We have had food for thought, we dont have much time for anyr other kind of food. Because were supposed to be back here at two. What im going to ask you to do is get something to eat quick and then come back because we are not finished yet. I do need you to remember though thank yo that these books and i think you for mentioning these books are available right in the hallways down the way and in the room. The official booksellers are called bookstore. Please support these authors an, poets. Fill out your evaluation forms. Please note this evening there is an awards ceremony and presentation. We want you there, its free. Theyre signing it now. Theyre going to be sending their book in the bookstore. Thank you so much. Please, you are are invited this evening for the reception we are honoring James Peterson and eric dyson. What else im supposed to tell you . Something else. Thats it . [inaudible conversation]brooklyl next up from the National Black writers conference in brooklyn, panel on politics and literature. I want to let you know that victoria was going to be introducing, right. Did you introduce yourself already . No. She holds a phd from Canal University in english language and literature. Shes an associate professor of english, all thats here. Urses n oh she teaches courses in latin american u. S. Latino literatures, caribbean literatures, literary theory and all related areas. She is currently has a manuscript under peerreviewed g titled black thing in trauma, memory, history and the 20th century, american literatures. American literatures. This is extensive. It is in your program. Ou so since we want to get with the program, get the rest of the information from the program. In that case im going to introduce briefly, are honoring for this 13th National Black writers conference was born in 1969 in portauprince, haiti. Her parents lead the regime and his son was able to settle in brooklyn, new york where theirde siblings had to remain behind. After years they were able to come to the states and be reunited with their parents. Theyre able to meet two new siblings they do not know. They started to on the craft as a writer during her adolescence. In in the United States, among many publish work we are actually blessed to have a book finalist, create dangerously the immigrant artist at work which the collection of essays. Declared the sea late published in 2013. The parents initially wanted her to focus on medicine she went on to study french literature. Later earned a creative writingd graduate degree from Brown University 1993. Her former master thesis was in 1994 as a story that follows a girl from haiti to the United States. Over the years we catalogued her funk fiction and created a vivid unflinching for trails of justice. Also in your program, Childs Johnson another honoree at the issues black writers conference is a 1998 fellow. He received National Book road for his book and is a 2002 recipient of recipient of the Academy Award for literature from the American Academy of arts and letters. In in 2003 he was elected to membership in the American Academy of arts and sciences. Science in 2003 again, the he was inaugurated at the literary scholar, screenwriter and cartoonist with thousands of published drawings he created and hosted a show, he he is Professor Emeritus at the university of washington in seattle. Lets get started with the panel today. Thank you. [applause]. So again i just want to thank you for being here today. I am going to read some introductory remarks that will frame what i expect expect to be an invigorating discussion between our panelists and then with you guys, the audience will go for about 45 minutes to one hour with them discussing the variout points that i am hopefully raising some punctuating marks in the conversation. Then well well have questions last 45tes. Minutes. So lets get right to it. Our panel is meant to address the risks writers take when working under challenging cultural and political context. That is is a summary and your program under the title,. The current challenges i say right now is the pinnacle framework of our nation which produces on the one hand both Barack Hussein obama elected twice office and exceedingly militarized police force in addition of course, we have mile experiencing the increasingly White Supremacy unmask in the republican candidate, most especially, donald trump. D although ted cruz and the rest are perhaps more dangerous. This is not the first time we have experienced this savagery as people of color in the United States. Yet in the postcivil rights there is perhaps the first time White Supremacy is gleefully performing its murderous stance on the backs of people in color and of the cell phone video. The i am a member of that firstgeneration, i cana tell you myself that i never thought as an adult i be looking at this current political landscape. Having been the recipient of the benefit of civil rights and the social revolution of the seventies, affirmative action which was murdered in the 80s, et cetera. I grew up and this attack on black life in black experience speaks to the experience of the black artists and collection worker in a particular way sos i the time subtitle as i suggested might be how do we kill right supremacy . I would like to quote from theue essay create dangerously in which she writes quote, the immigrant artist shares with all other artists the desire to interpret and possibly remake his or her own world so that we may not be creating as dangerously as our forebears that we may not be risking torture, beatings and execution. It does not threaten us into perpetual violence, still while we are at work, bodies are littering the street somewhere people are buried under the rubble somewhere. Mass graves are being dug somewhere,. In that essay i think you draw clear connection between the state violence upon the bodies of the insurgents and the immigrant artist desire to creatively remake that world whose work might save someones life or mind because they have given us a passport making this honorary citizens of their culture. In a another more recent essay which she was generous enough to share earlier this week entitler a right to be here. James baldwin and my third culture kids, she traces her relationship with art mid century jeremiah on the violence of racial terror and a necessary city of discuss it with her daughters. She also draws the connection in that piece between immigrant population from the current racial terror is a show black men and women. In this essay they state thatur the immigrants are here in america because our lives meant nothing to the powers that be where we come from. Then we come to realize that our lives mean very little here so johnsons Middle Passage have to share my students find the work very invigorating. They find precisely those which theoretically help allow us unpack how White Supremacy actually get started. How it actually works. The problem of that murderous suppression is actually at the root of western thought. Its argued was the captain of the ship republic that dualism is a bloodied structure of the mind, subject and object,s these perseverance of perceived, these ancient winds are built into the minds like stem piece of emergent man. We cannot think without them. Theyre assigned to theyre assigned to the transcendental faults, deep cracking consciousness itself. Mind was made for murder. Slavery, if you if you think this through is the social correlate of a deeper wounds. I have to say that there is that been a lot of work recently thats been encouraging that has been produced. These lines that remind me of claudias lines for her put tree, citizen that because a white man cannot police their imagination black men are dying. And of course we must always, already include black woman in that sentence as well. So i think between the work and Charles Johnsons work, we have sort of great introduction as to how White Supremacy works. Tart s i think maybe we can start discussing the position of the artists in the dismantling of White Supremacy. Especially in our contemporary political moment. If you think about it, White Supremacy secures itself against the symbolic order of language itself. Through the passage i read from Charles Johnsons work. That clarifies for worse. The dualism that structures western thought wants to keeph difference at arms length and thats why were here. Were the difference thats meant to be kept at arms lengthc therefore point is tenderness it distance itself it can keep himself from dying. Because the violence is being enacted on the back of the other. There theres always necessary to subsume. To speak, sig is my question to both is, how is intellectuals do you understand what now is necessarily as it has always been the project of murdering whiteness and White Supremacy. Of course i do not mean that literally. I mean it theoretically. It theoretically. Im not calling for actual particul murder. Ar of people as much of murder of an oppressive mindset that reproduces structures of how does the artist accomplish thisi especially in light of the history of the immigrant odyssey finds itself in forms by particular histories in america. Also reflected in the savage problem of the dualism which your work there ices. So we know that blood runs in the street so we know that it always has. So i i think that right now are question has to be how does our work address that violence. Taken away. Good afternoon. It is really wonderful to be here. At this great conference. I think to start off one of the things that i grabbed onto as you were talking is this notion, policing the imagination. I think one of the ways that White Supremacy has been able to crush us and whether it is through if youre from out of te this country through occupations, through imperialism and colonialism is by crushing the imagination. One of the ways that i think it is also exploded this type of pressure to arch. Two things that we have been able to create out of both necessity and out of resistancer so, one way to address and kill White Supremacy is by reclaiming our imagination. In many ways i think in many ways is been done instinctively, starting with spirituals or jazz, or the different art forms, religion that has emerged out of afro you cant practice your religion, you have to practice catholicism but then we will create this mix of the two, tha. Is our religion. I think the explosion of the imagination, by not just artists but by individual people for trying to survive is one way that we have always tried to kill White Supremacy. Im here really to listen. I think this question that you bring up about dualism is probably the most profoundnd virtually ev question that underlies virtually every other questionio and that question is, what is a self. Who am i and who are you . Where do i do i and and where do you begin . So i find myself, i witnessed and reflecting upon this often and to put it very well, long time ago it raise the question posted with James Baldwin when he said the only reason i am black is because you think you are white. Ion of this is something that is happening in the imagination. The construction of identity. White identity requires construction of a black identity. So how do do we address this. I think as you say, are results of these rigid, calcified, unchanging definitions of who we think we are. Ound breaking and i art always does that. It is groundbreaking and radical. This is something that we all have to concern ourselves with on a daily basis. How do we approach the other . How should we promote the other . My feeling is that we push the other but we should with legalistic, no assumption, no project interferes no project in our racial fears. Their parents, how they speak will inform us of who they are. And with listening is part of Something Else which i call humility. It is making assumptions about the other. I think others, i approach other people only with the idea that i want them to reveal to me who they are through their speech, their actions. L because new evin it is on that basis that i will make a judgment because it must be provisional because new evidence will require that i change my opinion. My wife and i have have been married for over 40 years. But she can still surprise me. Ive not been inside her head every moment for 40 years. She can still come up with ach tidbit from her chubbuck that she never talked about because the subject never came up. E dift so i get a whole different perception of her. So one of the ways we kill White Supremacy and any kind of supremacy in my opinion is we give apart judgment and assumptions, we approach the other, that is what bald baldwin met. Just respond to your comment about reclaiming the imagination especially in religions that touches a court for me because i am working right now on a longer piece on somebody. Which is a puerto rican synthetic religion which so what i find fascinating about this reclaiming of the imagination is that is all the cultures that i have had experience with, read about, live through, theres always a focus on the body in a particular way that demands a resistance to the language. That language of self and other which seems to get broken down two different ways in these alternative oppositional, systems. So i really appreciate you mentioning it is not just artists but actual individual people were living in the world were also themselves struggling with this current, political context context that we find yourself in. T they have to reclaim their imagination, perhaps through reclaiming a different language or avoiding language altogether. I was just thinking about that as you are talking about it. We speak about not having any assumption that is the first order that every english and philosophy professor brings to t their students. It. Assumptions will tell you more about yourself than about the text, riechght, but one of the things that you have to lairn how to do even at the level of this kind of thinking in college is release yourself of assumption and hopefully you can continue to reproduce that in the cultural social world. But theres a certain kind of privilege that i think White Supremacy and people that invest in it that makes that return to a different language, different order, a different oppositional language, reclamation of imagination, it makes it theres no magic bullet is what im saying. How do we get out of that subject wound, is it in the body, is it in religion, santaria, where do we find it in the west that is seems to be, rather, seems to be extensively structured by these polar opposites, white, black, male, female, gay, straight and everything in between. I was just wondering if you would might expand a little bit more on your original comments. Either one of us. It doesnt have to go in order. Well, i dont think theres a single solution for everyone, thats why so many of us struggle specially when you not have young children, right, to explain this world to them because if there were a magic solution we would arm them with it and take go forth a young person so class privileges, theres location, geography, what you live, what you might encounter, so i think it shifts, its something that lets say we have try today shed the assumptions and we have armed ourselves with the culture and the knowledge and still the problem exists as it does and what does one do . Its also a very real problem of going out in the world and expecting harm to be done to your body or or, which is similar, i tbrui up under dictatorship, it was like it was for my parents, youre leaving, you dont know whats going to happen out there. I think theres the figuring out of that situation in every day which leads to these talks, that, you know, the talk that we always hear about and as a parent, you know, you get the talk as a child and as a parent you get the talk, you have to give the talk and you are shocked by the facility of it and theres ultimately, i think thats where the body and the recent emphasis and the narratives on the body realize that in videos have given us the proof, they are vulnerable in church as in charleston, they are vulnerable on the bus and street and i think thats where we have been hearing so much too abt the concentration of the body because we saw the body and its on display every time we see one of those videos. Amen. [laughter] well, isnt that isnt that also part of the problem, right, that our bodies are we have become, i guess since in the era of technological revolution, the era of all the cell phone, videos, everything that was already happening but sort of gone underground before everyone had one of these have gone underground but probably a lot more violence occurring that we didnt actually have visual access to. Isnt that also part of the problem as you were saying that, you know, you have to keep, its a necessary conversation to have and also to be aware that while we are vulnerable theres vulnerable on the other side and gets covered by the same violence by the violence thats visited upon bodies of color. So i was wondering, you know, in the piece that you that you shared with us this past week with charles and i, you spoke about president obama and maybe he would be considered, specially considering the way in which he was received during campaigns as one who was not american, not legitimate american, someone who is questionable if he too would be thought of as a refugee. Its someone who is not quite a citizen and therefore more vulnerable by the lack of a kind of passport that is supposed to be part of your, you know, part of your birthright or when you become a citizen of a nation. Sort of the definition of citizenship, right, from the beginning, from the creation of the nation is that citizenship was not going to turn everybody equally and so so the state starts it out and the citizens follow and the structures follow. So then how do we not reproduce those structures . I think thats a problem that weve had quote unquote e man cippation emancipation. Let me ask you a question. Is it possible to end racism . In my lifetime or in general . In lifetime, 200 years . That guy who establishes analysis says that the end of civilization that even if we erased all the differences in the world that human genome would find a way to oppress somebody else. I dont you know, i dont know that i fully agree with that. I think everybody should read that civilization. You know, sometimes we talk about giving the talk or where we are in 2016, we sometimes feel in terms of how much progress we have, in fact, made as the people in this nation during 244 years of slavery and seven years of jim crowe and everything since Civil Rights Movement. I do think that we have made progress, i feel that my parents, grandparents were formed in a heroic fashion, physical violence, you know, attacking the black body and they emerged from that creating this country, are indeed the creators of this country. I dont want anybody to diminish that. You know who we are talking about. We are talking about the unnamed people, you know. Every year, every year people ask civil rights people, quote, they say if king were here and congressman john lewis in the 90s said something i thought was really important, he said if king were here in addition to saying we should be doing something, we need a revolution in the black community. We need to understand that non violence was intended not just as strategy but as a way of life and we need to thats one thing he says, but we need a revolution of ideas in values and ive never forgotten because he was there, you know, so i think there has been progress and its been maybe two steps forward and one step back, its been bloody, i dont give up on that hope because i cant give up on that hope for my children and certainly not for my 4yearold grandson. You know, i have to have him have a confident feeling about himself, a strength that is his inheritance as a black american. So i dont think we can get rid of racism, i dont because its anchored in the human ego and the ego is a very difficult it will fight to stay alive under any circumstances the ego will and human beings arent capable of that. You have to go to the right if you want to be radical, i cant think of more radical addressing of the selfof who am i and who are you because thats the next question that comes up. Are you [applause] all right. Im going to take a moment and theres a paper for audience to write questions for the q a which is supposed to start in ten minutes. Youre supposed to write your name on a piece of paper if you want to ask a question and we will be collecting in ten minutes to get the q a started. I hope i havent come across as pessimist in this regard in this panel, i do think we have to be careful with a certain kind of optimism because you always sort of have to keep this history, the history of the the ancestors that you eloquently cataloged for us and you have to keep the history of the one hand and the regard of current experience of black lives in the United States in the other hand. The current experience of black lives in the United States is not just violence, its also productive, its also the people who are living their lives, they are living their lives to proximity to violence and death for someone of my generation when i was a child as i said at the beginning to have panel, i never thought i would be looking at a United States that looks like this as an adult. So to go back to your point, at the origin of the foundational documents for these documents theres already inequality written into those documents that brings us back to the question of well, how does an individual how does a productive individual, how does the artist continue to sort of chip away as this huge problem of the ego as you call it or the huge problem, what i think of as White Supremacy. Charles suggested always surrender your assumptions and leave your assumptions at the door when you meet someone and comments of suggested kind of consciousness about about what it means to produce while death is all around you to some agree or vulnerable, potential vulnerability of the black body is all around you, so how do we how might we continue to chip away at that problem that we are consistently faced with which is not our problem but everyones one, its certainly enacted on our bodies in a more direct way. Two quotes . Yes. Martin luther king, jr. , unfilled dreams. And in it he talks about the difficulties of trying to finish what is quote, unfinishable. The other quotes were from his wife which said for one thing we didnt teach the young people is that we had done certain things, right, established a certain thing and the Civil Rights Movement but they would have to fight the battles all over again and we didnt tell them that was a necessary thing because theres nothing permanent and it could be reversed and can be rolled back and so what you see, perhaps, black lives Matter Movement is the awakening to the fact that those have to be done all over again because people will stupidly do the same things from one generation to the next. They dont learn necessarily so you cant think things are done once and for all. Yeah, i remember when i was writing a book about a massacre of haitians in the dominican republic, freedom is a passing thing. Someone could always come and take it away. Thats one of the thgs that they stressed and youre right, i think this thats this new generation is reminding us of that, that its an ongoing, its an ongoing struggle and its important, its important that they also that theyre doing it on their own terms and their own ways addressing the current moment, i think its very powerful and im also, you know, im looking forward to the black lives matter literature and poetry. So i think i i think its important for us to also leave room for that because thenso you dont fall into this drop of sort of this start about who we are because i think the more to be an artist of definition is to be free even if its that kind of freedom that can be taken away, but but whenever theres a flair of Movement Like the movement we are seeing, im always im always agoer to see sort of what the cultural work will be that emerges out of that. I think im very excited by the sort of the marriage of that kind of engagement thats so in your face thats so powerful and see what poetry comes out of it so that excites me but i also dont want to assign everybody that task. No, absolutely. Thats something that again with my students we constantly discuss the fact that certainly in the black lives matter moment the body has reentered, in the poetry and literature embodied in a particular kind of way which challenges the problem of language in the west in a really interesting way also, but when i discuss with my students what constitutes black art and black culture and who gets to define it, right, and who is a political artist in the black community, we can list up so many people who have written as apolitical and thats really an first of all, unfair assumption to make and so i appreciate what youre saying about not assigning a particular task to the but people come to what is politics in art with a series of assumptions. Yeah, preaching to the converted. I really appreciate the [laughter] i really appreciate the fact that theres a certain kind of freedom that should be you know, generously at the reading, at the performance, at the level of the production before assumptions are made because at some level with immigrant artist, black artist, specially in the moment seems like we are sort of at the kind of if youre conscious about it, theres a politics to youre producing in that space because we are at the limit of death and i think theres a way in which death is experienced in the immigrant artist world. Certainly this particular moment and the world that again goes back to what White Supremacy is trying to to do. Anything you would like to say before we turn to question and answer session . We can open it up from there. Okay, we are going to open it up to the q a session. I think there were slips of paper handed out for people to and i think someone is collecting them down stage. [inaudible] okay. Great. They need the mic closer to you. I think its worth stressing and its a very individual levels. The entire idea and i think the presence of death, when you add the social elements, you know, of racialized killing or dictatorship killing and theres further urgency that i think thats always embedded in the Creative Process, just creating in order to live in another kind of way. No, that is the authority against the artist is creating again, absolutely. I agree. [laughter] okay. Well, i think it seems that to briefly wrap up this portion of the panel, the point seem to be a kind of consciousness about your assumptions as you greet the world of the other if im paraphrasing you correctly, being sort of hypervigilant about your assumptions as how you quote greet the world to another and the history as stated specially in the continental unit the history is always reproduced in the documents of citizenship or lack thereof, its always in the social and political world that we move through, so that is why its so important to at some level be able to arrest or or dissolve once assumptions once one meets another whoever he is or she appear to be. I really like the emphasis on an access covers, i think ancestors. Also speaks to the idea of the the of the vulnerability of the experience and the body and also the strength of it and the strength of that history, heroic history, which is people often times say why do we have to talk about slavery and i say we havent gotten started, we havent gotten started yet. We have generations of young people who dont have a particular kind of Historical Context of civil rights and slavery, returning to the past is as cliche but in a real way gets you to a kind of selfconsciousness about your productive, hopefully more productive future. Its a difficult balance to strike, i would say. So on that note, im going to where is our person with the questions . Shes still there. Okay. Oh, shes over there, okay. Great. Organizing the questions. Okay. Do you guys feel when you sit down to write or even to think, Critical Thinking or any kind of creativity, do you guys feel that youre creating dangerously which is the title of our panel and the title of wonderful book of essays, oh, and i have another question about those essays . Do you feel that it is a kind of dangerous Creative Process that youre engaging . Are you asking us . You. [laughter] you first. [laughter] well, not always which which is why i made the very clear distinction in the essay is that certainly my ancestors were creating more dangerously than i was. The writer that is came before me. In the era that my parents grew up during dictatorship people had to bury their books and writers were exiled, were imprisoned and theres this one story of one writer who during the theres a period where people would be killed by and bodies left on the street, so he decided to stage the play which is about a woman and to them it was a bunch of people and he had figured out a way to pass on this message that this has happened before, whats happening in the country has happened in times past, so it makes me feel less winey because the people that came before me had much more greater abtackles. There are people who still have those obstacles whether its access to literacy. But i think that it still requires to overcome history inside you or what others might have been telling you that this is not what we do. Charles, do you think youre creating dangerously . Well, this takes us back to a fundamental question. Why write . Theres a lot of Different Reasons for writing, sometimes when art is at its best it liberates and we could never see the same subject the same way. We come out of a story, we come out of atory not as clean as when we went in. Thats true for the writer. Writer has to go through a process of challenging himself or herself and you dont come out of the story as clean as you went in. Its a transformative process for the writer as well as one hopes for the reader but i would like to leave open the possibility that some might be entertaining because we need joy and laughter and thats just always tears. So i think sometimes we create dangerously and sometimes we create for the joy of the reader, you know. Perhaps the most dangerous creation is the joyful one, specially with, you know, in the history of this particular nation and our history. The histories that we are discussing. Perhaps that is the most dangerous the most dangerous undertake to go sort of catalog human joy respect, love. My students are reading reflected in that novel i would say. So on that note i am going to read a list of names of peoples whose questions im sorry going to ask. If i mispronounce your name and i apologize in advance, looks like cased ricardo, janelle, caseed ricardo, janelle, marlene, carl, michael datcher, dalia elliot, christian and im asked to remind you to be short. We have about 30 minutes left for the panel for questions and answers and maybe a little bit further discussion so take it away. Are you caseed . Cased, do you feel White Supremacy, are white people merely trying to survive . Are white people really what can you repeat that . Merely trying to survive. Could you repeat the first part of the question . Do you feel its predicated on selfpreservation . On selfpreservation. I think, yeah, thats selfpreservation all too often that follows suppression. Thats been the problem since the very beginning. Yeah, its about the ego. The ego wants to survive and does not want to be subordinate to others that do not look like them. Its part of how the ego operates. And i agree. I think even if you take to global context, col anialism, imperialism, its about even the conquering of other lands, its about expanding your kind and specially when it feels threatened, so the kind of based on selfpreservation but its not new. I see in a sense like if we were free to do whatever we want to do and, you know, we all were just out there procreating a hundred years from now it would be one color and theyll kind of just blend out and so they would kind of have to force themselves in the world and make black bad and white right and so on and so forth and give you this ideology to not destroy white because if you destroy it they wont exist but if youre spending your life trying to be white you wont destroy it. I feel like the whole is that its there for a reason and so i used to think about race in a sense that its harsh and the way that they have us like this, but its actually kind of sad once you think about it because theyre just trying to exist in the sense that we were just procreating they would be one color, and so i feel like thats the only way they could exist and i just wanted your thoughts on it because there was a theory i was working in my head as well. Thank you, appreciate it. You are talking about. It is about maintaining power. If you are the slave master talking about procreation you get your way, you get the black woman too. You dominate in terms of information. But if i am not mistaken in terms of World Population, the conservative and liberal estimate, the conservative estimate places white people at 17 of the World Population and people of color 83 but the liberal statistic is black people, people of color make 70 and wait make 30 . If you get out of a western fishbowl that we swim around in that is mainly predominantly white, we get an idea what the planet is like, but out of that fishbowl the fish goes in the ocean, these people are in a minority and have been worried about this for a long time. Look at the beginning of gatsby, characters worried about the chinese constantly worried about the racial other overwhelming them. So that is what that is about, materialism and colonialism which you cant maintain. Perhaps our particular moment, the violence is directed to that hysteria. As numbers in the United States become increasingly more and more larger on the people of color side, they hit that violence, erupting is certainly connected. In charleston. Good afternoon. I am touching on the basic question, through literature there is knowledge. My question is how do you penetrate the mindset or the ego of those who practice White Supremacy and do you think your voice will ever be heard by them through books or your works, and reading your works, will that ever touch them . Good question. They dont read my works. I dont think they read much at all. Can literature change the world. We hope. Are we taking turns . Thank you for this panel, thank you for your work and your service. In the context, and the context of racialized bodies, how can they change the content of the talk they gave the children. How can parents change . That is something i am wrestling with as a parent, being careful, with certain prejudices, how to do that without also seeming, the imagination, building with that warning to be careful, building a cage for them, and if you transfer that to the work, we also went to write about themselves, also want to be writing with the white gays. And the freedom to speak to each other, between how parents talk to their children about the world, and talk to one another about who we are, and it is not written with that shadow over our heads. If everything we were writing were guided by that gays. How do we do it . Within ourselves has been said and also to also allow ourselves that privilege. And constantly having that in the back of our minds and the background of our work. I often used a metaphor, terms of what we are talking about, two kids, son and daughter, she is now 34. You always have to give the talk to them at some point. My daughter got it well and got it early. The way i described it to myself, if you are black in america, you understand, you are looking at your life. And whites and blacks and blow you up. And in the wrong place at the wrong time. And blowing themselves up. And i am going to make an effort. And cant get to them. The problem is to your ancestors and predecessors, in the 19th century, 20th century, they clear a path. And we know that. And on the minefield, halfway through. And if we listen to the wisdom of our elders. And their theory doesnt matter to us, and so you might very well put your foot down and that is what parents are therefore and grandparents are there for. I dont think we have enough, we used to have that. We need to have more of that. You want them to be positive but you are not going to lie to them about what is up there but they are not alone either. Thank you. My question is directed to the subject of dealing with White Supremacy. In new york city, the center of the financial world, the media world, the question is post White Supremacy, what would that world be like . That is a big hypothetical. We in this room here, all kinds of people, and if we are going to do this, what is the world going to imagine . My premise is the world we live in. They are still the same. What are we saying about White Supremacy . [applause] what do you mean the world will be the same . These are all based on what is inherent in all that we see. We cannot talk about oppressing people. We are talking about White Supremacy and where we stand. What we should be standing on, live differently, has nothing to do with White Supremacy, we bought into this complex, we get our carrots and garlic from china. So whether we kill White Supremacy or kill the system, are we willing to give the system up . It is oppressive. In other words somebody is working on it. So how do we prevent that loss . I am bullets. That is my solution. I am serious. I want all sentiment beings to know happiness and freedom from suffering. That is the way i tried to approach everything and i mean cindy and beings, that is everything, animals, plantss, the whole cindy and world is our community, our beloved community as king put it, that was the goal for king, the beloved community, not integrating and all that stuff. A beloved community so maybe that is what you would find in a post white supremacist world. That is what wanted. I very much appreciate what you are saying, focusing on one type of supremacy, there are different types, there are all these different types of supremacy, without neglecting White Supremacy but the whole system is what you are suggesting. A little bit, my thought process is Bernie Sanders is talking about breaking up the banks. The banks are not the problem. The problem is walmart. Everything has gotten so big it cant be valued. And mcdonalds, small farms. And the enemy of the nba. People pushing for efficiency. And allowed people to connect. There is a connection. Hello. My name is ricardo. I am a reporter with the shadow league. I have been writing for 15 years professionally. I have written dozens of racial think pieces. However, nothing in comparison to what you have written and each one is laborious and heavy. What i want to know is how do you insulate your self emotionally . Do you have any suggestions . It is like chopping off a limb every time. Is that one from the . Anybody. I am writing a piece, help me. You are talking about the reaction he received your piece . I am speaking regarding insulating your self from knowing the socalled secret, being aware, for example, when you learned what nixon advisor said, we did this if we are black people, drove me crazy. I wrote about it and two weeks ago, i still feel the residual. I wrote about trey von martin or dirty cops, everything stays with me. I have heard myself in my own way. How do you insulate your self from the process . In 1998 i wrote 12 stories about slavery, a book called africans in america, a companion volume for the fourth part of the pbs series, africans in america, very powerful especially the first show on slavery. I wrote them because i wanted somebody, tricia smith did that for the text, based on the tv series. A short story writer, to dramatize the historical record, there are 12 stories. In boston, go through it. I had to go back, i told my wife and son and daughter i am going to be gone for a month but i will be physically here. My mind will be in the 19th century and the 18thcentury. I had the most profound hate, had to feel the most profound suffering if i am going to write about People Living the slave experience. I dont like to hate. That does more damage, in order to do the story i had to feel hate, murderous hate. The last story and there is called murderous thought. I did three a week. It was 1998, in january i wrote those stories, there is part of me that is a sandwich. I will feel and experience hatred but here is the difference. I know i am not my thoughts or feelings which i can watch them happen, be aware of them. Including thoughts and feelings, you hang onto it, and increase your suffering and why am i feeling hatred towards that person . Maybe because he reminds me of a character i wrote about. You step back from your own mind and realize your are not your mind, your conscience is but your mind is conditioned. If you are willing to practice, that might help because every time, if it bleeds it leads. We got a lot of blood he needs, we can talk about that. That is not going to leave your consciousness. You will find somebody to hell yourself with that i think. It is important, how you would feel if you didnt write it. Right . I think if you didnt write it, and also in a situation, what it is like for the person living it, it gets much worse than my writing about it. It is important to do selfcare, that is something that is entered in the lot of activists, so you dont get ptsd over what you do, there is selfcare but also those of us that are drawn to these kinds of stories would be worse off if we didnt. Thank you very much. [applause] thank you. I will be reading for a daily a elliott. It will never end, therefore we are left to navigate society. What suggestions do you have to assist us in this process . Could you restate . Could you repeat that . I agree racism will never end, therefore we are left to navigate this society. What suggestions do you have to assist us in this process . I have a thought. I think we should see ourselves the way immigrants see us, we know we created this, we should also be aware of why we are here. What do you want from this place. If you figure out how to get it, when you got it are you prepared to realize you have got it. In other words you dont want to get lost, you want to be focused and get your kids focused early too. The important thing is like the attitu of the immigrant who comes over and there are many kinds of immigrants. You ask yourself why am i here . What does this place offers at no other place does . I remember when i was in college, there was a journalism major, he said to me the thing i like about america is no matter what you want to learn there is someone who can teach it to you, that is the way he put it about how he liked america, it was a place there are skills i can get and want to get them. Similarly it is a lot easier to publish here than in some other places. Ask yourself what you want from this place and then have the awareness to say maybe we got them and it is time to back off. Navigation through this much. We have about 10 minutes left and two questions. Do you want to answer the last question . Thank you. We will ask questions at the line and the panelists for questions. Thank you. Okay. My name is marlene and i have a question about cultural responsibility and the black experience, i want to know how you navigate as writers when there is a tug and pool, me being black but also being a woman, wanting to embrace aspects of writing that may not include me as a woman. How do you deal with that . The other question. My name is christian and i have a question regarding White Supremacy and different diverse forms in the International World so scholars including feminists talk about the importance of universality, the diverse truth of people around the world in opposition to universality and the dangers of providing one prescription to one issue. How can activists and allies understand the understanding of it . We will be blending these questions. I think we have one more right here. That is the last question. Key minister. Okay. Mister johnson. I am a Senior Citizen but to me, you are my ancestors. I am led by your work, your work is elegant, heroic, profound, and always a blessing to be here. I paid you to say that. Just incredible. My question is this. For those of us who have completed works, what do we look for in choosing editors and agents that will be supportive to us and our experience. What should we look for . Where are they . And also, what would you say about advising us the courage of that journey. I dont know if i am asking you it is such a difficult process and it requires so much, especially for those of us that have been raised in the 50s, that our First Priority is family and our race and our children, our husbands, our grandchildren, how do we get to a point where we can do this with all we have to be responsible for or many people that look to us. Thank you. I am not sure of the answer to the question. We came to the same journey, if you were growing up in the 50s, the family was important. Family unit was a survival unit for the longest time. How do you combine that with artistic productivity. Dont forget. Universality. To the last question, try to work backwards. When you talk about dangerous creations but also being bold, to take on this task to be vulnerable in the moment of standing here and talking about that, something the only part of it i feel we have not even total control but more control over is what we were doing, the writing itself. We want to try to get that to the best point you can. And do you attend things like this. And it was mostly online. And inform, the best work you can but that was the only part of it you can control. To be vulnerable and do the best work, and the diverse truth of people around the world, in the discourse, and the global something it was fabulous to see, and the issues in different ways to get the feminist, the immigrants, people who were concerned about police violence. It is not unusual to see dreamers who came here very young but are still deportable, involved in black lives matter. And very much involved in what is happening in haiti and brazil, and more and more, the new generation, we have these intersections