Chat with Heroes

like Martin Luther Mahatma Gandhi. I use my words to settle my conflicts rather than try to shoot you up in cool bruts, rather stand beside you them, invite you, and a rather understanding than that never happened tried to all Right, this week, I am so enthused and honored frankly to be joined by my comrade, my colleague, my mentor.

I don't know, Travis Williams. Uh, Travis, I don't even know how to properly introduce you, because you have such a range of expertises and experiences, So telling people a little bit about yourself. Who are you? Um? A black man vegan Uh originally from for a lot of deal Florida. Uh It's tough when I say originally, right, So I'm from a lot of Florida, but I was born so maybe that's my origin story. But I considered the origin story wherever, like your most uh meaningful roots were set right.

But I was born in Atlanta, Georgia. Did my undergraduate work at d Florida Agriculture and Mechanical University, home of the mighty Ratler's Orange Green eight seven October three. I love my HBCU, you know what I mean, check it out orangr green. Um and then oh yeah, you know I always rap. And you know my high school colors was orange green as well because our first football coach

it's also a Wraptler. So um. And I went to this high school called Lanchile High School, which was one of the two biggest black high schools in Broward County. And you know, browartt is the most black, most Democrat county, or was when I was growing up in all of the state of Florida. And Miss Elie fought real hard to make sure that a little black is like me. He educated and her home is now a museum. It's about maybe a two minute walk from my grandfather's house.

So uh he passed away, but his old house and so um, so yeah that is that. I did my legal studies at the University of Georgia. UM was a public defender for a long time, had a had an epic mental breakdown, uh myself epic, Hey, if I'm gonna do it, it's gonna be happy. If we're gonna break down, down, do it, break everything, break all the windows, and so uh found myself homeless and and and really uh really

really suffering and in painful about two plus years. And then the last six years five years, I've been um uh began reinvesting uh in in community and community organized and I've been organizing work since I was fifteens, you know, and so uh so over the last uh five and a half so six years, been been back doing that. And I've been fortunate enough to you know, have been invited to be at all all these different universities and going these different things and so um uh so it's

it's not unfamiliar. And then like so now I do a lot of community education and political education um at a grassroots level aimed at uh mobilizing people, assisting them and organizing for political action. And so I also do work out of out earn this little ministry at at a little medium sized church. Uh. And my church is coven to Presbyterium ministry is the uh uh neighborhood ministries, which is it doesn't just two words that don't make sense until you know it is we're doing. And so

it's helping people stay house, defeating people. I'm sitting in the I'm sitting in the fellowship haul down. This is where we were in the food pantry or clothing closet. We're moving things out of here is the uh trying to figure out a different model. But um also uh minister and manager but neevolence accounts. So helping people where they can and using uh Jesus ministry with the poor to God our efforts to assist people. I noticed, and all of that, you somehow managed to not bring up

hip hop at all? Do you have relationship to hip hop? All this dope ship, all this other dope ship is so dope that it's not even worth bringing up that. Not even bringing up that your south far you are a penman. Well, you know something, I had some records that at one time, uh you know, had had some little had some little heat to it. But I I

just I love I do love hip hop. But you know what, though I really don't listen to hip hop anymore and and it definitely not like sometimes I get nostalgic and and don't get me wrong, Race the five nine even now, like the way he puts together a sentence, his art right, and I appreciate the art um and I listened here there you know, uh fly God is an awesome god. West side gun you know what I mean? Like you know, pray for Paris? Uh you know? Um uh what what are you called? Kama Kaze? Like I

listened to. I still listen to some sometimes, but you know, it's it's tough, man, It's tough to listen to it some of the music. Like you know, I don't know, I feel like we I think you and I have talked about this before. I think hip hop, I think any art form right has to have gate keepers. Right, has to have people that make people do the work to get good at something right. And hip hop has the least amount of gate keepers, but it used to

have the most. Right. It was you had to run through, like when I was a kid trying to learn how to wrap, you know what I mean, Like I had to figure out how to wrap, and then I had to be brave enough to wrap on the school bus and then if you heard I could wrap it, and it was like you gotta wrap against this other guy

who can crap. And then I'll go, you know what I mean, I'll be rapping at the crackhouse with some with some dope and rappers about stuff and then binge and it's like all of this stuff you get good at, you know what I mean, And now you don't gotta like, you don't gotta put in the work, you don't gotta do nothing. You just so you never really get better, you never really master the crap, you see what I'm saying. And so it's it's tough for me to listen to

somebody who ain't even investing in mastering the crack. So it is come from a place of craftsmanship and not necessarily like from a place as an organizer, and that's someone that is pushing back against systems of capital and of racial capital, etcetera. Like the way that that is all uh then shaping the genre and what ends up floating up to the surface is what we then consider a mainstream. Does that adds? Does that at all influence like your how how you partaking hip hop? Commarly the

craftsmanship thing let's think about what an album is. Right, an album is forty five to our some change the hell album you're listening to. That's an hour long album. Come on now, come on now. I was reading recently that the like the top the last ten years, like the top albums of the year in hip hop for all, like thirty minutes long. But that's weak, and you know I hate that. No, think about think about right, Okay,

by Outcast undisputably an incredible record, right, undisputable? Right? So climen, Now, what did they take them to three years to make that record? Let me see uh uh Southern player lists that came out ninety three or ninety four, maybe ninety five, I can't remember. Two years later you had uh, you had a Tiens, and then maybe two or three years later you had incuntically right, And so in then two year time period, right. I heard nas want to say this in a in a source article like maybe the

late nineties. He said that first album is the easiest because it took you eighteen years, right for twenty two years, right to have Old You were right. It's those the hard albums the next one because you don't have as much time to write end the precious change. The choice structure is different in center, structures different. Right, So when when I look at like what an album is an album?

Generally people write songs about the highlights of their life, right, Like each song is a highlight on an amalgamation of highlights. So if you look at Marvin Gaye, I Want You right the record I want you incredible records, it's all about being in love and expressing that love intimately sexually right, beautiful record beautiful. But these are all highlights sexual experiences. These aren't the ones that he had with This ain't like the random Thursday when he just got off work

and brought home. This ain't the one lady got woke up because the baby woke up, you know what I mean. It's just the highlights, right, So I expect someone to to offer their highlights, But um what what used to be the highlights in hip hop music? Used to be the highlights of like liberation, right, and liberation rejecting restrictions, right, and then now the highlights are I don't know, transactional monetary. It's like I can't I can't handle that, right, Like

it's just too much. Yeah, and I feel like it's it's like, oh, we go out, we party every night, every night we have it's not it isn't the highlights because it's like this always chasing panicle. This is my life and we live like this like I ain't slept the dates. What's up? Yeah, I'm gonna die, Like help me please literally literally something something's cats be losting cats

listen cats out here for real. But it's because it's yeah, you know, and I think that makes it that makes it tough because you can't be You're not gonna sit there and read some Carter Guard and be listening to uh do somebody, you know what I mean, why not? Because it's just it's just taking me out of my space, yo, Like you know what I mean. I mean, I feel like something that draws me to hip hop is that it is like it's like putting together a puzzle or no,

it's like an impression. It's like an impressionist painting, right, So like you start off up really up close and you see all of the very the lines that are

you're not really seeing the full picture or whatever. You know, you put it on in the background and it's just like noise and even if you enjoy or the noise, the cadence is good, whatever, you know, it's this is the ambience and then what time, Well, what I ideally seek out is that with time you sort of like, oh I got that metaphor, Oh I just picked up on that punchline. Oh that's hilarious. How you know this analogy, etcetera, etcetera.

So I'm just saying you could potentially there's probably people that do for you. However, maybe take you out of it a little bit just because of the artistry. The artistry isn't there for you for some of this because some of these cats. You know, I used to hate those punch line rappers, you know what I mean, because it was just sorry and easy, yo. Like, for the most part, most rappers aren't gonna aren't producing records that you can that that can like suffice throughout different modes

of a day, week, year, or life term. Right every now and again, some are and maybe you can put it together over the course of like a discography, right, Like I always say, Jada kiss Has is one of the few rappers that had bars that you can build

their life off of. Right, Like, you can tell your kid to listen to this and they'll know how to live as a human, right, Uh, everybody's a snake, So I gotta keep the grass cut so I see him when they come, and then I heat they up, right, Like that's an incredible record, like be on your p's and ques, you know what I mean. Like he has those kind of bars. But for the most part, most of these guys, it just it's the highlights and it's just too much. And then and then and then the

young ladies. They're just talking too much, too much wild stuff. I took some vows about four years ago. You know what I mean. I don't I don't need all that sexual energy in my life. I don't leave that life, you know what I mean, Like all that I'm going to the club, you know what I mean. I don't drink. I wake up at four thirty. I'm vegan. I drink board and tea. Like I want to listen to something that kind of is consistent with my lifestyle. Now, I'm

not being real if I'm listening to this. And he taught me to be real. Yes, yes, And so you may not be listening to like post work while you read Perfect Guard, But what are you listening to while you read what the soundtrack, what's your soundtracking? What's your reading list right now? Um? Okay? So uh shout out to the homie Paul Uh. He came to a session, to a two part workshop I was doing with represent

Georgia and Black there was I was on. We was like it was like a little date night, like, oh, let's put it on, like, oh, let's watch Travis. He was sitting on the couching and popcorn. Yeah, but he was on. He was in the chat asking yea, he was actually in the chat saying the chat being mad nerdy, asking questions about super nerdy. But it was a good question. It was a dope question, you know what I mean. But but like, so I'm coming fresh off of that.

We finished it last night, So coming fresh off of that. Like most of my reading, it's been about that. And Um, I put together these little playlists and you know, they've been sending the playlist out, people been subscribing to it. That's cool, But it's mostly old school because that's mostly what I listened to. So I think, UM, Curtis by Curtis Mayfield. I've been bumping pretty pretty hard lately. UM

Abbey Row by the Beatles. I've been bumping real hard lately. Um, let me see, Uh you know I Want You by by Marvin Gaye. Um. And then Otis Ready has a song on the Soul album called Cigarettes and Coffee because he remember on them old school songs and old black dudes and them old songs. Was really funny because they will always tell you what time of data song was supposed to represent. It's early in the morning. The son yeah, yeah, I don't work telling you where they're like what time

it is. I don't know why that careful. Leslie's white folks know like, oh, he's gonna be at the He's gonna be at the arena. Why it's so relevant to how they construct songs, But it always was like it's just like when you're listen to Stevie, right, Like Stevie songs in the Key of Life, inter visions, incredible records,

and to me, all of this is hip hop. Like that's the beautiful thing about hip hop because name name name one of the artists that I mentioned that ain't been sampled by a classic himpop record, you know what I mean, galling whoever? Right, But when you listen to Stevie,

Stevie is always for a blind man. Is always referencing uh, the seasons and particularly season change, right, which is interesting because what he observes as a song right where he communicates us through his through his lyrics, it's like he can see it. He's not talking about like the smell of autumn. He's always talking about something you would have had to visually see, right, Like it's wild man when

you think about what he's saying. But so in in uh in preparing for that, uh and doing you know what, I will share a book list that I did with them, and this was pretty dope stuff. So that so the session was about power, right, So um, it was kind of what do you want to get into that if you want to talk to us a little bit about

what you presented on Yeah, yeah, it was. It was a session about power, which was kind of an offshoot of a conversation I was having with the with the Freedom Riders over at um Ebony's a Baptist, uh and maybe two months ago so I was covering with them the Forms of Power by Thomas C. Wardenburg. Uh. This is an incredible record. Uh. Michelle o'cock discipline and punish always uh, you know, very deeply influential in the abolitionist movement. You and I are always talking going over that. The

Struggle for Recognition by Alex Haunter actual hanted. Um. And you know I'm always busting up neo liberalism Undoing the Demos by Wendy Brown. No book captures it better really just the description of the ethos of neoliberalism. Uh. The ethics of identity by Farming Anthony of Pie. Uh. There's some scholars doing some like critical thinking on identity. This guy, I think it takes the most comprehensive approach. Maybe not

the most critical in every way. Maybe it's said whatever. Uh. And then um also was covering with them the Unpolitics of air Pollution by Matthew Crinson. Uh. And so the Unpolitics and air pollution is this case study that was public what covers a time from the seventies. Don't want to say it was published like in the late seven Um, it was a relatively hard to find book, I mean not really just made it and so it Uh. The case study is, uh, Samon's how the City of East

Chicago versus Gary, Indiana. I don't know if ever been a Gary shout out to my dolts. Pretty years. By the way, by the way, Alfredo, look at Alfredo, ain't playing look at me, Look at me. Alfredo was on point and shout out to Freddy Gibbs. And so the Unpolitics and air Pollution covers how Gary versus how each Chicago handle the air pollution issue in the early seventies, right,

and and what it what? What this book really teaches us, which is become like such a such a key element to how I approach, how I approach The most important elements to to talk to others about from an educator as an educator is uh, start a fight, right, don't affoid a fight. Don't let these people get away with not putting a fist up against you. Make it, make it, make a real fight, call questions to to call things out, like really make a fight, because people are gonna always

try to dodge stuff, you know what I mean. It's just like you know that commission you said on it's something, it's some wild stuff was happening and at other meaning when it was passing at that field to when y'all was passing, uh, the approval for the homeless encampment, that was some wild stuff. People were saying, right, but they also was avoiding getting to the heart of the question, which is you know, I wasn't going there to make

no comment. Is just I'm listening to three hours of people saying crazy, why stuff homeless people, lady and nearish

and more contacts for the listeners. I may not have brought this up in an episode recently um or got into detail on this, but in Athens we recently improved approved uh uh, going about coming up with a strategic plan for homelessness, you know, from starting with having a station in Camper for people who were experience and criminalizations for living outside actually have a place where they can go,

also as a hub for services, um etcetera. But also you know, working all the way through, how do we how do we want to build out our permanent support of housing in Athens, etcetera, so that you know, we address the actual issue, the fact that people ain't got no place to live and not the quote unquote. And the thing is, the thing is that was coming that's come to of that meeting was that people were receiving homeless people as homeless people as the problem and not

it's not. It's yeah, now that they were the product of the actual problem, which is capitalism. But you know that housing is not a human righting, you know, And and I think, like that's that's the crazy thing, like making making a fight happen. Right, So so, um, those books I have been spending a lot of time with but on a normal yeall read you know, anywhere from

seventy five to eighty something books this year. I'm trying to aid a hundred, but I don't know if I really hit a hundred, but um, you know, I give it a shot. Oh yeah, you're slacking. You're not gonna hit a hundred. I'm ashamed to you now that into our conversation, Travis, I'm embarrassed by you for not reading a hundred books. You're only gonna read eighty in the year. I mean, but know you my main thing is like, am I using my time efficiently? Right? Like? Am I

am I being effect it with my time? Is? And um, you know we gotta have downtime or whatever. But like I've dedicated my life to service and it's it's uh, it is. It is deeply meaningful to me. And I have clear boundaries, so I don't need as much time is even some time, I think, but you know, I play outside. It's a couple of things I think humans need, right. One of those is recreation, right, and I think you

should play outside every day, right, Um. And physicality helps me distress, right, not necessarily like cardio or lifting or anything in particular, but physicality helps me distress. And so that's that's usually how I how I take on recreation, whether that's bike, whether that's walking, whether that's jogging with the sprint, whether that's whatever. And uh, you know, you know, people need uh meaningful vocation. I'm always engaged in meaningful vocation. Uh.

People need education. I try to These are different things I try to do every day, and over the course of the day it gets pretty full. So with things being sometimes, uh, if I reades a day, I should be able to tackle a hundred books, do you know what I mean? Seventy five is like normal, right? Um? And and I just uh, it's a it's a lot that I wonder about about justice, like you know, Kenna d A B progressive could restorative justice of a word?

Am I being ridiculous about abolition? Right? And that and that requires a lot of feeding myself with information and trying to think through what else do you think is like so with regards, so you got into a little bit of like talking about the elements of a good life,

good vocation, opportunity to simulate the mind, etcetera. So how much of I'm really interested because you also operate this ministry, um, so how much of like, how do you see like provision of those of those both material like the basis people need and creation of his opportunities for for people to thrive as a part of the organizing needs to

happen in order for us to push for power. Well, you know, the ultimate the ultimate question is this, right, So always start with groups, uh when when talking to them about power rights, to understand the difference between state institutions and people. Right, the state is the is this whole organized society? Right? This our our version of organized society. Right? So the government uh And and this is something that you know, you and I talked about a lot during

the protest. But just to get people to understand it, stops saying that the state has a monopoly on violence. They have more than that. They have a monopoly on force. Right, forces a lot broader than just violence and Vatcanda rent Uh says that you know where there's violence there's not power. Whether it's power, there's not violence. She argues that power is consentral, right, but that's not really relevant. But I'm just saying like it's more than just you know violence, right,

like violence is a you in a dysfunctional state. As a usually the state can use coercion and get us to do what we what they want us to do, right, they don't have to do all them So getting people to understand that. And institutions are they mediate the needs of the people in the interests of the state. Right, Uh, the interests of the state are usually protection conservation, hence the term conservative. Right, that's usually the interests of the

state and institutions mediate. And then the people, uh, you know people here the term the multitude, right, that's that's like a melting pot type term. But the people is uh is there is persons working uh together or represented together or of you together? Right. We just got the the new census stuff came out yesterday, and you know, look around in these districts in Georgia, look at the

shrinking districts there. There are a lot of the big time white power players in the general Assembly districts are shrinking for a lot of different reasons. Number one, the point in time is August any what was going on COVID, you know what I mean, or you know April or whatever the specific one is. So you got some of that going but you think you think that, I mean obviously the sense it informs the Jerry Mandarin or informs the redistrict in which becomes Jerry Mandarin as a as

a you know, systemic manipulation on us. And so I just you know, I don't know, I went off on a tangent, that's all. It's all. Yeah, so's talking about my conscious you know that consciousness I'm talking about. Yeah, So, like like the material providing a material supports for people to then build like the various kinds of power, and you got into like, well what is like where is power? Power is not just agitating for the state to do

this or that. It's institutional power as well. Yeah, and it's and it's completely relational, right, you only have power in relation to something else, ideally in the social world, other people. Right. But like if you're living on a deserted island or a void, let's say that you're living a boyd where it's just white walls, white shoes. No, you can't even perceive clothes because you've never seen close. There is no power. Power can't be had in an

empty void of nothing. Now you pop in another person into that void. And because you know the secret place in the void where you can sneak in and be around black light is that white light, you have power, uh of information that you could use to course influence and even force that person to do stuff. Right. So

it's completely it's completely relational, you know. And so when I when I'm thinking about, like even the work I do an these different in these different spheres, whether it be h with the church or or chess community or just general activism or as a writer or educator. What worries me most sometimes is the work uh is charitable work through organizations, churches or anything of the sort, right, because we run the risk of the charity like giving

government a dodge to not do nothing. Right. Oh, the charity is gonna need you. No, that's the that's the work of the government. You know, the state is supposed to take care of you. I don't know what y'all think, just this state is supposed to do, you know what I mean? They want the state to just be like administrative bureaucracy to help them get uh to to exploit new new students or new workers or whatever. It's like,

this is all crazy, you know what I mean? In the time we got less um this comes out on their on Thursdays generally, So what what kind of I know when the podcast come out? Hold you listen to the show Man, So you went on that hiatus and it missed me up? Now would be nervous you listen to the show. I'm like Ship Travis's probably think I'm a dumbass, Like what's you talking about this you're doing? Sometimes I want you to really get into it, you know the big Yeah, I know, you know what I mean.

It's it's a it's a different approach, right Like I would I want to see more granular stuff, you know what I mean. But but I love what y'all doing. But actually, I mean I asking different questions than I was planning to do. You went over a lot of different books that you've been reading or planning engaging with, um, you know, with the So what would you say right now is the most urgent thing you would like a

listener to go out and read? And why? Like what is what why is that particular piece of political now, because it's really really saily in the urgent, in the moment, right. Um, I would probably say the first thing, the first thing anybody has to do, I think is always consider what is justice right? Like you know is generally uh, the

first question I started with what is justice right? And you to answer that question, I think you have to answer a bunch of other questions, right, But but so what where I think someone needs to start out like it'll be It'll be young men, young women, you know what I mean? Sometimes my age who want to come and collaborated, like can I come hang around, find something

to do? And I'm like, all right, we'll go uh read this, read that, reread this right and and a lot of times I try to start them with our Prisons Obsolete and by Angela Davis to to just um, yeah, incredible book, uh really the source of my uh kind of my anchoring and the abolitionist movement Abolition to Struggle Go and gulag uh Is also is also an incredible work, but by Ruth Guilmore and um and and and so I would say start there to begin to understand the

how different systems interflate with one another and to ask yourself questions that we take for granted, right, Like, prisons as we understand them may have been around that long. Did you know that? Probably not? Okay, so you don't take that for granted. We can Prison was wasn't innovation? Right? Prison was the innovation. Prison was an innovation. That was them stepping up and saying, oh, it's just things differently. Let's be well to stop hanging people in the in

the courtyard. Yeah, leaving people on the stocks and ship up too much. We're gonna do we were capable. If we were capable of making that transition, we can also we are capable of transitioning away of a new innovation. Right. And so I would say I would say start there. I would say, UM Spheares of Justice by Michael Walzer,

I would say start there. I would say, if somebody is really interested in um and and digging into some digging into some heavy work, uh, those are those are the places to start and kind of kind of think through olds. But I would say that the best the best education is feeding yourself through uh, through that information, but also being out here in the streets, because what you see is you see all this suffering in all

this pain. This week, hunted families came through hunting. More than a hundred families came through the food cantry right this week, uh two or three. One social worker at the schools, one essentially homeless outreach social worker at at at MANTAGE, and another just kind of random person all reached out with families who are in desperate need a house. And fortunately, because of the support that our congregation gives to this particular ministry and then just generally, we were

able to help him. Right But like, um, we we didn't have to, you know what I mean, Like they could have been out there, I could have never found out. They could have never found out that people that reached

out could have never found out. So being out here in the street and seeing this and and you know, seeing and suffering, I think is incredibly informational with particularly when you put it with the book, right when you put it with this book at that book are kind of a kind of thinking through those But I would say I would say that's what I would saying, Well, I appreciate you bringing us back to practice, not just like oh, just reading about it, but actually being about it.

If you're not if you're not really really doing it, you know what I mean? It feels different. It's like if you just if you only recording songs in your in your room, and then like let's say they're popping on the internet. People are listening to your songs, but you've never performed them, right, You have a whole different set of expectations for how you want to beat the sound, how you want to mix the sound. Do you want like you know, I don't know if you saw that

locks uh dip set that or whatever versus. I didn't watch it. I watched a couple of flips, but um, that's because Kevin shout out to uh, shout out, shout out your son too, what's bugging me about? What's bugging me about the thing? Because he loved the battles. So you know, I took a look at it and it's crazy because the tip said was performing with the vocals on the track, Like, dude, what are you doing? This is ain't you know. Jada was saying, this ain't hip

hop and it ain't right. But but your expectations for like even what your songs need to be as different once you start performing, you know what I mean? How many times. You know, I seen somebody in the first show and they froze. They was tough guy on the on the mic and not a froze, right because it's a it's a whole different element. Yeah, you're absolutely right. I love that analogy. Perfect way to end off our conversation, Travis.

I can people get in touch with you? Is there a way people can stay in touch with the absolutely email me. I teach it a lot of different places, with a lot of different black organizations and in justice money organizations in the region. I can't think of any thing right now, uh, because a lot of dates are up in the air. But they can email me at the Williams Project at gmail dot com at Williams like my last names of I L I M. S Project, R O J E C T in the projects at

gmail dot com. So the Williams Project at gmail dot com say in touch with the kids Waiting on Reparations was the production of I Heeart Radio. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, check out the heart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your body. Yes,