Transcripts For CSPAN3 Chronicling 20240703

Conversation with our esteemed speakers that im eager to introduce you to today. Im victoria murray is, a New York Times and usa today author of more than 30 novels, the personal library and the first ladies. Both novels were cowritten with her writing. Marie benedict victoria is also have been nominated for numerous naacp awards for outstanding literature and she won that award in 2016 for her social commentary stand your ground. The first ladies was targeted. Thousand and 22,000, 23 book of the year and five of marys said deaf seven deadly sins have been made into lifetime movies produced t. D. Jakes with almost 3 million books in print. Victoria is one of the countrys top africanamerican and contemporary authors. Pamela newkirk. Author, journalist and professor of Pamela Newkirk is a multifaceted two scholar who has published a variety of works within the veil black journalists, white media a love no less and letters. Black america spectacle. The astonishing life of osama anger and her most recent book Diversity Inc the failed promise. 1,000,000,000 industry pamela received Pulitzer Prize as part of new york newsdays reporting team for spotting news for coverage of a fatal subway. In in 1993 she joined the faculty of nyu and continue contributing articles to numerous publications, including the New York Times, the Washington Post, columbia journalism review, the nation, arte news, essence and the civil rights blog to defend online that is pamela. Thabiti lewis perform double duty for us during the conference this year. Yesterday, he served as host for our virtual scholarly papers presentation and back with us today to share his insights and breadth of knowledge. He is a professor of english and interim associate vice chancellor of Academic Affairs at Washington State university, vancouver. He is also the editor of conversations with tony kaye bambara and ballers of new school race and sports in america. At and last but definitely least is historian Kahlil Gibran muhammad. He has served as director the Schomburg Center for Research Black culture in harlem in late 2015, he joined the faculty of Harvards Kennedy school as professor of history, race and public policy. He has also he was also hired as a Suzanne Young mary professor at the Radcliffe Institute advanced study. He released the condemnation of blackness race crime and the making of modern ah of of modern urban america. In 2010, which was awarded the John Hope Franklin publication prize from the American Studies Association in 2011, muhammads contemporary on the commentary on the racial past of the United States and contemporary policing and criminality was published in the New York Times, Washington Post, National Radio and others. Please welcome our guest. Over here, which you also feel so disconnected. Okay, so thank you all again for being here. So the focus of our discussion today is writers letters to america how black writers texts may be viewed as letters that chronicle the history of america from what Toni Morrison calls black gaze. These texts provide insight into the monumental changes and pivotal events that have impacted the history palettes, civil rights achievements and of blacks in america the history. Letter writing dates back to ancient civilizations. The earliest known letters were sent by, of course, the ancient who use hieroglyphs. A newsweek article written by Malcolm James discusses how quote historians depend on the written record letters left behinds are invaluable evidence of how was once lived. Gaps in the Historical Records have always existed as. American slaves were often illiterate, often by laws, and sometimes by laws that threaten them with death. The epistolary record to free people. And in most cases that free white people. When reflect on how dearly we would cherish written by people in bondage or any people who through circumstances of history were voiceless, we begin to grasp the preciousness of the written word, end quotes. So to begin each of you personify the idea letters documenting, the changes, pivotal events, and courageous people offering, and a better understanding of experience in america. So my first question is will historians of the future be served by . Our generation of writers and by your work in particular . How do you give voice to the voiceless through your writing and research . And pamela, id like you to start us off because your work a love no less, two centuries of africanamerican love letters and letters from black america speaks directly to this question. And then, of course, i would like the rest of you to respond as well. I thank you, dana. And thank you for being here today. I first wanted to compile book of love letters. Yes, i wanted to compile a book of africanamerican love letters because those letters had often left out of epistolary collections. Are so many books, letters, and they almost always excluded the letters of African Americans, and particularly letters that reflected romantic lives. And in that first book i began with the letters of the enslaved, because as you said, it was illegal right, to write letters in when African Americans were separated from their loved ones, those who could write and, even those who could not would someone to help them compose letter across, you know, plantations, states. And so they continued to communicate, kate, with their loved ones. So i its an important a really part of our history. Our our collective history to have the evidence of of that kind of bond. And it it does more than anything to to reflect full humanity because. These letters are not written for everyone. And to see their intimate reflections of emotions. And i think its probably the the truest reflection of of who we are and of about our desires. So i hope that answered your question. Yeah yeah. So you like i said, you got us started and which is which is great. So you know i would like to, to toss that question out each of you. Like how because you know the of letter writing is, is integral to our and is able to document our history our work the work that we do you may not be you dear john, but letters that we write are actually texts that we create and we look to preserve for our future. So when we think about, you know, our work in terms of the idea of which you led us off with so well, how do each of you, your work, give voice to the voiceless through your writing and Research Research . Ill take a stab at this in in my book ballers in the new school race sport in american culture. I was really looking at the turn of the 20th century and depictions of africanamericans in popular and in sport culture. You have this notion of heroes and people becoming familiar and the majority of people writing about and reporting and giving narrative are white journalists and. And so those notions are, what were, you know, violent thugs, you know these different figures. And so in ballers, as i interrogate this notion of White Supremacy in a racial contract using charles millss work and. How the you know, it functioned in all these different validity. I want it to have a moment in the book where i literally write a letter to my cousin very you know, inspired by, you know, James Baldwins letter to nephew and really providing in a book that is very much in a hip hop ethos challenging and providing counternarrative its and very much the face of of of a lot of stereotypes and a false notions a real intimate conversation with my young and just in talking to him about the power of, education and what is possible and our family lives history and relaying my vulnerabilities but giving voice not only to him but speaking to i think especially in american culture, where theres so anti intellectual ism and theres this nihilism and the thought that the only way to be successful is through sport, culture that you need not feel about your intellectual prowess. And i want you to really lean into and and so kind of having a conversation back with him revealing my own engaging my own vulnerabilities but encouraging him. But it wasnt just to him. It was its also a letter to to young black women and men regarding these this false notion of of antiintellectualism or sport as being the only way forward. And so and then just trying to outline to him. What are the challenges that exist and we can overcome that you can overcome that he was really struggling and this guys done amazing but so that that was the the impetus was the book itself is a larger letter but theres a letter within within the text itself. Hmm. Okay. Yeah. So none of my books have the letters them. I write fiction. And so i just make this stuff up. But what i thats an interesting question because i think in fiction, im able to reach people in a way that doesnt feel as if im them. Do you know what i mean . Not telling you what to do. Im presenting who we are. And so in my and the fiction and if youre talking about a letter to america the majority, although they wont the majority much longer, but the majority for now im my books show people who we are here we are this is who we are and this is how you can get to know. And i can give you an example of what i mean by that i took a class i took a lot of classes at the university of iowas writing program, and there was nobody else among the 500 students who had skin that looked like mine. And no problem, because went there to learn. So no problem. And so in one of the workshops i had written my first chapter of, my second novel, and it was about a black woman. And this is fiction so shes stuck in traffic and shes in her bmw down, writing down the l. A. Freeway. And the first critique from one of the other 14 people in the class is in the class. Her first critique was, id like to see a little less beautiful. And then does she have to drive bmw . Because this woman actually i dont know people who have a bmw and i just couldnt believe she sat there and said that to me. But then i realized that the majority is exposed to so little of us that our stories can be a letter them. And in indicating and saying this who we are. I am here now get to know us absolutely through. So my stock and trade as a historian is often letters and can be as as pamelas already suggested, a really evocative and expressive of both the intimate lives interiority the kind of literary space writers fill in for because we often cant know what people feel or think. And so theyre very precious to historians if youre able to letters within the archive or the research that youre trying do and i guess to maybe illustrate this. When i was working the condemnation of blackness, i took the approach that any archive that either a published material going back to the late 19th century or actual archives organizations or individuals, i would just sort of do a needle in a haystack approach. I was trying to make sense of something that wasnt obvious, and by that i mean we knew a lot about what was happening in the south during the era of chain gangs and convict leasing. But we didnt have much knowledge of what it meant to be a black migrant or a black person living in new york city at, the turn of the 20th century, when it came to criminal justice encounters, we knew some of. But i was interested in sort of what was what were the discursive ways in which black people encountered oppression. These are v their criminal nature. So one of the biggest archives it turns out to really get at this the naacp records at the library of congress they we see the hundreds of letters from people who were encountering new york citys criminal justice machinery, either through policing or in the state around the country and in w. A. S. P. , headquartered here in new york, which is why they were more prominently known at the time in this in this space and those letters were incredible for two reasons. One, there was back forth correspondence, and so youd have people appealing simply help. I need help. Ive been arrested on trumped up charges. Im completely innocent. Please send a lawyer to to assist me. Others were i did it. But theyre throwing book at me and the white guy i did it with is getting out scot free. So you can imagine the range of grievances that were appealing to the naacp for support. But what was really interesting was the naacp response to many of these people and in that way, the story that you talked about, the future. So for me as a historian, the naacp unwillingness to help people were guilty of something because the issue was that innocence was the only currency that they were interested in investing limited and precious resources in tells us at this moment in our history and well tell future readers of that work the degree to which the oppression that weve experience inside has lasted longer in because of some of the choices that we made in trying to manage our people to be respect in light of the oppressions that weve experienced for centuries. And that was a period of black respectability politics, right . Yeah. On steroids, right on steroids, yeah. So so any case letters for me have always been incredibly revealing. And, you know, at the schomburg, we spent a lot of time only preserving such letters and the correspondence amongst people who are important to us as, our ancestors, but also making sure that we curated collections of letters that people could really dive into an intimate portrait of people. And i think that kind of exhibition and archival preservation work is essential for us. You as at some point none of us in this room will be here. But those who will come behind us can learn and it can just add. Its also a not only for institutions preserve these letters, but for us to preserve the letters of our loved ones. So many these precious relics get thrown away. You know, people move, someone dies and they kind of throw them away when they really should end up in a repository like the schomburg or, you know, some other institution. They really are irreplaceable relics of of our history absolutely. Thank you. Thank you for that. So just expanding on what each of you have said so where you see your your work and your scholarship contributing to the canon of black history, do you see as or at all as documentary. Thats a trick question. So you that yeah ill jump in i think im thinking about the conversations with tony kaye bambara work as you know really capturing her voice are really important. Black feminist nationalist woman is a figure and allowing the public to be able to hear her voice all in one space outside my own commentary around what i think about, you know, these collection of of of interviews of interviews. But i think absolutely is important to the field i also complete it a documentary on chicago in the black Arts Movement and coproduce and co kodak codirected just really capturing important very important moment and so i think you know that theres a trove of stories that need to be told that as scholars i think too often people are trying to up with really witty and cute stuff. But the work is right there, you know, whether its, you know, examining the National Black Writers Organization that preceded obasi, the aacm im just thinking about chicago in that particular project and its worldwide impact right and how so many people and in black arts were coming chicago and moving to other spaces throughout midwest and the impact of chicago for example on you know, the black dramatists, you know, organizations, etc. So i do see my work is doing in some ways engaging documentary. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. I mean, yeah, for me, i became journalist to tell our stories to. I became a journalist to tell our stories and to share those unrepresented facets of our identity experiences. So all my books have ive sought to contribute to our history both of the books of letters, of course, are part of the historical record. But even my book about, ota benga, it was to illumined a a a chapter of history in new york city and how black people lived in new york city and it was that this young, beautiful boy, the congo, ends up being displayed at in the bronx zoo monkey house with an orangutan in 1906. And how it became this sensation that praised by the New York Times. So it it it shines a light on the history of black people at a certain moment in time and helps explain a lot about where we are today as well. Absolutely. And letters were a very important part of that book and the want to add anything ill just add that i mean one of the things that ive become i mean, as ive matured turned 50 last year. So new new space is just a really rich appreciation for the different modes of expression cultural production that. We collectively have and its obvious i mean, im not saying anything new, but for me in particular i mean, my, my as a as a historian, as an i spent a lot of time you know was sort of social science either formally journalistic social science or my own attempt to make sense of certain kinds of facts, whether they are past or present. And so it can be mind numbing to a degree, but what ive come to appreciate is just how much those facts up in the work of creative like novelists and dramatists and musicians and, artists. And i just at this age of my life, ive just come to appreciate that were all engaged in the same work and that we can say many different truths through different means of which historians of the future and of the future will mine our words and our ideas and the breadcrumb of our lives to make new meanings for our future generations. And thats just very exciting. Its a way for us to know that our legacies will live on. Yeah, because when we think about what we when we look at any. You know, through our history, the history is documented by the artist so thats where thats where go to find out everything so the work that you are doing in each of your capacities so important to that document to me you know of our lives tony famously that the lives of black people explored in literature was viewed by the mainstream as having no value. If not centered through a white gaze. So how do each of you in your own work reposition the vision to reflect the black . And what does it mean to . You you know, thats interesting because im as a novelist, im known as a black novelist, as a historical writer, im just known as a historical fiction writer because with the majority. Is that the word use mainstream . The mainstream mainstream has a difficult time accepting reading or believing that they can get anything out of our novels. What we write because it doesnt have anything to do with them and they dont want to know and. They dont want to learn. So and they cant learn from fiction. I guess thats what they believe. But as im writing historical fiction, im no longer black writer and i see that mainstream has totally accepted and enveloped me. Now theyre embracing me now, and i think its they can relate to black people in history better than they can relate to black people today. And i figured that out and thats why but you know what im using it because now i can with them through my writing and i what some of it is is historical fiction allows them to step back and so theyre saying well thats not us being racists. Were other people being racist but and i dont like being racist but i can talk about them because thats not me. Whereas when they read my contemporary novels, they see themselves in that mirror. And so ive able to change the the gaze through the genre, same stories. Im the same writer. Ive always been. But now suddenly im just a writer telling black stories. Im a black writer. Im interesting now. I think its fair to say that we all engage in counternarratives where were countering the history and, the depictions of of black. I dont know what extent my writing changes because of my idea of the gaze but as a journalist, i just try to tell the truth as i find it and as a writer, nonfiction, i think ive done the same thing. Ive tried to document whether its history or more akin temporary issues without really being mindful of the gaze. I think the gaze can kind of mess you up. You kind of thinking what someone wants to hear in the way they want to deliver it instead of just telling the truth. So so that is what i try to do in my work. I try not to concern myself so much with, the gaze and more with just the truth. Mm yeah. And a lot of that of course comes from your journalism background, you know that, the discipline of it all. Yeah. Exactly. Did you want to end. Yeah. I really like this question because. One of the things i very consciously did in the condemnation of blackness to well, let me set up a framing comment when i was a grad and they i guess mid 1990s and making my way through History Program and mentor was David Levering lewis, a two time biographer of to buy and buy from dubois. And so i was trying to figure out how to situate my voice within field where black studies had entered a much more mature. It was not new, but still still growing in developing program was still becoming departments and granting and this sort of thing. But most of my colleagues were really invested centering black resistance and and the the the story of of of the structures and the ideologies of white racism receded to the background. It was assumed was obvious they were the targets all this resistance. But there was no dramatization of the problem. And for some reason i know to this day why i made this choice, but i made it quite consciously. I wanted to research a way black resistance in direct conversation with white protagonists and looking black back black looking back on it now from from Toni Morrisons position, i mean, one of the things and playing the dark that she calls out is the need to explain the distortions, racism, all white people and to some degree i felt then without having full consciousness of it that the valorization of our heroes in the work of black freedom studies whether it was 19th century Freedom Fighters or 20th century civil rights and black activists, it was all about a celebration of that form of resistance that somehow we were letting white folks off the hook, because you could you could read this resistance some degree as well. If they were able to pull it off, then it couldnt been as bad as as seemed. And i wasnt interested in that at all. I was interested in actually showing just how systematic just how thoughtful, just how innovative, white, racist intellectuals really were. And the degree to which they were actually responding to the agency of black people, which you lose to some degree in the resistance i mean, the state is always there and you can see the back and forth in a lot of work. But the ideas, the over the ideas and the fact coming back to dubois, he was so towering in his intellect that he was everywhere. I mean, when when when Toni Morrison talks about, the presence of africanism white literature, even if no characters are named as black and one names race as this thing the specter of blackness haunts american literature, and dubois haunted these white folks wherever they held court on our presence. Same was true for i to be wells as an activist. The activist scholar. So in any for me thats how i dealt with this gaze issue which was essentially to use black historical figures voice to point out in very specific ways the ways in which white people were active agents in the moment they were living rather than abstractions were in the background. Yet i dont care about trying to speak to a white audience. I dont care. Im speaking to black people. Young, black, and im documenting a historical. Malfeasance as well as the contemporary responses that are the same thing. And im showing a history of liberal, asian and resistance. And then articulating and holding up the i just think about in ballers of a new the very much maligned hip hop culture you know postcivil rights black power and this hip hop generation of of of of that is not trying to be engage in respectability politics, right say a guy who likes hip hop, who likes to wear suits. That would be me. Right . But but be true to yourself. You buy, be who you are and why is that so fearful . But im really speaking to to to that generates and challenging them but at the same time if you if you are in the the dominant if youre in a white culture and you and you want to understand White Supremacy and how it functions i really pulled on theories heres some tools in which to this racial contract and how its happening and why the way youre yourself is seem as lesser than and whos whos framing, whos deciding who frames what is the way, if you will. And so just creating tools and saying, look, how is happening in film. The way in which we engage music in and journalism and tells the stories. And so i want to arm people with that, with the tools to to fight back against that. And even if you consider yourself progressive and liberal to be able to read that work and go, hmm, i dont want to a participant in those political and social, economic, you know, what have you that, that espouse these very things. And so, you know, when i read charles millss work, i was like, this is i really dont about so much sport, but that this is we live in a society where in which this is the this is the vehicle like right now whats going on the basketball tournament. You know its a big deal and. So im really just trying to use that to have this conversation because the myth is that this is the greatest space where weve seen progress. And im saying, no, it hasnt. Dont believe that myth. Right and so so yeah, i dont care what they think im speaking to a different populace. Right. And so like lisa hughes if you like it cool and if you dont, you know, move on. But know what i love about many of the letters that are compiled in my and other other works is that there this whole idea of a gaze disappears, right. Im writing this letter to my mother, to my daughter. Im writing this letter to a friend, to a foe. And the idea of a gaze kind of disappears. And thats what makes it so profoundly intimate, right . So evocative of of course you do those letters that are meant to read by the public one of the most famous letters in africanamerican letters is, a letter from a birmingham jail. Right. Which he wrote in this cell on a napkin. And he knew that letter would read by millions. Maybe he know would be read for ever until the end of time. Right. But it was a public letter, right. And, you know, there are other like that like the letter you cited James Baldwin to, his nephew, he knew that letter would would be read was for public audience. The idea of these intimate letters you learn so much about people because you dont have that selfconsciousness that you have when you know that theres an audience right, its just your heart. Can i say just that in this day and age, anything digital is public can be. Yeah, yeah. So just be mindful that your private thoughts are not always private these days that you want to end. Now, i just a funny story because i write historical fiction and where i get most the information is from letters that they left behind. So i just finished a harlem renaissance novel about the black woman, discovered every harlem renaissance writer, edmund fawcett, who was much involved with w. E. B. So i have some of their letters and reading some of their exchanges and his exchanges with other women. I, my daughter that she gets no money from me unless she makes sure that every email, every text, everything ive written is gone somehow, someway, or she gets nothing from me. Because like you said, very intimate. But thats how i able to write a deeper book. I just dont want anyone writing a book like that about me. Im with you there. For real . Yes the internet is forever. So lets. Lets lets talk a moment. Just kind of really continue to expand the idea. The important means of excavating, you know, the pieces of who we are and the long implications of your work as an accounting of humanity. So how do approach that idea in your work or do you is it intentional or is it instinctual so . Victoria, if you could, because you sort of straddle contemporary and historical fiction, could you talk a little bit about intent . Yeah, thats a good question because i wrote 30 contemporary fiction novels and i did not think about the characters in the people i thought about the story more and i do think every book ive ever written, every word ive ever written i do think of it as a legacy that im leaving that people read this 5100 years and what do i want them to see and what do i want them to know and how do i want to represent . So i do think about that. But writing historical it is i do think the people, all of the people whove been erased from history. Jesse redmond fawcett was one that i discovered as a black female writer, another black female writer. Lets about Jesse Redmond fawcett, who all of these poets and and i had never heard of her and i stand on her shoulders. And so i think it its what im not thinking about the future as im writing fiction, im thinking about raising up these voices who have been erased from history for various reasons. And then hopefully theyll stay alive into the and i think thats all is something that i think about i choose the women that i write about very. Mm hmm. Again, can i jump in . You said something that was a voices. For me, a raising of you know, for me would be this this book black people are my business. Toni, kate bombards practice of liberation. It would be i want people to really appreciate and Pay Attention to and toni kate bombards liberation impulse that you cant create that you that is very easy to create art that really teaches people how to know and become this is a person who is a community and a writer and and is interested in cultivating relationships between women and women. Many men, men and women youth and elders. Right. And and so the legacy is for me, how she really know Toni Morrison made this quote she was talking how you know, she mentioned toni, whos a good friend as a writer who really in her works. Shes she is literally cultivating and engaging a black culture and black people everyday people are so Different Levels and its her first collection a short stories where shes interrogating you know conversation interactions with elder in youth or are young girls with other girls and black women and black men . And you know how we how do we become whole . And it begins the self, right . She talked about with the self, the self. And then from there those relationships with others in the community and in nation building. Right. And so its so how, you know, found myself over these years in even writing this it really impacted me as to how i father how i was, you know, a partner, my wife and raising our children and, you know, really a model for what does it mean and how i the question here is like, how do we go forward . I mean, i think bombas work is really important in, that kind of way. And shes and, you know, and has this essay call on the issue roles that really shapes the entire tenor of all what you see her doing from you know her first two collections of short stories the salt eaters to those the very long those molded not my child and so that i think. What i want what i what i see as a as a you know as a as a scholar, as a writer, is that that legacy of i think her her work provides a a model for us take a look at and think about how, you know we might use our our live our lives but also how she minds all of black culture, jazz, blues gospel, spirituals. You know, she even kawada and in a in a short story you know and in the senate those seven principles so its this you know without saying without even worrying about who am i writing to. Its interesting because she has this mainstream appeal on many level. So mm hmm. Which goes back to the whole long term implications of her work. Yeah, right. And what you do. You were going to say so. Yeah. In minding archives like you im trying to shine a light on the dark crevices of our history rediscovering people whove been forgotten, finding people who we didnt even know existed. And also what found most interesting doing spectacle the letters going to archives of the bronx zoo you would see the officials saying one thing to the public and then in the letters theyre lying there, theyre telling the truth rather. And theyre theyre saying what theyre doing. The older bhanga, how trying to get out of the cage. But then theyre telling the New York Times, oh, you know, hes theyre performing for the people he wants. Be there. So bye bye. Mining the letters. You could get the truth in the in a way that if i just looked at newspaper accounts i would not have been able to see that. So you see this tension between what is said publicly and what is said beneath the radar. Mm hmm. I have said briefly, i mean, i was interested in two very explicit acts of excavation. One was a a contemporary history of our present histories change precisely because the present in our are like a kaleidoscope, just shifting in one direction or one degree. And the often exposes new insights, new new realities, etc. So for me, i was very, very interested in trying to make sense of the ubiquitous presence of punishment vis a vis the mass incarcerate fashion in country whose purported values of freedom and this sort of thing were in direct contrast that reality after the civil rights movement. And although probably dont need to say it in this audience. I do have to remind people that mass incarceration wasnt always a thing. The distinction to be made between criminalization, which most certainly always a thing where there was the freeing themselves or the story of post bellum convict leasing. But but to put as many black people in prison was never the point of it all it was to extract as much labor so so i was trying to ask evade is what was the cultural and the ideological framework that allowed stop and frisk to exist in a much earlier period than what we commonly associate with an the era of Mike Bloomberg and, ray kelly in this city, so on and so forth. The other excavation was was a very particular attempt at an intervention, a writers or scholars intervention, and that is that people want to reform whatever, enter into those moments with very little historical understanding of people who tried to make change the same space before. Thats just the particularly, you know, in a world where we often have and thinkers and, the doers dont have time to do much thinking. And the thinkers often allergic to the doing. So you get stuck with impartial and it can be deadly in the absence of people really having a thoughtful understanding. And so what i was trying to excavate the second point was to show just how many black people had weighed in on these various punitive regimes and had actually found answers. But were systematically ignored. So while the of their being ignored is part of the analysis. So i was really interested in just over and over and over again that that black people didnt saving because they didnt necessarily like they didnt have ideas they needed power in order to effectuate those ideas. Mm hmm. So we are think about the excavate nation and the work that, you know, we we need to do in writing and our scholarship and making an accounting of black humanity. We have this onslaught of of banning our books our history, our stories being retold and. And how do you or we combat that censorship . Well, we talked a little bit about this earlier. How do we combat the censorship and make the narrative about who we as opposed to it being relegated to the untold story . And khalil, if you could kind of start us off. Yeah, that yeah. I spent a lot of time on this problem in my. I think we this may be counterintuitive but and i explain myself i think we are in the worst we are facing the worst threat that we have faced as a as a set of legislative assaults in this country. Certainly the civil rights movement. And i dont want to be too hyperbolic and to suggest and going back to the 17th century, but the reason why i think collectively weve not come fully to appreciate why this war on truth in education, which is also a war on democracy is so threatening, is because its really the First Time Since literacy was illegal in the context slavery that we are essentially rendering learning a crime and we can understand certainly in the context the Transatlantic Slave Trade and the domination over people of african descent through of keeping them from reading to make that system work. What is peculiar this moment is that we all have this history of progress, that were working from the scripts in our head about all things that weve done and accomplished and overcome we cant erase the history of overcoming. And so we so if we are literally going backwards but think we live in better time because weve overcome but we cant actually explain the dissonance and sort out the contradiction because thats a legal in many parts of this country. Im really at a loss for what the long term consequences of will be because to me, these already mentioned the the problem of ism, which isnt just, you know, a white people problem is it is it is a National Problem its a global problem and that and intellectual ism is also consequence of oppression and subjugation and divestment. So when you add that back into the equation, i worry that we are late fight for our right to tell our own stories. We are losing that right. I mean, i just let me keep saying it. We are that right. There are black teachers in this country right now in half the states who cannot go back into a classroom and say, what happened here right. Cannot show whatever version of cspan the black writers conference appears on television out of fear of losing their jobs. And this is kind of uncharted territory. Black people. As my colleague jarvis givens has written in a book, wonderful book called fugitive pedagogy, have have often pulled out the black curriculum when white werent looking. Mm but the notion somehow that we are back in that space and that its actually illegal and not just dangerous, i mean, its two different things. One thing to pull out the black curriculum and is dangerous is another thing that is actually against the law. And so i think we have organize around this issue in ways that in some ways exceed or certainly match an urgency the Voter Suppression laws. I mean if you were to map on to the states where theres been legislative activity to ban knowledge of one kind or another on to Voter Suppression maps, youd see all the same places lit up bright red and and i can just say to finish that mobilizing today civil rights leaders around this issue of a war on education has been very, very, very, very i cant say too very difficult. And its perplexing and it again, only adds to the worry that i am expressing at this moment. And and i think educate has always been the battleground for race in this country, whether it was, you know, black people fighting to have schools, whether it was fighting the government and its ideas around, you know what, black schools could teach or you know, we have to be mindful that all of black inferiority theories have taken hold in this society. They filtered down from the top, from harvard, from princeton, from yale they were taught. Right. And none of those schools have apologized, said, oh we were sorry, we didnt mean it. And and all of consequences of those teachings still very much with us. And so in sense i see it as a continue education of race, in education, in country where its never a safe space for africanamericans and weve always had to fight to be able to tell truth share that truth publish. I mean black newspapers even. Frederick douglass, who was the most famous black journalists and the most respected of his time, his Printing Press was burned down. Idb wells chased out of town for telling the truth. So this is this is a continuation of what black people have encountered throughout history when we have tried to tell the truth. But we cant do your so just kind of expanding on on that idea of you know the idea of of censorship ship across the board. Do you feel or experience a sense of censorship when you approach a topic considering you know what the reaction to your work or maybe you dont and and why or why is that. Well i dont know about them, but im every time i get a book contract, its like, did they read my last book, i mean, i think its always more difficult for for us, but somehow those of us here have have found ways to to be published. So i dont feel that my work been censored. In fact, im a little insulted that none of my books on a book i said i might my books, except i said that the other night i cant i dont want my books to be banned feel a sense of censorship at all. I you know one of the things that but the reason we have contracts we do work in a more labor flow industry publishing is much more liberal than some of the other industries ive in in my time. So i dont a sense of censorship at all and i dont think they think if my saw something that she wanted scratch out i think shed be too scared. Say it to me. Mm hmm. Can you can you. You mentioned earlier, you know, im sorry. Yes. Ahead. So im thinking about i wrote an essay with a colleague about tulsa in 1921. Tulsa. And for any magazine. And we had a point where it was very contentious regarding whether this essay was going to get published because of a battle over using the term holocaust regarding this atrocity that took place and it makes me about so you about censorship. Mm hmm. You know, i think in ways as im looking, how does how does intellectual bodies of knowledge are situated whos controlling the nih . Who are the people that on that Editorial Board . What are they saying . This is not going to you know, of course you dont know me. I was like, look, well have to do it. You know . You know, my position has always been ill take my ball, go somewhere else, which is probably why im not some spaces. But thats fine. Im fine with that as long as you know, the ideas make way and we my, my cowriter, he found a, a middle ground with them that was as as he was okay with it if it had just me you might not have seen the essay over, you know, this, this one word. And so i think. In a lot of ways censorship is real. I think that it is important that were in these spaces where youre able to have an impact on the ideas. But in the words of walter mosley, we always outnumbered and always outgunned. And so just being one alone is not enough, but really understanding, you know how these ideas have propagated and that that you know you and i quoting, invisible man, you cannot give up your gun africans. You know, we must continue to fight. So i just wanted to make that yeah, i just want to give three examples of censorship. So when in i wrote for the 1619 project, one of the most banned books right now to a class i teach at harvard on race and racism was called out by congresswomen virginia, fox and north carolina, who oversees the on education that has been subpoenaing harvard and held the hearing on december 5th that brought down gay and the pen president and and so that is certainly an attempted form of censorship im tenured and so my class i will be able to teach version of that class currently its a core class and its quite possible that they will decide know we dont want this to be a core class. Thats right. And then the third quick example is ive ive been writing more on this issue than normal and ive had a very difficult time being published in the times or the Washington Post or the atlantic, where i contacts and i published in all these places in that respect were all censored, yeah, its always harder. But, but i dont mean it just its, its Something Else because topic touching on antisemitism ism and the palestinian. Are in opinion is no question is editors to shut down voices right now so in conversations yeah in conversation yeah. Oh if i counted the number of essays that i could not get published, right . If i had any. Right, put it in a book. These are all the essays i couldnt get. Thats a book. Yeah. So and this be a you know, i think that somebody id like you to kind of tackle this one what do you say in your work that white audiences need to know or understand or not and you know was was it a choice . So i may be repeating a little, but, you know, you dont care. You talk realism. You get out there. But but it is if you want to understand if you also to understand. The polarities, you will right here. Heres a here is an explanation. And i also want them to understand that. Youre creating these narratives historically and in the contemporary moment. And heres evidence. Articulate where that has happened and continues to occur. Right. And so so yeah. Would that would be my, my what i want to understand here is the truth that you have to contend with. You know this is the truth that you have to contend and for me is correcting the historic record, particularly where many of the lies are. Theyre not mistakes. Theyre intentional. Its intentional deception. And often by people in institutions and really high places. So i like to put that on the record. Yeah, that. I just got highest sign so but i really want to ask question because my mentor is in the audience. So dr. Greene famously or infamously coined question that i want to share with you. So as writers practitioner of history and just we are here in conversation with with each other who are you in conversation with in relation to your work, your inspiration and what informs what do. So if you could each do that quickly, well start at the end there mulling it over. Yeah i always fail at these favorite questions even if theyre packaged seductively. So i mean i would self describe as a bit of an intellectual historian im really im always motivated by understanding ideas where they come from you know the origin stories of those ideas and. And to some degree ive been been really interested in a lot of conservative black conservatives. Thomas right now is very much in head because if you in a dark abyss of racist ideas that, white people are making popular again right now. Youll find thomas sauls fingerprints all over many them. Hes in some ways the godfather of modern black conservatism. And so while im not taking inspiration from a little piece of i am. I am thinking a lot about how from Shelby Steele to John Mcwhorter or to glenn loury, george, skyler, george schuyler, a young guy. Hughes right now is making his bones a recent columbia. How so much of their popularity. Which is they are remarkably in a kind of alternate or particular social media space. I mean, i remember in new york running the schomburg and seeing thomas soul and being read by straphangers all the time. And i always had this sense that this was like forbidden knowledge for white elites because it was like if you if you fill this with all of us thered be that one. Thomas all maybe not at this conference, but who the white people would be like. This is the black person you really need read. And so anyway, thats where my head is these days, because of the work im doing. Thank you for that. Yeah. So because were kind of close time, i would just like to close asking this question based on your own body of work and your contributions to scholarship what would your letter to america be . What do you see as a long term implications of your work and just a sentence. Or two, if. When you put that word scholarship in that kind of know me. So im going to let the people who have scholarship answer it first and then ill kind of my letter over pamela what would my letter. Oh, i would just say letters black america like thats the fullest expression of. Its its sort of myriad poetry out of black people that i had the good fortune to have opportunity to work with. Reviewing thousands of letters written over and be feeling even closer to to our people through that experience. Okay. Thank you, gentlemen in i think as a scholar of my letter would be well to its okay to excavate and embrace the the arcane the the the familiar of black life and culture and dont forget the everyday because thats what really has an impact on, you know, the creation of culture, if you will. Right . Music, dance, artistry, etc. You go to museums as reading work this what you but what also it be to to dont be afraid just be your authentic self. And i think that that is is is is my yeah that would be my my my statement dont be afraid to be your authentic self and and and dont be afraid to to take chances and and resist resist. Yeah my my, i guess is a continuation of a theme been talking about which is that ideas really do matter and as a person who has straddled world as ive described of thinking and doing im always struck by impatient people can be with ideas like are we going to do about it. You know, like ive heard speak like, okay, so now what do we and you know, so as a person identifies as a writer and a thinker, im often challenging people to remember if the ideas are wrong, then youre running a burning building and wont survive. So i like to model how important it is for people to get their thinking together before. They act okay. Yeah thank you. Okay so i guess its my turn now. You know, i think i would quote alice walker. I think i would quote her with the words that she gave sealy and my letter to america would just simply be here. Im here and im here. I here. See, hear me. But i am here and what i try to do in every book that i write for people who are reading it as a contempt jury, work to black and white because i do know that there are white ears that are open and i want to reach those ears and just im here. Okay thank you all so much. I say because we are open now for questions the audience. So if you have questions theres a michael here is it went over here as well. Thank you for this great dialog i just wanted to ask one question for all the persons on the panel that said we all these unpublished essays, why not come together and do an anthology challenge . Mm any. We laughed right i just wrote i mean technically its my first medium post but i did blog just for this reason because had a lot to say. And i have had a lot to say. You should should follow kahlil on any of his sites because you really have been posting amazing material. Greetings. Thank you for sharing. My name is claudette joyce vance and. You spoke of folks not wanting to publish some of your work and i wonder why dont you selfpublish. It. Mm hmm. You know, i dont think any of us do this for a hobby. Its it really is what we do for a living and . I have nothing against people selfpublishing but i dont have time when i dont have the to spend it takes years usually to. A book and i cant that for free but even the pieces that wont they dont want to put out there you guys i think if theres something i really really really want to publish i find a way to get it published either on a blog or like one article. I had a really hard time getting published. Was finally published by the New York Times, was rejected by places that i thought would be obvious places to it. So i think if youre determined to publish something, i did an article about African Americans in paris and why it is that were so celebrated in paris unlike any other place in the world, perhaps, and no one wanted it. And then i sent it to the times and they publish it. So go figure i think for all of us have to sort of like just keep doing a work it its not the easy thing to get work by African Americans who love African Americans. Its not always easy to get that publish and the socalled mainstream. But i we all find a way to to find a platform that will publishers. Thank you. You know, im sitting and looking at miriam here and im thinking about the founder of the history project, the history of black writing. And so, i mean, these are important platforms where. Absolutely. And im not saying stuff that cant get published elsewhere. Ive taken stuff there first because you know how to how do we continue to create a record of what needs be heard and you know the world live in now people have blogs you know all this other stuff so it the restrictions arent there as far as the ideas being out there its matter of, you know, just deciding know where you where is it going to be. You know i remember meeting Melvin Van Peebles and he was talking about him making the first film that he made and he was like, im just financing myself. So, i mean, that has been part of the tradition with this oscar micheaux, etc. We have to do it for ourselves right. So i mean, my black arts work that thats the, you know thats the impulse, right . Thank thank you. Thank for the talk. My name is phil. Like my hampton sister, victoria. I said about that experience at the conference as a as a screenwriting fellow at american film institute, i was told by a professor characters who were middle class that she said this would be perfect disney if we have people coming, but theyre black and but theyre the middle class, live in a nice house. And im like, yeah. Then she said, well, if going to use them as black characters, hip hop on the right, literally you know, its like american fiction. Yeah. And she made me like, i can make that connection for you. And ive told that story and it was devastating and i didnt have that meeting and. What i think about is what you are talking about is censorship, but its really gatekeeping in the sense i thats what it is in idea that i believe that i get that i have a sense of my authentic self as writer. Ive been out. I had a proposal. Ive recently got a contract. I work for years. But im aware that even though im facing black editors sometimes and people, it doesnt matter, that they still are to Something Else. So theres a couple of consciousnesses we have to be aware of. The one as far as an artist, as a writer, i was a professor, you know, so as a scholar. But theres also the business side, the silence when youre asked about self publishing, that is very that if youre going to do this as a form of income, yeah, sure. Theres the self awareness in terms of your craft in publishing. Writing is one of the least diverse professions right in . The world so correct. So we need to surprise. Yeah. So when we talk about that, i think its important to kind of maybe if you could talk about sort of that. Sure. The work itself, maybe thing, but as a business person, because thats what you are when youre putting something into the marketplace to be by, you have to be aware of that level of gatekeeping and censorship and how does that inform how you present your work to be sold . Not so much how you write it. If that makes any sense. Mm hmm. So was was that your question . Was that the question . Oh, how was. I didnt understand the question. I thought that was the comment. It was the question isnt it the comment you mentioned that you didnt feel it. Okay. Yes, right. Yeah. Then also the idea that i get to be my authentic self in my i dont worry about gays. I dont understand that. I see youre saying. Yeah yeah. So when i say that i didnt say that. I worry about gays. I put troll my gays in the story. I want to tell. I shifted. So when i wanted to reach a different audience, i just shifted genres. So i do worry about it. I selfpublished my first novel and my thats what got me in the through there to, the mainstream publishers. And then i started a pretty good publisher company. Im for probably about ten years Brown Girls Books where we published about 5060 authors. Diana was one. So that was wonderful for us, but thats half. Thats a tough room. That is half the Profit Margins are small too to a book is hard its just no i sell one book is hard not for everyone and so its just tough and so the business part of this is hard because the easy i dont want to say easy is at home alone and writing its getting out there in front of people, all the people, black and white, who are going to tell you, im not going to spend any money on this. And the only thing can say is if this is really what you want to do just dont give up. I know that sounds like a clicee and i know that. Youve heard it and know like, come on, you know, give me a better answer than that. But ive been in this. Ive been writing for 25 years and took me 24 years for people to know my name. I always about the times that i wanted to give up along that path. And if i had given up, i wouldnt have achieved what i achieved. You know, one of my favorite books is thinking grow rich, and they talk about stopping three feet from gold and you never know how close are to that gold. And so i look at all the things that i that has suddenly down on me that wouldnt have happened if i had up. So i hate to say that, but i agree your hamiltonian my first book, my my agent sent it. I think we got like ten rejections. And then the 11th was a yes, right . My second book sold it right out the gate. My third book, another uphill like its you dont know and i dont worry about the gays. My books are not for everyone. Right so there are many publishers who never publish my books just need the one that does it. So right. So i totally agree with her. You have to just keep keep working at it and looking at other publishers for other whatever youre trying to do. Yeah. Thank you. Im right over here. Cool. Thanks. That one. Thank you so much to everyone on the panel, especially letters. So this is actually a question thatll be quick. I recently wrote an article titled an open letter to black latino men who are voting for trump. Yeah, i know. Writing it was like this. Yeah, it was almost like writing for like my angry uncle. But anyway, so the question is, what are some your strategies in addressing folks who have internalized white gaze and not just, you know, in the classic dubois in conception . Its a double consciousness. So its how you look at yourself. But let me be like a third stage, which is how you look at others and out in the world and define your ideology defined your actions the you move through the world and so are there strategies the well for for that particular letter i would look for the platform where you think black and men go to to read. Yeah no thats i mean the platform that well just try to get viral you know right. Its a lefty newspaper i think ones going to read it, except like karl marxs ghost creator. I mean, but im not. Im among the public where. Its published. Im talking about the actual writing strategies, paragraph per paragraph, terms of how do you set up, you know, our own folks who have internalized White Supremacy, but have done it in a way that they dont even realize it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. This this is in some ways the book im working because thats why ideas are so powerful. Exactly we have overestimated the antiracist, sensible of our own community, and we have. We have looked back on social movements and forms of resistance in the past. And overestimated the levels of participate and involved and and personally, i am living through a moment of some despair because as i said earlier, im not sure what people think oppression looks like. I mean, you know, we die from lack of access to health care. Theres still way too many of us dying at the hands, the state because of either police violence, the slow genocide of the criminal justice is like none of thats changed. None of it and yet our ability to mobilize in the face of this is not only we, but we have documented evidence people retreating to the enemys side, which is like i mean, weve always had people have been traitors, so to speak. Im not here. Im not im not trying to show throw shade and call people. Uncle toms just saying theres you know, theres always been black folks who are incentivized to literally tell our business and put us in moral peril and peril. But but we just now, you know, like good Old Fashioned polling data that tells us that black and latino are voting for fascists and that in some ways is a consequence of how weak our own ability to educate, our own to fight against colonized forms of education and have been over the past four decades. And i and going to say like i think our leaders are mainstream leaders in particular have failed us in this regard we have bought hook line and sinker this notion that all of the business of inequality in america was a failure of the people that you were writing for that it was their own bad choices that accumulated and led to these disparities. This was the this was the dominant thread right up through the obama years. Its only in the face of election and to 16 that people began to talk much more strenuously structural systemic racism about diminished life chances. So the the of ideas that hover over the choices that we make as individuals to decide how we use our agency. We fight externally do we fight internally, do we saddle up to power . Do we selfidentify with the oppressor we havent been having these conversations havent been teaching these frameworks at scale. Right. I mean, theres a whole bunch of teaching that goes on schomburg does a saturday school, you name it im not saying its a desert out there but we we dropped the ball we absolutely dropped the ball and we let we let the hype of the American Dream and individual choice all of this just take take off like wildfire and so we shouldnt be surprised that some of our own are like, im trying to get paid. And if trump is handing out checks, then thats who im with. Handing out checks and sex ism. And nancy pelosi and the whole. Yeah, thank you. Im right over here. Good evening, everyone. My name is charlie rojas. Im an air force vet, novelist and also a pastry chef. Thank you all for your time. I do not speak for, but im very for your intellect and. You sharing it with me today. My question is, once we get the we got our agent we got our book deal, we got it out there and trying to get ourselves how are you guys . Are you encountering and how are you navigating kind of this this phenomenon of outward critiquing . And what i mean by that is in the community im seeing from readers that theyre putting reviews on our books, our books as black authors that are like, i couldnt really identify i and im and will and basically its scaring the people that its intended for a way of like, oh, maybe i read this book. One girl was talking about it on tiktok. I dont know how you feel about the take or the talk, but she was speaking about it and just basically was like, okay, well, im just going to get it for myself and got it. And she was like, this book is amazing. Are you talking about when she written went and saw the reviews, she really is that it was all white readers putting down this book. So i dont know. Do you guys have a like pr recovery team. How are you doing that. Like if you find one, let us know. Okay how are you . Kind of sidestepping that obstacle of like i knew the book wasnt for you in the first place. Step aside, how are you through that challenge . I have no strategy for that. In fact i dont read those comments. I think you take a lot of toxicity when you do. I just tell the truth as best as i can tell it and i move on. I dont read reviews. I read comments, i just dont. If someone writes me letter, ill read that. So if you want to write me letter, i will read because thats something that someones taking the and its probably a lot thoughtful but anyone say anything, you know on social media and i dont i just dont bother with it and cant buy in so that you i dont read reviews at all because it will affect how you write your next book and everything so i dont ive heard of one situation and like that i hadnt heard that that was happening a lot. But was one that was going. But it was the author who was sabotaging. Was that tagging other author. Yeah, it was. It was an author. Yeah. Yeah. But i hadnt heard about that so just got, you know just do what you can and stay away from. That i have one bit of practical, although its probably not free you but i mean there are black who can be contracted to promote your work and so you can fight fire with fire if you can afford it. Awesome thank you for your time as the pr recovery. I love idea that pr recovery know i. Good evening everyone. Thank you so much for sharing all your wisdom and insight its very full and very, very full. This is like question more about strategy something that was mentioned earlier. So i had a conversation with a good friend when the weather was spring and we were talking about letters, how we both like to exchange letters and were traveling and its kind of a lost art, you know, for the most part, most are more digital nowadays. And both started to wonder and i thought this would be the perfect to ask, you know, like, how can we preserve of the thoughts that we want to be granted . Like a Facebook Status stays forever . Thats very true. But eventually of these platforms do fall apart right. And im just wondering your thoughts in to like how can you make sure that our stories are, what we wish to share or dont to share, make it into the future. And i had a question regards. So also strategy about you are sharing your own University Iowa you had that a response to your work and i was wondering for those who decided to go into masters programs for creative writing how do you deal with that . How do you strategize when . Someone is not getting what you wrote and youre like institution, you know . So those are my questions about strategies. Ill answer the second one. I should i whenever, i go into a workshop, i go in there knowing that im going to take the good and, throw away the bad. And so i can say youre going to as a writer, youre going to have to learn to separate yourself from things. And it was amazing that she said it. And i was glad that she said it so that i had a story to tell, but it didnt affect. But i got some really good things out of that class that just wasnt one of them. So you learn to take the good and throw away the bad. Yeah. Thank you. And you should look the hurston write writers retreat in washington dc is excellent. Thank you. And my readers here. Yes. Oh, is she . Yeah, shes here. She goes. And in regards to maintaining our records of our work, like the things that we do, i think thats a good question for kaleo, because that is going to be a challenge for future since letters are such an important part of you know the retelling of of history and i think a lot of record is going to be lost in the digital space. I dont i dont. Yeah, no, ive been out of the archive business for eight years now, so cant say that this is the state of the art, but archivists are gaining the ability to collect what we call born digital material and to some degree, even version of it that im aware of. Of course, was collecting peoples hard drives. Now, of course, they may now be collecting peoples passwords as archives are handed off, particularly when people voluntarily give them away. You know, you can you can change your passwords to the things that are present to protect privacy in the present and give away a password to things that are the past because a lot of people do particularly writers will commit an archive. Theyre still alive, of course. It also happens that people pass away and the family has to deal with it. But theres no question its a big challenge a lot of the written word is ones and zeros and its not clear how much this can be saved. The other side of it is that. Theres likely much more that gets captured because so much more writing activity for laypeople in the public. In the public and the private letters. Well, not the private. Correct. In the Public Square in ways that people used to have phone conversations. So it could be a wash. Its just i dont know enough just to say whats happening. Thank you. Thank. Yes. And a last question. Racism, the the attack on black folks in this country, i believe in the attack on the course the book being is about the racial demographic changes in this country and fear. So i want you to talk about, you know, just look i was looking at chicago study of the folks who arrested january six many of them came from counties that voted for biden, but also counties that white people were becoming a minority. So can you talk the impact of a demographic change and the attack not only on and book banning, but just overall type . Because we dont talk about the changing and thats what were living. Thats my belief and professor, i like, you know if you could talk about another is especially its called fear of a black planet right . Yeah. Yeah. I mean, i dont know that i think you are youve already laid essentially the out before us. We know that that the global majority of people of color that already exists will be a majority population here in the socalled united and likely many parts of europe will shift over the next two decade, two generations. That being said, i think we are seeing. So i would just say two things. One, a lot of the backlash we have now, if it hasnt if it isnt obvious more about the millions of white people who stood up for racial justice, even a brief moment of the summer 2020. But the sheer the sheer scale of people taking some stance against, hate violence, suggest to the fascist republican us that they only have one last shot to control how these people think and behave, which is why theyve basically said weve got to shut it down and i think what is more insidious, which comes to the question of our black latino men, is there is no guarantee that as the United States of nonwhites becomes in utero, any population that any of this will change. Exactly south. Yeah, right. Right. So and in the 20 largest cities have been minority majority for years. Right. And and so what. Yeah, right and it doesnt change who the power the right you know so that that that is us right to to it to write about, to organize around it, to educate all of it and it is dangerous. I, im living, i live in portland, oregon. And so watching this, you know, whites are the majority, right . 93, 4 of the population. And watching those young people, young whites out there and, the conflict it response of the police around those white bodies was just really interesting to me going out and observing those dynamics and all within the throes of you know, i mean i about antiintellectualism and what it is important that people dont dont read that op eds are 500 words now right or that magazine or newspaper articles you know everything is short and quick so that people arent questioning and challenging and. So when you dont have distractions entertainment, right, you dont football, baseball, basketball, hockey, you know, to keep the populace distracted and entertain then they actually have time to maybe think about what really. Right. Or whats going on i mean, just put those things together cant go be entertained, cant be distracted. So it is important to to say, okay, lets i mean, either it is a it is a new it is a jim crow era know, you know why when obama got elected, people start asking are we polls race and i was like, dont stop, shut up. You know who whos not whos making this up right is. So i just think you you cannot i think the message is cannot put put down your gun. And im not talking about shooting anybody. Im saying your your your intellect your gun. You cannot put it down. You cannot stop organizing and move. And we cannot we cannot. Okay. Thank you so very much. Thanktonight were thrilled to t kate manne and kara alaimo for a discussion. Their latest books on shrinking how to face fatphobia and over the influence by social media is toxic for women and