May 13, 2025 • 55 mins
In this episode, Jacquees and Producer Jason Torres join the conversation to unpack the power of Black history with Michael Harriot, the absurdity of whitewashed narratives, and why understanding the past is the real flex. They break down the term “Drapetomania”—the so-called “mental illness” that doctors once claimed made enslaved people want to escape—and how this twisted concept still echoes in today’s political landscape, where erasing uncomfortable truths is big business.
Harriot, known for his sharp wit and cutting commentary, pulls back the curtain on his latest book, “Black as Fuck History”—a deep dive into the parts of our past that mainstream textbooks like to skip. He shares surprising discoveries from his research, the power of storytelling, and why centering Black voices isn’t just about history—it’s about our collective future.
If you’re ready to flip the script on what you thought you knew, this episode is for you. Get ready for laughs, hard truths, and the kind of perspective shift you didn’t know you needed.
Connect @_thatsPeace @MichaelHarriot
Read: Black AF History
Listen: Drapetomaniax: Unshackled History
Learn More: MichaelHarriot.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
My name is Jacqueess Thomas, and you're listening to black Lit,
a podcast about black literature and the stories behind the storytellers.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Welcome to a new episode of black Lit.
Speaker 3 (00:16):
Today.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
I have Jason Torres joining our conversation. We have Michael
Harriet joining us, the author of Black Ass Fuck History.
Speaker 4 (00:29):
He's a very fascinating guy. He's a very interesting person
and he has a lot of i'll say hot takes
that are very bold and fearless and matter of fact.
And he's a great blend of intellectual but also no nonsense,
so you know, he's very thoughtful. He's also very funny,
(00:52):
and he's the type of writer and personality we need
right now in these times.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Yeah, and the book Blackest Flock History is it really
dissects and examines America for its true true face.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
He does not hide it.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
It's an amglamation of history, biographies, family memories, self reflection,
his family, his anecdotes, and just everything. It's a really
great story. Even though it has some heavy moments. It
does have some like really poignant parts where you might
want to stop down and just digest it.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
But the way that.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Michael Harriet writes is digestible, right. It allows you to
kind of get through even the tough topics that he
brings up because there's humor, because there he has a
way of just you know, giving you the truth as
it is.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
So we have him here today.
Speaker 5 (01:54):
Michael Harriet, writer, founder of contrabandcamp dot com.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
As I listened to your podcast, I was like, Wow,
there's so much synergy and I feel like what you
were doing and for what.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
Let me let me ask.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
Though before we even start, So is the podcast coming
back for another season?
Speaker 5 (02:13):
I don't think so, Like, I mean, so many people
ask about it, but I kind of when we created it, I.
Speaker 6 (02:22):
Kind of knew that they were never going to do.
Speaker 5 (02:24):
This again simply because one so Pharrell kind of you
know negotiated it well his podcast company.
Speaker 6 (02:33):
You know, we were friends before then, and.
Speaker 5 (02:35):
We kind of brainstormed the idea and so the what
like the thing that Pharrell was doing was like, hey,
let's do the most creative thing we can do, and
so we had they gave us enough money to do
a writer's room. We had a writer's room. We had
(02:57):
people on staff that literally created an original soundtrack every week,
and it was like not it was expensive, but it
was so much work that I kind of knew that
they will not will never do this again. It was
so much time on my part out of the people,
and it was all black And so I always think
(03:20):
that if you do something and you love, like I
really feel like it's one of the best things I've had,
best pieces of work or pieces of art that I've
ever done, and I wouldn't want to do a lesser
version of it. And I always think that, like, oh,
if you know, sometimes things end and you don't have
to kind of drag them out and do lesser versions
of them. So I mean, if only one season exists,
(03:43):
I'm cool with that because I really like what.
Speaker 6 (03:46):
Came out of me.
Speaker 3 (03:47):
I completely agree.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
I think from the title alone, and I love how
it is also the name of the chapter in your book.
Tell me about that title, please, because there was something
that I learned from reading your book and from listening
to the pot and I would love our audience and
understand a little bit about the history of the title
and where derived from.
Speaker 5 (04:07):
The title that she's referred to is. The title of
the chapter is Drape to Maniacs, Get Free or Die Trying,
And the name of the podcast was drake to maniacs
with an X. So in eighteen fifty two, this doctor
named Samuel Adolphus Cartwright who was like kind of like
(04:29):
early version of what like Elon Musk and Peter Thiel
and all those guys are.
Speaker 6 (04:34):
Now race scientists.
Speaker 5 (04:36):
So he was an actual doctor though, and he came
up with this diagnosis. The disease that made people want
to Black people want to be free was called drake toumania,
and it's from THEE word drapetose, which is a word
for a freed slave, and mania, which is of course
a mental disorder. So he proposed this theory that like
(05:00):
black people were natural what he called quote knee benders,
and that we you know, sometimes though we get this
preposterous mania that makes us want to be free. But
and I mean this is literally in his you know,
research paper essentially in the New Orleans Medical Journal, he
(05:20):
says like but if you you know, if you beat
up enough, they'll stop wanting to be free. So that
was system, and he had like other theories too, Like
it's weird to look up this doctor's background. So I
imagine for the podcast that like, what if that disease
was real, who would be the drape toe maniacs throughout history,
(05:43):
like Ida be Wells, right, like they thought she was
crazy by offering statistics that showed like, oh, like black
men weren't lyching white women like y'all just crazy, but
they thought she was, you know, a drape toe maniac.
Speaker 6 (05:58):
The guy who invented.
Speaker 5 (05:59):
The comedy Charlie Kase, he would be a drape to maniac.
And so we went through history. Robert F. Smith, who
was like form the arm resistance of the you know,
we always think of the civil rights movement as non
violent resistance, but like they could be nonviolent because they
had some real dudes who with guns, who will say,
(06:19):
yy y, you're not gonna come and mess with these marchers.
So these were the people who I imagine was drake domaniacs.
But it extends from an actual medical diagnosis.
Speaker 6 (06:28):
And you can see this like in.
Speaker 5 (06:30):
One of my hobbies is like I love going through
old newspapers and like you'll read a newspaper in like
the nineteen hundreds, even after slavery was over that was like, oh,
this guy was a drapetomaniac or he was he was
stricken with drake tomnia because this black dude like looked
(06:51):
the white person in the eye or talk back to
white people. They'll say he was a drape to drake
to maniac or he had drape tomania. And I mean
it was actually in the medical journal as a diagnosis
until like the mid nineteen hundreds.
Speaker 3 (07:07):
So you said you were able to find this portion
of history through a newspaper clipping. Is that I understand
that currently?
Speaker 5 (07:15):
Well, I had heard I'd read about Samuel Kart writing
this diagnosis a long time ago. You know, I researched
it more found out about you know, more of his
beliefs that you know, he was one of those people
who and I'm sure you've further.
Speaker 6 (07:30):
Like black people had the curse of him and.
Speaker 5 (07:34):
Like that we got a little bit of the devil
in us, which is what makes our skin dark or
darker than other people. So yeah, like newspapers, old journals.
You know, I don't know if it's a hobby. I
always liked to first of all, as a journalist and
as a person who's interested in history, I always like
(07:55):
to read. Like, to me, newspapers give you an insight
on how people thought of a thing during the day,
Like you don't have to. You know, when you listen
to journalists or historians, you get it through a perspective
of today, But when you read a newspaper, you get
it through how they thought of it, right, and like
(08:19):
the racism, how natural and commonplace it was. Like I
was reading a newspaper yesterday. You know, we all know
about the guy who started the Klan, right, and we
you know, everybody reads about him and know he's the
start of the clan, but we don't know about him.
(08:39):
Like he had literally like a walmart of slave trading,
like in different cities. He had these huge what he
called and this is in the newspaper, so it's not
me nigger marks, and.
Speaker 6 (08:54):
Literally that was his name for him.
Speaker 5 (08:57):
And he had him opening like Memphis and Alabama, and
you know he would he was a slave trader before
he became a Confederate general, before he became ko klutz Klan.
But what's interesting is that I found it through he
had Like they asked him what his you know, proudest
moment was, and he said, well, you know, I remember
(09:21):
when I was I had this big add in the newspaper.
So he had an add like a full page ad
in the newspaper. For just one slave that he wanted
to sell, and he was charging a really high price
because it was Frederick's Frederick Douglas's daughter. So he was
selling Frederick Douglas's daughter. And the newspaper ad said the
(09:43):
daughter of nigger abolitionist Frederick Douglas. And like, if you
heard that in a history class, they would say, well,
it was just Frederick Douglas, Frederick Douglas's daughter, right, they
would say, you know, this guy was a slave trader,
they would But if you read it back then, they
would say, yeah, the guy who owned the Nigga marts
(10:03):
was selling the daughter of free nigger abolitionist Frederick Douglass.
And so we like to think of like America is
getting less rape like better, but we don't know how
crazy it was back then.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
It's interesting how blatant and it was back then, and
how blatant it seems to be becoming again. One of
the things that I heard you remark was that history
is happening now.
Speaker 6 (10:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (10:33):
I always think that, like people think of like what
like think of history as something that happened in the past,
and I don't know, like we are history now and
history is not what happened, happened in the past. Even
what we refer to as history is just the things
that I like to think of it as the things
(10:53):
that created now, right like they're the building blocks of now.
They're not things that like happened in the past, because
when you think of the past, you think of the
past as ending. It has the past as an endpoint,
whether it's yesterday or last hour, right Like, you have
the ability in your mind to separate it from now,
but it is not what happened now, right Like, whatever
(11:17):
you did yesterday, whatever you ate yesterday's technically history, but
it's in you now, right like it's going to determine
how many calories you consume, how tired you are, how
you feel today, and so like we should think of
history in the same way.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
Yeah, I definitely understand that. I wonder how you feel
about this whole basically this like these steps towards erasure
that are happening right now.
Speaker 5 (11:45):
When Trump issues an executive order, one of the first
of all, one of the interesting things we're talking about
that executive order Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,
I think is the actual title of the executive order,
And there's a line in there that's bugged me, like
since I read it, and it seems like I haven't
seen anyone talking about it. Right, So he talks about
(12:08):
the National Museum of African American History and Culture, he
talks about he talks about the National Women's Museum and
the Smithsonian, But there's a sentence where he says this
museum promotes the idea that race is a social construct.
Speaker 6 (12:24):
And not a biological reality.
Speaker 5 (12:27):
Those are the exactly, So what he seems to be
saying is, like the official position of this government is
that race is a biological reality, like it is genetic,
and there is a genetic that we know. Science doesn't
say that. You know, scientists agree that, like race is
just some shit white people made up. Like you can say,
other put it other ways, but that's what it is, right,
(12:49):
The idea of you know, skin color determining difference in
human beings is something that white people made up. And
the official position of this government is that, know it
is real. You know, they are leaning into race science.
But when you think about it, right, if you don't
(13:12):
know history.
Speaker 6 (13:13):
You won't know that.
Speaker 5 (13:14):
Oh, like that's what with the founding fathers literally said
to justify you know enslavement, right, like there's this you
know what I call I think I wrote about it
last year is like the first rap beef that.
Speaker 6 (13:33):
Was bigger than Kendrick Lebar and Drake.
Speaker 5 (13:37):
Was this this back and forth between Thomas Jefferson and
these European race scientists who basically came up with the
idea of white supremacy. But what they said initially was
like what we see as racial differences are caused by
(13:58):
environmental factors, right like the climate, how you eat, where
you live, the politics of where you are. And what
they said, the Europeans said was that and what's going
to happen is that when the white people from Europe
go over to America with all those Negroes and all
(14:20):
of those Native savages, they're going to become less white, right,
They're going to be They're not going to be white anymore.
Speaker 6 (14:29):
They're not going to be like us genteel Europeans.
Speaker 5 (14:32):
So Thomas Jefferson says, na, na, Nah, I've studied the
black people and there is a biological difference. They are
inferior in body and mind. That is a quote, like
they are inferior in body in mind.
Speaker 6 (14:46):
Like I can't and he literally writes this, right, I
can't do it.
Speaker 5 (14:50):
Like I wish I could slice them open and see
if they were different on the inside. But from what
I have observed, like there are a there's a biological
difference between us, which is why we can't set them free. Right,
And he says that, you know, this is in the
notes on the State of Virginia. He says, because you know,
(15:13):
when the Romans enslaved people, right, they enslaved white people.
So when they freedom, they didn't, you know, mix and
stain their race. But if we set the black people free,
they will, you know, mix with our.
Speaker 6 (15:30):
Blood and stain our race. So we can't set up free.
Speaker 5 (15:34):
That is the policy that kind of reaffirmed white supremacy
in America, and at every turn towards in America we
see the same thing as what happened with Trump. So
Thomas Jefferson did it right, and then he kind of
banned books because what he did also is in that
(15:55):
same note of the State of Virginia, there's this whole
paragraph where he talks about black people and their poetry
and their aren't and he says, well, you know, Phil,
he talks about Phyllis Wheatley, right, we can't she should.
Speaker 6 (16:09):
We can't.
Speaker 5 (16:09):
We got to censor her because she will make them
think that she like they have the same capacity for
arn't as we do.
Speaker 6 (16:18):
So we got a censor that. And then right before.
Speaker 5 (16:21):
The Civil War, remember Andrew Jackson wanted to you know,
he blamed the tensions in America on the abolition movement. Right,
He's wanted to pass a federal law that made it
a federal crime if you mailed abolitionist literature through the
post office. Again, banning the ideas that talk about what
(16:46):
white people do, not race, right, because race ain't real.
It's just a thing that white people made up. And
white people made up this constitutionally enforced race based human
trafficking system. And then they wanted to ban us from
talking about it, talking about the injustice of it.
Speaker 6 (17:02):
Right. And then when we're.
Speaker 5 (17:04):
Free after the Civil War, right, what do they do
They start this lost cause movement that banned the real
truth in history. Now, you can't call the Confederates traders, right,
you can't say they like that's what literally what they did,
they turned against they picked up arms against their own country.
But we're not going to say that. And they went
(17:27):
to the textbook manufacturers, these white women. The United Daughters
of the Confederacy went to these white women and said, hey,
you got to ban them from telling the truth of history.
Speaker 6 (17:37):
That's the Lost Cause movement.
Speaker 5 (17:38):
That's why we talk about the Civil War as we
talk about it now. Like, first of all, like even
the idea that we call it the Civil War right
when it was a war for white supremacy, is kind
of a result of the the Lost Cause movement. Is
why the Confederate flag became like a national symbol. And
(18:00):
all of that happened because they banned us from talking
about the truth. And then when you read this trunk order,
like preserving truth and sanity and American history what he's
talking about, right, you know, I had a speech the
(18:21):
day that it came out, Like I scrapped my whole speech,
and I was talking about like the craziest things that
he said that the National Museum of African American History
and Culture is doing. He said that there is some
exhibit in the museum that says, like hard work and
(18:43):
liberty and the nuclear family are products or ideas that
came out because of white culture. Now, I don't think
there's an exhibit that says.
Speaker 6 (18:54):
That but if there was.
Speaker 5 (19:00):
When you think about hardware, like white people created a
international human trafficking system to get out of hard work, right,
I mean you think about that, that's what it was.
Speaker 6 (19:12):
Right.
Speaker 5 (19:12):
They used violence and the threat of violence to create
a human trafficking system to get out of hard work.
This country was built by enslaved people who again, right
on the end of the Civil War, the value of
the enslaved African Americans were worth more than all of
the money in all of the banks, and all of
the railroads and all of the factories in America combined. Right,
(19:36):
think about building an institution that is that valuable.
Speaker 6 (19:42):
So again, if the black people were.
Speaker 5 (19:45):
Worth more than all of the manufacturing and all of
the railroads and all of the money that is literally
in the banks, how can you even first of all,
say that this is like an American economy or capitalist comomy.
Speaker 6 (20:07):
It was a black people economy.
Speaker 5 (20:08):
The economy of America was black, right, And it was
that way because white culture did not value hard work.
And if you talk about the nuclear family, it says
like we say that the National Museum of African American
History and Culture says that the nuclear family is an
(20:31):
idea that was created by white culture.
Speaker 6 (20:34):
It was white.
Speaker 5 (20:35):
Like, if you have a constitutionally enforced system that says
you can rip babies from their mothers and sell them.
If you have a system that says marriages by enslaved
people are not legally recognized, then what you're saying is
the only nuclear family that they recognize is white families. Like,
(20:59):
that's the only family that is legally recognized. Individuality, it says,
it detegrates individuality. I mean black people didn't. Black people
didn't say that. The constitution says that. The Constitution says, like,
black individuals are not actually individuals. There are three fits
of an individual's there's sixty percent of a black persient.
(21:22):
It takes five black people to make up three white people, Right, that's.
Speaker 6 (21:28):
What the Constitution says.
Speaker 5 (21:31):
So individualism is not a aspect of white culture.
Speaker 6 (21:37):
Right.
Speaker 5 (21:37):
So, even though I don't think the National Museum of
African American History and Culture says that if they did,
they wouldn't be wrong, right, And so the efforts to
erase these things again, trace it back to Thomas Jefferson.
Chase it back to the white women and the daughters
of the Confederacy. Chase, trace it back to you know,
(22:00):
the Red Summer of sixteen nineteen chased it back to
strom Thumb and the segregationists.
Speaker 6 (22:04):
They were all saying the same thing, right, And so
when you know.
Speaker 5 (22:09):
History, you realize, oh, this is just white people doing
what they did all those other times before.
Speaker 6 (22:15):
Right. It is not a new thing.
Speaker 5 (22:17):
It is just like Trump just put it down on
paper this time time.
Speaker 1 (22:21):
It's you are listening to black Lit.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
There was one thing that you mentioned too, And I'm
also really surprised that your book has not been banned.
It just seems like all books are getting banned at
this point. And if they are speaking to any level
of empathy for diversity and individuality, or if they're speaking
to any type of truth about our history, which is
(22:55):
what they're trying to curate, I'll use that word.
Speaker 6 (23:01):
Yeah. I think.
Speaker 5 (23:02):
Well, I think one of the reasons it hadn't been
banned is because, like they're like white people generally don't
know about this book. Since it came out to like
almost two years ago, it's been the number one history
book in.
Speaker 6 (23:19):
The country like for like almost two years running.
Speaker 5 (23:22):
But I think it hasn't gotten into like the white
public sphere, like the sixteen nineteen project, So like people
are buying it, but I don't think it is like
part of a national conversation to that makes people mad.
But then again, you got to think about it, right, Like,
(23:44):
it is not that these books are written and you know,
and say something bad. It is that, like white people
just don't like it. So when you think about, for instance,
the sixteen nineteen project, like we knew about sixteen nineteen,
like black people generally knew, like and white people are
(24:05):
just finding out about sixteen nineteen and they are upset
with the idea that like America is was invented before
America was actually invented. When you think about critical race theory, right,
like critical race theory has been around, like I literally
took critical race theory in nineteen ninety five, and white
(24:29):
people are just now finding out about it, and so
like they act like there's this whole new movement that
are that is teaching like graduate level stuff to third graders,
But it is because white people found out about it.
And so, you know, one of the things I am
proud ofself about this book is that how it's been
(24:52):
really black supported.
Speaker 6 (24:53):
You know, it got on the.
Speaker 5 (24:55):
New York Times bestseller list without me doing a single
like I did. The only TV show I did because
it was probably because it was during the writers strike,
was like joy Reads show and the other other than that,
it was like black people's podcasts, black people's radios stations,
black people radio shows, and word of mouth, right, and
(25:18):
like it is funny because the even the like the
white folks at the publishing company, the HarperCollins who published
my book, like really can't really understand it, how what happened,
Like because like black folks know me, but like white
folks have never heard of me, right, so they.
Speaker 6 (25:39):
Really still can't understand.
Speaker 5 (25:40):
Like every time I talk to them is like I
still can't believe this thing is it's selling like this
like like and so I think that's one of the
reasons it hasn't been banned.
Speaker 6 (25:51):
An the other reason is, like I always say.
Speaker 5 (25:54):
Like, find something in it that is wrong when y'all
challenge you, right, like, if you want to ban it,
tell me what's wrong about it, Like tell me what
which facts are wrong or which thing I said is okay?
Speaker 3 (26:09):
Yeah, and they aren't able to.
Speaker 6 (26:12):
I haven't heard one yet.
Speaker 5 (26:14):
I haven't even heard somebody say this thing is wrong
that I had to challenge them on it, right, like
they just hadn't found.
Speaker 6 (26:21):
Anything, which is probably why it hasn't been been well.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
Let me ask you this, then, is there anything in
the book that surprised you while you were doing your
research and looking and writing and finding out information that
maybe you weren't privy to or aware of. Was there
anything during your research process that really surprised you.
Speaker 5 (26:41):
Yeah, I mean a lot of it surprised me.
Speaker 6 (26:45):
You know.
Speaker 5 (26:46):
One of the most surprising things that you know, I've
kind of discovered while writing the book is that, I mean,
if we've been friends, like how incompetent the white people
are who we herald so much, like like the Jamestown
(27:08):
settlers like starved to death, and like at every turn
it's like the white people really couldn't do the thing.
So I think the biggest surprise to me was, even
though I wasn't even given the American myth as a child,
how much of still, like what we don't know is
(27:28):
is based on like white incompetence, Like white people really
couldn't do.
Speaker 6 (27:32):
Things in America.
Speaker 3 (27:34):
It's interesting.
Speaker 2 (27:35):
I was in a book club last night just to
segue a little bit, and that the book club we
were talking about Siebol. I don't know if you're familiar
with Cebol Campbell's new book, The Sky Is Full of Elephants,
And in this book, all the white people walk out
into the ocean, right, and it's essentially about like erasing
white supremacy and all of these certain things. And hearing
(27:58):
you say, like you know that they didn't want to
do hard work, so that's why they invested into and
manual labor essentially, right, and black bodies as these workhorses
to get their jobs done and to get X, Y
and Z done. So would I would love to actually
have this conversation with you and him, because it's so
(28:21):
interesting to understand what his perspective was to think, like, Okay,
the white people all walk into the ocean, and it
left black people in the South lost for a spell
of time because they didn't have the infrastructure to do X,
Y and Z. But anyways, yeah, so I was curious,
(28:43):
have you read that book yet or.
Speaker 6 (28:44):
Yeah, I've read it again.
Speaker 5 (28:46):
That is one of the things that struck me because like,
I think it would kind of be the opposite. I
think everybody, all the black people would be probably kind
of lost, except for the white black people in the
South because the black people first of all, I mean
because of segregation. So well, I grew up in South Carolina,
so I might be biased. I've lived all my life
(29:06):
in the South, but you know, for most of its existence,
South Carolina was.
Speaker 6 (29:10):
A majority black state.
Speaker 5 (29:11):
And I grew up in a town, which is also
why might be biased, that was about half black and
half white. So I didn't grow up around you know,
it was segregated, so I didn't grow up around white
people at all. I didn't have any white influences on
my life. I was homeschool until I was twelve, and
so that's not the South really anywhere I've lived in Alabama.
(29:36):
I currently live in rural Georgia in a majority black town.
I mean, I think that people who are not from
the South have this perception of the South that is
shaped by white people, right, and so you think about
the infrastructure of the South was built by black people
during slavery. Right after emancipation, we were segregated into our
(30:01):
own communities where we control the infrastructure until today, right
and so like, I went back to South Carolina this weekend,
and I don't even really go home that often, but
my neighborhood that I grew up in had like essentially
what is a hood reunion, our neighborhood reunion.
Speaker 6 (30:21):
And we were talking.
Speaker 5 (30:22):
And I was looking around, and I was like, you know,
one of the things is like I grew up in
a community that was really untouched by white people when
I wanted to go to the store and go grocery shop,
and I didn't have to go to a white store.
Speaker 6 (30:38):
So I don't know that South. I've never lived in
that South.
Speaker 5 (30:42):
I live in a majority of black town now where
the only grocery store in town is in its fifth
generation of black ownership, right, like black people have always
owned the grocery store.
Speaker 6 (30:53):
You know, the city, All the women at city all.
Speaker 5 (30:56):
Are black, Like black people really don't think about white
people that offer here.
Speaker 2 (31:02):
You know.
Speaker 5 (31:03):
Interesting, you know, kind of juxtaposition of that book is
there's a book by William E. Kelly that was written
in like nineteen sixty eight, call a Different Drummer, that's
basically the same premise, you wake up one day all
the white people gone literally walking to the ocean, And
his book is a kind of a different take that
was kind of Southern based, And you know, I commend
(31:24):
people to read that book and see kind of like
what the South Is is kind.
Speaker 2 (31:30):
Of like, well, that's a good recommendation. Do you have
any other What are you reading right now?
Speaker 5 (31:35):
So I'm actually finishing a manuscript, so I don't. I
try not to read while I'm writing to be in Florence,
so I'm not really reading anything right now. I'll be finished.
They get the end of this.
Speaker 6 (31:47):
Month, so oh nice.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
Can you share anything about the manuscript that you're writing current?
Speaker 3 (31:51):
Oh?
Speaker 6 (31:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (31:52):
So it's a really quick kind of book that I'm
sure everybody's heard about On Tierranny, which is the book
that everybody started buying, you know, when they started imagining
that this country could be turning tyrannical. So what my
book is is kind of like Black on Tyranny. So
the premise is that black when we talk about tyranny
(32:16):
and fascism, we always talk about Hitler and Mussolini, when
the most direct correlation is that, like, I am the
first generation of black people who have not lived under
fastest regime in America, So you don't have to look
at like Hitler and all of that. In fact, so
it's like on Tyranny, but all of the lessons are
(32:40):
like how to fight tyranny based on the lessons of
the people who actually destroyed it, right, based on black movements,
whether it is the anti lynching movement, the abolition movement,
it's a rights movement, the black power movement. So it's
using those lessons to talk about fast living under a
Marria because fascist regime or tyranny.
Speaker 3 (33:03):
Okay, when did you say that comes out?
Speaker 5 (33:05):
I think December is when it's slated to come out,
but that's predicated on me finishing it by the end
of this month.
Speaker 3 (33:11):
Oh you got this.
Speaker 4 (33:14):
Speaking of writing, you use humor a lot in your work.
I just wanted to know, like, in your process, how
do you strike the balance of like injecting humor into
these extremely serious topics without losing the depth, while still
being able to be funny.
Speaker 5 (33:28):
I think I heard someone say before, like, you don't
have to put humor in you know black people. Man, Like,
we could be at a funeral and somebody walks in
with the wrong outfit on it and we gonna laugh.
We're gonna make fun of them. That's why you can't ya.
Mama won't let you sit next to your cousins at church.
So I don't necessarily kind of inject human I just
don't feel the need to take it out because I'm
(33:50):
communicating with people the way I communicate with people in
real life. And the other thing is that I think
humor our allows us to actually grasp things that are
very like traumatic and you know violent. That allows us
(34:13):
to grasp them with you know, lighter feeling, because you
can get exhausted reading about like, you know, almost all
of black history if you were being truthful about it,
unless you inject some humor into it, right.
Speaker 6 (34:28):
So I think those two.
Speaker 5 (34:31):
Things, and then I have always been a fan of
people who wrote with humor, whether it is Mark Twain
or Paul Batty, one of my favorite writers. So you know,
I've always been a fan. I used to read like
I got on like when I was, I don't know,
a teenager. I got in this real deep fandom of
Andy Rooney. So yeah, I've always been you know, Dave Barry,
(34:55):
I've always been a fan of people who write with humor.
Speaker 4 (34:58):
The way you were speaking Earli about a couple of
different things reminded me about like social media and the
way you kind of interact on there. I was curious
to know how you feel social media plays a role
in white supremacy today.
Speaker 6 (35:13):
So I think, like, now social media is dead.
Speaker 5 (35:18):
It's not social anymore, right, Like it used to be
a thing where you can get on social media and
you can follow people and you'll see what the people
who follow you.
Speaker 6 (35:27):
Alike or are saying or thinking.
Speaker 5 (35:30):
And then from the people you follow this algorithm what
might suggest other things that kind of fit into your
you know, your ideology or to your personality.
Speaker 6 (35:44):
And now it's just media, right, It's like like.
Speaker 5 (35:49):
What you see on your timeline has no correlation to
who you follow or what you want to see on
the internet or how you think it is what Elon
Musk and those people want you to think. It is
like turning on the TV and just turning on the channels.
You don't get to shoo as what's on NBC at
seven o'clock. It is just media now, right, It's not social.
(36:10):
It is just media. And so I think, you know,
if you look at it like that, then you get
a better understanding of it and then on these things
at the same time, right, Like it is also like
indicative of America, right, Like social media is racist, like
America is racist. So like you don't have to flee
(36:31):
it because like, I ain't leaving America just because white
people get racis different. If that was the case, I
would have been gone, like as soon as I got
my passport.
Speaker 6 (36:38):
Or as soon as I turned eighteen.
Speaker 5 (36:40):
We kind of, you know, are stuck in this world
where we have to navigate whiteness while existing as in
our full selves. So you know, I am not like
one of those chick little people on social media who
(37:02):
stinks like the world is ending me because Elon Musk
took over Twitter, Like when Elon must took over Twitter,
and I said, yeah, you know, people were asking me
like where are you gonna go when you leave Twitter?
And I was like, I mean, I don't have to
go nowhere, right Like Twitter was the thing that I had,
and then when it's over, I don't have to replace
it with something else. It's just like, oh yeah, I'm
just not on Twitter. You don't need social media.
Speaker 2 (37:24):
And there's some gen z right now that just heard
that and said, what, you don't need social media?
Speaker 3 (37:29):
That's like the tool that's to go to tool for everything.
Speaker 4 (37:32):
That's why TikTok's too popular though, because like you know
that that algorithm rewards you differently young people and interact
with it differently. It's not as bad, you know some
of the along you know, allegedly.
Speaker 6 (37:43):
Yeah, but yeah.
Speaker 5 (37:43):
But the other thing is like TikTokers just might be
just gathering the data so that when it wants to
be what Elon Musk may turn Twitter in and what
Mark Zuckerberg turned Facebook into. Right, TikTok is just in
the early stages of that. Right, it definitely has more
data on what we're interested in, what we'll buy, what
(38:04):
will what our spending habits are, and when they're ready to,
you know, turn that on to weaponize it against us.
I mean, I think it'll happen too. And I'm not
being a doom's there. What I'm just saying is, like
you mean, I think we can look at all of
(38:25):
these things as like not just saviors or villains, but
just like a thing that is right, Like, oh, I
can look at some funny videos or some interesting videos,
and then when it's over, it's just over.
Speaker 6 (38:40):
It's over.
Speaker 1 (38:48):
You are listening to Black Lit.
Speaker 2 (38:55):
You said at one point that black people see America
in a different way, and I agree with that as well,
And you also just said that you know, if you
would have thought that, you know, white racist supremacy was
America was like your America, you would have left years ago,
I paraphrase. So I am curious about how you see
(39:16):
America now and where do you see it going or
how do you see it growing? Considering everything that is
happening and everything that is being manipulated and used against us.
Speaker 5 (39:28):
Well, I think we are in the already in the
thing that we fear, like what we fear America will become.
Like people say it's you know, is this going to
be the end of democracy? No, and that shit is over, bro,
Like America is done. What we are looking at is
(39:50):
probably thirty years of before like before you'll have a
government again, like electing a Democrat majority or Democrat majority
in the Senate or the House. Like when we talk
about that, that shit is laughable to me.
Speaker 6 (40:07):
This shit is over, y'all, Like.
Speaker 5 (40:10):
I mean, and I'm not saying that to be hyperbolic.
I'm saying it so that we need to know, Like
if America was a baby bird in the egg, like
that's the the eggshell is burst. We can't catch it.
We can't put this humpty dumpty back together again. What
(40:32):
will emerge is whatever comes after will be what we create.
We ain't saving any of this. I mean, what we'll
have in twenty twenty eight will be might be a
performative election, but we ain't having no more elections until
(40:53):
we fix what we just did. Like we might keep
getting social Security checks and all of that, but what
we know of as fascism because remember like most of
the people in Italy in nineteen twenty seven or in
(41:14):
Germany in nineteen thirty four could still go to the
grocery store and still you know, drove their cause, Like
most of their lives didn't change at all. There's just
a few people being rounded up and heard it into
concentration camp. Literally, just like that's what's going on now.
And what who was determined worthy of being free is
(41:37):
just what the government determined. Literally, what is going on?
Speaker 6 (41:40):
You have?
Speaker 5 (41:41):
Like somebody said, like you know, well I don't have
to worry about that because there's no reason for me
to break the law. And I laugh, right, like we
have seen like none of this better. Like I'm reading
today about a man who is an American citizen was
deported to the old Salvile door to a concentration camp
(42:04):
and in America just said, like, my bad, but he
ain't back here yet, right, Like there is nothing like
if somebody says, came to my door now and said,
Michael Harriet is being arrested because I don't know he
didn't pay his taxes, right, how are.
Speaker 6 (42:23):
You going to prove I paid my taxes?
Speaker 5 (42:25):
Eli Musk got my Social Security number, he got my
RS forms?
Speaker 6 (42:29):
How can I prove that I paid my taxes? Right?
Speaker 5 (42:33):
Yeah, So I think we have the opportunity now because
like all of this shit is going to be dismantled,
and what we build next will, for the first time
in this country's history, will include the contributions of black
people because what we live now is under is a
(42:56):
document that was created literally to ensure white supremacy, and
then we made some amendments that say, now let's change
this thing, and let's change this thing that constitution. Shit
is over and what comes next my children or grandchildren
might see it. But I mean, I'm not. I think
we have to face the fact of where we are now.
(43:18):
And if I'm wrong, I'll be glad that i'm but
I don't do so thinking of young people.
Speaker 4 (43:23):
And back to the book, what would you want young
people to take from black as fock history?
Speaker 5 (43:28):
Yeah, I think the thing that I wish that young
people would take from it is what I took from
like books that I just grabbed off the bookshelf and
say ooh this title looks interesting. Is that it made
me want to know more and it made me feel like, oh, so,
(43:48):
have you ever been in a room and heard a
sound and nobody else heard it and you're like, damn,
did I hear that? Or am I going crazy? Or
is I Do I feel this draft? Or am I
going crazy? Or is that thing beeping? Or am I
going crazy? I feel like black people feel like that
all the time, Like in America, we feel like is
that thing he said? Or is this world we live again?
(44:11):
Are the people on my job racist? Or am I
just going crazy?
Speaker 6 (44:15):
And I would want them to know when you read
this book.
Speaker 5 (44:19):
Like, oh shit, I wasn't going crazy, Like some of
this shit just didn't make sense, right, like when you
tell black people that, or you need to concentrate on
education and once you realize that, oh, like the Constitutional
Delegation Majority Black Constitutional Delegation of South Carolina in eighteen
(44:42):
sixty eight literally created the American education system that we
know and that you know, enslaved people risk their lives
to teach their children to read, and that we let
our grandparents, let white people spit on their kids to
send them to equal schools, and we fought for the
thing that America enjoys. Now you realize, oh it w
(45:04):
wasn't crazy when I thought them saying that you need
to focus on education sounding kind of crazy because I
don't know no black folks that don't focus on education, right,
So that's the thing that I want is for people
mostly to.
Speaker 6 (45:18):
Know that they're not crazy.
Speaker 5 (45:24):
Like all that stuff that you are denigrated for, it's
just something that white people made up. And the inequality
that you face can be overcome because the people who
created these systems did it because they were incompetent. Like
(45:47):
this system ain't hard to dismantle, Like.
Speaker 6 (45:52):
Literally every we busted.
Speaker 5 (45:54):
Down everything they ever did. There's nothing in the history
of the world that has ever been done to a
people that hadn't been done to black people in mass
and we destroyed it. The most profitable, biggest, largest international
human trafficking system in the world.
Speaker 6 (46:09):
We tore that shit down right.
Speaker 5 (46:11):
Like American style apartheid enforced by the state. We tore
that shit down, right, like the American education system that
we took, like the thing like the richest people in
America created, like Harvard and Yale in the early American
colleges Columbia, And we did that shit with nothing. We
(46:34):
created HBCU used with nothing, like there is nothing that
they did that is impressive that you didn't also do.
Speaker 2 (46:40):
One thing that she also say in the book that
I really love is the first thing that we remixed
was the Gospel.
Speaker 3 (46:46):
And I love that because it is all.
Speaker 2 (46:49):
Of these different things that are being said about, like
how the Bible was used against us as a form
of control. But then we took that, we took that information,
we took the Gospel, we took the Bible, and we
took our interpretations of it as all human beings do, right,
but we remixed it. And that was the first thing
that we did. And I really really enjoyed that that chapter.
(47:10):
I think we have one more question for you, and
before we get to that question, I wanted to ask
if there's anything that you would like to share with
our audience.
Speaker 5 (47:17):
You can of course follow me and read me on
contraband camp dot com and you know, that's where I'm
primarily writing, and it's a journalism collector, so you'll find
other writers there too.
Speaker 3 (47:28):
Okay, are you still writing it for the Grill?
Speaker 6 (47:31):
No?
Speaker 5 (47:31):
No, I left the Grill in January and my well
I left. My contract was up and I decided not
to renew it. But because this is an idea that
I'd had for a while, and so I wanted to
do it nice.
Speaker 2 (47:44):
I think you answered this question, but I think in
a more general sense, I love to ask every writer
that comes onto the show, why do you write?
Speaker 5 (47:53):
I write, like, what is how I express myself? I've
always expressed myself in writing. I think it's clear, or
it's I'm not a great talker, So I think writing
is how I've always expressed myself.
Speaker 6 (48:06):
And I think the thing about writing is.
Speaker 5 (48:10):
Once you put it down on paper, it exists, right
Like I can say something and it goes into the ether,
or it only exists if someone else hears it.
Speaker 6 (48:25):
Right, But what like if no one at this moment
is reading.
Speaker 5 (48:32):
Blackie of History, it still exists in the world, and
like there may be somebody who will find it a
generation from now, and not just like about history, right,
like I just like to write anything stories about my
family fiction. So I think I don't think there is
(48:55):
the possibility of me not writing. So I'm really just
grateful to be able to make a.
Speaker 6 (49:01):
Career out of it.
Speaker 3 (49:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (49:03):
Sorry, Okay, So two more questions. So you said your
new manuscript, but in Black is fuck history. The one
thing I really enjoy that it was about history, but
it was like family history, like your own story, your
own family, your own anecdotes, your own information, the things
that your own experiences and experiences that you witness, and
incorporating all of that while allowing it to be thread
(49:27):
with the history of America. Can we expect that same
approach to your process for the new book?
Speaker 6 (49:33):
Yeah, yeah, I think there's going to be. You know,
I think.
Speaker 5 (49:38):
Every person we use a little bit of themselves, And
I think I just am not resistant into admitting that,
like this, every story there's a saying that the main
character of every story is the writer, right, And I'm
just not, you know, coy about saying that this thing
(49:59):
is a about me and people I know, and here
is where I learned this from, and here's an analogy,
and so you can always expect.
Speaker 6 (50:07):
That in my writing, you know, it's personal.
Speaker 5 (50:10):
I love telling stories and I love telling stories about
where I grew up in my family.
Speaker 6 (50:16):
So yeah, you'll always be able to expect that from me.
Speaker 3 (50:19):
Amazing.
Speaker 4 (50:20):
Yeah one other thing, Well, first of all, thanks so
much for all this so far, Like this has been
like really amazing. It's a pleasure to talk to you
and to hear you think about things. You said that
black people have always been the main characters in American history,
and so what does that reframe a lot for us
as people.
Speaker 5 (50:41):
I think what it does is so often we view
America as if we are participants, right, like, like.
Speaker 6 (50:55):
You know, like you're living.
Speaker 5 (50:59):
As a roommate in somebody else's house, right, And I
think what that reframing does is make us realize and
show us that, oh, this is our house, right, like
I don't you know it by by thinking of America
(51:22):
not just like in that ethereal sense of black people
built America, but by thinking of America as something that
we created, We built, we manufactured that rests on a
foundation that we provided, not just like hard work and muscle,
(51:43):
but the intellectual foundation of America is black. By thinking
of it like that, right, I think it releases us
from the idea that we ask for.
Speaker 6 (51:56):
Anything, right. We don't ask the.
Speaker 5 (52:01):
People for permission to vote, like we don't ask them
for equality. We're not asking them like for anything, right.
I think it gives us. It puts us in a
(52:21):
place where we say, we're gonna do this shit, try
to stop us, right, And so much of history and
I'm not saying like this has been a new idea, right,
So much of history has been framed as us asking
for things when it wasn't true.
Speaker 6 (52:40):
Right.
Speaker 5 (52:41):
You think about like the people in Selma said, hey,
y'all killed this dude, Like.
Speaker 6 (52:48):
The killed this dude named Jimmy Jackson.
Speaker 5 (52:50):
We're going to walk to the governor's mansion from Selma
and confront him about this, right, And we've framed it
as like march for I don't know, like again, one
of the most when we just think about the Civil
rights era, one of the most absurd things that we
(53:14):
have ever been told is that like people like black
people walking got us free, got white people to change
their minds, right, Like it is a crazy idea on
the face, like the marchers were the thing when at
every turn they say, now, like Martin Luther King said,
(53:35):
like it's direct action. When they went to Washington, they
had a bill, a prewritten civil rights bill, and they
gave it to the President and said, and if you
have trouble passing it, tell them to look out the
window and see how many people are gonna be here,
and it'll be the largest gathering of human beings ever
on the face of this continent.
Speaker 6 (53:57):
That's what that was.
Speaker 5 (53:59):
Not a march right when they like and so when
you think of yourself as the main character in America,
you look at the world differently. You instead of asking permission,
you take it right. And I think that's what it does.
Speaker 2 (54:20):
Amazing Black as Fuck History is out now. The new
book is coming in December. I've been looking for it.
Hopefully we can have you back when you're finished with
that book and we can have another conversation.
Speaker 6 (54:32):
Thank you all for having me.
Speaker 3 (54:34):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (54:38):
Black Lit is a Black Effect original series in partnership
with iHeart Media. Is written and created by myself, Jackqueese
Thomas and executive produced alongside Dolly s Bishop. Chanelle Collins
is the director of production, Head of Talent Nicole Spence,
writer producer Jason Torres, Our researcher and producer is Jabari
(54:59):
da This and the mix and sound design is by
the humble Duane Crawford. Gratitude is an action, so I
have to give praise to those who took the time
out to write a review. Please keep sharing and we
will promise to bring more writers and greater episodes to
you
My name is Jacqueess Thomas, and you're listening to black Lit,
a podcast about black literature and the stories behind the storytellers.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Welcome to a new episode of black Lit.
Speaker 3 (00:16):
Today.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
I have Jason Torres joining our conversation. We have Michael
Harriet joining us, the author of Black Ass Fuck History.
Speaker 4 (00:29):
He's a very fascinating guy. He's a very interesting person
and he has a lot of i'll say hot takes
that are very bold and fearless and matter of fact.
And he's a great blend of intellectual but also no nonsense,
so you know, he's very thoughtful. He's also very funny,
(00:52):
and he's the type of writer and personality we need
right now in these times.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Yeah, and the book Blackest Flock History is it really
dissects and examines America for its true true face.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
He does not hide it.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
It's an amglamation of history, biographies, family memories, self reflection,
his family, his anecdotes, and just everything. It's a really
great story. Even though it has some heavy moments. It
does have some like really poignant parts where you might
want to stop down and just digest it.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
But the way that.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Michael Harriet writes is digestible, right. It allows you to
kind of get through even the tough topics that he
brings up because there's humor, because there he has a
way of just you know, giving you the truth as
it is.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
So we have him here today.
Speaker 5 (01:54):
Michael Harriet, writer, founder of contrabandcamp dot com.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
As I listened to your podcast, I was like, Wow,
there's so much synergy and I feel like what you
were doing and for what.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
Let me let me ask.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
Though before we even start, So is the podcast coming
back for another season?
Speaker 5 (02:13):
I don't think so, Like, I mean, so many people
ask about it, but I kind of when we created it, I.
Speaker 6 (02:22):
Kind of knew that they were never going to do.
Speaker 5 (02:24):
This again simply because one so Pharrell kind of you
know negotiated it well his podcast company.
Speaker 6 (02:33):
You know, we were friends before then, and.
Speaker 5 (02:35):
We kind of brainstormed the idea and so the what
like the thing that Pharrell was doing was like, hey,
let's do the most creative thing we can do, and
so we had they gave us enough money to do
a writer's room. We had a writer's room. We had
(02:57):
people on staff that literally created an original soundtrack every week,
and it was like not it was expensive, but it
was so much work that I kind of knew that
they will not will never do this again. It was
so much time on my part out of the people,
and it was all black And so I always think
(03:20):
that if you do something and you love, like I
really feel like it's one of the best things I've had,
best pieces of work or pieces of art that I've
ever done, and I wouldn't want to do a lesser
version of it. And I always think that, like, oh,
if you know, sometimes things end and you don't have
to kind of drag them out and do lesser versions
of them. So I mean, if only one season exists,
(03:43):
I'm cool with that because I really like what.
Speaker 6 (03:46):
Came out of me.
Speaker 3 (03:47):
I completely agree.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
I think from the title alone, and I love how
it is also the name of the chapter in your book.
Tell me about that title, please, because there was something
that I learned from reading your book and from listening
to the pot and I would love our audience and
understand a little bit about the history of the title
and where derived from.
Speaker 5 (04:07):
The title that she's referred to is. The title of
the chapter is Drape to Maniacs, Get Free or Die Trying,
And the name of the podcast was drake to maniacs
with an X. So in eighteen fifty two, this doctor
named Samuel Adolphus Cartwright who was like kind of like
(04:29):
early version of what like Elon Musk and Peter Thiel
and all those guys are.
Speaker 6 (04:34):
Now race scientists.
Speaker 5 (04:36):
So he was an actual doctor though, and he came
up with this diagnosis. The disease that made people want
to Black people want to be free was called drake toumania,
and it's from THEE word drapetose, which is a word
for a freed slave, and mania, which is of course
a mental disorder. So he proposed this theory that like
(05:00):
black people were natural what he called quote knee benders,
and that we you know, sometimes though we get this
preposterous mania that makes us want to be free. But
and I mean this is literally in his you know,
research paper essentially in the New Orleans Medical Journal, he
(05:20):
says like but if you you know, if you beat
up enough, they'll stop wanting to be free. So that
was system, and he had like other theories too, Like
it's weird to look up this doctor's background. So I
imagine for the podcast that like, what if that disease
was real, who would be the drape toe maniacs throughout history,
(05:43):
like Ida be Wells, right, like they thought she was
crazy by offering statistics that showed like, oh, like black
men weren't lyching white women like y'all just crazy, but
they thought she was, you know, a drape toe maniac.
Speaker 6 (05:58):
The guy who invented.
Speaker 5 (05:59):
The comedy Charlie Kase, he would be a drape to maniac.
And so we went through history. Robert F. Smith, who
was like form the arm resistance of the you know,
we always think of the civil rights movement as non
violent resistance, but like they could be nonviolent because they
had some real dudes who with guns, who will say,
(06:19):
yy y, you're not gonna come and mess with these marchers.
So these were the people who I imagine was drake domaniacs.
But it extends from an actual medical diagnosis.
Speaker 6 (06:28):
And you can see this like in.
Speaker 5 (06:30):
One of my hobbies is like I love going through
old newspapers and like you'll read a newspaper in like
the nineteen hundreds, even after slavery was over that was like, oh,
this guy was a drapetomaniac or he was he was
stricken with drake tomnia because this black dude like looked
(06:51):
the white person in the eye or talk back to
white people. They'll say he was a drape to drake
to maniac or he had drape tomania. And I mean
it was actually in the medical journal as a diagnosis
until like the mid nineteen hundreds.
Speaker 3 (07:07):
So you said you were able to find this portion
of history through a newspaper clipping. Is that I understand
that currently?
Speaker 5 (07:15):
Well, I had heard I'd read about Samuel Kart writing
this diagnosis a long time ago. You know, I researched
it more found out about you know, more of his
beliefs that you know, he was one of those people
who and I'm sure you've further.
Speaker 6 (07:30):
Like black people had the curse of him and.
Speaker 5 (07:34):
Like that we got a little bit of the devil
in us, which is what makes our skin dark or
darker than other people. So yeah, like newspapers, old journals.
You know, I don't know if it's a hobby. I
always liked to first of all, as a journalist and
as a person who's interested in history, I always like
(07:55):
to read. Like, to me, newspapers give you an insight
on how people thought of a thing during the day,
Like you don't have to. You know, when you listen
to journalists or historians, you get it through a perspective
of today, But when you read a newspaper, you get
it through how they thought of it, right, and like
(08:19):
the racism, how natural and commonplace it was. Like I
was reading a newspaper yesterday. You know, we all know
about the guy who started the Klan, right, and we
you know, everybody reads about him and know he's the
start of the clan, but we don't know about him.
(08:39):
Like he had literally like a walmart of slave trading,
like in different cities. He had these huge what he
called and this is in the newspaper, so it's not
me nigger marks, and.
Speaker 6 (08:54):
Literally that was his name for him.
Speaker 5 (08:57):
And he had him opening like Memphis and Alabama, and
you know he would he was a slave trader before
he became a Confederate general, before he became ko klutz Klan.
But what's interesting is that I found it through he
had Like they asked him what his you know, proudest
moment was, and he said, well, you know, I remember
(09:21):
when I was I had this big add in the newspaper.
So he had an add like a full page ad
in the newspaper. For just one slave that he wanted
to sell, and he was charging a really high price
because it was Frederick's Frederick Douglas's daughter. So he was
selling Frederick Douglas's daughter. And the newspaper ad said the
(09:43):
daughter of nigger abolitionist Frederick Douglas. And like, if you
heard that in a history class, they would say, well,
it was just Frederick Douglas, Frederick Douglas's daughter, right, they
would say, you know, this guy was a slave trader,
they would But if you read it back then, they
would say, yeah, the guy who owned the Nigga marts
(10:03):
was selling the daughter of free nigger abolitionist Frederick Douglass.
And so we like to think of like America is
getting less rape like better, but we don't know how
crazy it was back then.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
It's interesting how blatant and it was back then, and
how blatant it seems to be becoming again. One of
the things that I heard you remark was that history
is happening now.
Speaker 6 (10:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (10:33):
I always think that, like people think of like what
like think of history as something that happened in the past,
and I don't know, like we are history now and
history is not what happened, happened in the past. Even
what we refer to as history is just the things
that I like to think of it as the things
(10:53):
that created now, right like they're the building blocks of now.
They're not things that like happened in the past, because
when you think of the past, you think of the
past as ending. It has the past as an endpoint,
whether it's yesterday or last hour, right Like, you have
the ability in your mind to separate it from now,
but it is not what happened now, right Like, whatever
(11:17):
you did yesterday, whatever you ate yesterday's technically history, but
it's in you now, right like it's going to determine
how many calories you consume, how tired you are, how
you feel today, and so like we should think of
history in the same way.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
Yeah, I definitely understand that. I wonder how you feel
about this whole basically this like these steps towards erasure
that are happening right now.
Speaker 5 (11:45):
When Trump issues an executive order, one of the first
of all, one of the interesting things we're talking about
that executive order Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,
I think is the actual title of the executive order,
And there's a line in there that's bugged me, like
since I read it, and it seems like I haven't
seen anyone talking about it. Right, So he talks about
(12:08):
the National Museum of African American History and Culture, he
talks about he talks about the National Women's Museum and
the Smithsonian, But there's a sentence where he says this
museum promotes the idea that race is a social construct.
Speaker 6 (12:24):
And not a biological reality.
Speaker 5 (12:27):
Those are the exactly, So what he seems to be
saying is, like the official position of this government is
that race is a biological reality, like it is genetic,
and there is a genetic that we know. Science doesn't
say that. You know, scientists agree that, like race is
just some shit white people made up. Like you can say,
other put it other ways, but that's what it is, right,
(12:49):
The idea of you know, skin color determining difference in
human beings is something that white people made up. And
the official position of this government is that, know it
is real. You know, they are leaning into race science.
But when you think about it, right, if you don't
(13:12):
know history.
Speaker 6 (13:13):
You won't know that.
Speaker 5 (13:14):
Oh, like that's what with the founding fathers literally said
to justify you know enslavement, right, like there's this you
know what I call I think I wrote about it
last year is like the first rap beef that.
Speaker 6 (13:33):
Was bigger than Kendrick Lebar and Drake.
Speaker 5 (13:37):
Was this this back and forth between Thomas Jefferson and
these European race scientists who basically came up with the
idea of white supremacy. But what they said initially was
like what we see as racial differences are caused by
(13:58):
environmental factors, right like the climate, how you eat, where
you live, the politics of where you are. And what
they said, the Europeans said was that and what's going
to happen is that when the white people from Europe
go over to America with all those Negroes and all
(14:20):
of those Native savages, they're going to become less white, right,
They're going to be They're not going to be white anymore.
Speaker 6 (14:29):
They're not going to be like us genteel Europeans.
Speaker 5 (14:32):
So Thomas Jefferson says, na, na, Nah, I've studied the
black people and there is a biological difference. They are
inferior in body and mind. That is a quote, like
they are inferior in body in mind.
Speaker 6 (14:46):
Like I can't and he literally writes this, right, I
can't do it.
Speaker 5 (14:50):
Like I wish I could slice them open and see
if they were different on the inside. But from what
I have observed, like there are a there's a biological
difference between us, which is why we can't set them free. Right,
And he says that, you know, this is in the
notes on the State of Virginia. He says, because you know,
(15:13):
when the Romans enslaved people, right, they enslaved white people.
So when they freedom, they didn't, you know, mix and
stain their race. But if we set the black people free,
they will, you know, mix with our.
Speaker 6 (15:30):
Blood and stain our race. So we can't set up free.
Speaker 5 (15:34):
That is the policy that kind of reaffirmed white supremacy
in America, and at every turn towards in America we
see the same thing as what happened with Trump. So
Thomas Jefferson did it right, and then he kind of
banned books because what he did also is in that
(15:55):
same note of the State of Virginia, there's this whole
paragraph where he talks about black people and their poetry
and their aren't and he says, well, you know, Phil,
he talks about Phyllis Wheatley, right, we can't she should.
Speaker 6 (16:09):
We can't.
Speaker 5 (16:09):
We got to censor her because she will make them
think that she like they have the same capacity for
arn't as we do.
Speaker 6 (16:18):
So we got a censor that. And then right before.
Speaker 5 (16:21):
The Civil War, remember Andrew Jackson wanted to you know,
he blamed the tensions in America on the abolition movement. Right,
He's wanted to pass a federal law that made it
a federal crime if you mailed abolitionist literature through the
post office. Again, banning the ideas that talk about what
(16:46):
white people do, not race, right, because race ain't real.
It's just a thing that white people made up. And
white people made up this constitutionally enforced race based human
trafficking system. And then they wanted to ban us from
talking about it, talking about the injustice of it.
Speaker 6 (17:02):
Right. And then when we're.
Speaker 5 (17:04):
Free after the Civil War, right, what do they do
They start this lost cause movement that banned the real
truth in history. Now, you can't call the Confederates traders, right,
you can't say they like that's what literally what they did,
they turned against they picked up arms against their own country.
But we're not going to say that. And they went
(17:27):
to the textbook manufacturers, these white women. The United Daughters
of the Confederacy went to these white women and said, hey,
you got to ban them from telling the truth of history.
Speaker 6 (17:37):
That's the Lost Cause movement.
Speaker 5 (17:38):
That's why we talk about the Civil War as we
talk about it now. Like, first of all, like even
the idea that we call it the Civil War right
when it was a war for white supremacy, is kind
of a result of the the Lost Cause movement. Is
why the Confederate flag became like a national symbol. And
(18:00):
all of that happened because they banned us from talking
about the truth. And then when you read this trunk order,
like preserving truth and sanity and American history what he's
talking about, right, you know, I had a speech the
(18:21):
day that it came out, Like I scrapped my whole speech,
and I was talking about like the craziest things that
he said that the National Museum of African American History
and Culture is doing. He said that there is some
exhibit in the museum that says, like hard work and
(18:43):
liberty and the nuclear family are products or ideas that
came out because of white culture. Now, I don't think
there's an exhibit that says.
Speaker 6 (18:54):
That but if there was.
Speaker 5 (19:00):
When you think about hardware, like white people created a
international human trafficking system to get out of hard work, right,
I mean you think about that, that's what it was.
Speaker 6 (19:12):
Right.
Speaker 5 (19:12):
They used violence and the threat of violence to create
a human trafficking system to get out of hard work.
This country was built by enslaved people who again, right
on the end of the Civil War, the value of
the enslaved African Americans were worth more than all of
the money in all of the banks, and all of
the railroads and all of the factories in America combined. Right,
(19:36):
think about building an institution that is that valuable.
Speaker 6 (19:42):
So again, if the black people were.
Speaker 5 (19:45):
Worth more than all of the manufacturing and all of
the railroads and all of the money that is literally
in the banks, how can you even first of all,
say that this is like an American economy or capitalist comomy.
Speaker 6 (20:07):
It was a black people economy.
Speaker 5 (20:08):
The economy of America was black, right, And it was
that way because white culture did not value hard work.
And if you talk about the nuclear family, it says
like we say that the National Museum of African American
History and Culture says that the nuclear family is an
(20:31):
idea that was created by white culture.
Speaker 6 (20:34):
It was white.
Speaker 5 (20:35):
Like, if you have a constitutionally enforced system that says
you can rip babies from their mothers and sell them.
If you have a system that says marriages by enslaved
people are not legally recognized, then what you're saying is
the only nuclear family that they recognize is white families. Like,
(20:59):
that's the only family that is legally recognized. Individuality, it says,
it detegrates individuality. I mean black people didn't. Black people
didn't say that. The constitution says that. The Constitution says, like,
black individuals are not actually individuals. There are three fits
of an individual's there's sixty percent of a black persient.
(21:22):
It takes five black people to make up three white people, Right, that's.
Speaker 6 (21:28):
What the Constitution says.
Speaker 5 (21:31):
So individualism is not a aspect of white culture.
Speaker 6 (21:37):
Right.
Speaker 5 (21:37):
So, even though I don't think the National Museum of
African American History and Culture says that if they did,
they wouldn't be wrong, right, And so the efforts to
erase these things again, trace it back to Thomas Jefferson.
Chase it back to the white women and the daughters
of the Confederacy. Chase, trace it back to you know,
(22:00):
the Red Summer of sixteen nineteen chased it back to
strom Thumb and the segregationists.
Speaker 6 (22:04):
They were all saying the same thing, right, And so
when you know.
Speaker 5 (22:09):
History, you realize, oh, this is just white people doing
what they did all those other times before.
Speaker 6 (22:15):
Right. It is not a new thing.
Speaker 5 (22:17):
It is just like Trump just put it down on
paper this time time.
Speaker 1 (22:21):
It's you are listening to black Lit.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
There was one thing that you mentioned too, And I'm
also really surprised that your book has not been banned.
It just seems like all books are getting banned at
this point. And if they are speaking to any level
of empathy for diversity and individuality, or if they're speaking
to any type of truth about our history, which is
(22:55):
what they're trying to curate, I'll use that word.
Speaker 6 (23:01):
Yeah. I think.
Speaker 5 (23:02):
Well, I think one of the reasons it hadn't been
banned is because, like they're like white people generally don't
know about this book. Since it came out to like
almost two years ago, it's been the number one history
book in.
Speaker 6 (23:19):
The country like for like almost two years running.
Speaker 5 (23:22):
But I think it hasn't gotten into like the white
public sphere, like the sixteen nineteen project, So like people
are buying it, but I don't think it is like
part of a national conversation to that makes people mad.
But then again, you got to think about it, right, Like,
(23:44):
it is not that these books are written and you know,
and say something bad. It is that, like white people
just don't like it. So when you think about, for instance,
the sixteen nineteen project, like we knew about sixteen nineteen,
like black people generally knew, like and white people are
(24:05):
just finding out about sixteen nineteen and they are upset
with the idea that like America is was invented before
America was actually invented. When you think about critical race theory, right,
like critical race theory has been around, like I literally
took critical race theory in nineteen ninety five, and white
(24:29):
people are just now finding out about it, and so
like they act like there's this whole new movement that
are that is teaching like graduate level stuff to third graders,
But it is because white people found out about it.
And so, you know, one of the things I am
proud ofself about this book is that how it's been
(24:52):
really black supported.
Speaker 6 (24:53):
You know, it got on the.
Speaker 5 (24:55):
New York Times bestseller list without me doing a single
like I did. The only TV show I did because
it was probably because it was during the writers strike,
was like joy Reads show and the other other than that,
it was like black people's podcasts, black people's radios stations,
black people radio shows, and word of mouth, right, and
(25:18):
like it is funny because the even the like the
white folks at the publishing company, the HarperCollins who published
my book, like really can't really understand it, how what happened,
Like because like black folks know me, but like white
folks have never heard of me, right, so they.
Speaker 6 (25:39):
Really still can't understand.
Speaker 5 (25:40):
Like every time I talk to them is like I
still can't believe this thing is it's selling like this
like like and so I think that's one of the
reasons it hasn't been banned.
Speaker 6 (25:51):
An the other reason is, like I always say.
Speaker 5 (25:54):
Like, find something in it that is wrong when y'all
challenge you, right, like, if you want to ban it,
tell me what's wrong about it, Like tell me what
which facts are wrong or which thing I said is okay?
Speaker 3 (26:09):
Yeah, and they aren't able to.
Speaker 6 (26:12):
I haven't heard one yet.
Speaker 5 (26:14):
I haven't even heard somebody say this thing is wrong
that I had to challenge them on it, right, like
they just hadn't found.
Speaker 6 (26:21):
Anything, which is probably why it hasn't been been well.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
Let me ask you this, then, is there anything in
the book that surprised you while you were doing your
research and looking and writing and finding out information that
maybe you weren't privy to or aware of. Was there
anything during your research process that really surprised you.
Speaker 5 (26:41):
Yeah, I mean a lot of it surprised me.
Speaker 6 (26:45):
You know.
Speaker 5 (26:46):
One of the most surprising things that you know, I've
kind of discovered while writing the book is that, I mean,
if we've been friends, like how incompetent the white people
are who we herald so much, like like the Jamestown
(27:08):
settlers like starved to death, and like at every turn
it's like the white people really couldn't do the thing.
So I think the biggest surprise to me was, even
though I wasn't even given the American myth as a child,
how much of still, like what we don't know is
(27:28):
is based on like white incompetence, Like white people really
couldn't do.
Speaker 6 (27:32):
Things in America.
Speaker 3 (27:34):
It's interesting.
Speaker 2 (27:35):
I was in a book club last night just to
segue a little bit, and that the book club we
were talking about Siebol. I don't know if you're familiar
with Cebol Campbell's new book, The Sky Is Full of Elephants,
And in this book, all the white people walk out
into the ocean, right, and it's essentially about like erasing
white supremacy and all of these certain things. And hearing
(27:58):
you say, like you know that they didn't want to
do hard work, so that's why they invested into and
manual labor essentially, right, and black bodies as these workhorses
to get their jobs done and to get X, Y
and Z done. So would I would love to actually
have this conversation with you and him, because it's so
(28:21):
interesting to understand what his perspective was to think, like, Okay,
the white people all walk into the ocean, and it
left black people in the South lost for a spell
of time because they didn't have the infrastructure to do X,
Y and Z. But anyways, yeah, so I was curious,
(28:43):
have you read that book yet or.
Speaker 6 (28:44):
Yeah, I've read it again.
Speaker 5 (28:46):
That is one of the things that struck me because like,
I think it would kind of be the opposite. I
think everybody, all the black people would be probably kind
of lost, except for the white black people in the
South because the black people first of all, I mean
because of segregation. So well, I grew up in South Carolina,
so I might be biased. I've lived all my life
(29:06):
in the South, but you know, for most of its existence,
South Carolina was.
Speaker 6 (29:10):
A majority black state.
Speaker 5 (29:11):
And I grew up in a town, which is also
why might be biased, that was about half black and
half white. So I didn't grow up around you know,
it was segregated, so I didn't grow up around white
people at all. I didn't have any white influences on
my life. I was homeschool until I was twelve, and
so that's not the South really anywhere I've lived in Alabama.
(29:36):
I currently live in rural Georgia in a majority black town.
I mean, I think that people who are not from
the South have this perception of the South that is
shaped by white people, right, and so you think about
the infrastructure of the South was built by black people
during slavery. Right after emancipation, we were segregated into our
(30:01):
own communities where we control the infrastructure until today, right
and so like, I went back to South Carolina this weekend,
and I don't even really go home that often, but
my neighborhood that I grew up in had like essentially
what is a hood reunion, our neighborhood reunion.
Speaker 6 (30:21):
And we were talking.
Speaker 5 (30:22):
And I was looking around, and I was like, you know,
one of the things is like I grew up in
a community that was really untouched by white people when
I wanted to go to the store and go grocery shop,
and I didn't have to go to a white store.
Speaker 6 (30:38):
So I don't know that South. I've never lived in
that South.
Speaker 5 (30:42):
I live in a majority of black town now where
the only grocery store in town is in its fifth
generation of black ownership, right, like black people have always
owned the grocery store.
Speaker 6 (30:53):
You know, the city, All the women at city all.
Speaker 5 (30:56):
Are black, Like black people really don't think about white
people that offer here.
Speaker 2 (31:02):
You know.
Speaker 5 (31:03):
Interesting, you know, kind of juxtaposition of that book is
there's a book by William E. Kelly that was written
in like nineteen sixty eight, call a Different Drummer, that's
basically the same premise, you wake up one day all
the white people gone literally walking to the ocean, And
his book is a kind of a different take that
was kind of Southern based, And you know, I commend
(31:24):
people to read that book and see kind of like
what the South Is is kind.
Speaker 2 (31:30):
Of like, well, that's a good recommendation. Do you have
any other What are you reading right now?
Speaker 5 (31:35):
So I'm actually finishing a manuscript, so I don't. I
try not to read while I'm writing to be in Florence,
so I'm not really reading anything right now. I'll be finished.
They get the end of this.
Speaker 6 (31:47):
Month, so oh nice.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
Can you share anything about the manuscript that you're writing current?
Speaker 3 (31:51):
Oh?
Speaker 6 (31:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (31:52):
So it's a really quick kind of book that I'm
sure everybody's heard about On Tierranny, which is the book
that everybody started buying, you know, when they started imagining
that this country could be turning tyrannical. So what my
book is is kind of like Black on Tyranny. So
the premise is that black when we talk about tyranny
(32:16):
and fascism, we always talk about Hitler and Mussolini, when
the most direct correlation is that, like, I am the
first generation of black people who have not lived under
fastest regime in America, So you don't have to look
at like Hitler and all of that. In fact, so
it's like on Tyranny, but all of the lessons are
(32:40):
like how to fight tyranny based on the lessons of
the people who actually destroyed it, right, based on black movements,
whether it is the anti lynching movement, the abolition movement,
it's a rights movement, the black power movement. So it's
using those lessons to talk about fast living under a
Marria because fascist regime or tyranny.
Speaker 3 (33:03):
Okay, when did you say that comes out?
Speaker 5 (33:05):
I think December is when it's slated to come out,
but that's predicated on me finishing it by the end
of this month.
Speaker 3 (33:11):
Oh you got this.
Speaker 4 (33:14):
Speaking of writing, you use humor a lot in your work.
I just wanted to know, like, in your process, how
do you strike the balance of like injecting humor into
these extremely serious topics without losing the depth, while still
being able to be funny.
Speaker 5 (33:28):
I think I heard someone say before, like, you don't
have to put humor in you know black people. Man, Like,
we could be at a funeral and somebody walks in
with the wrong outfit on it and we gonna laugh.
We're gonna make fun of them. That's why you can't ya.
Mama won't let you sit next to your cousins at church.
So I don't necessarily kind of inject human I just
don't feel the need to take it out because I'm
(33:50):
communicating with people the way I communicate with people in
real life. And the other thing is that I think
humor our allows us to actually grasp things that are
very like traumatic and you know violent. That allows us
(34:13):
to grasp them with you know, lighter feeling, because you
can get exhausted reading about like, you know, almost all
of black history if you were being truthful about it,
unless you inject some humor into it, right.
Speaker 6 (34:28):
So I think those two.
Speaker 5 (34:31):
Things, and then I have always been a fan of
people who wrote with humor, whether it is Mark Twain
or Paul Batty, one of my favorite writers. So you know,
I've always been a fan. I used to read like
I got on like when I was, I don't know,
a teenager. I got in this real deep fandom of
Andy Rooney. So yeah, I've always been you know, Dave Barry,
(34:55):
I've always been a fan of people who write with humor.
Speaker 4 (34:58):
The way you were speaking Earli about a couple of
different things reminded me about like social media and the
way you kind of interact on there. I was curious
to know how you feel social media plays a role
in white supremacy today.
Speaker 6 (35:13):
So I think, like, now social media is dead.
Speaker 5 (35:18):
It's not social anymore, right, Like it used to be
a thing where you can get on social media and
you can follow people and you'll see what the people
who follow you.
Speaker 6 (35:27):
Alike or are saying or thinking.
Speaker 5 (35:30):
And then from the people you follow this algorithm what
might suggest other things that kind of fit into your
you know, your ideology or to your personality.
Speaker 6 (35:44):
And now it's just media, right, It's like like.
Speaker 5 (35:49):
What you see on your timeline has no correlation to
who you follow or what you want to see on
the internet or how you think it is what Elon
Musk and those people want you to think. It is
like turning on the TV and just turning on the channels.
You don't get to shoo as what's on NBC at
seven o'clock. It is just media now, right, It's not social.
(36:10):
It is just media. And so I think, you know,
if you look at it like that, then you get
a better understanding of it and then on these things
at the same time, right, Like it is also like
indicative of America, right, Like social media is racist, like
America is racist. So like you don't have to flee
(36:31):
it because like, I ain't leaving America just because white
people get racis different. If that was the case, I
would have been gone, like as soon as I got
my passport.
Speaker 6 (36:38):
Or as soon as I turned eighteen.
Speaker 5 (36:40):
We kind of, you know, are stuck in this world
where we have to navigate whiteness while existing as in
our full selves. So you know, I am not like
one of those chick little people on social media who
(37:02):
stinks like the world is ending me because Elon Musk
took over Twitter, Like when Elon must took over Twitter,
and I said, yeah, you know, people were asking me
like where are you gonna go when you leave Twitter?
And I was like, I mean, I don't have to
go nowhere, right Like Twitter was the thing that I had,
and then when it's over, I don't have to replace
it with something else. It's just like, oh yeah, I'm
just not on Twitter. You don't need social media.
Speaker 2 (37:24):
And there's some gen z right now that just heard
that and said, what, you don't need social media?
Speaker 3 (37:29):
That's like the tool that's to go to tool for everything.
Speaker 4 (37:32):
That's why TikTok's too popular though, because like you know
that that algorithm rewards you differently young people and interact
with it differently. It's not as bad, you know some
of the along you know, allegedly.
Speaker 6 (37:43):
Yeah, but yeah.
Speaker 5 (37:43):
But the other thing is like TikTokers just might be
just gathering the data so that when it wants to
be what Elon Musk may turn Twitter in and what
Mark Zuckerberg turned Facebook into. Right, TikTok is just in
the early stages of that. Right, it definitely has more
data on what we're interested in, what we'll buy, what
(38:04):
will what our spending habits are, and when they're ready to,
you know, turn that on to weaponize it against us.
I mean, I think it'll happen too. And I'm not
being a doom's there. What I'm just saying is, like
you mean, I think we can look at all of
(38:25):
these things as like not just saviors or villains, but
just like a thing that is right, Like, oh, I
can look at some funny videos or some interesting videos,
and then when it's over, it's just over.
Speaker 6 (38:40):
It's over.
Speaker 1 (38:48):
You are listening to Black Lit.
Speaker 2 (38:55):
You said at one point that black people see America
in a different way, and I agree with that as well,
And you also just said that you know, if you
would have thought that, you know, white racist supremacy was
America was like your America, you would have left years ago,
I paraphrase. So I am curious about how you see
(39:16):
America now and where do you see it going or
how do you see it growing? Considering everything that is
happening and everything that is being manipulated and used against us.
Speaker 5 (39:28):
Well, I think we are in the already in the
thing that we fear, like what we fear America will become.
Like people say it's you know, is this going to
be the end of democracy? No, and that shit is over, bro,
Like America is done. What we are looking at is
(39:50):
probably thirty years of before like before you'll have a
government again, like electing a Democrat majority or Democrat majority
in the Senate or the House. Like when we talk
about that, that shit is laughable to me.
Speaker 6 (40:07):
This shit is over, y'all, Like.
Speaker 5 (40:10):
I mean, and I'm not saying that to be hyperbolic.
I'm saying it so that we need to know, Like
if America was a baby bird in the egg, like
that's the the eggshell is burst. We can't catch it.
We can't put this humpty dumpty back together again. What
(40:32):
will emerge is whatever comes after will be what we create.
We ain't saving any of this. I mean, what we'll
have in twenty twenty eight will be might be a
performative election, but we ain't having no more elections until
(40:53):
we fix what we just did. Like we might keep
getting social Security checks and all of that, but what
we know of as fascism because remember like most of
the people in Italy in nineteen twenty seven or in
(41:14):
Germany in nineteen thirty four could still go to the
grocery store and still you know, drove their cause, Like
most of their lives didn't change at all. There's just
a few people being rounded up and heard it into
concentration camp. Literally, just like that's what's going on now.
And what who was determined worthy of being free is
(41:37):
just what the government determined. Literally, what is going on?
Speaker 6 (41:40):
You have?
Speaker 5 (41:41):
Like somebody said, like you know, well I don't have
to worry about that because there's no reason for me
to break the law. And I laugh, right, like we
have seen like none of this better. Like I'm reading
today about a man who is an American citizen was
deported to the old Salvile door to a concentration camp
(42:04):
and in America just said, like, my bad, but he
ain't back here yet, right, Like there is nothing like
if somebody says, came to my door now and said,
Michael Harriet is being arrested because I don't know he
didn't pay his taxes, right, how are.
Speaker 6 (42:23):
You going to prove I paid my taxes?
Speaker 5 (42:25):
Eli Musk got my Social Security number, he got my
RS forms?
Speaker 6 (42:29):
How can I prove that I paid my taxes? Right?
Speaker 5 (42:33):
Yeah, So I think we have the opportunity now because
like all of this shit is going to be dismantled,
and what we build next will, for the first time
in this country's history, will include the contributions of black
people because what we live now is under is a
(42:56):
document that was created literally to ensure white supremacy, and
then we made some amendments that say, now let's change
this thing, and let's change this thing that constitution. Shit
is over and what comes next my children or grandchildren
might see it. But I mean, I'm not. I think
we have to face the fact of where we are now.
(43:18):
And if I'm wrong, I'll be glad that i'm but
I don't do so thinking of young people.
Speaker 4 (43:23):
And back to the book, what would you want young
people to take from black as fock history?
Speaker 5 (43:28):
Yeah, I think the thing that I wish that young
people would take from it is what I took from
like books that I just grabbed off the bookshelf and
say ooh this title looks interesting. Is that it made
me want to know more and it made me feel like, oh, so,
(43:48):
have you ever been in a room and heard a
sound and nobody else heard it and you're like, damn,
did I hear that? Or am I going crazy? Or
is I Do I feel this draft? Or am I
going crazy? Or is that thing beeping? Or am I
going crazy? I feel like black people feel like that
all the time, Like in America, we feel like is
that thing he said? Or is this world we live again?
(44:11):
Are the people on my job racist? Or am I
just going crazy?
Speaker 6 (44:15):
And I would want them to know when you read
this book.
Speaker 5 (44:19):
Like, oh shit, I wasn't going crazy, Like some of
this shit just didn't make sense, right, like when you
tell black people that, or you need to concentrate on
education and once you realize that, oh, like the Constitutional
Delegation Majority Black Constitutional Delegation of South Carolina in eighteen
(44:42):
sixty eight literally created the American education system that we
know and that you know, enslaved people risk their lives
to teach their children to read, and that we let
our grandparents, let white people spit on their kids to
send them to equal schools, and we fought for the
thing that America enjoys. Now you realize, oh it w
(45:04):
wasn't crazy when I thought them saying that you need
to focus on education sounding kind of crazy because I
don't know no black folks that don't focus on education, right,
So that's the thing that I want is for people
mostly to.
Speaker 6 (45:18):
Know that they're not crazy.
Speaker 5 (45:24):
Like all that stuff that you are denigrated for, it's
just something that white people made up. And the inequality
that you face can be overcome because the people who
created these systems did it because they were incompetent. Like
(45:47):
this system ain't hard to dismantle, Like.
Speaker 6 (45:52):
Literally every we busted.
Speaker 5 (45:54):
Down everything they ever did. There's nothing in the history
of the world that has ever been done to a
people that hadn't been done to black people in mass
and we destroyed it. The most profitable, biggest, largest international
human trafficking system in the world.
Speaker 6 (46:09):
We tore that shit down right.
Speaker 5 (46:11):
Like American style apartheid enforced by the state. We tore
that shit down, right, like the American education system that
we took, like the thing like the richest people in
America created, like Harvard and Yale in the early American
colleges Columbia, And we did that shit with nothing. We
(46:34):
created HBCU used with nothing, like there is nothing that
they did that is impressive that you didn't also do.
Speaker 2 (46:40):
One thing that she also say in the book that
I really love is the first thing that we remixed
was the Gospel.
Speaker 3 (46:46):
And I love that because it is all.
Speaker 2 (46:49):
Of these different things that are being said about, like
how the Bible was used against us as a form
of control. But then we took that, we took that information,
we took the Gospel, we took the Bible, and we
took our interpretations of it as all human beings do, right,
but we remixed it. And that was the first thing
that we did. And I really really enjoyed that that chapter.
(47:10):
I think we have one more question for you, and
before we get to that question, I wanted to ask
if there's anything that you would like to share with
our audience.
Speaker 5 (47:17):
You can of course follow me and read me on
contraband camp dot com and you know, that's where I'm
primarily writing, and it's a journalism collector, so you'll find
other writers there too.
Speaker 3 (47:28):
Okay, are you still writing it for the Grill?
Speaker 6 (47:31):
No?
Speaker 5 (47:31):
No, I left the Grill in January and my well
I left. My contract was up and I decided not
to renew it. But because this is an idea that
I'd had for a while, and so I wanted to
do it nice.
Speaker 2 (47:44):
I think you answered this question, but I think in
a more general sense, I love to ask every writer
that comes onto the show, why do you write?
Speaker 5 (47:53):
I write, like, what is how I express myself? I've
always expressed myself in writing. I think it's clear, or
it's I'm not a great talker, So I think writing
is how I've always expressed myself.
Speaker 6 (48:06):
And I think the thing about writing is.
Speaker 5 (48:10):
Once you put it down on paper, it exists, right
Like I can say something and it goes into the ether,
or it only exists if someone else hears it.
Speaker 6 (48:25):
Right, But what like if no one at this moment
is reading.
Speaker 5 (48:32):
Blackie of History, it still exists in the world, and
like there may be somebody who will find it a
generation from now, and not just like about history, right,
like I just like to write anything stories about my
family fiction. So I think I don't think there is
(48:55):
the possibility of me not writing. So I'm really just
grateful to be able to make a.
Speaker 6 (49:01):
Career out of it.
Speaker 3 (49:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (49:03):
Sorry, Okay, So two more questions. So you said your
new manuscript, but in Black is fuck history. The one
thing I really enjoy that it was about history, but
it was like family history, like your own story, your
own family, your own anecdotes, your own information, the things
that your own experiences and experiences that you witness, and
incorporating all of that while allowing it to be thread
(49:27):
with the history of America. Can we expect that same
approach to your process for the new book?
Speaker 6 (49:33):
Yeah, yeah, I think there's going to be. You know,
I think.
Speaker 5 (49:38):
Every person we use a little bit of themselves, And
I think I just am not resistant into admitting that,
like this, every story there's a saying that the main
character of every story is the writer, right, And I'm
just not, you know, coy about saying that this thing
(49:59):
is a about me and people I know, and here
is where I learned this from, and here's an analogy,
and so you can always expect.
Speaker 6 (50:07):
That in my writing, you know, it's personal.
Speaker 5 (50:10):
I love telling stories and I love telling stories about
where I grew up in my family.
Speaker 6 (50:16):
So yeah, you'll always be able to expect that from me.
Speaker 3 (50:19):
Amazing.
Speaker 4 (50:20):
Yeah one other thing, Well, first of all, thanks so
much for all this so far, Like this has been
like really amazing. It's a pleasure to talk to you
and to hear you think about things. You said that
black people have always been the main characters in American history,
and so what does that reframe a lot for us
as people.
Speaker 5 (50:41):
I think what it does is so often we view
America as if we are participants, right, like, like.
Speaker 6 (50:55):
You know, like you're living.
Speaker 5 (50:59):
As a roommate in somebody else's house, right, And I
think what that reframing does is make us realize and
show us that, oh, this is our house, right, like
I don't you know it by by thinking of America
(51:22):
not just like in that ethereal sense of black people
built America, but by thinking of America as something that
we created, We built, we manufactured that rests on a
foundation that we provided, not just like hard work and muscle,
(51:43):
but the intellectual foundation of America is black. By thinking
of it like that, right, I think it releases us
from the idea that we ask for.
Speaker 6 (51:56):
Anything, right. We don't ask the.
Speaker 5 (52:01):
People for permission to vote, like we don't ask them
for equality. We're not asking them like for anything, right.
I think it gives us. It puts us in a
(52:21):
place where we say, we're gonna do this shit, try
to stop us, right, And so much of history and
I'm not saying like this has been a new idea, right,
So much of history has been framed as us asking
for things when it wasn't true.
Speaker 6 (52:40):
Right.
Speaker 5 (52:41):
You think about like the people in Selma said, hey,
y'all killed this dude, Like.
Speaker 6 (52:48):
The killed this dude named Jimmy Jackson.
Speaker 5 (52:50):
We're going to walk to the governor's mansion from Selma
and confront him about this, right, And we've framed it
as like march for I don't know, like again, one
of the most when we just think about the Civil
rights era, one of the most absurd things that we
(53:14):
have ever been told is that like people like black
people walking got us free, got white people to change
their minds, right, Like it is a crazy idea on
the face, like the marchers were the thing when at
every turn they say, now, like Martin Luther King said,
(53:35):
like it's direct action. When they went to Washington, they
had a bill, a prewritten civil rights bill, and they
gave it to the President and said, and if you
have trouble passing it, tell them to look out the
window and see how many people are gonna be here,
and it'll be the largest gathering of human beings ever
on the face of this continent.
Speaker 6 (53:57):
That's what that was.
Speaker 5 (53:59):
Not a march right when they like and so when
you think of yourself as the main character in America,
you look at the world differently. You instead of asking permission,
you take it right. And I think that's what it does.
Speaker 2 (54:20):
Amazing Black as Fuck History is out now. The new
book is coming in December. I've been looking for it.
Hopefully we can have you back when you're finished with
that book and we can have another conversation.
Speaker 6 (54:32):
Thank you all for having me.
Speaker 3 (54:34):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (54:38):
Black Lit is a Black Effect original series in partnership
with iHeart Media. Is written and created by myself, Jackqueese
Thomas and executive produced alongside Dolly s Bishop. Chanelle Collins
is the director of production, Head of Talent Nicole Spence,
writer producer Jason Torres, Our researcher and producer is Jabari
(54:59):
da This and the mix and sound design is by
the humble Duane Crawford. Gratitude is an action, so I
have to give praise to those who took the time
out to write a review. Please keep sharing and we
will promise to bring more writers and greater episodes to
you
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