole thing with radio for me.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
Okay, okay, fantastic the Black Information Network.
Speaker 5 (11:29):
I think it's caused us really to focus on the
equity and inclusion piece and not just the diversity piece
celebrating black history.
Speaker 4 (11:36):
There the die is classed.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
As I said, we're not asking, we're saying this is
the way.
Speaker 4 (11:40):
It's gonna be.
Speaker 3 (11:41):
And now making sure that yeah, that was a first,
but it won't be the only time that that's happened.
We want to make sure that we can continue to
do new.
Speaker 5 (11:48):
Things because our story continues.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
We are here today with speaker, journalist, author, and the
Baldwin King Scholar in Residence, the man himself, Ricky L.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
Jones. You know, there's.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
There's something special about being in the position that you're in.
I for for some time, on this show and on
my other show, Civic Cipher, which is my bona fide
broadcast radio show, we have been eyeing this entity called
(12:40):
Praeger you which, for those that are unfamiliar, is basically
right wing and doctrination for K through twelve. In other words,
the maintenance of the white supremacist institutions, namely the educational institution.
And it exists too. It speaks to white adults' sensibilities
(13:06):
and uh, you know, there's really again, as I mentioned,
far right in doctrination.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
And so I don't think it can be.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
Overstated how important the work that you're doing is, because
you know, there needs to be folks in that same
arena who are able to defend uh teaching American history.
You know that these rebrands they're calling American history CRT.
(13:39):
You know, as you mentioned, they're they're calling uh, you know,
d I initiatives, you know, and and I get what
you mean about D and I D I lumping everything together,
but there's.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
A full on attack on it, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (13:51):
And so the idea of oh, we want to we
want to have better trained police, and we don't want
diversity programs and employment fields, it's like kind of you
can see the white supremacy in the hypocrisy, right, And
so I wanted to make sure that I mentioned that
before we move on, that this type of work is
exceptionally important. And when I said you came to the
(14:13):
right place, I really meant that this is kind of
what I'm on. I've been on this, so you know,
this is a very enjoyable discussion that we're having so far.
Speaker 4 (14:21):
Yeah, thank you, brother. And I want to be clear,
so we have a police, you know, somewhere to work from.
Speaker 3 (14:25):
When I talk about white supremacy, for a very long time,
I had a rather naive.
Speaker 4 (14:32):
Understanding of white supremacy.
Speaker 3 (14:33):
I thought the white supremacy was just about you know,
the ku kuks Klan burning promptling people's lawns, or some
white nationalists marching through Charlottesville talking about you know you
and Jew's will not replaces and all stuff. But but
that's not what I'm talking about when I talk about
white supremacy. So I told some administrators at the University
of Louisville, you know, the plantation where I've labored for
(14:55):
twenty eight years now, that the university is a white
supremacist and people took umbrage.
Speaker 4 (15:02):
They were like, you know, like, oh, how dare you.
Speaker 3 (15:05):
I'm like, but all of your predominantly white institutions are
pretty much white supremacist institutions.
Speaker 4 (15:10):
When you understand what white supremacy.
Speaker 3 (15:12):
Is in America, what white supremacy really is is the
idea among a good percentage of white folk in the
country who think that they and only they have the
right to know, think and decide. Let me say it
(15:34):
again the day and only they, because of the color
of their skined, have the right to think and decide.
Speaker 4 (15:40):
What do I mean by that?
Speaker 3 (15:42):
On any important issue, whether it be education, whether it
be immigration.
Speaker 4 (15:46):
Whether it be about race, anything.
Speaker 3 (15:49):
They feel that they have the capacity to know what
the real problems are and what they aren't to think
about the proper solutions and then decide what to do,
and they'll form committees and things of that nature that might,
you know, sprinkle a token black person in on a committee,
(16:10):
but they ain't really going to push back.
Speaker 4 (16:11):
But at the end of the day, those committees.
Speaker 3 (16:14):
Are just advisors, that's it, and the real decision makers
have the right to make the final decision.
Speaker 4 (16:22):
That's white supremacy.
Speaker 3 (16:23):
So when you look at university presidents, you know, like
the University of Louisville is a sports factory. They're high
revenue sports, high revenue sports at any school or basketball
and football. Who who have the students who primarily populate
those teams? They're black kids, And so I'm like, you
(16:43):
should always have a black basketball coach.
Speaker 4 (16:45):
That makes sense to me.
Speaker 3 (16:46):
You got a predominant majority of black players. But people
that in Louisville were very excited about getting its first
black basketball coach, and I'm like, Okay, that's cool.
Speaker 4 (16:56):
I'm supportive of the brother Noa.
Speaker 3 (16:58):
I think he's a good guy, even though they're trying
to fire every freaking day around here. But the question
for me is when you're gonna get a black athletic director,
but better than that, when you're gonna get a black
president at this university. When you're gonna get somebody black
who the black basketball coach answers to. When you're gonna
get somebody black who decides whether that black basketball coach
(17:20):
is retained or fired. When you're gonna get somebody black
that decides what other proper initiatives on race that should
be implemented at the University of Louisville or any other school.
Speaker 4 (17:29):
That's what I'm concerned about.
Speaker 3 (17:31):
And so what Louisville did and what a lot of
these schools do. They took another white president and said, oh,
but she's strong on diversity.
Speaker 4 (17:40):
Well, the hell with dad.
Speaker 3 (17:43):
Somebody who looks like me that I can relate to,
and I know they're gonna be strong on diversity. And
now I'm not talking about, you know, somebody that's comported
themselves into unrecognized racial ghouls like Tim Scott, you know,
or Diamonds Still, you know, can this owens yet?
Speaker 4 (18:00):
Don't don't Daniel Cameron, who I talk.
Speaker 3 (18:02):
By the way, you know, And don't get mad at
me because Daniel Cameron, the former former Attorney general who
here in Kentucky didn't listen to a dog one word
I said in class, obviously, But that's what I'm talking
about when I talk about white supremacy, and the black
people that they quite often will put into positions at
places like this are so weak and milk toast, right,
(18:25):
they're not going to rock the ball. We're having fundamentally
different conversations, brothers like you and me. We're having different
conversations as our clothes on this than people like them,
because you'll see them, they tweet about it all so honored,
so grateful to be in this position or this da
da da da da. They're worried about individual personal positions
(18:46):
and have no concept of developing collective black power. So
the conversations are totally different. So I want to be
clear on what I'm talking about when I talk about,
you know, white supremacy and the failure of many folk
the white folk put into these positions to fight against
that white supremacy.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
Yeah, I could see.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
You know how challenging it is to suggest to otherwise
well meaning, well intentioned white folks that they are operating
a white supremacist construct framework institution, because no one, most folks,
I should say, in their heart of hearts, feel like
(19:27):
they are a million miles away from it. But I
think to your point, it's it's invisible to so many people.
You know, something comes to mind. There was a young
man who illustrated a medical textbook and instead of it
(19:52):
being white skinned anatomical figures, these were black skinned anatomical figures. Right,
And see that invisible force and the pushback against that.
I mean, these white folks have to pause and be like,
that's fair. But you know, white supremacy positions white folks
(20:14):
as the default, yes, when indeed human beings the default
looks like me and you. Right. Yeah, here's another example.
My hair is referred to as four sea ethnic hair
instead of hair. And you understand what I mean when
(20:38):
I say that, because this is the hair that human
beings grow. Everything else is a deviation of that. Right,
And so white supremacy being the norm, being centered or
whiteness sorry, being centered and being the norm that is
out of that is born white supremacist ideas and movements
(20:59):
and decisions and so forth. And then inevitably there's blind
spots because people, again, in their hearts, they don't feel
like they're being I'm sure whoever came up with four
sea hair was thinking they were being inclusive.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
Yeah, this is the type of hair.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
We should make shampoo for these folks, and by calling
it for sea ethnic hair, they are othering. Indeed, what
is the natural state of human hair?
Speaker 2 (21:21):
Right?
Speaker 1 (21:22):
And so I'm saying that to to uh, to kind
of echo your sentiments and to suggest at least to
our listeners that what you're saying is based in a
shared objective reality when you look at a factual basis
for it all.
Speaker 3 (21:37):
So, yeah, yeah, I appreciate it. Yeah, white, you said,
you talked about invisibility, right there you go, And that's
that's just what's so crazy about white supremacy.
Speaker 4 (21:50):
It is ever present.
Speaker 3 (21:51):
I mean, it is omnipresent, but it's simultaneously invisible.
Speaker 2 (21:57):
Especially to them and the blind spots.
Speaker 4 (21:59):
That's it.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
And that's why when you said putting hiring a black
decision maker, it eliminates the propensity for these blind spots
to become cancerous, you know, and in a long journey
of an institution like like the one that you called
this the plantation, you know, on the long story of that,
(22:22):
those those blind spots become cancerous and then you have
to put together a team to try to fix it,
as opposed to dealing with it up front, early and effectively.
And at the same time you're empowering black and brown
people to be self determined, and you know, that is
one of the things that we've been asking for, at
least since the Panthers. I know it's certainly a lot
(22:45):
further back than that, but I remember it being written down,
you know.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
So, so kudos to you for that.
Speaker 1 (22:50):
I do want to to make sure that we touch
on the books that you've written, because you mentioned them, but.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
I feel like they deserve a little bit more.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
So, you know, Black Haze, I have here, Obama Mania,
there's you know, these books that you've written, you know,
just touch on them, you know, briefly, before you know,
we get too far away from that.
Speaker 4 (23:10):
Yeah, no doubt.
Speaker 3 (23:12):
Black Hayes was was was my first book, and the
subtitle is is.
Speaker 4 (23:17):
Violence in Manhood and Black Greek Letter Fraternities.
Speaker 3 (23:19):
So what it was was an exploration and I prick
people people come in thinking that the book is about
fraternities and I'm a member of Cap Alphaci, But what
the book is really about is about manhood construction, and
it uses fraternities and hazing as a foil, but that's
not really what was what it was about. And you know,
(23:43):
the scary thing for me was back in the nineties nineties,
we saw a spate of deaths, including and while I
was in graduate school, a young man by the name
of Michael Davis was killed out at Southeast Southeast Missouri
State University by members of my fraternity.
Speaker 4 (23:57):
He was beaten to death, and so it was really scary, and.
Speaker 3 (23:59):
I got to the point where I was like, you know,
why are we doing this right? And I really really
wanted to explore it and hope one to ameliorate that
type of interaction with us, but to talk about what
black fraternities and our sensively sororities could do and how
we were uniquely positioned to speak to some of the
(24:21):
socio political ills that were happening in Black America. But
we were spending so much time on this discourge of
hazing and some other things that it was kind of
weakening us.
Speaker 4 (24:31):
So that's what Black Hayes was about. And that book
did really, really well, you.
Speaker 3 (24:35):
Know, and it was it was published by the State
University of New York Press, and ten years later it
was the first book in their African American Studies series
that was published as a second edition. So I did well,
but I grew really really frustrated with it, thug Ramsey
because doing work on Hazen and talking to Black Greeks
(24:56):
about it. Look, brother, you got just as much a
chance going out telling a tree outside of the iHeart Studios,
where you are to pull up roots and walk as
you do with us changing that culture. So I got
very frustrated with that work and stepped away from it.
My favorite book after that was What's Wrong with Obama
Manion and so People. That came out in two thousand
(25:18):
and eight, So it was one of the first books
that really explored Barack Obama and what his candidacy and
presidency meant to Black political imagination at poor.
Speaker 4 (25:33):
It was a trick too, because.
Speaker 3 (25:34):
People thought it was just about about Obama and by
the title, they thought it was some critique of Obama,
but it wasn't. It was an exploration and is an
exploration of black leadership, you know, and where do we
go with black leadership in the country. So even when
we talk about, you know, the subject that we were
speaking on a little bit earlier with with DEI officers
and university offices or even politicians. Right, it's not enough
(25:58):
just to have a black person in a position. You
got to have a black person that has a particular
orientation in those positions, because if you put a black
person who is simply a token, who is milk toasting
and you know, going along to get along and as
a supporter of the status quo, they can actually be
more damaging than helpful.
Speaker 4 (26:16):
What we didn't talk about.
Speaker 3 (26:17):
So I loved the Obama Mania book, but one of
the criticisms of it was that it was too intellectually
dense for a lot of people to get behind it.
And I was pissed up, man, because I was like,
I was like, damn man, I thought I wrote this
book down where people could stands.
Speaker 4 (26:31):
I had to really.
Speaker 3 (26:33):
Checked myself on the language that I was using in
some of my books, because that's kind of a consequence
of being an academia for too long. But also during
this time when we didn't talk about I became the
youngest chair in the history of puth African studies right,
and was the youngest chair in the College of Arts.
Speaker 4 (26:48):
And Scientists at the time.
Speaker 3 (26:49):
So literally seven years after I took on the professor's
position thirty five years old, I became the chair of
my department, and that really.
Speaker 4 (26:58):
Slowed me down. Man, because I was. I w was
saddled for fifteen years. You know, I've been.
Speaker 3 (27:03):
I was the chairit of my department for more than
half of my career, and so I was dealing with
budgets and administrate or stuff and fight people off, and
so it slowed some of my long form writing down.
And so now I'm able to get back to that.
So if people go check out Black Hage, especially check
out What's Wrong with Obama Mania, you know that'd be
greatly appreciated.
Speaker 1 (27:22):
This concludes part one of our two part conversation with speaker, journalist, author,
and the Baldwin King Scholar in Residence Ricky L.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
Jones.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
Check back in with us tomorrow for Part two, where
we discuss affirmative action, white supremacy, and the erosion of
Black support for Joe Biden right here on the Black
Information Network Daily Podcast
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