← New Books Network
New Books Network
Nicholas Bromell, "The Time is Always Now: Black Political Thought and the Transformation of U.S. Democracy" (Oxford UP, 2013)
01:00:48
Loading summary
Transcript31 lines
- [00:00]
A
Hello, everybody. This is Marshall Po. I'm the founder and editor of the New Books Network. And if you're listening to this, you know that the NBN is the largest academic podcast network in the world. We reach a worldwide audience of 2 million people. You may have a podcast or you may be thinking about starting a podcast. As you probably know, there are challenges basically of two kinds. One is technical. There are things you have to know in order to get your podcast produced and distributed. And the second is, and this is the biggest problem, you need to get an audience. Building an audience in podcasting is the hardest thing to do today. With this in mind, we at the NBM have started a service called NBN Productions. What we do is help you create a podcast, produce your podcast, distribute your podcast, and we host your podcast. Most importantly, what we do is we distribute your podcast to the NBN audience. We've done this many times with many academic podcasts and we would like to help you. If you would be interested in talking to us about how we can help you with your podcast, please contact us. Just go to the front page of the New Books Network and you will see a link to NBN Productions. Click that, fill out the form and we can talk. Welcome to the New Books Network.
- [01:07]
B
Good afternoon everyone. My name is Dr. Zachary Williams and I am a host of African American Studies Podcast for the New Books Network. It's my honor and privilege to welcome today Professor Nick Brammell, who teaches at University of Massachusetts Amherst, is the author of a number of works by the Sweat, by the Sweat of the Brow, labor and Literature, Antebellum American Culture and also Tomorrow Never Knows, Rock and psychedelics in the 1960s and the reason why We're Here Today is a very seminal and pivotal work that has ongoing relevance to our times today. The Time is Always Now. Black Thought and the transformation of US democracy. Professor Dr. Rummel's book is a work of intellectual history and political theory that centers black thinkers, writers, activists and artists at the centerpiece of American democratic thought and central position and argument is that American intellectual thought and traditions have and continue to reshape the meaning of what American U.S. american democracy is. And he offers critiques and visions. Their critiques and visions go beyond the traditional regular mainstream lines and figures of political thought. Taking a phrase and a fought an idea from James Baldwin's writings, Professor Brumel's work reflects that the idea of US Democracy is ongoing, continuous, never finished. It is always an urgent and ongoing and necessary project. And so we want to welcome you, Professor Brammell to New Books Network and want to begin to to begin our interview and just ask a couple questions to get started first. One of the first arguments that you offer in your book is that black thought is democratic theory. It represents democratic theory, and in it you contend that African American thinkers are not simply responding to struggle and oppression, but are also actively producing what can be thought of as political thought and political theory, including ideas about freedom, justice, equality and collective life. Can you speak to that? And the question of, you know, why mainstream political thought and even mainstream political parties may or may not incorporate the thought of black political thinkers in their sort of, you know, deliberative process and why that thought is necessary and Central to American U.S. american democracy.
- [03:38]
C
Sure. Well, thank you very much, first of all, Zachary, for inviting me to join you on your podcast here. It's, it's a privilege and honor for me to be here. It really is. And especially to really to be returning to this work that I wrote some time ago. And I haven't looked at it for some time, but after your invitation, I decided to go peek at it. And yes, sadly, many of the issues that I wrote about there and that concerned me. There are still very much with us. And so, in my opinion, African American political thought about democracy has never, never been more relevant than it is today. However, I will say that the time is not propitious for a recognition of that fact. I think it might have been a bit more propitious 12 years ago than it is now, but we'll do our best. So to address first your question of, well, why has it been overlooked? You might say, I think there are many reasons for this. But I'll underscore two. One has to do with the standpoint from which most African Americans have viewed politics and democracy in the United States and indeed globally. That standpoint is radically different from the standpoint of most white observers for a whole host of reasons. I don't need to elaborate here, but among them are that at least until the end of Jim Crow and really continuing to the present day, black thinkers have occupied a realm of unfreedom, or what Neil Roberts, a political theorist, calls comparative freedom, rather than the kind of unquestioned freedom that most whites think that they occupy or think that they deserve. So looking at life from a position in which they realize that their freedom is incomplete and highly contingent, gives African Americans and has given them a radically different perspective than many whites, in particular many white intellectuals who, to be honest, have led relatively privileged lives. The term armchair philosophy doesn't come out of Nowhere. The view from nowhere, if you know that phrase doesn't come out of nowhere. Now the second reason I think that's just as important that African American political thought has been overlooked and not recognized as political thought is that most of the thinkers who have produced it have been activists engaged in struggle. They have not sat down to write philosophical treatises. They haven't had time for that. The closest thing to something like that might be Audre Lorde's the Uses of Anger. There are very few instances of a black thinker, artist, intellectual sitting down and writing a kind of a set piece that addresses from a remove, you might say, a problem of democracy and anger being one of them. But their thinking is always produced in relation to action and to struggle. And that's why Leonard Harris's path breaking first anthology of African American thought, still highly relevant today, was called Philosophy Born of Struggle. So it's radically different relation to activism. And its standpoint, I think, have led African American political thought to be overlooked by a tradition that occupies largely a very different standpoint. And by a tradition when you start moving into the realm of ideas that has tended to cleave a distinction between praxis and principle or between action and thought. And that cleavage just is simply bypassed by most African American thinkers. And we've run into this language issue just because I have to keep using the word like African American thinkers, which is better than philosophers, which is better than political theorists. But still, when you say thinkers, it's not really doing justice to the totality of their contribution and approach which melds thought in action. So I'll stop there.
- [09:03]
B
I think it's a great point to make. And I've come across a number of works within African American history and studies that look at, you know, figures like Fannie Lou Hamer and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and their vision of America.
- [09:17]
C
Yeah.
- [09:18]
B
And immediately in my mind and coming across that much as you're talking about in your work, there's an interesting correlation between their thought and. Which is insights, individual and collective, that emanate from lived experience of, you know, slavery, segregation, racial inequality, that. That offers a particular vantage point for both critiquing and infusing American democracy with, you know, a particular kind of understanding. And it also relates to that which may. May not be as salvific as some people may want it to be, but also is honest and does sort of reflect this broad range of. Of emotions and experiences and reflects the sort of very human character of how American society, culture and democracy has come into Being. Which leads to my next question. You know, one of the other points that you talk about is democracy as an incomplete project. A lot of our current debates and other debates talk as if it's already sort of completed and we just need to follow a particular standard and blueprint. But it's ongoing. And so taking from the phrase of Baldwin's the time is always now. It's sort of continuous and ever present. And your argument that it must be constantly reimagined and fought for. It does, as you're saying, create this nexus between, you know, the cleavage you talked about between practice and principle, between, you know, activism and thought and within African American cultures and communities that, that, you know, you know, by and large do have a significant working class character or a character that, you know, does focus on labor as well as, you know, constructing, you know, you know, thought and visions. Oftentimes this gets overlooked. You know, also with the whole strands of anti intellectualism in America, but also the perception that African Americans thoughts, even other groups that have been marginalized may or may not be central. But as you're saying that when you look at is very much central. So if you can talk about how Baldwin and some of the other figures in black intellectual thought, how it helps to provide a mirror to America as John Franklin talked about, about the fragility of democracy and its incompleteness, but also about what it can be and how American democracy may be so wedded to these mythic notions of American exceptionalism, but not open to the honest assessment of what has played or has occurred from the perspective of some of its most committed citizens. Could you speak to that? And the incomplete but also the constructive nature of American democracy?
- [12:00]
C
Well, yes, thank you for asking that question. I think it's such an important one. So I think on the one hand, and I think we're all aware of this part of the mainstream American understanding, which was, when I use the word mainstream, there's a racial dimension to that. It's largely white, not entirely. But the mainstream understanding of US Democracy is that it's been accomplished. The founders in all their wisdom devised a near perfect constitution. The Declaration of Independence has been adopted by over 100 countries around the world as enunciating the principles of their own democracy. And we can all kind of pat ourselves on the back and just simply go along for the ride from here on forward. However, I'm not going to stop there. I'm going to go on. And there's another element I feel in my life personally that has not been prepared to see democracy as an incomplete project. And that is the radical critique of US democracy as always already doomed to failure because of its historical rootedness in a chattel slavery system. And it was also honestly rooted in an apprentice labor system. It was historically rooted in a patriarchal system which left women out of public political decision making entirely. Those two latter rootednesses are often forgotten by those who focus on the slavery system as another root historically of American democracy, because obviously considerable progress has been made. We don't have indentured labor anymore, and women do have the right to vote. So this account of democracy as something almost not worth thinking about is what I encountered in 2008, 2009, 2010, when I began working on this book. And people would ask me, my friends, colleagues, both African American and white, would ask me so in both literary studies and in political theory, would ask me what I'm working on. I said, well, I'm working on a book about democracy, a U.S. democracy. And they would look at me as if I'd said, I'm working on a book about apple pie, or how naive can you be, Nick? Don't you know that there is no such thing as US democracy? There's no such thing. Sort of sees the incompleteness, but it also gives up on the project. So, honestly, I think what's changed since 2013, when I wrote that book, is that the cost, the price of that latter attitude among my peers, my cohort, those with whom I share many, many values and aspirations, the price of a certain lack of pragmatism, if you want to put it that way, a certain divorce of thought from action, if you want to put it that way, that characterizes both white and African American intellectuals today housed in the academy specifically. We're seeing the consequences of both of these things now. So I think it's going to be harder than ever to. Because of the backlash against Wokeness. Honestly, I'm not defending that backlash. Obviously, I'm not critiquing critiques of democracy as being a racialized democracy. I'm not doing any of that. All I'm saying is that the failure by my generation and the subsequent generations of intellectuals to see the incompleteness of democracy as a project and see that we too have, just like Ellison and Baldwin and Anna, Julia Cooper and Douglas and Chestnut and Ella Larson and all the other Toni Morrison and Maria Stewart and all the other writers that I discussed, they all felt that they had a responsibility to take up the project and take up the struggle to achieve it. And I'm saddened for my own generation of scholars that we saw our responsibilities so exclusively in terms of critique and. Yeah, so I'll stop there. I tend to go on too long.
- [17:28]
B
Well, you know, I think that's. That's what it's like, you know, to be, you know, a scholar in an academic. But I, I do appreciate, you know, how you have pulled together such a. A broad range and thread of thinkers and woven it together in an interesting tapestry that shows this. This very, very plentiful, you know, sort of, you know, cache of thinkers and scholars who are grounded in. In both, you know, community and their own particular place. And the spaces where they function and operate, you know, are the sources and sites, you know, where democracy takes place. It takes place in the margins, but also, you know, within particular institutions. But I do like how you talk about how democracy goes beyond those institutions. And while most people, particularly within political circles or politicos on television wherever else, will only think about mainstream political theory of thought only from the vantage point of constitutions, governmental laws, you're talking about the more central nature of black thought and how there's an emphasis on effective relational and cultural dimensions of democracy that emphasize community, solidarity and recognition and that are relational and that you're saying how that's essential and foundational. And I think that's the character that's missing rather than merely transactional, which, as we think about commerce, there's that piece. And of course, we. Slavery being about that, but the relational character. And so, I mean, if you could think about how democracy is more than just about ballot box, although that's vital, but it's about the relational aspects that relate to and tie into people going to the ballot box and why they value the vote, why they value having rights or. And why a social contract matters to everyday people who, you know, may be working from, you know, you know, in everyday working class positions or even in positions that, despite their, you know, erudition or pedigree or credentials, may or may not have been, you know, given that same appreciation as others. So, but if you could speak to that democracy, you know, existing at the growing edges, but also at, you know, beyond those, those, those hallowed halls. I mean, you know, how does that influence, you know, how democracy is even understood or even how people may or may not see it as ongoing, some conversations as relevant because it doesn't take into consideration where they are.
- [19:58]
C
Absolutely. So one place to begin is with David Walker's appeal and over the course of the scathing denunciation of American society and the slavery system, which is also a very, very Critical indictment of his fellow African Americans for not showing more indignation about their condition. He writes that what distinguishes the American slavery system from earlier systems of oppression is, is that it's not just a system of a practical exploitation, but it's a system of systematic disesteem and insult. Insult, okay, it's not enough, he says, that they just don't let you work, they take your money, all these things, but they also insult you. Okay? And so he's zeroing in on that insult. And I think that is truly something that is characterized obviously race relations, the white, black divide in this country right up sadly to the present moment, which is how many white persons refuse or are unable to respect, respect African Americans, all evidence of the country notwithstanding. You know, it's just incredible to me, but this is the reality and obviously, you know, Baldwin writes about it at length. Many African Americans write about this, that the injury of racism is inflicted not just on one's personal freedom, not just on one's sense of equality. Equality is such an abstract word. Equality with respect to what? It's an injury to their dignity, to dignity. And so dignity becomes a pivotal term in African American discourse about politics and democracy. That's completely missing from white discourse about democracy. And why is that? Well, it's because most whites have never had their dignity questioned. They've never had their very personhood and human status challenged. So they're free to have this long running argument over whether freedom or equality is the more important democratic value, while all collectively agreeing to not talk about dignity, since they can take theirs for granted. Okay, so dignity is where things become relational. Because what is dignity? Or what are we talking about now? It's very rich, but also in my view, very mysterious term. And I learned all about it from reading the authors. I read, the African American authors read. I didn't come to the subject knowing anything about this. And their testimony is that on the one hand, our sense of our own dignity is something that feels deeply intrinsic to us. It's who I am. James Weldon Johnson has this beautiful moment when he's insulted by a white man who says, what wouldn't you give to be white? And he actually responds very wittily and effectively. But later he rides his bike home and this question has gotten into him and he's asking himself, I have to follow this all the way down at some level, do I wish I were white? And he follows it down and follows it down. He says no, because the very idea of being someone other than who I am is repulsive. So there's a sense of, like, your dignity is involved with a full commitment to who you are that nobody else is. And at the same time, we all know that if someone looks at us the wrong way, you know, our dignity takes a major hit. And if you happen to belong to a group that people are always deliberately looking at in such a way as to disregard, challenge, undermine, demean their sense of dignity, well, dignity becomes an extraordinarily important political value and objective. And the playing field on which the battle over dignity is fought is in interpersonal relations. Donald Trump has never insulted my dignity because he's never seen me, okay? If he came into this room and looked at me in a particular way, he would convey to me that I am just a worm and he is hugely powerful. So the personal nature of democratic citizenship and the degree to which we all have each other's dignities in our hands, and your dignity is vulnerable and my dignity is vulnerable. Let's both acknowledge that fact and do what we can to sustain and support each other's dignity. That's what will enable a democracy as a project to move forward. And we have to supplement all this freedom talk and equality talk with this dignity talk, which is always personal talk. And that is really, I think, in this world in which we would like to have come up with an idea that solves all our problems, like guaranteed minimum income or a wealth redistribution or. It's kind of painful to think, no, it's going to take hundreds of millions of personal encounters. And that's what I love about James Baldwin Johnson's book Along this Way, parenthetically, perhaps the most unread masterpiece in American literature and African American literature. Everybody reads Autobiography of an Ex Colored man, and not enough people are reading along this way. So I'm going to make a huge pitch now for James Weldon Johnson's along this Way. The book consists of one encounter after another, and in these encounters, Johnson allows himself to be changed in ways he cannot anticipate. And he's modeling for us on kind of an openness to the other, including the racist other, because he certainly meets plenty of those along his way. And so that's a daunting prospect for intellectuals to contemplate because they can't solve it. Artists, I think, are closer because they're trying to change the way people think about who, what it means to be a person, what it means to love the whole world of affect and feeling. So it's really mostly artists and writers who are taking up the side of democracy, in my view.
- [27:38]
B
I think that's an incredible point making and very important part of your work. And when you're talking about dignity and effective feelings, it makes me think of Zora Neale Hurston when she's writing about how it feels to be colored me. Or even Nina Simone who sings that, you know, I wonder what it feels like to be free. And Ruth, you know, Felson, who looks at a number of different thinkers in her work about black women in the pursuit of freedom and how, you know, even that even becomes a, you know, a, you know, a special, you know, I think a PBS special, the American Experience. And it, you know, fuses the, you know, the clips and the, you know, the video and photo montages with, you know, primary sources and how that helps to give more sort of expression, visual expression to the totality of human sort of expression and how valuable that is. And as you're talking about the ways in which radical empathy and relationality, as some people would say also and mutual recognition in seeing each other and how a lot of the thinkers and writers that you're researching and talking about continue, no matter what their status or class, continue to talk about that the places and spaces where they go north, south, east, west, even overseas, that they still feel as if they're not seen, they're not heard and, and how, how, what's, what's necessary. The interesting, the course corresponding values that arguably, as you're seeing to say, are American values of shared humanity and mutual vulnerability. That that's the foundation of practice. And most people don't want to, to show vulnerability, but there are a lot of groups who've been on the margins who've had no choice but to come face to face with vulnerability as a part of their daily practice and praxis and thought. But that sharing of that is a part of that shared humanity and the shared shaping of what America is at its core. And when you're talking about Douglas exposing the hypocrisy of American democracy and talking about the need for continual struggle, Du Bois about double consciousness and of course, you know, other thinkers, you know, talking about triple consciousness, you know, and, and you know, you know, James Baldwin talking about, you know, confronting, you know, racial truth as being, you know, seminal and central for democratic renewal and how democracy demands facing, you know, those past and experience. Morrison, Ellison, I was thinking earlier, Angela Davis in Triple Conscious Race, Class and Gender, and Morrison and Ellison and Ellison's way of taking this unnamed figure who, even though unnamed, still is in the search for dignity and democracy. But how that talks about the Psychological and the cultural dimensions of democracy, but also within that, how memory, recognition and belonging are so central. And then than Martin Luther King Jr. Who talks about nonviolence but beloved community as democratic practices that are. That are relational and that are vibrant and not just, you know, you know, Malcolm X, not just abstract. And the critiques that are. That are sort of, you know, couched in love, even though frustration. And he's just saying indignation are sort of the expression. Expressionary, you know, attributes of it. But it's done in love. It's kind of like with our parents or family who will chastise us or discipline us, but it's tough love, but it's also designed to also try to make us better. And so that whole notion of vulnerability as a society and how that's uncomfortable, but if we share it together, it's a shared practice versus something that is. Singles out just one group or another. And. And I think, you know, that is. Is interesting. It's interesting to ask why that's not emphasized or seen publicly as a virtue, as an American virtue versus, you know, something that should be sort of.
- [31:40]
C
Wow. Yeah. I mean, while we have so many. We have the kind of the myth of rugged individualism here. Right. Stronger than many other democracies have. You know, you have a long masculinist tradition in which the failure of manhood to be vulnerable and even more so to show your vulnerability. The whole notion that strength consists of not being vulnerable rather than of acknowledging one's vulnerability, all of these things obviously get in the way. Now when you have a, you know, a group that has been oppressed for hundreds of years and been made to feel vulnerable all the time, there's no. There's no place. I mean, the, you know, Trayvon Martin reminded us, if you needed to know it, that there's no black American is ever safe and never can feel beyond vulnerability, if there is such a thing. So you're inhabiting vulnerability all the time. But to focus specifically on the vulnerability of dignity, this is a very hard thing for anyone to face. It's much easier to say, give me my freedom than it is to say, give me my dignity. Because there is this myth, there is this idea that each of us is responsible for his or her own dignity. Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words can never hurt me. And black or white, we grow up with this idea that we alone can nourish and protect our dignity. And this obviously is unworkable. And I think white Americans have been more prone to construct a false sense of invulnerability by systematically making persons of color feel vulnerable. But that doesn't mean that the oppressed persons who are feeling vulnerable all the time are ready to rush forward and say, I feel vulnerable. My dignity is in your hands, not just mine. And so in a way, the long black freedom struggle was a long black dignity struggle, but never named as such. And that's a significant elision in my view, and still an elision. And I understand why. We both understand why. But we all need to get out there and be a little bit more open about our feeling that our dignity is vulnerable and that I really need your respect. It's not optional. And I think a lot of the people who've been drawn to extremist politics in America today are motivated by what James Baldwin called the rage of the disesteemed. And they too feel, they feel very overlooked and unseen by the Democratic Party. They look, they, they look. Oh, they feel overlooked, unseen and, and systematically insulted by liberal popular culture. So there's. We got a lot of work to do and a lot of it just be, you know. Yeah, I've never, I mean, I think it's a big shame that Jimmy Kimmel got fired, but I frankly have felt for a long time that that genre of late night talk TV ridiculing and insulting people with different political views in the most demeaning way that you can imagine, it trivializes politics, turns it all into a form of kind of frat boy humor. And you know, if it all just disappeared, I would be perfectly okay going back to the Johnny Carson show or whatever. You know, I don't think that did much good. I don't think, I don't know a single person who was motivated to act, to act by anything that they said. They were all motivated to laugh or groan. But now I'm jumping on my hobby horse, so I'll stop.
- [36:46]
B
Yeah, I, I agree that there's so much that is not covered or talked about that is, you know, that that is vital or can play an instrumental role in, in helping to, to, to, to show what matters to people and, and that's of substance and, and, and you know, but it's not emphasized, it's not highlighted. And it continues to, you know, sort of, you know, you know, sort of exist still under this, you know, you know, this, this veneer, this veil, you know, the reference to, to Du Bois again and, and, and for me, you know, you know, going through school and in graduate school and, and, and in, you know, the, the academy, you know, focusing someone on African American intellectual history, but also kind of, you know, looking in other areas too. So. So for me, you know, I'm, you know, reading in political science, I'm reading in, you know, some psychology and some other areas.
- [37:40]
C
And.
- [37:42]
B
And so when you begin to have this sort of fusion between African American intellectual history and African American studies, which is what I teach now, it seems like that's within the African American and American tradition. That seems like in American studies that's an ongoing linkage in lineage and relationship. But oftentimes we have this need to place people and ideas and institutions within boxes with the labels that are so insufficient in order to characterize their totality and the sort of fluid nature in which we move and exist. So when you characterize African intellectual history or kind of it comes from your work that African American intellectual history is a kind of political theory, not just cultural or social commentary, then that changes not only who's able to participate and give sort of insight into these broader and even these. These particular, you know, institutions and to give insight about particular subjects and issues. And it makes sense because people oftentimes, you know, want to just, you know, relegate people to a particular place or status, you know, but people, you know, by nature are, you know, are interested in pursuing freedom, being free. Free thought and free expression and when it's not afforded, trying to find ways to make it. To make it happen. And so when we're talking about, you know, renewal and. And.
- [39:09]
C
And.
- [39:10]
B
And. And trying to find some of these conversations in. In. In the popular, you know, media and press about trying to, you know, revive or resuscitate, you know, you know, particular, you know, groups or associations. We also have to take, you know, good with the bad, but also to really respect, as you're saying, you know, people's deepest feelings and. And emotions and, and the whole idea, even emotional intelligence, is that people have been for the longest time even before, you know, labels of. Of what that is expressing grounded in their experience, thoughts that are.
- [39:44]
C
Are.
- [39:44]
B
Are highly emotive and. And need to be respected and. And value. And the inter. The relationship of. Of relationships, you know, are.
- [39:52]
C
Are.
- [39:53]
B
Are a sort within, you know, the fabric of who we are. But it's like how people feel as if unless they. They take measures that, you know, oftentimes are kind of, you know, highly expressive, that most people will not value what it is that. That they. They have to offer. And it is a kind of a sacrifice sometimes, but, you know, yeah, but there's the significance. And I think that that also can Be seen as people are, as you say, facing each other honestly, acknowledging pain and a commitment not just to recognizing the dignity, but also recognizing everyone, being recognized in a holistic way. And so how is it, even with us being so divided and there's so many fissures, so much fissure woven within, you know, our relationships, how is it possible to get to, you know, truth and reconciliation? And in this way. Last thing, I'll just. I remember coming across the work of Parker Palmer, who talks about healing the heart of democracy and what that takes and going something about, you know, this inward approach versus, you know, I mean, you know, some of the sort of more external, you know, sort of, you know, looks or approaches in attending to matters of the heart as well as matters of the mind, and that those being sort of synonymous and sort of synchronous somewhat. So in that sense, how do we, you know, based on your work and looking at some of the thinkers and their lives, how can that represent more of a blueprint for, you know, inserting ourselves within, you know, you know, conversations and institutions versus choosing not to participate? Because that's another piece where people choose not to participate and thinking that, well, there is nothing that we can do. And of course, exasperation does come, you know, with. With a lot of, you know, promises, you know, that are not kept or unfulfilled. But there's always this need to participate. And that's one of the things that I think that also comes through, through your work, that regardless of the frustration of a lot of the figures that you write about, they continue to find some way to continue to reinsert their voice within. Because by. In not participating, we can't do anything. But at least in. In grappling with these questions and ideas, we're able to. To continue that, that. That conversation, that dialogue and continue to kind of try to. To. To influence what. What is. What is taking shape.
- [42:27]
C
I'm looking here for. There's. There many. Just extraordinary observations, comments, recommendations made by the black authors that I discuss that we could keep in mind here as we try to go forward. The, you know, I'll just say in deep background, this has always been a question in American democracy and for activists in American democracy. Ralph Waldo Emerson was strongly criticized, for example, because he was so slow to join any political movements and so reluctant to do so. And same with Henry David Thoreau. And they both said, well, you know, I need to work on myself first. You know, I can't. I'm just not going to go out there and act unless I'm reasonably confident that I'm a good actor. You might say I'm simplifying. But they both did act. I mean Thoreau did spend a night in jail symbolically, you know, and in his whole life he practiced the simplicity that he encouraged. Emerson did become a staunch anti slavery advocate. But I think this is a question all of us have. And one thing that I have learned is that none of us is going to be ready in advance for the challenges and encounters. Our readiness comes into being in the moment. The time is always now. This is what Douglass and many of these other activists say. You can't go get a PhD in how to say the right thing at the right time to the right person and give them the right look too. Okay. That's like a lifelong training and it requires a lot of humility to make progress with. Now I'm just going to read, but all the writers I quote here say so much better than I do. And so I'm just going to. This one comes to mind. So Pauli Murray, I just wanted to mention her because not many people know of her. She was a poet, she wrote two very fine autobiographies and she was the first black female Episcopal minister. And she was a co founder of the National Organization of Women. And she came from a family, a North Carolina family that was scarred, traumatized by violence, and her father was in fact murdered. And she says it took many years for me to get over the shock of my father's murder. And while I could not always suppress the violent thoughts that raged inside me, I would nevertheless dedicate my life to seeking alternatives to physical violence and would wrestle continually with the problem of transforming psychic violence into creative energy. Every word here is so well chosen. You know, I could not always suppress. Meant well. Yeah, she's still feeling this rage that her father was murdered and the. The murderer went unpunished. Of course. I would nevertheless decade my life just seeking alternatives to physical violence. It's like an ongoing project she never gets. It's always a seeking a striving. And would wrestle continually with the problem. Transforming psychic violence into creative energy. And I think all of us today are feeling a lot of very strong emotions and we can't be responsible for the emotions that anyone is feeling but ourselves. And I think that to speak personally, the two emotions that I feel most in this time are fear and anger. And we haven't talked much about fear. But it's probably if I were to rewrite this book now, the difference between 2013 and 2025 is I would probably Write a chapter about how do you deal with fear in a democracy. That wasn't on my radar then. So this issue of transforming the emotions like that into creative energy, I think can only happen through activism. Well, it could actually probably happen if you went into a meditation center and lived there for decades. And that's what I try to do. I've become a part time activist and every day I see all these terrible headlines. But the emotions that they prompt, I have a place to put them and I can transform them into motivation for the political organizing work that I'm doing. And I have a lot of friends who feel just as I do and they don't do anything. And I know it's hard. What can we do? Writing postcards, okay. Making telephone calls, no one ever answers anymore because I don't know if you. So it could feel frustrating. These energies are creative. There are creative ways to transform these feelings into doing something. And I won't speak for anyone, everyone can come up with their own. But I have the faith that there are many ways to be doing and not just feeling prisoners of anguish.
- [49:10]
B
That's an incredible way to bring us to a point, to continue the conversation in other ways. It answers the question of where do we go from here? What's next and what can we do now? And I agree with you. I think a lot of us are feeling some kind of way, a lot of frustration, a lot of questions about, you know, what do we do? But I think the interesting and powerful thing about your work, as you mentioned in reference with regard to James Weldon Johnson's work, that hasn't received much attention. I think your work also highlights not only a lot of the thinkers, but the way in which you have conceptualized and envisioned their participation in their voice and their role and even given space for others. And you referenced Pauli Murray and there are a lot of other voices, particularly of African American women and women of different backgrounds who have contributed to this, for future scholars and writers to then pick up that mantle and to write and to continue to grapple with those questions. And I think that's also a tremendous contribution beyond the very incredible and significant scholarship that you brought to bear in the care in which you took to write that work. And it does have, have ongoing value now. And, and as you're saying that even in times, you know, like this, where there's, there's so much volatility that still there's this creativity that can be found even as with previous generations before, who, who, who felt and, and experienced that vulnerability that that, you know, sort of, you know, search and, and pursuit for dignity, but also this, this, this in unquenchable, you know, desire to be free and to express oneself and define, if not some promised land, this or some writers, you know, Janet Brown talks about utopia and other speculative fiction through people like Alice Coltrane and Octavia Butler and other figures, again, who have not been, you know, given much, much credit either, except for in certain circles, but need more widespread visibility to say that there's a broad tapestry of people who have contributed to American democracy and continue to contribute everyday. People like us and others who once we, as Thurman, how Thurman say, come alive, find our why and find what motivates and moves us. And sometimes that comes end times in grappling with and confronting with vulnerability and frustration and hope and opportunity all at the same time. It can open up, you know, new vistas and help, you know, to contribute to what can be understood and characterized as ongoing American values. And so I just want to thank you and to show my appreciation for your work because like I said, focusing on African American intellectual history. Intellectual history. I came across your work and I'm like, wow, you know, work really brings together a lot of the thought and figures and perspectives that I know were interest to me. And so I'm grateful to have an opportunity for a conversation with you and look forward to what, what, you know, what comes next, what you're working on, but also how your work will continue to influence and motivate and inspire other generations to pursue and see how scholarship has a vital role to play in thinking and reading and reflecting and relating based on that, and also respecting, you know, people who, you know, who come from all walks of life and how they can contribute to the ongoing project of American democracy. So, again, I just wanted. Nick, I want to thank you so much for your work.
- [52:47]
C
I mean, thank you so much, Zachary. You know, I won't say that this book sank without a trace, but it was the least successful of my books, and that's saying a lot. I think the. I mean, it got great blurbs. I was kind of surprised I was looking at the blurbs on the back, but it really wasn't taken up. Wasn't taken up at the time. It didn't get into the conversation in political theory. It didn't get into the conversation in African American political theory. It didn't get into the conversation in black studies. It didn't get into the conversation. That was probably the most important conversation to me, which was the liberal think tank conversation about like, okay, how do we reinvent ourselves now that FDR liberalism can't do it anymore? How do we come up with new fresh ideas and understandings of democracy which we can use to construct an understanding of democracy, a compelling public understanding of democracy with which to oppose the right wing republican understanding? Where do we come up with those ideas? And I am saying to them, this was a shout out to you all at the center for American Progress and the bookings. Okay, read some African American literature, please. No, never got taken up there. And then in my home field of literary studies was completely, you know, academias is conservative as any other institution when you get right down to it. And there were certain guidelines for what was considered interesting work and what was not. This book did not meet the standards. So you know, I wrote it, I reread a little bit of it. Thanks to you. I thought, hey, this is pretty good. But it really was very helpful to me, encouraging to me to when you reached out and later when we off air, I'd be very curious to know, so how did you discover it and what your path to that book was?
- [55:13]
B
Yeah, I have been in a number of different places. Of course I spent a good bit of time in academia also spent some time in think tanks working and wanting to find ways to bridge, you know, the gap between those silos.
- [55:30]
C
Yeah.
- [55:30]
B
And certainly echo with you the need for, you know, those think tanks of varying sorts to give, you know, space and serious reflection to the scholarship that's happening in the academy. And I think perhaps like you said with Baldwin's reference, the time is always now. Maybe we're at that time to where people are, need to and will, you know, give more thought and just to everyday citizens thought about what needs to take place for democracy to thrive and, and, and to evolve. But I understand where you, where you're coming from and, and so certainly looking forward to talking with you, you know, again about, about, you know, my interest in how, you know, you know, come across, come across your work. But I love books, I love reading, I love knowledge, I love information from various walks of life. I mean subjects that, you know, incorporate African American studies but also go beyond it, global thought. And so for me, you know, all those strands are connecting even as we think about America as a global, you know, global country and a global nation. You know, like that.
- [56:35]
C
That's a topic we didn't touch on today for I think reasons that we can understand because historically right now we've got so many other, more pressing, you might say, things to think about. But yeah, that's another important contribution that I think African American artists and writers and thinkers and activists have made, giving us a way to blend cosmopolitan in the best sense. I prefer the word worldly, a worldly disposition with patriotism. That's a challenge that you want to see how it's done. Here are some people you could read, right.
- [57:27]
B
And there's so much more and I'm trying to encourage my students to do that. And sometimes they have glazed looks on their faces. I mean, they're interested, but still it's like it's so much I think they start to see that there's so much that's involved with it. So. Yeah. So thank you so much for your time. It's been great to have you on the New Books Network and look forward to talk with you more about.
- [57:48]
C
Thank you very much, Zachary. Thank you so much.
- [57:51]
B
Wish you all the best.
- [57:52]
C
You too. Be well.