Transcripts For CSPAN3 Elizabeth Alexander The Trayvon Generation 20221112

Going to go right into our conversation. Elizabeth alexander is a prize winning and New York Times bestselling author, renowned american poet, educator, scholar and cultural advocate. Her memoir, the light of the world was a finalist for the pulitzer prize. And one of my favorite books and National Book critics circle awards. She composed and recited praise song for the day for president barack obamas. 2009 inauguration and is currently president of the Andrew Mellon foundation, the nations largest funder of the arts, culture and humanities humanities. So im looking forward to this conversation. I love this book, the trayvon generation. My first question really is about the books title, because it has multiple meanings and what what is this . What does it mean for you . The trayvon generation . Well, i think, first of all, im so happy to be here with all of you. So thank you so much for coming out. Im so happy to be here with you in what feels like an conversation that we get to focus in the here and now. So thank you. And to your question, i think i said it better in how i wrote it. So i want to just give you a little taste of what how i think of the trayvon generation. This one was shot in his grandmothers yard. This one was carrying a bag of skittles. This one was playing with a toy gun in front of a gazebo. Black girl in bright bikini, black boy holding cell phone. This one dance like a marion that as he was shot down in a chicago intersection, the words, the names, trayvon, laquan, bikini gazebo, lucy, skittles, 2 seconds. I cant breathe traffic stop dashboard cam 16 times his dead body lay in the street in the august for 4 hours. I call the young people who grew up in the past 25 years the trayvon generation. They always knew these stories. These stories formed their worldview. These stories helped instruct young africanamericans about their embodiment and their vulnerable ity. These stories were primers in fear and futility. These stories were the ground soil of their rage. These stories instructed them that antiblack hatred and violence were never far. This is the generation of my sons. Now 23 and 24, and their friends who are also my children and, the University Students i have taught and mentored and loved over decades. And this is also the generation of darnella frazier, the 17 year old minneapolis girl who came upon George Floyds murder in progress while on an everyday run with her cousin to the corner store filmed it on her phone and posted it to her facebook page. So thats who the trayvon generation is. And even though we know that American History is marked with so many moments of racially motivated violence, and that if you think about emmett till, if you think about rodney king, you know, there are are all of these flash points in our history where we not only say enough is enough, but when we say what do we have to learn collectively from this moment . I think whats different now is that with these young people and with the technology of the cell phone, they are on their phones, out of the eyes and arms of people who love them. Theyre watching these things repeated, repeated times, dozens and dozens of times. And i would like to know how were going to think about the effects on an entire generation of of that kind of not the exposure per se, but the knowledge that comes with the exposure. And i think thats really very, very important because i think Trayvon Martin and trayvons death and the acquittal of his murderer really are one of the hinge points of this period in time that ive called the third reconstruction. Mike. My question for you right now is about the art in the book. Theres theres so much beauty and poignancy in the book. It really is. And theres art in the book. But you also obviously, youre youre a poet. A scholar. So many different things. You talk about the art. I want to talk to you and ask you a question. In what ways does black art and representations, blackness in art shape this particular moment . And the second part is in the politics of the trade. Trayvon martin generates, an as well as the wider nation. Yeah. Well, you know, one of the things that im just so proud with the physical object of this book, because i wanted to include work by amazing, amazing artists that would help us think and feel and understand and make an offering really, to young people. So here, just as an example. This is how its set up throughout the book, beautifully reproduced and the work of art in here. In addition, the poetry thats included in here is meant to be literally a part of reading the book, a part of the conversation. So that youre reading words, but youre also experiencing these images. And its not like one illustrates the other. Rather, its part of a much richer way at understanding our moment. And i think that, you know, i both wanted to listen. So a very important kind of hinge moment was after Trayvon Martins murderer was acquitted, George Zimmerman, that happened at the same moment that the incredible movie Fruitvale Station directed by ryan coogler, came out. And so if you think about like literally and i remember it with, you know, my two young men that we were watching Fruitvale Station, which of course, tells the story of a murder that happened in the San Francisco bay area. Bart station. And i was thinking, hmm, my kids are 12 and 13. What does it mean to take them to see this story . But we need to be able to talk about this reality. And we came out of the theater to the news that George Zimmerman had been acquitted. So to be able to say is an artistic response because, you know, oscar grant, who is the subject of Fruitvale Station. If youve seen the film or if havent, its a day in the life. So we start with you know, the alarm goes off, he wakes. He plays with this baby girl. He passes with his partner. He goes to work. He picks something up for mother. Its everybodys regular day. But you watch knowing what is going to happen at the end. And so i think that, you know, the Overall Mission here, if you dehumanize people, if you do not see them in their fullest dimension, if you describe them in dehumanize in terms that is how we move along the road to violence. And think that this is something that we know just as human beings. So i think that that combination of okay here people heres a film that lets us talk about this and also saying, you know young people what is the art that you are making . So theres a lot of listening thats happening in the book as trying to sort of be very importantly multigenerational, because i think that unless we move across the generations, generally speaking, were not going to make social progress. Now, as parent of a young black girl, i was particularly moved by your discussion of your two sons and you just finished talking about them and the world they face in terms of the of Racial Injustice and moral rot. What kind of possibility those as well as challenges. Is the trayvon generation in inheriting . Well, you know, we could talk about my sons all day couldnt we . They are amazing young people. I think. And i do think that. There is a kind of clarity that they have about justice. And they know they to raise their voices. You know, at the you know, i cant even remember of the moments where we were faced with, you know, this kind of violence where we felt we had to respond. But ill never forget, we live in new york city and one such thing happened and they said, mama, we have to go out. People protesting, we have to be a part of this. And, you know, i think that the maternal balance, you know, here are big guys in hoodies going out into a dangerous world. But can we raise our children to experience the world as always dangerous . We cant. I mean, so i think that balance of, you know, finding the joy in everyday life. So i talk. About dancing. Yes. You know, i talk about, you know, what does it mean . I feel something that my my sons love to dance and love to dance in community, loved to be in there safely. That feels very important to me when there is so much that is frankly frightening and have always thought that knowing history, having a societal analysis, american traditions of raising our voices to injustice, that that is empowering for young people and that that is in addition of course, to boundless love and understanding that there no such thing as other peoples children. So, you know, i quote from gwendolyn brooks, the poet, quite a bit, and shes someone whose work has been completely empowering to my own poetry. And that is, you know, one of the whole gists of her work is that all of our children belong to us. Because when you start thinking, my children, my house, those children out there, then we are no longer acting as a society. And were also imagining that there is a zero sum with our spiritual and emotional and cultural and material resources, but no matter how much you have, you never have only enough for the people you happen to be responsible for in your house. I believe. Now i want to ask a question about, again, this particular moment, because i think your book joins the conversation with people like Nikole Hannahjones and imani perry clint smith, Hanif Abdurraqib and mariam kaba. Just a whole range of what i would call black artist, activist, scholar poets, writers who are really using black cultural and literary traditions. This moment, i think, in striking ways that actually both parallel the first and second reconstruction, but go beyond because we have such multiple quality. So its not just james, you know, and i love james baldwin, but its and so much of it is really black women multi generationally telling our story ill say not even their story telling our story yet because. Its part of my story too. I want you to discuss that terms of the trayvon generation, the way in which you really mind in brilliant ways here, generational, literary and cultural traditions in the africanamerican and vein poetry, prose, music, song gospel, just the whole range. Right. And its really, really well. Why is this such a striking time where even during the moral rot that you describe, were seeing such a flourishing of just black art . Its incredible. Yes. And youre president of the Andrew W Foundation and youre amplifying that. And bigger ways, even beyond your own individual artistic voice. I want to want to talk about that. Yeah. Mean, i do think i think i think an extraordinary time not because more people are making because i believe theres a pretty steady state of creativity over place in time. So if we look back at, you know, we were talking about the harlem renaissance this morning or if we look back at other moments in time artists, you cannot actually, as it turns out, in the my experience here yet i pray extinguish intellectual and artistic creative voices. Whats changed i think, is just and you know, this this is attributed to the political movements of the 1960s this is attributed to black studies and ethnic studies. This is attributable to all of the movement in society. This is attributable to affirmative action. Lets talk about that. All of the things that have said our societal spaces have to be more open and democratic. They have to welcome more people, because if we dont do that in our universities, in our publishing houses, in our uplifting creativity, were not going to be seeing all the creativity. So even though i think all of those arenas to which ive been in, which ive been privileged to work, you know, the realm of creativity as a poet, the academy, as a scholar, and now philanthropy. There is still so much progress that is to be made. So but we have made progress and hopefully weve made progress with people who say, you know none of us stands alone. And the that i was taught is any that you get in youre there as a representative of other people bring as many people through the door with you. So sometimes that means literally, you know if you have the capacity to, you know, bring in students or hire people or, whatever it might be, but also you walk in many voices, not just your own, which again, i mean, i think running counter to this idea of american exceptionalism, that there is theres no such thing as genius. Ill just say, i think there are many genii, but i think that, you know, genius occurs equal distribution but not equal elevates. And and theres always more than than one. So thats kind of why i think that, you know, with a little bit of an aperture of more of us in leadership positions, were able to articulate multiplicity and bring more people with us. Now, i mean, you before getting on the stage, were talking about storytelling, the power of storytelling. And i want to really dive into that with some of the specific i mean, i love all of it, but there were certain chapters, like the chapter we dress our ideas and clothes to make the abstract visible that really are so powerful and well done. I want to talk about angola. Yeah. Storytelling and storytelling through. But just the storytelling. And you you humanize just in that chapter, the angolan experience. Daddyo, the oldest inmate in angola state penitentiary. And you talk about your own visit to angola really deeply moving, but also deeply illuminating. And i think in miniature, it shows us the power of story telling, because there are so many other stories within the book. And then just that story. We dress our ideas and clothes to make the abstract visible. So. So id love you to break. Thank you for asking about that, because i wanted to talk about that and i wanted to, you know, so angola prison in louisiana holds the largest number of people with life sentences on planet earth. 90 of the people who are incarcerated there will die. Abuses of cell, i mean. Well, i believe solitary confinement in every instance is an abuse. But, you know, further abuses, solitary confinement are there. And why i wanted to visit and visit with colleagues is that i think its very important to that. If were going to understand our society writ large, that people who are inside and who are outside, we need to understand that those boundaries are porous and crossed all the time. And we need to actively resist the idea that if you put people away and out of sight, if you dehumanize them to that extent, then you can forget about them. And so when i went to visit the place and perhaps some of you have seen it is literally a former plantation even bigger than the island of manhattan. And the first thing you see when you go in there are guards on horseback who supervising black and brown men who are picking cotton and okra. The tableau unchanged. And yet it is also a place where they have a golf course, where they say to people who are not incarcerated, please come and sit at our wonderful 18th hole restaurant after youve played your golf and look upon this is a leisure leisure to look out upon this place. So i thought it very important to to include that in this Conference Mission which is also about ultimately all of our humanity and when you talk about storytelling and this, to give you a sense of the power of art, ill read this small section. I want to tell you about, Herman Wallace. He was convicted of armed robbery, sent to angola in 1971. Once there, he established the angola chapter of the black panther with ronald ellsworth, Albert Woodfox and gerald bryant. After permission. The angola panthers organized to improve conditions in the prison, which made them targets of the administration. In 1972, a white prison guard named brant miller was murdered angola. By 1974, wallace and woodfox were convicted for. The murder of the murder without one shred of physical evidence linking them to the crime. And they were put along. Robert king in solitary confinement where they were held for more than 40 years, the longest period anyone has been held in, solitary confinement in American History until their release was secured. Now, here to the the hardest part, the artist Jackie Sumell learned who is white, by the way, learned of wallaces story in 2001 and shortly thereafter to him commencing a 12 year friendship during which they exchanged over 300 letters and many phone calls when she was an mfa student at stanford, she received the assignment asking a professor to describe their most exorbitant dream home in order to study spatial relations ships. And she said that what she wanted to do, thinking about dynamics of race, wealth and privilege which was to turn to herman rather than a stanford and ask the seemingly simple question, what kind of house does a man who has lived in a six foot, six foot by nine foot box for almost 30 years, dream of. And over the ensuing months, they communicated. They wrote. He she designed the house. He described for a black panther on the bottom of a swimming pool. Photographs of black heroes, a bar with martini glasses, a library with books about black liberation, and an iconic seventies fur throw across the bed. She drew the house he dreamed she built a of the house that he and while she was working on the house, his conviction overturned Herman Wallace was released from prison. He visited with sumell and his family and celebrated his freedom and died three days later. And so sumell finished hermans house as a movable work of art and has toured it in art spaces around the country and continues to keep Hermans Legacy alive through the solitary gardens project, where solitary confinement cells are turned into equally sized garden beds. Incarcerated prisoners in solitaire confinement designed the gardens plant life and tend to them in with those on the outside. It started and here im reading with a question. A man who lived 41 years in solitary confinement for a crime he not commit before i saw angola prison myself and walked where the tens of thousands of human beings whose lives have been affected by it lived. Artists showed me so and more of us can know about this because the art sees for us and carries traces of the lives of the human beings who are remembered by their loved ones and who we cannot turn away from. And the chapter ends. What you picture when you picture your home and you know to the line that you quoted, which is the title of the chapter, we dress our ideas in clothes to make the abstract visible. That was something that was spoken in what was called a Meditation Group that visited where for people again, 90 of the people there will die. There. Do reading and writing over just a six week period. And i visited that class and listened to the men talk and when i heard that phrase, it literally pulled me into that circle because i thought, i am a teacher. And in one of my classrooms, if someone spoke that line, i would say, tell me more. Thats an incredible phrase. What do you mean . Yeah. And whats so interesting this dovetails perfectly into my next question. And for people, were going to have questions and answers q a. And theres a microphone right there. So people want to start lining up in a few minutes, well have q a. You know, you write so well, elizabeth, about emotion and feelings. And i want to talk about that in terms how can these emotions pain, joy, grief, love, inform, perhaps even transform them the way in which we view, narrate and discuss race, democracy, humanness in america . Because so much of what youre talking about really is universal but done through the particular, specific lens of the black literary, cultural, political, Human Experience in america and globally. Yeah, i mean, i think. I feel like every day i try to move with empathy, you know, to feel with not to feel for, but, you know, theres a bringing together that i think is part of empathy. And i think to whatever extent thats something that i can do, whether its in the classroom, its in our work. Anywhere we go, there is too much is meant to close us off from feeling for each other. Because if we really felt for each other, there would be no angola prison under those conditions. If we really felt for each other, none of us, no one here, none of us could say that someone should be solitary confinement on a plantation for 41 years for a crime they didnt commit. None of us would say that there should be any place on earth where 90 of the people who enter will die. It actually goes against very american ideas. Rehabilitation or of what it means to take responsibility for harm. You know, where there is harm. I think that without that work, there is too much that will drive us apart from each other and i think, you know, our society i think we know this is in a profound, early divided moment. And i think ultimately the the results of that division is that or how i think about what i can do about that division is Everything Possible . And here i think art has a superpower. Art can make you cry. What can make you cry . Art can make you behold with wonder. Art can make feel. So i. I think it is. I think it is the superpower, or at least the superpower that i can share with folks to enable us to always act on our common humanity. And so that leads me to another about hope and. This will be my next to last question for going to q a. In terms of hope, i reading this, i both felt hopeful, but i also felt that there were times that you as a mother, as a writer, were saying that, hey, in my lifetime, i dont think that were going to see the level of justice that i had hoped in an earlier iteration. So i wanted talk about that. Yet you still have enormous hopes for your sons for this this beloved community. So how hopeful you what kind of hope it is that mariam carver talks about hope as a discipline . We get the hope through doing the work of social justice and activism and equity. So how are you feeling at this, this moment . Yeah, i mean. Well, i think your question kind of encompasses how im feeling. You know, i mean, that hope is a practice, but blind hope is not useful. I think that, you know, again, Something Else that art exemplifies for us is that more than one thing can be true. At the same time, we can be despairing, we can be rageful and still be able to identify, move towards light. In fact, sometimes it is a state of consciousness, a state of rage that makes you move towards light. I think that is a necessity because i think that otherwise at some point this life we wear down and i think that we just cant have that for our children. But at the same time, we have to equip our children with knowledge and history and Critical Thinking and back to the Cross Generational conversation. Think what gives me hope is when i see examples across the generations of people saying, you know, how did you how did you get there . What what went wrong . What went right . How would you do it differently . And with the energy of young people, you know, they have something to learn, too. And so to bring to marry that, i think, is what keeps me hopeful. Because there is always learning to be done. So i dont think its a contradiction. My final question is, i love the chapter and these chapter titles. There are black people in the future i want you to talk about that, because i think thats very, very hopeful. It was funny because i love sci fi and fantasy and sometimes we are not in the future or past. So its also provocative, subversive. You know, im thinking about game of thrones basically had no black people in it. Now house of the dragon does. But you know, a lot of times when sci when were there, people say, lord the rings, theyre like, theres no black people, lord of the rings, you know . And its like, no, yes, were we should be right, because were everywhere. So black people, the future. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, i mean, i think it starts with this, you know from a lot of our great black women writers from and discussion from Lucille Clifton from audre lorde idea that we were not meant to survive and thrive. You know that when black people were to this country in the status of chattel slaves with the the status of 3 5 human beings, 3 5 human beings, we were not brought here to thrive independently. We were brought here to build a nation and increase the wealth and comfort of others. And here we are. And not only here we are, here we are. When you look at our writers and you look at our creativity i would argue that the powerful voices for, our full humanness, the most powerful voices, having faith, democracy, even when democracy does not fully serve us, have come from black writers. And i think, you know, i say at the end, artists make radical solutions all day long. So there black people in the future. Is borrowed from an artist named alicia who made huge billboards. That said, there are black people, the future and the provocation of that is first to take us back to wow, you know, we werent to survive, but were still here. Second to all of the wonderful sci stuff that you know that i dont know that all that world but but to say like we are not just imagined but if not imagined, then how can we be, you know, always imagine us in place and that we will continue to survive, but with the edge of what does it mean to assert that survival is not a given . Yeah. You know, as Lucille Clifton says, you know wont you celebrate with me that something has tried to kill me and failed . So in just those lines like, wont you celebrate . To me its an invitation to anybody who reads poem. Come with me. Join, celebrate. But theres the surprise of the poem. You know, something has tried kill me and failed. So i think that the artists and the poets do it better, say it better. One of my great hopes for this book is that people will read it who want to learn more and see more in the culture and be provoked and enlightened have, you know, deep and powerful. Okay, great. Thank you. Okay, cool. Professor, is this on . Is on. There you go. Now it is. Yeah. Professor, thank you. For than a decade since the book the new jim crow by Michelle Alexander for no relation. Weve been talking about mass incarceration the convict labor system in mass incarceration as a continuation of jim crow of jim crow. And yet, the day after tomorrow, tens of millions americans whove been bombarded with messages about crime and about policing and about 2020 violence will taking to the polls. How do how do you understand . How should we and by the way, in race and, the racial subtext of these messages is so thin that i believe lee atwater and Willie Horton would blush. Yeah. Yeah. How do you the backlash, how should we understand it . And how far will it go before were able to kind of move forward again . Yeah. I mean that is that is that that is where we are. And, you know, its i live in new york city and, you know, theres been some crime very, very dramatic and scary on the subway. People getting pushed on the subway. Thats scary. But the new york city subway is still a miracle. That gets millions of people where they to go and where you not necessarily more likely, unfortunately, to be a crime victim than any number of other places. The response and a lot of you know, as with so many other places, there is a Mental Health crisis in. New york city and the covid years that we have been through. You know, as know peoples Mental Health, in fact, more fragile and the ties of society are more frayed. Now so, you know, how do you think about what we heard from our was im going to create im a tell you the number in a minute x more beds in Mental Health facilities and. Im going to put x more police on the subways in new york city. You know, for all the zillions of people who live there, 50 more beds. That does nothing in new york city and over policing. So, you know, these children been talking about, you know. They now say were anxious on the subway, not because the people who are going to push us on the tracks, but because of all of these police who have been charged but who have been charged with for something that theyre not trained to solve, for that were not actually solving where the problem is. So having a lot of Police Officers standing around, you know, look at it does not solve the problem. So, you know i like that the word, you know radical, means at the root and thats where i just keep thinking, you know, as an educator, the critical that lets us you know when facing real problems like you know real vulnerabilities and real, you know, crime and harm to analyze it at the root, you know, we get people scared and then we and heres the bandaid, but we havent analyzed it at the root. So, you know, so then i say Critical Thinking, Critical Thinking, Critical Thinking. And how accept sort of one by one, by one how to solve for that, i just turn to our our educator. Yeah. Thank you. Next question. Okay. I want to find out where he was talking. Okay. If you could come a little closer. Hard to hear you. Can you hear this . Yes. Thank you so much. I have great compassion for the story you said to spread about it. Was herman, is that correct . But i am a pragmatist and im familiar with lock up. Not personally. I just see that, you know, that idealistic how. It could be designed for these people that are in angola as a group. And im sure that even though herman was obviously a victim of the system, there probably are people in that that are so dangerous that we cant exactly feel sorry for them in terms of just letting them have a different. What would your ideal house be for that situation where they could have a a kinder life and have property unities to be different . Not expecting them to be know to automatically be Mental Illness or escape from what theyve grown up with. But in the sense theyre i know that theyre i think it was it may have been holland it is they take their prisoners out and they let them live in the forest. Theyre contained and they are watched and they are fed and they are. But there isnt. Oh, you have to punish them. Okay, theyre done. Thank you. I would. Got it. Yes. Yeah. And i would just say a couple of things. One is, what is our responsibility as a society to ourself, really . Not just to those people, but to ourselves. What do we think, for example, you know, as an educator and in my work at the mellon foundation, we fund humanities in higher education, right . Because we believe absolutely understand thinking that learning is freeing, that if you can learn and imagine and learn how to solve problems and understand how analyze whats not equal in our society, then that equips you to be a productive person in society. We that the distribution of of of resources is unfair in this society. So to me all the questions that come long before incarceration are what is our social compact . What do we want our governments to do for everybody . And then how do we again understand that there is no those people over and these people out here . I think that if i could wave the magic wand to change thinking that regard. I think the way that we would approach questions about incarceration might be very, very different because solving these problems, i think, happens long before the system. And i think that, you know, our societies need to do better for each other because through no fault of their own, there are many people who dont have the resources that they need to be able to make Productive Lives and i want that for everyone. Okay, last question. So very early process visited the city. Most know the patients that were out in the city every and theres not really million uninsured in that. Mm hmm. You see, for a lot of people, were are at some point 40, but so many of us are burnt out and traumatized from experience. In austin, we watched friend Garrett Foster murdered by a right wing vigilante. We lost teenager was blinded by being back rounds. We watched our friends beaten and broken by police violence. And for what . I mean, Police Budgets at record highs. And were in the middle of a severe backlash against racial justice. So my question is, what advice can you give the many members of the trayvon generation that feel burnt out and decent with our ability to actually make a difference . Wow. Thank you so much for that. Not just for that question, but for for sharing your expose and the experience of of of your community. And, you know, burn out from trying to make change is so very, very real, you know, not to kind of hit the same message on the head, but this is once again where i feel that, you know, multi Generational Community with people who have the i mean, you know, i think about my parents and, my father who just passed in july, who was a warrior for social justice, a warrior and for him to having worked so hard to see what has felt like the deep backlash of the country of the last at the end of his life. You know, thats a weariness, a sorrow, because he and his people. And theres a beautiful movie called king in the wilderness that i would recommend to you made by the filmmaker peter kunhardt. And its about the last year in dr. Kings life. You must see this film, and its told from the perspective of people who were his comrade who were still living and theres footage weve never seen before of dr. King playing with the children before. Gets picked up the next morning to be taken to memphis and about weariness and the weariness his comrades but how they found laughter and took care of each other. So i think that that continual taking care of each other and and hearing the lessons across generations is a something we can do. And i think that also in any movement, you know, its smart movements. Theres that sense where okay you send out, you know, these people are on this particular frontline and these people are doing this kind of work and then you switch it, right . Because not can be frontline. Some people are frontline people and some people are back the house people who are doing logistics. So i think that just, you know, the continual study of what hasnt always worked but has at least been philosophic good in other moments of the the civil rights struggle and to love other and take care of each other and, you know, theres a lot of im sure a lot of youve seen it. I found it very powerful. The whole movement for black rest thats coming now, you know, and the idea that, you know, first we toiled as enslaved people, then we toiled as sharecroppers. Then we toiled trying to make it when we were, you know allowed to go to the schools and like do a little bit more, then we toiled to try to bring other people along with us. Were exhausted. And yet somehow all the people who built the nation have a stereotype of being lazy. How did that happen . How did that happen . So i do i do think that i appreciate this language of you know and you had was in a conversation recently with someone it was in a religious setting and he said he said its a commandment. Its a commandment. So i do think rest and restoration are very, very important. So i wish that for you. All right. We are out time. Were going to end on that note. Elizabeth alexander, the trayvon generation, thank you all. Thank you so much. Thank you both. People right outside. Its a read. Its a must read. Thank you. I enjoyed conversation. Thank y