Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
The views and opinions expressed in the following programmer those
of the speaker and don't necessarily represent those of the
station it's staff management or ownership.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Good morning, you'll find me out Pete and Poe Cold.
I'm Peter Leonard and I'm the poet Gold and we're
on the air this morning with TJ Usher through the
Vasa College, as well as Colmin Miguil, our longtime friends
here at station. And before we get to Calm and TJ,
we're going to go right to the poet Cold for
her weekly poem prayer incantation. Cold, please let it roll, all.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
Right, Peter, I'm going to do bu, which is a
older piece from one of my first chat books. When
my soul speaks, I describe poetry short and sweet. I'm complex.
I am not flat nor one dimensional. I'm beyond four corners.
I change, I grow, I evolve. I have depth that
even I can't see. I'm consistently inconsistent, which enables me
(00:55):
to stay the same. I am a stream of consciousness
with one common thread.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
So be you me be you.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
That means we like that. Yeah, you know we're here
and I Heeart Radio celebrating Black Black History Month, and
we want to thought off on today's saying, I'll call
me you. I know have been very powerful on this
radio station talking about not only Black history, but the
(01:25):
current world of being black and how history plays into that.
So of you, with celebrating the African spirit, have made
sure the past has not been lost to the present.
I want to talk more about that, please.
Speaker 4 (01:41):
Well, I think that on the continuum of history, it's
very important that you know the background, that you know
the past. If you don't know the past, then how
do you know how to behave in the present and
to prepare for the future. It's very important that you
have all three of those working in order to be
(02:01):
effective and to know how to develop the future. To
know where you came from, to know where it is
that you would think that you would like to go.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
And how do you feel that that, particularly today during
a time of erasure, how do you feel that that
that impacts not only Black Americans but also white Americans
to have a certain part of history, particularly our history,
erased from the books.
Speaker 4 (02:25):
Well, I think that's the effort. But the genies out
of the bottle. I think that now you can get
wherever you want to you can get as much information
as you would like. So if you don't want any information,
because if you don't want any information, you're not going
to go out and get it. And I think that
that's one of the issues that we have is that
(02:47):
most people, I would have to say the majority, I
can't say most, but I think the majority of people
are not really interested because they say, well, it doesn't
apply to me. It doesn't apply to me, Then you know,
why what do I have to worry about. I think
that the reaction of Black Black, Bad Bunny Bad Bunny's
(03:10):
experience that I thought he did a fabulous show. In fact,
they said they had more they had more viewers than
any other one that they've had so far, and thought
that this was the best one. And I don't understand
the issue. I do not understand the issue. Why is
it that you don't want to learn if you don't
understand the language, Well, if you go to the opera,
(03:31):
you don't understand if you don't understand the Italian or
the German, but it's okay, you still understand what's going on.
And it's the same here. I mean, you had to
get you had to get the message even though you
don't understand the language. And if the language, not understanding
the language bothers, you learn the language.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
Right right, right? Yeah, you know.
Speaker 3 (03:52):
And I don't even think it was an issue of
learning the language. I think that because this was never
an issue before. To your point of there have been
other performers who are quote unquote non American performers, there
have been you go to opera, you go to places
and you try different foods, you go to different countries.
(04:12):
But I think that we're in a in a unique
place in time right now, we're one To your point,
people just don't know history. I mean, how many people
I've heard to say, is Puerto Rico part of America?
Do you need a passport to go to Puerto Rico?
And these are people like in their thirties and in
(04:33):
their forties, And I thought to myself, where are you living?
You know, It's like, what's happened to our educational system
that you don't even know that? Right?
Speaker 4 (04:44):
And I think that young parents have not been taught civics.
Civics is not taught in the schools, in the schools anymore.
Their parents can't teach them. They don't know the information,
so they're not teaching them. Therefore, the students are are
stunted in their educational growth and knowing what's going on
around them. They they don't know about the Constitution, they
(05:08):
don't know about their civic responsibilities. They don't understand those things.
So what they're hearing on TV, when you hear about
reality shows which are not reality, uh, and you accept
that as truth, that you accept that as truth because
your thought processes are not working. So when you and
(05:29):
uh uh, when you accept the lies that being taught
to you by UH, that are being given to you
by by the political all all the different political areas, uh,
you don't know whether or not it's true. And now
with AI, this makes it even even more difficult to
(05:51):
be able to determine what's truth what's fact. And it's
just like.
Speaker 3 (05:58):
D.
Speaker 4 (05:59):
Graham Burnett, who is a professor of philosophy at Princeton,
and he has a book out now called Intensity, and
it is important and it must be a part of
our conscience to make sure that we encourage social social
interaction because otherwise we cannot afford to be isolated. And
(06:23):
we have to be able to neutralize the effects of AI.
And we cannot do that as long as we continue
to isolate ourselves as we have done with technological process
in progress.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
Let me say, anybody who's suspecting that education is the
underlying theme of this thing, you're right. And let me
points to Cammon saying and if you don't know the language,
you'll learn it, and Gold say, they don't even know
about this. You know, there's very with out saying that explicitly,
(06:56):
there's very much of movement towards education really counts. And uh,
I know it's a theme both Coal and Calm and
have articulated in the payout and tj Usher. You're a student,
you might if you're a little scared be in here
with these people, say, man, you gotta.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
Learn more and learn more fast.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
Give us a sense of what your program is. You're
a student at Vasa College.
Speaker 5 (07:24):
Yeah, I'm a student a Vasa College, a class of
twenty seven junior. I play rugby there. I'm a media
studies major and so I work a lot with media
and also have kind of a correlate in sociology, so
I kind of focus on like different types of people,
and specifically because I'm an African American at a PW,
I have to kind of focus on, like, you know,
(07:45):
African American experience and representation and what it means to
you know, be African American in like I guess in
a world where that's not the norm or it's not
the kind of.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
Yeah, it's being African American in a white school. Yeah,
I mean it's not that everybody at Faster is white,
but the dominant culture is white. And you know, I
mean I've worked there for thirty years and I I
know it's white. It's also not only white, it's uh,
the upper middle class, wasp elitism. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we
(08:24):
sell it Faster. You know, we're elite, and an elite
means white, it means wasp, it means a couple of things.
But so, how how do you experience being black and Faster?
Speaker 5 (08:38):
That's a loaded question.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
Yeah, you're allowed to talk to Oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 5 (08:44):
Very loaded question, very emotional question. I think it I'd
have to split it up between you know, my first
my freshman and my sophomore year versus my junior year.
And you know, going in my senior year, I think
my freshman and sophomore year, I was very much it
kind of felt isolated but liberated at the same time.
(09:04):
You know being black, you know in uh, like you said,
in the experience in a you know, p w y,
it's like I get to you know, I get to
show them what a black person is. I get to
be the creator. I get to write my own story.
I get the you know, you know, deconstruct the stereotypes
(09:24):
you know of black Americans. But also I felt isolated
because you know, I was you know, one of quite
literally three African American you know students on campus, and
so I think it was a lot of a lot
of my shoulders basically, and then I guess my junior year,
it's like I'm you know, stepping into just stepping into
(09:48):
you know, what I want to be and what I
want my story to be, and what I want you know,
people to know about me, not only me, but my
you know, race and my culture.
Speaker 3 (09:57):
And that's you know, just thinking about human development and
uh and and how we become whoever what I like
to call be the poem, you know, how we become
the poem in our lives. But to to uh, before
I before I go on, I want to first digress
a little bit and say, if you're just tuning in,
you're listening to finding out with Pete and the poet
Gold and I'm the poet Gold and we're here with
(10:19):
Carmen McGill celebrating the African spirits celebrating Black History Month
and TJ. Usher, who is also a student at Vassar
in his junior year. Correct, Yes, yeah, so you know,
I can totally relate. You know, I have a prep
school background, and you can count in school always the
number of black people that were in the institution, you know,
and so so it's a it's a it's a heavy
(10:42):
low when you become conscious of the fact that, okay,
well people are some people just accept you as who
you are, another human being, but you know, for sure
there's some people that are looking at you as a
black person, you know, maybe waiting for you to trip up,
so to speak, whatever stereotype that they have about what
(11:04):
it means, what it means to be black. And so
you articulated that very well, and coming into your junior year,
you sort of like think I've sort of found my
footing than those first two years because I'm navigating, you know,
I'm looking over my shoulder. I'm just trying to see
how people are reacting to me, and I'm reacting to
me and being in my own blackness in this white space,
(11:27):
you know.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
So I feel it came like you want to say something.
Speaker 4 (11:30):
Oh no, I was just going to say, I think
that I think that that is a very difficult and
a I think it's an unfair thing that we have
to mantle, that we have to carry. I can't be
(11:52):
responsible for all the other black people in the world.
I mean, that's right. It's impossible. And so who I
am is who I am, and a little bit of
it has has been necessary to to assimilate in order
to get along in this environment. But I try as
(12:13):
much as I can not to assimilate. And and that
is that is another part of uh, of a responsibility
because my blackness is beautiful and and I love it,
and that's what that's what I want to portray all
the time. But I get a lot of backlash for that.
(12:34):
And but now because at my age, now I really
don't care. And for TJ, he's got to go through that,
he has to go through that journey, you know, to
get to the point where where you don't care. And uh,
I mean, I take it, I take it. It's not
(12:56):
that I disregard it, but it does not, Uh, it
does not affect how I am then going to behave
on that same situation, whatever that same situation is.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
And then the flip side, Gee, I'm just curious, you know,
within within your community when you come out of the space,
whether or not if you get folks like or you
now you go to this white school, you know, you know,
sometimes you get that from your own community, you know,
because now you're part of this quote unquote elite type
(13:29):
of environment that maybe you know, I may not be
part of, or may not have access to, maybe afraid
to talk about, to aspire to, may not know how
to get there.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
How did you get there?
Speaker 3 (13:41):
So instead I'm going to isolate you as a person
of color. And that's the flip side of that, that
journey as well.
Speaker 5 (13:48):
Yeah, so I come from Southeast Tennessee and okay, there
is so there's so much loaded history of Tennessee as
far as you know, the KKK and that kind of
that discrimination. And so I come back home and you know,
I'm like, I'm very used to, I guess being seen
as other. And so when I went to Vassar, it
(14:09):
was like I don't know, like I just come back
home and it feels like like I can't double dip
a little bit. Like I come, I leave home, go
to Vasser. I'm you know, educated in this kind of
elitist like privileged background, and then I come back and
it's like who is this guy? Like who am I?
And it's like a more internal question and a more
(14:32):
internal struggle. Yeah, because I know my family loves me,
and I know you know that they all mean goodbye,
but it's like like who am I?
Speaker 2 (14:40):
Like a good question for for for anybody, but I
will also I think this is generally unspoken, but you're
you're facing a sort of a double prejudice, and one
of certainly is presents being black. But at Vasa, I'm
(15:00):
the only hope why I ever heard say it, but
I think everyone knows it's true. There's also a bias
against people from the South. In other words, Vasa is
very Northeast. Was dominated school, and they was dominated, I
mean by the social structures. There might be people of
a lot of different alcoholos or religious beliefs. But being
(15:23):
I don't hear people at Vasa having a Southern accident.
Kids from Mississippi, white kids from Mississippi. I think they
came from Massachusetts. I mean, you know, and it's not
that they're being fake, but they're fitting in, you know.
And but being from Tennessee would be not something that
would make people say, oh, man, I can't wait to
(15:44):
meet the next person from Tennessee.
Speaker 5 (15:46):
Yeah, I feel like and towards the beginning, like coming
from Tennessee, coming from the sort of southern region of
America where there is that loaded history. I came to
Vassar to maybe erase like a part of me that
I didn't want that I found that I found embarrassing.
And you know, maybe it was a Southern accent, maybe
(16:07):
it was you know, the stereotypes, or maybe it was
just maybe it was that. But like I said, coming
into my coming into my skin a little bit more,
I found to I found myself leveraging my background a
little bit more and leveraging my blackness a little bit more.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
And so, yeah, giving you a background, how do you
wind up on a radio station in Poughkeepsie being so
open about your personal and social struggles or another way
to put it, Uh, how did you get involved with
celebrating the African Spirit, which is the organization that Calm
(16:44):
and helped found.
Speaker 5 (16:45):
Yeah, so around the beginning or the middle of my
sophomore year. I just found myself in a mental space
where I you know, couldn't take you know, being isolated
as much. And I just needed to find some type
of outlet or some type of you know, some some
people that remind me of people from home, and so
(17:08):
Ms Carmen reminds me of my grandmother a lot. And
and so I find, you know, I find like I
feel safe when I work with cast and I feel
safe and I feel like I'm almost you know, working
with family.
Speaker 3 (17:22):
Ms Carmon, is that matriarch you know, that's that's that's
that that's that person you.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
Call you know, you having that frustrating black moment. You know,
I told you for a minute.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
Her organizational partner, Katie Professor, Yes, yes, through yeah, yeah,
uh yes, not everyone knows. And I have the hardest
time learning Cell, which is the authors of the community
and learning because I used to my job at Faster
(18:03):
was I was the director of that program, but we
used to call it field work and so.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
So you came big for Luca call yeah, okay.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
Yeah, I was. I did that for twenty years and
I swear to it. Faster for thirty years. I mean,
I did a lot there and I understand, uh, you
know the difficulty of being black and faster, and it's
I met loads of students because it's a very popular program,
and I was entertaining you know where you're from. And
(18:34):
I was just talking to the students in the beginning
before we place them. You see, so how do you
like school? Meaning how do you like faster? And I
would say eighty nine away because I love it. They
use the word to love it. I said, Blacks, how
do you like Yeah, it's okay, you know, I mean,
I mean, they were dodging my question and appropriate. It
(18:58):
was just trying to be polite. But the white student
really like it. And this is an unofficial thing, but
VASHA is a very white law school. It's us a
thousand things right. What they don't do right is the
race stuff.
Speaker 4 (19:14):
Harrison ask Harrison. You know Harrison. Harrison is very critical.
And he went to he went to Poughkeepsie. He went
he graduated from Poughkeepsie High School. And Harrison is now
he's going to go to London. He's going to Yeah,
he's going to London now for grad school. He's graduating
(19:38):
this in May. Yeah, I can't believe the time is
gone by. Yes, he was our little baby, you know,
and now and now he is a he's a young
man trying to find it, trying to find his way
in this racist society.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
My commentary not that it shows about you guys, but
about the difficulty of being black ADVASA is real because
one of the things that makes it difficult is nobody
at VASA wants to a court having a trace of racism,
which compounds it. It doesn't hide it, you know. Whereas
my sense is VASA really excelled at being open on
(20:21):
LGBTQ issues because there are a lot of gay people
at VASA, there are not a lot of black people
at VASA, and so you have the white people walking
around and they're nervous about it.
Speaker 1 (20:35):
If you're just tuning in, you're listening to finding out
with Pete and the poet gold I'm Peter Leonard and
I'm the poet Golden.
Speaker 3 (20:40):
We're here today speaking with Carmen McGill celebrating the African
Spirit and Black History Month and TJ. Usher, a student
at Vassar College. Karma, you want to say.
Speaker 4 (20:50):
Something, Well, I was just going to say that I
get very disappointed with white people because they do not
fight or aware of their racism, or and do not
fight to combat it, or because it's like, well, it's
not me, it didn't happen to me. You know, I
didn't do this. But you have benefited from all of that.
(21:15):
That's that slavery has brought. Also, I want everybody to
know that our our history did not begin with slavery.
Slavery is I saw a jacket. Slavery is white people's history.
You know, survival is black people's history. So you know,
I mean, those are the kinds of things I want
(21:37):
more white people to be able to speak up and
to acknowledge, you know, their feelings, what they think about
the situation, and and and be a part of be
a part of the conversation because technically it's not our issue,
it's their issue. We don't we don't have that issue.
(21:58):
Uh for for the most part, you got some people.
Speaker 3 (22:02):
Yeah, but it's it's it's a it's a it's a
heavy load, you know, because very much so you're looking
at the man in the mirror, so to speak. You know,
you you have to be able to, you know, look
at yourself and then look at the whole system and
the whole construct because even still today there's so much
you know, that that exists with it. I mean, look
at where we are today, you know, when when I
(22:23):
when I speak to my my my white friends, you know.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
And I hate to say it like that, but this
is the reality, you know.
Speaker 3 (22:30):
And so it's it's a different type of conversation because
I'm saying, well, we would not be here if you
did not partake, if.
Speaker 1 (22:38):
You weren't willing.
Speaker 3 (22:39):
This is this is not new where we are. It's
it's this has been around, you know, forever. This was
bound to repeat itself because it was never dealt with,
you know, it was never And it's not about you know,
someone pointing the finger at you and going, this is
all your fault. That's not you know, it's it's it's
it's not it's not that complicated.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
You know.
Speaker 3 (22:59):
It's really a bat out you facing your truth and
facing the truth of the system of what it is exact,
and then how do you dismantle that in some way
and create new systems because we're creating new systems all
the time, you know, how do we do that so
that we can move forward as a society because it
doesn't only affect black people, it affects everybody other than white.
(23:20):
You know, everybody other than white is quote.
Speaker 4 (23:23):
They are damaged by it also because they cannot acknowledge,
as as a joy de group says in that we
are all damaged absolutely because the DNA, what the DNA
is saying is all that that all of us have
(23:43):
to deal with. And white folks are just as much
damaged by it, by.
Speaker 3 (23:48):
What absolutely, And it's and it's a scary thing to
have to look at your truth in any capacity for anyone,
you know, it's it's a scary thing to have to
do it. It's a scary thing to be able to,
you know, say hey, we need to sit down and
talk to each other. I may not be the person
who's you know, sort of like outly racist, you know,
because they are the conscious racist was.
Speaker 1 (24:09):
Proud of it. Hey I'm a racist, you know, It's
like okay.
Speaker 3 (24:12):
And then there are those that you know, just kind
of going through the system and supporting a racist system, right,
you know, and are not really wanting to acknowledge acknowledge that.
But it's not going to go away until we do
that hard emotional work.
Speaker 1 (24:25):
And as M.
Speaker 4 (24:25):
Scott Peck says in the road Let's travel is that
you have to examine your truth regularly. All of the
information that you get every day has to be reevaluated
because otherwise you're going to be on the wrong path.
If you do not are not consistent with knowing and
(24:48):
determining what your truth is day by day, then you
are in a state of pathology. And I think that
that's I think that that is important to.
Speaker 2 (24:56):
Know pathologies actually calling word for it, but I think
what you were driving and not driving at the Stadius
clearly before the way white people. You know, people have
picked up from my voice on white we tend not
tend to we pretend we don't have the racism. It
(25:19):
was impossible to be a white person in America and
not have ingested some racism. And when you deny it,
you're compounding it. And my sense is what makes Faster
particular hard place for TJ is so the vaster culture
is one of denial of racism, and it makes it
(25:44):
very difficult to.
Speaker 3 (25:45):
Be I think it's I think the other thing with
with you know, examining racism is sometimes I think, you know,
non Melanin folks will we'll think like, I'm not a
bad person. But I'm not a bad person. And it's
it's not the issue of making you out to be
a bad person, you know, it's it's no one's saying
(26:05):
that you're a bad person. It's let's take a look
at this, because it's not healthy for anybody. It's not
healthy for anyone to be walking around with so much fear,
you know, just spiritually, and it's and it's a contradiction
if you're if you're a person of Christ, it's a
contradiction in walking in the path of the love of Christ,
(26:26):
you know, to have that amount of fear inside of you,
because fear uh uh, you know, not dealt with becomes hate, right,
you know, and you've intentionally putting yourself on that turmoil
and on that path, you know.
Speaker 4 (26:38):
So evangelist, the evangelists, I don't understand that I'm that
whole that whole thing. I wish somebody could explain it
to me, because it's a lot of their actions are
not the actions of Christ. And and so I don't
understand how they can call themselves Christians. And you're you're
(26:59):
more fiber, your soul, your passion, whatever motivates you, your
your spiritual uh, your your spiritual fiber. If if it doesn't,
if it doesn't feel right, it's not right.
Speaker 3 (27:15):
Right because the driver I've I've you know, I mean
obviously my book is called Be the Poem Living Beyond
the Fear, you know, because because the driver I've really
given this thought through the years is not It's not love.
The driver is fear, you know, scarcity, and that's losing, yes,
you know, and and that's and that's and that's all
(27:36):
wired you know, into us, and it's it's how do
I navigate myself through that so I can get to
the love, I can get to the joy, right, you know.
But you have to do what you were talking about, Carmen,
the daily work, you know, the question I ask myself
every morning in my shower, what type of human being
do I wish to be in the world?
Speaker 1 (27:55):
Exactly exactly being aware?
Speaker 2 (27:57):
Right, And as long as it's taking a religious the
original sin, as a Christian doctrine, you're born into sin.
And if you're born in America and your white, the
original sin you have is racism. And you know, confronting
that is important. And I would say if you don't
(28:19):
confronts it, you're promoting it, and that makes you actually
a bad person. Goal. I know you don't. You're not
as judgmental as I am. But there's lots of bad
people around.
Speaker 3 (28:31):
You know.
Speaker 4 (28:33):
That's the whole thing is about not being judgmental. Because
I have a friend and he said to me, I
don't see color. See that. To me, that's a racist
response because if you don't see me, that means you
don't see flowers, You don't see what they look you
don't see different colors of paint, you don't see But
(28:55):
the thing is not that you not that you don't
see color. You have to see color, but not be judgmental, right,
not detegrate it on what that color does, right.
Speaker 2 (29:06):
I mean, you don't want to be blond. You want
to be appreciative of.
Speaker 4 (29:10):
Well, just like you would with another white person. You know,
it's just you evaluate the person on who they are, right,
not what they look like, right, right?
Speaker 3 (29:19):
I think I think that's what a person says when
they go, well I don't see code. Basically, what they're saying,
the translation for me is that you are you want
to respond to me from from a human standpoint, and
you understand how the construct, the construct of colors, colorism
has gotten in the way of us as a society
to be able to do that. But wow, this is
(29:40):
this is like an intense conversation and we're gonna have
to wrap it up though, and have you guys back again.
Tod It's been great having you here today and meeting you,
and I'm sure I'm going to see you again. Come
out on the nineteenth for the show of course, right
in the nineteenth nineteenth.
Speaker 4 (29:55):
Faster, yeah, six thirty six thirty, right in the evening
in our in oura right right.
Speaker 1 (30:02):
Right, yes, yes, And also the book.
Speaker 3 (30:05):
We're going to have some Poughkeepsie Middle school students before
the choir, We're going to have some local Vaster students
and as well, I'm bringing j D to Great with
me out of out of the city of Poughkeepsie.
Speaker 1 (30:15):
You know, he's with me on the tour. So young
hip hop hop good.
Speaker 3 (30:19):
Yes, So thank you once again for coming, Carmen, you know,
I love you for coming on. You're finding out what
Pete Nipoe would go to our listening audience. Thank you,
We appreciate you.
The views and opinions expressed in the following programmer those
of the speaker and don't necessarily represent those of the
station it's staff management or ownership.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Good morning, you'll find me out Pete and Poe Cold.
I'm Peter Leonard and I'm the poet Gold and we're
on the air this morning with TJ Usher through the
Vasa College, as well as Colmin Miguil, our longtime friends
here at station. And before we get to Calm and TJ,
we're going to go right to the poet Cold for
her weekly poem prayer incantation. Cold, please let it roll, all.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
Right, Peter, I'm going to do bu, which is a
older piece from one of my first chat books. When
my soul speaks, I describe poetry short and sweet. I'm complex.
I am not flat nor one dimensional. I'm beyond four corners.
I change, I grow, I evolve. I have depth that
even I can't see. I'm consistently inconsistent, which enables me
(00:55):
to stay the same. I am a stream of consciousness
with one common thread.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
So be you me be you.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
That means we like that. Yeah, you know we're here
and I Heeart Radio celebrating Black Black History Month, and
we want to thought off on today's saying, I'll call
me you. I know have been very powerful on this
radio station talking about not only Black history, but the
(01:25):
current world of being black and how history plays into that.
So of you, with celebrating the African spirit, have made
sure the past has not been lost to the present.
I want to talk more about that, please.
Speaker 4 (01:41):
Well, I think that on the continuum of history, it's
very important that you know the background, that you know
the past. If you don't know the past, then how
do you know how to behave in the present and
to prepare for the future. It's very important that you
have all three of those working in order to be
(02:01):
effective and to know how to develop the future. To
know where you came from, to know where it is
that you would think that you would like to go.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
And how do you feel that that, particularly today during
a time of erasure, how do you feel that that
that impacts not only Black Americans but also white Americans
to have a certain part of history, particularly our history,
erased from the books.
Speaker 4 (02:25):
Well, I think that's the effort. But the genies out
of the bottle. I think that now you can get
wherever you want to you can get as much information
as you would like. So if you don't want any information,
because if you don't want any information, you're not going
to go out and get it. And I think that
that's one of the issues that we have is that
(02:47):
most people, I would have to say the majority, I
can't say most, but I think the majority of people
are not really interested because they say, well, it doesn't
apply to me. It doesn't apply to me, Then you know,
why what do I have to worry about. I think
that the reaction of Black Black, Bad Bunny Bad Bunny's
(03:10):
experience that I thought he did a fabulous show. In fact,
they said they had more they had more viewers than
any other one that they've had so far, and thought
that this was the best one. And I don't understand
the issue. I do not understand the issue. Why is
it that you don't want to learn if you don't
understand the language, Well, if you go to the opera,
(03:31):
you don't understand if you don't understand the Italian or
the German, but it's okay, you still understand what's going on.
And it's the same here. I mean, you had to
get you had to get the message even though you
don't understand the language. And if the language, not understanding
the language bothers, you learn the language.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
Right right, right? Yeah, you know.
Speaker 3 (03:52):
And I don't even think it was an issue of
learning the language. I think that because this was never
an issue before. To your point of there have been
other performers who are quote unquote non American performers, there
have been you go to opera, you go to places
and you try different foods, you go to different countries.
(04:12):
But I think that we're in a in a unique
place in time right now, we're one To your point,
people just don't know history. I mean, how many people
I've heard to say, is Puerto Rico part of America?
Do you need a passport to go to Puerto Rico?
And these are people like in their thirties and in
(04:33):
their forties, And I thought to myself, where are you living?
You know, It's like, what's happened to our educational system
that you don't even know that? Right?
Speaker 4 (04:44):
And I think that young parents have not been taught civics.
Civics is not taught in the schools, in the schools anymore.
Their parents can't teach them. They don't know the information,
so they're not teaching them. Therefore, the students are are
stunted in their educational growth and knowing what's going on
around them. They they don't know about the Constitution, they
(05:08):
don't know about their civic responsibilities. They don't understand those things.
So what they're hearing on TV, when you hear about
reality shows which are not reality, uh, and you accept
that as truth, that you accept that as truth because
your thought processes are not working. So when you and
(05:29):
uh uh, when you accept the lies that being taught
to you by UH, that are being given to you
by by the political all all the different political areas, uh,
you don't know whether or not it's true. And now
with AI, this makes it even even more difficult to
(05:51):
be able to determine what's truth what's fact. And it's
just like.
Speaker 3 (05:58):
D.
Speaker 4 (05:59):
Graham Burnett, who is a professor of philosophy at Princeton,
and he has a book out now called Intensity, and
it is important and it must be a part of
our conscience to make sure that we encourage social social
interaction because otherwise we cannot afford to be isolated. And
(06:23):
we have to be able to neutralize the effects of AI.
And we cannot do that as long as we continue
to isolate ourselves as we have done with technological process
in progress.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
Let me say, anybody who's suspecting that education is the
underlying theme of this thing, you're right. And let me
points to Cammon saying and if you don't know the language,
you'll learn it, and Gold say, they don't even know
about this. You know, there's very with out saying that explicitly,
(06:56):
there's very much of movement towards education really counts. And uh,
I know it's a theme both Coal and Calm and
have articulated in the payout and tj Usher. You're a student,
you might if you're a little scared be in here
with these people, say, man, you gotta.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
Learn more and learn more fast.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
Give us a sense of what your program is. You're
a student at Vasa College.
Speaker 5 (07:24):
Yeah, I'm a student a Vasa College, a class of
twenty seven junior. I play rugby there. I'm a media
studies major and so I work a lot with media
and also have kind of a correlate in sociology, so
I kind of focus on like different types of people,
and specifically because I'm an African American at a PW,
I have to kind of focus on, like, you know,
(07:45):
African American experience and representation and what it means to
you know, be African American in like I guess in
a world where that's not the norm or it's not
the kind of.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
Yeah, it's being African American in a white school. Yeah,
I mean it's not that everybody at Faster is white,
but the dominant culture is white. And you know, I
mean I've worked there for thirty years and I I
know it's white. It's also not only white, it's uh,
the upper middle class, wasp elitism. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we
(08:24):
sell it Faster. You know, we're elite, and an elite
means white, it means wasp, it means a couple of things.
But so, how how do you experience being black and Faster?
Speaker 5 (08:38):
That's a loaded question.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
Yeah, you're allowed to talk to Oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 5 (08:44):
Very loaded question, very emotional question. I think it I'd
have to split it up between you know, my first
my freshman and my sophomore year versus my junior year.
And you know, going in my senior year, I think
my freshman and sophomore year, I was very much it
kind of felt isolated but liberated at the same time.
(09:04):
You know being black, you know in uh, like you said,
in the experience in a you know, p w y,
it's like I get to you know, I get to
show them what a black person is. I get to
be the creator. I get to write my own story.
I get the you know, you know, deconstruct the stereotypes
(09:24):
you know of black Americans. But also I felt isolated
because you know, I was you know, one of quite
literally three African American you know students on campus, and
so I think it was a lot of a lot
of my shoulders basically, and then I guess my junior year,
it's like I'm you know, stepping into just stepping into
(09:48):
you know, what I want to be and what I
want my story to be, and what I want you know,
people to know about me, not only me, but my
you know, race and my culture.
Speaker 3 (09:57):
And that's you know, just thinking about human development and
uh and and how we become whoever what I like
to call be the poem, you know, how we become
the poem in our lives. But to to uh, before
I before I go on, I want to first digress
a little bit and say, if you're just tuning in,
you're listening to finding out with Pete and the poet
Gold and I'm the poet Gold and we're here with
(10:19):
Carmen McGill celebrating the African spirits celebrating Black History Month
and TJ. Usher, who is also a student at Vassar
in his junior year. Correct, Yes, yeah, so you know,
I can totally relate. You know, I have a prep
school background, and you can count in school always the
number of black people that were in the institution, you know,
and so so it's a it's a it's a heavy
(10:42):
low when you become conscious of the fact that, okay,
well people are some people just accept you as who
you are, another human being, but you know, for sure
there's some people that are looking at you as a
black person, you know, maybe waiting for you to trip up,
so to speak, whatever stereotype that they have about what
(11:04):
it means, what it means to be black. And so
you articulated that very well, and coming into your junior year,
you sort of like think I've sort of found my
footing than those first two years because I'm navigating, you know,
I'm looking over my shoulder. I'm just trying to see
how people are reacting to me, and I'm reacting to
me and being in my own blackness in this white space,
(11:27):
you know.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
So I feel it came like you want to say something.
Speaker 4 (11:30):
Oh no, I was just going to say, I think
that I think that that is a very difficult and
a I think it's an unfair thing that we have
to mantle, that we have to carry. I can't be
(11:52):
responsible for all the other black people in the world.
I mean, that's right. It's impossible. And so who I
am is who I am, and a little bit of
it has has been necessary to to assimilate in order
to get along in this environment. But I try as
(12:13):
much as I can not to assimilate. And and that
is that is another part of uh, of a responsibility
because my blackness is beautiful and and I love it,
and that's what that's what I want to portray all
the time. But I get a lot of backlash for that.
(12:34):
And but now because at my age, now I really
don't care. And for TJ, he's got to go through that,
he has to go through that journey, you know, to
get to the point where where you don't care. And uh,
I mean, I take it, I take it. It's not
(12:56):
that I disregard it, but it does not, Uh, it
does not affect how I am then going to behave
on that same situation, whatever that same situation is.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
And then the flip side, Gee, I'm just curious, you know,
within within your community when you come out of the space,
whether or not if you get folks like or you
now you go to this white school, you know, you know,
sometimes you get that from your own community, you know,
because now you're part of this quote unquote elite type
(13:29):
of environment that maybe you know, I may not be
part of, or may not have access to, maybe afraid
to talk about, to aspire to, may not know how
to get there.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
How did you get there?
Speaker 3 (13:41):
So instead I'm going to isolate you as a person
of color. And that's the flip side of that, that
journey as well.
Speaker 5 (13:48):
Yeah, so I come from Southeast Tennessee and okay, there
is so there's so much loaded history of Tennessee as
far as you know, the KKK and that kind of
that discrimination. And so I come back home and you know,
I'm like, I'm very used to, I guess being seen
as other. And so when I went to Vassar, it
(14:09):
was like I don't know, like I just come back
home and it feels like like I can't double dip
a little bit. Like I come, I leave home, go
to Vasser. I'm you know, educated in this kind of
elitist like privileged background, and then I come back and
it's like who is this guy? Like who am I?
And it's like a more internal question and a more
(14:32):
internal struggle. Yeah, because I know my family loves me,
and I know you know that they all mean goodbye,
but it's like like who am I?
Speaker 2 (14:40):
Like a good question for for for anybody, but I
will also I think this is generally unspoken, but you're
you're facing a sort of a double prejudice, and one
of certainly is presents being black. But at Vasa, I'm
(15:00):
the only hope why I ever heard say it, but
I think everyone knows it's true. There's also a bias
against people from the South. In other words, Vasa is
very Northeast. Was dominated school, and they was dominated, I
mean by the social structures. There might be people of
a lot of different alcoholos or religious beliefs. But being
(15:23):
I don't hear people at Vasa having a Southern accident.
Kids from Mississippi, white kids from Mississippi. I think they
came from Massachusetts. I mean, you know, and it's not
that they're being fake, but they're fitting in, you know.
And but being from Tennessee would be not something that
would make people say, oh, man, I can't wait to
(15:44):
meet the next person from Tennessee.
Speaker 5 (15:46):
Yeah, I feel like and towards the beginning, like coming
from Tennessee, coming from the sort of southern region of
America where there is that loaded history. I came to
Vassar to maybe erase like a part of me that
I didn't want that I found that I found embarrassing.
And you know, maybe it was a Southern accent, maybe
(16:07):
it was you know, the stereotypes, or maybe it was
just maybe it was that. But like I said, coming
into my coming into my skin a little bit more,
I found to I found myself leveraging my background a
little bit more and leveraging my blackness a little bit more.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
And so, yeah, giving you a background, how do you
wind up on a radio station in Poughkeepsie being so
open about your personal and social struggles or another way
to put it, Uh, how did you get involved with
celebrating the African Spirit, which is the organization that Calm
(16:44):
and helped found.
Speaker 5 (16:45):
Yeah, so around the beginning or the middle of my
sophomore year. I just found myself in a mental space
where I you know, couldn't take you know, being isolated
as much. And I just needed to find some type
of outlet or some type of you know, some some
people that remind me of people from home, and so
(17:08):
Ms Carmen reminds me of my grandmother a lot. And
and so I find, you know, I find like I
feel safe when I work with cast and I feel
safe and I feel like I'm almost you know, working
with family.
Speaker 3 (17:22):
Ms Carmon, is that matriarch you know, that's that's that's
that that's that person you.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
Call you know, you having that frustrating black moment. You know,
I told you for a minute.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
Her organizational partner, Katie Professor, Yes, yes, through yeah, yeah,
uh yes, not everyone knows. And I have the hardest
time learning Cell, which is the authors of the community
and learning because I used to my job at Faster
(18:03):
was I was the director of that program, but we
used to call it field work and so.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
So you came big for Luca call yeah, okay.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
Yeah, I was. I did that for twenty years and
I swear to it. Faster for thirty years. I mean,
I did a lot there and I understand, uh, you
know the difficulty of being black and faster, and it's
I met loads of students because it's a very popular program,
and I was entertaining you know where you're from. And
(18:34):
I was just talking to the students in the beginning
before we place them. You see, so how do you
like school? Meaning how do you like faster? And I
would say eighty nine away because I love it. They
use the word to love it. I said, Blacks, how
do you like Yeah, it's okay, you know, I mean,
I mean, they were dodging my question and appropriate. It
(18:58):
was just trying to be polite. But the white student
really like it. And this is an unofficial thing, but
VASHA is a very white law school. It's us a
thousand things right. What they don't do right is the
race stuff.
Speaker 4 (19:14):
Harrison ask Harrison. You know Harrison. Harrison is very critical.
And he went to he went to Poughkeepsie. He went
he graduated from Poughkeepsie High School. And Harrison is now
he's going to go to London. He's going to Yeah,
he's going to London now for grad school. He's graduating
(19:38):
this in May. Yeah, I can't believe the time is
gone by. Yes, he was our little baby, you know,
and now and now he is a he's a young
man trying to find it, trying to find his way
in this racist society.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
My commentary not that it shows about you guys, but
about the difficulty of being black ADVASA is real because
one of the things that makes it difficult is nobody
at VASA wants to a court having a trace of racism,
which compounds it. It doesn't hide it, you know. Whereas
my sense is VASA really excelled at being open on
(20:21):
LGBTQ issues because there are a lot of gay people
at VASA, there are not a lot of black people
at VASA, and so you have the white people walking
around and they're nervous about it.
Speaker 1 (20:35):
If you're just tuning in, you're listening to finding out
with Pete and the poet gold I'm Peter Leonard and
I'm the poet Golden.
Speaker 3 (20:40):
We're here today speaking with Carmen McGill celebrating the African
Spirit and Black History Month and TJ. Usher, a student
at Vassar College. Karma, you want to say.
Speaker 4 (20:50):
Something, Well, I was just going to say that I
get very disappointed with white people because they do not
fight or aware of their racism, or and do not
fight to combat it, or because it's like, well, it's
not me, it didn't happen to me. You know, I
didn't do this. But you have benefited from all of that.
(21:15):
That's that slavery has brought. Also, I want everybody to
know that our our history did not begin with slavery.
Slavery is I saw a jacket. Slavery is white people's history.
You know, survival is black people's history. So you know,
I mean, those are the kinds of things I want
(21:37):
more white people to be able to speak up and
to acknowledge, you know, their feelings, what they think about
the situation, and and and be a part of be
a part of the conversation because technically it's not our issue,
it's their issue. We don't we don't have that issue.
(21:58):
Uh for for the most part, you got some people.
Speaker 3 (22:02):
Yeah, but it's it's it's a it's a it's a
heavy load, you know, because very much so you're looking
at the man in the mirror, so to speak. You know,
you you have to be able to, you know, look
at yourself and then look at the whole system and
the whole construct because even still today there's so much
you know, that that exists with it. I mean, look
at where we are today, you know, when when I
(22:23):
when I speak to my my my white friends, you know.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
And I hate to say it like that, but this
is the reality, you know.
Speaker 3 (22:30):
And so it's it's a different type of conversation because
I'm saying, well, we would not be here if you
did not partake, if.
Speaker 1 (22:38):
You weren't willing.
Speaker 3 (22:39):
This is this is not new where we are. It's
it's this has been around, you know, forever. This was
bound to repeat itself because it was never dealt with,
you know, it was never And it's not about you know,
someone pointing the finger at you and going, this is
all your fault. That's not you know, it's it's it's
it's not it's not that complicated.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
You know.
Speaker 3 (22:59):
It's really a bat out you facing your truth and
facing the truth of the system of what it is exact,
and then how do you dismantle that in some way
and create new systems because we're creating new systems all
the time, you know, how do we do that so
that we can move forward as a society because it
doesn't only affect black people, it affects everybody other than white.
(23:20):
You know, everybody other than white is quote.
Speaker 4 (23:23):
They are damaged by it also because they cannot acknowledge,
as as a joy de group says in that we
are all damaged absolutely because the DNA, what the DNA
is saying is all that that all of us have
(23:43):
to deal with. And white folks are just as much
damaged by it, by.
Speaker 3 (23:48):
What absolutely, And it's and it's a scary thing to
have to look at your truth in any capacity for anyone,
you know, it's it's a scary thing to have to
do it. It's a scary thing to be able to,
you know, say hey, we need to sit down and
talk to each other. I may not be the person
who's you know, sort of like outly racist, you know,
because they are the conscious racist was.
Speaker 1 (24:09):
Proud of it. Hey I'm a racist, you know, It's
like okay.
Speaker 3 (24:12):
And then there are those that you know, just kind
of going through the system and supporting a racist system, right,
you know, and are not really wanting to acknowledge acknowledge that.
But it's not going to go away until we do
that hard emotional work.
Speaker 1 (24:25):
And as M.
Speaker 4 (24:25):
Scott Peck says in the road Let's travel is that
you have to examine your truth regularly. All of the
information that you get every day has to be reevaluated
because otherwise you're going to be on the wrong path.
If you do not are not consistent with knowing and
(24:48):
determining what your truth is day by day, then you
are in a state of pathology. And I think that
that's I think that that is important to.
Speaker 2 (24:56):
Know pathologies actually calling word for it, but I think
what you were driving and not driving at the Stadius
clearly before the way white people. You know, people have
picked up from my voice on white we tend not
tend to we pretend we don't have the racism. It
(25:19):
was impossible to be a white person in America and
not have ingested some racism. And when you deny it,
you're compounding it. And my sense is what makes Faster
particular hard place for TJ is so the vaster culture
is one of denial of racism, and it makes it
(25:44):
very difficult to.
Speaker 3 (25:45):
Be I think it's I think the other thing with
with you know, examining racism is sometimes I think, you know,
non Melanin folks will we'll think like, I'm not a
bad person. But I'm not a bad person. And it's
it's not the issue of making you out to be
a bad person, you know, it's it's no one's saying
(26:05):
that you're a bad person. It's let's take a look
at this, because it's not healthy for anybody. It's not
healthy for anyone to be walking around with so much fear,
you know, just spiritually, and it's and it's a contradiction
if you're if you're a person of Christ, it's a
contradiction in walking in the path of the love of Christ,
(26:26):
you know, to have that amount of fear inside of you,
because fear uh uh, you know, not dealt with becomes hate, right,
you know, and you've intentionally putting yourself on that turmoil
and on that path, you know.
Speaker 4 (26:38):
So evangelist, the evangelists, I don't understand that I'm that
whole that whole thing. I wish somebody could explain it
to me, because it's a lot of their actions are
not the actions of Christ. And and so I don't
understand how they can call themselves Christians. And you're you're
(26:59):
more fiber, your soul, your passion, whatever motivates you, your
your spiritual uh, your your spiritual fiber. If if it doesn't,
if it doesn't feel right, it's not right.
Speaker 3 (27:15):
Right because the driver I've I've you know, I mean
obviously my book is called Be the Poem Living Beyond
the Fear, you know, because because the driver I've really
given this thought through the years is not It's not love.
The driver is fear, you know, scarcity, and that's losing, yes,
you know, and and that's and that's and that's all
(27:36):
wired you know, into us, and it's it's how do
I navigate myself through that so I can get to
the love, I can get to the joy, right, you know.
But you have to do what you were talking about, Carmen,
the daily work, you know, the question I ask myself
every morning in my shower, what type of human being
do I wish to be in the world?
Speaker 1 (27:55):
Exactly exactly being aware?
Speaker 2 (27:57):
Right, And as long as it's taking a religious the
original sin, as a Christian doctrine, you're born into sin.
And if you're born in America and your white, the
original sin you have is racism. And you know, confronting
that is important. And I would say if you don't
(28:19):
confronts it, you're promoting it, and that makes you actually
a bad person. Goal. I know you don't. You're not
as judgmental as I am. But there's lots of bad
people around.
Speaker 3 (28:31):
You know.
Speaker 4 (28:33):
That's the whole thing is about not being judgmental. Because
I have a friend and he said to me, I
don't see color. See that. To me, that's a racist
response because if you don't see me, that means you
don't see flowers, You don't see what they look you
don't see different colors of paint, you don't see But
(28:55):
the thing is not that you not that you don't
see color. You have to see color, but not be judgmental, right,
not detegrate it on what that color does, right.
Speaker 2 (29:06):
I mean, you don't want to be blond. You want
to be appreciative of.
Speaker 4 (29:10):
Well, just like you would with another white person. You know,
it's just you evaluate the person on who they are, right,
not what they look like, right, right?
Speaker 3 (29:19):
I think I think that's what a person says when
they go, well I don't see code. Basically, what they're saying,
the translation for me is that you are you want
to respond to me from from a human standpoint, and
you understand how the construct, the construct of colors, colorism
has gotten in the way of us as a society
to be able to do that. But wow, this is
(29:40):
this is like an intense conversation and we're gonna have
to wrap it up though, and have you guys back again.
Tod It's been great having you here today and meeting you,
and I'm sure I'm going to see you again. Come
out on the nineteenth for the show of course, right
in the nineteenth nineteenth.
Speaker 4 (29:55):
Faster, yeah, six thirty six thirty, right in the evening
in our in oura right right.
Speaker 1 (30:02):
Right, yes, yes, And also the book.
Speaker 3 (30:05):
We're going to have some Poughkeepsie Middle school students before
the choir, We're going to have some local Vaster students
and as well, I'm bringing j D to Great with
me out of out of the city of Poughkeepsie.
Speaker 1 (30:15):
You know, he's with me on the tour. So young
hip hop hop good.
Speaker 3 (30:19):
Yes, So thank you once again for coming, Carmen, you know,
I love you for coming on. You're finding out what
Pete Nipoe would go to our listening audience. Thank you,
We appreciate you.
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