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And then well have a conversation with these brilliant humans for but 40 minutes, and have a question and answer interview, reminder about events and then have q a section, and now when you have questions just powe them in the chat. Its my pressure to introduce dr. Glaude and dr. West. Books are in a shade of blue, practicing na temp and the politics of black america. The professor of hes going to correct he africanamerican studies and the chair of the department of africanamerican studies at princeton university. If that changed hell have to tell us. Dr. West is the professor of the practice of public philosophy. He is the owes of a new podcast, the tightrope. They will be discussing dr. Glaudes important and beautifully written book, bin again, just released yesterday, to welldeserved sales. This book is absolutely beautiful. Its forcefully hopeful in a moment where we need that. Im going to read just a little bit of where this book gets its name from and then well start with why now. It begins at the beginning in a crucial and encouraging space. When the dream was and al that love and labor seemed to have come to nothing, the scattered, we knew where we had been, what we had tried to do, who had cracked, gone mad, died or been murdered around us, not everything is lost. Responsibility cannot be lost. It can only be abdicated. And when you refuses abdication one begins again. Welcome, dr. Glaude. Thank you. Im so delighted to be here. Thank you, maya. Happy to have you and excited to jump in with this question. Why . Why baldwin, why now . Well, we saw first of all just let me thank everybody for making this possible. All the folked at Haymarket Press and those at lab ring. Waynt to think dr. West who has exited a love that enveloped me and made me possible. So this is making my heart smile just to be with you in this moment. So its exciting. Im 51 years old and still giddy. Its hilarious. Why baldwin and why now . We saw baldwin emerge in the context of 2014 and even before. As black lives matter was beginning to give voice to its own desire for more just america. They were reaching [loss of audio] black machine who spoke a kind of truth, straight, no chaser who carried a kind of rage and love, who queered american politics and offered a different kind of understanding what it mean the to reach for a different way of being in the world. I wanted to turn to baldwin because i was trying to grapple with my own despair and disillusionment in this moment so after the extraordinary moment of 2008 and election of barack obama and then we saw for eight years what that meant, and then we witnessed Police Murdering our brothers and sisters, and we saw these young folk in the streets, risk life and limb and what dead we sunny response in voter i. D. Laws, voter suppression, and then the country vomited up donald trump and this was a moment of betrayal, profound bow trail. The country did it again. What i. Ad to do is to return to who jim b who had been invoked so much in this moment to figure out out how he debt with his moment of betrayal. When the country turned its back then. How did he pick up the meeses and what resources were available to us now, because he is to my mind one of the most insightful critics of American Dream address and makes sense democracy for made sense to reach for him in this moment. That makes perfect sense for me. Thank you for waiting us and what this book is, which is part history, part historic cal grounding and the disappointment that follows thesive rights movement. And the Civil Rights Movement and you pointed between the notion of hope in this practice of constant rebuilding. I wonder if each of you could take a moment to speak to the practice of hope and witness now and our responsibilities to care for the witness. We have seen so many nasty things happen to witnesses who witnessed the murder of george floyd for us and shared that information, how do we practice hope in the midst of the responsibility of witnessing. How do we take care of our witnesses . I would love to hear what you think, doc. Oh, first i want to say sister, maya, the work of haymarket and the poetry section and the manuscript session in general. They blessed to have you my dear sister. Thank you, sir, and indeed, and this brother right here, though, lord have mercy. Looking in his eyes and remembering 30 years ago i was fairly convinced that sitting next to my brother Henry Louis Gates jr. , i said hes going to be one of the great exemplars of our tradition and you see you talk us about the greatest tradition in the modern world and looks at catastrophe u. N. Finchingly and still deals out love warriors. Lover of beauty, goodness, and lover of god. And those 30 years have been such a magnificent journey for me. This is a very joyous occasion in the grim day of the decay and decline of the american empire. Inning dialogue with hi dear brother eddie and what you have in this text i want people to see what it looks like. What you have in this text is the way in which you attempt to regenerate and revitalize the greatness of tradition of black shell electric to alls or any intellectuals concerned but black does and sufferings so begins with bat win talking about the end of hit life. This is where hope comes from. I tried do me work, he says, i hope somebody will find when they dig in the records and the rubble and the ruins something that could be of use to them to find the best of me. This is what we have in this text. Thats why it really brings tears to ones eyes. Like the sister aretha, she Start Talking to a whole new her. Somebody listen to Mary Lou Williams on the piano. Eddie glaude is this exemplary figure among others as well. We have some others. Jonathan and we get mark and we got william hart and brother dyson is part of that, too. Imani. A whole cloud of witnesses to keep this tradition alive so eddie glaude represents the voices of a cloud of witnesses, a custodian of a rich inheritance and a care taker of a great tradition of a hated people that still keep dishing out these levels of truth and beauty. So this is why to engage with somebody like baldwin, who is the liest levels grateness, greatness not in terms of just sales. I want the book to be number one but the greatness of the text is not measured by just in the number. It is measured by what went into it, the courage, the courage to love, and the courage to generate hope and to practice hope is to be connected to the best of ones tradition to understand what is going to do, the making and molding that love down in the gut bucket mav enough sent mississippi magnificent mississippi. Look at that smile. Thats what is in it and to make that tradition available to whole world, the whole world dealing with different catastrophes, so somehow keep keeping on, keep on pushing. That what you get in begin again and let be honest, its the tearsoaked, bloodsoaked, and yet soulful tradition. Thats what you get in this text. Absolutely. Doc, first of all, i hope my mama is listening. Theft what i want i pray she heard that because going to bring me to tears, but theres a line that so many lines in jimmy that will blow you everybody. But theres a moment in istanbul, hes being interviewed by ebony, and he uses begin again and baldwin is sitting there and its 1970, i think, and the interviewer asks him, was is it about hope . This is page 145 in the text. I remember. I remember that. Remember baldwin i remember exactly what he said selfquarantine what did he say. He said hope must be invented every day, every day. Invented every day. Is that right . Thats right. Thats our tradition, brother jacker thats our tradition. Hope is not abstract, its verb. Its motion, its movement. Its practice. And you got to be improvisational. Jazz, blues, you better reinvent that thing every day good morning, heartache, i got reinvent my resources to build with that heartache because its going to come back the next day, the next day. Billy holliday, echoing through if with her generous, baldwin understand musicians mean the world to him. Absolutely, thats i was thinking but that line an as an to maya. In the space of the assassination of dr. King, they murdered an apostle of love, and jimmy collapses, could barely pick up the pieces, tries to commit suicide in 69, has to find relationships collapsing around him. Still thinks he is this loveless child who is ugly because hi daddy told hill he was so ugly that diabout believe anybody could love that ugly little boy. Finds himself in istanbul, trying to figure out how to speak to this moment, and there he gives utterance to this line, this formulation, that doc just laid out. Hope is invented every day. Every day. Thats real, brother. Thats real. A necessary practice that we in fact are the hope. It is our commitment to showing up that is the hope. That is the model. That is the approximate of witness, and just so right so often. Sister maya, all the courage and risk and willingness to be crushed and misunderstood and misconstrued and purely pushed to the fringes and still have that kind of bounceback. Thats the you see what i mean . That is the what we have in brother eddies book here in they middle 0 of blues like situation in the u. S. Empire, he is saying, you know, we blues people, this aint new for us. We been here before. Not this particular historical moment but similar kind of moment and its a human thing, not just a black thing because black folk are human beings and dont have to prove nothing to nobody. And have to learn how to love and fight and hope and laugh in our familys with our mamas and daddies and mosques and synagogues and churches and universities. Eddie working that out. You know, princeton didnt have in mind generalus from mark point mississippi, mississippi, to be distinguished university professor. Now, just hes our fellow colleague and im not surprised. We got teachers and those who see us as we continue to grow and mature, we not surprised. But then the fact he still like baldwin is connected to the best of his tradition. Thats the thing but it. That other moment you when you tells the students come on. No, no, you tell that story, brother. This is gorgeous moment. They nagged, nonviolent action group, who were so central to snick, they produced that radical cohort in the group, stokley car michael who would michael all come out of that group, so they invite him to come to campus. Supposed to be on stage with ross ellison who couldnt make it and others and he lays bare and then they retreat after the Panel Discussion malcolm was in the audience, too. So whenever im in town and hear the little brother is going to speak i want to come here because i know hes going to speak the truth. They go to apartment come mex, an apartment of a member and jimmy needs a scotch. Theres no liquor, and theyre talking into the late midnight hour, until the sun begins to come up and baldwin has the last word and jimmy said, if you promise your elder brother that you will not believe what the world says about you, i will promise you that i will never betray you. And kwame says in this autobiographyy, and fellwell quotes it and jimmy never betrayed us, no matter what they said about him. Never betrayed us. Theft powerful. Was setting next to stokley carm michael and the cried like a baby. Hey is not the crying kind of brother. He knew that given all the fats and foibles of all of us as human beings, baldwin never sold out. He was never fake. Never a phony, never a fraud, never a coward. Given all of his ups and downs twoss attempts right . 65 and 69. Wrestling with despair. Thats true for all of us. All of us may opt for that way of wrestling with despair but never bow trade everyday black people and evidence people and thats a rare thing. Its a beautiful thing. Its majestic, its sublime, youre able to tease that out. This is the most important text written on baldwin in terms terf his genius and its relevance. I love the blues. Connection to the music is powerful but the term of the relevance of this particular historic moment, politically, morally and spiritually. This is the text. Thank you. One absolutely. Made it abundantly clear that James Baldwin is a man who looks interest the fates fates of hism demons because he was person who believed you made yourself from your experiences and your reality, and maybe you can give yourself enough distance to get the perspective because you have to show up for your people and where youre from and for yourself and thats clear. Such a great point. I barely survived writing the book because i wanted to come in im reading jimmy ive always had this kind of i knew what i decided to start reading him seriously he would ask things of me that i wasnt quite ready for when i was younger. And theres a sense in which baldwin assumes this as a precondition to say anything pout the messiness of the world you have deal with your own mess. So you have to deal with the interior winds and pains as a precondition to say anything but the world because the bald win thing thursday messiness of the world this reflection of the lies and dishonesty we tell ourselves. So im sitting here wanting to write about trumpism and the moment, and im grappling with the fact that im a vulnerable little boy. Still dealing with my daddy issues. Still grapple being with the fact thats why i began this way. I loved my father, black love. Made me possible. Woke up every day in the mississippi heat, used to sweat his belts rotten in the heat, delivering mail, but he could look at me and scare me to death. I would shudder and i had been grappling with what it means to have that fear put inside of me so early, and i was as a i was writing the sentences came out but mow dealing with my daddy, and by the time i get to the end of the novel, the end of the book, my fathers with me as i visit jimmys grave, and im talking about how us telling each other how we love each other, how he calling me to tell me what to say on television, and how proud he is of me. Right . And when you read jimmy, you read bald win notes of a native son, his critique of his stepfather is scathing. But you read bald win by baldwin by the time he bow tot die in December Think later write little about this father, he understands what the world did to him. Its not so much him but the context of his living. So, i think this the writing of beginning again is a kind of writing ive never done in public before, im taking risks, because jimmy demanded it of me, and i i should say this really quickly, hes forced me to deal with the scaffolding of my own life. Yes. Thats absolutely hes asking that of our country as well. Those who are trying to pull the nation back from the near fascist moment, to be honest, because narratives are important so if you could speak to your definition of the lie and the notion of a value gap, resolving those things, aisled love to hear you discuss that. The best way to talk but the lie is to quote a passage on page 9 from jimmys essay, 1964 essay, the white problem. He wrote it for robert average goodwins edited volume, 100 years of emans make see says the people who settled the country had a fatele flaw. They could recognize a man we they saw him. New he wasnt anything else but a man. But since they were christians, and since they had already decided they came here to establish a free country, the only way to justify the role this chatle was playing in ones life was to say he was not a man, or if he wasnt, then no crime had been committed. That lie, is the basis of our president trump. And so what baldwin is saying here at the heart of it there had been lies told about black peoples capacity, about our character, about our passions, all to justify this system of exploitation, this system, this cruel barbaric system of slavery at the heart of the founding of the modern world, right . At the heart of the founding of the country. And so not only do you have lies about black people, youll have lies about what white persons have down to black people, and then you have the lie thats so the key opinion theres a way in which the lie works that it mall forms i use that verb on purpose mall malforms any expert to expose the country to the reality of what it has done. So anything that comes to reveal the truth of what the nation has done, what it has done to the native people, done in haiti and cuba and the philippines, anything that reveals that america is not the shining city on the hill of the redeem ever nation or the example of democracy achieved. Anything that attempts to reveal that reality is immediately dismissed as heresy. Thats what i moon bin the lie and that lie is the architecture within which the value gap breeds and its to fundamental belief that white People Matter more than others ask thats at the heart of our social arrange. , our political arming. Ed, value valuation of bk folk and white folk that lead to distribution of advantage and disadvantage that distorts the, which of those who old is so they cant become the kind of people their perception of democracy requires. Sounds to me what youre saying is that the key tool we have to fighting that foundational fear that were born with is to have a true reality, a s