WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 1376 - Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

Episode Date: October 20, 2022

Henry Louis Gates, Jr. believes we must understand who we were in order to understand who we are. That goes for individuals, which is at the core of his PBS series Finding Your Roots, as well as society, which is the reason he made the new documentary series Making Black America. Marc talks with Professor Gates about the foundation of America, the progress that’s been made, and the inequality that remains, as well as the professor’s own unique upbringing that informs a lot of his thinking. Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bonus material! https://plus.acast.com/s/wtf-with-marc-maron-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly, host of Under the Influence. Recently, we created an episode on cannabis marketing. With cannabis legalization, it's a brand new challenging marketing category. And I want to let you know we've produced a special bonus podcast episode where I talk to an actual cannabis producer. I wanted to know how a producer becomes licensed, how a cannabis company competes with big corporations, how a cannabis company markets its products in such a highly regulated category, and what the term dignified consumption actually means. I think you'll find the answers interesting and surprising. Hear it now on Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly. This bonus do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies

what the fuck nicks what's happening i'm mark maron this is my podcast wtf welcome to it i am not at home how are you where are you where are you guys what have you been doing what's going on are you traveling i've been traveling so fucking much i don't even uh i i don't know if i've had enough for i i love it i don't i can't This one's a long one. Coming over to Europe, being in New York for a few days, doing London, doing Dublin, actually having days to to hang out. I want it to be great. I think it's been good. It's been very busy. But look, let me ramble about that in a second. Today on the show, I talked to Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Yeah, the guy that talked to me about my roots, the guy from Finding Your Roots, that guy. He's a scholar, a literary critic, a filmmaker, a historian. He's a professor at Harvard University. And he hosts that show, Finding Your

Roots. And he's got this new documentary series on PBS. It's called Making Black America. documentary series on pbs it's called making black america and i watched a few episodes and i am constantly amazed at everything i do not know i do not know so many things it's so fucking disturbing to me sometimes that i think i feel like i have a general sense of things a general education of things i find that i've been interested and put stuff into my brain and learn new things. But until you really put things into historical context and at least expose yourself to facts about how shit went down one day after the next, year to year, when and how and why, in a thorough way, what do you really know? You know, these general ideas, you know, these general, I know general things about the black community,

but I don't know the evolution of those communities and how they were built and how the, the entire black business world and system was created in, in you know, post, during the failed reconstruction. It's just fascinating. And there's part of me that thinks, well, I should know. Why don't I know this? Well, I wasn't taught it. And oddly, that's exactly what they're not going to teach in red states

because school boards are shutting them down from teaching that. It's part of the history. And there's part of my history i don't know it's all as i get older i realize i don't know a lot of stuff and i kind of spin around with the stuff i do know uh i add new things i do i'm learning things i retain enough of it to uh to say like oh i heard about that and uh right i saw a thing in that isn't that have to do with this right that was that thing that was kind of that was like the thing that was happened after that other thing right but i mean who has the kind of memory

retention i mean i'm getting older so as i put new stuff in shit is is is draining out i mean i just it's unreal to me and i'm not even at this point i'm not even being nostalgic in terms of my life i'm just sort of trying to you know go through the bag and hold on to stuff pull stuff out that i can look at it and and and sort of uh put it on the shelf or or let it go and there's just some things that's just gone there's like an entire wall missing from my memory so what else am i going to do here what else have i done here jeremy strong gave me some restaurant recommendations already went to one an auto lingy restaurant because i have his cookbook which is beautiful and then i went and had the food it was good um i'm gonna probably get some indian food last night this was kind of interesting um helen hunt reached out to me

because she had listened to the episode i did with michael morris who was the director over at the Old Vic. It turns out that Helen Hunt is in a show there right now called Eureka Day. I believe it was the name of the play. And she said, look, I know you're going to be in town. Why don't you come see this play? And I went to see it. I went with my manager, Kelly, and i went to see a play last night it's been see like this is what's this is what's happening this is what i make sure that i do when i go away especially to these cities that have something to offer i go to the theater if i

can i go see art if i can i go you know get good meals if i can and i get out in the world so i went to this play eureka day which i have to assume will eventually hit broadway because it's just too tight and too relevant and kind of cleverly handled uh it's a play it all takes place at a progressive, I think, elementary school in Berkeley, California. It's the board of directors, the few parents in charge and the head of the school and some of the teachers. It's like four or five characters. And it is able to deal with all of the things that we've sort of been dealing with in the cultural discourse around point of view, opinion, vaccine. And it takes place in 2017 and revolves around a mumps outbreak at a progressive school. So it really kind of has the arc of, uh, and it's very, there's some extremely funny and touching moments in it. And Helen Hunt's great. Mark McKinney from

kids in the hall is in it. He's great. The other performances are great. I don't mean not to know them, but I have to assume that this is like a sort of test run and it'll make it to, uh, to Broadway. I, it was nice to see, uh,, who I hadn't seen since I talked to her, and Mark McKinney, who I don't think I've ever talked to on the podcast. Isn't he a missing kid? I do know him. The play was good

and it sort of inspired me to think about doing a play. That would be something I haven't thought to do in a while. Maybe I should make myself available to that because i got to be honest with you one of the problems with being sort of not so much a home buddy but a guy who's prone to panic when he's away too long for one reason i don't know how people do it with kids i don't know how people do it with farms you know

and i i guess you know you just kind of look out for yourself and go do what you got to do but the the worry element i guess not everybody does that i guess people put people into place which i have or put things into place or work shit out or make things make sure things are taken care of and just kind of do their life i have to assume that whatever is wrong with my brain in this area is what keeps me from i I don't know what, from being a global superpower. I don't know. It's something. It's holding me back from something, maybe enjoying life and travel, but I'm going to do it. I'm going to get out there today. Today I do. It's going to be yesterday by the time you hear this but i'm going to do a live wtf tonight with david baddiel we're going to get into the jewish thing as i do occasionally and as

he's made a life of as of late and i don't know him i've got interviews this week there's an outside chance as don't mention it i'm not going to mention it i'm not going to mention who i'm going to interview because we don't know how it's all going to go and i don't want people going what happened to that it didn't happen so you'll just have to wait you'll just have to wait okay all right yes i'm talking it out i got to go back i am going to go back so i don't know what's going on here. That's the other thing. It's like I am so immersed in the cultural and political issues and environmental issues of America. I barely can keep up with that. And London and England has a totally different spectrum of problems and politics and things I don't understand. It makes me feel a little bizarre in terms of like, should I aren't there things i should know is this more that i should know how

much could i contain in my brain did i already blow it with the knowing stuff have i blown it for the knowing all i know is that kit wanted some a souvenir commemorating the passing of the queen and i've got her many because i just have stores full of that it's not like you can go to a nice store to get touristy bullshit you go to a bullshitty touristy store which there's one right down here in piccadilly circus and i bought a bunch of uh stuff a bunch of queen stuff for kit yeah that's some british shit right there so anyway here we go okay henry lewis gates this documentary is an important documentary because it doesn't deal with i feel like there's been many docs and movies i've seen dealing with the the sort of slavery experience or the

underground railroad experience this doc series that he's made, Making Black America, is really about how black communities put themselves together through business, through fraternal orders, through organizations of women, through politics. It's a look into a world that I knew nothing about. And I'm assuming that many people, certainly white people don't know about, but it was very informative and mind blowing,

really. It airs Tuesdays on PBS stations nationwide. You can also stream it on PBS digital platforms. It's called Making Black America. I will now talk to Henry Louis Gates and try to deter him from going over my genealogy again. It's winter and you can get anything you need delivered with Uber Eats. Well, almost, almost anything. So no, you can't get snowballs on Uber Eats, but meatballs, mozzarella balls, and arancini balls? Yes, we deliver those. Moose? No. But moose head? Yes. Because that's alcohol, and we deliver that too. Along with your favorite restaurant food, groceries, and other everyday essentials. Order Uber Eats now. For alcohol, you must be legal drinking age. Please enjoy responsibly. Product availability

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You know, I often think of your, the three generations on the Finlandia from Antwerp in 1920. Is that where it was? On your mom's side, yeah. Oh, wow. The ones from Galicia. Galicia, yeah. Because I, well, I want to put this on tape.

We're on. Oh, we are? Yeah. No, I often think of what's unusual about your family tree and your family's experience is that three generations came together on the same boat. Right. In 1920 from Jehovah. Jehovah.

Jehovah. Yeah, Jehovah. Yeah, Jehovah. Yeah. yeah yeah yeah and i i have to tell so many people that only one generation came yeah or only one individual came right and a sibling left a sibling behind and then that was the wrong choice heartbreaking yeah oh really it screws people up well no, because the Nazis would end up killing the person who stayed behind. Yeah. We avoided Nazis, but I think back there, there were some Russian problems.

Yeah. Big time. Yeah. Yeah. Golda Feer. Golda Feer. F-E-E-R. That was my grandmother.

Yeah. That's right. We're doing it again. Should I go get the tree? Sure. Well, Golda came with her mother, Molly, her grand grandmother Perla yeah and that's what makes your family interesting your family history because they escaped as a unit yeah and rather than singly so many people come to the United States alone look yeah I'll tell you something

I've been watching that Ken Burns America and the Holocaust bit on uh tough to watch it's not always a tough to watch but I watched a few episodes of yours. And as a kind of like relatively intelligent white guy, I don't know any of this shit. I really, you know, like as a Jew, I had no idea how dug in anti-immigrant policy was

and always has been. And when watching yours, you start to really realize that whatever problems we're having now are the exact same fights that have existed since the beginning of the country almost. No, it's true. But I was so inspired by Ken's. Yeah. You know, when I first heard another documentary on the Holocaust, and I happened to watch as many documentaries about the Holocaust as I possibly can, I thought, well, I wonder what Ken could say that's new.

And what was new was the history of anti-Semitism in America. Right. In general, and more specifically, within the government. Yeah. Even Roosevelt's government. Right. The State Department. He had no power over a completely white supremacist State Department.

Absolutely. Shamelessly white supremacist. Yeah, and just proud of it. Yeah, and they didn't even lose sleep. But that's what's happening now. There's so many people that, when I watched the first two episodes of yours, I realized this is exactly what red state school boards are trying to keep out. It's not the framing of the black experience as slaves or as an alternate history, but it's literally the history of American people that is not the narrative that they grew up with. Absolutely.

You know, I tell my students, I teach a large co-teach with Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, a large lecture course at Harvard, Intro to Afro, I call it, Introduction to African American Studies. And early on in the semester, I tell the students, there are two streams flowing constantly under the floorboards of Western culture and American culture. One is a stream of anti-black racism. The other one right next to it is a stream of anti-Semitism. And they are activated by the same forces, which are, once you strip away all of the apparent causes, excuses, explanations, it gets down to economics. It all flows from economic insecurity, economic jealousy, and economic motivation.

In the case of African-Americans being reduced to commodity themselves. Right. Think about what is the ultimate formula for commodification. It is blackness and slavery. You know, you were an economic entity colored black. And you were an economic entity because you were black. A working object. Absolutely.

And with Jews, they didn't suffer enslavement except a long time ago, as we know from Godel Moses and Pharaoh. But I always felt uncomfortable when jews kind of played that card because it's like it's not in our experience it's it's a biblical history i mean the experience of of a modern jew is genocide genocide yeah it is six million of your brothers and sisters just a few years ago right and all killed in just a few years it's it's i can't okay but how's the explain the economic part of the Jewish thing. The Jews have all the money, right? Yeah.

They are, you know, Hitler says we can balance our checkbook if we just confiscate all the property of the Jews and kill them. Yeah. And take the gold in their teeth and all of everything that they possibly could own that can be converted into cash. And that's what he did. But in watching your show, in terms of your coming of age, right, and you deciding what your role is in academics, in the black community,

and just your life's work, where does that start for you where i mean where did you grow up oh that's a great question oh you're going to do my roots sure i would like to i don't have i don't have the research but i can get it out of you maybe you got you got me i was born in piedmont west virginia which is a paper mill town, population 2,500 in the year in which I was born, 1950, 386 black people that year. It's an Italian, Irish-Italian paper mill town. And my family, as it turns out, has lived in a 30-mile radius of this little town for the last 200 years. this little town for the last 200 years but i didn't know that until we started filming finding your roots and our genealogical team traced my ancestors were you the first guest i actually in the first season in the first iteration of the series i only did african-americans yeah

because that was my brand right yeah it was called african-american lives and i was trying to be the genealogical guru for other african-americans because um i wanted to do alex haley one better yeah i wanted to do what alex haley purported to do right i wanted to do that in a laboratory in a test tube yeah for a lot of different people yeah i wanted to do it only for african-americans right because but that's what i mean yeah but there's a full range, right? Yeah, absolutely. Where people come from and what they do. Well, and I found out, the more I learned, how various that range is.

But let me go back to Piedmont and bring me back to that. So I was born in 1950. I had an older brother, Paul, who's an oral surgeon. He's five years older. And my dad worked two jobs at the paper mill in the daytime west vaco paper company and he was a janitor at the telephone company uh in the evening yeah my mom who studied to be a seamstress in atlantic city in a vocational school um uh was a housewife from the time that my brother and I were born.

Yeah. Because that's the way I was. My dad worked two jobs so that my mom didn't have to work. Sure. And because he had two jobs, we had the most comfortable existence of all the black people in Piedmont, West Virginia. Why? Well, because he had double income.

Oh, okay. Not because he was like, he didn't come home and yell at you. No, no, he didn't. No, no, no. He didn't do any of that. And so I was always raised to think of myself as privileged because vis-a-vis all the other black people in town, I was. Right. Right?

Yeah. So, and my family had a long history in this area. Again, I didn't know how long. Right. Piedmont is in the Potomac River Valley in the Allegheny Mountains. Okay. Halfway between Pittsburgh and Washington. I like Pittsburgh.

It's not exactly a hotbed of black culture when you think about the hills of West Virginia. Sure. But that's where my family was from. That's interesting. So how did they get there? I'm going to tell you that. But I was raised to be a doctor. From my mother, God bless her soul, in heaven there was a father, son, the Holy Ghost, and a medical doctor.

Sure, yeah. And all smart little colored boys and colored girls, as we were back then, were raised to be doctors. So Skippy Gates was raised to be a doctor. So for Christmas I got stethoscope. How did you get that nickname? When mom was pregnant, she was reading a book and the character was Skippy or Skipper. Yeah. And so that was pregnant, she was reading a book and the character was Skippy or Skipper. Yeah.

And so that was a name she liked. And my family's very big on nicknames. Henry Louis Gates Sr. was Heine because he was born in 1913 in German variation. All right. My mother was called Pun because she liked language so much. So she was Pun. Paul Edward, name for the two grandfathers, my brother. That's our family tradition. Was Rocky, because she was reading a book five years before with a character named Rocky.

Okay, and you're Skip. And then I was Skip. So it took me a long time not to become a doctor. I mean, a very long time. All through Yale, I was going to be a doctor, and I got a fellowship to go to England, to Cambridge, and it was there that I realized that I wanted to be a scholar. I wanted to be a professor.

So when you got, now, a premium, obviously, in something about the documentary series you're making on Black America, that the evolution of just the educational structure for African Americans was all self-driven. And I imagine that would be the generation, like maybe two before you. Well, take my brother, born in 1945. Yeah. He went to the colored schools.

Right. He went to Lincoln, was the segregated elementary school and Howard High School was the segregated, West Virginia, voted to integrate the schools immediately. And so our school system integrated completely without Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, without a peep in 1955. And I started at the white school in 1956. I'll tell you a funny story about that. My dad, it was hilarious. My dad was one of the great storytellers. My dad made Red Fox look like Undertaker.

Oh, really? He was hilarious. So my dad sat me down the day before I started at the White School on August 31, 1956. Yeah. And he took me in our formal living room. I mean, our house is as big as your studio here, really. Yeah, yeah. But we had a formal living room. I mean, our house is as big as your studio here, really. Yeah, yeah.

But we had a formal living room where the furniture, I remember- Covered in plastic. It was covered in plastic. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I don't know who my mom thought was going to ever come to visit. The Queen of England was going to drop in, right? Or the president. Is that when the plastic comes off?

I never knew when it comes off. It never came off. Never came off. It never came off. It disintegrated. I went up in smoke. Yeah. So my dad took me into our formal living room.

And he said, boy, he called me boy. He lived to be 97 and a half. He called me boy to the day he died. And he said, boy, there's something that I need to explain to you. And he said, sit down. And I thought I was in trouble because nobody ever went in that room. And I said, what is it, daddy? Terrified.

And he said, you're going over to the white school tomorrow and there's something you need to know i said what's that he said well there are two kinds of white people and i go two kinds of white people now i grew up in this white town right this irish italian sure paper mill town yeah so i saw white kids all the time yeah and i didn't know they came in kinds yeah yeah i go well how do you tell the difference he said that's why i brought you into this room he said they're the italians and the irish and uh there's a crucial difference between them i go okay what's the key and he said the irish have names that begin with o and the italians have names that end with o and it's true and that's the secret to my success all these years so i started in a fully integrated

school in rural west virginia and i never had any experience of racism by any t i was elected class president but now do you feel like that why why does that feel like an anomaly to me it is an anomaly particularly when you see how how strongly my fellow West Virginians came out for Donald Trump. Yeah. And you associate West Virginia with when you see Joe Manchin up there. Yeah. You associate it with being very conservative. But it wasn't when I was growing up and it was very liberal about race.

Do you think that was because that, you know, that those that those other two communities were only a generation or two away from the immigrant experience? Well, the motto of West Virginia is mountaineers are always free. And those mountains, there's a kind of rugged individual. OK, sounds corny. Yeah, but it's true. And it's in our DNA. In fact, I tell people when I'm interviewed that growing up in West Virginia was as important to my identity formation as being an African-American because I was very much a West Virginia. I grew up hunting. I grew up fishing. The first day of deer season was a holiday. When you're 12, you got a 410. You know, I was a country boy and that's just the way it was. Did you want that out of you

at some point? No, no. I love it. I like to vacation at the beach, but not in the mountains, because I saw the mountains every day until I went off to Yale when I was 18 years old. So now the Yale thing, now, was that always the school you wanted to go to? Or how'd that work? Well, I was raised to be a doctor. What does that mean, though? It was just pummeled into your head that you're going to be a doctor? I was going to be a doctor. The teacher said I was going to be a doctor. What does that mean, though? It was just pummeled into your head that you're going to be a doctor? I was going to be a doctor.

The teacher said I was going to be a doctor. Your brother's a doctor. My brother. So they got one. They got one. Okay. And if you asked me, I was just going to be a doctor. That's it.

Yeah, sure. So now I went through two phases of interest in college and it's funny because we just uh presented we just i just presided over the hutchins center honors at harvard i'm the director of my day job of the the greatest center for the the research in african afro afro latin american african american culture it's called the hutchins center yes endowed by my friend glenn hutchins and his wife debbie hutchins the hutchins center for af Center for African and African American Research. And our big annual ceremony is to pick seven individuals to present the Du Bois Medal in honor of W.E.B. Du Bois, the first black man to get a Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1895. 1,200 people were there. And Kareem, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was one of our honorands.

And it made me remember that when I was an early teenager, I wrote to UCLA to get the course catalog. You know, back in the day, course catalogs were like little books. And I got UCLA's because of Kareem. Kareem was there, and I was going to go to UCLA, and they had a great medical school. He's a thoughtful guy, intellectual guy. He is. He's an old friend and someone I admire very much.

I mean, Kareem had even studied Arabic at Harvard in summer school. So I went through this whole first phase. I mean, I also wrote to Michigan, Michigan michigan state you know the schools that had great basketball teams not that i was ever going to play basketball but those were the ones that i saw on tv yeah but then um it was harvard yale or princeton and we had that a tradition of attending harvard in my father's family my father's first cousin george lee actually graduated from Harvard Law School in 1949, the year before I was born. And his wife, Dorothy Hixley, got her PhD in comparative literature from Harvard in 1955. So they were held up as the, you know, you can imagine you're from a culture that privileges education just like I am.

And they were the touchstones for academic excellence. One day you could grow up and go to Harvard like your cousin George. And I thought, wow, Harvard. And then I was watching TV and smart kids went to Harvard, Yale, or Princeton, right? That became a metaphor. Then they went to Oxford or Cambridge. So by the time I was in, say, ninth grade, I had a deep desire to go to the Ivy League, get a Rhodes Scholarship, and then go off to England.

That was what my fantasy. Not as a doctor. Well, I was going to be a doctor. The Rhodes Scholar. But I was going to do that and then come back. And be careful what you wish for, right? I ended up graduating from Yale. And then I got a fellowship to go to the University of Cambridge where I got my master's degree and my PhD and to my astonishment on June 22nd my alma mater awarded me an honorary degree

which is the first African-American male I'm the second African-American in the history of Cambridge with over 800 years to get an honorary degree my friend Jesse Norman who's left us yeah Jesse Norman was the first in 1989, and I was the second. It's one of the greatest honors of my life to be honored by the place where I study. So my father's father had three sisters. Okay. And my father was born on the Gates Farm, 200-acre farm. My grandfather worked that farm

with his father, Edward Gates and his wife Maude. And Edward was born in 1857. My grandfather was born in 1879. My dad was born in 1913. My dad was born on the Gates farm. At the turn of the century, my great-grandparents did something so extraordinary that I still can't process it. They kept the son on the farm, the oldest child of five, and sent the three girls to college. Can you imagine?

And a black family? They sent my three great-aunts to Howard University. One became a nurse, and the other two became teachers. And one married a dentist, one married a pharmacist, and one married a sign painter. And so my brother is the third generation dentist in the extended Gates family. So without affirmative action, I would have gone to Howard. But what affirmative action did was open up historically white universities so that people like me could fairly compete. People forget that's

what affirmative action did. So why would I say we're the affirmative action generation? Because the class of 66 at Yale had six black guys to graduate. The class that hit New Haven in September 69 with me had 96 black men and women. So what was the market? Genetic blip in the race? And all of a sudden there are 90 smart black kids who existed in 69 who hadn't existed before? No.

Affirmative action lifted a racist quota that had obtained at Yale and Harvard and God knows Princeton for a long, long time. So there were only six in 65, 64, 63. had obtained at Yale and Harvard and God knows Princeton for a long, long time. So there were only six in 65, 64, 63. But as a scholar, when you're there, I have to assume that in the 60s, when you start Yale, when did you start? 69. I mean, everything's coming apart. It was the Wild West days of revolution.

Yeah. We went on strike in the second semester for the Black Panthers. Right. Bobby Seale was on trial in the New Haven Courthouse a block from Calhoun College where my dorm was. Did you go? I was secretary of the Black Student Organization. I had no choice. I was terrified, baby.

The Black Panthers were around. We had the Black Panthers. We had the were around. We had the Black Panthers. We had the Black Muslims. We had the cultural nationalists. It was wild. I'd like to write a novel about it. So where did you find yourself in the middle of all that? I mean, you know what it made me realize?

What? It made me realize I hated bullies. I hated ideological bullies. Yeah. I hated people who would tell you that you weren't black enough, that you weren't the authentic thing, you weren't the real deal. And I guess they all kind of did that. They all did that unless you subscribed to their doctrines, right? Right. I had a strong nuclear family and deep, deep roots in this funny little community of black people in the hills of West Virginia.

Yeah. And I knew myself. And it was a challenge because there were forces saying, you're not black unless you remember. This is the period of black power. Sure. And so I had an afro black is beautiful you were doing all the right things we were doing all the right things i became i volunteered to be the secretary of the black student organization so i wouldn't have to say

anything yeah i was just taking notes so i could watch the sort of landscape of blackness that was unfolding and was it was it was it actively debated all the time? All the time, man. Yeah. And somebody was always jumping in somebody's face and saying, unless you're Afro's two feet high, you're not black enough, unless you got a closet of dashikis, unless you're learning Swahili, whatever. I call them the litmus test of blackness. But what's interesting to me in hearing you talk about that is that you know a lot of that stuff was of the time and was it was

specifically uh identity driven whereas it seems that your life's work has been to to incorporate the art the work the literary work of of of black writers uh you know into the the respect that the white canon gets. So it was not about the sort of ideas about blackness ideologically, but about the full spectrum of black scholarship. Oh, absolutely. I realized very quickly I never was going to be a member of a party. I'm just not made that way.

I'm too cynical, I'm too cynical i'm too skeptical and too independent i want to be a fly on the wall i want to write about a political rally i don't want to be in the political where did you but when you were pressed at that time you know did you did you speak up yeah i had an afro okay but i never um ever uh was embarrassed about having white friends i had a white girlfriend my sophomore year i never my friend eddie jackson was in love with the irish american woman who was a student at albertus magnus college which the catholic girls go up the street in haven and he was bullied and he gave up the love of his life, and he never got over it. I mean, he actually committed suicide years later.

Oh, my God. And I will go to my grave believing that one of the reasons that Eddie did that was that he could never live with himself for cutting loose the love of his life. And I was determined nobody was going to tell me how to be black. And you know what? In my lecture course, my lecture course ends, my section of the lecture course, i always end my lecture this way yeah i structured this course around the experience i had at yale so that every week the students uh learn about a debate yeah

that black people have had in the black community about what it means to be black, starting in the 18th century. And so the moral of the story is there never was one way to be black. And in my last lecture, I say if there are 42 million African-Americans, that means there are 42 million ways to be black. Never let a bully tell you how to be black. You're here at Harvard because you're a special person. You're gifted. And most of my students are white. I mean, all the black kids take the class, but overwhelming.

You know, we've got 150 kids. We can't have 150 black kids at Harvard. So still. And I say each of you is special. And even if you're not black, if you're Jewish, don't let somebody tell you there's one way to be jewish if you're from china don't let someone tell you tell you that there's one way to be asian american etc etc so it's a metaphor but the reason that i have this sense of stubbornness about protecting the individuality of your identity is because the experiences i had at yale and because the secure background that i had at home. My dad, when I got into Yale, my parents bought me a new car

because they thought all the rich white kids had cars. I got up there, man, I was the only kid I knew who had a car. I had a new Royal Electric typewriter, all new clothes, of course, but my mother was, you know, seems just so. We always, you know, had new clothes, always had new textbooks, etc. And my father packed up the car, and I drove up there by myself. But my father, right before I left, he said, I would give you three bits of advice. It's hilarious.

At this time, this is September 69, news about the black table in the Ivy League was hitting Time magazine. the black table in the Ivy League was hitting Time magazine because he's the historically white institutions like Harvey Neal were opening up because the pressure affirmative action but to everyone's surprise the black kids were all sitting together in the cafeterias right it was called the black table yeah my father said don't go up there sitting and sitting along with all these black kids at the black table yeah he said you you're going to Yale, not Howard. You know, like go up there. He said, and don't go up there and get any black roommates.

Don't go up there. Black people call it Jim Crowing yourself. He said, don't go up there, have a black roommate. You know what he said? You're going to love, no, you got to hear this. He said, I said, well, what kind of roommate should I get, Daddy? He said, get a Jewish guy. He said, they've been good to our people.

Might learn something. This is funny. And then he said, and for Christ's sake, don't go up there studying nothing called black study. He said, because your ass has been black for 18 years and I ain't paying for that. So here's what I did. I want you to know what a dutiful son I am. Every lunch, I ate at the black table. I had three black roommates.

at the black table. I had three black roommates. And though I didn't major in Afro-American studies, as it was called at Yale, every semester when I could, I took a course of black content because I took the first course in Afro-American history

that I was ever exposed to as soon as my first semester. Who was the teacher of that? William McFeely, a white guy who subsequently got the Pulitzer Prize for his biography of Ulysses S. Grant. And everybody black took that course. There were a couple hundred of us in there, plus a lot of white kids. And I was riveted.

And every fact that I read, every story that I heard just stuck to me like glue. Every story that I heard just stuck to me like glue. Yeah. And so I developed almost this skin of African and African-American studies. You know, things just stuck to me. Well, it's interesting, though, like what you say about what your father said, because even in the, I don't remember which episode of the doc, that there are arguments now that the black community makes about maintaining and staying in a black space. Yes, that's right.

That your father was saying, like, you know, you've done that. Right. You know, it's time to go out and see the world. Right. But the entire documentary seems to be about what black communities and black people did in the shadow of ongoing racism. Behind the veil, as Du Bois put it. But there's a difference between enforced segregation, enforced separation, and willing association. It's a funny thing, an interesting chapter in our history. Right after Brown v. Board was announced by the Supreme Court,

there were a group of the leaders of the black community organized. Ralph Ellison, the great novelist, tells this story. He was called to a meeting in New York. He lived in New York. And he was dispatched to Tuskegee, where he'd been a student, to tell the people that they were soon going to go out of business, that all black schools were going to go out of business because they only existed because of segregation. And there was going to be no need for them. And now you look back and laugh, but enrollment applications to black schools have never been higher because people have chosen to associate with other black people and to participate in historically black institutions willingly because they embrace the culture.

I think the model for that is the Jewish community where you can observe the Sabbath. You can observe the high holy days days but be fully integrated into american society that you can be both you can celebrate your jewish identity either religiously or not yeah and but certainly culturally yeah and be thoroughly integrated into the american economy and american culture well that's what struck me about the stuff in the documentary, because it's stuff I didn't know, that the idea that there was a schism in the black community around trying to appease the whites by acting like them. Right. documentary to show is that you're building businesses building fraternal orders building banks building uh you know a varying degree of entrepreneurship you know was not trying to be white this is how the country worked right absolutely and we were excluded from um the white example right the white instances of those so what do we do did we sit around and just wring

our hands did we sit around and cry and No. We replicated the world from which we were excluded, just like Jewish people did. They couldn't go to white country clubs. I mean, WASP, the country clubs of the Goyim. They did the Catskills, right? And 1,001 other examples of that. But look, my three generations of dentists in the Gates family, The first two generations couldn't join the American Dental Association. So what did they do? They formed the National Dental Association.

The black doctors couldn't join the AMA. They formed the National Medical Association. Black lawyers, like my cousin, graduated from Harvard Law School, couldn't be in the American Bar Association. They formed the National Bar Association. National, like the NAACP, the national association for the advancement of color people national coded for black isn't that cool yeah you couldn't be in the america win but you could be in the national yeah yeah it's a but it's fascinating to me to to to know that you know i mean like i'm

i panic about the nature of of our our system now right and you you're friends with Barack Obama. And you went through your own issues around, I mean, a very well-publicized arrest at your own house. Worst day of my life. I do not recommend arrest for anybody. But it was interesting in that when they talk about the reconstruction, when they talk about this idea of a multiracial democracy or a biracial at the time democracy, that when you see that all these other communities thriving within democracy and capitalism, that there is still a separation there, but that there is sort of the opportunity on some level. But do you think in your experience and in your studies that that multiracial democracy is working?

Oh, yeah. I think that, well, it's very complicated. To see Donald Trump waiting in the wings might give one pause. Right. Right. But my wife, who's Cuban, a Cuban citizen, a professor like me, says to all my friends whenever we're complaining, yes, but you can throw him out. You still have the right to Donald Trump can get elected. Donald Trump can be thrown out. I think that we have to remember that, that we do live in a democracy and a multiracial coalition elected Barack Obama.

There was a backlash against Obama as a black man, without a doubt. And remember I said there were two streams always running on the floorboards of American culture. That force is called white supremacy. And having a black man in the White House, choom, triggered those forces. That beast, which was slumbering, many of us thought it had been banished, came roaring out of the floor.

And a lot of people were freaked out, in part because, ultimately, economics. Why do I say that? Because many of the people I grew up with who based their sense of being an American on an idea of progress that was infinite, they would start in the labor pool at the paper mill. Then they'd get promoted to the craft unions.

When you made good money as a plumber or an electrician or whatever, you send your kids to college. The kids would come back, maybe be an engineer, work in a paper mill too. Buy a bigger house. Yeah. You'd buy a house, you know, work your way up. Yeah. And so, and then your kids' kids, your grandkids, they would go to college.

Maybe they'd be a doctor. Sure. You know, maybe they'd be a lawyer. That fiction of infinite upward mobility is over. And a lot of people don't know how to deal with that. What is the new narrative? How are we going to make sure that the world is better economically for our grandkids? The paper mill is gone.

Or even there. Yeah. The paper mill is gone. Literally in my hometown. There was nothing else there but that paper mill is gone literally in my hometown there was nothing else there but that paper mill what is it like there now it's like a ghost town like instead of 2,500 people when I was born there I think 800 people in the last census and there are people who just will never ever leave but you know with this idea though maybe I'm cynical about you know, this idea, though, maybe I'm cynical about, you know, you can just vote somebody out as these, you know, as not unlike the school boards, there's a certain strain of religious fascism, I think, that is, you know, kind of radicalizing some state legislatures. Oh, my God. And more importantly is the voter suppression.

Yeah. Reconstruction ended because of voter suppression. Let me give you a little background. Until 1910, 90% of the African American people lived in the former Confederacy.

Yeah. And get this, South Carolina, Mississippi, and Louisiana were majority black states. Right. Georgia, Alabama, Florida were almost majority black states give

black men the right to vote remember only men had the right to vote yeah that's called black power baby yeah and so the black men in the former confederacy got the right to vote because of the reconstruction act in 1867 and mark when they voted they elected the president in 1868 ulysses s grant won the electoral college overwhelmingly, but he only won the popular vote by about just over 300,000 votes. 500,000 black men voted in the general election of 1868. And in South Carolina, which was ground zero for black power, the whole, the state legislature, the House of Representatives was majority black. Secretary of Treasury, Secretary of State were all black.

Holy mackerel. And the way they shut down Reconstruction most effectively, most devastatingly, was to take away the right to vote. And starting in 1890 with what was called the Mississippi Plan, each of the former Confederate states ratified a new state constitution. And without using the word black or Negro, as we were then, or race, they effectively took away the right to vote of these black men throughout the South through poll taxes, literacy tests, grandfather clauses. You want to know how effective it was? Take Louisiana. In 1898, there were 130,000 black men registered to vote in the state of Louisiana. After Louisiana ratified their new racist, redemptionist constitution, by 1904, that number had been reduced precisely 1,342. That is voter suppression. And that's what we see today. And that's what we have to fight against.

That's what we have to fight against. Yeah. Because if people of color have the right to vote protected, there won't be a return of Donald Trump. The Republicans know this, which is why they're doing all this rope-a-dope gerrymandering and trying to, in various ways, suppress the right of people of color to vote so that they can win in the relevant districts. But now the language of the GOP is blatantly white supremacist. Yeah, it seems that way to me. And what you were saying that we used to think it was underneath the surface, now not only is it out, but it's shameless. Well, Donald Trump just lifted up the floorboards.

Sure, I get it. You know, someone asked me the other day, did I, when Donald Trump was elected, I was interviewed, of course, and they said, do you think he's a racist? And I said, well, I don't know the man. I don't know what's in his heart. So I'm prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt. Is he racist now? Absolutely. his heart so i'm prepared to give him the benefit sure is he racist now absolutely but i don't know if he's i don't know but but it's important for me to say this i don't know if he's a racist like

orville faubus was a ray or george wallace was right now in a sense it doesn't matter but those guys were born racist i mean they just hated black people. I think Donald Trump is an opportunistic racist. In the end, it still makes him a racist. But he saw that he could stir up all of these buried sentiments and unleash them and profit

from the people who believe those things. He could tap into, instead of assuaging people's fear, which Obama sought to do, the Republicans wouldn't let him do it, but he sought to do that. Obama really thought that he could be a healer, and he wasn't. He was very divisive, because these people in the grip of white supremacy were terrified. They said, Jesus, they've taken over. I mean, God, they've taken over the White House. What's next? And they said, Jesus, they've taken over. I mean, God, they've taken over the White House.

What's next? And despite the man's best efforts, he could not become the figure of healing and reconciliation that we all thought he would. But you believe it was still a successful presidency. Oh, yeah, absolutely. He did as well as he could. Yeah. I mean, when you have the Speaker of the House give a press conference and say, we're going to do everything we can to see that he fails. Yeah.

You know, or the majority leader of the Republicans in the Senate say, you know, we are going to undermine this guy day by day. And they did that for eight years. But it still doesn't take away the fact that it was pretty amazing that he was president. It was America, America at its finest, elected Barack Hussein Obama. America at its worst, elected Donald Trump. It's like a joke. It's like satire. Yeah, it is. It's like it caused me a tremendous amount of stress every day.

Yeah, well. You? Yeah, it worries me, but I'm constructed fundamentally around the embrace of optimism. I believe that the American people are decent people. A lot of the kids I grew up with, went to high school with, told me the summer before the election with Hillary that they were going to vote for Donald Trump, and he was going to win. When every summer, my wife and I spend two months on Martha's Vineyard, which I love. And the seven women whom I met on the first day of first grade in Piedmont, West Virginia, August 31st, 1956, they come and spend four days with us on the vineyard.

Six white girls and one, I call them girls because I met them when I was six. Women. Yeah. And all of them, almost all of them voted for Donald Trump. So I know that Trump had a lot of people who supported him who were not racist. Because they aren't racist. They voted for him because they felt that there was no hope.

They felt that there was too much corruption. They saw him as a populist. Cornel West and I did a huge event on Friday at Loyola Marymount. 1,200 people came. Just now? Mm-hmm. And he had a brilliant,

I was interviewing him. I'm doing a series of conversations at Loyola Marymount this year. And just three yeah i started with cornell my dear friend and he talked about that donald how donald trump appealed to populist instincts yeah but the history of populism in america goes two ways either it goes toward a liberal democratic ideal the best of us yeah or the white supremacist underbelly, the worst of us. Donald Trump took it right that way into the bowels, the depths of white supremacy, the worst of us.

And he did it consciously and he was very effective at it. But still, we beat him. But how do you feel about those people? I think they're frightened. And you still socialize with them every year? Oh, you mean... Yeah, you're friends. They're my best friends.

Look, they knew me when I was six years old. I would never turn against them. Listen, the only way I'd ever turn against one of my friends... Remember to go back to my... What was my crucial shaping experience? It was Yale and being surrounded by ideological bullies right right so i never judge never judge my friends on their ideology if you put on a clan suit and burning crosses on my lawn that might we might have to talk you know friendship but don't you but as a as a intellectual person do i i, I don't know to what degree their belief was, but it seems that propaganda and misinformation and certainly conspiracy theories now seem to corrupt a good deal of relatively good people's brains.

Well, I think that with my friends, they thought that the lives of their children and grandchildren would be better if Donald Trump was president. I don't want to have to defend them because I have no idea why anybody could be fooled by Donald Trump. But that's why they voted for him. They didn't vote for him because they were racist. I know these people. I love them. They sleep in my house. I mean, I know them like the back of my hand. That's why we have to be subtle in our analysis.

Because if we just demonize people that we disagree with, if we underestimate their complexity, we'll never reach them. Well, tell me, when you got arrested, what year was that? I can't remember. Okay. What, you don't want to talk about it? No. you're done with that yeah i'm i've turned that page okay you know yeah i i just was like in in talking about

the the learning moments in terms of transcending ideology or or at least giving some kind of uh empathy towards what appears you know blatantly insensitive or racist, that you were able to do that. Well, I didn't want to ever actually or appear to profit from an event that I thought was an aberration. So imagine me as a poster boy for police brutality. That's ridiculous. You know, I'm a privileged person.

I was in the jail within um an hour yeah uh it was full of harvard professors and even the legal counsel of the university everybody realized they made a mistake they just had to figure out how to get out of it and then here comes barack to the rescue yeah bring us down for a beer yeah the whole point was designed to make it go away. But it did make me very, very sensitive to the abuse of the police and prison reform. And I'm a passionate advocate of prison reform

and I participate in a program attempting to get books to prisons. It's very difficult to get books to prisons. It should be very easy. It's getting difficult to get books to students. Sure. It's very difficult to get books to prisons. Is it? It should be very easy. It's getting difficult to get books to students. Yeah, that's true. Well, one of my books has been banned in Texas.

And guess what? It's a chronology. All it is is a listing of 500 years of African-American history from the first black man to set foot on the North American continent, Juan Garrido, who was a free black man, a conquistador, until, you know, through Obama. And that book has been banned. I mean, that's crazy.

But what do you make of that, man? I mean, it's like... It turns my stomach, makes me want to vomit. My fundamental principle is that any form of censorship, including cancel culture, is offensive. Censorship in all of its hideous forms is to art and free expression as lynching is to justice. And if you think of the two things that way, it allows you to understand that you should

never tolerate any idea of history. Absolutely. And it's designed to whitewash the history of the American people. And we have to fight against that. Look, my whole career has been based on integrating the curriculum. Right. And we have to fight against that. Look, my whole career has been based on integrating the curriculum, establishing the black presence, as you said, within the canon of American literature and world literature on the one hand, and our presence within the weave of American history. Because American history has always been about race and race relations from the get-go. You can't tell American history without talking about the history of America. Right, but it just seems like the telling of that history as a progressive person and as somebody who has seen the arc of some progress, we've now arrived at seemingly the worst possible

manifestation of it. But at the same time, I'm a consultant with Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham to the college board, and we have the first AP course in African-American studies. So that means that we're about to experience a revolution in the teaching of African-American studies in the schools through all the kids who take AP courses. What's AP? Advanced placement. Okay. So you can take a course in AP history. So you got to be gifted to know the truth? Well, unfortunately, it is incumbent upon all of us who love freedom and the history of democracy in this country

to fight any attempt to censorship. All these school boards, we have to take them on. But I can't just write an op-ed piece for the New York Times. We're talking about fighting at the granular level. I know. I mean, I get it. But it used to be censorship was based on some somewhat vaguely moral idea about Christian values. And now it seems to be thoroughly rooted in white supremacy. Oh, it is. It is about whitewashing the complex history.

Look, nobody, you know this, I sit every week. I have the most popular show, nonfiction series on PBS. Every week I have to tell people uncomfortable things about their past. I don't judge them. I don't do that. Yeah. You know, Christopher Walken, I did his family tree. Two brothers, bakers.

Yeah. German. Yeah. One comes to the United States. Yeah. One stays home. Yeah. Well, guess what the one is doing who stayed home in Germany?

He turns a page and there he is in a Nazi uniform. I don't do that to make him feel bad Did he? I think he said that he naturally assumed yes that family stayed in Germany. What was he gonna do your conscientious objection? Yeah, yeah, yeah, but the point is not to make people feel bad. It is to talk about the complexity of I know history but like And I appreciate that. And I was talking to my producer this morning about taking in the information in your new series, The Making of Black America.

I mean, you know, I don't know the specifics about a lot of things. I know where my heart is, but it was all new to me. Right. And, you know, and I had, you know, I had a great uncle and aunt who were American communists, and I had the entire collection of W.E.B. Their voice. Yeah, of all his writing. Right. That's great.

Yeah, and they used to – I've got free Angela buttons. So you're a red diaper baby. Kind of. Well, by virtue of that, I was exposed to it, but still my knowledge. I was exposed to it, but still my knowledge. And I'm sitting there as a 59-year-old guy who is hungry for information and having these realizations watching your series and watching Ken Burns' series about the history of slavery, but the history of the black experience in this country is exactly what they're saying cannot be taught. But that's why it's incumbent

upon people like Ken, people like me, people like Stanley Nelson, it's incumbent upon us to keep telling the story. You know, there's an old hymn, I love to tell the story of Jesus and his... But what if it's false? I love to tell the story of the and his wife. But what if it's false? I love to tell the story of the American people and the African American people,

and whether it's the African experience on the continent, in Europe, or in the new world. And you know what? As long as I have an outlet through PBS, I'm going to keep telling that story. Well, I appreciate that. And I reach millions of people. I know. Millions of people. Okay. And I know because they stop me on the street and going to keep telling that story. And I reach millions of people. I know. Millions of people. And I know because they stop me on the street and talk to me all the time. But do you ever reach people?

Do they stop you on the street and say like, you know what? I was a monster. And now I'm not. No. I've never had that experience. But I've had experience when people say, I mean, what kind of person is going to say I was a monster and I'm not? But I've had recovering monsters. monster well i have not had the pleasure yet but i have had over and over people

with making america great again hats on t-shirts or donald trump stop me and say i don't like your politics but i love your show and i go well that's good enough for me brother thank you very much yeah i hear they said can I have a photo? I said, of course you can. I'm not going to set myself up as an ideological bully. I don't think that when you're interviewing someone for a job, okay, how many people on your staff, on your crew? Just me and my producer. Okay.

Would you ever ask your producer who she voted for? Yeah. I have 16 people who work worked for the hutchinson yeah i have no more idea how they vote them i presume that they voted for obama and i presume they voted for biden but i would know it's none of my business no i get that i i get that professor but what what what i don't what i have a hard time sort of, and I appreciate your optimism, and I also appreciate that you're doing what you do to do what you think is important and to educate and to hopefully shed light on a truth. I get it. You know, it's just, I guess I'm stuck in an ideology or in a point of view where I'm like, well, it's never going to be enough. Right.

And I, you know, Right. But I need you. You need people like me, and I need people like you. We need people pushing, protesting. You need people like me inside the institution. I heard David Remnick use a metaphor at Clifford Alexander's Memorial Service, one of my heroes, first black secretary of the Army under Jimmy Carter. And Remnick you know the editor of them i know the orger said you know you need people inside the castle lowering

the sure bridges across the moat i get as well as people storming uh the gates outside the castle i get it and my role is to be inside the system fighting for change. This is, as I discussed with Cornell, this is the second front in the history of American culture wars for our generation. The first was in the 90s. And we were busy trying to get black authors like Zornio Hurston and Tony Martin into the Norton Anthology of American Literature. Okay, we did that. So what's happening 20 years later? Now they're trying to ban the anthologies that we integrated. So, you know, it's ironic if you think about it.

The second set of culture wars is about banning the textbooks that we successfully integrated in the 1990s. How ironic is that? Well, it's ironic, but how does it make you feel? It makes me feel like we've got to fight harder. We have to fight to keep those textbooks from being banned no textbooks should be banned i get that and we have to fight but they keep telling the truth of american history right okay there you go but i mean curriculum can be decided you know like you know it's like there's a fine line between banning and saying like well we're not teaching that in the curriculum

that's true and until we take on the school boards in Texas and places where... So do you got the, do we have the horses to do this? Who are these people? Absolutely. We have people fighting at every level. Just regular people who want their kids to be exposed to the complexity of the reality that has shaped who we are. But you have forces against. Those are the people who really need to be celebrated. The people who are fighting at the granular level. The people who are fighting at the level of the school board.

Of course. But to me, it's like, because I work and I'm a comedian, and I see that there's a schism in comedy around tribalization and anti-woke and woke and whatever you want to do. But all that stuff is, a lot of it's bullshit. Right. ism and comedy around tribalization and anti-woke and woke and whatever you want to do what but but that all that stuff is a lot of it's bullshit right you know a lot of it is masking like when you get down to the granular level most people don't even pay attention to that news that's true they don't so like they're just caught up in this sort of like cortisol driven you know argumentative you know you're wrong you're're woke, I'm anti-woke,

whatever that is. Look, censorship from the left is just as pernicious as censorship on the right. Cancel culture is just as offensive to me as censorship is. Sure. Because it's just another form of censorship. I get that. I get that. But both of those

sides is servicing something much more nefarious? It is. And that's why we have to stand up against both, no matter what form it takes. No matter, censorship. One of the most important shaping experiences of my teenage years, my parents, get this, gave me a subscription to Playboy magazine when I was 15 years old. And I actually, of course, I looked at the pictures, but I actually read the interviews, too.

I fell in love with Lenny Bruce. Yeah. Lenny, I never heard of Lenny Bruce. Yeah. 15, we're in Piedmont, West Virginia. I couldn't even go to hear his uncensored routines, right? Sure. In a comedy club.

Yeah. But I just was so inspired by the way he fought censorship that his use of profanity is talking about drugs. And I get all that. But my point around the censorship is like all censorship is bad. OK, but sometimes there is consequences to what one says. And it's up to you to decide whether you're going to say it. That's true. And that's a reality. That's a reality. And that's the way, unfortunately, because of social media and other things, that they're – and it's happened on both sides. You know, if somebody on TV said something that the Christians didn't like, they'd mobilize an entire army of people to write letters.

But that's called democracy. I get it. Democracy. Yeah. Right. And that happens on both sides too right but i think that when you have people that are servicing uh an ideology that is ultimately uh uh perhaps racist or questionable that they might not know that but if they can be appropriated if you got a comic that's servicing an anti-woke agenda, and then you've got Tucker Carlson quoting that comic, and then you've got Marjorie Taylor Greene sort of taking that joke out of context and doing it at a rally.

That would make me, if I were the person telling the joke, reflect on what I'm saying. Right. But I don't want anybody to be able just to tell them. What I'm saying is that there's a lack of reflection. Right. A lack of reflection. And that's, no, if I have taken, okay, I'll give you an example. Yeah.

There's a lot of controversy over Woman King because- I saw that. Yeah. And I like Viola Davis a lot. But Dahomey, there was, Dahomey was one of the worst slave kingdoms on the african continent they did not rebel against the slave trade because they did defeat oyo the kingdom of oyo when it says right but they continued with alacrity to conquer other people and sell them yeah that's very important but when i did it's very important to tell the story truthfully yes

not to you know okay put rose-colored glasses on the way they do in that movie. But when I told the story of the African role in the slave trade, the PBS documentary in 1998, people in the black community, I mean, Ali Missouri, who was a scholar, gave a speech in which he said, I suppose we should not issue a fatwa against Gates. Because they said that I was lying about the African role in the slave trade. Here's a fact. Overwhelmingly, our African ancestors who were shipped across the ocean were captured in wars by other black people on the African continent. We were raised to think that white, your white ancestors, somehow my black ancestors were out on a picnic on a Sunday, right?

And your white ancestors jumped out of a bush and threw a net on them and they ended up in a plantation in Mississippi. Forget it. It never happened. I mean, rarely. Historians estimate that 90 to 95 percent of the africans and i got this figure from the historian john thornton this footnote that the africans captured in the slave trade were captured by other africans other black people in wars there

were whole economies like dahomey constructed around the slave trade. And that's important to tell that story. But people tried to censor me in 1998. But now, even in that film, which had Viola Davis's kind of, you know, Rosa Parks fighting the slave trade. I'm being hyperbolic, of course. But she is saying, no, we need to get away from selling our brothers and sisters. But that's towards the end of the movie and it felt a little bit disingenuous yeah even i didn't even know the the story the slave chain dahomey went for another series of decades uh after so so you're saying that they hated oh yeah the the sort of uh protecting american black

identity the the people of of the community on some level were like, is it necessary that you tell that story? They said, thank you for bringing me back, because they said in 1998, now this has all changed, because now you could see Woman King, they are open about the African role in the slave trade, they just represent Viola Davis as being Rosa Parks, rosa parks right you know right they have a problem with that yeah right but uh in 1998 no but they didn't want me talking about the abbey and guess what they said mark what they said what white race is going to use that against us that's right okay you are telling a secret yeah and you don't have a right to tell that secret because it will be

used against and sure enough right wing people did quote um my series in the book of wind but too bad it's a fact i can't whitewash history it's better for us to know how or blackwash history i can't blackwash this it's better for us to know the history of the slave trade and to know ultimately it's better that african elites were just as evil and as corrupt as European elites. Right. But I think the point is, so you're bringing it down to this is a human reality. A human reality. Okay.

Why should black people be less complicated and less screwed up than everybody else? But I understand that, and I think it's important for me to hear that in the sense that – because there is something that when you get involved with a cause, whatever it is, and you think it's righteous. Right. Okay? Which we've both been, and I think we're on the same side of things. Of course. That there is this idea, it's sort of like, well, you know, if you say that, you know, we're going to lose some points here. Right. And we're right on the precipice of something.

Is it that important? Yeah. Do you have to tell the truth about it? Do you have to tell – The whole truth. Do you have to tell the whole truth? Do you have to tell the whole truth about how 12.5 million Africans were shipped across the Atlantic Ocean? 12.5 million Africans were shipped across the Atlantic Ocean.

And I said, yes, even if you're going to issue a fatwa against me. And I took them all on. All these black nationalists and these radicals who said that I was betraying a racial secret. And the person who defended me was Wally Sherinka, the greatest African writer in the history of the continent. Yeah. The first African to get the Nobel Prize in 1986, who happened to have been my professor at Cambridge, and who is, with Anthony Appiah, my kid's godfather. And he took him up. Man, it was like the cavalry coming to the rescue. I stood behind him. I go, kick your ass, Wally.

That's right. That's right. Because it was terrible. That was, you know, forget being arrested. One of the worst times of my life was having so many people in my field say, you have raised the curtain on a dirty, dark secret. And by doing that, you're complicit with white racism because I told the truth about the history of the African slave trade. And I'm proud that I did it. And now that's become normalized part of the story of African history. And I could not, in good conscience, censor myself. And what say this was at the time when Farrakhan and Nation of Islam were subsidizing a book called The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews. It was Jews who ran the slave trade. That's ridiculous.

Another form of, this is like a black version of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. What is that about? How did that change so hard that, you know, that the Jews became the enemy of the black people? It's a church thing, man. You know, no, I am I was sitting, I was watching Ken Burns' new series about the Holocaust and American anti-Semitism which we were talking about earlier.

And I decided on my list of new PBS documentaries, I did a treatment on the history of blacks and Jews. Yeah. And I am going to tell that story because we are natural allies. If you look at the founding of the NAACP,

it was done with a cross-ethnic... Voter registration drive. Voter registration. And we need to reformulate that alliance. So I'm going to make a film about its early harmonious period and then when it fell apart

in the 60s. It fell apart in the 60s. It fell apart in the Black Panther era. Right. And there were causes on both sides of the coalition. But what was the foundation of it? Was it the old-style sort of global conspiracy, or was it like slumlords, music business? How did the Jew get the bad rap?

Well, I actually need to make a film about it to understand it. But have you done any research? No, but I just have anecdotal evidence, and I've read a lot. And some of the forces that you said, it was a black activist wanting to be independent of the people who were funding them and of their... Right, why are we hanging around these rich Jews?

Yeah, or why we're hanging around white people, period. I think that Jews got caught up in an anti-white ideology because of black power and the black arts movement. But aspects of the coalition still exist. aspects of the coalition still exist i'd like to see it um reformulated because we need all the allies we can get with donald trump and the right wing um we get people in the wings right well now you got you know connie out there being crazy with the anti-semitism out of nowhere whatever's going on in his head yeah whatever's going on i know i get it but I get it. But like, what are you finding within the world of black intellectuals? Oh, I don't find any pernicious answers. No, no, no, but I mean, like,

what are the fights you're fighting within the black world now? Listen, right now, post-Obama, everybody is focused on the rise of white supremacy, voter suppression, the January 6th insurrection, and the forces that are at the heart of that. We're all scared to death, and we're all focused on that.

At least that's what I'm focused on. Also, one of my big concerns, as I said, is prison reform. But I also am worried about this Supreme Court. Affirmative action, just like Roe v. Wade, I'm afraid affirmative action is going to happen this session. It could happen this session. And I wouldn't be here without affirmative action. I'd be a doctor back in Piedmont, right?

Because I would have gone to Howard and I would have been pre-med. And I wouldn't have gone to Yale and then to Cambridge and then had meet Wally Sherry and Anthony Alpey and they tell me, no, you're a race man. You're going to go back and be a scholar. Right? Yeah. And Toni Morrison wouldn't be in the Norton Anthology. She would have made it.

Even without me. Okay. This has been great. Thanks, man. It was good talking to you. Thanks for doing it. You feel good? I feel fabulous.

Good. There you go. Smart guy. Exciting to talk to. Informative. Making Black America airs Tuesdays on PBS stations and is streaming on PBS digital platforms. Please stay here. Hang out a second, will you?

digital platforms. Please stay here. Because that's alcohol, and we deliver that too. Along with your favorite restaurant food, groceries, and other everyday essentials. Order Uber Eats now. For alcohol, you must be legal drinking age. Please enjoy responsibly. Product availability varies by region. See app for details. Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly, host of Under the Influence.

Recently, we created an episode on cannabis marketing. With cannabis legalization, it's a brand new challenging marketing category. And I want to let you know we've produced a special bonus podcast episode where I talk to an actual cannabis producer. I wanted to know how a producer becomes licensed, how a cannabis company competes with big corporations, how a cannabis company markets its products in such a highly regulated category, and what the term dignified consumption actually means. I think you'll find the answers interesting and surprising. Hear it now on Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly. This bonus episode is brought to you by the Ontario Cannabis Store and ACAS Creative.

Okay, listen to me, folks. Don't forget to sign up for WTF Plus subscriptions. If you want to listen to the show, add free and have access to every single episode of WTF on your podcast app. And for full Marin subscribers, you also get weekly bonus content. Click on the link in the episode description or go to WTF pod dot com and click on WTF plus next week on Monday. Jeremy Strong and on Thursday, Ron Carter. Jeremy and I had a good conversation about acting. He's an earnest guy. He's a serious guy. I enjoyed it. Ron Carter is one of the architects of modern jazz. He's an

85 year old jazz double bassist and he's a genius and he's a great contributor to all types of music on something upward of 2,200 records. It was was very exciting i got to see him in new york i also saw jeremy strong on the plane to new york so i don't know but good talks i got my shows at the bloomsbury here in london this weekend and the next week i'm at the vicar street in dublin on wednesday october 26th when i get back from ireland i'm in oklahoma city at the tower theater on wednesday november 2nd dallas texas at the Tower Theater on Wednesday, November 2nd. Dallas, Texas at the Majestic Theater on Thursday, November 3rd. San Antonio at the Tobin Center for the Performing Arts for two shows on Friday, November 4th. And Houston at the Cullen Theater at Wortham Center on Saturday, November 5th. Then I'm in Long Beach, California at the Carpenter Performing Arts Center

on Saturday, November 12th. Eugene, Oregon at the Holt Center for the Performing Arts on Friday, November 18th. And Bend, Oregon at the Tower Theater on Saturday, November 19th. In December, I'm in Asheville, North Carolina at the Orange Peel for two shows on Friday, December 2nd. And then Nashville, Tennessee, I'm at the James K. Polk Center on Saturday, December 3rd. And my HBO special taping is at Town Hall in Polk Center on Saturday, December 3rd. And my HBO special taping is at Town Hall in New York City on Thursday, December 8th. Go to wtfpod.com slash tour for

all dates and ticket info. More guitar jams now from the vault. This is me and Dave Alvin from The Blasters playing Help You Dream. Beautiful. Well, is this seat taken? Would you mind some company? You've been alone all evening. Would you like to talk with me? Now do I come here often?

Well you might say that I do And is someone home waiting? Honey I was just gonna ask you Cause you're the prettiest woman i think i've ever seen and tonight if you let me i'd like to help you dream Well, you've got the nicest brown eyes You've still got your little girl smile You know you should have been in movies, honey You say you haven't heard that in a while Well, you sound just like Faith Hill

Singing on the radio. Do you know someplace quiet where both of us could go? Cause you're the prettiest woman that I think I've ever seen And tonight if you let me I'd like to help you dream to the fire Cause I think I know what it looks like when you

get back home Baby dreaming is all that you've got left And I could tell you sweet lies Like you've never heard before You see, I haven't stopped dreaming yet All right, Brother Bart.

Yeah. I think I know what it looks like When you get back home Baby, dreaming is all that you got left I could tell you sweet lies like you never heard before You see I haven't stopped dreaming yet Let's see, what's that? Oh wait, what's the next line? Do you remember the last one? stop dreaming yet. What's that? Oh, wait, what's the next line?

Do you remember? The last line. Do you come here often? No, no, no. Oh, my God. Hold on. Well, how about another drink? Oh, yeah. Certainly.

How about another drink? Oh, yeah. Certainly. How about another drink? What's that? You gotta go home. You say it's been nice talking. Honey, why are you leaving me alone? Because you're the prettiest woman that I think I've ever seen. And tonight, if you let me, I'd like to help you dream. And then he walks across the smoky bar in 1984,

sits down next to the next woman and says, sits down next to the next woman and says, Do I come here often? You might say that I do. Yeah! Beautiful, man. You sounded great. That was fucking awesome.