The great story we have two minutes left, i wanted to thank everybody for being at the 7th annual book festival. Please check john norris hold it up please about crime, journalist mary, john is at twitter welcome at john underbar 8 underbar norris on twitter and the book about mary the delightful read about history and journalism. And marlene is at Marlene Trestman on twitter about bessy will inspire you, and cause us to all be indebted for places that we are now injustice in our labor law, and elsewhere because of her long career. So check out their book. Check them out on social media. Co check them out on social media. Next year to the book fast on instagram and twitter and come here in person. If you you are not here personnel, maryland is a great place to visit. Book. Thank you to you, thanks to cspan and thanks to jonathan noris. [applause]. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] this is the tv on cspan2, television for serious readers. Cures are primetime lineup tonight starting at 6 15 p. M. Jeremys cahill and Staff Members of the intercept report on the Us Government drone warfare program. At 8 00 p. M. , mary roach talks to her book, grind the curious science of humans that were. Afterwards at 9 00 p. M. Eastern. Eric fehr recalls his time as an interrogator. At 10 00 p. M. , a look at the strained relationship between fdr and Winston Churchill took we wrap up our sunday prime time with John Hickey Looper at 11 00 p. M. Easter. The governor remembers his past of Public Office tonight on cspan twos book tv. [inaudible conversations] could evening. Welcome to our writers life serious. And vivienne scissors, made miniature of the africanamerican department and on behalf of the library we welcome you here this evening. It is my pleasure to bring up to bring to you Sean Robertson who is a Career Development trainer for the center for urban families and he will introduce this evenings guest speaker, mychal smith. So, sean . Good evening. How is everyone . Its a privilege to introduce the show man. I told him i spent four hours reading his book. If you have not read it, you have to. And challenge my thinking in the book is called invisible man, got the whole world watching, a young black mans education, about his life and political education as a young black in america. In actuality its every mans education. Actually, a womens education as well because when you read his book you see out richs perspective. Did you an idea of what it looks like for folks in this generation to really have a global perspective on what it looks like for justice. He has written i want to do a quick exit of something he wrote that really struck me. He said that anger is what makes our struggle visible and our struggle is what exposes the hypocrisy of the nation that bashes fashions itself a moral reader. Consistently, you see things like this. He challenges everything from our view of women to sexuality to how we treat human beings who may be different from us. He challenges the way that we consider a womans role injustice in the family and society as a whole and its an awesome book. If you have not ready, you need to get the book. Hes a young man that i think we will hear a lot from to come. I have only been talking him for the last 10 or 15 minutes, but one of the things that strikes me about him is how unassuming he is. For someone writes with this kind of power, you would think and who has this level of acumen when it comes to writing, you would think he was a lot more boastful or proud or there would be a level of useful hubris, but i think he understands that civility comes before honor and he takes that very seriously and is unassuming. I told him how good his book was and he said thank you, i appreciate it and it was genuine. Without further ado and you dont want to hear from an old man like me im going to introduce you to mychal smith, the author of invisible man, got the whole world watching, a young black mans education, about his life and political education as a young black in america. Thank you so much for the introduction. Hopefully, i live up to it. Thank you all for bringing this rain and coming out to hear me read a few selections at talk about the book a little. Thanks to cspan for filming this. I would say this language in the book and in seconds i will read i will say that this is my first time cursing and at public library, but that would be a lie please bear with me. Yeah, so im just going to read a few selections from the book and give you a sense of what it is im trying to do with this work and i will just start with introduction so that you understand the places we are in, time period that i am trying to tackle and the ideas that i wanted to wrestle with. The nba western conference allstar had a sizable lead over the eastland conference widget George Zimmerman killed Trayvon Martin. It started with a 911 call on the night of february 26, 2012. The guy looks like is up to no good or hes on drugs or something. Its raining and hes just Walking Around looking about. He looks black, dark video like a great hoodie in either genes or sweatpants and white tennis shoes. He is just staring looking at all of the houses. He has his hand in his waistband and hes a black male. Somethings wrong with him. Yep, hes coming to check me out. He has something in his hand. I dont know what he his deal is. Zimmerman followed the suspicious figure in the 911 dispatcher told him not to do that. Briefly. He then decided he needed a more accurate dress and the Police Called him back and he needed to let them know where he was. I was trying to get that information, suspicious figure in the hoodie attacked him emerged from the bushes, punched him in the face and knocked him to the ground and pinned him down. He screamed for help. That acyl is destined to get away punched him repeatedly still pinning him to the ground. Not knowing if he would survive the attack with no help forthcoming he began reaching present. The suspicious figure so what was happening and started reaching for the gut as well. You are going to die tonight he told zimmerman. He was left with no other choice. He reach for the gun first, shot him in the chest. You got me, the suspicious hoodie said. That is the story zimmerman told thats the story that Sanford Police department believed. The story as old as america itself. The story about black men toward violence, our reliance on animal instinct, general unfitness for civil society, preference for death is destruction. To believe this story, where trade on with the aggressor, a teenage boy more interested in fighting a stranger than getting back on to see if Lebron James Bron james could lead a comeback that he brought zimmerman close to death with his bare hands is to believe the stories White Supremacy was told about black boys and men in america. You dont need to hate black men in order to believe the stories. Black mans humanity only need be invisible to you so you never question where the stories came from and why they access. Far too many people were content to do that. Thats how zimmerman was able to raise a little over 200,000 for his Legal Defense fund in two weeks, im up before he was arraigned. The only weapons ban on trade bonds body with a can of arizona iced tea and a bag of skittles he just purchased, but it was zimmerman with a gun on his hip that would. For his life. Trey bohn was anything people believed by people to be an Trayvon Martin became another of our martyrs. s name became a rallying cry to theory video sublet existence and Family Living memory of what american races and steals from us. He did not ask for any of that before it was assembled he was a boy. You like football and little wayne and airplanes and taking things apart and put them back together. He was a black boy in america trying to become a black man. George zimmerman made him into another black boy that would never have that opportunity. I dont remember what i was doing when George Zimmerman killed Trayvon Martin. Im sure i was watching the same allstar game as i had done since i was a kid, even younger than trained on. I may have even made a snack run to 711, almost certainly was tweeting or reading twitter. I may have been on deadline convincing myself that watching the game wasnt procrastinating my writing process. I was probably stressing about money and not thinking about that black boys. Had the opportunity to do a number things that trade on will never have a chance to and the guilt of that weighs on me. Everything tres funded thats justified his death, wearing hoodies, walk into the store at night, having tattoos, smoke weed, being suspended from school, i did that. I couldve been trained on. So many must black boys trying to become blackman in america couldve could event and knowing that made his death so much harder. One of them most effects of racism is the consecration seen a wandsworth and purpose and can be almost as debilitating as death. I dont wish to make these things seem equivalent. Had my life. Trade on does not. The source of my guilt is understanding racism will take some of our lives while Holding Others to success provided that allusion there is an escape. It places us in the position of wishing that our martyrs could have survived. I tried to imagine what trade on where he wouldve been on 2015, 2016 and beyond in the things he wouldve seen, the world he would amount and how he wouldve created himself. When he introduced to a martyr as a result of his death there not a whole person. They are aiming in a story, a set of symbols and projections. Their lives are flattened for consumption and whatever attempt to make to remind ourselves of the humanity is no substitute for the facetoface interaction we will never have with him. Particular painting that realization when the martyrs as young as chelan. I did not do to no trayvon but he had as a 17year old he probably hardly knew himself. He never got the opportunity to ask himself why, never had a substance challenged or his world shattered, heroes humanized or moral questions. He never had to comprise of bigotry or complicity in different systems of oppression to ask who he wouldve been on figure 26, 2013, 2014, 2015, 16 and beyond. George zimmerman took the opportunity for experienced way from trayvon. Trayvon martin was a 17year old black boy in america, White Supremacy tells a lot of lies about 17year old black boys that crop in america, but we cannot escape the fact that they absorb eight culture of bigotry, violence, untreated Mental Illness and a host of other american problems that translate differently when experienced through racism. I want to appear to be tarnishing the image of Trayvon Martin, a black boy never knew. Its almost a desire to protect our martyrs with so many of them being black men maliciously aligned life. If we dont rescue their narratives they will ever be remembered. We do a disservice to our martyrs by imposing perfection upon the. We do a greater disservice to ourselves and not honestly working with our martyrs were to the could event. We resist this conversation because black men in the culture they create so easily become scapegoats. Without nuance they quickly turned towards a claiming a black man pointed existence of society homophobia and the rest of american problems. On careful examination on how men can experience these forms of oppression and more images of black men is connected to everything wrong with the world and the easier it is to justify killing them. Racism is seen as a natural reaction to the existence of black monsters. Who would Trayvon Martin have been february 26, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 and beyond. Short answer, he wouldve been a black men in america in the long answer involves that entails. I was 25 years old when George Zimmerman killed Trayvon Martin. I had not prepared for life at 25, having believed different points my life that i would not make it that far. I couldve been trayvon or any number of nameless faces black boys killed by police and diligently in these or other black men themselves. 25 was a relief and surprise and an opportunity. I would be afforded the time to create myself as trayvon was not i do not know how to do that or did not know how to do that and become a healthy and whole human being. It seemed every black man to witness the potential to create himself came through to the other side broken. Walked to the culture of homophobia, transfer via, the lead is him, self hatred, violence, untreated Mental Illness and other american problems. I was doing the same because i didnt know other way. Then, George Zimmerman killed Trayvon Martin. I looked at the face of the boy who became a symbol and wanted more. I wanted more for him than the choice between moderate token. Wanted more it for him than eulogies. A wanted more for him than just an opportunity to create himself. I wanted for him, for all that trayvons in waiting a world where they did not have to grope broken or not grope at all. I wanted to fear how to greet that world. I look to my life to ask targeted to 25. I asked who influenced me to think the way i did, what events have been most important shaping my worldview, who in what challenged me to see different. I asked myself how did you learn to be a black man. That i wrote down some answers for the martyrs and tokens, for that trayvons that could have been and are still in waiting. Go to read one more section after i next section comes in chapter four of the book. The book gems around in time quite a bit and deals mostly with my College Years and the years immediately after that. So, part of the book is part of the section on going to read right now is situated then, about 2007, 2008, with the case of the jenna six, i dont know how many people remember the section boys that were charged with attempted murder which was assumed essentially a schoolyard fight. That was a spark to me and my activism on campus and the work i was doing as editorinchief of my school newspaper. A lot of the chapter deals with that. But, where im starting gets us right back to zimmerman and Trayvon Martin because there is a question here that i really wanted to wrestle with and i went to present to you, so it will jump back and forth a little bit and include some later stuff with ferguson and Michael Brown and ill get into that. A few months after George Zimmerman killed table Trayvon Martin i got my third tattoo. I put invisible man, got the whole world watch and. I wanted to do it for a while and the timing family that right and that song mostly speaking to the idea that hiphops local popularity brings unfounded attention on the invisible man. He charts black mans rise through labor, music and the rise. We went from picking cotton, chain bank, hiphop. Invisible man at the whole world watching. This came back to me after trade on staff and challenge of overcoming invisibility is one that black men take up daily in the quest to live freely. Its a rare instance when we can make the world stand up and Pay Attention to extend to as basic humanity for the price of either are sanity or integrity. With Trayvon Martin and jordan davis and Michael Brown did not choose their visibility prick he was thrust upon them by the same system that made them invisible to begin with. In death they came to full view of flesh and blood. The price for their humanity was their life. As black men, must we always choose . Can we not live free with our humanity, sanity and integrity intact even as the world watches . Are we destined to forever be the invisible man . Invisible to whom, toni Ravel Morrison is asked. Growing up i heard nothing but praise for the novel and came to swear by his wisdom when i finally read it. Worsens question, when i didnt hear until watching her in late 2013 conversation had never crossed my mind, but is the most important question to consider while reading invisible man. When she wrote i am invisible, understand since it because people refuse to see me. It meant white people. Invisibility is establish their white peoples refusal to see blackman is fully human. In one sense, feeding this much power as the world inhabited dominated by the economy government and culture that abuse whiteness with every conceivable benefit. Been invisible to the systems has real mature consequences, but in the response room questions, not me that reveals the novels greatest flop. Ellisons focus on visibility of whiteness and white people makes invisible the very people who are able to see him, black women. A year after Darren Wilson killed Michael Brown i traveled to ferguson to be part of commercial operation and was only my second time in ferguson and gone in november before the announcement that wilson cannot be indicted that mr. Then was understandably much more tense than when i returned. The anniversary weekend was a time of reflection and in some way celebration. It was a tragedy that took Michael Browns life, but with the spirit of resistance encouraged young people who had when your earlier decided they would no longer allow the fear of Police Violence to control their lives. They were so many young people in the streets. Twentysomethings on down to babies born. Whether or not the new movement produced substantial policy changes felt secondary this moment as i heard five and 6year old marches champion along with black lives matter. With they would know regardless of outcome of the movement was that someone that their black life mattered to thousands of people had come to their hometown to stand with them and assert their right to live free. Thats a revolution in itself. Mostly, boys the young ones running through the streets with their shirts off and some of the older ones cracking jokes. Those boys are receiving a message, no matter how much much organizes and attempted to include black women that their lives matter and then when those lives are threatened someone will stand up for them, not just someone though, black women. Black women have always been on the front lines and behindthescenes of the fiber Racial Justice in america. Is also nothing revelatory noting Racial Justice movements tend to focus on black mans experiences, but they retroactively uplift the masses and got into the darkness. This is sort of a ratio that black feminists constantly push back against. What has not been settled his how to produce a shift because when 22year old boy was shot and killed by an offduty Chicago Police detective on march 21, 2012, the streets did not erect and. Vigils did not spring up across the country in honor of 19year old girl shot and killed in dearborn heights, michigan after seeking help after crushing her car. There was no walltowall cable News Coverage after the detroit Police Department special Response Team invaded their own home and shot a sleeping 7year old girl on may 16, 2010. Their names and stories reached and remain in our collective consciousness only because social media, twitter a particular inch or they would not be forgotten. Im not being an honest blackman and it could black writer by saying social media or twitter. Even official unofficial tag black twitter is incomplete. Those black women on twitter pushed us all to Pay Attention to the stories of these girls. And also the rest. Black women organizing the early vigils and protests by the center police, cannot decide if shooting an unarmed teenager wanted a arrest under the law favors went to uphold. Black women who claim the streets as their own and lead the marches and protests against Police Violence. It was black women who nursed the wounds and care for those who prevent your gas. Black women who had the tired protesters, gave them safe houses to sleep in and pray for them. While running through the streets a year after Michael Browns death shirtless and carefree learning to love and value themselves with these black boys also learn and value the black women fighting to keep their black asses alive . I thought about leslie, how she listened to my angry anger. Has she stepped up to write our biggest story. How i leaned on her to reassure me that it was okay to say Hampton University hates black people and how the months that followed my campus activists kicked up and i would come by her dorm room eight at night and land my words in her while she stood in the doorway attentive and how i repaid her by never seen i love you. I reaped the benefits of her intellectual labor with ever asking how i could support her. I barely said thank you. She was there, making time for me, making time for a black boy in louisiana, who shared my name for a tough schedule and pressure to maintain straight as and post graduation concerns in my emotional distance. She was there. She saw me. Deep regret that im unable to say the same. With such the story black women hit standing behind them by black men through the most challenging parts very existence and black mimicking behind them beside ourselves and not seem black women standing there. We dont even have to ask black women to sacrifice for our survival. They do so without formal request. In turn, we dismissed the concerns of black womanhood as trivial feeling to see black womens pain as real or need our attention. Thank you. [applause]. With that i will open it up for questions and discussion. Yes maam. Scenic is your book somewhat like the other invisible man claimant my book is not fiction, in that regard. Yes, invisible man is a novel. It is wrestling with the same ideas around invisibility. In terms of how we are viewed by the world in that theres an understanding of blackmail life that gets repeated in the interior of our lives are never acknowledged. Of the idea that we have feelings and emotions that will be wrestled with and not acknowledged, so looking at the effects of that and like living as an invisible man, but also challenging the concept of that invisibility in the novel deals with particular through a white case and asking what does it mean to be so obsessed with the white case that you believe yourself to be invisible when there are people within your own community that have seen you, but also having ingested this idea of your own invisibility, how can you render others invisible by only focusing on your identity. Yes. [inaudible question] if you could speak on hyper visibility of like president obama and also tokens that impact like blackmail activity. Yeah, what it does one, it forces the conversation. His hyper visibility forces us to have a lot of the conversations that we have now. From the like being a transformative figure in so many ways, its meaningful whenever he speaks, particularly when he speaks about black america. And what he speaks on ideas of father had. When he speaks on ideas of black political participation. It forces us to have a bigger conversation than we would have if john mccain or mick romney had been in office. What it does is also think that this particular area where wrestling with, whether or not theyre healthy and a lot of them are sort of conservative ideas that harken back to an establishment of a patriarchy model of family that does render womens labor invisible. It doesnt take into account the formation of a new versions of family that weve either been forced to our want to submit because of the idea of a just being manly women in union together, something we are challenging. So, i mean, he serves as a symbol and yes, a token in a lot of ways because it encourages us to have this conversation about he was elected in november 2008, we went to the polls and we elected him. But, not even a little over a month later oscar grant was killed out in oakland; right . I think Something Like that put in a stark reality that there were going to be selling more oscar grants then there would be barack obama, so you cant exceptional eyes barack obama in these ways and say essentially that the problem have dissipated or disappeared. We had to ask if theyre going to be so me more oscar grants than obamas, what are we willing to do to fix that and thats like his visibility we dont have that conversation with the question. Its not for his existence and visibility at him in his office. Yes, sir. [inaudible question] [inaudible question] what did you learn about yourself . Thats a good question. As a whole purpose of the book, to up unpack what it was i was learning about myself and i think the biggest thing was just the gaps in my understanding of what liberation politics throughout my life. Having been like being politicized around the time of like 911 in the iraq war in seeking out black radical thinkers to supplement my understanding of the world and the way it works, but so much of that being steeped in my charismatic blackmail leadership like i read the boys and i read malcolm x. I wasnt reading patricia l collins, you know, like there was a very specific ideas of black intellectualism that i believed was the right one. Throughout my life in the period has been challenged consistently. I think the thing that i learned is that i will always have more questions if im actually committed to this work because there is always going to be more challenges for us to wrestle with. I think i learned to be more honest. Like i probably like that passage about my College Girlfriend in the work that she did for me in the way that she supported me, i could have written that very differently, but to admit to myself that it wasnt there for her, that out that the love was not reciprocal to admit to some of my own faults and later chapters, to wrestle with Mental Illness and what my anxiety and depression look like and what that costly going to that experience. So much of it was just teaching myself to be honest with myself and i think its one of the hardest things for people to do and not to say that i perfected it, but to say that i know now what it takes on some level in that in order to produce the questions and answers that im hoping for there will still be a need for more honesty. So, you mentioned invisible man [inaudible question] [inaudible question] [inaudible question] [inaudible question] had he think he being invisible, also hyper invisible is shaping political discourse . How do you think that affects black people . Yeah, we are trying to figure that out now; right . We are try to figure out what that looks like and because this is an unprecedented level of hyper visibility. There are always moments. In the global exporter that and like what is it mean for those particular images, not necessarily hiphop, but all of these images projected to the world. Are we wrestling with the truth of the artists expression, but also recognizing that that truth is also sometimes born of a form of oppression and stereotyping and flattening of identities. How can we reconcile all of those things at once and thats very difficult thing to try to do. To respect ones truth and no thats its influenced by things that you may not want to be part of. I think that the tension of that hyper visibility and visibility is the Central American question because of the necessity the blackness is to the american identity. In order for the United States to operate the way that it does, it needs a bottom like system of hierarchy in the capitalism is that. Its needs and exploitative class. Blackness provides like White Supremacy renders blackness the bottom class and its consistent always you have that bottom plat class. We create new racialized groups to exploit demonize. We have muslims like we like at different points like ethnic groups that are now considered white were also a part of that like italians and irish, germans were all exploited classes of people, but their escape was the fact that whiteness needed to reproduce itself to form strongholds, political or call echo strongholds to be and braced into that full to ensure that blackness is always at the bottom, so there is a need then to flatten those identities and to demonize, to make invisible the humanity of black people, all of the different like postcards that depicts black men being lynched to eating watermelon in exaggerated features and just like our and a sleazy. All of these Different Things are the work of ensuring that the humanity of black people remains invisible, but we also need to be seen in terms of like during slavery, owning one of us was a status symbol and then like having a speedy domestics and servants with a measure of ones worth within society, so theres always that tension of like the actual act of being seen, but also having your humanity denied and thats with the concept of invisibility is trying to get out. So, to answer the question its like the central question and we just have not gotten their. Yes. My first question is what influence you think at this point your life . What you would recommend to others. Yeah, specifically like current . I say this all the time. I think the three of best writers on the planet are jasmine ward, he is a payment. Jasmine ward is well known for her second novel situated in sort of prekatrina mississippi, but like right before katrina and toast the story of this young girl, not necessarily comingofage because its situated in like maybe 10 days or so, but her interactions with her family of just men like her brothers and father and coming into knowing of her sexuality and like her position within the beautiful novel. Like the one before that with the line deals with the set of twin boys also mississippi, who are just the different path that are on offer for young black men coming out of high school in rural south into poverty and one essentially gets caught up in selling drugs because he is depressed that the other was able to get a job, but its not a job one once, so like all of those emotions wrapped up with their end and her memoir men, which deals with her own experience of four black and in her life who died and had a big impact on her in exploration of that. One of them being her brother and it just the context and confluence of things that happen to produce those deaths. I just think jasmine ward is probably the best water working right now. Tsa lehman is also incredible. I think of him from a think his viewed with so much punk like beautiful had no accident that both of them are like black southern writers who love that tradition and are proud of it and sticking to it, both for mississippi. Rachel i think is the best essay working right now. She has done things on incredible piece about under, are for ellie review of books and situating Kendrick Lamar in a blues tradition and literarily blues tradition. An essay about dave chapelle. She wrote about beyonce in the beehive for npr. She really tackles a lot she takes the big pop culture moments and providing critical context within like, how did you have time to read all of the things you read, but also the narrative in a way that i like that its not always linear. Is jumps around in the way i try to do this. I mean, a lot about it just me saying what writers and like in terms of influencing me and inflicting my thinking like brady cooper, janet mock who are doing incredible work. My friend whose book will come out in august called nobody its been a huge influence on me. Harris perry has been a good friend and taught me quite a bit and challenge me on a lot of things. So, all of these people that are in conversation with constantly to hope to learn a lot more from and be pushed in directions that i was not anticipating. Yes. [inaudible question] [inaudible question] [inaudible question] [inaudible question] [inaudible question] [inaudible question] [inaudible question] scenic think with the internet generally does and social media specifically as democratizing as the number of voices that we are able to hear and it provides that immediate feedback. So, if you are a member of the media in your writing these stories and youre only taking pictures of the men and only talking to the men that are organizing and doing this work, there will be someone right there to say, well, how is it that you missed us. How is that that you are making as a visible right and tell me if im missing the point of your question here. I think that the problem is not necessarily that there work is never been done. Certainly, there were women during the time of the Civil Rights Movement who are saying to male leadership, hey, how is it that you are the ones always getting that prime speaking spots. How is it that our issues are not making it out there and how is it that you are going around getting paid speaking engagements. That work was being done, the differences the men not paying attention. And like being in a position of relegating women to subservient roles and now, 50 years after that with the corrective narratives have a better for some people, not in the main, but having that work been done for decades, but with the combination of social media and these more forceful and radical voices coming to the fore. Theres just not and with the ascension of more women in terms of media, offering space for the women to do this work. I think that its just a better shift has produced by the seeds that were laid then and not to say that its new. Its just that its more visible to us now because of the age that we live in. Yes, sir. I have two questions. One, to piggyback, what are your three biggest musical influences and secondly, i would like to hear your thoughts on why with the access to so much information and that amount of political discourse, Political Action is not more path crossing of contemporary black music and in contemporary political black political thoughts like i saw when i was in high school in my early years of college . Is that happening and we are just not seeing it . Or is it not happening . I think its happening. I mean, to look at whats beyonce has done recently and to not think that she hasnt been influenced by whats happening politically. To look at what Kendrick Lamar did at the grammy or like in the response that he had when he said some things that people disagree with in an interview with billboard. Like those things are happening. I think that engagement is happening in part because the access that we now have two these artists, very directly. Also, these artists wanting to be in touch and speak to the moment and i think beyonce is a very clear example of that. I mean, she has in that lemonade video like the mothers of trade on martin and Michael Brown and the fact that the poem that got through that, that only on i only knew from twitter. Im listening to a rapper named yag who is now last, most like straight gangster rap and on this version is like him with the f donald trump song, please get away with murder like he is being influenced by this time period and the need to go back to the issues. Vince staples, sharp young rapper. So many different artists are doing this work. I think that its happening. It may not be like drake isnt, but like there are artists challenging that and being more part of the conversation and undending their role within this Movement Space to know that as an artist its incumbent upon them to reflect whats going on in these communities. As far as like through just talking about like the book specifically, honestly the title comes from black on both sides album. Its been with me for quite some time. The thing that i listened to before i do any public speaking because it still makes me nervous is the blueprint from one. I think that is the thing that helps me gain confidence and makes me like absorb a little bit of this arrogance from a while. [laughter] you asked that very early on when the book wasnt a book, when it was just an idea and it had a different working title and i was sitting down with my agent and we were discussing how to write the book, what i told her was that i went to essentially do a literary version of Kendrick Lamar like that snapshot of blackmail life that he captured within that and also i was trying to copy sort of his narrative structure in jumping around in time a little bit. What i was hoping to expand upon was like i think that kendrick on the problem is doing a lot of work that is not discussed around issues of masculinity in the performance of it. Like you listen to the art of pure pressured he says i have the blunt in my mouth usually am drugfree, but im with the homeys. The unpacking of the idea that he is doing something out of character, just to perform for his boys like how many things young black men are doing in terms of that just because they are trying to impress someone else and particularly trying to impress the men in their lives and what behavior they participate in that could be damaging. So, he is doing a lot of that work. He doesnt, i think, deal with women very much, mostly black men are equipped yet for having that discussion. I think he falls into sort of the madonna whore complex a lot and delineates between these ideas of womanhood and one being acceptable to him and the other being disreputable and not seen zach houck these ideas served for the gender oppression. But, was like my ultimate hope is that like kendrick picks up this book and has to have a reckoning with that in like his next album and not using the imagery of black women as another attack on black men like he does and he asks himself more questions about what his revolutionary politics will look like. After your girlfriend read that book and what you said i dont know if she has read it yet. I know she has a copy. She hasnt let me know what she thinks yet. [inaudible question] [inaudible question] [inaudible question] [inaudible question] [inaudible question] [inaudible question] folks who are marginalized may not think in this way. I think everyone is thinking about these things. I think that is the first thing is to know that just because the language is different doesnt mean that the ideas are not being reckoned with all the time i think that then learning the language for someone who wants to engage is important, to not impose what you think to be more high form of intelligence on someone simply because you come from that different traditional think that its better to learn the line which of the that you are speaking to and no like how these issues are playing out in their daily lives because i think thats really one thing is personalizing. So, its like recently speaking at morehouse on a panel about like sexual assaults on campus and talk about issues of content and talking about the ways in which black women often do the work of protecting black men in these instances because of a communitywide sort of to protect the blackmail that his conservator attack and that leading to a lot of personal sacrifices on the behalf of black women. Particularly on a College Campus in which like good black men exist; right . And to not tarnish his character because he will face so much of the world and there is a young brother who didnt quite get that. He is saying to me, but what about back in my neighborhood where they are not thinking about protecting good black men and like the mendeleev that the women are in charge of like sex and really so its them relating and saying, tell me how many women in your life do you know have been sexually assaulted. You cant tell me wise that because they had been silent. Tell me how many times you have heard the conversation around like dont call the police on them because he does take care of his kids. So, that is the language that someone understands, like that is the sort of example and reallife antidote that someone is familiar with and thats where you had these the three start that discussion. I think that is incumbent upon all of us to meet people where they are. Yes, sir. [inaudible question] [inaudible question] [inaudible question] yeah, this process of writing the book thrust me into a level of visibility that i have not experienced before like being here and talking to you and mike have in this light to shine in my face. So, i do live a more public life now that is up for scrutiny and i have to be cognizant of that, but at the same time the wind which i engage that visibility is i feel like i have more control of dictating exactly what i want to present to the world of. And what pieces of the world that everyone else gets in what i can keep for myself. But then, theres the threat of because i have now written a book and im engaging Mainstream Media in a different way of being tokenized, of having my own experience flattened, of having my identity flattened because i can fit into a narrative that serves someone else and so navigating that is something that i am still trying to figure out because i am in the early days of my career, hopefully. So, on that continuum, i mean, i dont know it would not necessarily put a gradation on it, but i am somewhere between the idea of having the whole world watching and keeping things to myself. Yes maam. How long did it take you to write the book . Was at the Trayvon Martin thing or just i sat down very early in my career and started being published in like 2010, and had breakfast with my friend and mentor who told me, you are telling us what it is to be a young black man in america right now and that your book. I was like, okay. I wasnt ready to write about just yet, but it was enough of my mind like that is ultimately the goal is and then in 2012, Trayvon Martin was killed in it that the spark to say that okay, i need to work on this and produced this if this out into the world. I meant might agent at sort of the end of that year and we started working on a book proposal that to about two years to complete and then we sold it and it took about a year for the actual writing and then another four or five months which felt like forever. So, its been a long time in the making, but the writing of it took about a year. Tomorrow i go to d. C. I dont, i mean, unfocused right now and getting this book out into the world. I want to get into as many hands as possible. I think to date its my best work ive done and im extremely proud of it. I want as many people to read it as possible. I will dig up the next thing once i am too exhausted from all of this traveling and speaking. As a young man sound