Side Effects of Black Resistance (with Kellie Carter Jackson)

This week, we are joined by Kellie Carter Jackson, author of We Refuse: A Forceful History of Black Resistance, to talk the multitude of forms that resistance can take, why violence is always forceful, but force is not always violent, and how to protest effectively while preserving your energy.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Small help from small human are small. It's so funky
small those this podcast. These days, we are watching so
many reasons why we should be resisting, right, We've been

(00:25):
hearing so many reasons why resistance is also a problem,
even if you just put it in the context of Palestine.
We are continuously hearing a one sided rendering of resistance,
as if only one side is deserving of resistance, when

(00:47):
ironically the side that is getting the okay to resist
are the actual occupying, violent invasive side. Is the occupying
and violent, invasive side. Kelly Carter Jackson is joining us
today and she just released her book We Refuse, a
forceful history of Black Resistance.

Speaker 2 (01:04):
And what this book does so.

Speaker 1 (01:05):
Beautifully and so eloquently is it presents various versions of
resistance beyond solely violence, and it does so with an
eloquence and an ease that I think a lot of
people may not attribute to.

Speaker 2 (01:23):
Such a strong, powerful topic.

Speaker 1 (01:26):
And for me, what I really appreciated about her writing
was not only that it was so factually robust, but
also that it was so emotionally robust in really grounding
these themes in narrative and telling us real people and
expounding upon these themes of force and protection and joy

(01:49):
and flight through real life stories of our ancestors that.

Speaker 2 (01:53):
Have come before us.

Speaker 1 (01:54):
And I cannot tell you all how necessary it is
to not just let history inform you, but to let
it inspire you. And today we're talking about.

Speaker 2 (02:04):
Side effects of black resistance.

Speaker 1 (02:07):
Namely because where I feel like so much of our
people are And when I say our people, I don't
even just mean black people, I mean people who want
a world that actually cares about people.

Speaker 2 (02:19):
I feel like so much of where.

Speaker 1 (02:20):
We are losing is in our inability to ground ourselves
in real stories of Praxie and practicality in the application
of resistance then, and how it can inspire and inform
and be a source of innovation for acts of resistance.

Speaker 2 (02:37):
Now, you know, when we.

Speaker 1 (02:39):
Talk about technology and AI and all of the efforts
that are being taken by Silicon Valley to undermine just
even labor, we have to ask ourselves, well, what does
resistance look like in this context? And it will take
using the tools of the past to be able to

(03:03):
find out and figure that out. So I'm really happy
to be able to have this conversation with the brilliant
Kelly Cutter Jackson. I've been looking forward to this, and
for those of you who are members of the Seal Squad,
as you know, her book We Refuse was our passage
posse book a few maybe two months ago, and so
it's always great to get to speak directly to the authors.

(03:24):
And I continuously feel honored to have established a place
in my career in this world to be able to
do that with some of the greatest minds of our time.
So let's get into it right here, Side Effects of
Black Resistance with Kelly Cutter Jackson. Welcome to what I

(03:46):
would say is a long awaited episode because Miscorta Jickson'
I've like, I really, I really loved this book.

Speaker 2 (03:57):
Ye, I like like, I love it like it's beyond
a history. It's beyond a historical narrative. It's also a guide.

Speaker 3 (04:10):
I appreciate you saying that.

Speaker 2 (04:12):
I went to the gun range and I was like force.
I went to the beach and I was like joy.

Speaker 3 (04:21):
Can I just tell you that I know my first
book has a gun on it, This book has a
gun on the cupboard. But like I did not get
my LTC until after the book. My life is and
even still I'm very intimidated by guns very.

Speaker 2 (04:38):
I feel we should be. I feel we should be.

Speaker 1 (04:40):
Like even when I went to the gun range, I like,
wasn't as safety oriented as I need. And then I
was like, okay, okay, okay, okay, let's just go.

Speaker 2 (04:49):
It's not a game. It's no, it's no joke.

Speaker 3 (04:53):
I have a deep respect, I think for guns, because
they are so lethal. I mean yeah, but anybody that doesn't,
I think, have an appreciation or a respect for firearms
is playing with their life. But I think it's because
you have a deep appreciation for life. Well, yes, that too,
And a lot of people really don't. They like whatever, yeah, yeah,

(05:16):
out here Wiln.

Speaker 1 (05:17):
Which is also why this piece of literature I think
is so impactful too, because again and yes, we are
going to get to the topic. I'm getting praised right now,
because so often historians lose the humanity of the conversation, right,
and even with historical narrative, which is, you know, meant

(05:38):
to make us be more connected and not just like
and this happened, and this happened, and this like, it's
very not Eric Phoner, even though he has his place,
he has he has his place because let me tell you,
that reconstruction book will get you to.

Speaker 2 (05:55):
He throws like little shade.

Speaker 1 (05:56):
Ever so often in his yes, he does, yes, very snarky,
like they could have done this, however they did not, And.

Speaker 2 (06:05):
You're like, oh, I see you there.

Speaker 1 (06:07):
But I feel like there's so much living in this book,
Like they say, historians tell the facts, poets tell the feelings.
And I felt like I was getting that through the
narrative as well, like the feelings, like you.

Speaker 3 (06:20):
Know, like that's what I want, that's what I want.

Speaker 2 (06:22):
What was her name, Cassie? Who was under the bed?

Speaker 1 (06:24):
Oh, Carrie, Cary, Carrie, you know, like it wasn't just
this is the story of Carrie to help illiminate this scenario.

Speaker 2 (06:33):
It was also like Carrie's fearless and yeah, and that
matter and that matters, yeah, you know matters, and that
they were scared of Carrie.

Speaker 3 (06:44):
Yes, yes, and couldn't even report that she was a
teenage girl because of how bad it hate them.

Speaker 2 (06:51):
Look like that to me was part.

Speaker 3 (06:54):
Of the whole blogging you can't even tell the truth
about this girl because of what it says about yourself.
Like it's just crazy, it's just crazy.

Speaker 1 (07:03):
So talk to me about where the concept of Black
resistance as an entire piece came from I mean, I
know that's a redundant question, but we'll get some more
cool stuff.

Speaker 3 (07:11):
Yeah. So I mean we were both I should say
at IRS, we were both about.

Speaker 2 (07:16):
To say when were you there?

Speaker 3 (07:17):
I was there. I think maybe after you. I was
there two thousand and four to two thousand and ten.

Speaker 2 (07:23):
I mean, okay, so I was there, oh three to five,
but okay, so we might have had crossover, but.

Speaker 1 (07:28):
You would have been in classes by the time I
was in.

Speaker 2 (07:31):
Yeah, like my first two semesters was like all these classes. Yep.
That third semester, I don't think.

Speaker 1 (07:36):
I think I had may have had one IRIS class
and it would have been one that was four second years.

Speaker 3 (07:41):
So we might have missed each other then because I
didn't take rip Manny Marrable, who was like a giant
in Irish really in the field of history, and it
is in his class, but also at Howard as well,
because I went to have for undergrad where resistance was
in the early two thousands, nineties and two thousands, resistance
was the theme of the day. That's what all scholars

(08:01):
and histories were writing about, was resistance, and understandably so
because the scholarship up until that point had been kind
of terrible or poetry when it came to talking about
black lives at all, and if they were talking about
black lives, it was always in relationship to like labor
or capital and not maybe talking about but how did
black people resist? But how did they push back against

(08:21):
the systems?

Speaker 2 (08:22):
Like how are we still here?

Speaker 3 (08:23):
How are we still here?

Speaker 2 (08:24):
How do we survive?

Speaker 3 (08:25):
How do we survive?

Speaker 2 (08:27):
Right?

Speaker 3 (08:27):
And so that's always been something that I've been fascinated with,
even as a child. I don't know if you mead
Mildred Detaylor as well with them do hear my cry?
But the story was about this little black girl, precocious, sassy,
living in Mississippi in the Delta in like the nineteen thirties,
and you know, she's sass in white folks and telling them,

(08:47):
you know, like you can't talk to me like that,
and you know, like, and I was like, who is
this girl? Like? I have always resonated with those kind
of characters and those kind of stories. I've seen it
in my own family time and time. So it made
sense to me that even with force and freedom and
certainly with re refuse, that resistance, which is gonna be
a thing I was going to cover for the rest

(09:10):
of my life, like that's your pocket, Yeah, that's my lane.
And I also I wanted to write a book I
wanted to read, which is I didn't. It's not to
say that there's not a place for it, because slavey
is violenced and it is horrific. But I had read
a lot of stories about sexual assaults and whippings and
separation of family, and I wanted to write something that

(09:32):
was like no, but we fought back, but we didn't
just take this lying down. But like Kanye is crazy,
you know what I mean, Like the idea of that
that black people were not constantly engaged in a negotiation,
in a battle, in some sort of stake over their humanity,
it's just not true.

Speaker 1 (09:53):
And it's also very perpetuated in I feel not so
obvious ways the obvious ways, Like there's the obvious way,
which is just like Martin Luther King because he's docile,
like you know, misrepresenting him right. But then I feel
like there's also the black excellence route, which I feel

(10:13):
like has very deep undertones of don't resist, just get
as excellent in spite of us.

Speaker 3 (10:20):
Be as good as you can be, great as you
can't be. I it's so funny you say that too,
Because I asked my students. I signed like a shameless professor,
I signed my book to my class students.

Speaker 2 (10:30):
I put it on the syllabus, and I asked them,
you gonna get those sales?

Speaker 3 (10:35):
I told them I'll give them the PDF for free
if they need it, you know, Like I asked him,
if there was a chapter you could add to this book,
if there was like another remedy or tool, you know,
in the toolkit, what would your you know, additional chapter be.
And one student, God bless her, was like, what about
black excellence? Isn't black excellence a tool? And I was like,

(10:56):
oh no, girl, I was like, black excellents won't save us.
Black excellens will not save us. Mlka was shot in
a suit.

Speaker 2 (11:04):
You know, on a balcony. He was in the best room.

Speaker 3 (11:08):
Ye know, yes, And it will not save us. I mean, yes,
does it have its place? Sure? Do I want to
be excellent in everything I do? Absolutely? But do I
think that it will be the ultimate shield from my supremacy? No?
Sometimes it actually, black excellence makes you a target.

Speaker 1 (11:24):
One thousand percent I also think sometimes black excellence makes
you an accomplice to a supremacy.

Speaker 3 (11:30):
That part too, that part too. I old another book
group in which somebody I asked the same question, you know,
what chapter would you add? And one person was like,
what about assimilation is a.

Speaker 2 (11:41):
Tool, So in those moments, where are you what's the
because that's wild and they really loved, like they thought
that was Yeah.

Speaker 3 (11:53):
I mean, for one, I was talking to a group
of it was a black Nail book club, and they
were all black men that were highly accomplished, so doctors, lawyers, engineers,
you know, they're all went to elite institutions, YadA, YadA, YadA,
and so I knew who I was talking to, and
I knew that they wanted me to affirm that there

(12:14):
had them, like was also a part of refusal. And
I was like, oh yeah, actually assimilation is antithetical to refusal,
and so no, you can't you can't accommodate light supremacy
like on your way to dismantle it. Like that doesn't,
that doesn't. Oh they cried in the shower. Yeah, I mean,

(12:34):
you know, they didn't didn't push back, go ask nobody
pushed back. One person was like well, you know, my
Harvard degree has got me a lot of places, Yadia.
I mean, you know, like what can you say, No,
one hasn't.

Speaker 2 (12:46):
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (12:46):
I mean I was just like, Okay, well, you know,
I appreciate that you feel that way, but for the
majority of African Americans, that's not what's going to get them.
You know, not everybody's going to Harvard.

Speaker 1 (12:58):
And that's not everybody's goal. No, right, Like that Also
that that part like nor should it be right? Like,
the argument isn't we should be resisting the ability to
go to these places like no, Like the argument is
that we should be resisting the inability to go where you.

Speaker 2 (13:16):
Want to go. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (13:17):
Yeah, And that's a big part of it too. I
Mean we also got into other debates about HBC's versus PWIS,
and you know, I'm a huge HBCU fan and so
I kind of was like dingtoes down on that. I
was like, whoa, no, no, but you're not gonna do
Let's talk about my HBC.

Speaker 1 (13:35):
I feel like, well, not all HBCUs are created equal.
Also that part two, Like I didn't know there was
like full on white professorships at HBCUs until I went
to Xavier to do an event and there was a
student that pulled me to the side and was like,
you know, would you mind just speaking about what we
expect our white professors to do at HBCU.

Speaker 2 (13:52):
And I was like, I'm sorry, what do you what
do you mean?

Speaker 1 (13:57):
And he was like, well, you know, I have a
white professor who I asked about a grade and she
reported me to campus police. Oh snap, because I asked
about a grade. And then she went on to say
that she was, you know, felt fearful for her life,
et cetera. And like, you know the person I'm talking to.
I mean, you don't know anybody in two minutes, but like,
looking at this person, I'm like you. But it also

(14:21):
just felt like that's part of why you go to
an HBC You did not have to have that type
of interference with your education process.

Speaker 2 (14:28):
Yeah, you know. And then I see, isn't there a
whole thing going on to Howard right now with money?

Speaker 3 (14:32):
Yeah? There is there is. It's not pretty. I mean,
it's not pretty, but it's also not new, you know
what I mean. Like, these are conversations that have been
going on since the genesis of HBCUs because they have
been chronically underfunded from their origin. Story, Like even though
Howard boasts I think the first HBC to like have
a billion dollar endow mine or something like that, they're

(14:53):
like nine hundred and eighty seven million or whatever. But
that's been something that like is much longer story and
a whole nether podcast. But and I give you a
whole I've only been asked to free about it. But
as much as I love my HBC, use I am
also very critical. But the critique I want to be

(15:13):
careful is not always what we think, which is that's
why black people ain't good with money, and that's why
they don't have YadA, YadA, YadA. And it's like, if
you don't understand how white supremacy has worked to consistently
undermine these institutions, it's a miracle that any of them
still exists. It's a miracle that any of them can

(15:35):
still hold their doors open. And I think that has
to be discussed alongside these other conversations. Because when students
were protesting at Howard saying they don't have housing or
the housing is in deep need of renovation, you could
say the same thing at Wellesley.

Speaker 2 (15:51):
Wellesley needs a deep renovation to their dorms.

Speaker 3 (15:53):
We're just not in the news. Students, aren't, you know,
as vocal about it or not, you know, publicly vocal.
They're vocal on campus.

Speaker 2 (15:59):
But everybody has those words if you will, right.

Speaker 1 (16:03):
I mean, there's only been two schools that have asked
me to speak for free ever, Harvard and Howard.

Speaker 2 (16:12):
Harvard asked me to speak for free the other day.

Speaker 3 (16:14):
I believe that one hundred percent because it's the same
thing with Harvard. I have been asked multiple times to
speak and I said no because I'm just like, y'all
got money. And then Howard, I did it like as
a service, but they did pay me, so I was
grateful for that. I was like, oh, I surprised, Hey,
but you.

Speaker 1 (16:32):
Know the last time, well I don't know if it
was the last time, but I remember one time Lil
Wayne had done homecoming, but then I was being asked
to speak for free. I was like, no, no, because
lazy too, and she didn't do it for free.

Speaker 2 (16:46):
No. No, It's like these are.

Speaker 1 (16:49):
The they literally said to me, because I did actually
say that, and they were like, well, we actually used
our appearance budget. We use it up on this snap
and I was just like tough freak, guys, tough break Bison's.

Speaker 3 (17:03):
Come to me at the start of the fiscal year.
That's when you come to me.

Speaker 2 (17:06):
Yes, you guys.

Speaker 1 (17:13):
So when you came to this book and we're talking
about we refuse a forceful history of black resistance, what
was I'm sure there's a multitude of them, but I
would love to hear any like surprises that you came
across in your research that you were just like, whoa.

Speaker 3 (17:27):
I mean, the very first surprise was my own family history,
because I didn't know a lot about my great grandparents
or their parents and grandparents.

Speaker 2 (17:38):
What made you decide to go there with this book?

Speaker 3 (17:41):
A couple of things. One, I this kind of sounds
so corny because I said this story a lot. But
like I have little kids, and we were watching the
film Coco and came out several years ago.

Speaker 2 (17:53):
But don't tell me.

Speaker 1 (17:55):
Remember, yeah, I love your mother loved you, your father
remembers you, he loved you, Grandma.

Speaker 3 (18:04):
I will ride in that film. But one of the
things I took away was that you never really die
until the last person stopped saying your name. And so
I like the idea of taking my ancestors story and
incorporating in so that her name lives on and her
mother's name lives on, and her mother's mother's name lives on.

Speaker 2 (18:23):
That just felt very powerful to me. I found out.

Speaker 3 (18:26):
After the book was out. The story starts out with Arnesto,
who's my great grandmother. Her mother's name was Mary, and
I didn't know Mary's mother's name, which is why it's
not disclosed in the book. I found her after the
book that her name was Martha, and that was a
huge shock to me. So when the paperback comes out
this fall, Martha's name in the book, it's Martha, Mary,

(18:49):
and Arnesta, Like, you will have those names.

Speaker 2 (18:51):
All right? Why did that name surprise you so much?

Speaker 3 (18:54):
Well, because we never knew We never knew what her
name was.

Speaker 2 (18:56):
How'd you find it out?

Speaker 3 (18:58):
So my mom did research. Because my mom was like
on the prow. She was like, come hell or high water,
I am going to find her name because she knew it,
but she had forgot and you know, she was trying
to call stories that people had told her as a
child and as an adult. And we started this gosh
a few years ago where we were just like, you
know what our parents are getting older, we need to
get these stories. My sister like tape recorded all of

(19:20):
the conversations that we had from my mom's side and
my dad's side, and so those were stories I just
didn't know. I didn't know that my grandmother. I knew
she walked with the limp. I didn't know why. I
didn't know about the resty nail. I didn't know about
the doctor's proposal to have her lives be a slave
for the rest of her life. Those things were startling

(19:41):
to me. I didn't know about Kirie Johnson. I knew
I love the when we read books her listeners. So
Carrie Johnson in nineteen nineteen Washington is like red summer
and race riots are breaking out all over the country.
We can call them rights because that's what they were.
They were massacres in a lot of instances.

Speaker 2 (20:01):
Yeah, I feel like riots is even generous. Yeah, it's
we're trying to find a new word for riots.

Speaker 3 (20:07):
Some people are using the word rebellion when it's like
black people that are in defiance, but like massacre when
it's in white.

Speaker 1 (20:13):
I was gonna say, right, because in this case it's
the whites being like, yes, yes, they were.

Speaker 3 (20:18):
Going crazy and they are beating up black people, all
of this alleged rumor that some black man had you know,
it's the white woman.

Speaker 1 (20:26):
But it's always an alleged rumor. They use the same
rumor to start genociding Palestine. In the latest phase, it
was there was sexual violence on October seventh that was
never proven.

Speaker 3 (20:37):
And all of those things are it's tale's oldest time.
So it starts off this wave of violence that takes
place over several days. And Carrie's living in a black
neighborhood in Washington, d c. And her father, I assume
her father she's living with. Her father gets her shotgun
and says, you know, we got to defend our home

(20:57):
and our neighborhood. And she goes up to the roof
of her house. She starts taking pot shots at the
white mob that is walking or marching toward her home.
She shoots and hits someone, and it's that that causes
people in the mob to alert the police to say, hey,
there's someone on the roof. There's someone shooting at us,
And so the cops go to investigate and they break

(21:19):
down the door of her home. They don't announce themselves,
carrying her father or hiding under the bed, and when
they go up the stairs into the bedroom where she
is on the second floor, she starts shooting because she
assumes someone's in her house to harm her. And when
she starts shooting, she hits a police officer, a detective,
and kills him. She gets shot, I think in the thigh.

(21:40):
Her father gets shot in the shoulder, and they get
yanked from under the bed and they're arrested and there's
a trial, and it's just crazy because I mean, did.

Speaker 2 (21:49):
I understand correctly, Yes, you did?

Speaker 3 (21:53):
I know what you're gonna say.

Speaker 1 (21:56):
I was like, no, her daddy didn't just leave it
like that. This was a strategy.

Speaker 3 (22:01):
If I'm giving her dad the benefit of the doubt,
which I'm not necessarily prone to. But if I am,
I think he thought, well, Carrie did kill the cop.
She's a seventeen year old girl. She will get a
much more linear sentence. Yes, if I say that, I
do it, I'm a dead man already. So I pinnied

(22:22):
it on her.

Speaker 2 (22:23):
So that's where I planted my flag.

Speaker 3 (22:25):
But then, yeah, she disappeared.

Speaker 2 (22:28):
Like It's not like he was like, all right, Carrie,
let's get it together.

Speaker 3 (22:31):
No, he disappears, She disappears, the mother is nowhere inside.
I have no historical record of her mother or her
father after this episode, she is acquitted. Eventually walks away
at nineteen year old, a free black woman.

Speaker 2 (22:45):
Which is bazonkers. I'm still like, that wouldn't even happen. Now.

Speaker 3 (22:50):
Who kills a cop in nineteen nineteen and walks away,
Like it just makes no sense. And again, I think
it's important to say that this was not about justice.
I don't think she gets acquitted because you know, she
was well within her right to defend herself. She gets
acquitted because they didn't want to keep the story in
the public They didn't want to have this hero or

(23:13):
this person become a hero because of her actions, and
so if they could just get it out of the
public light as quickly as possible, and then they could
make the story go away and not inspire anyone else.
But the fact of the matter is people were inspired.
There was children writing poems about her, and black women
across the country trying to raise money for her legal defense.
And it's just incredible to me that this is the

(23:34):
story that she had.

Speaker 1 (23:35):
What would you say is like, we name some examples
of resistance. What would you say as an example of
resistance that you didn't put in the book.

Speaker 3 (23:42):
Oh ah, I can tell you that Arson Arson. I
wanted a chapter on Arson.

Speaker 1 (23:48):
They just burned up plantation down the other day, he does,
like hear me out.

Speaker 3 (23:53):
I feel like from slavery to like when you think
about the colonial air when everything was made out of wood,
you know, and like slaves are like, you know, we
should do we should burn it all down. And there's
a food line from not just fires during like slave
rebellions or mysterious fires.

Speaker 2 (24:09):
We don't know how the barn got set on fire.

Speaker 3 (24:12):
All the way through the Civil War, plantations are being
set on fire and destroyed. If you think about fires
during the Haitian Revolution, I mean Arson was a key
tool in burning down not just the plantation but also
the land itself so that the crop is completely destroyed. Woo.
When you think about the nineteen sixties and burn baby burn,

(24:32):
and we're enjoy these cities and we're gonna light up
the police precinct or the grocery store or whatever it is.
And you even see it in Ferguson when you know
they set the quick chip on fire.

Speaker 1 (24:42):
They definitely did, and in BLM they set the police
precincts on fire.

Speaker 2 (24:46):
In Minneapolis, hey, sure did.

Speaker 3 (24:48):
And then my husband was like, Kelly Dow incendiary and
I'm not trying to have death. No, he was like,
you cannot. I know you want, you can. No, we
got children. I don't want because my husband's always paranoid
that the right will pick up something and run with it.
Whi's fair, that's true, that's a badge of honor. Yeah,

(25:09):
they will take a quote. I've been misquoted multiple times
as like she supports violence, she wants, you know, all
the way things. So it's okay, but.

Speaker 1 (25:18):
See wait wait wait, I'm a wait, wait wait wait, cottajects.

Speaker 2 (25:25):
Because I would love for you.

Speaker 3 (25:26):
To speak to the.

Speaker 1 (25:28):
Co opting of resistance as violence, right, yeah, no, that's
so important.

Speaker 3 (25:36):
And this this isn't forcing freedom. The first book where
I say that violence is always forceful, but force is
not necessarily violent, and I think that's really an important
distinction to make, because you could argue that force is
a boycott, force is a strike, force is quitting.

Speaker 1 (25:56):
They're doing a hunger strike in Allegator Alcatraz while we're recording.

Speaker 3 (25:59):
The Absolutely, force is a lot of different things, And
I think we are prone or programmed to think that
force is shoot them up, bank bang. Force is violence,
it's sexual assault, it's all of these heinous acts. That's
not actually what force is. Now, violence is violence. You know,
you can't begin around that. And I'm actually not a
huge fand at all for violence, but I do think

(26:21):
that force can be a very effective tool. And I
think conversations like this require a lot of nuance because
we've been so sort of pigeonholed into these binaries of
violence and nonviolence.

Speaker 2 (26:34):
Who gets to do violence?

Speaker 1 (26:35):
He doesn't get why when these people do violence, it's
called protecting yes.

Speaker 2 (26:40):
When these people do.

Speaker 1 (26:41):
Violence, it's called attacking yes.

Speaker 3 (26:45):
Or it's patriotic, you know what I mean. Like, there's
a lot of ways in which violence gets co opted,
depending on whose hands it is. And because what I
love about my students, what I love about gen Z
is like they're like binaries do not service. Binaries do
not service. Like the idea that it's violent or it's
non violent leaves no room for any other pathway toward freedom.

(27:08):
You can either march or you can burn it all down.
Both can't be the two options.

Speaker 1 (27:13):
You know what I mean, Like on these internets, that's
literally where we are because we're not even seeing that
in the conversation around abolition, right, this idea that it's
like there are either prisons or there's no punishment at all.
And I'm like, okay, but but there has to be
There has to be like a repercussion.

Speaker 2 (27:30):
You want reform and revolution.

Speaker 3 (27:32):
And I say this very carefully because you know, I
was talking about this to the death penalty with a
colleague and he was saying that we don't want to
reform the system, we want a revolution. And he's like, yes,
I get that, but reform allows it so that children
are no longer executed. Reform allows it so that the
mentally disabled are no longer executed. Now, does the death

(27:54):
penalty still exist, yes, but other changes that are made
where we can't fill out the baby with the bad water. Yes.
So I think you kind of have to have both.
But when you pose it like it's reform of revolution,
that actually.

Speaker 1 (28:06):
Surprises me from you, because I really feel like, in
this book, you're not a reformist at all.

Speaker 3 (28:10):
No, I'm not.

Speaker 2 (28:11):
I'm not.

Speaker 3 (28:11):
It depends on the top in this book.

Speaker 2 (28:14):
In this book, I was in this house, like that's right,
kind of card of jet that's every time.

Speaker 3 (28:19):
Okay, So, but that's the death penalty slavery.

Speaker 1 (28:23):
You can't reform slavery, all right, So okay, what about
our current empire, like the United States?

Speaker 3 (28:32):
I mean okay, so like I would say, it's yes
and meaning yes, you absolutely need to dismantle the system
and replace it with something better and just absolutely I'm
all for revolution. However, until we get there, I am
trying to save as many lives as possible.

Speaker 2 (28:54):
I am trying to it's not possible recover or reduce harm.

Speaker 3 (28:58):
It's much as possible.

Speaker 2 (29:00):
Is it fair? But is it fair? Is it fair
to say that?

Speaker 3 (29:05):
Give me an example?

Speaker 1 (29:06):
Okay, so we talk about like reducing harm, So I'll
use Palestine for example, Ina, Like in USA, there's the
conversation of well, we don't need to send any military
in what we need.

Speaker 2 (29:20):
To do is just get these people food.

Speaker 1 (29:22):
And to me, that's the mindset of like we need
to just reduce harm, not do something like drastic.

Speaker 2 (29:28):
But you need both, you need bold.

Speaker 1 (29:30):
But that's a binary that doesn't actually move things past,
because as long as there is the reform, there isn't
enough of a I always say, drastic change requires drastic change.

Speaker 2 (29:43):
Oh yeah, Like, as long as there's a stop.

Speaker 1 (29:45):
Gap, there just isn't enough of a momentum push to
go past it.

Speaker 2 (29:49):
Like that's what to me, democrats serves.

Speaker 3 (29:51):
But can it be both and though you know what
I mean.

Speaker 2 (29:54):
At this point, I don't believe so. No, we've been
in both ends.

Speaker 3 (29:57):
Can we get people food? Also, dismantling or confronting the system.

Speaker 2 (30:03):
Depends on who you're dealing with.

Speaker 3 (30:05):
Well, yeah, that's true too.

Speaker 1 (30:06):
No, because that system does not allow for any intervention.
That's where we are about to be again here in
the United States, because like if we're looking at the
stories in this book and the stories that we've heard
so much about resistance, like that's what doctor Martin Luther

(30:26):
King was talking about. He was like trying to do reform.
And then before he passed away, it was like, god,
dang it, He's like I really try, you know.

Speaker 2 (30:37):
That's what I thought we was doing and like dang, yeah.
And then right as he thought about that, they was like,
we're gonna take you out.

Speaker 3 (30:44):
Yes, yes, I mean I think that that's absolutely true.
I also feel like, and I say this in the book, too.
Is that like sometimes when you talk about these ideas,
they're so big and they're so overwhelming that people can't
hand The idea of revolution feels so abstract and so

(31:04):
revolutionary that people can't They don't know what that looks
like on the ground. They don't know what that looks
like as a regular accountant that does someone's books, or
someone who's a regular person. It's like, how do I
practice or hasten that in my own life? So you
need like I don't so fery out with the bathwater,

(31:26):
because a lot of people, you know, they sow scholars
under the bus because they're like, oh, they're just theory
and all that stuff. You need practicality, You need both.
You need both.

Speaker 1 (31:34):
But I will say that you need both with your
book too. You need to read your book and also
listen to it. And I'll tell you why, because you
have a children's show voice.

Speaker 2 (31:43):
M thank you?

Speaker 3 (31:44):
Is that good? Is that comfiment?

Speaker 1 (31:45):
That's absolutely because you have a voice that is very
comforting even as you are saying like really inconvenient truths
and really impactful realities, you're saying them and it still
sounds very palatable.

Speaker 3 (32:04):
Yet my mom said the same thing. She said, Kelly Girl,
that's my nickname. She was like, Kelly Girl, Why is
it that someone could say the exact same thing that
you are saying and that they would get stoned.

Speaker 2 (32:19):
And you stay I in person, you.

Speaker 3 (32:22):
Would book yes, I hate yes, and you will say
it and you will get a different response. Like I've
given book talks before all white audiences. Right, I was
the only black person in the room, and I have
yet to have gotten serious pushback.

Speaker 2 (32:43):
But you're also jolly, like you have a jolly spirit.

Speaker 3 (32:45):
Sure, I mean, and that's my demeanor. That's how I am.

Speaker 1 (32:48):
That's what I mean. Like it's very like naturally Tabith Brown.
I am a joyful person. I'm an optimist.

Speaker 3 (32:54):
I am a always the glass is full and the
roses are red, you know, Like that is just how
I'm bent. But I don't know. I mean, my mom says,
it's the Holy Spirit. It's just the Holy Spirit. I
won't deny that, Okay, I'll take it. But I do
think that, like there is a real skill to be
able to communicate something that is so political or toxic

(33:18):
or contentious in a way that makes people want to
grapple with it or at the very least makes people curious.
You know, I want to be in conversation with people
who are curious. This is not a book for you know, maga,
you know, like I have no design.

Speaker 2 (33:34):
It's not a conversion book.

Speaker 3 (33:36):
No, it's not. I wrote this book because I wanted
Black people to feel empowered and seen and heard and love.
This is my love letter to them. I wanted our
allies and other marginalized folks to read this book and
see how refusal works in their own lives. And I
wanted our white brothers and sisters to read this book
too and feel like there is a space and a
place for you and that yes, you too can and

(33:59):
shou'd refue, use, correct, and here the different tools at
our disposal. Now keep the conversation going. What else can
we do? You know, because the more we expand, the
more we give ourselves options, the more we can say, well,
this didn't work, but what about this or whatever I
think is really useful.

Speaker 1 (34:18):
So that's what I would say when you were talking
about like mitigating harm and saving as many lives as possible,
that's where I would say the reform exists. It doesn't
in my mind, it doesn't realistically exist. Legislatively just because
it's always you know, like a spinning hamster wheel. But
in how we live in this country, like we've been

(34:38):
so trained to live very very very individual lives that
are really about like how do I protect solely myself?
And something that was so clear in this book was
how community existed.

Speaker 3 (34:50):
Yes, the collective, the collective.

Speaker 1 (34:53):
And I've been speaking a lot lately about just how
you know, black folks lived in a more socialist construction
when we were in segregation. And that's not to proclaim
that segregation was the wind.

Speaker 2 (35:07):
It's just the fact that.

Speaker 1 (35:08):
We had by nature of the limitations that we were given,
we were forced into a collective.

Speaker 2 (35:14):
Yes, but imagine if we chose.

Speaker 3 (35:17):
If we chose, if we chose solidarity, if we chose
imagine if others chose it with us, you know what
I mean.

Speaker 1 (35:24):
Like, so listen, when you were saying like the white
brothers and sisters, like I've been preaching this a lot lately,
which is, yes, we have our black history. Yes, we
have our unique black histories across the diaspora, right like
we have very many versions of black histories.

Speaker 2 (35:38):
There are American histories.

Speaker 1 (35:40):
And what I also really appreciated in this book, was
you share a similar sentiment to me, which is like, yeah,
like we're here, but like America's not ours, we're not
trying to like we could have our own.

Speaker 2 (35:53):
I am applying for my PhD this fall to go
back to write about that. Yeah, that's powerful, thank you.

Speaker 1 (36:00):
But I do feel like so much of the binary
and the concept of like either this or that, this
or that has effectively divided and conquered uses to where
it's like, oh, if you don't look like this, then
you're not a part of my community. If you don't yeah,
and shallow stuff where it's now it's like, do you
have the same values as me?

Speaker 2 (36:17):
Yes, that's all that matters, because let me tell you something.
We know the phrase not all.

Speaker 3 (36:22):
Skinfolker can commit. I don't need a Clarence Thomas, do
you know what I mean? We have nothing in coming
other than melanin.

Speaker 2 (36:30):
Like that is it? That is it.

Speaker 3 (36:32):
I will take a John Brown all day long, you
know what I mean? Like, I will take someone who
is gonna be ride or die, who is going to like, hey,
this is what we want, we want liberation will come
on then, Like I'm all for that. And so I'm
writing another book, and one of the chapters is about
accommodation is not a solution, big is not at all Historically,

(36:55):
Let's look over time at how black people have a
commodator and it's gotten them, why it has set us back.

Speaker 2 (37:02):
It hasn't gotten anyone anywhere, No, not even Booker T.

Speaker 3 (37:05):
Washington.

Speaker 2 (37:06):
It hasn't gotten.

Speaker 3 (37:08):
No, not even Booker two, not even he should not
have died in fifty nine, you know what I mean,
Like there's a whole like way of thinking about the
collective that I think we under estimate how important it
is to be in solidarity about the things that we
value are basic humanity.

Speaker 2 (37:31):
You know.

Speaker 3 (37:31):
The book is we Refuse, not I refuse, Like they
say that it's really important that people understand you cannot
do this work alone. You cannot do this work in isolation.
You cannot just work on becoming a billionaire and then
you'll solve everybody's problems. No, that's not gonna work. That's
not the solution. And I think has a very Western
framework around it, you know, like the word I, yes,

(37:54):
the way we think about I mean myself and I
is this very like the Western identity is a narcissist
do you know why it thinks about itself solely is
how does this benefit me? How does this work for me?
Not my brother, not my sister, not my cousin.

Speaker 2 (38:11):
Relevant, Yes, do you. I'm gonna do me, get mine,
I'm gonna get your. Not all like Ethos.

Speaker 3 (38:17):
It's so toxic and it's something that we applaud in
the West on the United States.

Speaker 1 (38:22):
Well, where do you feel capitalism fits into our impediments
as it relates to resistance?

Speaker 2 (38:29):
Oh?

Speaker 3 (38:29):
Man, So I think it's the chapter on protection where
I tell this story about my great grandfather, James Price,
and how he was driving along the middle of the
day and he struck a white child with his car
and instantly killed the child. And this is nineteen, I
think thirty three, Mississippi. We already know what happens when

(38:53):
a black man kills a white child, and there awaitnesses
is broad day that everybody saw it happen, and he
was not lynched, he was not taken to trial, he
was not arrested. Everyone said, oh, it's okay, James, it's fine.
And I was like, well what Even the boys parents

(39:13):
were like, it's okay, it's fine. Is an accident. And
I was baffled by this. Part of the reason the
story came about was because my mother went to a
funeral and at the funeral, all of the older cousins
were like, let's go around and tell family secrets. We
think no one knows. This was one of the secrets
was that Grandpa James Price killed this little white boy.

(39:34):
They had. Grandpa James had sixteen children.

Speaker 1 (39:37):
Let me tell you what they were doing. One thing
back in the day they was fine.

Speaker 3 (39:40):
Bab had been base and truth be told, this is
not in the book, but he actually had three kids
before he met my grandmother, so he had nineteen kids himself.

Speaker 2 (39:49):
Busy, so busy.

Speaker 3 (39:51):
But when I think about capitalism, long story long, But
when I think about capitalism, he was protected not because
he was a good man, and not because it was
an accident, but because he and his family were capital
and they were sharecroppers and they were labor and the
system required the preservation of their bodies for the profit

(40:13):
of their system, for the profit of their farms. And
so I say, like, he was not protected. Grumbergings was
not protected. He was actually being imprisoned in Mississippi. He
was never able to leave the state. All of his
children eventually migrated up to like Chicago and Detroit during
the Great Migration, but he never left. It was not

(40:34):
until the end of his life, where he was dying
from pesticides that they had put on the boll weevil
in Mississippi, that he was able to come to Detroit
and die in the home of his children.

Speaker 2 (40:46):
But he was trapped.

Speaker 3 (40:48):
And so I think it's just important to say that
because we put a lot of emphasis on race, but
race and class are tethered. Capitalism and white supremacy go
hand in hand, they informed one another. And so it's
not just about anti blackness. It is also about how
we see labor.

Speaker 1 (41:10):
Where do you feel like resistance exists? Now, I know
one of the things for me that's been a bit
kind of confusing is it's as if people don't feel
they need to resist.

Speaker 3 (41:26):
Yeah, I think people. I think a lot of things
are happening. One I think sisters are black sisters in particular,
are tired. I think that they A lot of my friends,
especially right after their election, they were like, I'm don
like I didn't it part a playing my role, I'm
putting the cape up, I'm taking a break, I'm out.

Speaker 2 (41:45):
But can I keep it in a buck with my
thoughts on that.

Speaker 1 (41:48):
Yeah, I think part of the exhaustion comes from misplaced energy,
because Democrats have been a fraud organization in its falsehood
of being a source of pride or a source of
change or a source of elevation in seeking egalitarianism for

(42:11):
black people, let alone Black women. And so I feel
like even in the effort of like I'm tired, I
think that many Black women are saying I'm tired, not
realizing that you're so tired because you've been used and
you thought you were being useful, but we were actually
being used this whole time, and now here we are,

(42:32):
And this was always going to happen, by the way,
because the same Democrats have not been a force, they
have not been a collective, and they have actively been
passive as this impending doom was coming. So when I
hear black sisters say I'm tired, I've had to really
like think through why that was like not landing for me.

(42:55):
And I think it's because and I think it's because, like,
I respect that you're tired, however, you've been serving the
empire not realizing I.

Speaker 3 (43:06):
Pushed back a little, only a little.

Speaker 2 (43:09):
Not willingly. I don't think it's been not just not willingly.

Speaker 3 (43:13):
I don't think any Black woman who's really trying to
do meaningful work is out here trying to like propagate empire.
You know, they would not know, but esta upholding establishment
is upholding establishment. Well, I think the response a lot
of black women might have to that is, in the
United States, what is the alternative? If all we have

(43:33):
is Republicans or Democrats and we know you're dead in
the water as a third party, then that doesn't have.

Speaker 2 (43:38):
To be that way.

Speaker 3 (43:39):
It don't have to be the way.

Speaker 2 (43:40):
It doesn't have to be that way, like and there
have been efforts, it don't have to be the way,
but it also doesn't have to be the only work.

Speaker 3 (43:46):
True. But I also think even black women that are
doing work that operates outside of that that are like,
you know, there's this to starimt on Instagram who is
like starting her own farm and doing this co op
and you know, growing foods and vegetables. Like hey, yo,
she's also like leading courses on like gun safety, Like
she is doing her part for her community, Like this

(44:07):
is how I can serve on my community.

Speaker 2 (44:08):
I'm aa feed my people, educate my people.

Speaker 3 (44:11):
I'm all my people, and I'm all for it, but
I do feel like that work is exhausting and isolation.
You can't do it alone. Absolutely need coalitions across racial
lines and generation.

Speaker 2 (44:23):
Which I feel like is getting.

Speaker 1 (44:25):
I feel like the message of I did my part,
I'm not doing nothing, no more does impact the ability
for coalition building.

Speaker 3 (44:32):
Oh, absolutely absolutely, And the right know it and they
absolutely know it. And I think that if there's anything
that's given me a little bit of encouragement, you know,
I said, I'm optimist, but there's anything that if there's
a silver lining to be had, is that I have
seen more white people in my circles step up in

(44:57):
ways that I have not seen while in meaningful ways
that I've not seen in a while, where I feel like, Okay,
not so much like I can chill y'all doing the work,
but like, okay, so I might not be doing this
work by myself, Like, so there are some of you
that care and are invested and are actually trying to

(45:18):
be in partnership. I do feel like I've seen that more. Yeah,
and that's encouraging to me because I feel like, listen,
if we'll do this on our own, we are not
gonna make it. We just not go make it.

Speaker 1 (45:28):
We're not capable. No, it's not even numbers wise. Yeah,
you know it's not possible.

Speaker 3 (45:32):
But I am tired of I don't really go to protests.
I haven't been to protesting you forty three. I have
to think about it.

Speaker 2 (45:41):
I'm not doing that no more. I do now.

Speaker 3 (45:43):
I try to do this this in the book, But
I'm just like, that is not something that I think
is very useful or effective. And I get the desire
for people to want to be in a shared space
with people who share their values. Like there's some thing
I feel like sometimes going to protest is like going
to like a football game, you know, where you're all

(46:04):
cheering for your team, and everybody's in there, you.

Speaker 2 (46:06):
Know, maschate and the protest tailgate.

Speaker 3 (46:11):
Like I feel like that it has that kind of
it does now, yes, absolutely absolutely it has that kind
of because.

Speaker 1 (46:18):
When you see protests in other countries, baby, it.

Speaker 2 (46:19):
Ain't like here, no, no, no, You're you're risking no life.

Speaker 1 (46:23):
I mean you're right, and like they go with a
play like it's like we're not just in the street.
We're in the street to walk to this place to
do this thing, like accomplish this goal. Like even like
the march, it's like, hey, we're doing this to get
our boats.

Speaker 3 (46:38):
We're doing this to.

Speaker 1 (46:39):
Get our We're going to Montgomery to go to the
court House.

Speaker 3 (46:43):
And demands, et cetera. I think that now I'm about
to say no Kings. Well yeah, the no King's protest.
I was like, okay, so what are we doing? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (46:54):
But you see, Kelly, that's what I'm saying about Democrats.

Speaker 2 (46:58):
Like what I'm saying is that okay, but they're gonna
be mad at me, but I'm gonna say it.

Speaker 3 (47:03):
Your show.

Speaker 1 (47:05):
With this book illuminates so clearly is that black people,
but specifically black women, have had a really clear like
there's been a very constant through line of an awareness
for the necessity for resistance, right, and for a resistance
that is loud, for a resistance that is forceful.

Speaker 2 (47:23):
Right.

Speaker 1 (47:23):
It's not a passive resistance, Like there are versions of
passive resistance, like doctor Kelly talks about that in Race Rebels.

Speaker 3 (47:29):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (47:29):
Yeah, it's like if.

Speaker 1 (47:30):
I'm spitting your food, like that's passive resistance. But like
I got my lick, I got my lick back now.
But even like the woman you talk about who had
her organization. You know, she had her newspaper, she was
doing all the things, and then the end of AACP
like came in basically undercut because yeah, she chose to

(47:50):
go along with them with the goal of like saving
her a paper.

Speaker 2 (47:56):
Lost.

Speaker 3 (47:56):
You can't you can't take the bride.

Speaker 2 (47:57):
You can't can't take the bride.

Speaker 3 (47:58):
She lost her paper.

Speaker 1 (47:59):
Anyway, in the effort of to your point, like, well,
there's only two options, what do we do? I feel
like what not enough of us who were working with
the Democrats were doing was bringing that mindset of forceful
resistance to the party to force it to show up
differently than it actually existed as. And what it ended

(48:22):
up doing was taking like the power and the force
out of our ability to resist. I mean, for what
it's worth, the Democratic Party was not even created for black.

Speaker 2 (48:31):
People, Like that's not a thing.

Speaker 1 (48:33):
But when I'm not protest, but these protests are really
like done for the purpose of making people feel like.

Speaker 2 (48:43):
They're doing something. You're doing something, but you say.

Speaker 3 (48:47):
You're not violent, but I mean I am. But I
do think to me the things that have been more
or most effective are boycotts and I say boycotts, boycotts
that have a real sense of purpose, mission and stamina
to them. Like when I think about the Montgomery bus boycott,
they did that for over a year and it or

(49:11):
I know, I know, but I think it's important to
say because people don't realize that this is a long
game and that you can't just get off the bus
for a week or a month. You have to create
an alternative that says I will no longer invest, even
if I have to change and make this decision for

(49:31):
the rest of my life. And white folks and even
some black bulks, we don't have stamina. We don't have
a lot of endurance for saying no to the things
that give us expediency because capitalism is so abductive.

Speaker 2 (49:47):
Yeah, same.

Speaker 3 (49:50):
Jakes, but because you know, you hit them in their pocket.
I think that that when you think about the Civil War,
it wasn't just about black people getting freedom. It was
the fact that black people were capital to slaveholders that
like they're ten fifteen, twenty two hundred slaves, represented their wealth,
like their income, like, and we have an incredible ability

(50:15):
I think to wield how money is used, how our
dollars are used. It's not a cure all you know
what I mean kind of goes back to like the
reform versus revolution kind of thing. But I do think
that coming in for a boycott a protest, you know
what I mean, a margin not so much, but a
boycott all right.

Speaker 2 (50:33):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (50:34):
I think one of the reasons why when I hear
Montgomery referenced it kind of like gives me a little
bit of a jar is because we as a society
have advanced technologically, we have changed just even in how
we exist amongst each other and how labor works. Yeah,
how labor works, even in just the fact that our

(50:56):
communities are no longer segregated in the legal well, some.

Speaker 2 (51:00):
Of our communities are, you know what that's yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1 (51:05):
And so when we talk about Montgomery, it's like, at
this point, it feels like a false equivalency because that
was a specific city, right.

Speaker 2 (51:14):
It's one thing to boycott in a city versus a nation.

Speaker 1 (51:18):
It was also a city that already had a certain
collectivism built in by nature of segregation, and it also
already had built in this necessity for labor by the whites.

Speaker 2 (51:32):
Yes, yes, but how can we.

Speaker 3 (51:35):
Create that context and recreate it for something that would
work in a very specific So then what.

Speaker 1 (51:43):
We're going to do is me and you are going
to brainstorm about that on our special Patreon segment that
we're going to get into right now.

Speaker 2 (51:49):
So you will get to hear.

Speaker 1 (51:51):
Two brains brainiacs who are tied of protesting and a brilliant,
you know, writer, genius historian who has put together all
of these concepts and realities of resistance in two books.
Talk with me who really just be philosophizing on a
daily basis when we so come on, come on over

(52:13):
to the Seal Squad and we're gonna get into this combo.
So you are this is embarrassing to say, but you
are the person who made me say I don't know
enough about Frederick Douglass. That's good, and you know, you
really start to find out just how your scholarship has

(52:35):
so many holes. You know, like over time, like once
you start like beginning the process of actual indoctrination, you
start to realize like, oh, I really don't know enough enough,
and I know more than.

Speaker 3 (52:46):
Most are chronically mad because they're like they get to
my classroom and they're like.

Speaker 2 (52:52):
Why was that?

Speaker 3 (52:53):
Why?

Speaker 1 (52:54):
Like reconstruction was never centralized in my learning at any point,
not in my own high school, not undergrad not graduate school.

Speaker 3 (53:02):
Never right, because we skip over it's like the Civil
War and then the Great Depression, Guilded Dade.

Speaker 2 (53:07):
You're being generous, You're being generous.

Speaker 1 (53:09):
It's really like I feel like when it comes to
the black story, it's like Civil.

Speaker 2 (53:13):
War Martin Luther King.

Speaker 1 (53:14):
Yeah, like that Gilded Age, what, ma'am. I didn't know
about the Guilded Age shoe until the show. Until the show, like,
I'm really in a I've been in a self induced
PhD program for like the past two and a half years.
It got set off because I was on a flight

(53:35):
to Atlanta from LA and typically I'll just watch a movie,
but they had this like masterclass. It was like called
like Black History, Black Liberty, Black Love, something like that,
and it had like SHERYLN. Eiffel and Angela Davis and
Kimberly Crenshaw and they were all doing these like fifteen minute,
you know, eleven minute like segments on aspects of black history.

Speaker 2 (53:59):
And I was like, yo, me learn tonight, let me
just learn on this fly. Let me see what I
don't know. It was like disgusting to me that I
just didn't know this much.

Speaker 3 (54:07):
Listen, I'm still learning. There's stuff in my book I learned.
I'm writing this new book. I'm learning stuff for this
new book. Like yep, I mean you can't exhaust sistory,
You really can't. I mean, there's so much about it.
My students don't know reconstruction. They don't really know the
Haitian evolution. My Haitian students know it, but you know
a lot of my students were never taught there.

Speaker 2 (54:24):
Do you know where Aubrey Christoph is from?

Speaker 3 (54:25):
Where is he from?

Speaker 2 (54:27):
What do you mean? Yes, that Haiti? He is not
from Haiti?

Speaker 3 (54:29):
Wait? Wasn't he born in Savannah, Georgia?

Speaker 1 (54:31):
No, he was born in Granaday, I said Briday, I
said green Day, not myself.

Speaker 2 (54:39):
Yes, no.

Speaker 3 (54:40):
Read you know there's a big new the King of Haiti.
Is that all about Henry Christoft there's a new book
about him. There's a huge biography about him.

Speaker 2 (54:48):
Only Yes.

Speaker 1 (54:50):
I went to cap Patian and I went to the
fortress and I was with a bunch of Haitians and
they were like, do you know where Imri Christoph is from?

Speaker 2 (54:57):
And they're all like Haiti, Yeah, yes, that was it?
Or or lend and I. They all knew I was
from Grenadas. They're are like, oh, We're never going to
hear the end of this.

Speaker 3 (55:08):
That is hilarious.

Speaker 2 (55:09):
And I love it because we're a diaspora.

Speaker 3 (55:12):
We can yes, yes, yes.

Speaker 1 (55:16):
And so I have like my show What Would the
Ancestors Say? Is a woman's show that asks the question
like what would our ancestors say about where we've been,
where we are and where we're going.

Speaker 2 (55:24):
And so I do.

Speaker 1 (55:24):
Characters in the show, and I had Frederick Douglass in
the show, and I realized I'm not doing him Frederick justice,
and so I've really dived in, dove into, you know,
the speeches and the narratives. I was at the beach
and this is the when I was leaving, she was like, girl,
what are you reading? You are so into that book
whatever you read. And I was like, you want to

(55:45):
know what I'm reading? She was like, girl, yes, because
I'm like, I'm trying to be into a book like
you are.

Speaker 2 (55:49):
It's like, I'm literally reading the autobiography of Frederick Douglass.

Speaker 1 (55:54):
She was like, because like not a romance, Yes exactly,
I'm like, it's not a Terry McMillan but I was like, listen,
we hear so much about slavery, etc.

Speaker 2 (56:07):
Through historical record. However, this is a first person account.

Speaker 1 (56:12):
Yeah, and there is something very important to black people
telling our own stories.

Speaker 3 (56:18):
And his narrative makes me cry every time I read it.
Every time.

Speaker 1 (56:22):
I mean, I'm just blown away. I read a quote
from it on my Instagram the other day and people
were like.

Speaker 2 (56:28):
You better read quotes from books. I'm like, jeez, lord,
why is that impressive?

Speaker 3 (56:33):
These days you would have had literacy.

Speaker 1 (56:38):
You know what I think is a chapter that isn't
in here that Yes, what would you add education?

Speaker 3 (56:47):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (56:48):
Yes, yes, yes.

Speaker 1 (56:51):
And I say that because even in the context of Frederick, right,
he talks about how it wasn't until he heard his
slave master admonishing his wife for teaching Frederick to read
because she was going to ruin him as a slave,
et cetera, that he realized like, oh, that's how they're
getting over on us.

Speaker 3 (57:11):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (57:12):
Yeah, education.

Speaker 1 (57:13):
Yeah, And I feel like one of the reasons why
we don't have the courage that you're talking about.

Speaker 3 (57:18):
Yeah, we don't have knowledge.

Speaker 2 (57:20):
We don't even know enough about the courage that came
before us.

Speaker 3 (57:22):
Yeah, totally. I would say, I actually said that to
I didn't say education. I said I would do a
chapter on knowledge, and I said knowledge because I think
education can be and be fraught, because a lot of
education has been a system that's been co opted to
actually bear people oppressed. So but knowledge or literacy or
how it is. Yeah, you don't have to be in

(57:44):
higher education. You don't have to go to college to
bad knowledge. Yeah, And I think that that's it's a
game changer. When every single in Slaper's nor a free person,
got literacy, got the ability to like, read, write, think
critically about things, it was a game changer. A game
changer still is.

Speaker 1 (58:03):
I think it is going to be the game changer
of whatever the next iteration of resistance is.

Speaker 3 (58:09):
And in a fashionst society where all information and knowledge
is being controlled and it's banned and suppressed, absolutely it
will be the number one tool we need.

Speaker 2 (58:18):
The first order of businesses. You get you some knowledge
and some education, then read the book gets you a gun.

Speaker 3 (58:23):
You're now, it's not anybody not. I would tell you
what my gun instructor told me, because when I took
this class in Boston, the gun instructor was black. Everybody
in the room was black. Is that there's like one
Asian guy and one white woman. It's like maybe thirty
people in the class. And he said, if you are
the kind of person where someone steps on your shoe

(58:46):
and you want to shoot them, he was like, then
this class is not for you. But the next four
my wife teaches classes. I'm healing, so wow. I'm like,
it's a family business, It's a family and I like
it absolutely.

Speaker 2 (59:02):
He was like, no, no, no, no no.

Speaker 3 (59:03):
If you if you don't, if you're not healed, you
don't need a gun. If you yes.

Speaker 1 (59:09):
I literally when I was doing stand up in my
last stand up hour, I talk about how we have
a nation of people with guns but without emotional intelligence.

Speaker 2 (59:19):
What are we doing?

Speaker 3 (59:20):
Terrifying?

Speaker 1 (59:20):
And I tell a story about a brother I used
to talk to who he was an entrepreneur do with
that with juill and he found himself in a situation
where he was being approached by some menacing individuals and
he realized that he did not have a firearm on
him and he was like, I had to use the
only weapon I had at my disposal.

Speaker 2 (59:38):
And I was like, does he have a jig?

Speaker 3 (59:40):
Like what is he like?

Speaker 2 (59:41):
Martial arts you know, yeah, And he said I had
to use my emotions. And I was like, what do
you mean what? And he said he turned around and
was like.

Speaker 1 (59:51):
Hey, y'all making me feel uncomfortable. And they stopped dead
in their tracks. They didn't know what to do with that,
Like that was the bullet that's out of them. They
did not know what to do with it. And he
said it ended up being a very short but clear
conversation that otherwise could have turned into people being killed.

Speaker 3 (01:00:11):
Snap, I'm gonna have to use that. You're making me
feel very uncomfortable.

Speaker 2 (01:00:14):
You're making me feel very uncomfortable.

Speaker 3 (01:00:19):
The last.

Speaker 2 (01:00:25):
Kellicarter Jackson, thank you so much. Thank you, y'all go
out there and get we refused.

Speaker 1 (01:00:30):
While we were on the podcast, I ordered my copy
of Force and Freedom. I cannot wait for the next
work you're doing that you are going to publish and
you know, thank you for your service.

Speaker 3 (01:00:43):
Thank you so much, Thank you for all that you do.

Speaker 2 (01:00:45):
Thank you, appreciate you