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What we will do we will have a conversation with the brilliant humans for about 40 minutes and ask a question, interview about events and then we we will have a q action section and now when you have questions you will put them in the chat. Its my pleasure to introduce dr. Glaude and dr. West. Most wellknown, democracy in black, how race still enslave it is american soul and shade of blue and African American studies and the share of African American studies at princeton university. If anything of that has changed, you will have to tell us. [laughter] dr. West, professor of practice of philosophy at harvard school, best known for democracy matters and memoir brother west living out loud. Here is the host of new podcast. We will be discussing dr. Glau dr. Glaudes book that was released yesterday. The book is beautiful. Its hopeful in in a moment whee we need that. Im going to read just a little bit of where this book gets its name from and then we will start now. It begins the beginning in encouraging space. All of the love and labor seem to come to nothing was 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 abdictated, if one refuses abdicatio, in one begins again. Thank you, im so delighted to be here. Thank you, maya. Im so happy to have you, why baldwin and why now . Well, you know, we saw, first of all, let me thank everybody for making this possible, all of the folks at haymarket press, i want to specifically thank dr. West who has within so important in my life who has exhibited the kind of love that developed me and made me possible, and so this is make this is making my heart smile just to be with you in this moment, so its exciting and, yeah, im 51 years old and im still getty. Its hilarious. [laughter] why baldwin, why now . In some ways we saw baldwin emerge in the context of 2014 and even before as black lives matter was the beginning to give voice to its own desire for more just america. They were reaching for jimmys voice, clear black man who spoke kind of truth, straight, no chaser who carried rage and love, who queered africanamerican politics, who queered african politics who offered different kind of understanding of what it meant to reach for a different way of being in the world but i wanted to turn to baldwin because i was trying to grapple with my own despair and allusion in this moment, so after the extraordinary moment of 2008, the election of barack obama, we saw for 8 years what that meant and then we witnessed Police Murdering our brothers and sisters, and we saw these young folks in the streets risking life and limb and then what did we see in response, voter id law s and Voter Suppression and the country vomited donald trump. And this is the moment of betrayal and profound betrayal. The country had did it again, and so what i wanted to do was to return to jimmy who had been invoked so much in this moment to figure out how he dealt with his moment of betrayal. Hes one of the most insightful critics. That makes perfect sense. You pointed again to the notion of hope and practice of constant rebuilding, i wonder if each of you can take a moment and our responsibilities to care for the witness. Right, we have seen so many nasty things happen to witnesses like ramsey or frasier who witnessed the murder of george floyd for us and shared that information and how do we practice hope and 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, her work, haymarket, poetry section and manuscript section, they are blessed to have you my dear sister. Thank you, sr. This brother right here, lord have mercy, just looking in his eyes and remembering 30 years ago i was fairly convinced that sitting next to my brother lewis, jr. , brother, you see that brother talking about afro centrist, i say hes going to be one of the great example ex exemplars in our tradition. Love is a beauty, love is a goodness and love is truth and love of god, and those 30 years have been such a magnificent journey for me. This is a joy us occasion in the grim days in the decay of american empire. See what you have in this text. What you have in this text the way you attempt to regenerate and revitalize the greatness of a tradition of plaque intellectuals or any intellectuals concerned about black doings and sufferings so she begins with baldwin talking about the end of his life. This is where hope comes from. I tried to do my work he says, i hope somebody will find when they dig in wreckage and rubble and the ruins something that could be of use to them to find best of me, this is what we have in this text. Thats why it brings tears to ones eyes. Like hear the sister aretha, she start taking a whole new level. Listening to mary lewis on the piano and take mary lou, eddy glaude is exemplary failure as well. We have jonathan out there, we have mark, we have william hart and old brother dyson, hes part of that too. Imani terry, griffin, we have a whole cloud of witnesses to keep tradition alive so eddy glaude represents the voices of a cloud of witnesses, custodian of a rich inheritance. This is why engage with somebody like baldwin, highest levels of greatness not just in terms of sales but the greatness of the text is not just number, 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 my point of love down in gutbucket magnificent mississippi. You see, thats what is in it. Look at the smile. Thats whats in it and to make that tradition available to the whole world, the whole world dealing with different level capacity. So thats what you actually get in begin again and lets be honest about it, its the bloodsoaked and yet soulful tradition. Thats what you get in the text. Absolutely. You know, doc, first of all, i hope my momma is listening. Thats what i want im afraid that she heard that because you will bring me to tears, but theres a line theres so many lines that will plow you away but a moment in istanbul being interviewed by ebony and he uses begin again and baldwin as sitting there and its 1970, i think, and and the interview e asks him was it about hope . Baldwin retreats, this is on page 145 in the text. I remember, i remember that. Will be right, baldwin i remember exactly what it says. What did he say . Hope must be invented every day, every day. Invented every day. Is that right . Thats right. You see, thats our tradition, brother. Thats our tradition. Thats our tradition. Now hope is not abstract, its verb, motion, its deep and you have to be blues like about it, you better reinvent that thing every day, good morning heartache, i have to reinvent my resources to deal with the heartache thats going to come back the next day. Exactly. Its going to come back the next day, you have billy holiday echoing through with baldwin right there. He understands the musicians mean the world to him. Absolutely. So i was thinking about that line as an answer to maya. Can the face of the assassination of dr. King, where they murdered apostle of love and jimmy collapses could barely pick up the pieces, tries to commit suicide in 69, has to find relationships around him. Still thinks hes this loveless child who is ugly because his daddy told him he was so ugly that he didnt believe that nobody could love that ugly little boy. Find himself in istanbul and there he gives line of what doc layed out, hope is invented every day. Every day. Thats real, brother. Thats real. A necessary practice that we, in fact, are the hope, you know, it is our commitment to showing up, that is the hope, thats the practice of witness and he was just so right so often. Sister maya, all the courage and risk and willingness to be crushed is misunderstood, misconstrued and thoroughly pushed through the fringes and still had the kind of bounceback, you see. You see what i mean . So, you know, what we have in book here in the middle of a blues like the situation in the u. S. Empire, hes saying, you know, this aint new for us. We have before before. Its not a human thing. Not just black thing. Human beings. Plaque people dont have to prove nothing to nobody and have to learn how to love and find hope and laugh in our families and momma, synagogues, surges, in your universities. Eddy working that out in prison. You know princeton didnt have in mind mississippi. [laughter] to be distinguished university professor. Now, just not surprised, hes a fellow colleague, im not surprised, we have teachers and those who see us as we continue to grow and mature. We are not surprised but then the fact that hes like baldwin connected to the best of his tradition. Right. Thats the thing about it that, you know, the other moment, when he tells the students. I wont. No, you tell the story, brother. Gorgeous moment. Nonviolent action group. They produced the radical cohort in the group, they all come out of that group so they invite him to come to camp, shes supposed to be on stage with ross, who couldnt make it and was too sick, ivy davis and others, he lays bear and they retreat after panel discussion. Malcolm was in the audience too. They get the liquor and they are talking into the late midnight hour till the sun begins to come up and baldwin has the last word and jimmy, said if you promise your elder brother that you would not believe, i will promise you that i will never betray you. Jimmy never betrayed us no matter what they said about it. Never betrayed us. Thats powerful. I was sitting next to carmichael at the funeral december 1987 st. John cathedral and a genius and started crying like a baby. Ive traveled with stokely and hes not the crying kind of brother because he [laughter] given all of us as human beings, baldwin never sold out. He was never fake, he was never phoney, he was never fraud, he was never a coward given all ups and downs. Two suicide attempts, right. 55 and 69. Hes wrestling with despair. Thats true for all of us. Wrestling with despair but he never betrayed every day black people, really everyday people, you see, thats a rare thing. Its a beautiful thing. Its majestic, its sublime actually. Youre able to use that. This is why this is the most important text ever written on baldwin in terms of genius and relevance. Now, you know, brother, ed probably check brother in blues and connection with music but in terms of the relevance of this particular historical moment politically, morally and spiritualty, this is the text, this is the one, absolutely. Made it abundantly clear that James Baldwin was a man who was facing demons because he was a person who believed from your experiences, your reality and maybe you can give some distance to give perspective because you had to show up for your people and for yourself and thats abundantly clear throughout the text. Yeah, you know, maya, such a great point. I barely survived writing the book because, you know, i wanted to come in and im reading, you know, jimmy, ive always had this kind of i knew i knew what i decided to start reading and that he was going to ask things of me that i wasnt quite ready for when i was younger, right, and the sense which baldwin always assumes this as precondition to say anything about the messiness of the world. You to deal with your own mess. You have to deal with interior wounds and pains as precondition to say anything about the world because baldwin thinks that the messiness of the world is a reflection of the lives and dishonesty that we tell ourselves and so im sitting here want to go 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 grappling with the fact that he could just thats why i began this way, my father i love my father, black love. He made me possible. Woke up every day in the mississippi heat used to take sweat his belts rotten in the mississippi heat, delivering mail, but he could look at me and scare me to death. I would shutter and ive been grappling with what it means to have that fear put inside of me so early, and i was as i was writing the sentences came out, right, about me dealing with my daddy and, you know, by the time i get to the end of the novel, end of the book, my father is with me as i visit jimmys grave and im talking about how us telling each other how we love each other, how hes calling me to tell me what to say on television and how proud he is and when you read jimmy, you read baldwin notes of a native son, his critique of stepfather is scathing but you read baldwin by the time hes about to die in december, the later writing about his 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 begin again is a kind of writing that ive never done in public before. Im taking risks because jimmy demanded it of me and i and i should say this really quickly. He forced me to deal with the scaffolding of my own lives. And asking that of our country as well. Those of us who are trying to pull the nation back from the near fascist moment to be honest with ourselves because the narratives are important so take a moment to speak of your definition of both lie and as you talk in the book and notion of value gap resolving those things. I would love to hear the two of you discuss that. Well, you know, the best way to talk about the lies, to quote a passage from page 9, jimmys essay, 1964 essay the white problem. He wrote it for goodwins edited emancipation. The people who settled the country had law and they could recognize man when they saw one. They knew he wasnt anything else but a man but since they were christian and since they had already decided that they came here to establish a free country, the only way to justify the role this was playing in ones life was to say that 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, the heart of it, there have been lies told about black people, capacities of character and passions all to justify right, this system of exploitation, this system, barbaric system of slavery that is at the heart of the founding to have modern world, right, at the heart of the founding of the country and so not only do you have lies about black people, you have lies about what white americans have done to black people and then you have the lie that is so this is the key point. Theres a way in which the lie works that it malforms, i use that, anything that comes to reveal the truth of what the of what the nation has done, what it has done to the native people, what it has done in haiti and cuba and the philippines, what it has done in hiroshima, america is not the shining constituent of the hill or example on the hill, everything that attempts to reveal the reality is dismissed as hearsay. Exactly. From the beginning. Anyway, thats what i mean by the lie and the lie is the architecture with which the value gap and white people more than others and its at the heart of social arrangements, political arrangements, its valuation of black folks and white folks and lead to disadvantage that distorts character and they cant become kind of people that conception of democracy requires. Absolutely. Sounds to me what youre saying the key tool, the foundational fear that we are born with is to have a true reality, sense of who we actually are, that we, in fact, are human without having to ask that we are equal that we are as important that we are deserving of love, crucial truth that we have to hold in our hearts in order to fight the fear that enters immediately at the beginning of our breath. A story we have told about america being a sanctioned nation called to be a beacon of light in the world force in the world is a lot. The of a lost cause is an honest assessment, full Rights Movement and racial progress and doctor kings moral vision culminating in the election of barack obama all too often lies. I wonder what do we gain if we disabuse ourselves of the notion of innocence as it relates to the citizenry and the state . We could leave behind the swaddling clothing. [laughter]. Like it is never never land, perpetual state of adolescence so you dont have to be responsible for anything. And talks about what happened, not just in line but echoed. What is that, they dont know and they dont show. John singleton, and they dont they willfully dont want to acknowledge what they are doing to their fellows and baldwin says it is not enough and they claim innocence. Innocence was the crime, they are stepping into maturity. How thick White Supremacy is in the souls of black. The lie has been something they have consented to a few believe less intelligent, running around scared, intimidated, laughing when it is not funny or scratching when it dont itch, the only thing that can break the back of here is love. For that third part of the love supreme, takes so long. That is the stuff that can break the back of fear, something all human beings have to come to terms with. People are fearful, they grow into maturity, a sense of memory and empowers you to break the anxiety that allows you to be the person it ought to be. Here we cannot live without, got to break it out. Mohammed of free mohammed ali was free, part of that end run, more responsibility on himself because baldwin was chewed up and spit out by the liberal establishment. We love skip, brother hilton, that is to say, by next time, he lost his litera