Keep on ridin would it says, we continue to broadcast the balance and defend the discourse from the Hip Hop Weekly Studios. Welcome back to Civic Cipher. I'm your host, Rams's Jack.
He is Rams's joh, I am q Ward. You are tuned into Civic Scipher.
Indeed, and we are going to be talking to the one, the only, doctor Ebram X Kindy. Now, for those who don't know, Doctor Ibram x Kindy is a National Book Award winning author of sixteen books for adults and children, including ten New York Times bestsellers, five of which were number one New York Times bestsellers, including How to Be Anti Racist. That's certainly a book that we've discussed on this show more than once. We've taken a lot of
content from that book. That book to conceive of segments that we thought would be meaningful and useful. But there's more than that, of course. But for those who don't know, How to Be Anti Racist was described in The New York Times as the most courageous book to date on the problem of race in the Western mind. But before we finish our conversation with doctor Ibram x Kindy, it is time to be Aba become a better ally Baba and today's Baba. We want to tell you about Chicanos Borlacosa.
You can check them out at CPLC dot org. And this one is kind of special to me, so let me share a little bit about this organization. Chicanosporloc also began with a group of student and community activists who push back against racial discrimination. Today, they are one of the largest Latino nonprofits in the country, providing services to people of all backgrounds. Put a pending that we're going to come back to it while honoring their Mexican American roots.
The programs give individuals and families a seat at the table. They facilitate growth through five areas of impact, health and human services, housing, education, economic development, and advocacy. With offices in six Southwestern states and clients across the country, CPLC impacts almost one million lives per year. If you would like to make a donation, you can do so at CPLC dot org. And your support of CPLC may qualify for a dollar for dollar tax credit through the Charitable
Foster Care and School Tax Credits programs. You can learn
more again at CPLC dot org. And I did want to share with you that when my birth mother first left California and moved to Arizona to get me away from whatever might have been waiting for me on the streets of Compton, one of the first organizations to help out that black woman with four kids was chicanospor Lakosa and I remember going to the facilities and I remember them helping her get a job, and I remember it was a tough time with a woman who was just
kind of seeking a better future for her family, and CPLC was there for her. And so this organization ACT have a personal experience with because I remember hanging out there when I was a little kid. So again, CPOC dot org. If you feel so inclined now, Q, I know you had something left over from last segment, and so why don't you start off and then we'll go from there.
The fourthcoming book, Malcolm Lives. You have a vision with this text. What is it that you're trying to accomplish, Like, as a reader and to our listener, you know, what is it that we should be looking for or looking to gain from Malcolm Lives.
I remember when I was growing up, I didn't like particularly when I was in school, like I didn't really history was boring for me. I'm like, why do I have to learn about history like that, that's fifty years ago, one hundred years ago. How does it relevant to me? And the here and the now? I didn't see it as relevant, So I didn't really care about history. But what I'm trying to do with Malcolm Lives is show how history lives through the life of Malcolm X. And
so many scenes in the book. The book is largely told in scenes, and so many of the scenes in the book are literally not just set in nineteen sixty one or nineteen sixty three, but they're also set in the here and the now, in which Malcolm is both speaking to the moment in nineteen sixty two as well as the moment here and now, so that people can see how Malcolm's, his message and his legacy lives, and it lives in a moment of spreading anti blackness, of Islamophobia,
in which black people are being divided. And this was a man who directly challenged anti black racism, who directly challenged Islamophobia, who directly urged black people to unite. He would oftentimes say to black people, they don't hang you because you're a Methodist. They don't hang you because you're a Baptist. They hang you because you're black.
Well, you know, while we're here, one of the things that I've noticed, and this is before we were able to have a conversation, but there's been this kind of new barrier that's come about, and call it the last maybe eight years, and it has manifested itself in the form of book bannings and oftentimes, as I mentioned, you know, I've seen books that you've written on these books, and certainly more recently, what do you make of the attacks on literature and ultimately, what do you make of the
rebrand end of American history as CRT And what I want from you here is the why in terms of why history is important. I want the why in terms of why are they attacking it and so forth? Can you give us a little bit more on that?
Sure, let's mean. I think one of the ways to explain the why is to explain the origins of book banning in this country. The original og book banners were in slavers. They literally ban abolitionist texts in the South. And at the same time they ban abolitionist texts, they didn't allow black people to read and write right, because they recognize that through reading and writing abolitionist texts, we could realize, if we didn't already, that the problem wasn't us.
We could figure out ways to smash and eliminate slavery, which of course was the source, you know, of their richest And then even the vast majority of white Americans in the South who weren't enslavers, could also realize how slavery was harming them too, so they needed they neither wanted black people nor white people in slavers did to recognize that in slavers were the problem, that slavery was the problem, that we collectively were being undermined and to
a certain extent, oppressed because of those enslavers. And I think it's the same thing now, you know, I think you have so many random Americans who don't know their history, who don't understand the ways in which a this current president is literally instituting policies that relative to black people are going to benefit them. But relative to black people, but then if you take black people, it's ultimately going to harm that exactly right, So for instance, relative to
black people, it's gonna benefit white people. When if they make these tax cuts permanent, but it's actually only going to benefit a small segment of white people, and the vast majority of white people are gonna have to essentially pay for those tax cuts for the super rich. And so I think that what education does is it allows people to not be manipulated. And I think that's why I am constantly in the book. So I'm like, they're
not gonna play me. And I know the more I read, the more I understand history, the more I understand the present, the more I'm able to grasp what is being said to me and why. And the more i'm the more I'm able to prevent people from manipulating me to do things that are against my own interests.
I wish more people would adopt that stance. We've seen far too many manipulated directly into doing things against their own best interest just because racism flatly in the wake of the election, and now that the new president has been inaugurated and got right to work on the agenda that we all saw coming, for some people, there's been
a sense of hopelessness. Many are looking for some form of decisive, specific, actionable leadership from Democrats to try to regain some of that ground that was lost, you know, over this past election cycle, over this past year, from
what we've noticed, the planning or strategy seems fragmented. You know, at best from your purview, What are some steps that we can take or that our leadership can take, that are some viable strategies or viable steps that we can take collectively For liberals and those who believe in liberal who have a more liberal political leaning, I think.
It's important just for us to realize that what this current administration is seeking to do is destroy any program or organization that is striving for really equity and justice. And I think the reason why I just wanted to underline that is because if we have a program or for part of an organization, or if we've created a platform, or if there's a platform or program or organization that we like, it's important for us to understand that those organizations,
those entities are under attack. And so when they're under when something is under attack, what is the solution to defend it, to protect it, to fund it, to support it, to ensure that it's going to survive this attack, and if anything, to grow it. Right in the midst you know, of the storm to create new entities and organizations, you know,
and platforms that are that are anti racists. And I just want to sort of emphasize that because there's a number of entities that we can that we already are in our backyards, that we could be supporting, and those are the entities that we need to ensure that survive, and those are the entities that are going to power the movement that can ultimately create a new, a new world.
So I want to ask something here that has come up quite a bit. So, you know, Q and myself, we spend a lot of time in the deep end of you know, you know, the right wing, you know, media circles and chat rooms and so forth, just to keep an eye on what they are talking about, what it is that they think is accurate, and so forth, so that we know how to have conversations that we believe our listeners can use to make the changes in
their individual communities. And there's this persistent narrative which I suspect that you know, I haven't been alive forever, but I suspect this has been a narrative that has existed for some time, but certainly in recent years and certainly in recent months. There's this narrative that exists that suggests that white men are under attack and that everything that benefit it's someone who is not a white man, indeed
comes at their expense. And so if a white man is not thriving or prospering or whatever, this narrative fits nicely into their worldview because they can easily point to black people, immigrants.
Et cetera.
What would you say to people that kind of harbor this sentiment that white men or white people are under attack, and how would our listeners challenge that narrative in their day to day lives as they attempt to go out and you know, perhaps they're at the beginning stages, but they're trying to be anti racists themselves.
Sure, I think. I think first, white men, like black men, are not a monolith. There are many different groups of white men. There's only a very small number of white men who are super wealthy, who are heterosexual, who are Protestant.
Who.
And so if you actually break down white men, working class white men, and impoverished white men are actually under attack, but not by the forces that they think. It's actually the forces that they're voting for that are making it harder for them to organize and unionize. That's cutting sort of government resources and benefits that help them. That is stripping away funding for things like cancer research that can
actually benefit them. That is costing them more money out of their pocket because of the cost of food and eggs, which continues to sort of go up. And so for working class white mele and the vast majority of white men again are not rich. You know, when you have a government that is controlled by billionaires like that, those certainly billionaires are not acting in the best interests of working class white men. They're acting in the best interests
of billionaire white men. And then you've had a number of white men who are gay, who've had books that have been banned. They can't teach their children, you know about homophobia, just as black parents can't teach their children you know about black history because of book bands. You've had white Jewish men who faced all sorts of anti
semitism from white supremacists. You've had white men who are Democrats who live in states whereby this government is like, I'm not sending any funding to California, that's a blue state. I don't care about y'all. You've had and so I think you can go down the list of different groups of white men to really talk to them about how this administration's policies are actually not benefiting them and it
actually are hurting them. And I think when we speak about white men in a monolith as a monolith, I think it actually helps those forces that are seeking to harm white men, because then you have white men who are making thirty thousand dollars a year who are somehow identifying with billionaires when there's no relationship between them, and the reason why they're only making thirty thousand dollars is because of the policies those billionaire politicians are supporting.
And I think white supremacy has as it's superpower that white men do have a monolithic view of themselves, so they are united in those that they choose to oppress. Black people are not a monolith, and we wear that
and we say that proudly. But the lack of solidarity in that way has proven to be a weakness because you know, we tend to find the one thing that we disagree on and make that the champion divider of everything that we're trying to do, while those who oppress us and oppose us can disagree on everything except for the fact that white people are superior, and their monolithic view in that regard has been their superpower in organizing and strategizing and showing up when it's time to vote
against their own best interests, because as long as it's against black people that it must be the right thing to do. Your insight, your writing, your mind, your point of view are things that you know, these two gentlemen over here consider national treasures. Man, For our listeners who are being introduced to you today, when is Malcolm Lives going to be released? Where can they find you? How
can they support you social media websites. We do not want this to be the last time that people who are hearing your voice for the first time hear it. And we want to make sure that we are as engaged as we can be, because we benefit greatly from just being in your company, sir, and I.
Just want to thank each of you for having these thoughtful and really critical conversations. You know, I can only imagine the number of listeners who've been able to go on their own transformative intellectual journey because of the conversations that and even the insight you provided them. But and so I'm just excited to be able to be in
conversation with you. Malcolm Lives is dropping May thirteen, which is about a week before Malcolm terms one hundred years old, six days before he turns one hundred years old on May nineteenth of this year. And Malcolm Lives is pretty much available wherever books you know are sold. And my handle on social is my first name Ibrahim x K. And then you know, of course I'm here on my websites ibramaxican dy dot com, so I'm around, follow me, engage.
But I'm really excited about about Malcolm Lives. I feel like I've been working on this book my whole life.
Yeah.
Yeah, well we're excited to check it out ourselves. And once again, it's it's important for people who are just coming to the table in terms of, you know, their activism, just coming to the table in terms of how they
choose to resist tyranny and whatever. For folks that are just coming to the table to plug into some good resources, and indeed for folks that listen to me and Q either on the Black Information Network, on civic side, for on any of the shows that we do, just know that doctor eberm X k is one such north star that we look to to quote a term that Q
uses quite frequently. You know, people have told us in recent you know, weeks and months that now our voice is more important than ever, which feels kind of crazy because you know, of course, we, like many folks, thought the world was going to go in a kinder, more
intellectually superior direction. But we understand the spirit in which that compliment is paid to us, that that, you know, what we do now means more than it ever has, and that's a compliment that we'd like to pay forward to you, sir, because your voice now is more important. You know, it's very easy for us to wonder if we're going crazy, if we miss something, why is this happening?
What is this normal? And for a person such as yourself who's so connected to history, a person who is such an introspective and insightful or tour and author, a person who just kind of has some insight and kind of lives in a space where a lot of people don't because they have to go to work and then they have to take care of these kids, and you know, they can only tap in from time to time. That's
all the bandwidth they have. It's important for us to make sure that we tell you, of course, but we also tell our listeners that you know, there there are some folks that really do have the game, so to speak, and our estimation, and you're one such individual. So with that in mind, I'd like to thank you again very much for your time and your insight, of course, coming onto the show to share some of your thoughts and of course your upcoming book The World to Us once again.
Today's guest is doctor Ebram X Kendy, a National Book Award winning author of the forthcoming book Malcolm Lives. For those who may have missed the first part of the episode, do us a favor. Hit civiccipher dot com because you can download this episode in its entirety. You can also submit any questions, any topics, anything that you want us to discuss what's going on in your community. If you let us know, we can do some investigative journalism and do our best to help out. You can also follow
us on all social media. You can do that at Civic Cipher on all platforms. We are particularly interested in YouTube subscribers. Outside of that, you are welcome to follow me on all platforms. I am ramses ja Qwards. Of course I am Cuward on all platforms and until next week, y'all peace,