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#1325 - Dr. Cornel West
Jul 24, 2019
Dr. Cornel West is a philosopher, political activist, social critic, author, and public intellectual. He is Professor of the Practice of Public Philosophy at Harvard University and holds the title of Professor Emeritus at Princeton University. He has also taught at Union Theological Seminary, Yale, Harvard, and the University of Paris.
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online and I just recently got through his book Race Matters he's a genius and just an amazing man and there's so much to get from this podcast it's definitely one that I'm going to listen to over and over again please welcome the Great and Powerful dr. Cornel West► 00:08:18
The Joe Rogan Experience Train by day Joe Rogan podcast by► 00:08:26
boom and we live how are you sir oh brother I'm so blessed to be here man I want to salute you to work that you do and the fact that you were one hell of an artist man I'm telling you thank you very much coming to stand up comedy well that's strange times we to swing from the political the personal for the animals onto the division areas just a beautiful thing to behold my brother thank you from you those an honor I've been a huge fan of you for a long time so for you to say that to me means means the world oh it's deep thinking I can see you'll love Richard Pryor but I walk in the old space and I'm just transformed by the guys to spare this bread is place man yeah fix year prior here then when you tell me you work with the Great Richard Price it oh my God five weeks I followed him as a young comedian at the comic store I went on right after him every night he performed what was that like the run► 00:09:23
it was strange to be in the room with him because when I was a 14 year old boy my parents took me she'd live at the Sunset Strip and I could not believe that anybody could be so funny just talking that was my first experience with stand-up comedy other than that I'd seen like I'd seen people perform on The Tonight Show and things along those lines out of Hope and yeah the other than the talent it was like ha ha ha it was okay you know what I mean when you see Richard in concert in a movie theater I couldn't believe how funny it was it didn't make sense I'd seen funny movies before like you know comedy movies that were made you laugh but nothing nothing like that I like this guy's just talking it changed my life that's that's what would you can see the power of art yeah and it's connected to freedom because I've always viewed with your priors are free as men 20th century certain to free his black man along with Muhammad Ali he's the first black man the 20th century he is so self-determining yeah the choices that he makes has to do with his own sense of► 00:10:23
self he doesn't care to other people think he does another keep looking for other people's approval recognition he's gonna be who he is and he pays a major cause for that tells me anytime you that free in a world of such such unfreedom you going to pay up major major cost well he had spectacular honesty and he took I feel like what happened was Lenny Bruce open the art form up and then Richard Pryor took it to a new place that's in terms of the the origins the real greats that's exactly but then George oh yeah well George Carlin well he was the most prolific did an hour special every year till he died every year they knew - each one different and but all three but at the but you are in that tradition I was saying man with when I saw you doing the dogs and cats and getting inside of their souls of you know how profound that is the old man as an artist and as a human being► 00:11:23
do that I said oh oh my God and it reminded me of Prior that it's a when I walk in and I see your connection I said I'll be I'll be I'll shouldn't be surprised well it was just being in the room with him was strange I just couldn't believe it was real you know I was in my 20s you in the 20s he was in his he was at the end and like I said he couldn't walk anymore they used to have to carry him to the stage and but he performed sold out every night sitting in the chair yeah sat in the chair yeah yeah yeah but it was sold out every night people because you're looking couldn't believe yeah I've never seen that before I don't believe there was tapes of it I don't believe anybody recorded it if they did record it nobody released it it was just it was this was in the 90s and this was again this is the end of his life he just decided you know he was dying and he's decided to go back to his house love to go out you want to go back doing stand-up and because you got you okay I did picture January 1st► 00:12:23
1863 brother prior my brother just broke down on yeah Jamie so tell me brother Jamie got information I didn't even know what he got arrested 35 days in jail► 00:12:34
he had a woman that he knew he moved to Pittsburgh apparently with Sony's about 22 years old their prior conviction there it is there's the mugshot wow what do you got to be in it so he had a friend of his which is a woman that was singing in clubs her father was a cop and and his autobiography he wrote that among other things that he or she paid him or she gave him money he admitted to beating her ass so I beat her ass first didn't think about hitting a woman as much as I thought about my own Survival that led him to being arrested sentenced to 90 days he served 35 of them well and we had a seven dollar fine he had a crazy life but he grew up in a brothel yeah right then Peoria yeah Peoria knowing ya know with the violence against any sisters wrong but prior don't be made here yeah► 00:13:27
he was Wild free cruel tender genius crazy wrong as he could be right as he can he's a human being he's a complicated human being though you I never met him before but he has his spirit means the world to me me as well I'll tell you well I think every comic I've never met a single comment that doesn't think he's one of the most important figures in the history of the art probably the most important it's like him and Lenny Bruce him in my opinion and then kinnison later but kinnison for much much shorter time who would be the greatest female comic artist I think Roseanne Barr Rosie yeah Roseanne is profoundly Talent yeah no doubt about it she doesn't get the credit he deserves because she's legitimately mentally ill and that's one of the things I had on the podcast to highlight which apparently mentally she was hit by a car when she was 15 and she knows she spent nine months in a mental hospital yeah she lost her ability to count she was very► 00:14:26
good at mathematics before that and then after the car accident this severe head injury changed her personality yeah same with kinnison can I say is hit by a car when he was young as well and changed his personality radically to head injuries make people very impulsive very wild and impulsive and oftentimes slave to their own impulses and I think kinnison was a big example that as was Roseanne but it was an was the first really loud Brash almost male female comedian who could kill like a man you know she was what about that Joan Joan Rivers and the other Killers dealers and so I love Mummy great moneka gets to me she she she touches my soul every time she's on the stage if you ever seen Miss Pat know this bats a monster really she's a monster she's had a crazy life she's been on this podcast a couple times her life is insane mean she was selling crack when she was 14 she had a baby when she was 14 or with a► 00:15:26
choosing printing pregnant at 13 with a married man had a couple kids with him yeah she's she and she is so funny she's so wild and funny yeah there's something about the it goes back to Aristophanes you know it goes back to those early comics in the history of the West who were willing to tell the truth especially as it related to the everyday experiences of ordinary people you know the first Plato's texts itself you know the Republic was grounded in an imitation of the comic writers who were the first to really delve into everyday people's experiences not the well-to-do that's tragedy tragedy only had to do with the with the nobility and the aristocracy but it was comedy that dwelled into the lives of Everyday People then Plato takes the whole form and shifts it into the dialogue and make Socrates of course the► 00:16:26
the grand hero but it was Aristophanes at least in the west who initiated this with the clouds and and frogs and so on and it goes all the way through from Jonathan Swift to Mark Twain and the Faneuil West to the brother Ishmael Reed I mean these are the Great American comic writers Twain Wes read and see comic writers a different in the tragic ones hmm Dostoevsky and nothing caught with kafka's coming in his own deep way to the greatest of course the check off though Anton Chekhov but I know you check out check off right no oh brother you you haven't fully lived and Ransom Anton Chekhov yeah oh you read three sisters alkyl Bond you you read the Cherry Orchard or any of the short story he said over six thousand characters in his short stories man whoa the beets Ralston into the in the ravine► 00:17:26
in or even misery man the greatest one is called a student's only two and a half pages she's really very short story or you read that tonight is blow your not mine you listen to you read that tonight listen to look Curtis Mayfield okay this duel is Stephen Sondheim okay Stephen out Sondheim no more into the woods Curtis Mayfield I loved and I lost and then the student check off oh man you be ready for some serious serious cognac on your recommendation I see no no because I know you you serious intellectual to you you do your homework but I'm just saying this in terms of just enhancing you know all of our Lives I mean the comic writers the comedian's I various sorts be they owned the stage of video on the page all right I think vanguard's of the species in a very deep way you know because we as a species have to objectify our grief► 00:18:24
and our pain and our sadness in our sorrow and it begins with moans and groans and you transfigure those moans and groans first into song but song then moves into language and the language is not rational language of philosophy and dialectic but it's a language of stories especially the stories that are self-critical we laugh at ourselves not add others we left with others rather than just at others so it's not that sudden Glory that Hobbes talks about in regard to the comic what you're looking down and condescending you see that's an aristocratic conception of the comic you laughing at the ordinary people who was so dirty and filthy profoundly anti-democratic right as if you know well-to-do folk don't fart right don't s hit it so don't don't do number one and number two and fall in and out of love and act a fool and live lives of consents consistency right but act when you get these Democratic forms of the comic see that's you and prior and Roseanne and Monique► 00:19:24
in George Carlin and all that that's free spirit though brother in most of our Lives you see we dealing with the whole history of a species of structures of domination oppression that's the history of the species for the most part and there's moments in which there's breakthroughs in which there's a freedom of spirit and then you had some institutionalization of that which is democracy that's why democracies are so fragile and usually don't last that long because it cuts all around could radically against the sense of really wanting to be free I mean those jet skis right most people really are afraid of Freedom they want a differ to Authority they want to conform and when they're introduced the freedom and it really catches hold it say oh my God has tremendous cost to be paid but I like that there's something about that and if they can hear it in the music they can see it in your comic art of priors and others and it allows these effects and consequences► 00:20:24
is that people's lives to really enrich their lives before they die why do you think people are afraid of Freedom well it's courage I mean there is no freedom without unbelievable unprecedented Unstoppable courage and courage is not widely distributed in the species but that's a very charitable way of looking at people no it's a relic informed and complacent they're complicit in the Cowardly yeah they well-adjusted Injustice and want to smile and walk around and peacocks rather than cut Against the Grain and have to bear witness and therefore end up on a cross or like Socrates condemned of most of the great figures that we know yeah and that's more consequences for that now than ever oh yeah cancel culture that's exactly right yeah always true it's very very true but I mean we live in a culture that's so corporatized commercialize marketized it's all about money money money► 00:21:24
had his status status and you lose any deep sense of honor of character it's all about what appears to be the case as the culture of superficial spectacle so it's all about image yeah you see yeah and images just some surface phenomena well I can't recommend your book Race Matters enough and one of the reasons is because of your analysis of that your understanding of this The Superficial aspect of the pursuit that so many people are locked into from Cradle to the Grave and you just you encapsulated that so well and the way you worded it and the way you phrased it it's so it resonates so well and I really admired this lifelong Pursuit that you have for not just understanding these things but explaining them in such a succinct way where it's absorbable► 00:22:24
like the that book it's in the 25th anniversary I want to talk to you about it because that's the one I read and it's so strange when you read something that's so it's so current even though it's 25 years old it rings true and does that sometimes is that feel futile where you you have the same issues for that you spoke on 25 years ago and it's very little change in those 25 years no wonderful deep question though minute appreciate the times that you spent reading out Race Matters but no it's never futile don't man never futile because you have a conception of victory that is not Messianic or salvific in a trying to save people you're not trying to be a messiah to bring some kind of grand gospel to people you simply trying to touch people's lives so when you enrich and enabled person's life the way in which► 00:23:24
talked about that right there you already talked about the ways in which you were touched that means ever know futility at all yeah you know it's certainly not if you come to me come to get the fuck on duty of it it's all we can do you know as human beings is to try to inspire one another and encourage one another and enable one another and Noble one another and that in and of itself is what the great John Coltrane call a Force for good how do I become Based On A Love Supreme a Force for good in a cold and cruel world he's not Love Supreme absolutely absolutely and Love Supreme is not loving the abstract right it's a love of Beauty in its concrete forms it's a love of goodness in his concrete forms it's a love of Truth and it's concrete forms now I'm a Christian Revolution that Christians I gotta love of God mediated through► 00:24:24
you named Jesus but that's tied to a Justice that comes out of prophetic Judaism right and we know Judaism Christianity Islam all of these religions for me have no wholesale Monopoly on how we understand the world because they all emerged various historical moments but when it comes to this love that allows us to persist in a world in which cruelty in Envy contempt manipulation dishonesty and that shot through all of us no we're not finger-pointing the name car oh no you know I've called up by the Donald Trump a gangster over and over again and I say that because there's a gangster inside of me I got to reconquer it every day so I know gangsters when I see and gangsters not a subjective expression it's an object of condition are you grabbing a woman's parts that's gangster you giggling somebody's oil another► 00:25:24
that's gangster you lions in these people have said that America's garbage quit lying that's gangster they got a critique of America you did to an American Carnage in your inauguration you said or you talking about the full sisters in Congress saying well evil Jews know they had is that evil Jews they said evil doings of Israel every nation states dump some evil things right if there's a Palestinian state which I hope there is they're going to do some evil things every nation state has to be accountable u.s. Ethiopia Guatemala Israel China and so forth and so on and every nation state has been associated with certain forms of barbarism we know that but there's some good things some wonderful things about Israel's wonderful things about Palestinians and formation creating a state does wonderful things about America being a lot of people say even brother Trump to all day hate America know they love American Comics they love American music► 00:26:24
take you ask sister Talib you asses the Priestly y'all Love Aretha Aretha Franklin means the world to me what about marriage a marriage a means the world married Jay and Aretha are as American as Donald Trump even more in some ways they've been here longer deaf people been that 10 generation yeah Donald Trump's grandfather just arrived his mother straight from Scotland precious Marianne 1930 she arrived right and so in that sense you say wait a while will quit Lyin let's just be honest and candid just like the comics let's just be honest and candid and recognize because what is the definition of Comedy it is first drama which is conflict emotionally felt and critically reflected upon but it's that conflict as rooted in incongruity things don't fit► 00:27:19
so there's the possibility of hypocrisy right and we know hypocrisies the tribute of Vice to Virtue so that their standards and you fall short so you can laugh at it now when it's really deep comedy is told by The Human Condition► 00:27:36
see that's a deeper thing no see that's where you get check off and Shakespeare and Joyce and the blues Because deep comedy is the recognition of limits and incongruity at the highest levels of the Mind heart and soul that's a different thing so I mean you can start with comedy with you know the clown of those who walk around slipping on bananas or the sophisticated Professor who doesn't realize that he got a banana hanging out the back of his pocket when he's lecturing with the students everybody laughs and he don't know what's going on well that's bodily base comedy you know farts and bananas and so forth and it it's important yes but High comedy is the highest levels of human dignity love► 00:28:26
thought music mathematics metaphysics and didn't recognize all of those are in congruous they're broken their fractured there's dramatic conflict of incongruity at the highest levels of who we are as a species that's deep stuff there is deep Stall oh lord lord it in one of the most fundamental questions of Western Civilization is how come Socrates never cries and Jesus never laughs whoo that that's the question Thomas More was wrestling with in the Tower of London before he was executed in his dialogues on tribulation Socrates never shared the tier what does that mean the founder of philosophy in the modern West has a love of wisdom but he never loves people because it's impossible to love human beings and not shed tears you go to your mama's funeral► 00:29:26
and you're not shedding tears and you're committed to the socratic ideal of self-mastery and self-control you need to get off the crack pipe get off► 00:29:35
show her the depth of your love for her through being outside of yourself master you to tears will flow you said and it's the other way it's like your daughter this precious thing that you got when we walk in for your daughter you see when she graduates you and your wife gonna have tears of joy that at the moment for self-mastery that's not the moment to be Socratic and so what Socrates is dying his wife walks in xanthippe and she's crying he's to get her I'll get her away get her I can't stand to use so that's a problem yeah there's a problem you see I come from Blackpool we start with tears all the mess we had to come to terms with you know what I mean cries and so forth Hebrew scripture begins with the cries of the oppressed people to write but then Jesus laughs ooh now see that's a deep one that is D1 that's g k Chesterton Justin said Jesus turns over the tables of the moneychangers he does not conceal his rage crucial Jesus does weep that's► 00:30:35
most profound verses and in the Christian Bible where Jesus wept yeah unlike Socrates why did Jesus weep he wept for Jerusalem he wept for Lazarus he left web Force friends but Jesus hides and conceals his mirth as with Justice and says is there any laughter in the Bible Well Isaac means laughed when you think of the joke of an old is Sarah given birth to a young person in a older age and so forth but it's hard to catch Jesus laughing none of the synoptic gospels have Jesus laughing some people thought they discerned a grin somewhere because he turned wine in the water he probably had a little rant on it you get us out it looks so great exactly exactly but but you can never get the full scale and variety of The Human Condition in any one tradition I think one of the beauties of what you're saying here one of the beautiful things about what you're saying here is the► 00:31:35
complexity of human beings and when you're dealing with the situation between these girls are called themselves the squad and Donald Trump and you deal with these very simplistic things like these chance of send her back or lock her up or they hate America or you know this this is simplifying things is so attractive to some people and so attractive during political discourse right do during these these times when you're trying to Rally up a campaign and get get get the audience behind you this is when these simplistic things resonate but as a human being we know that things like I don't these I don't subscribe to this idea that human beings are good or bad I think there's a lot either way there's I'm damn sure look the way Donald Trump loves his family I'm sure there's love in that guy I'm sure there is I'll me he's had some you know relations to his mother and his brothers and sisters that were not ones of► 00:32:35
sheer manipulation of domination is no doubt as a human being it's important to keep track of his Humanity but at the same time what happens is the dominant patterns of behavior this is where Iris me about brother Trump specially the fact that he's head of the American Empire and and head of the government you see them when you have dominant patterns of behavior that are completely unaccountable see for so long he's been able to get away with things with no accountability at all yes that's what makes him a kind of Peter Pan like figure up until he became president XI great powerful yeah but he hasn't grown up but even as president he hasn't grown up people with had thought that he would grow into the office now he just hasn't grown up and he's stupid tried to manipulate the office position to change to be what he is that try and I think people love that there's certain people that that resonates with them they think that's so attractive they love it► 00:33:35
well they I think they love it is excited that I mean the first thing that we are Trump was able to do was to expose the prepackaged Commodities that we call politicians yes that he came across as somebody who was just himself yes you see just gangster that he is yeah and he just tell the truth oh I was a close friend of Hillary's I've been at the same weddings and so forth because that's how the elite circulate yes and and and and in American Empire but then when they discovered lo and behold he's now he's posing himself as some kind of oppositional figure and yet he tied to Big Money tied to Big military when he gets in he brings in the old school militarist people he still dropping bombs on the nine countries had been dropped bombs for the last number of years tax cuts out exactly the same to Mitch and McConnell and other► 00:34:35
wanted we thought we had something different here you see and it has to do with the what women's the largest or did we have to be honest about this that we live in both a very fragile and precious experiment in democracy and we live in an Empire that is experiencing profound decline Decay and deterioration simultaneous speaking from the very beginning in understates was really in some ways much more tied to gold and resources and land and so this really crucial Democratic experiment is predicated on the Monstrous crime against indigenous peoples that we've never come to terms with so you get a lot of neoliberal chatter about America's original Slender slavery that's a lie the original sin was we had► 00:35:35
decide whether we were going to coexist with indigenous peoples or dominate them and the decision was for the most part genocide on effect in terms of domination so it's a settler colonial society a colony of Britain then we enslaved Africans who become the basis of our economy and the vast majority of profits made were actually tied to slavery that's why so many of the president's first president in America was slaveholders and the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and slaveholders and so forth that that doesn't mean that certain democratic practices were not being enacted but it was an active for white brothers would property the white brothers who had no property they couldn't vote at all the women of course couldn't vote until 1920 so they had domestic households in which they had to find some sense of fulfillment that's what history of patriarchy and misogyny in part are connected► 00:36:35
and then tremendous efforts come to expanding it expanding it and this is why even when brother Trump talks about socialism so he doesn't realize the Pledge of Allegiance was written by Francis Bellamy who was a socialist► 00:36:54
the song American the beautiful which is one of most beautiful solid Ray Charles singing that song and take you to a different I mean he's seeing things we can't see and you know he's blind I know what I mean America the Beautiful Elizabeth Lee Bates socialist Professor Wellesley who was our greatest poet Walt Whitman deep ties to socialism who is our greatest philosopher John Dewey Democratic Socialist his whole life Helen Keller deaf-mute blind graduated Radcliffe socialist Reinhold niebuhr the greatest Christian thinkers of the 20th century Democratic Socialism or Manatee moral Society Martin Luther King jr. Democratic sold Ella Bache or democrat Democratic socialism is as American as apple pie but with the Communists► 00:37:47
and the Communist threat and the Soviet Union and all of its repression and regimentation and violation of Liberties and killing of the culottes and so forth in the American mind socialism becomes associated with Communism so you saw brother Lindsay the other day right yes he looked like a cartoon his version of Joseph McCarthy they're all Communists they're all Communists and you see what happens is and Emile fascist discourse is true anywhere around the world if you can define a community as pure and then characterize those on the outside who are threatening as impure and then view yourself as those coming to the rescue to preserve the Purity it can be based on race you can be based on religion you can be based on politics preserved at Purity we saw it in the 50s with the hysteria comments were what Smith Act they're deported► 00:38:47
order taken to jail make the first the first city councilman from Harlem Benjamin Davis went to jail because he was a communist it's because they were the impure hmm is now communism needs to be radically called into question in terms of his dominating forms like the Soviet Union and China on the mile and so forth and so on but at the same time when you look at Karl Marx and his critique of capitalism this is prior to let it prior to Stalin prize he says capitalism is tied to this obsession with profited puts profit before people and it will generate all the Goblins in which there will be grow test levels of wealth inequality and the only way that poor and working people will be able to gain access to any resources through organizing and mobilizing you can accept that Marxist inside without being a Marxist it just telling the truth do you think that socialism just hasn't been implemented correctly is that what you think because► 00:39:46
the argument has always been show me a socialist economy or socialist government that ever worked right right but right there's so many people that find the idea of socialism attractive because it combines this idea of a community with a nation and that we're all tied together and we obviously have some socialist aspects to our civilization in terms of like utilities and their literary Outsource the military firefighters I have fried his release there has to be some kind of governmental control but the problem is this that if we have to view Democratic socialism as a moment in the larger movement of democracy my dear brother Jeff Stout is one of the great philosophers and thinkers of democracy calls an egalitarian Freedom Traditions hmm and that's simply a way of saying that if you look► 00:40:46
the world through the lens of the masses of people who are poor and working people what are the conditions under which they can have security from domination what are the conditions under which they can have dignity by holing forms of Oppression at arm's length and for me it's not an ism you see if capitalism vis-à-vis feudalism can generate Liberties and freedoms I'm for it and that's precisely what the middle class is did when they broke from feudalism and Europe or broke from feudalism and other parts of the world right you have to overthrow kings and queens in the name of personal Liberties but those personal Liberties were confined to often to White Brothers with property and the white brothers would know property they either trying to hold onto the white and so they become like the white brothers would property or they make moral► 00:41:46
voices and said I want to be a person of Integrity I want to fight what the folk who are being excluded and this is one of the problems in talking about race and white supremacy in America because you see we think too often and monolithic categories there's never been a white supremacy without fighting against white supremacy and that includes white brothers and sisters there's a tradition from and Braden from Myles Horton your Highlander Center you got that wonderful picture of Rosa Parks she was at Highlander Center for months before she was arrested before she sat down on a bus and Order stand up for Justice right there Tyler listen under Myles Horton who was Myles Horton a white brother who brought black folks and white folks together went to Union Seminary trained under Reinhold niebuhr he had cousins in the Ku Klux Klan wow so his Thanksgiving dinners with very complicated but that's true for her► 00:42:46
lot of white brother sister who fight against white supremacy and Braden Rabbi Abraham Joshua help tests show me it was IE have a whole traditional white brothers does have been fighting against white supremacy you get it in the music back to bite her back he's sitting at the feet of Louis Armstrong and he's a great artist Louis is genius of geniuses right and that middle class brother from Iowa you ask him about white supremacy u.s. Brubeck about white supremacy you as any of the Paul Desmond all of these folk who are connected to traditions in which black Humanity Brown humanity is seen and affirmed you had a point in the book Race Matters it resonated with me that I never really thought of before and what you said was that because of the fact that the United States has this deep history of slavery and the slavery of African-Americans that why► 00:43:46
people became white people instead of Polish and German and Italian instead of it being like most other countries where they the Italians think of themselves as Italians in the Greeks or the Greeks those were white people they're all called the combined as white people I never thought about that before no but I mean you've got these Scholars of American studies nail paint is one of the Towering ones but it goes all the way back to brother Alexander and and David David wrote in her and some others who've been talking about the way in which whiteness was created take for example in Irish brother who calls the Ellis Island his people been dealing with 800 years of vicious British colonialism and imperialism vicious attacks various famines that were in some ways created or at least enabled and so on they get to New York► 00:44:39
and they told that their whiteness and all know because we know the British are white we not British right at all oh but then this is yes you are looking brother Wes look at Jamal look at Leticia where you going to go on the Jim Crow bus just get off the boat from Ireland right you go to the front you with vanilla folk you go to the back you with the chocolate folk what you're going to do and for our presses Jewish brothers and sisters they were the even more complicated more complicated right they get there they said no we're not want to go and we're not with the Gentiles y'all been oppressing us for 2,000 years programs ghettos Holocaust vicious attacks and so on but then they get tensed well are we going to be in the back with the black folk some of them did► 00:45:30
you see because you got a rich tradition of progressive juices you know jobs could have got back Stanley around with what I got back there with the black folk is it I mean but you got some other Jewish folk like any other group well we kind of lukewarm that's just kind of move back and forth and then someone want to simulate completely specially the highbrow German Jews were actually white as well as the Gentiles you're in America now get beyond that old-world prejudice you say well you better check yourself because every Christian civilization we know is shot through with Jewish hatred hmm don't don't believe the hype soonerlater is going to be manifest you see what I mean and so in that way you can see the discourse of whiteness Blackness brownness redness and so forth becomes so so deeply rooted in American law American Structures American perceptions and this is why the Arts are so crucial because it's primarily in the music and in the Arts where the breakdown of what► 00:46:29
Supremacy begins to take place in the country it's not the politicians it really isn't it really is it is no accident that the first massive form of entertainment in the United States is what the men's rooms in blackface► 00:46:45
and you see what was going on with black face wearing a lot and others have talked about the love and theft on the one hand there's a fear of black freedom because black Freedom somehow means less freedom for whites there's a fear black creativity because that means maybe white supremacy is a lie maybe they're human just like us maybe they just as creative imaginative and telling the just like us then they hear the music and they say who they got something going on the black side of town and we don't know it's like you're going to see prior right if somebody had told you oh brother Joe white supremacy America tells you that black creativity black intelligence black genius doesn't exist and you go see pride with your parents and you go away thinking► 00:47:28
just Negroes a genius somebody lied to me I got to recognize that and then you recognize those the whole tradition of prayer and we go on and on from the cold trades theravada and on and on and on right and so people in the begin to think firstly white brothers and sisters my parents have been lying to us when it comes to Black intelligence imagination and genius and humanity and yet the structures make it difficult for us to come together we talked about up until 1960 that's a long time though 1776 the nineteen sixty four and five as a long time for both slavery and Neil slavery to be in place and here we are now 54 years later trying to create a multiracial democracy which is a beautiful beautiful thing and it's already been enacted in the and Jazz groups slide Stones band's most► 00:48:28
racial the communism did the study in the comments that you all have you sit down with Comics y'all talk about the genius across race and G and genuine Genie and and gender is if it's a natural thing that already shatters the white supremacist in the Nets and males premises categories of lightness Blackness all in different silos but it's so hard to do it on the ground see part of the problem of talking about race in America that's why I've been very critical of a number of contemporary black intellectuals because white supremacy cut so deep in the culture people begin to think it has magical powers and somehow it it just floats above American history is if it's just part of our DNA and up biological way but all conceptions of race in the modern world are grounded in predatory capitalism► 00:49:19
so that the talk about whiteness and Blackness becomes a way of rationalizing social structures like slavery and Jim Crow and it has to do with trying to extract labor resources it's an attack on their humanity and identity but it's tied to economic structure so to talk only about race means we hide and conceal the social structures that are generating unbelievable suffering for everybody everybody you see and so the last thing you want is talk about race I'd say something about gender in the way Ginger is much more complicated because gender has been around for so so long every culture that we know almost but in modern conceptions of race are tied to Modern conceptions of predatory capitalism here and abroad which includes imperialism which includes Empires such as the United States comes out of the British Empire► 00:50:19
pie we engage in a heroic courageous revolt against the British Empire it was a magnificent struggle that's what I like about George Washington and Thomas Jefferson's I'm an Anti-Imperialist they were Anti-Imperialist their Urban guerrillas they picking up guns they fight I don't go that far but they're also white supremacist see so as soon as they overthrow our push back the British Empire what do you get in the Declaration of Independence beautiful words about equality but you also get Savages we got to take Dale and and you get an Empire of Liberty this is where the comics come in what does an Empire of Liberty to look like who's not in on the Liberty it's a whole lot of people not in on it that was Carlin right Carlin had this bit about this country was founded by slave owners who wanted to be free that's Ray and Doug but American Dream you got to be yeah you got to be dreaming to be got to sleep► 00:51:20
do you think that much like this country is an experiment and self democracy a very recent experiment when you look at human history right hundreds of thousands of years that we've been human there's really only been a couple of years a hundred years of this that's the you do you think that that's maybe the lens that we should look at something like Democratic socialism through not that it can't work but that it hasn't been implemented correctly before that's exactly that's what we got to get beyond the is of you're absolutely right see what makes not just United States has been Democratic experiments all around the world in various circumstances we become Central stage because we become a world power that understands itself as a democracy with all the contradictions they go ahead and in hand with that begin as a settler Colonial Enterprise still got slavery patriarchy workers don't have the right to engage in collective bargaining United States until the 1930s hmm Argentina had in the► 00:52:19
the teen is not known to being on The Cutting Edge for social justice love you down there in Argentina but they know that but they had a collective bargaining why because our robber barons and our power Elites were so powerful you see Rockefeller and Company had private militias that were bigger than a lot of public armies to make sure workers were not able to engage in collective bargaining I was in San Francisco just yesterday at the Commonwealth club which is now lodged into the longshoremen's association which is fascinated Commonwealth has well-to-do ruling class Harry Bridges longshoreman strong Union Jack London of the great socialist and Oakland right and what were they trying to do there was just trying to ensure that Ordinary People gaining access to jobs with a living wage decent education is one reason why I spend so much time with my dear brother Bernie Sanders right because it's a democratic project that simply says► 00:53:17
how come poor children can have access to some of the things that the children of the well-to-do have they have the same value and of course there's a Christian for me they have exactly the same value so how will they get it well here comes socialist movements that's a first thing you want to do is where gets child labor laws that's that's the jungle that's Upton Sinclair he's a socialist tried to be Governor California right and what were they doing what were these these capital is doing they're hiding these kids at six years old seven years old they were dying at 30 there were no laws against child Labour and do working seven days a week so the labor movement brought us the weekend and I'm not talking about the singer from Canada God bless it I'm talking about the two days we have off because if we didn't have that from the Socialist movement in the labor movement that had been working young kids seven days they did that year after year decade after decade► 00:54:17
okay that's greed right that's that's greed there's no accountability Z that's where that whole idea of the let the market decide falls apart because the market just wants profit right absolutely that doesn't mean that Marcus could not be used in Democratic ways but they need to be ethical but they got to be ethical you got to have some accountability and regulation of child labor laws were very important that of a breakthroughs at that time of their other you had you need to have laws to make sure the water was clean the food was regulated and clean and so forth there's a narrative that you get from poor people often or people that are lower middle class that are against the concept of socialism because they equate it with people that want a free ride that's really the equated with people that don't want to work hard that's right and that's it's a strange narrative when you consider all the things we talked about already like the what we need with the fire department and the police department and all the► 00:55:17
different ways that socialism does form utilities and all the different ways of socialism does form a part of our culture in our community why do you think that that is this narrative and how does that narrative get reshaped because that Narrative of that the only reason why people want socialism is because they want a free ride right right oh that's a wonderful question but the one is that you had first we have to listen very closely to our right-wing brothers and sisters and conservatives and Midler's because oftentimes they're human beings like anybody else and they've had their own arguments I don't think they have strong ones but they have their own arguments so the first thing you'd say about that is what makes you think that the well-to-do don't have free rides► 00:56:07
what is inheriting wealth all about momentarily world is Freer absolutely all it is what is freak the connections are getting into the prep schools and the Ivy League schools and so forth even though they work is still a kind of free ride so if they're preoccupied with this issue of being free ride you we tell them let's make sure that people do work hard yes and sacrifice and therefore in some way deserve what they have now if just based on that principle the upper echelons of American society would be indicted yes deeply indicted and is not a matter of hating the rich because I don't believe in hating anybody individually I hate greed yeah I hate Injustice I hate white supremacy I hate anti-jewish Prejudice I hate anti Palestinian prisoners I hate patriarchy and so forth but the human beings were these ideologies filtered through mmm are still human beings► 00:57:07
yes see what I mean so that's the beginning of it now of course part of the question here is has to do with they'll say well we wasted this money on the poor you say well wait a minute Donald Trump just past the 750 billion dollar military budget Democrats voted for it to how much waste is in the military why is 60 cent of every $1 coming out of the federal budget budget tied to the military why is it no clothes oversight and accountability of it how come American people don't know about the full of countries that we are bombing or assisting other countries and bombing we can go right down packets down Afghanistan Yemen absolutely Mali Niger Somalia Iraq and we can go on and on and on right how can we don't know about the 4800 military► 00:58:07
587 around the world we got us Special Operations in a hundred and twenty-eight countries only a hundred ninety-seven in the world what about the soldiers who died hardly any talk about it what about the innocent people we kill hardly any talk about it what about the drones that we still dropping and not always on Military combatants but innocent people almost primarily on innocent people you go sometimes even disproportionately those are precious people to yeah it may have the same values anybody and Ethiopia America Chicago feel the don'ts drones are particularly Insidious because it doesn't even seem like it's really happening because it's a robot doing it absolutely and it's done wrongly distance remotely no human sensitivity at all apparently the PTSD that's offered by those remote drone operators is pretty profound to he could understand yes you can► 00:59:07
and this and yet no serious public conversation about an individual day I was on the plane the other day and the pilot says I hope you all are able to take a few minutes of your time because we got a family outside waiting for the body of someone just killed in Afghanistan was that Italian family in Chicago one of the saddest things you won't see in your life man as a family lined up and they bring in the body out and you say to yourself how come there's no public Spotlight on that► 00:59:42
and you see what I was growing up in the 60s Walter Cronkite Vietnam we saw the bodies well during the Bush Administration they made it illegal to take photographs of flag-draped coffins it's exactly which is unbelievably insane that's exactly right and continued under Obama and Company know you say well wait a minute day they're paying this ultimate cost and the change the narrative the tears of the the families and Acadian put a public Spotlight wanted my God and then of course they lied to us as was well our drones are not in any way killing civilians and end up killing an American and they have a press conference the same day and economic compensation for the family to rest of their life I agree with that but what about the drones that are killing folk in Yemen and Somalia and Pakistan and Afghanistan although they denied or even killing them and say quit lying that's done► 01:00:42
Brennan and companies in both Bush and Obama administration you see how do we keep track of those in the name of what democratic accountability that's not socialism socialism is democratic accountability but there's been socialism without Democratic accountability and what do you get tyranny that's Soviet Union and Company but when you get capitalism with no Democratic accountability what do you get you get a predatory capitalism with gross wealth inequality and everyday people the masses of poor and working people fighting for crumbs and there's also this denial of it amongst the most patriotic they don't want to consider it they don't want to bake Factor it in to what we think of when we think of America the great you don't you want you don't want to factor in those innocent people which I what was the last time we checked it was in the 90% right of people that are there are killed by drones are actually innocent it's some insane number but we have to have voice► 01:01:42
is that's part of the problem that we have to have voices that say I don't give a damn for popularity I'm trying to be wedded to Integrity I want to put a smile on my Grandmama's face in the grave and she told me as a Christian that if the kingdom of God is within you and everywhere you go you ought to leave a little Heaven behind and Heaven takes the form of laying bare the humanity of each and every one of us especially the least of these as 25th chapter Matthew right what'd you do to the least of these you do unto me who are the least of these the orphan the Widow the poor the children the elderly the workers the gays and lesbians are trans especially the trans each day they just trashed like I don't know what but they're black folk they're brown folk their white poor► 01:02:36
they're indigenous peoples not just here but around the world and what does that mean that means that you have a certain kind of calling that will always pick you over against those who are well adjusted to Injustice hmm no matter what color they are well adjusted to Injustice is very very beautiful way of putting it no it's a that's that's part of the suit part part of the problem the American dream doesn't go far enough► 01:03:08
American American Dream says I'm going to work hard sacrifice and get mine and live large and some vanilla suburb maybe with a trophy spouse and I feel good about myself you say nothing wrong with wanting to gain access to resources nothing wrong with working hard nothing wrong with living where you want to live but then the question becomes now you're successful but you're not great greatness has to do what he or she who uses their success for something bigger than him service to others service to the least of these so that the great ones like to Richard Pryor's you see not a matter of how much money he made it's a matter of his soul in his comedy and the love that he left in his legacy Martin Luther King jr. died basically a broke man gave every penny that he won from the Nobel Prize to the movement Malcolm X only one that had a hundred dollars in his pocket who cares about the richest black► 01:04:08
person in 1968 1965 that's ephemera we talk about deep Joy deep love we will remember those who raised their voices and said in the name of something bigger than my ego and my narcissism and my Hedonism and we all have it we all have it so you know we had to always be self-critical in that regard we all fall short you know the great Samuel Beckett number great now the great comic writer try again fail again fail better that's the story of Our Lives yeah try again fail again fail better but even in felling better we can lead to raise our voices and try to connect it to movements and organizations and structures and thank God we still do have a significant number of decent people in the American Empire just feel powerless well this is conversation that's happening now right and this is a conversation that's based on the information of recognizing the fact that so many people have wasted deep► 01:05:08
aspects of their lives long long lives pursuing meaningless things and and recognizing that there is a lot of Injustice in this world and that people are afraid of admitting that Injustice because then they would somehow another be complicit in the enactment of that Injustice I think it's one of the things that people are terrified of when you talk about doing something to reinvigorate poor and disenfranchised communities okay they start talking about the welfare state or what did this is not how things should be done and people need to pull themselves up by their bootstraps not recognizing that everybody is in start of the same starting line absolutely is a concept that I've been talking about that if you really care about America you would want less losers like what it was the best way to put what's the best way to love America what would you want more winners you'd want everybody to be a winner like we have these disenfranchised parts of this country that have been that way forever there's a guy that's been on this podcast who was a police officer in Baltimore it's name is Michael Wood► 01:06:08
and he talked about how when he was a police officer he recognized the systemic racism and how crippling it was and one of the things that he recognized was they found a piece of paper that was a blotter report of all the different various crimes that were committed from the 1970s it was a some year 1970 it was the exact same crimes in the exact same communities that he was dealing with them and he was generation after checking izing the redlining about the fact that there was areas where black people are not allowed to buy homes that they kept them in these communities the same crimes kept occurring in the same places and all they were doing was going in there and arresting people and nothing changed and nothing was fixed and as a police officer he was realizing and just becoming aware of the fact that this is he's a part of the system he didn't want to be a part of the system anymore but he was a part of this system that is creating this problem when you address that though the people that don't suffer in► 01:07:08
communities that aren't a part of that Community there's a natural inclination to resist now that's true and it's because they don't want to do anything they don't they don't want to think they're responsible they don't want to think they're a part of it they don't want to discuss it even discussing it you feel resistance they will in the state of denial yes trying to avoid and trying to evade know it's it's very it's very real that's very real but you know what also works with Ian communities of people of color and this is again why I think we had to resist any monolithic care or homogeneous characterizations of people so that anytime you talk about white supremacy you've got the John Brown's and you know Mary Ellen Pleasant who was a black woman who was worth three hundred and forty seven million dollars in the 1840s well she's called the mother of human rights in California she do she made a rich white brother and he died on her so she ended up with► 01:08:08
millions of dollars first thing she did she gave John Brown a million dollars wow John Brown had a not even notice from her in his pocket when he was at Harpers Ferry that's how he survived wow see now John Brown's killing some people I think that's wrong I don't believe in innocent people no matter who they are no matter what color but at the same time John Brown had a love of black people much deeper too many black people have of themselves as he's willing to die for black people but the same is true with in let's say black communities you got okay 1% of population in America won't 41 percent of the wealth you got three individuals who have wealth equivalent to a hundred sixty million fellow citizens but within the black community the top one percent of Black Folk have over 70 percent of the well► 01:08:53
so that means you got a lot of precious Jamal's and the teachers out there who don't are who are told to live vicariously through the lies of black celebrities so it's all about representation rather than substantive transformation you get that and politicians you know you got a black president all of y'all must be free isn't that a beautiful thing lived through him live through the family beautiful achievement magnificent achievement but it's not about symbolic representation only this is about fundamental transformation so it's a challenge Mary Ellen Pleasant and others and Martin King and others are challenges for those of us who do have some resources to steal raise our voices because you can be black► 01:09:42
highly well-adjusted the Injustice economically terms of race and so forth easy and the same is true you can be brown you can be rich so it's not just a matter of looking for that one individual who represents it's a matter of connecting that representation to fundamental transformation if there's no fundamental transformation you end up with a whole generation of peacocks look at me look at me look at me all about for legend what does that do that falls directly into the culture of superficial spectacle last thing we need is just spectacle with no substance in that way and this is a battle within now within the communities of peoples of color because it's not as not going to be a matter of just pointing out white supremacy of course white supremacy is fundamental foundation in part of the country is now the only foundation because you got resistance to white supremacy► 01:10:42
you get Lydia Maria child she wrote a book in 1834 called an appeal for that class of Americans called Africans it was deeply influenced by one of the greatest works ever written at that time by David Walker appealed to colored citizens of the world she's a wife sister she is as vanilla as Doris Day in the 1830s fundamental part of the black Freedom Movement right but you see those folk need to be lifted up because what does that do that exposes our Humanity in terms of the choices we make not just skin color we have and I would say the same thing in terms of gender the brothers who are fundamentally concerned about breaking the back of patriarchy when we know patriarchy is shot through us because we grew up in the 1950s and 60s no man escapes but you try to reconquer at all and the same is true for our precious gays and lesbians and trans folk you see the to► 01:11:42
decent human beings who make moral choices here I believe in the Primacy of the moral and the spiritual the centrality of the artistic especially the musical and especially the comics as the vanguard's who represent a freedom and a courage and a vision to connect us as human beings because you can't really be a comic with a wholesale Nazi Ideology Now you can be a Nazi genius like Martin Heidegger who was a great philosopher and a genius and a thug when it comes to pot when it comes to politics you see but a comic is got to be able to be open enough to deal with the incongruity and inconsistency of the sheer absurdity of it all you talked about moments of Freedom earlier and I recognize that is like one of the greatest things that you ever seen when someone's on stage and they're killing there's moments where everyone's together they're all together locked up in the laughter and they're all together this is► 01:12:42
sense of community that you share with the people that are in the room absolutely it does bring people together even if it's for brief moments for a few seconds or a little bit long would it take so much are not to be trashed life consists of moment yes you know what I mean yes definitely it and see it's in a democracy you see it's those moments that constitute the memory of what could be yeah as opposed to what's in place you know the great August Wilson the great playwright black playwright deeply influence he said by the blues Baraka and beard and row man beard in the great painter and primary Barack of course from Newark like yourself just like Sarah Vaughan and Philip Roth like they're from knew it he used to say that performance authorizes alternative realities for the audience to get them to unsettle their conventional perceptions► 01:13:42
the world whoa and that's what great artists and great Comics but that's what that's what you get that's you do strange times over that that you bring into the fact that we're living in such a grim moment what I'd call you know the American Empire in Decline and we all need to call for his regeneration is democratic revitalization regeneration but how do we do that only by example ma'am because there's a difference between know what the great Roberto Unger calls biographical time and historical time all of us are born in circumstances not of our own choosing we're only here for so long we all have insecurities anxieties and fears knowing that our bodies will undergo Extinction one day very soon and therefore the deal with those insecurities and fears and anxieties you have to have certain structures of feeling and valued at give you some sense of worthwhile - As you move through time from mother's womb to tomb right and it's only in biographical► 01:14:42
only got one life decided to Jordan and there's no person who's a messiah nowadays people will tell you they are but you say okay just called it be self deceived and drink your Cognac and keep moving because there's no Messiahs out there there's no saviors out there there's no Messiahs and groups there's no Messiahs and collectivities there's only lives to be live we back to check off again lies to be lived acknowledging things were in place before we arrives so therefore we ought to have gratitude for► 01:15:18
the love that we received about that's how I begin my my whole life I am who I am because somebody loved me it's Mom it's Dad it's my brother's my sister's my friends right and I don't deserve it and I have to somehow following Ashford wins with Ashford and Simpson They say send it like a puff of smoke you got to let it go spread whatever love Justice by example examples are the gold card of Justice as a wonderful line in consequently could pure reason examples are the go-kart of judgment the judgments we make a predicated on the examples that we have and we must have examples of greatness if you're going to be a classical composer You better study some loot Vic Beethoven you going to be a serious artist of the musical theater you better study a genius who's still alive named Stephen Sondheim► 01:16:17
hmm from West Side Story the company the Sunday in the park with George the passion dog Sweeney Todd across the board not to imitate but just to know what greatness is in your genre if you in hip-hop you'd better study some Rakim hmm oh you better study some father leaders let's put two pocket as right you better study the folk with greatest the same way you know you study prior and Bruce Lenny Bruce and the others and Roseanne Barr and the others but that's one of the more important parts of being a person right is to really your diet of what you take in in terms of whatever whether it's your art or whether it's your education try to take in the the best and most inspirational and the most spectacular versions of human human Endeavors absolute see that's one of the reasons why Sports is a kind of American religion sure because in sports or whatever for I know that you got the other did Taekwondo and thing yeah► 01:17:17
yeah me and you understand the role of Excellence with the Greeks Gadot a that plays but to be able just to turn on our television and see brother LeBron James do anything► 01:17:32
that's another context that cuts across race class gender and so forth LeBron how you do it than memories of Mike Jordan and Jerry is so important I live when he sat out those three years in the late 1960s because he wouldn't go to Vietnam courage my Muhammad Ali along with Richard Pryor to Richard's it was a freest black black man to 20th century but see the the boxing is so crucial as well as the the the other sports because for black people every other sphere in the society is unfair and unfree but when you get in that ring and the referee is fair you finally get Fair competition yeah that's what Jack Johnson was such a threat you remember Jack Johnson's knocking White Brothers out there would be racial riots against black folk killing Black Folk all across the country don't you get the idea that just because he beat the white man in a context of fairness yeah that you can beat anybody right► 01:18:31
and that goes all the way to Muhammad Ali it's very interesting you know the time I spent with another genius named prince who we miss so so so very much there's nobody like him but he like Miles Davis view Jack Johnson as his favorite black man and that interesting well he was a Pioneer because there was none before him Jack Johnson was Jack generally the first all by himself in many way there was born I think but not as famous not as Fame but in terms of the spotlight yeah there was other great boxers little black time but he but he just took it to uh I didn't ya leave the country and so forth yeah see and what Muhammad Ali you know you got someone who was just himself in the context of a social movement that was taking place at the same time so he would associate himself with the black Freedom Movement called a civil rights movement he joined the Nation of Islam under honorable Elijah Muhammad they became then became very close to my Uncle Max► 01:19:31
it had to deal with the split in its own way and ultimately becomes you know am Orthodox Muslim but at the same time recognizes his political Consciousness was tied to the Nation of Islam and so forth and for him to do that I mean to be associated with The Honorable Elijah Muhammad the Nation of Islam probably had about 0.1 percent approval in the country and probably about four or five percent in the black community because at that time Black Folk and black Christians were just afraid of the black Muslims but it was Malcolm X who and it all of his genius made it so broadly conceived that even Christians like myself I'm a jesus-loving free black man but I can't live my life without Malcolm MSC and he's Muslim to the core right he's praying five times a day you know what I mean that's just beginning of which is also very complicated to because his grandfather was white well it meant was what his father► 01:20:31
with the Garvey I hit his mother was tied to the interracial but who follows God reality was killed his mother of course put in there as an insane asylum he's a foster child that great stories he tells in the autobiography of Malcolm X 1 the great Classics really Memoirs in history of American civilization but very misunderstood in terms of length of the cultural Narrative of who he was absolutely no it did it's true he used to say sincerity it's my only credential whoo and that powerful damn sincerity so when he said white men and women are devils and he believed it now he's wrong White Brothers this is not Devils then he says I changed my mind they're not Devils they too many got devilish Behavior► 01:21:21
he's right okay let's do it too many of all of us have Devil's baby but when he said the first thing he said what he meant he meant what he said when he said the second thing he said what he meant he meant what you said yeah how many folk do we have like that the day that aren't scared to change their mind and speak with deep in their soul yeah she's there to the see one of the great gifts of the artists and I think about this especially in the black tradition is what we could call Soulful kenosis ke n OS is now kenosis means self-giving self donating and self-emptying so you go to a James Brown concert that brother goals for four and a half hours and gives everything every fiber of his being and at the end of every concert what does he say I'm an extension of you you an extension to me I don't exist without you► 01:22:21
you did we fail to play a song that somebody came to hear the sister holiday you didn't play Soph power and he say hit it Bootsy that's all because his service you see how green you go to Al Green concert at brother can't walk after the concert he's given everything from falsetto to 10 into everything ultimately that's what happened with Prince Right mean Prince had such incredible pain in his hips hips jumping off pianos I saw him jump off that's how we got hooked on pain pills that's exactly that's what killed him ultimately John Coltrane blowing his horn as if his neck is going to snap every night and then he gave a concert November 1966 66 right before he died and July 67 he drops the horn start beating on his chest she'd at least a what's happening trade I'm just giving the► 01:23:21
people all and I can in the Navajo and getting in the way wow you know what I mean but don't you feel that when you walk off the stage me when you walk on the stage at strange times man you giving everything all the Joe is at that moment now what is that you see that is the example of a Love Supreme that is there to serve the people now you're going to make a living too they don't get paid you don't get paid and so forth but that's not the primary thing hmm that's not it right team Curtis Mayfield sings sings his songs that the radio won't play when he's told not to go to the rallies and he shows up with his guitar anyway in plays we are winner that's self-giving self-emptying and I tell it to the young musicians these days because a lot of you know in the cultural spectacled nowadays shoot you get these performers they just show up and think they ought to get a standing ovation for 10 minutes say no negro sang a song► 01:24:21
first man shit well plug in those spectacles and peacock we won't you say something that's going to stir All Souls away say I'm cooking Johnny Taylor and Lou Rawls when the soul stirrers did it's now we respect that genius and so did Beyonce is fascinating this regard because she's a genius is no doubt about it she's I think she's a greatest entertainer of our day I've been very critical of her because there's a sense in which she still tied to the cultural superficial spectacle jumped away she looks and girls in formation and so forth but at the same time she's also grounded in the tradition in this new movie that she made you see that no homecoming no I haven't seen it oh man you got to see that one of the greatest performative films ever made me really when she goes she goes to Coachella► 01:25:07
she shows of Coachella with all of the bands of black colleges and performs all of her songs with all of them moving hundred fifty two hundred of them wow and then Reflections and Nina Simone and Aretha Franklin oh no Beyonce see I was wrong about Beyonce in a certain sense now I'm telling you that's sister she brings a tradition with her that is the highest level of both respect and of Excellence well maybe she changed who she is because of criticism like yours well I just told you I've never met her you know they reflect so for sure to say it's it really is hard to say people hear things like that it does make them think that that's big - that could be the case told me she married to a genius for sure what Jay Z 2 and of course the kids and her lovely parents and family and thing you never know what goes on in the mind and heart and soul of what was the great artists like Beyonce what was it that led you to be critical initially► 01:26:07
just because I'm very concerned by young folk you know I've made three three spoken word albums with Prince singing with parentheses on he would not sample any of allow any of his Muse to be sampled by hip-hop artist he was very hard on hip hop but when we asked him for spoken word he said yes and thank God we did same is true for the greatest Soul sing of his generation Gerald Levert really there's so much more attention who's on the album and so forth so I spent a lot of time at young folk in studios just did the thing with TEF Poe one of the great artists coming out of Ferguson and American Empire on black Julian to be 40 of coming out of Leo I'm great respect for I've been blessed to do a number of things with it but the young fool but I tell them I say I'm old school y'all you need to know that c we into originals not in the copies► 01:26:55
you see that we into lifting every voice that Soulful so that we stir Souls we don't want to just titillate bodies we don't want to just stimulation of body edges now I am not a Puritan so you know I believe in body stimulation at the right time you know what I mean I ain't got nothing against orgasm thing is but the thing is you know you can't just orgiastic we move to life right you got to have contacts you got to have tradition you got to stir souls in that way and so I put a lot of pressure on one of the things that I bring a lot of critique the barriers the I am deeply shaped by The Dramatics The Delfonics the main ingredient The Whispers Lakeside James Brown's band George Clinton boots his band I'm shaped by the emotions I'm shaped by the Jones girls the Miracles are Temptations Marvelettes all those were groups that Express► 01:27:55
Soulful self-emptying in a form of sweetness I believe in sweetness and kindness and we're losing that you and I go to the young folk where is your dramatics why is it we don't have large numbers of groups that sing in tune and with a beauty and a sweetness and a gentleness and a kindness when you hit a voice of David Ruffin seeing Ain't Too Proud to Beg the vulnerability the flexibility of it the intensity of it and it goes straight to your so that's why do people keep listening to yeah David Ruffin from why not Mississippi I would say the same with Ted meals of Blue Magic that guy get the young people just just stop let's just listen to paid meals at the Blue Magic let's just listen to Russell Tompkins Junior the stylistic Oh Brother where's you just old-school you just know► 01:28:55
dialogic no love sweetness gentleness never go has down as my brother would put a clip never go out of style everybody needs sweetness kindness gentleness black music used to be the fundamental conveyor of that sweetness so that the Bing Crosby's the Frank Sinatra's these are great great Geniuses himself you had Frank who were you inspired by Billie Holiday oh you talking about the genius from Baltimore City Billy that's right you Italian working-class brother from Hoboken that's right because I'm tired too excellent and sweetness hmm not Frank's is not true he's saying some sweet gentle songs now yeah but the younger generation needs day they've got John Heyman some others who can who are beautiful don't get me wrong but it's smaller and smaller but it's partly a matter of the Oleg arcs in the recording industry hmm see the boys have been in a way► 01:29:55
the last great group singing performative act that connected to The Dramatics and Delfonics and I'm talking about say well what happens what I think they could make more money with just one negro with a microphone running their mouth but you get a genius like Kanye deeply confused politically we won't go into that right now all this Trump connection we need some serious pushing on that brother but they'd rather have an individual isolated easier to control in the industry and the same old gods run live performance radio and music and the products you know how they've now undergoing this fundamental transformation and Industry especially given a new technology and social media so I tell the young folk I said you know► 01:30:47
I could not have grown up without the sweetness of those rhythm and blues groups now I know the circumstances are different but where do you get your sweetness from musically what will be the soundtrack of your Freedom Movement Geniuses like Kendrick Lamar► 01:31:09
run some of the soundtrack there's no doubt about that and then there's others as well but not enough not enough soul-stirring used in your opinion it is no Curtis Mayfield running knee Aretha nobody near Smoky right I think that's connected to the peacocking oh Lord yes social media and the loot image spectacle Money Instagram push-button coming into another Bentley always got to be in front of the commodity and so forth and so on because jewelry makes it up in the grass he had his sharp cars but with net genius got into the studio and saying love TKO hmm you don't give a damn what kind of car he got don't touch your soul you know what I mean yeah and it's not just on the black side we got week you know you got vanilla Blues men like Bruce Springsteen and the Jewish Brothers Genius of are you feeling from Minnesota Robert Zimmerman all of these folks► 01:32:09
were involved in the kenosis activity of self empty but they were deeply shaped by the sun houses the Robert Johnson yeah muddy water yes the more Amy's the Bessie Smith the blues tradition do you know Gary Clark jr. Gary Clark jr. I've heard the name badge that I gotta check him out I'm gonna be in here you I need some education about brother he is one of those rare musicians where you hear you're a riff and it's a Gary Clark jr. pull up that that pull up that video came out of when he played with my friend Suzanne from honey honey yeah and he they did Midnight Rider from The Allman Brothers but he didn't as Gary Clark jr. he's got a sound of his guitar it reminds me of Hendrix in a way it's very different than Hendrix but it reminds me in that it's so distinctively him well I got to hear this yeah he'll pull it up right now it is thank you so much but he's a brilliant guy and a great guy too but he's he's► 01:33:08
just a unique unique artists like I don't know anyone like him and his sound it's it's one of those things where there's no there's no mistaking who's playing the music when you hear he's got his own oh yeah signature and when he's playing Midnight Rider which is a classic so many people Affleck dong yeah put this up give it put up► 01:33:32
this is this is them up there there's Gary hoo here's Gary on guitar this is me filming this is that right yeah I was in the crowd they did this midnight on a Tuesday in Downtown LA how long ago was this year ago or so just recently huh► 01:33:50
this motherfucker and you know he's one of my favorite artists for shocking hit at Robert Johnson a team already he's got everything in them that's also Buddy Guy Buddy Guy once you hear more Gary Clark you realize this is him this is him I hear you► 01:34:19
no you could feel it in the air in that club there was maybe a hundred people in that club Suzanne is reading the lyrics from her phone she didn't even know the lyrics they did this totally impromptu it right on the spot holy on the spot totally on the spot I'm prepared they talked about Sailors to Midnight Rider okay we're here so they had they weren't even they didn't rehearse this rehearsal they didn't at all and it's just take off on it like just takes off on it just did his he version of Austin Texas lightning Hopkins he's a he's a bad motherfucker check him out he's one of those guys that you watch him and you just get it at an angle like he's like there's an energy that comes out on him undeniable greatness that's part of that self it has yes don't be but he's also an incredibly humble guy no peacocking at all it is not that little he's our that's a sign of spiritual maturity and moralist security yes the in secured it makes you want to peek► 01:35:16
yes yes he's just devoted to the work devoted to the Art House brother is enough Gary is probably the start he's he's very young yeah he's still hadn't badasses later shit as his best yet he lives in La as it goes back and forth tanks around here all the time 35 yeah I don't know I think he's out here now right isn't he out here he was just here Suzanne just sent me a text message they were just jamming at his house last week so he must be out here oh yeah hey that's my shows here in September I guess opening for the Rolling Stone oh I might have just oh shit oh shit God Almighty that's a hell of a show right there yeah he he's there's a signed poster him over by the kitchen he sign something for me you educate me brother ya gotta get something check him I'll tell you which one to get so he's got some great great work but there's there's those artists that when you hear their thing whatever it is it goes literally gives you energy if you feel it in your► 01:36:16
body it's like a drug it changes your state absolutely no I mean when when you have the very creative marriage of technique and vision of craft and Imagination mediated through sound the vibration that I sent are just beyond language integrate John Coltrane had a whole philosophy of vibrations son raw was part of that dialogue as well Eric dolphy some of the old Geniuses of that time you know and these vibrations are just they're as real as a heart attack but you can never see him hmm yeah Charles baudelaire defined the materialists is someone who is obsessed with utensils and afraid of perfume because perfume► 01:37:16
you can't touch it but it's as real as our heart attack well the vibrations of deep music Mozart to yeah the miles or is Mary Lou Williams Jerry Allen or any of the great artist it just goes through you yes and it's not simply cerebro it doesn't bypass the brain but it doesn't stay in the brain it goes through your whole body yeah it's like yeah it's like a drug the changes your state like if you take yeah if there was a drug that you could take that made you feel the way you feel when a great song comes on you would want to take that all the time Dead all the time yeah if it had no side effects well in a way you can play that song / yes you can I mean it did eventually you get a little bit tolerant of it unfortunately but what you were up to but who would have major musicians that were shaping your sensibility I was always in the rock and roll was always in the classic rock when I was young you know I was always into God► 01:38:16
everyone from Queen I was a big Queen fan when I was a kid definitely this is New Jersey and got to Boston yet no well I left is New Jersey 10709070 this is boss I lived in San Francisco from 7 to 11 that I lived in Florida from 11 to 13 and then Boston from 13 to 24 he was mainly that Boston contacts we had to classic rock yeah a lot of Aerosmith which is a Boston damn course you know a lot of Van Halen oh yeah there's a lot of that see I didn't get into classic rock as much as I probably should have it's only so much time you have there's only so much time to listen to music that is an issue right there's so much great work and every year new great work gets created track of all of this it was mainly rhythm and blues on our side of town you know what I mean yeah Sacramento California Jas came later and then for me musical theater came and then classical music I play classical violin do you need 20 years► 01:39:16
wow and so classical music was always van poor monsters absorb a lot of time learning hit while minutes first violin man I used to conduct to home and Eine Kleine Nachtmusik with Mozart we play egg Mountain but Beethoven and so forth and soon as it was oh I go home and you know rock with Otis Redding man and what Isaac Hayes black Moses and great Barry White and others but it's fascinating how you begin to see these connections the broader connections and so classic rock was something that I got to real late but late as in you know 2122 right in that sense very very much so but a world without music that would suck what's interesting too when you it's all about the context of when the music is created to because if you go and listen to Robert Johnson today it's still undeniably brilliant but what's interesting is it was so good► 01:40:16
act then the people thought he sold his soul to the devil I mean that was the narrative that's it that was the legend but if you listen to it today in comparison to something like Gary Clark it's so simplistic it's so true it's true of Gary Clark go back in time to when Robert Johnson was alive they would think he was from another planet that's the truth they wouldn't even understand it they wouldn't even understand what he was doing that's very real not used to I was blessed to have dialogue with BB King on a number of occasions It is believed that the king in a lot of ways King not because he was the greatest blues artists but because he was a great blues artists yeah through his personality and through his generosity was able to create such a presence that he becomes the king in that way I had a chance to see him live you saw him yes he sucked it out was that at the very end when he was sitting most of the time know he was still standing standing standing okay late 90s oh yeah no no you absolutely► 01:41:16
the power of His Voice makes but he used to say that the blues was a kind of high school vis-à-vis the Jazz who are those who went to college hmm and by college he meant just studying with me with Armstrong would do quit ruffle foot in the Mary Lou Williams and the others and I always tell him I said I don't know about that because you know genius and Excellence comes a number of different forms most Jazz musicians don't have the genius of a Robert Johnson and yet you know Charlie Christians guitar is more complicated in a variety of different ways and Robert Johnson to so that you had to be able to be flexible enough to see the differences of development building on the genius of those who came before so you can end up being a very good guitar player► 01:42:10
who plays some unbelievable court that Jimi Hendrix created yes but you build it on Jimmy right and it becomes almost not taken for granted but something you can use as a launching pad like Stevie Ray Vaughan did yes he's Heroes a great Ambience vibration that's a great examine added his own feel to it absolutely absolutely and here again you see you have the that common Humanity that cuts across color and there's a lot of controversy these days about cultural appropriation you know can white brothers and sisters really be part of a black genre and so forth and so on I had a dialogue at my class at Harvard up this spring when I teach a course on black intellectual tradition and I include some white intellectuals as part of it strange career Jim Crow for example by the great C Vann Woodward history of Jim Crow to the Bible► 01:43:09
amount of the Kings it was a Bible to Civil Rights Movement would was a white Southern brother and I would and I have two days we don't understand completely by the West I said well let me ask you this is Eminem a part of the hip-hop Tradition at the highest level yes he is yes he is that's what we talked about hmm you said you had to be a fool to deny the genius of imminent yeah if Eminem DC but really there's no even without dr. Dre and so forth so he Kia Mercer's and soaks himself in it but he puts his own distinctive stamp on it Hall & Oates would be another Righteous Brothers another Average White Band from Scotland why definitely you know The Average White Band and the fault that they would generate yeah oh my God now of course no Average White Band without James Brown James Brown I took it to places nobody took right but right you let those guys Brothers playing person-to-person on you yeah oh Lord have mercy pick up the pieces► 01:44:09
is a why why'd you have to go you have to go and make me love you in a slow hmm I'd you I mean it's just Soulful man you say Scotland Scotland Robert Burns hmm well just God► 01:44:31
David Hume► 01:44:33
colonized by the British Empire responding and they own creative ways and by the 20th century they soaked in rhythm and blues to wow Korea's like that today really oh man you don't come here pop Kpop and K Rhythm and blue I know could they have kind of a lot of breakdancers over there was that just BTS now BTS is something else they they pack Madison Square Garden but I'm talking about like Urban's Urban zakapa man holy bleep you put on coffee may the Lord have mercy I played at the dam Danny Glover other day under what Bernie Sanders campaign we travel away off in the country in South Carolina for brother Bernie I say Danny of San Francisco Listen to these young Korean Brothers man they can remind you the natural for Richmond► 01:45:22
put it on oh man he could came to Korea what you talking about Korea's Got A Soulful sound man at a blow your mind I'm just reading a book called The Birth of a Korean cool why sister Wang and it shows again how you know that human spirit is always grounded in something local and particular like black music but it travels it's the roots and the routes yeah so the roots are black but the RO Utes is global rights just immersing themselves in immerse dish in the culture of like Japanese Jazz yeah that's me yeah that's like right you just got back from Thailand yeah those last year yeah that last year yeah but now man it's it's a it's a human thing it's the momentum of the beautiful thing the momentum of culture so strange because the Thailand's brick great example that it's like they're so different they're sold in the momentum► 01:46:21
culture like I just got back from Italy there's so different but yet they're so similar but there's so that there's there's a momentum of the way they live their lives it's very unique and unusual and I think that's one of the great things about traveling is you get to see oh well the way we live here is that especially here in Los Angeles which is preposterous everybody knows I've never lived in let me suck a little I grew up but I've never lived and where do you live now living been in Cambridge the yeah I'm just fine there it's fine until four months of the year when it's just a frozen Wasteland it's I used to perform at catch a rising star oh yeah yeah in Harvard Square absolutely right at Harvard Square it's Cambridge is you mean it's a great place it's wonderful it's like intellectually yes wonderful things and hang out with brother there's a lot of gates and yes Brendan Terry and well Bob Shelby Boston's a strange Place really is this is so many different flavors to it you know but it's so goddamn cold but it gets cold but that's for the time to go in the library► 01:47:21
read some books yes it also builds character but that's true too there's something about people that grow up in cold climates come to terms yeah Chicago with yeah Chicago's perfect example yeah they're great people there because they have character absolute Detroit they deal with that shit gotta deal with it terms yeah that right about that domain I mean one of the sad or features of art are moment giving all our the joy of reveling in each other's humanity and music and so forth is that you know you got impending ecologically catastrophe escalating nuclear catastrophe► 01:48:03
economic catastrophe to protest wealth inequality all around the world spiritual catastrophe in terms of intensifying forms of depression suicide wasted lives lack of self-respect not believing in oneself and thinking that the only way you can really make it is by imitating the mainstream forms of Conformity and in the political catastrophes of right-wing movements all around the world yeah and by right-wing movements what I mean is the rule of big money big military and then scapegoat the most vulnerable and try to convince the most vulnerable that it's their fault that they're in the subordinate positions that they are rather than giving them a fair chance you see and that's the makings of new forms of fascism and so on you see and you say to yourself you know how do we hold on to some sense of hope► 01:49:01
and there is no hope without wrestling with despair if you afraid of Despair you never have hope what do you mean when you say yes or with it got the rest of it is not allowed to have the last word but you got to wrestle with it when you're talking about the you're concerned about nuclear catastrophe impending nuclear catastrophe is he talking about what's going on right now with Iran I'm thinking about Russia Russia and China is US missile has that ran North Korea s ability of War u.s. bombing precious Iran Iranian brothers and sisters are as precious as Priceless as anybody actually just happened to be under authoritarian rule that does need to be changed and transformed there's no doubt about it but you think you know all the hell they've been through man yeah eight years want United States was on the side of Saddam Hussein yeah and they were all alone in the world and it's very much like our Jewish brothers sisters felt in 1973 they'd already undergone a genocide► 01:50:00
Tech 1 out of 3 present Jews killed and 73d there are in the world all by themselves other than the u.s. Empire you say oh my God who can I rely on and that brings out the worst in people the worst in people because it's all about In Crowd in Group Security yes authoritarian on the inside and distrustful of the whole world on the outside and this is why it's so difficult to have a discussion about Israeli occupation what our precious Palestinian brothers and sisters because to try to be able to cast a light on how an underdog because that's the history of Jews 2000 years is basically Underdog became an oppressor and how they become top dogs tied to the u.s. top dogs right now you always have the again those Jewish voices and organization that are critical of Israeli occupation critical of any actions of human beings including Jews that are that need to be► 01:51:00
call into question but it's hard to keep track of the Rich and Priceless Humanity of Palestinian brothers and sisters under occupation second-class citizenship when it's very clear that Jews have been so viciously treated for 2,000 years in the history of history of the West as well as the history of the Middle East and yet we have a moral duty to keep track of the preciousness of press Palestinian babies just as we ought to keep track of the preciousness of Jewish babies and gods and Tel Aviv must have a spotlight in terms of what those human beings are going through on both sides of that divided as it were even given a symmetric relation of power and the structure of domination calling occupation but I'd say the same thing about the bed I'd say something about cashmere I'd say the same thing about Western sub-sahara under Moroccan domination there's so many► 01:52:00
he examples that we human beings generate that require our moral and spiritual witness and our analytical attention and our artists who can authorize an alternative even if only for a moment and alternative what is the art like in Palestine the ought to the ark the art imposter oh it's unbelievable I mean I would imagine when you're dealing with such an oppressed group of people are living in the secretary's situation and time and history is unbeliev I was just talking to my dear brother Marc Lamont Hill we just had him at Harvard for dialogue on another Palestinian and black situation and he goes back and forth and he talks about the Palestinian hip-hop artists really oh my God they got one of the richest subcultures of hip-hop this is not always the case when you have a culture that's downtrodden solutely you get the Kurds► 01:53:00
turkey supply the disproportion amount of influence on Turkish culture what's like a good Palestinian hip-hop band to look into a good question because I you know I didn't really follow through with I like to listen to that too because I don't know what they're saying well listening to music where I don't know the language you could just feel the spirit God doing the vibrations Brazilian Nation I love Brazilian hip-hop because I don't speak Portuguese and it's just amazing the sound as I've ever heard Brazilian hip-hop they'll come out to their soundtrack his Brazilian artists yeah yeah no exits I mean to me you know one of the uplifting features of being rooted in the Arts and Music is that no matter how ugly and vicious and hateful things are it never suffocates the human Spirit hmm somebody going to tell a joke and► 01:54:01
some Carolina song Just so you know what I mean yeah and it's almost a way of saying I love you not in a Sentimental Hollywood stereotypical way but you know that song by Stevie Wonder these three words► 01:54:20
you got that mean► 01:54:22
we can't play or you can't play all that ego will get not right because that was a video that you put up there before yeah but that video was Gary Johnson singing in a concert I definitely know that you did yeah yeah that's we can get away with that listen to Stevie man cuz he's talking about how an aching heart can be kindled to smile open and connect in a world overwhelmed by hatred and distrust that shot this shot through all of us and we all contribute to it we all contribute to it you see I mean that's one of the reasons why even when I talk about you know brother Trump has a the Gangstar call him I kind of do you know have created a fascist Frankenstein and these the creation of the worst of America and the way in which Martin King represents the best that they are both American as apple pie but any critique of anybody ought to begin with yourself► 01:55:22
mmm it'll begin with who we are going to be all got gangster elements inside of us no way around us you know treat him no I've never met I met him one time I think at the end of Anita Baker concert in the casinos in Atlantic City way back in the 80s and it was interesting he was there with Mike Tyson I think and it was interesting it was a chocolate Affair you know they say you don't have vanilla brother there right and you know one of the first day the come across to the brother is that it just so glad to be there hanging out with the black Brothers cool it's so funny you could just tell he just squares rectangles you sit back you go listen to your Beach Boys man she we got James Brown brother we got we Brian Wilson we love you but we got JB man and and but it is but and it's a cultural dynamic because he was the richest one in the room right in my class got a lot of money even Don King got told everybody to but► 01:56:22
but it was a different kind of dynamic and so it's a context in which you embrace you know it we embrace them because that's the best of Black Culture we erase every body right know what I mean Donald Trump's mother shows up from Scotland in 1930 black people been here nine generation wiggle say go back where you come from come on in here sister be part of this Democratic experiment we on the other side the chocolate side of town but we welcome you but don't say nothing about our Brown brothers and sisters coming in from Mexico we leave because of anybody's definitive about what is America it's going to be red and black people because they are the ones whose undergo the Monstrous crimes against humanity the genocide is stolen land on the one hand and these stolen peoples and the human bondage on the other those are the pillars the worst pillars of the country then you got Democratic Visions coming not just from Thomas Jefferson but they coming from the slaves like Frederick► 01:57:22
hmm the Border crisis is a very interesting one right because it's it represents the fear of people from the downtrodden countries where they don't have opportunity trying to get into this country yes but then it also represents the fear of criminals of drug dealers and gangsters and gang members make cartel members making the way across and victimizing our citizens and both days of Hugh most things are real to human but if you tell the lies and make it as if the latter represent whole right that's what Trump specializes in I see did you see the video of pants when he was down there at the detention centers and just you just looking away no Humanity just very disturbing and it's so you know it's so sad because here's a brother who speaks his whole personal identity on Christian being a Christian just yes and you said the same► 01:58:22
coming as a fellow Christian I'm not trying to De call into question your Christian faith and nothing I don't have the authority to do that but the Bible's says in part by thy works you shall know them the works of Love they exemplify he see and you know nowadays you got commodified Christianity and commodified culture of a declining Empire and you get Christian evangelicals 91% of soap pro-trump 79% sees that he's doing the best possible job and you say to yourself wow Christianity the seems to have lost meaning of the Cross and has become so accommodated to the Empire► 01:59:08
and it was the Roman Empire who put Jesus to death it's Roman Empire you had some neo-colonial Elites who cooperated but it was a Roman Empire who put Jesus to death it was the greatest Empire of its day very much like the Persian Empire the largest greatest Empire of each day with Cyrus degree now you got the Roman Empire putting Jesus to death and here Jesus is sent there by The Crowd by the mob and you say to Michael pins so you going to accommodate yourself to Donald Trump► 01:59:48
you going to accommodate yourself the policies that are so inhumane and barbaric just to retain your position and try to then rationalize it as a Christian► 02:00:03
we need some music and some comedy to try to get in contact with his Humanity to change him but most importantly just need a social movement you know you need to get him out of office you need accountability but with pants are just seeing him in reaction to those people it's just a failure of perspective cold death Tintin Alice well the narrative is that they broke the law and they're imposing Upon Our great nation and you know this is its crimes of opportunity they're just trying to trying to find opportunity► 02:00:35
they're coming over here because they want a better life to not have sympathy for that and it other than indigenous peoples and and my own African peoples that is the history to come yes the open and bring into the country those who are eager and have energy willing to work and sacrifice and they unbelievable contribution of voluntary immigrants to the making of American American that a nation of immigrants I don't like that language because it overlooks indigenous peoples and involuntary movements like black people and and slavery was not America's original sin that's another neoliberal lie that you hear all the time on the corporate media is if indigenous people suffering has to be rendered invisible the Highlight black people what's one of the least disgusting justices of this thing shh I love Li and then their current situation with their in these reservations► 02:01:35
missions with extreme alcohol is of those rugged is the reinforced they still got the rich music and poetry and resistant but the the social conditions are just but this D they are the casualties yeah but settler Colonial Enterprise and we rather act as if they don't exist I mean we black people became Central because our labor and our imagination and culture became Central and we had a ball bearing Civil War 750,000 people dead each life precious and that has been the central event in the shaping of America so when people talk about race it go straight to Blackness as if indigenous peoples and redness hmm not integral to it's just that they've been written so invisible and the vicious attack has been so immense what's so complicated to that they have their own rules on the reservations they're allowed to have gambling they can have all sorts of they have their own sovereignty in a certain way on the reservations is► 02:02:35
God don't know is true and I was blessed to be there in Standing Rock come on a couple of December's ago it was one of the marvelous moments in my life to stand there with the group there was a multiracial group people came from all around the world and I am inclined from Canada done for the most part it was a matter of the indigenous peoples coming together memories of Wounded Knee eighty ninety four hundred people did you remind people with this with Stanley rockers were standing right was a struggle over that pipeline absolutely trying to put pressure on the Obama Administration to ensure that a pipeline was not built that would violate the sacred lands and many of the Sacred memories of indigenous peoples and it was magnificent because you had two coming together of indigenous Nations because part of the problem this is true for all oppressed people it's fighting among themselves and the difficulty of coming together the first time you had to coming together with significant► 02:03:35
number of indigenous peoples Nations unified against the greedy corporate Elites who were trying to promote this pipeline through Canada all the way down to the southern section the United States and it was his docent what we first we got to announcement right where we were there it was freezing to me was► 02:03:56
remember there were holes in people down to oh Lord Jerry there were holes in people down wet and wedding them down while this is all going on it was about minus 15 and whatever it was it was freezing up there you know and but know it we got an announcement from the Obama Administration for a suspension of it because they had planned to do it too I mean Obama administration can be very accommodating the Wall Street interests and corporate Elite interests and so forth even given the the image in spectacle of black president being a progressive and what have you much more Progressive than Trump that's not saying too much right but but we got to suspension and in the struggle continues really but it was it in his scent tremendous ripples through the cultures of indigenous peoples and their nations in terms of coming together and the fact that it was successful absolutely and there was Lisa relative victory yeah all these victories are relative and very► 02:04:56
Victor it was beautiful just to see you again you know you can't downplay the role of Joy though brother this is so very important to Joy in the struggle the joy in organizing the joy and fighting for justice the joy in the nightclubs the joy and the churches and mosques temples and synagogues Joy is something that we need to come back to that one of the great secrets of the human conditions what are the sources of Joy what are the conditions for the possibility of Joy we've been obsessed with pleasure for the last hundred years or so► 02:05:35
there's nothing wrong with with pleasure but pleasure is not the same thing as Joy at all when you look at the sparkling eyes of your precious daughter that's not pleasure that's Joy hmm you had your wife that's deep deep Joy is he that's what indoors you could be broke as a Ten Commandments financially but that memory will bring you Joy that's a real Joy not peacocking that's exactly right that's exactly right you said so many amazing things today this is one of my favorite podcasts of all time I just want to thank you for being here is it time I've already time it's already eleven o'clock no good God Almighty but brother man this has been a blessing though brother my pleasure you are what are you saying you are my brother you stay strong thank you very much thank you everyone for tuning into the show and thank you to our sponsors thank you to zip► 02:06:34
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fight for the Forgotten charity which is building Wells for the pygmies in the Congo and we are also brought to you by Squarespace the host for Joe Rogan.com the I use it because it's fucking awesome it's an amazing service and you can create a beautiful professional website with Squarespace and each one of them comes the free online store and they're so confident that they're going to let you try it for free so head on over to squarespace.com Joe for a free trial then when you're ready to launch use the offer code Joe and you will save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain all right that was a fucking awesome podcast I really appreciate that guy he's so positive and so intelligent so interesting I just love the way he thinks and like I said I'm going to listen to that one over and over again I hope you enjoyed it and I appreciate you all much love bye bye