Education Was Never the Goal, Knowledge Is. -- Daniel Black & Michael Harriot

00:00:00:00 - 00:00:24:18 Speaker 1 Hello everyone. Welcome back to the Baldwin and Co podcast. I am DJ Johnson, the founder and CEO of Baldwin and Co. We are a bookstore and coffee shop located here in New Orleans, Louisiana, serving up intellectual stimulation for seven days a week. So make sure you drop by in the area. You're visiting in New Orleans. Make sure you stop by and check us out. 00:00:24:19 - 00:00:48:23 Speaker 1 We're just outside of the French quarters on the Legion Fields Avenue. And, today on our podcast, we have two authors of two of my favorite books. That is Michael Harriot. He is the author of black AF history. Just an amazing piece of work. And, back returning on the show is Doctor Daniel Black, and he is the author of my favorite, The Good Place. 00:00:48:26 - 00:01:43:16 Speaker 1 Michael is a award winning journalist, a cultural critic and author whose razor sharp writing exposes the lies America tells itself about race power in history. And Doctor Black is a novelist, a scholar, a master storyteller whose work excavates black rural life and social memory in the sacred dimensions of survival. With such a lyrical voice, it's powerful. And in this episode today, Doctor Black and Michael Harriot, they ignite a spiritually charged, intellectually fierce conversation that moves from land in lineage to faith family in the quiet genius of black survival, revealing Doctor Black's knowledge as spiritual resistance and rebellion. 00:01:43:16 - 00:02:13:03 Speaker 1 It is just a phenomenal conversation. It's it's less of a discussion and it's more of a reckoning that demands you to rethink everything you thought you knew and positive you're going to enjoy this. These two are legendary in what they do. Just two of the leading thought leaders around black intellectual thought enjoyed. And as always, please like, subscribe and share this show with at least one person you know. 00:02:13:06 - 00:02:17:00 Speaker 1 Thank you for your support. 00:02:17:00 - 00:02:36:04 Speaker 1 So. So where are you from? I'm. I was born in Kansas City. Right? But I grew up in Arkansas, rural Arkansas, central Arkansas, and I've been Atlanta since 18. I don't know. Yeah. So do you visit or your parents from Kansas City? They're from. 00:02:36:08 - 00:03:02:16 Speaker 1 In fact, my parents grew up exactly on the land where I grew up in Arkansas. Wow. And my grandparents grew up on that land. Yeah, it's it's amazing how many black people still live like, I grew up 15 minutes from where my entire family on the mother's, my mother's side was a slave. And some of us family still lived on a level that was born. 00:03:02:23 - 00:03:29:20 Speaker 1 Yeah. Go back there and see my cousins. Oh, absolutely. It is weird how close I see there is this thought that we're so far away from slavery. Like that was long ago, and it's really not. And in some ways, some of my folks are still enslaved. Yeah. I mean, you know, if you get what I'm saying, you know, we still are, that a lot of times we want the freedom. 00:03:29:23 - 00:03:58:19 Speaker 1 Are we rather be enslaved in. Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. And, the thing I think that's so, so interesting about what you're saying is, I think there are ways that we're tied to land that, I think is extremely, extremely, extremely important. And I think there are ways that we should connect black children to land and to space and geography that, we once did. 00:03:58:20 - 00:04:25:09 Speaker 1 You know, there was the back in the day, I'm thinking I'm way older than you, so, I don't know. Yeah, he he probably not how I find it, but we really are. We probably are. We don't tell these people. Young people. I'm very young. That's right, that's right. You know, the thing I think, back in this back in the 50s, 60s, 70s, they used to send black kids south for the summer. 00:04:25:11 - 00:04:47:14 Speaker 1 So that summer that was, of course, hang out with cousins and grandparents, etc. but I think what it also did was it kept kids attached to geography and to land. And I think land, land has so much to do with identity. Like, who are you? Where are you from? Who are your people? You know, that means a lot in terms of, what where are your roots? 00:04:47:14 - 00:05:14:28 Speaker 1 You know, when you need to get grounded. Where do you go? Yeah. And I think there's two because. So I grew up in, a little town called Hartsville. But if you would have asked me, I would have said, if you drive me where I was from when I was 10 or 11, I would say I'm from Bishopville, which is where, like most of my family lives, is about 15 minutes away, which is where my family was enslaved. 00:05:15:01 - 00:05:44:10 Speaker 1 And like, I knew like my mama and my grandparents lived in the little town where I grew up, right. That was where I was from. I was from 50 minutes away recently. So it was tied to the land. Absolutely. And I remember, like, even, as an adult now, especially writing this book, I would sit back like, oh, the circumstances I was being raised and they might I don't even know if it was intentionally doing it. 00:05:44:15 - 00:06:13:03 Speaker 1 Like, say, we're going to make you, remember your history, right? But, like, deal with us would take us back to my, my cousins, aunts and uncles. That. Oh, absolutely. And we would just sit the. Absolutely. And I'm not I realized they weren't even telling me the stories. But you heard the same thing. Absolutely, absolutely, absolutely. That you remember those stories? 00:06:13:04 - 00:06:33:02 Speaker 1 It. It's really time. Absolutely. And they were constructing identity, I think. Right. Our parents may not have used this language. They may not have had this nomenclature, but they certainly had the sentiment. Right. Because I you know, I had very similar experiences. I was in Kansas City from birth till about seven, and I remember my father 4 or 5 times. 00:06:33:02 - 00:07:01:03 Speaker 1 You would take us to rural Arkansas, where he's from, and we'd go around visiting people. Right. And when we got there, you know, you always speak to these elders, right? And then they say, you kids go play. Yeah, right. But to go but go play. It was always on the land, you know. Right. So there was something about the way in which they knew that, that a person who could identify their footprints. 00:07:01:06 - 00:07:35:16 Speaker 1 Right. And a person who who remembered that the path of their footprints could always get home. Yeah. That, you know, that that that that there was a way in which a black child, regardless of what America did, regardless of what America said, if if you were clear of where you played, if you were clear of who your elders were, if you were clear, if you remembered that tree yet right then in the dark you could see the shape of that tree and know you were close to home. 00:07:35:19 - 00:07:57:14 Speaker 1 It's all about safety and and home and understanding. And I think there's a way, now that we don't attach black kids to geography quite like that anymore. And I think, I think there's a price to pay for that, because I think we end up being what kind of Baldwin spoke about as like, a lone souls crying in the wilderness. 00:07:57:16 - 00:08:21:14 Speaker 1 Right. Because if you ever get a tree unrooted. Right. That tree is on the way to death. It's that tree. A tree's got to know where it's rooted. It's got to know what other trees are around it. You know, of course, the metaphor. And I think of myself that way. I think that's one of the reasons for me that I was never, I was never unsure. 00:08:21:16 - 00:08:42:20 Speaker 1 How do I want to say this? I was never unsure of, of my intelligence. I was never unsure, of my strength. I was sometimes unsure of my beauty. That's another thing we'll get to. But I was never sure these things. Because I come from people who knew the land and said, we own the land that we grew up on. 00:08:42:27 - 00:09:11:15 Speaker 1 And if you need a food, you grew it by. Right. So the land, the land, the land took care of you. You, you know, and I remember that relationship very, very, very well. And I wouldn't trade it for anything. Yeah, I, I think about that and we all getting away from it matter of factly. So, I was on the phone for, about two hours with a friend of mine who is from Kaggle Cargo. 00:09:11:17 - 00:09:34:08 Speaker 1 Rudy himself and his family movies star at homestead in Hawaii. And I'm Carly. He grew up in Chicago. I grew up on my grandparents lane, and I'm getting gardening tips from him. He's like, you got to put some molasses in there. Hahahahaha. You know, I'll let you know what my grandmother did. Yes, it put the molasses down. 00:09:34:08 - 00:10:00:18 Speaker 1 Yeah, it did, but I hated that stuff. A lot as an adult. A lot of what they would do oh is not coming back absolute like. Like I always said, I really never thought that there was really a difference in the P that you have to snap in the piece that you have to share. I just think you nobody explain that. 00:10:00:20 - 00:10:18:15 Speaker 1 So but you know, what switch was it? I was like, this is it, whatever you want to do with it. But this the the Sydney's shelling those peas, we shell peaceful out and put them in bags and put them in the freezer, you know, and I, I never thought about that. So recently. You knew you was going to have something to eat. 00:10:18:15 - 00:10:41:01 Speaker 1 Absolutely. For the rest of the world. Absolutely, absolutely. And what it really shows you is that poverty in the country and poverty in cities, not the same. Poverty, right? Poverty in the city might mean you don't eat poverty in the country, never meant you did it. Now you might not buy a new sofa, right? But we can always, always eat. 00:10:41:08 - 00:11:05:12 Speaker 1 And as you're saying, we spent the year gathering food as we were eating it, right? Shelling peas, shucking corn, tomatoes. And there and then in the fall of the year, peanuts and potatoes. And so it was always this, this kind of reciprocal process. Right. I'm gonna switch gears a little bit because I was thinking about your book. 00:11:05:14 - 00:11:41:13 Speaker 1 What what made you, first of all, give this book this title? Well, I wanted it to be like, a lot of times because I don't think much of what is in that book is, like, new. And there's some stuff that I don't know, but a lot of it is stuff that, you know, history that already existed, that a lot of we know it might be a, part of the story that you don't know, but I wanted it to be something that was accessible, to anybody who sat down to read it. 00:11:41:15 - 00:12:17:12 Speaker 1 I wanted it to be is thoroughly researched as any history writer. Right. But it was what we call an entry point, right? Something that you could sit down to read and understand is written in the way we talk to each other. The meaning of you to take with each other. And so I thought that title will pull that in and, and, and that's why, what it to be named got okay from, from what, you know, up to this point like has the reach and influence of the book done what you were dreaming or are dreaming? 00:12:17:12 - 00:12:39:17 Speaker 1 It will do. Yeah. I think it was done more than I thought it was going to. And the interesting thing is for what is done, like someone was telling me that they had interview a meeting with the publisher and it was like, well we like, you know, we really don't care about New York Times bestseller list. 00:12:39:17 - 00:13:07:13 Speaker 1 If you like, if you have something. Michael Harriot and they didn't know that the person to me, what's interesting is that those publishers, I knew the power, communities and what we do it all. And what do you know, even that, economic value. I don't think they did like this book. The book sold out of this first, right? 00:13:07:13 - 00:13:32:00 Speaker 1 In the first week. Wow, wow. That's what you want. But the publisher I was really signed with, they, they were bought by some that new powers didn't really know. Like, you know, we bought this book, but you don't know who Michael Harvey did. Right? And it was during the writers strike. So there was no, like, talk sales or anything. 00:13:32:03 - 00:13:55:21 Speaker 1 So the only press I did was black press. Oh, wow. So they have, basically what is the equivalent of a old kid with, all but just black support? Like, I didn't do any any TV except for Joy Riccio. Wow. These were all black press. I when I did my book two, I did all black books. 00:13:55:24 - 00:14:32:22 Speaker 1 Right. So it really was it, like, they really still do, but we borrow the worst thing is like, you know, it's a white dude. It's got to get all the credit. Right? So it's always it will be. I think he must be a genius man. What's what I'm always interested about in books like it was because, like the idea of storytelling and using history at us in that storytelling, like, did you did you ever see yourself as a novelist? 00:14:32:24 - 00:14:57:24 Speaker 1 It like from, you know, someone who teaches black studies to, to, you know, conceiving of a story that is rooted in us, like, is that did you ever see yourself as it you know, as a kid, I don't think I saw myself as a novelist, per se. I definitely saw myself as a storyteller. You know, when I was a kid, my father hunt. 00:14:57:25 - 00:15:18:15 Speaker 1 Well, see, I was in the rural South in the 70s, 60s and 70s. Men hung out with men, right? Women hung out with women. You know, the gender. The gender line was very clear. Not so. As a little boy, my father would visit other men in the community. He had a truck, and I had three other brothers. We'd be in the back of the truck. 00:15:18:15 - 00:15:38:01 Speaker 1 Right. He he'd go to some some man's house, his friend, and he, you know, they had kids. And of course, we kids, we would all, you know, be playing in the yard or whatever, whatever. And it time I would listen to my father and these men telling these stories. Right. It was always some story about something insane. 00:15:38:01 - 00:16:07:08 Speaker 1 Right. But I love the stories. And there were a couple of men who told them, just remarkably, they had the antics. You know, they had the they had the tallest speech. They had the drama, they had the performance. And I remember I remember just listening so intensely because it was just so incredibly entertaining and brilliant. I thought, right now the key as a kid, you cannot participate that right when these old men are talking you, you shut up. 00:16:07:08 - 00:16:28:08 Speaker 1 God. When? Well, when girls will talk, you be quiet, don't you? You. You don't have no questions. I'll raise your hand. You be quiet. Right. But. But I remember listening, and I remember just being absolutely flabbergasted at the at the, at the power of these stories. And I couldn't have explained this then, but now, like, I loved the repetition. 00:16:28:10 - 00:16:47:25 Speaker 1 I there's one man who was who tell a story and every other line he would repeat it, but it was so musical the way he did it. Right. You know, he's like, right, man, let me tell you about this fine woman I met. Right? I met her down to go through Stowe just fine. Woman. You hear me? They'd be like, man, shut up. 00:16:47:25 - 00:17:03:23 Speaker 1 A no, no, no, I'm telling you, it's fine. But as I told you, I'm married to grocery store. See, here, I said the same thing is it's all right. All right. It would take him forever, but he. But he's doing all of this. And so it was it was this kinesthetic experience, right? Because his body's moving. His hand is moving. 00:17:03:28 - 00:17:29:02 Speaker 1 Right. He's dancing. It's like all of this all at the same time. And of course, the other man like me. Shut up man, you men, they're really egging him on, right? And I remember just the joy of hearing him. And I wondered what it would take to get that on a sheet of paper. I remember that, like, could you could you actually write what this man had said? 00:17:29:05 - 00:17:48:18 Speaker 1 And it seemed so limp because he was zigzagging back and forth. And I remember the way they had taught us reading at school. It sounded nothing like that. Right? They told us that that that was redundant. You know, there were all these, critical words for the ways in which this man was doing their ration. But I loved his style. 00:17:48:18 - 00:18:21:23 Speaker 1 I loved his performance. And my grandmother, too, was a storyteller. And I just loved these stories. And I began to I began to want to write as, as a kid. But I didn't really start writing until I was probably in high school. I started writing short stories, probably really bad ones, but but, but but I started, and I think once I went to college and got clear about some of the things we're talking about now, I began to see the worth, the wealth, the value of the inheritance that we share. 00:18:21:26 - 00:18:43:26 Speaker 1 And I said, you know, some of this is it's just got to make its way to paper. Because if we lose, if we lose this, this, I think storytelling is really the soul of black people. I think. So to me, I'm never like, I, I'm still kind of going through that journey with my because what makes us is so arbitrary, right. 00:18:43:26 - 00:19:07:14 Speaker 1 Like and so like for instance, like I was homeschooled, but the entire time. Well, until I was 12. And why? My mom, I so writing this book, I discovered that my mama is she. This is the quote she said I did not believe that a black child, humanity could fully be realized in the presence of whiteness. 00:19:07:17 - 00:19:39:14 Speaker 1 So she homeschooled us. Wow. But the whole school, like my grandfather, built this house. So for generations, everybody would deposit their books. And you being homeschooled, I would read all of these books and then hear all of these stories. And one of the things that we had just because we was homeschooled is like my mom. When the schools would get rid of the old English books, she would get those and put them on ourselves. 00:19:39:16 - 00:20:05:26 Speaker 1 And so you'd have these books with like a literature book that is all different kinds of stories, all different, and that all with just the storytelling aspect of it. So, like, people might think, well, you were homeschooled, which gave you this alternative version of living. And I was like, yeah, that's kind of it. But it's really just like me wandering, though, on those bookshelves. 00:20:05:26 - 00:20:28:26 Speaker 1 And what was on those bookshelves was a consequence of me being homeschooled. So it's all these little arms, very things that, decisions that your parents made, right, might not have been intentional. Like you just going to have to come back to this country and listen to your grow your, your relatives tell these stories, right? Right. And I I've heard him so many times around that word bathroom. 00:20:28:26 - 00:21:04:20 Speaker 1 I was like, this is story of how my grandfather, my grandfather, left, from this place to what he said was that, he set his kids to school and to see the guy who owned this, lands came on was a while. We get these pick, and then these are a school. Is that, will work if I leave from where I am, I visit my grandmother, and, like, like, in a way, I misstated my my kids, right, that go to school. 00:21:04:20 - 00:21:25:07 Speaker 1 And so he left. And so I follow that story a million times. But that story, really, when you think about it, they found I didn't intend it, but it was a story about, like, the value of education. That was always in my for sure. Right. Like so. But we hearing that story of value terms like probably embedded something in. 00:21:25:09 - 00:21:54:16 Speaker 1 And you know what's funny about what you're saying to, that grandfather. Right. Was he even literate? Not really. I think he had a sixth grade education. All his own business, though. Work, on this old technique. But he was, as a matter of fact, you could tell that his descendants from the rest of the family. Because. Because of he they the person who only landed a person in his late 20s or the end of their name. 00:21:54:19 - 00:22:18:21 Speaker 1 And we have his friends and family had one t but the same folks that and that's because, you know, he had a great education. But also, you know what, Michael, this is, I wonder if when our elders, right, talked about education, as you saying they would do, like. I wonder if they meant what we mean. 00:22:18:23 - 00:23:07:01 Speaker 1 You know what I mean? Like, I've always I always wondered, like, did they mean what we mean? Like Frederick Douglass and other. You know what? What our slave ancestors talked about getting some education, right? I'm not sure they mean. They meant what we do. They don't. I don't know if they did a college degree like or I don't know if they meant, like this arbitrary, gathering of, facts, that we the I think they missed a lot of, of them as a it the same way that do talking about labels to a group that routed us and and and and gave us the opportunity to work for and invest. 00:23:07:01 - 00:23:33:02 Speaker 1 But I don't know if they just met light them like, like I you I want you to have a larger or I want you to, when, beyond that. Right. I talked about education. It was it was a all right. I think they saw that. What isn't how to think about like, I don't think we think enough about black. 00:23:33:03 - 00:23:59:01 Speaker 1 How black people value education so much throughout the history of this country. When we created, American education system, it didn't exist before black. But just think about how much you have to want to learn something for them to write a law that says, we'll kill you if you keep doing this. Absolutely. And this is this is exactly what I'm getting at. 00:23:59:01 - 00:24:39:15 Speaker 1 Absolutely. Because it seems to me that our ancestors were begging us to acquire knowledge more than to get education, you know. Right. And, and, and it seems to me that, as you said, very much like you said, I think they meant there's a tool here. And in some ways, I think they were trying to get us, if I'm gonna be risky in some ways, I think they were trying to get us to to use knowledge as a, as a subversive, as a subversive cultural trick. 00:24:39:18 - 00:25:03:11 Speaker 1 Right? Like the same way that we could, the same way that we could trick them, in the kitchen, in the same way we could trick them in the fields. I believe they were saying, you can do this same thing with knowledge, right? It has to be right. You think about it, right? So what's the thing? 00:25:03:11 - 00:25:22:13 Speaker 1 One thing that, old black folks say about. Would they tell you to get a job? They can't take that. They can't take it from you. That's the one thing they can take from you. They will say that. But so there is something about just saying they're right. Like, because they got that stuff, right, right, right right right, right. 00:25:22:13 - 00:25:47:06 Speaker 1 But if this was the thing I can give you. Yeah, they can't take from you. And then you think about something like that. Think about the like the Google the language. And how that was a subversive to absolutely like they how they spoke to each other was not just, mish mash of West African language might be right dialog and right. 00:25:47:08 - 00:26:15:20 Speaker 1 But it was also a tool because they knew that the white folks understands. Right, right, right. And they passed it down. And you think about man, because that is education where you think about somebody who came here, not knowing how to speak a language, not having no language, no family, and creating something from scratch. Absolutely. Like it. That was the thing that they couldn't take from. 00:26:15:27 - 00:26:39:07 Speaker 1 That's why they people liked it. And it's remarkable where we are. And I don't know if we could ever achieve what we achieved. If we hadn't passed all of that knowledge. Like it, it in a lot of ways, man, sometimes I feel bad that we giving it away. Oh, God. Absolutely, absolutely. And it's all in the music. It's. 00:26:39:12 - 00:27:01:23 Speaker 1 I mean, I feel like the same subversion is in I think it's in hip hop today, you know. But I think it was also in the Negro spirituals in the 17, 1800s. And. Right. I think that we come from a history. In other words, I think our ancestors were saying, get the kind of knowledge so that you as a black person never missed a trick. 00:27:01:28 - 00:27:29:02 Speaker 1 Yeah. You got to know, right when we're talking double tongued, you know, are supposed to be able to know both levels of what's being said. If you ever get to the places black people right, where you can only speak the language they speak, you had trouble. Good. You in trouble, right? Like a joke. Like if something's right, they say what was understood don't need to be explained. 00:27:29:03 - 00:28:04:28 Speaker 1 That's right. Right. And there's some way sometimes I do. I do that intentionally. Right. Like there's some things that I will write or I will say, and I know that it's intentionally obtuse to some reason. Absolutely. And so AP solutely are going to understand absolutely. That's the beauty of language. Absolutely. I if there is a secret message hidden in this and I'll get who's reading it, because I know whoever understands it is who I was talking to. 00:28:04:28 - 00:28:35:28 Speaker 1 Right. Absolutely. You know, I remember being in college and grad school and, I'm a musician. I'm a church musician. Right. And, and discovering things like when they said, swing Low, Sweet Chariot, that they were really saying, swing low, sweet chariot. Right. Let's see if a person doesn't know that. Right? That the song was actually, like, in a very literal way, summoning Harriet Tubman, who was the great conductor. 00:28:36:02 - 00:29:02:14 Speaker 1 Right. Harriet, come this way. Yeah, right. Verses. Right. This sounds solely talking about this notion of black folk going to heaven. Yeah. Let's see if, if if we as black people now don't read the double ton nature of that tradition, right then we're reading a history and our own ancestors are not even talking to us. You. Right? Right. 00:29:02:14 - 00:29:32:05 Speaker 1 We're missing their voice completely because we're just saying, oh, wow. I got a home within of that kingdom, you know? Or what's that other song stood on the bank for? Jordan. Right? Like people always singing about Jordan River water, you know, crossing the water. The old ship of Zion. Right, right, right. But if we're not careful, even too many black people read that right. 00:29:32:07 - 00:30:02:14 Speaker 1 And understand these as. Yes, this is the Negro spiritual tradition. Absolutely. But but why are black people always singing about horns in the water? See if we can answer that, then we're missing the double tongue nature of our own tradition. I agree, I agree. I think we look like one of the things I believe, man, is that, you know, I hear black people, you know, especially the ones who imagine themselves to be the most revolutionary. 00:30:02:14 - 00:30:24:00 Speaker 1 They're talking about this white man religion. And while we worship this by religion, I was like, oh, y'all don't even know what? Like, that ain't even what we do. That of what we do. I had to leave here because. No, that's. Damn it, that's so good, man. Because when we go to church. Yeah, that ain't what we do. 00:30:24:01 - 00:30:51:11 Speaker 1 It. Yeah. This. I don't understand what you might be doing that the you lost and they'll say, really? We're using the church as the subversive shield, right. Because really, what we do in this ritual, that's what we do is that's why white folk church, right? Because we do a ritual. Y'all doing church reset. We do a ritual which which is really why we can never tell you when it's gone. 00:30:51:11 - 00:31:17:21 Speaker 1 In that exact breath. I do not know where my magic would ever let out. Because that's the way. Because ritual is always run by the spirit is always. And the spirit is never on chronological. What do you call Kronos time? Right? Ritual is always on spirit time. People blame it on what black people don't handle since the time, you know. 00:31:17:22 - 00:32:00:06 Speaker 1 No no no no no. In fact, with the Time Keepers. Michael. Man, listen, let's end this. Let's let's just let let's let's let's be done with this. You know, dividing line. He, he's doing a human anthology, and he asked me to contribute it. Now, what could I do? So what I did is I did, history of, like, my family, but instead of using the lives of just my family as, like, familial ties, I traced the history of the Holy Ghost in my family and said, I'm done. 00:32:00:09 - 00:32:23:08 Speaker 1 No. I'm done. Where's my. Where's this man? Man, please stop playing with me. That I was just talking about the Holy Ghost. I just did a speech. I did a graduation speech. Everybody see that speech, man? Come on now, have you seen the space race light? Everybody seems to be the title of the speech is a Clark Atlanta University, home of the Holy Ghost. 00:32:23:10 - 00:32:50:05 Speaker 1 Because I've been trying to tell people that the Holy Ghost is African. The Holy Spirit is Lester. That's how it starts. Yeah. It's a it's is like, you see the difference between the Holy Spirit and the Holy Ghost slightly. The Holy Ghost in the Holy Spirit is like part of the, I call it the executive suite. We follow the absolute, but the Holy Ghost is the thing. 00:32:50:05 - 00:33:14:04 Speaker 1 First of all, that you that can get in you is contagious. So, yeah, that's what you gotta acquire. Absolutely. Oh, it is a goal. That's right, that's right. Right. That's right. It's an achievement. Absolutely. And achievement. I was like dude. But it personifies if you ever get it. Yeah. And I was like, do what you tried to do. 00:33:14:05 - 00:33:38:01 Speaker 1 Somebody is winning back okay. The Holy Ghost I know I'm supposed to get the Holy Ghost at some point, but this thing is so magic. This thing is so crazy because the Holy Ghost, you're absolute right. It's really our inheritance. Yeah. If you black you supposed to happen. Yes, but it's not really. Can we in this is like. 00:33:38:04 - 00:34:03:06 Speaker 1 But that's so evil. Do not believe like. But remember I tell the maximum ahead somewhat told to go I this this two I see my mama through the air and it's time. Oh, absolutely. See those kind of swords. Absolutely. Absolutely mad. Absolutely. Because really you're supposed to have a Holy Ghost. You go to church and. Yeah, the Holy Ghost is bigger than the institution. 00:34:03:09 - 00:34:22:26 Speaker 1 You know, you meet the Holy Ghost walking down the road. Oh, you just saved you the sins of my you you on your own. Who's the Holy Ghost? And just like people talk about things, there's a story of this one man, who's from my community. When she was 7 or 8 years old, her dress caught on fire right from a wood stove. 00:34:22:28 - 00:34:39:14 Speaker 1 And it just blaze quickly because it was this old cotton dress. And she burned all her whole back. Just burned her so badly. And they thought she was going to die. They said, hey, when got this healer in our community who came to the house and told her body, get out of the house, get out of the house, everybody! 00:34:39:14 - 00:34:58:17 Speaker 1 I want everybody out of the house! But the girl is just just shivering. And she said, well, everybody at the house, I got to talk to this fire. And she started speaking these words, mumbling, right, right, right. And they took her literally all night long. And when the sun came up the next morning, she came out the house just exhausted, right. 00:34:58:17 - 00:35:19:00 Speaker 1 Saying that, you know, she sent the fire back. This was said that woman and that woman just died a few years ago. Not a mark. Nowhere I can believe I asked her. I said, I'm with her. I heard this story. I said, ma'am, you know, I'm I'm I'm a kid. I'm I'm being raised in a Western educational system. 00:35:19:00 - 00:35:37:04 Speaker 1 So I'm like, come on now, you know, talk to fire. Like what? You know, what the hell is that? Right? I'm like 12. And I ask her and I'll never forget. She lifted up her blouse and she said, do you see a scar? Well, that was after I said, well, you know I can't, ma'am, I don't I don't see it. 00:35:37:07 - 00:36:00:02 Speaker 1 This is supposedly like my grandmother had the scars on her legs. She said, Doe a whistle of fire in her house. It seems like she ate up the fire for this. From the for the children. But she say it's used to tell us a little like when I die, we have to let this fire you go. And the day my grandmother died. 00:36:00:04 - 00:36:23:02 Speaker 1 Let's clarify what we they. Everybody was at the hospital, but I had a I was in a play. I was in a play. And so I was the only one in our town to see a cadaver kidney. Excuse to have get dialysis at the hospital in, like, it was about 40 minutes away, but I they sent me home. 00:36:23:02 - 00:36:46:00 Speaker 1 They gave me got a rifle so I could be in this play. And when I came from the play date. So somebody came and got me and said, my grandma, they told me that my grandmother died in the hospital and and so I believe it, man, because so I was that was born, I was born, I had epileptic seizures. 00:36:46:02 - 00:37:10:08 Speaker 1 And and we was, we're, I said before we started, we stuff about like I would go about it like, so that's how I was born. Was really by a river. Okay. And the hospital was under construction. So it was, part of it where they hand like. No. Oh, so you mean that kind of literally. Yeah. 00:37:10:15 - 00:37:35:23 Speaker 1 So supposedly now this before, when I had, I had epileptic seizures, I would have to take medicine. And they couldn't have visitors because it was the, the hospital was and it was okay. And supposedly the people from my church came and they bought the medicine that and supposedly they prayed it to my body. But I've never had a seizure in my life that I can remember. 00:37:35:23 - 00:37:59:23 Speaker 1 After that, they prayed the medicine into my body. That's what they said. We go pray the medicine that stopped the seizures into black people out of the level, white people at that level. But when people tell me about a white man's religion, I know you don't know what you talk. Right, Michael? We're done. Right. It's good using English words, but it ain't the same thing. 00:37:59:25 - 00:38:24:03 Speaker 1 This English, because that the crime is that black children don't get this. Yeah, that's the crime because they're like, I'm. I'm not really into Christianity. Black people either. Yeah. It's just a shield, bruh. It's just it's just the front. It's just the cover. I would it's four days a week. Listen, entire bands, did you hear me? Entire that. 00:38:24:07 - 00:38:40:21 Speaker 1 And I was there because I was a musician. In fact, I started playing piano when I was three years old. At the time I was six. I'm the church musician. So, you know, I was a little I was a little short now, but they set me up on telephone books, right? So my hands could reach the keys. Right. 00:38:40:24 - 00:39:03:01 Speaker 1 But I was already play by the time I was 10 or 12. Oh, I played for 2 or 3 churches in the area, but I said that because what you're saying is true, but what folks don't know is our parents really had us in constant ritual. Yeah, right. But there's also a reason, because they knew that if you get your spiritual technology together, the rest of this shit is irrelevant. 00:39:03:03 - 00:39:33:29 Speaker 1 Like, and it was also. The church was also like a hiding place. Yes. Absolutely. Right. Like, absolutely. Verily I when I got older, I realized when my mom and I used to go to church, we used to go to church on Friday nights, all day Saturday. Absolutely. And realize or it was going to the club, it was going it back is going to hang out with their friends, eat, eat like they was going to like they was going out. 00:39:33:29 - 00:40:04:18 Speaker 1 Yes, yes, yes, yes. It was like, I don't even know if it was like, religious mandate that the Pope had that. No, that's when my focus was doing right. They was go at my church, especially when you don't go to school, man, the people are family, right? Right, right. Like they was my community. Absolutely right. Absolutely. Like I, I my cousins right now will call me. 00:40:04:18 - 00:40:33:21 Speaker 1 It was like, you know, so and so passed away. And we don't have no blood. Right. It didn't your parents absolutely. Absolutely. And blood a blood type was very important. But sometimes spirit ties were even more important. Like I have uncles who are no kin to me, but but if ever I were to suggest that, or if I were to say that they'd be offended, why? 00:40:33:23 - 00:41:00:24 Speaker 1 Because how so? The I boy, I raised you. I mean, you know, they take that stuff seriously. Like, who the hell are you? Like, I raised you, which means more than I birthed you. Yeah, I raised you. You know, it's like I intentionally and and and I made a decision to pour into you. Right? Which binds us in ways that's non-negotiable. 00:41:00:27 - 00:41:27:27 Speaker 1 But I I'm supposed to be. I know, like, and my mama was the person who basically raised everybody's in my community. So she everybody but Right. Like, if you pass like, I had my mother best friend was she do have three from us. She had three daughters. So one was my age like exactly my age. 00:41:27:29 - 00:41:52:15 Speaker 1 One was exactly the age of my younger sisters. And what was the, the exact age of my older sister. So we always told this story about one day we came home from church and our barn was burned us, and we found out years later that the littlest one across the street, it burned it down like trying to ride my bike. 00:41:52:17 - 00:42:24:15 Speaker 1 But I was whining about that and was, you know, interview with her. And she was like, well, you know, when I was like 10 or 11 maybe, though she was younger, seven and eight, she was like, she used to be so bad. And she would sneak around and she was like, I know I was outside and listening to your mom, and my mom was in the backyard, and I heard my mom giving your mother instructions about what to do, and she got it. 00:42:24:18 - 00:42:50:05 Speaker 1 And that's how, like, she knew her mom. That's how she found out I was terminally ill by sneaking around, in rehearsal. I'm like, this was like that. This whole half this girls. She was like. My mom was writing it down. That's my mom. Was everybody in our community. So no, no, no, people had looked at me again. 00:42:50:05 - 00:43:19:26 Speaker 1 But nope, none of those people in my town were family because I didn't have blood family in my food. I would write, who was that? Gay in my grandfather's house. But that church, those people that raised me, they were my. They were our fans. Absolutely, absolutely. But, I mean, I really could have just left you. I, me, I mean, that's just that Holy Ghost thing we want. 00:43:19:26 - 00:43:38:05 Speaker 1 If we get that is black people. That's really the key to understanding why black people, even through Christianity, it is not, in fact, when I was maybe 40, I was a reader as a kid, which is really rare in our house. My father wasn't a reader. I don't come from reading people. They they taught right, but I don't come. 00:43:38:11 - 00:43:58:26 Speaker 1 I was a rare breed. My my great grandmother love to read and she and I were very close. So. So I grew up as a reader kid. But I remember telling my father that maybe 14, I don't believe in God. And daddy said, don't make no. Do you? He said, we going to church and let's go. There was no discussion. 00:43:58:28 - 00:44:19:03 Speaker 1 And I said, we. And I said, daddy, I said, I believe in God. He said, that will mean God will believe in you. I said, oh, wow. I never brought up to him again. I mean, just that feeling that like, and who are you to think you need to believe in God, right? Like all like all of that. 00:44:19:03 - 00:44:57:21 Speaker 1 Our work is dependent on you. Is it? Is it? Put me in context. You really think God requires your belief for God to be God, right? But he said, definition of God. Yes. Yeah. Like, oh, you think we're talking about somebody talking about. That's right. Maybe being right. Right, right. It is. But I also understand that what you like people because religion has the weaponize of gifts. 00:44:57:29 - 00:45:23:09 Speaker 1 Right? They think what we're doing is what they're doing right. Weaponize. That's right, that's right. And I've I think you have to explain it and understand what science covers is sometimes I don't even know if I can explain like, you know, understand cannot like it's like that. That's right. And I see it most in the music. Right. Explain. 00:45:23:12 - 00:45:46:22 Speaker 1 Every since I was a child and then I was chief musician. Black people keep singing about, this thing they cannot explain. But they say that in the song. Right. I remember this song called What Is This? And and the like. What is this? Right that I feel inside. Right. And then the song goes on to say, whatever it is, they they never name it. 00:45:46:22 - 00:46:06:28 Speaker 1 It just won't let me hold my peace. Right? But they never say exactly what that. And I'm my skin. I was like, well, what is it then? Damn. What is, what is it, what, what is it? What am I? And my grandmother would say, you ain't got to name it. Just enjoy it. Grandma, what is it? I used to say that all the time I like they said I would go to the bottom right. 00:46:07:00 - 00:46:43:06 Speaker 1 I could get to the what? You tell me what you said in its own way. Never tell. They never stop. Because part of the subversion is that jazz. It's like, Kev, there's this, like cavernous black space that only the black imagination is supposed to know. But you ain't supposed to tell, but she's supposed to know. And one of the ways and this to do you remember as a key is some of these, especially older men sometime in their talking, like baby talking to you, you know, this is like what? 00:46:43:08 - 00:47:05:01 Speaker 1 I remember these men mumbling. Yeah. The things. Right. They be like, man, listen man, my wife got on my nerves sick, see shit and like, okay. And as a kid I was like, well wait, did I miss the sense in there? Like, what do say what? Like. And what I realize is they were literally tried to obfuscate the limits of language. 00:47:05:01 - 00:47:34:14 Speaker 1 Yeah. Because there were things that they were saying, but English didn't have the right translation. Yeah. So they mumbled across these chasms, right. Whereby English could not conceive of the complexities of black life. Yeah, I like that. The first, the most explicit example is like people don't understand. But when I tell them. 00:47:34:17 - 00:48:00:05 Speaker 1 When black people say, you be at dinner, you don't understand. That is a more precise thing. It is not, a correct right. English does not have a verb form that both encapsulates the past and the present and the simultaneous. Absolutely right. Absolutely. He said he evolve. Right. It means the deuce. He was right. Right. He was now. 00:48:00:08 - 00:48:28:16 Speaker 1 And he shall be right. And he just like, you can't I don't have to conjugate difference. Right. That's right, that's right. So he you know he could. Yes. That's just that's just like passing and God is. Yeah. He is what. Yeah. Oh Michael Michael Michael Michael. But I all of it all of that is how that thing is so good to me. 00:48:28:16 - 00:49:09:17 Speaker 1 Yeah man. But it is like, it's just I call it magic. This is this. There are people's problem. We call it magic is they think magic is against Christianity and people think the that which that folks are doing Christianity. But if they understood that we really do it, if they understood that we really do. All right then call it magic is is if that's really in the tradition, because all magic means is it's beyond your control and sometimes it's beyond your I, you know, and sometimes you I understand your understanding and black one of the things that I think is truly brilliant, we come for people who don't have the hell to understand. 00:49:09:20 - 00:49:29:12 Speaker 1 They don't have to have the explain this what you do. That's right. And that is education period and period. You do it because that's what we do and it work. I work, I'll know. And you don't need to know this, this, this what we do. That's one more of these that, tell me tell us the in the corpus. 00:49:29:12 - 00:49:48:24 Speaker 1 You're free over this. I still don't know. It's you. Me? I still don't know what I did, but let's let's listen and see what we get. I had a one time, and I want to be in this, town itself. And my whole rap crew was depending on me and my grandma. I'm afraid of that piece. And I was. 00:49:48:24 - 00:50:16:04 Speaker 1 Okay, listen, I'm fat. My. I'm must. I like t you know, I'm not 19, but I have. What are the early calls? What a single dizzy curve as a part of the problem of two is my list. This endless list. Is this just this? This is what it. We have limited black power to what whiteness can conceive. Exactly. 00:50:16:07 - 00:50:46:14 Speaker 1 But see, this is the thing right? That is what the pride of, what we misunderstand as education. That's correct. That's why we get stuck. We full circle. Now, that's exactly right. Ain't no way that you my dream. I'm a plate freight and into a tire is confined by the limits of your education. Because you have the miss and was do about this is why isn't that possible? 00:50:46:18 - 00:51:10:08 Speaker 1 If Jesus walked. Well, what? Why is that possible? This. Well, the biggest. Like. First of all, if you've got a black in me walk in America at that all of the things that they can see to kill are we are in the water. Right. That why is is going into a that's why even the impossible that's right. 00:51:10:08 - 00:51:33:25 Speaker 1 Right. Because we are disciples. It is impossible for us to be here. You think about all the things that has been admitted. You have no idea of the way I understand that you have. You just really have magic. You have no idea the way I understood what you just said. If I really look at my life trajectory right now, there is no possible way this should have happened, right? 00:51:33:28 - 00:52:01:29 Speaker 1 I come from poor black folks in rural Arkansas, none of whom probably ever read a book. How did this happen? Right. And it is. That is as much magic is absolute survival free? Absolutely. Praying the medicine into my body. Look. Right. Absolutely. Tell me that just like so many people have told me that. So why would I disbelieve? 00:52:02:01 - 00:52:24:20 Speaker 1 Because of something. Oh, why? I read a white man. That's right, that's right. And their notions of universalism. And who knows what is possible, right? See, that's what used to mess me up when I was a kid in church. Right? I read stories about walking. Oh, Jesus. Walking on water and out of that. But what is. The stories I heard about black people were always unbelievable to me. 00:52:24:22 - 00:52:48:09 Speaker 1 What that forced me to realize is then Jesus had to be white in my head. He had to be because I gave room for Jesus to be that. I let move to that. I could then see that Jesus on the walk that was magnificent and fantastical to me. But I was like, oh my God, this Jesus must have been a bad dude. 00:52:48:10 - 00:53:11:06 Speaker 1 You know, I had that. But the notion of them talking fire at this moment was like, come on now. But but where I was really shocked is at that time I didn't understand black people to imagine why and see, I always, I always thought not initially. Yeah. Not lit. Not until I really understood. Because then later these same people he was walking the wire were killing me. 00:53:11:08 - 00:53:52:05 Speaker 1 Right? So so I was like, just somewhere as this stop some somebody saying, Ed, know somebody, see somebody still work, you know. But also what, what, what I began to see was that there are ways black people, we think we live we imagine in the metaphor. Right. And, and and it's the metaphor for me that makes me so, just so unbelievably excited about the way black people see the world, because, let's everything we talk about, everything we think about, it's it's it in it's it's in this imagined way of speaking a future that doesn't exist. 00:53:52:08 - 00:54:19:29 Speaker 1 But it keeps coming, right? Then it says, yeah. Yes. Right. But it keeps coming. Right? I need to think about this. Even this notion of the Underground Railroad. How brilliant is it to conceive of fugitives running away, right? Or trying. Yeah, but ain't no train. Yes. When it grows, it's great. Right? But ain't no train. Yeah, but the train is the main mode of transportation of that day. 00:54:20:02 - 00:54:50:08 Speaker 1 Right. So here's this underground railroad, right. Right, right. We they're a daughter. It's. We had thought about the subways. Conceived of it. That's right. Stuff. Definitely I hoist absolute absolutely absolutely and black for use this. Macro I'm not you know more we're like night again man. Like but like if you see I'm walking up the King's Highway. But when no highway yet. 00:54:50:11 - 00:54:58:06 Speaker 1 Yeah. It was dirt roads. I had no problem with what? 00:54:58:08 - 00:55:25:24 Speaker 1 I never thought about that. Oh, sharply. Oh. Or this like, remember you like if you had something wrong with you, whether it was drug addiction or you was real sick, did they had it? Wouldn't just one person who had to live here? So you everybody, everybody they ever they had get an absolute like to little play. That's right. 00:55:25:24 - 00:55:52:17 Speaker 1 Oh just every guy. But he's just going around you you absolute. But that is like the, the knowledge that the conception, the imagination. If all of us give you this, it absolutely give it is more powerful. Like something. Sometimes the word magic man is enough. But sometimes it's going to take all. All of us. Absolutely. All of it. 00:55:52:18 - 00:56:25:05 Speaker 1 And you know, what I think is really is without. And we just rarely get this when it when we would build a circle around and laid hands with forces in back in the world, people will hurt you again. Yeah, I know, it's horrible. Yeah, yeah. Which is why I often go with mothers doing this. Yeah. Right. Yeah. We put you back in the world I never thought about and prayer warriors when I was at least. 00:56:25:05 - 00:56:56:04 Speaker 1 Black people are bad people. And I say, if we could just get clear that what we do with their religion and what they and the reason they were right, all of that was never, I well, see, I guess maybe because in the church, like we read the Bible and all of that will make. But why? Conception of it was never based on the white man or it was never really religious. 00:56:56:11 - 00:57:25:10 Speaker 1 I mean, we started reading. Yeah, because half these people we talked about, they couldn't have read. Yeah. And the Bible is a horrible little English united. People wouldn't read that Bible right to necessarily what they want, but that's what they would do down if they were to, we because it first of all, it's a book of mystical proverbs anyway. 00:57:25:10 - 00:57:59:20 Speaker 1 Absolute right. Absolute. And the thing is, to me, though, what it was is like, well, again, back to education was pass it down. That is so easy. Absolutely. Like how. Because it was there was a way to survive without that. You had to have magic. You had to have magic. I don't think about and again, I often reference music as I was musician like black people taking this, oh Mary, don't you like, you've heard this song. 00:57:59:20 - 00:58:21:08 Speaker 1 You like this story about this one, but you know who loses her child, right? Right. Pharaoh's army got drowned in the this side, you know, like you do a batch because Pharaoh and Mary would never have met. Yeah. What is it? The New Testament and others in old 2000s of years later. Yeah, but it's a song about magic. 00:58:21:11 - 00:58:45:17 Speaker 1 If that's right, it's about magic. Which being. Which means we just. You can take whatever character you want. Not, you know, Lord, we just do it. What are you crying for? The for the last. You from a pharaoh in a state. What are you crying for? My. I cannot be bothered with you. What are you crying for, Mary? 00:58:45:21 - 00:59:14:11 Speaker 1 We that we didn't part of the water to get this far. Girl we can resurrects him. Mike. Let's go. Let's. It's the songs that's in it. That's just that's just that's just. Be a brother is greater from equality to rare. Yeah. I cannot that's a deep thing. 00:59:14:11 - 00:59:41:26 Speaker 1 Thank you for spending time with us and for being a part of the Baldwin Co community. Every listen helps to keep the conversation alive. So thank you for listening. And if you believe in the work that we're doing, building literacy, nurturing curiosity and investing in our city, please, please, please consider supporting to the Bone and Co Foundation. You can go on to that Bco foundation at org. 00:59:41:26 - 01:00:01:16 Speaker 1 You can make a donation or you can just go to WW Baldwin or call books.com. You can follow us on our socials just at Baldwin and Company. So make sure you follow us. Check us out, subscribe. If you want to watch the video portion of this podcast and all of our podcasts, definitely check out our YouTube channel. 01:00:01:17 - 01:00:22:27 Speaker 1 It's just Baldwin and co on YouTube. Put it in the search and it'll come right up. So thank you so much. Please. Your donations, a few, programs that open doors our kids and our neighborhoods. And, when you're ready for your next great read, make sure to visit us online at Baldwin and Co. Every book you buy to help us just keep the movement going. 01:00:23:02 - 01:00:41:11 Speaker 1 If you're in New Orleans, make sure to stop by. Our address is 1030 Legion Fields Avenue. Come by and check us out. Get a good book, hang with us, get a good cup of coffee, and, look forward to seeing you. Have a good one.