Bakari Sellers' Vanishing Country: Is It Worth Saving?

In Trouble, streaming November seventeenth only on Hulu. Welcome to PM Mood then No Talking Points, No Bullshit podcast that takes you behind the curtain, off the red carpet, and to the front lines of progress with change makers and innovators that are doing the work to shift our culture and expand our social impact. I am so excited to welcome to p M Mood, friend, activists, all around, badass and now new author Bakari sellers of the book My

Vanishing Country, a memoir. You're also a CNN political analyst. You're also the youngest um a member of the South Carolina legislator that was that was ever elected at that time twenty two. I don't know how you go about getting elected at twenty two. I wasn't electing to do anything but tequila, um at that age. Okay, okay, okay, So I don't feel I don't feel that bad. But Bacari, how are you doing? And and you know this this book,

I'm excited about it. I'm excited because I don't have anything hopeful that I'm reading right now because I should. That sure is not the news. Um. So tell me about the title, about the memoir, about what sparked this, and how things have changed, given the the kind of the climate that we're in right at the moment. So the title My Vanishing Country, it means a few things

for me. It's about that rural community, that rule upbringing that many people have throughout the South, especially these towns at once were bastions of upward economic mobility. Those small businesses are being shuttered, those manufacturing companies have left. Things have changed, and the country that we knew, that country

living that we knew, is vanishing. And then on the fifty view, the fifty thousand foot view, those ideals that all of us hold true, you know, not just the access to life, liberty and the ability to pursue happiness, but also justice and freedom and peace, these not so tangible ideals for many people of color, poor people, immigrants, those ideals aren't They're vanishing there. They aren't attainable for

us any longer. And so, you know, I thought about it, and my publisher was telling me Patrick, who I love, my editor, He was telling me how this book couldn't have come out at a better time. A lot of people have their dates back. We started talking about it, We started having a conversation. You know, Corona is ripping the band aid off the issues of systemic injustice and

racism in this country. Brianna Taylor and a mod Aubury's lives were taking from them, one by law enforcement, the other in a good old fashioned South Georgia by the sun lynching. And I realized that this book is ever green because we talk about those issues, we highlight those issues, and any time it would have come out, we still would have been talking about those systemic injustices. We still

would have been talking about those lives cut short. And so I'm just happy I'll share this with you, Danielle. I wasn't trying to write a memoir at thirty three, thirty four years old. I wanted to write a political book, but no one wanted to buy it. For Tracy Sharad, Judith Kerr and Patrick Bass gave me a chance to tell my story. I thought it was one of the

country needed to hear. And I'm really happy that I put my trauma, everything I lived through, down on paper so that hopefully others can It may not my trauma, may not be your trauma, but I believe that if we if we try to understand, have some compassionate empathy, we can persevere. So I'm hopeful. I have to be hopeful. I have sixteen months o twins. They don't deserve Donald Trump as president of their United States of America, and

so I'm hopeful we can change that. You know, what I love about your book is that it is to me reading it, the child of immigrants did this country. My family was born in Jamaica, But it's this idea

of country and of rural America. And you know, we use, as you know, having been a son of the South, use a lot of coded language, right, so even just in you know, in this past and primary cycle, when we are talking about working class Americans or we're talking about rural America, it conjures a picture in your mind. In the media or the media present this has presented this narrative that that is white people right. So when we are talking about rural America or real America, we

are talking about white America. So can you talk a bit about what it means to be country, to live in the country, to having grown up in rural America where you know, we are seeing and have been participating in this divide, you know, urban against rural, urban against suburban, and all of these things, and black people we live everywhere, and yet and yet urban right is the moniker in which we are forced to carry as if that's the

only place that we have ever been. And obviously your book goes into great depths into the exploration of that. So we give we try to pull that ugly We just pull that ugly lie apart that the media and Democrats and Republicans are like trying to try to, you know, get us to believe in adhere to that for some reason, rural means white, working class means white. No, I say that's not the case, because that's not that ain't how I grew up. I grew up around the black in

the black working class. I grew up in rural America with black folk. I grew up with the roads from the black man, which does not mean black folk live there, but the black book talk about the richness of the soil from the crops we used to plant. I talk about that up bringing, but I also talk about the political overlay of living where you don't have access to quality healthcare, of living where you have a quarter of shame, where you're eating in air or don't work in your infrastructures,

falling a part of your schools. I talk about living in food deserts. I talk about living where you're drinking unhealthy water, or you're living next to the brown fields. I talk about these things because I want people to understand the plight of what it means to be black in this country, the plight of what it means to be from rural America in this country, in the rural America where you may not know. And so I write this book saying this. I think when black folk greeted,

they'll get a sense of pride from you. From New York, in Chicago, Philly, you wanted them city. You got your people from down South. They from Alabama. Depending on migration patterns, they from Alabama, Mississippi, Georga, South Carolina. So you'll get a sense of pride. I think white folk reading white folk reading this book will get a sense of understanding.

Bishop Jakes and I had this conversation which is actually kind of air on Tuesday night, and he talked about the fact that you can teach people geometry, and you can teach them science, you can teach them English language, which you can't teach them blackness. And I am trying to give people our experiences and our trauma so that they have understanding. And the only way that you can have healthy conversations about race, which I believe my vanishing country will spur, is if you is if you have

some level of understanding. You know, you bring up at the at the beginning of our conversation and you talk about putting your trauma down on paper. And I often think that we as as as as black people, right like, our trauma is so embedded in the story of America and yet um disconnected from it, right, Um, we are so used to seeing our trauma play out as you

mentioned a Maud Aubrey. How many videos, right do we need to see of our bodies being brutalized, right, whether it's Mike Brown and being shot and left in the street to bleed out for hours in your neighborhood in front of your friends and family, whether it is you know um Ah Maud Aubrey or or you know Alton Sterling or all of these names, filendo castile, all of

these people. What is it about the expression of our trauma that seems to, in your mind, be lost on white America in a way that it's it's something that they're so used to seeing but not necessarily have the ability to connect to. And then also, what do you say to those black folks that are just like I'm tired of us seeing each other's trauma, and like don't share the video, and like stop telling these stories, and I want something that is uplifting? What do you say

to them as well? So, so the first part of your question this is about this is the very nature and fabric of what this country is. It's the trauma of people of color. You know, my father is a part of the Imatil generation. He says still is the strongest woman in the movement, right because she got it. She allowed the world to see her son's face and all the brutality beaten, there were no bones left, and tack in his face off because he allegedly was about a white woman, and we not know that to not

be true. And so whether or not you' talk abou Jimi and the Jackson, you're talking about, maker average, you're talking about in it till you understand it, it dates back even decades years, centuries before that. The violence and the trauma, the imagery of that is seared into our collective brains. I think that we have to make sure that people in this country that are not us, especially white folks, see this trauma, because there is a sometimes I believe, a will for ignorance to act as if

it does not exist. And so the best way for me to show you that they are hunting us in the street is to show us being hunted for black folks. I think we have to understand the necessity. And I'll never compel a black person to watch this that doesn't want to watch this, because, as I said, my trauma may not be your trauma, but we have to have some understanding. And there is a level of trauma where

this may be just too much. And I hear that, but I'm going to continue to show these images because I think that as painful as they are, I don't want these individuals lives or their deaths to be in vain. I want to remember them for the life they lived. All want us to remember the power in which they died. And I also want to try to make sure that we ensure we live for them and there doesn't have to be another one of them. The latter part of the I've failed it because we keep seeing it over

and over again. But I'm going to keep trying to make sure that the last video is the last video. I always wonder every time I do watch one, when the last? When when it will be a last and when it will be enough? I think that what's so? I mean, you're there's so many different facets of your story that is so incredible, and I think that you know, one of them being the fact that you are a movement baby. You are you are literally a product um

of the civil rights movement. And you talk a lot about you know both of your parents, but you know in particular your father who was a political prisoner, right who did um work to stand up for the people of South Carolina. To try and desegregate, to try and you know, bring a humanization to um, to black folks.

What does it feel like to at once live that legacy that is extended to you by your father, but then also explore it in a completely different way, Right, like you went inside of government, he was working outside of government. But like you need both, you need both and and he in his life that the frame you have to look at the totality of his life. Because I agree with you, I tell people and you'll you'll

appreciate this. I tell people all of the time, I'd rather be considered that Julian Bond than a Barack Obama. And you know, people up by, I loved you. I love Barack Obama. I know Julian like I know like uncle Julian. I grew up with Julian. I've cried with Julian. I need crabs with Julian. You know, he's you know, he's been at my house before he passed away. But Julian came from that struggle, and so I empathized with Julian.

He came from that struggle, and then he went to the Georgia State Senate and he continued to struggle and something I talked about him is both Julian should be I love John Lewis. Julian should be the United States congressman from that district in Atlanta. Had to have been a clean your race. And so I think that for every Bakari sellers, there has to be a Black Lives Matter protester are willing to throw a break through the side of the building right right. There has to be

these pressure points. We all, all of us don't play the same roles. I think my role is vastly different than Philo Bagne, but I think we're both necessary. I think my role is different than some of these people who are at the forefront of these movements, um, the Alicia Garth's for example, who's brilliant. I think our roles are different, but they're both necessary. And so my job is to lift them up on their leadership platforms and push them and push them, and then my job is

also to listen while they push me. Yeah, you know, I think that it's I think that both and is incredibly important. And I know that like with inside you know of this movement, we sometimes don't give each other a break right where it's like, well, why are you trying to go inside and be the man right that

we're supposed to be fighting against. And then and we say to the folks that are out in the streets, like, you know, you need to understand how systems actually work and how to move policy through in order to get what you need. And so we need more of the Bakari sellers of the world that have the ability and the nimbleness to straddle both. Thank you for that. Thank you keep us in your prayers, because sometimes that's straddling

in the nimbleness. Sometimes your feet get heavy and your back gets weary, But especially when you're dealing with some of these new characters that are on the opposite side of you in this political struggle. Let's talk about those characters,

shall we. So I am in a struggle place myself where I continue to ask myself and probably more so over the last several months, but definitely over the last three and a half years of this Trump administration, as America just continues to show the ugly side of her right, I continue to ask myself is America worth salvaging and saving?

And see, I don't have kids. You have beautiful sixteenth month old twins and so children provide a hopefulness, right, like a future that you want to create for them. But as you know, Barack Obama just gave a commencement to the twenty twenty graduates, and for the first time, right, we are not leaving the world better right for these young people. We're actually leaving them a complete and total disaster, right, climate change, increase, racism in, increased disparities, job now, joblessness

a pandemic, A pandemic, a pandemic. Right, So it's like, how how do you reconcile with yourself the idea that America is worth saving? Or you know, are we in a are we in a space where we should be wanting to kind of burn it all down to the ground so that we can create something new, because it seems to be burning itself up just fine. So when I refused to give to allow the kemps that the scansis is the Henry McMasters. They take a lot from us,

but I refused to give them my hope. In my faith, I believe in with Abraham Lincoln call the better angels of our nature. I believe in that same promise that King talked about. But I also know the work that it takes to get there, and in this country we cannot we cannot, we cannot not articulate the fact that we've made progress, but we also have to understand we

got a hell of ways to go. And so understanding this journey for me is looking back and looking at and that's what I try to do in my country through the lens of those who gave so much. You know, I look at Democratic Party politics, politics the lens of Fanny Gluh Hamburg and Ella Baker like I was able to get on the stage in the twenty sixteen on Thursday Night before Hillary Clinton, until the world it would not be able to be a Hillary Clinton if it

wasn't a Carol Mosley Broun. It wouldn't be a Carol Mosley bron if it went to show Chis and went to Shirley Chishlm, if it wasn't a family lu Hammer, Ellie Bake, Ella Baker, and so I just I feel like one it's worth salvaging because we cannot let those people down with getting so much and the work their work. Our work is not yet completed. And you're right, kids, change your entire perspective, stady and stokely do not deserve to live in a world or Donald Trump is the

president of the United States. They don't, And so I'm not going to. I am not going to. I'm a fight like hell to make sure that I don't leave them with that and leave them with the remnants of that. So we're gonna have a lot of listen to the four years of Donald Trump will not be as bad as the four years of picking up after Donald Trump. I want to believe that we have that optimism. I want I want to believe that you are totally and

completely right in that assertion. But I am. I am deeply concerned, right, and I think that you know, again, my vanishing, vanishing country to me, you know, is kind of like the nightmare that we're all living in. Is that everything for those of us that believe in democracy, you believe in each generation's responsibility to do the work, to put in the work so that it is less work for the generation that comes behind us, it's hard not to wake up every day and feel like the

country is in fact vanishing. And you know, you talk because you come from rural black America, black working class people, right, who are all but invisible, right, they're all but invisible in this pandemic except for whose toil we wouldn't all be able to shell in place, right, got the thesis, and it's not the thing. And see, I don't want people to think that they're voiceless because they ain't handicapped. They have a voice. They just their voices have just

been unheard. And so there's a big difference between being voiceless per saying being unheard. Some people are voiceless than the Clemente Pinkneys of the world. I try to give his life voice in this book. But for those working class people every day that are toiling in the vineyard as they say, yeah, this hopefully will be there their elegy, you know, and and them having a story that is told in one with pride. What do you think is one of the most misunderstood things, um, that you that

your book seeks to tell. What do you think is the most misunderstood thing about um? Black people in the South, black people in the country and rural America. UM. The belief that we are all ascribed to a culture of anti intellectualism and we date our cousins like we not all fairpoint. We can be country and we can be Bamma. We can be proud of that. But it does not mean that you're going to pull the wool over our eyes. It does not mean that we have not been at

the forefront of civil rights movement, gay rights movement. We have not been at the forefront of fighting for our freedom in this country. You know that we have a ton of HBCUs that are that are the you know, the backbone of our culture of intellectualism. And so that's one of the main themes that I want to Rebut to be it doesn't mean that you are some bump. I think you're proud of your proude for your merchanarity. You have a work ethic and motivated and a product.

Do you feel like you have to have that you have to carry the weight of that experience with you wherever you go? Do it? Is it a burden? Is it both a burden and a pride to be able to consistently people see you and they see the star you know, they seem the glitz and the glamor of the CNN and of you know, and of what that

media shine does. Do you feel that it's a burden to continue to have to bring that fullness of yourself, to remind people, to teach people about what it means to be country, what it means to be rural, and what it means being unapologetically black. The answer to the question is yes. I talked about it in one of the more difficult chapters. Are right. It's called anxiety a black man superpower, because I suffer from anxiety. I have fears of death and failure. Those fears, they though, they

push me, they they motivate me. They try to afford me to do better, because you do have to carry the best example is being on TV. They're on a lot of black men on TV. And I say with every ounce of humility that I have that you know when people see me on TV, they for better or for worse. That is the image they see of black men when they encounter them throughout the world. And so you can't afford to have a down moment. And so yes, I am living in my truth. Yes I'm unapologetically black,

and yes I'm very prideful. And yes that is a burden that, combined with my anxiety, makes me an interesting virgo to say the least, you know, we we don't, we don't often and this is this is I think a conversation that is always worth having. And I appreciate you know that chapter, that realness, that rawness of sharing. Right, Um, we don't get to talk about our trauma. We don't even necessarily a lot of times talk about it with

each other. Do you feel like, not because it's a um, not because of the negative connotations of it, but do you feel sometimes that if we slow down to have those conversations about it, that it will overwhelm us? Because that I mean, I'll be honest, That's how I feel, which is why I just keep moving. I feel like sometimes if I stop, got it. But sometimes you gotta

slow down. Yeah, sometimes you have to slow down and appreciate your culture, the richness of who you are, right, that's necessary, I mean, and I mean, to be honest with you, is we're going through this pandemic. We don't have a choice but to slow down. You can't can't move, you can't ignore it this right here, and so we have to be physically, spiritually, emotionally and mentally healthier on the back end of this than we where we went in.

That's those are those are my goals. And so it's tough, but the world needs us, me and you to display their richness of who we are. And so it ain't really no turning that off. In the words of the great American poet Christopher While it is also known as biggie, we sleep when we die, hmm, I know that's where

I know. That's hright. What what do you think about the Democratic Party right now in this in this moment, What do you think about our ability to turn around the disaster, the tragedy that is Donald Trump, that is the Republican Party. Well, I think I think that one, we have to show our level of appreciation and mobilize and energized with black women, that with a black female VP. I also think you got a message to black men because you know, Donald Trump is feeling that space with

lives and ignorance. But he's feeling that space and Democrats for a long period of time simply have taken you know, they haven't message to black men, and they've effectively become swing voters in this country, choosing either to vote Democratic or choose the couch, and many of them stay home. Thirteen. Donald Trump has a lot to do with messaging and a lot to do with misogyny. But I digress. Um. And so, UM, I think that Biden is doing is steady.

He is a steady hand. Um. I think that's why he's the nominee, because he is a steady hand with some level of certainty in what you're going to get, some level of norm normalcy. I mean, do you remember when we could go weeks without even you know, we knew Barack Obama's president, but we really hear from him, like the world was just sticking along. Yeah. Well, but I could go on and with my day to day life and I you didn't have to worry about him.

Time my hee was popping in hydro chloroquin like, um, like he confused with hydroxy cutters on like the neck. Um. And so yeah, yeah, this is gonna be a close race, man, a close race. And so I'm not sure. Um, I believe firmly that we will win this race, but it's gonna be a close. But also know that I'm the same person I thought Hillary Clinton was gonna be president. In my say, well, the polls told us that precarring, so it was you know, supposed were right though she

won by three points. Don't make me upset because I'm I stay angry. Um, you know I feel what are one what are some of the ways? Um? And obviously writing My Vanishing Country, well, let me ask you, actually, let me not put words into your mouth. Did writing this book My Vanishing Country allow you to release, um, some of the stress and the strain? Was it? Was it cathartic for you? Very much? So? Um, it's cathartic for me because I'm probably over overly optimistic at the

power of my words. To let me have that, because I'm like, man, white people gonna read this book. Man, Black people are gonna read this book, and we're gonna be like, okay, right, we can finally begin to heal and have some of these conversations we need to have. I'm going to hold on to that optimism and try

to speak it the truth. I'm speaking to power. But I don't know my journey is not yet complete because you know, again, going back to this family that I'm living, I want you know, my wife almost died doing childbirth. I talk about that. My daughter had deliver your transplant. So we experienced the broken healthcare system. Grew up in the poor old South. My dad was shot in prison, a good for inclement painting, was shot in a church. But then we've had some successes like getting elected, having

a beautiful family. It's these traumas that require perseverance that hopefully people have learned something from when reading My Vanishing Country. I'm sure and I'm I'm I'm absolutely certain of it. The last question that I always ask folks on you know, on PM mood is but I'm going to make it a two parter for you because you have twins, so I get to do that. The first thing is what do you hope for them? What is you? What is

your What is your hope for them? They are sixteen months right, so hope, God willing, they will not remember the presidency of Donald Trump and it will be like, oh, yeah, I guess I was born. I was surround during that time. But thank god Daddy went to work and I, oh, you know, and I don't have to deal with that.

What do you hope? Um, for them to be free to no matter who they love, who they prayed, to the color of their skin, they're able to get the benefit of their humanity on like Breanna Taylor and unlike um, um are very um. That's it. I mean, it's very simple for me. That's my goal for them to be free,

and we have to work really hard. I want them to be able to pick up my finishing country one day and read it as a fiction and be like, I know that I wasn't the flight of that would mean because this is that's a long time ago, that's not that's not the America who we know today. That's my dream and that that's the work that we all have to do, including you, Daniel. We're not letting you know. Oh I feel please, I know you here now, man,

I'm here now. And then the actual final question that I always ask us on PM mood is how do you get in the mood to change the world? Prayer, being intentional, listening to some good music, some young jeez and some outcasts, best Southern stuff, and get focused on going out there in a no words and benjoin elves amazed, and all things that you do you do them so well that no man living day or yet to be born can do them better. Just go try to be great.

You are absolutely an amazing treasure bookari sellers, thank you so much, and you know and thank you, thank you for being so brave and courageous to put your story, your trauma and hopefully you're healing in your book, My Vanishing Country, and everyone should pick it up. Thank you for allowing me to use the platform. Have a bless day, you two. Thank you thanks for listening to PM mood.

As always, you can hear episodes every week for free, and my daily political podcast, Woke a F Daily, is on Patreon for just five dollars a month at patreon dot com slash woke f. That's five dollars a month for five shows a week, so check it out. If you're in the mood for more of me, Danielle Moody, follow me on Twitter and Instagram at D two cents d e E two c e nts, and as always, stay in the PM mood to change the world.