Lies About Black People

My league buns has how to knowledge you want.

My league Buds has how to knowledge you need.

My leg puns chat.

They have out of books that the whole wild world?

What of reread Malague Buks.

Welcome, Welcome, Welcome to Malik's Bookshelf, bringing a world together with books, culture and community. Hi, my name is Malik, your host of Malik's Bookshelf, and we are excited about this upcoming week. And I'm excited that I'm closely approaching my one hundred episode. Now this is ninety eight ethpisode and this particular episode.

Is Lies about Black People, a book written by doctor Omi Congo that I was able to interview and do a podcast all in the same day last week.

So I'm gonna feature that conversation and it is a explosive talking about his book Lies about Black People. We got some solutions. We don't always want to talk about the problem. We do got to come up with solutions. But let me tell you this, we got some exciting things coming up this week. This year at the Los Angeles Times Festival Books, Elite Books is featuring seventy wonderful authors.

Books But It's not Aver.

Milite Books were selected again to be the Children's special seller for the Children's main stage. They have graced us with hosting over thirty authors that are doing book signings.

Here's the line up.

Here's some of the authors you can expect signing at the Children's booth six oh three by the main stage. We got what Tiffany Hattis, Todd Parr, Michelle Kutson, Doctor Seema Jasmine, David Shannon, you know Blimpy, Coco Millan in the Game, He's there, Brady Smith, Bernie Salzburger, Allison Boss. That's DJ twitch wife, she's keeping the legacy going. She got a children book about dancing, So come out and get a book signed. Rest in peace. DJ Twitch.

We also got.

Doctor Ellen O'so wrote a whole bunch of boy books about Siyence. She got to come through, Muriel Surrema, Selena Young, Emily Errol, Eli, Duncan Dorri Wayne shinning Hell.

Listen, this is all.

These authors at the children's stage, gonna be signing the book, gonna be performing, and Belik Books is graceton honor to

Come through.

My guest today, oh Man come go wrote the book lies about Black people.

Now, what's the subtitle right here? How to combat race, the stereo types and why it matters. So we give it solutions. We ain't talking about the problem almost definitely. We want solutions.

Because we're tired of di checting the problem.

We need solutions.

No absolutely, I mean the book has you know, twenty three chapters and the last five or so chapters are all about solutions. But you can't talk about the solutions. Do you know the problem? Should and understand it. So we break down all the stereotypes. Black people can't swim, black people are bad with money, black people can't live here, black people are more likely to be criminals.

Media images about black people.

We talk about all of those joints, and then we talk about how to combat those stereotypes in our everyday lives and in our professional lives as well.

What was your inspiration for one to write a book?

Was you just fat up?

Was you just well, you know, across the country, I'm working with schools and corporations and government groups, and in all of these places, everybody's asking me questions of coming out of twenty twenty people everyone's talking about Black lives Matter, but people were just really scratching the surface on what black lives Matter means. So I wrote the book for people who wanted to take it to a deeper level, to really understand what it means to live in a

This is what happened.

I went online and I said, Yo, what were the lies that you were told about black people? And the majority of people who responded were black people. And that was when it just kind of flipped the mind in terms of what this book was needed for. So even though my original intent was to educate more people about us, it's really more design to educate us about us as well.

So basically you meant in the room, yeah, very yes, absolutely, it's sive subject.

That's right. A lot of people it's difficult to.

Talk with, you know, but we have to deal with it.

We have to excided. My doctorate on jay Z.

I teach a class on Jay Z at American University, so I caught him a lot. One of the things he says is, you know, you can't heal what you don't reveal, you know. So in here we're revealing the story, we're revealing the history, where did it all come from. I also interview people on their anti racist journey, So some black folks, Asian, white folks, and Jewish folks. They're all talking about lies they were told about us and how they work to overcome them.

And so that's another powerful part of the book.

And then I also have activities that people can do at the end of each chapter as well, to die, you know, to record their.

Own racist journey.

And of course, as the MC and spoken word artists, I got some of my original poetry poet, Yes, author, Yes, give me some more.

What else, professor American? You know you know what I mean? So we get it in. It's yoga Wifelate studios.

Because you can't have your health and that you know, if you want to be great, you gotta.

Have your health, mind, body and soul. Yes, sir, we gotta coach the bay.

All this book lies about black people.

You gotta pick up all books are.

So, particularly Malite Books dot.

Com and Elite Books to locations Westfield code c more and.

Come through.

Doctor o me Congo did some poetry later on that evening hosted that Malik Books where I did an interview with him and the discussion and the book signing. But I wanted to feature some of the poetry that he recited that same day that evening as we conducted our book signing that Malik Books Enjoy.

Let me tell you some history will always repeat itself when you don't get it right.

Get around.

We see it being.

Repeated up and then they want to take it away. Absolutely, you know what I'm saying.

We didn't please them, and then they start changing the landscape, changing the way they do things, banning more books of critical race theory. Yes, and then you know that you know changes are coming back and they putting us to sleep.

That's right?

Can I read this one? He was reading my mind, so you know. I just it's what was called actually saw. You can also check it out on the YouTube channel when I perform, and it's called critical racist theory. I guess we can't teach why Native Americans had tears on that trail. I guess we can't teach why Japanese Americans who aren't turned in those camps in jail. I guess we can't teach why Jews flamed the Holocaust, came to

When my class has talked about America's.

Hopes and intentions, but they didn't lift my hopes by teaching me about black inventions. You don't think that I felt guilty like the three if there's summer Man, when y'all taught that I was only civilized when you brought me to this land Nubia.

But I ain't gonna be selfish.

It ain't just my history dismissed because I can talk about a Latino, Asian, Indigenous, and Jewish. Because y'all want to exclude the Chinese Exclusion Act from the books. Y'all want to talk about all Latitos being labeled as Chicanos and crooks. And even though there are white Muslims, that narrative won't work because y'all want to teach that Muslims are just terrorists who murder and her You don't want to teach Islamic contributions to science and math. You don't

I know that white kids age.

Sixteen to nineteen can handle sixteen nineteen, even white kids in elementary and preteens, because too many students get angry when they find out the truth about America's complete history that wasn't taught in their youth. America can only be as good as this promise when we teach history in full.

So let's support our teachers and teaching the truth in school.

Woo give it up, gear it up.

That's was beautiful, my brother, It's very beautiful. How long, we take you right there.

So if if less than an hour, like everybody got even right on to it. I think about poems for a long time, but when it's time to write, it's got a it's gotta flow. So I just sit down and it's just glos.

You know yours. You know that, you know that poetry is the language of God. You know you're telling them. You know that that poem, brother was like telling a thousand years of history.

Certain, you know that's why poetry is the language you got why because you know if I tell you go, we're sit down and read.

A thousand years of history. The best way to tell that is in the poetry.

I was support as simblies, And that's why we have ancient books that teach thousands of years in a few papers.

That's right, it's the language of God.

It's only what the communicate that I'm not sitting down read no million pages.

I mean, that's what the reasons I started doing. You know, the spoken word of hip hop was you want to reach our youth. You know, aren't gonna pick up the books first. Maybe they go to them later, you know, after hearing the poem or hearing the other album you know to hip hop joints and stuff.

You know, I remix rappers. You know that's your kids. You can rap it out swearing. You know some of those you know are in this book.

You know I took biggies uh ten crack commandments and made it. You know, the ten anti racist commandments. You know, just way used to get them attracted to this information so that they can be inspired to carry it on.

Drop those ten commandments, my brother.

So the rhyme goes like this, I've been in this land for years, see me as an animal and racist slides.

I wrote, y'all, Emanuel, a step.

By step booklet for you to get time we learn how to be anti racist. Let me lay out the blueprint of how to do it. Want to be an anti racist? This is how you pursue it. See it ain't good enough to say what you ain't. You gotta do the work. Box that hate out the paint. Start by checking yourself and while you have those fears, look at who's been teaching you those racist ideas. White hate black, black hate white black had black. When it comes to being racist, we should all step back, check it off.

Runo, Runo.

Got to let people know the racist views you hold and how you plan to let them go. Number two is a good net move. Get a good reading list that challenges your views.

Number three.

Never trust nobody who says they ain't racist when their actions speak loudly.

Number four. Know you heard this before. Some of my best friends are black. Don't say that anymore.

Number five. You don't want racism to stay alive. Learn how it all started, then make sure that it dies.

Number six.

Post racial rhetoric forget it. Think voting for Obama stop and racism forget it. Number seven, this rule is so underrated. Understand why our neighborhoods are still segregated because money and the race don't mix. Like Donald Trump, with real ethics, find yourself in peach real quick. Number eight never keep no hate in you, exercise it all. Exercise it as all casts. Maybe let some friends go too. Number nine should have been number one. To me know from day

Before we wake up.

Come on, come on, yeah, how we see and feel in ourselves. You've got to love yourself to be yourself. In order to be yourself, you got to know yourself. And so we gotta do better at making that transition so that we can pass that torch on to.

The next generation.

So when somebody walks up to that person, that kid, and say, you know that black is ugly, No.

It's nothing.

Black is beautiful. Black is the essence of life. Black is the root of everything. So all the colors and what barrel and what color do you get?

So without black being.

First, ain't no other color.

Now, now that you said that, and you talk about this.

Yeah, So I have a whole chapter on our language and it's quality. Chapter five is racial vocabulary. And one of the things like challenge people to do in that chapter is to really this is a sharp home. What makes me bipoc? Is it my locks, the way I talk, the way I rock my socks. What makes you white? Is it because you're always right? Is it the privilege is assigned as a birth right? What makes you Asian?

Bro?

Is it your soul?

What does a Korean have in common with the Pakistanio? And why do we thankfully stop using oriental? What makes you Latino or is it LATINX? Who decided which term was the best? Are you Native American or are you Indian? Maybe it just depends on the city I'm in. Are you a Jew or are you Jewish? Is it about your collective history? Or because people assume you're all rich. I look at my dark pants and I definitely don't look like that. So who decided with my brown skin

Do you know what I'm saying?

Where most of the people look like me in some way, shape or for one little shades of different air and there. So that's what I'm saying using language that minifizes us, you know what I mean, because if you talk about yourself small, they ain't gonna let people treat you small.

And so just that alone, we have to be mindful of that. And if we do that, we're gonna start to think of ourselves in a better life.

You know. To me, the word black is you profined. No matter the way you're born at you're on this planet, you have a connection, that's right. It doesn't mean the complexion of your skin.

It means the origin of your essence, meaning that you was first, meaning that when you take.

All the stars away, what color is dark black, meaning that you was first on this planet.

You was the first mother for a teacher and the world, and you are the mother of Silver's ain't no woman.

But when you say people of color, right, white is also a color. But when they say people of color, they put that put that's like having a white piece of paper and everybody else's colored in. So even historically it's not accurate because black people were here first. So it still is a Eurocentric notion by putting white people first, when historically it's not true.

They always looked at it is that white is the absence of color, you know, it's.

What it's about the browns, right, So it's about so it's there, right, But I just think it's the side.

Yeah.

We live in the world of opposes, and when when white say white, they're not really referring to the color of the skin.

They refer to the origin in essence of them being that.

You make a good point because one of the things that I bring up in the book, you know, it's.

In this country.

You can't have white without black if you remove black people from everything.

What is whiteness? Right?

Well, what is what is?

What is white food? What is white dance?

You got Polish dance, you got Italian dance, you got Irish dancing, food and clothing, but what is white dance? Like you can't so in this country, like we would refer to different groups at different times. We've called Asian people yellow people, We've called Native American people red people, we called white and we got rid of those, thankfully, but we kept white and black.

We kept those because you.

Can't build whiteness without build tearing down blackness.

And that is part of the reason. So it's interesting, we pay people.

These folks are you know, Asian American, API community, Latino community. Then you got white, then you got black, you know both if you're black, we got Conga leads, we got you know, Jamaican, we got all of that. But people, I want to look at that, right, and that becomes part of the problem as well.

We know when James Brown said I'm black and I'm proud, you know, the seventies and the movement and from the sixties and the seventies of consciousness.

Yes, all of a sudden, African American came out. What does that do that divide again?

Yeah?

Yeah, who's African?

Oh?

And I'm just the black people to live in America.

It's not you were fine, and it only refers to black people in America. But the reality is that what if you were born in America, what to.

Africa and had a child that's an African American, you know.

Like you know what Jesse Jackson, you know it's true because like when Jesse Jackson started talking about need to you know, get out of use the terms like you know, negro and things like that, one of the things he said was like, you know, look at the map of the world, like where's black Land?

You know what I mean, Like like where is it?

And so even with the terms like Afro American, African American, it was like, you know, you can be who you are here in terms of your nationality, but you have to connect it to something deeper, just like an Irish American would, just like an Italian American, just like a Japanese American would like, you know, attach it. But when people started talking about African American, Afro American or black, people were fighting worth looking, you know, Smokey Robinson was like,

It's like I am black, I.

Am I'm not that dude. And it's like that type of removing from the culture. It's it's it's a problem.

It's more of a political term. And and and the reality is that you know, we we have attorneys probably in here, and so certain words have legal means and connotations.

So when you're the quote of laws, these words matter because a free man.

Or you know, back in the day, these terms came up in the legal realms. So a lot of these terms is like you know, what's.

The legal definition if you show up in court, what's considered the African American? Because the law and land determines outcomes. Like we were back then, was considered black, but it got.

A three physiveal property.

Oh yeah, yeah, and we gotta be mindful of you know, in this chapter on that I have called the white priflete card. We gotta also understand this concept. The whiteness is always changing because they expand whiteness. They'll they'll you know now they have on the census. You know, it's fanic black, it's fanic not white. At one point, you know,

What happened in this country by twenty forty eight, twenty five.

Absolutely, whoa, let's give it up with the doctor. Oh god, I appreciate it.

Thanks for listening to Malik's Bookshelf, where topics on the shelf are books, culture, and community. Be sure to subscribe and leave me a review. Check out my Instagram at Malak Books. See you next time.