Revisiting Our Roots through "Barracoon" with Dr. Ibram Kendi

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Speaker 1: Welcome to the Mahogany Books Podcast Network,

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Speaker 2: Let's get into it.

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Enjoy this conversation with.

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First of all, I'd like to introduce our moderator, dr Tony

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Keith Jr, also affectionately known here and across the world

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as Ed MC.

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And just a slight plug we're hosting Dr Tony Keith at our

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store for his book launch here on February 6th.

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Dr Tony Keith, I just like saying Dr.

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So please come on up.

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Dr Tony Keith is a Black American gay poet, spoken word

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artist and hip-hop educational leader from Washington DC.

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He is author of the YA memoir Inverse how the Boogie man

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Became a Poet.

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Tony's writings have appeared in the International Journal of

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Critical Media Literacy, the Journal of Black Masculinity and

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many others.

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A multi-year fellow of the DC Commission on Arts and

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Humanities, with a PhD in Education from George Mason,

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tony is the CEO of Ed MC Academy and lives with his husband,

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harry Christian III, in his hometown of DC.

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You can visit Dr Tony Keith at TonyKeithJrcom.

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Please welcome our moderator for tonight, the Ed MC.

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Hey, next up is our featured author of the evening, dr Abram

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X Kendi.

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Let's give it up for that.

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First of all, yes, yes, yes, just a little.

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Just a little side note my husband.

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I actually met Dr Kendi I guess it was back in 2019 before he

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became Dr I mean just next level , dr Kendi but he had created

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the first ever anti-racist festival at that time, and so

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for a bookstore like ours to be affiliated with something like

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that was just unheard of.

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So we were just grateful for that opportunity in that moment.

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So, to fast forward to now and have many opportunities to

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connect with him and to host him , I just consider him as a

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friend and so it's just a great moment to have you here tonight.

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So let's get into about Mr Dr Kendi.

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Kendi is a National Book Award winning and number one New York

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Times bestselling author.

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His books include Anti-Racist Baby, good Night Racism, how to

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Be an Anti-Racist and how to Raise an Anti-Racist.

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Dr Kendi is the Andrew W Mellon Professor in the Humanities at

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Boston University and the director of the BU Center for

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Anti-Racist Research.

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In 2020, time Magazine named Dr Kendi one of the 100 most

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influential people in the world not just DC, not Southeast, but

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in the world right.

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He has also been awarded a 2021 Mecca Arthur Fellowship, and

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tonight we are here for to learn about, to hear about Barakoon

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and this phenomenal story that so many people in history have

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not heard about, and to have this abdication for young adults

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, young readers, is something so very powerful to me, so let's

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please give it up for Dr Abram X Kendi.

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Speaker 3: Hello, hello, ah, ooh , I sound great.

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Good evening everybody.

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How you doing?

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All right, fantastic, fantastic .

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A couple of just quick things.

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I always like to say thank yous again.

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Thank you Mahogany Books, thank you DC Public Libraries and

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certainly thank you Dr Kendi for being here.

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We're gonna just get right to it.

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Can you just give us the three-minute thing?

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What's the?

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What is Barakoon?

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What is it about?

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Tell us that part.

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What's Barakoon?

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Start there.

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Speaker 4: Well, first let me just thank everyone for coming

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out this evening.

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Of course I want to thank Mahogany Books and I want to

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congratulate you on your new book.

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Thank you very much.

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More on verse 4 that's about to come out.

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It's it's this Barakoon is is the life story of Kajo Lewis

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told to the legendary Zora, neale Hurston and Kajo Lewis.

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At the time when he told this story to Zora, he was the last

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known survivor of the transatlantic human trade from

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from Africa to the United States .

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But what's fascinating to me about his story is that it's a

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story that really begins in Africa and to a certain extent,

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ends in Africa town.

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In sure I am quite soft-spoken, you know it's.

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It's a story that starts in Africa and and really ends in

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Africa town, in Africa town in which he faced Jim Crow.

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And so it's really a story of African freedom to enslavement,

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to emancipation, to a second slavery in Jim Crow.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, you know I had a chance to read the

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advanced copy of this book, right, and this is important

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because I'm someone who did not grow up readings Zora Neale

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Hurston, right, and so I knew nothing of this story, was not

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even aware sort of this thing.

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Well, I know as an adult, right , but this was not something

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that was offered to me as a young person and so I remember,

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as I was reading this as an adult, the way it was filling in

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, I think, some gaps about what I know about myself as a black

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person and the descendant of enslaved people.

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And so I'm wondering for you well, not for you, but like for

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the audience, for those of us who don't know much about Zora

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Neale Hurston or sort of the books, like, why is something

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like what she wrote so important now for young readers?

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Like, why Zora Neale?

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What's the history behind that?

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Speaker 4: I think, in terms of why it's important for young

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readers.

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We're living in a time in which young readers are being

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prevented from learning about slavery.

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We're living in a time in which books on racism are being

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banned.

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We're living in a time when books that express the culture

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and the idioms and the languages of, you know, of regular folks

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are being looked down upon.

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And but I think, in the case of Zora Neale Hurston, this book

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in particular demonstrates that she wasn't just a legendary

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novelist, she wasn't just a legendary folklorist, she was

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also a legendary anthropologist, and so, for her, the

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preservation of this story, particularly in the voice of

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Kajalouis, is really a demonstration of her skill as an

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anthropologist, and it was her first major anthropological trip

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, which sort of goes to show the type of anthropologist she

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ultimately became.

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Speaker 3: And the kind of questions that she was asking.

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Right, I remember again reading this book.

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There's so much about this book .

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Koto's voice is written in African, american and English or

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black language and as a black man, I was so excited to just

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read that language because I don't know.

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For me it centered something about is that a question before?

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About?

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You know, if enslaved Africans already had language right

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before they were dragged around the world, how in the world did

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they learn American standard English without given like a

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culturally relevant method of like how, what language do they

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create?

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And I think about the disc that they early by mother father.

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Those of us in DC speak like that, like where that comes from

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, and then to read that language coming from an African man in a

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book was very powerful.

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Can you talk to us a bit about language and including AAVE,

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because this is Kujo's, this is his words as they were spoken,

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right?

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Speaker 4: So in many ways, to me, language is, is the sound of

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culture, and so it was incredibly important for Zora

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Neuersten to not only collect and write about his story, but

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how he told his story.

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And I think it's important for us to understand language in the

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way linguists understand language, which is they

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essentially define language as communication with rules.

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So, if we understand it at that basic level, there are a number

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of different languages there, even a number of different

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languages within the English tree.

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That all should be respected and protected.

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And indeed, african people who were enslaved in the Americas

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and more or less compelled and forced to speak English or

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French or Dutch or Portuguese or Spanish, typically created new

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languages, that sort of blended the old with the new, just as

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English comes from Germanic and Latin languages Absolutely Right

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.

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So you know, I think that African people were creating new

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languages too, and I think those languages should be

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respected and heard because in many ways, in certain types of

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ways, they're in danger.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, in danger.

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I was gonna go somewhere with that, but I just.

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What I appreciate about that, dr Kinney, is the affirmation

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right, especially for young readers who speak like that, who

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write like that, who whose voices in their heads sound like

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I know black kids who talk like Kujo in this book.

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Right, and so can you talk to us about adapting this story for

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younger readers?

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Right, we had this joke in the not really a joke in a green

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room.

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We're both PhD people, we got all this academic stuff, but to

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write for a young adult audience requires some sort of

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adaptation translation.

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Can you talk to us about that process?

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How did you go from what Zerlina Hurston put together

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into this?

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Speaker 4: So it was really hard and I was hoping you wasn't say

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it was easy.

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I mean not it, I think.

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But I think the way in which I was able to get into, I think,

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both the, the sort of head and spiritual space to to adapt this

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book is I kept thinking about and you'll.

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You'll read for those of you who haven't read Barakun you'll

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read about our Kujo Lewis's relationship with his great

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granddaughters.

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Yeah, and so during the book, zoran narrates him like giving

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them peaches, right, you know, or him looking at them play in

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the yard affectionately, and, and, and that became important

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to me because I started to think how would Kujo Lewis have told

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his story, not to Zoran Hill Hurston, but to his

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granddaughter, his great-granddaughters, and, and,

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and so I tried to sort of think about it in that way.

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So how would he have told these painful moments of his story to

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his great-granddaughter that he loved, right, that he of course

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, didn't want to feel that pain, but still wanted to understand

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what happened to him?

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And and and I think that's what would allow me to, to start to

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think about, and, I think, put me in the conceptual space to,

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to, to adapt this, but I would also add the more that I thought

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about that, the more I thought about this grandfather telling

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his life story to his great-grandchild.

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I thought about the fact that I actually didn't grow up with

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grandfathers, so my father's father he never knew his.

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His father, my mother's father, died a few months before I was

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born from cancer, so I didn't grow up with any grandfathers,

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and and so, in a way, the more that I adapted the book, the

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more that I almost sat in that same seat with his

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great-granddaughters, in which it became an experience for me

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in which Kujo wasn't just speaking to his

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great-granddaughters as children , he was speaking to me as a

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child.

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So I started to think, oh, how would my great-grandfather have

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told me his story, his life story, particularly knowing my

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great-grandfather had to deal with the challenges of Jim Crow,

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georgia, and so that's how I was able to do it, and I think

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the reason why that was important to me, and the reason

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why I wanted to think about how a great-grandfather or

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grandfather or grandmother would have told this life story to

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their, to their grandchild, is because this is a difficult

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story.

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Yes, it's a painful story at times, right, but grandparents

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still find ways to tell the painful aspects of their lives

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to people that they love, to their children, to their

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grandchildren, and so there's a way to do that.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I love that so much because it's making me

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think so much about the power of oral tradition and the ways in

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which that's always sort of been the thing that's held a lot of

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black folks together in terms of not being able to have access

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to always the right kind of literature or you know, but just

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be able to tell those stories, and so that's really amazing and

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I was.

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You probably already answered, but I feel like maybe there's a

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little bit more there.

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But, like, did you, did anything surprise you while

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writing this book?

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Did something like an aha moment hit you?

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Speaker 4: I think I think that when you adapt a book you have

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to read it a number of times.

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There we go right and you, in many ways, and I think, what,

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what really?

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I think I don't want to say it surprised me in a sort of

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negative way, but in a sort of pleasantly surprised me was,

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though I think there was somewhat of an artistry to the

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sort of Zora, neil Hurston, the interludes of narration, in

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other words.

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She could have easily written a book in which at the beginning,

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zora's approaching Kajo's you know, cabin and they, they talk,

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and then he starts telling the story and then she comes in at

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the end, but throughout the book there are times in which she

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interjects, yes, her, yes, dialogue with Kajo or things

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that he's doing or things that they're doing together.

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And and the more that I read that, the more that I realized

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how genius that was and sort of holding the reader and in sort

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of pacing the narrative and and so of course I wanted to to

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ensure that that was, that that was retained, yeah, and that

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that was sort of elevated yeah, I think particularly for young

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people.

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I thought that would be incredibly effective to making

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the book interesting for sure, even for me.

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Speaker 3: While reading it I was like, oh, wow, yeah, there's

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like Zora still with us in the book.

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Right, like Zora, neil Hurston's identity does not get

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lost in this story.

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I found myself like, oh, that, you know, there's a little side

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talk or meant, you know, and there's this relationship that

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she develops with Kajo in this book that I think is so

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fascinating.

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It's very much like an old man, you know, not wanting to be

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bothered sometimes, but loving to tell a lot of stories.

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How did in this case?

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Because you mentioned keeping up the pace.

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This book is illustrations in there.

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How did those illustrations contribute to the story for you?

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Speaker 4: well, I mean Jasmine Lee Johnson, yeah, yeah, this, I

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mean, her illustrations were just sort of we're just stunning

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, and and the first illustration that she created that I saw, in

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which I knew that I was okay, I really need to work with her on

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this book, was this illustration that she she, she

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says was inspired by this passage she calls smoke pictures

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, and and this was a passage when, after Kajo Lewis is taken

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from his home and is being marched to the coast of Africa

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and his captors sort of create a fire and he's sort of staring

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into the fire and and the smoke coming from the fire, he sees

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his, his family members and he's sort of emotional and and so

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Zara sort of narrates that she left him there with his smoke

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pictures because it clearly he was, he was in another place,

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kajo Lewis at that moment, and, and so Jasmine Lee Johnson

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recreates that scene, you know, in in the book, as well as a

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whole host of other scenes, and I just think, particularly for

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young people, for middle graders , that that's another way to not

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only capture them and and you know, and keep them reading, but

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also it allows their imagination, you know, to

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flourish.

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Yeah, because I mean, obviously our kids are fed a number of

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different images, but these are not images that they normally

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see.

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You know the images and the scenes of.

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You know the transatlantic human trait.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah and it's and I just have to say, the way

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that it's done in this book, I think, is so artful because, as

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a young read, well, I'm an adult reader, obviously, but I could

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imagine, as a young reader, trying to conceptualize what it

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was like to be someone who was captured from your home and

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dragged, you know, and I even think, in a book.

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You know, kujo mentioned this you know, I didn't something

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about not understanding what was going on, like, why was I taken

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, why am I being forced to do this labor, this?

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I don't understand what would happen to me, right?

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I'm just curious, you know, have you discussed this with

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younger readers?

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And what are they saying?

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What about, maybe your children ?

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I don't know.

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But like, how are young people responding to that story?

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Do you know?

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Speaker 4: So I have a seven-year-old daughter, imani,

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who is probably my fiercest critic, and so I know you may

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see a number of different ways people say a whole bunch of

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things about me.

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It's nothing compared to what it's like, true, raw, just.

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You know what she would say and I, and so we of course had

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conversations about this book and about certain passages that

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I would read to her or that she would read, and what was just

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striking to me was that in many ways she became three or four

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years old.

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Three or four years old when they're asking all those why's.

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I mean, it was just relentless and constant, and to me that was

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a good thing, because to me, if a child, if a kid reads a text

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and they come across and they come out of it with question

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after question after question, not only is it that me we're not

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teaching them enough, but it also means that they're curious,

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and I do think, and I hope, this will spark curiosity, and

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that's why, for me, I'm considering it to be an

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introductory text, particularly to the transatlantic human trade

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, because I think it will spark a tremendous number of questions

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from our kids.

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Speaker 3: For sure, for sure.

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When you mentioned questions, I immediately thought about my

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nephew, who's grown now he's like 20-something years old, but

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when he was about that questioning age, there was a

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moment he had a pin, just like with a pin top on it, and he's

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flying this thing around and he's like Uncle Tony, what's

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this?

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I'm like it's a pin.

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He goes okay.

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Then he keeps flying a thing around.

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What's this?

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It's a pin.

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And we do this repeatedly for at least 10 times.

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Then I say and he says what is this?

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And I say what?

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You tell me what it is, what do you think it is?

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He says it's an airplane.

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And it dawned on me in that moment I have to let this thing

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be an airplane for this kid.

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There's something about allowing kids to have an

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imagination and to have questions and to wonder, and

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sometimes adults, I think we might clip their wings when it

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comes to being curious.

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And so, yeah, what kind of questions are you hoping that

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kids ask themselves after reading this?

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Speaker 4: Well, first, I'm hoping they ask why haven't I

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learned more about this?

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Why are people hiding this from me?

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Does this explain how particularly darker skinned

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people or black people, if they're black arrived in the

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United States?

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So this seems quite important, you know, then.

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Therefore, I should be understanding more about this.

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Is there a relationship between the way Kajo was treated when

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he was enslaved and the way black people are treated today?

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You know, I would hope that kids realize and ask the question

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specifically about, because I think what's most, one of the

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most fascinating moments in the text is after emancipation and

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the Kajo Lewis and others who arrived on the what's known as

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the last sort of quote slave ship, the Quotilda in 1859, they

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decide they want to go back to Africa, like they're free, so

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they want to go home and they pool their money and realize

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they don't have enough money to go home.

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And I'm just hoping in that moment the kid, the kid, the

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child asks.

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So I'm oftentimes told that nobody wants to go to Africa,

00:22:46
that Africa is bad, but these people wanted to go home.

00:22:51
So tell me more about Africa, so not just learning about

00:22:58
Africa in the early part of the text when Kujo's a child and

00:23:02
he's coming of age, but I think that will also spark interest in

00:23:05
learning about Africa, which is a continent that our kids are

00:23:09
also not learning about, just as they're not learning about

00:23:12
slavery.

00:23:13
Speaker 3: Absolutely the yeah clap for that.

00:23:16
By the way, that was pretty amazing.

00:23:17
There are two more questions bubbling in my brain.

00:23:21
I know we're going to get questions from the audience, but

00:23:22
the first thing that I'm thinking about is, as you said,

00:23:24
that was you know, I think so much about how, as a kid growing

00:23:28
up, I would often hear you know teachers, educators or just

00:23:31
folks sort of in my sphere talking about the slaves.

00:23:35
It was always the slaves, like there was this disconnection

00:23:38
between my relationship and African people, and so I think

00:23:42
that, to your point, to have kids asking questions about, I

00:23:45
think, africa and its history and people, I think it's really,

00:23:48
really brilliant.

00:23:49
And in my book how the Boogie man Became a Poet Slight Plug

00:23:52
not even Slight, it was a real plug.

00:23:53
So you know I write there's a story that I have in there where

00:23:57
I remember being in high school going to go see the film

00:24:00
Amistad Y'all remember this and no one really explaining to me

00:24:05
sort of the history of all that and sink a shout and give us us

00:24:08
free and not really understanding like, wait a

00:24:09
minute, these are African women.

00:24:11
I come from these people like that connection, true power,

00:24:14
which leads me to this idea of knowledge of self.

00:24:17
So, for those of you who don't know, I love hip hop and I'm

00:24:19
always talking about the five elements, and one of them is

00:24:21
knowledge of self.

00:24:22
The more you know about who you are, the more powerful you can

00:24:24
show up into the world, and so I'm thinking about you and this

00:24:27
book and the knowledge of self that's included in this.

00:24:30
What do you say to folks who are saying that this particular

00:24:33
knowledge of self is not important in necessary in

00:24:35
schools and libraries and therefore we're going to ban

00:24:38
them?

00:24:38
What do you say?

00:24:38
What have you been saying?

00:24:43
Speaker 4: Well, I mean, I think , first and foremost, I think it

00:24:49
is in order to understand one self, one must understand the

00:24:55
world, one must understand the environment that they're living

00:24:58
in.

00:24:59
We understand ourselves in relation to others and to what's

00:25:04
happening in the world.

00:25:05
And in order to understand the world, we must understand

00:25:09
history.

00:25:09
And in order to understand modern history, you have to

00:25:13
understand slavery.

00:25:14
And even global history cannot be explained without explaining

00:25:20
the transatlantic trade.

00:25:22
And if you talk about the transatlantic slave trade, you

00:25:27
have to talk about colonialism.

00:25:28
And so I just don't know how people can understand self, have

00:25:35
knowledge of self and be ignorant about history.

00:25:38
And I think, typically, the more ignorant that people are

00:25:43
about history, the more ignorant they are about themselves.

00:25:46
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, so much related y'all.

00:25:49
This is probably not another plug.

00:25:51
I'm trying to put out books and conversations because I'm

00:25:53
realizing something here.

00:25:54
Speaker 4: Can I?

00:25:54
No, go ahead.

00:25:55
No, keep going.

00:25:55
So the reason why this is also important is because if you have

00:26:01
the power to make people ignorant about themselves, then

00:26:06
you have the power to manipulate and control them.

00:26:08
So, then, that allows us to understand why certain elected

00:26:11
officials are literally trying to ban history so that they can

00:26:17
better manipulate people.

00:26:19
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, the title of my book is how the Boogie

00:26:28
man Became a Poet, and so much of that is obviously a metaphor

00:26:31
about having a fear as a young person about being authentically

00:26:35
a black gay boy in America and America still doesn't love black

00:26:38
gay boys and men.

00:26:39
But how much internalized racism I had soaked in as a kid

00:26:47
because these systems in schools said don't speak like that,

00:26:50
don't write like that, don't do it.

00:26:51
Like there was sort of this guarding of my posture and my

00:26:55
being and so realizing.

00:26:56
You know, while I wrote my book I was, like you know, I had to

00:26:58
go through some unpacking of wait a minute, like I've

00:27:02
internalized this belief about myself that I'm less than

00:27:05
according to this hierarchy of a thing, and so I just want to

00:27:08
let you know that when you putting books like this into the

00:27:10
world, y'all I think restores some of that gap and gives a lot

00:27:15
of young people a lot of love and sense of understanding about

00:27:17
who they are and realizing that , wait a minute, I am lovable, I

00:27:21
am smart, I'm intelligent, I'm a part of a long history, and so

00:27:24
I just want to thank you for that, because this, I believe,

00:27:26
is absolutely anti-racist in its approach.

00:27:28
So there's that Y'all clap for that.

00:27:34
And last thing I want to know so this is one of three

00:27:37
adaptations, I think, of Zora Nail's work.

00:27:39
Yes, that you've done.

00:27:40
Can you walk us through just that process, and then I think

00:27:44
we'll get some more questions.

00:27:46
Speaker 4: Sure.

00:27:46
So, yeah, I am working with Zora's estate and I'm going to

00:27:52
adapt six books.

00:27:54
Look at everybody's face, though, did you see?

00:27:57
Wow?

00:27:58
So this is the third book, and the first book was called

00:28:06
Magnolia Flower, which was based on a short story that Zora Nail

00:28:12
Hurston wrote, and the second book was called the Making of

00:28:18
Butterflies, which was based on a folktale that Zora collected.

00:28:24
It's a board book that is simply how butterflies came to

00:28:28
be, you know, based on a black rule of folktale, and obviously

00:28:32
there's this book, baracun, and I think it just goes to show

00:28:41
that just the breath of Zora Nail Hurston's sort of body of

00:28:46
work, like a short story, a piece of folklore that she

00:28:52
collected and then a nonfiction text, and so I'm hoping, through

00:28:59
these series of adaptations that you know, like Alice Walker

00:29:04
and a whole host of other writers, we're really showing

00:29:08
and demonstrating just how much of a literary legend Zora Nail

00:29:13
Hurston truly was Absolutely, absolutely.

00:29:15
Speaker 3: Thank you so much.

00:29:16
Any other thing that you might want to just say about Baracun

00:29:20
or this book, or like any other thing that I probably did not

00:29:22
ask you that you want to make sure you share.

00:29:26
Speaker 4: Well, it's interesting when you were, you

00:29:29
know, talking about just identity and the way in which

00:29:36
history and sort of so much shapes that, and I guess we were

00:29:42
talking about that.

00:29:43
I just want to add that in many ways, I think in too many ways,

00:29:51
when we do not teach black people about enslavement and the

00:30:00
era of slavery in all of its fullness, what that results in

00:30:05
us not teaching black people and even black children that there

00:30:09
was consistent and constant resistance to that enslavement.

00:30:14
And we're also not teaching black people that, despite the

00:30:22
chains of slavery, the humanity of black people never diminished

00:30:28
.

00:30:28
And I'm mentioning that because during the enslavement era even

00:30:34
abolitionists were making this case that slavery literally

00:30:41
embruded black people like, made them into these brutes, which

00:30:45
is why it's so horrible, which is why it needs to end, and that

00:30:49
simply was not true.

00:30:51
And I think the more any group of people learn that a

00:30:58
particular group that's facing enslavement or some sort of form

00:31:03
of oppression still beats their humanity, it also shows the

00:31:08
power of humanity.

00:31:09
And I think, similarly, if we don't teach white children

00:31:15
slavery in all of its fullness, then we're not going to teach

00:31:21
them that there were white people who challenged slavery.

00:31:23
How about that Right, and the irony is the very people who are

00:31:29
banning slavery are banning it based on this subject of

00:31:32
opposition that we just want to teach that all the enslavers who

00:31:35
hate right and all of the black people were enslaved when it

00:31:40
was much more complicated than that.

00:31:42
But it makes sense, right?

00:31:45
They don't want that child identifying with that white

00:31:49
abolitionist because then that child will identify with white

00:31:53
people who are challenging racism today.

00:31:54
Right, and it's all connected.

00:31:57
But they will also see that many of the ideas and tactics

00:32:02
and strategies that enslavers used to manipulate and control

00:32:08
the vast majority of white people, who are not enslaving

00:32:11
people in the South and the rest of us, are being used today.

00:32:15
And the original book banners were enslavers.

00:32:20
Speaker 3: How about that?

00:32:20
How about that I often think so much about?

00:32:22
Ooh, I don't know many stories about white abolitionists, you

00:32:25
know, I think it's like hard.

00:32:26
That'd be a fascinating sort of not a genre of books, but like

00:32:30
something to read.

00:32:31
Because I get that question Tony is a white person.

00:32:34
What can I do?

00:32:34
And I'm like, well, I don't know what to tell you about your

00:32:37
people, but please find a way to identify with white

00:32:39
abolitionists, figure out what those stories are like.

00:32:41
So yeah, thank you so much for that.

00:32:43
I think we got some questions from the big audience, so we're

00:32:46
going to, I don't know, pass to my thing.

00:32:48
We'll clap it up for what we got right now.

00:32:50
Clap it up.

00:32:50
Thank you very much, dr Kenny.

00:32:51
So much.

00:32:52
I'm looking at the person with the questions, by the way.

00:32:54
It's like a weird thing.

00:32:55
Thank you so much for this conversation.

00:32:59
I'm really I truly love this book and I'll be sure to pick up

00:33:01
how the Booking man became a poet too.

00:33:03
Let's see what we got.

00:33:04
Let's see what we got.

00:33:06
Speaker 2: So the first one is it was a young person, maybe 11

00:33:11
or 12, and their question is why is the book called Barakoon

00:33:17
Great?

00:33:18
Speaker 4: great question.

00:33:18
So the book is called Barakoon because a Barakoon is where

00:33:28
enslaved people in Africa were held.

00:33:31
It was almost like a prison.

00:33:33
So after people were kidnapped from their homes and taken to

00:33:39
the coast, they were essentially put in Barakoons.

00:33:42
And the reason why they needed these quote unquote Barakoons

00:33:48
was because typically, those who came with ships to trade for

00:33:52
enslaved people it took a while for them to fill up their ships

00:33:56
because they would typically barter.

00:33:59
They would typically try to find the people who were the

00:34:05
enslaved, people who were the cheapest, a whole host of things

00:34:09
and so the people who were enslaved needed to be held,

00:34:12
typically for months at a time.

00:34:14
And I'm mentioning this because we're often, even with those of

00:34:18
us who are familiar with the transatlantic trade, we're

00:34:23
taught that it was a long march to the coast.

00:34:25
We're taught that there was many months across the Atlantic.

00:34:29
What we're not taught is the many months in the Barakoon.

00:34:36
Speaker 2: I would drop the mic, but I don't.

00:34:38
That was good.

00:34:39
Somebody asked what would your number one policy be, priority

00:34:45
be, if you were running for president?

00:34:46
Dr Ibram X Kendi, I chose to read that.

00:34:51
I want to hear this is going to be good.

00:34:55
Speaker 4: What would be my number one priority?

00:34:57
Speaker 2: Yes.

00:34:58
Speaker 4: Wow, I should have prepared for this in some of the

00:35:01
DC.

00:35:04
My number one?

00:35:05
I think my number one priority would be radically transforming

00:35:14
our healthcare system and ensuring that everyone had

00:35:21
access to free, high quality healthcare and I say everyone,

00:35:26
not just people in Southeast DC but people who live in rural

00:35:32
Maryland that there were no trauma deserts.

00:35:36
And the reason why I mention this is because if you go home

00:35:41
and look at the top 10 leading causes of death, almost every

00:35:46
single one of them are diseases.

00:35:48
So it's diseases, unintentional injuries, suicides, it's not

00:35:52
homicides and people are dying.

00:35:56
And people are dying because our system is so broken and

00:36:01
people are being bankrupt by our system.

00:36:03
They got me timing like a politician.

00:36:05
Speaker 3: Come on, you're doing a great job.

00:36:07
Yeah, yes, I'm like buying into it.

00:36:11
I'm like, yeah, I want this hell plan.

00:36:13
I want, yeah, this is yeah, I want this, yeah, yeah.

00:36:16
Speaker 2: But I think we can all relate to that in some form

00:36:18
or fashion somebody in our family, something we're going,

00:36:21
so it's something that it really does, I think, resonate with a

00:36:24
lot of us.

00:36:24
So thank you for sharing that.

00:36:25
What's going on with book bans?

00:36:29
Do you have any plans to bring back your anti-racist book

00:36:33
festival?

00:36:33
And it says please do in caps.

00:36:37
Speaker 4: Yes.

00:36:44
Speaker 2: What question would you ask Kujo today if you were

00:36:47
interviewing him?

00:36:48
Let's go.

00:36:51
Speaker 4: Wow.

00:36:55
So for those of you who don't know, so I mentioned earlier how

00:36:59
Kujo and other people who came were forced to come on the

00:37:06
Quotilda created what became known as Africa Town, and Africa

00:37:12
Town still exists outside of Mobile, alabama, but it's

00:37:19
surrounded by heavy industry and it's now part of the Cancer

00:37:24
Alley, in which people who live in Africa Town have higher

00:37:31
levels of all sorts of cancers because of all those toxins that

00:37:37
are literally surrounding the community.

00:37:40
And so you know, I would ask Kujo about the decision, because

00:37:50
they essentially what happened is they initially were like we

00:37:55
want to go back to Africa, but then, when they realized the

00:37:59
cost was so inhibited, they were like, ok, let's just plan to

00:38:03
save up our money and buy land here.

00:38:06
And so I would ask him, when you look at the history of

00:38:11
Africa Town since then, you look at the number of your, your

00:38:16
ancestors, I should say your descendants, who are encircled

00:38:21
by smoke, do you think y'all would have made a different

00:38:25
decision and maybe spent more time sort of saving up to

00:38:29
eventually try to find a way back, you know, back to to

00:38:32
Africa?

00:38:33
There's actually a film on Netflix called Descendant that

00:38:39
talks about Africa Town and the Quotilda, for those who are

00:38:43
interested.

00:38:45
Speaker 2: Awesome, Thank you.

00:38:46
The next question is do you see your book as having any kind of

00:38:50
connection to a movement toward reparations?

00:38:55
Speaker 4: So I would hope so and I would, I would hope that

00:39:02
young people and older people who are reading this book will.

00:39:07
It will allow them to sit and walk in the shoes of, you know,

00:39:13
kujo Lewis and what he faced and others faced, and and really

00:39:19
the pain and the loss and the dispossession that happened

00:39:25
during the enslavement era.

00:39:26
But I should also add that what's fascinating about this

00:39:30
book is it doesn't end with emancipation, right, you know,

00:39:35
zora first goes to speak to Kujo in 1927.

00:39:39
Right, so this is what, 60 years after 50 or five or so

00:39:48
years, you know, after emancipation, and and so a lot

00:39:54
happened between 1865 and 1927 in his life and in Alabama and

00:40:03
Southern Alabama, and and and a lot of that was governed by by

00:40:07
Jim Crow.

00:40:08
And so the second half of the book tracks the ways in which he

00:40:14
was also dispossessed during Jim Crow and their actual

00:40:17
stories of that.

00:40:18
And so I think it actually those who are advocating for

00:40:21
reparations are typically not just advocating based on what

00:40:27
was stolen from African Americans during the enslavement

00:40:31
era, but also during the Jim Crow era, and I think you see

00:40:34
that through through Kujo Lewis's story.

00:40:37
Speaker 3: For sure, there's a he develops a family and and

00:40:40
well, there's a whole lot that goes on with that family.

00:40:42
But yeah, absolutely, absolutely.

00:40:45
Speaker 2: Awesome, awesome, thank you.

00:40:46
What is your advice to an aspiring writer and what's the

00:40:50
best advice you've received about the writing process?

00:40:54
Speaker 4: Okay, so I just did the math it was 62 years right.

00:40:59
Speaker 3: Was anyone telling anyone, anyone willing to doubt?

00:41:01
Okay?

00:41:03
Speaker 4: Ask that question, yes.

00:41:06
Speaker 2: You just had to.

00:41:06
You have to finish that one in your mind.

00:41:07
What is your advice to an aspiring writer and what's the

00:41:11
best advice you've received about the writing process?

00:41:16
Speaker 4: So I think, as relates to my best advice to to

00:41:22
an aspiring writer, is to learn and seek to hone and appreciate

00:41:32
your own voice.

00:41:33
So the way you express yourself on the page, you know every

00:41:40
great writer, you know you're reading them by the way in which

00:41:45
they write, and so I just, I would just encourage you to.

00:41:51
We talked a lot about language, right.

00:41:54
You're learning, as a new writer and aspiring writer, how

00:41:58
you speak on the page and I would just encourage you to

00:42:02
respect and protect and hone and learn your own personal

00:42:07
language.

00:42:07
And I would also, in terms of the best piece of advice that

00:42:16
that that I've received has has been to basically trust one's

00:42:25
own idea but also realize when it's not working.

00:42:33
Speaker 2: That's that kind of segues into this next question,

00:42:36
though, too, and the question is what made you want to write?

00:42:39
And I'm asked that of both, why you could have done anything,

00:42:41
dr Kendi, dr Tony Keith.

00:42:42
Why write?

00:42:43
What was the thing, what was the impetus to say?

00:42:45
You know what I'm going to take this time, and I'm going to

00:42:47
make this space in my life to write, to jot those things down,

00:42:50
to commemorate a lot of different experiences.

00:42:52
Why write?

00:42:55
Speaker 4: So it's interesting, I grew up wanting to be a

00:42:59
sportscaster.

00:43:00
Okay, so I was a big sort of basketball fan and I grew up

00:43:08
watching NBA on NBA on NBC in the 90s I don't know if anybody

00:43:13
remembers that with Bob Costas, and so I was like, hey, I would

00:43:19
love to be a Bob Costas, right.

00:43:21
But then when I got to college, I told myself that I felt that

00:43:28
I was a better writer than I was speaker, and I think that was

00:43:33
partly because I grew up in the church.

00:43:37
Both my parents were ministers.

00:43:39
They always brought me around some of the greatest speakers in

00:43:41
the world.

00:43:42
Speaker 1: So I was like, okay, I'm not like these people's

00:43:45
level.

00:43:46
Speaker 4: But so I felt like I think I had more confidence as a

00:43:49
writer than as a speaker.

00:43:51
So then I was like, okay, I'm going to be a sports writer.

00:43:53
And then sports writing transitioned into writing about

00:43:58
race, or wanting to be a journalist who wrote on race.

00:44:02
But then, ultimately, I decided to go to graduate school and

00:44:05
become, you know, a scholar, and unfortunately, unfortunately we

00:44:09
have to write as professors.

00:44:15
Speaker 3: For me it's.

00:44:15
I've been writing.

00:44:17
You'll read about how the Book of man became a poet, but I've

00:44:19
been writing since I was a child , dealing with again now that I

00:44:23
know internalized racism, internalized homophobia.

00:44:25
I was also poor, there was a lot going on and I would write

00:44:28
poetry to myself at night when nobody was around could see.

00:44:32
By the way, in the book again you'll see the photocopies of

00:44:34
those poems, which is kind of cool.

00:44:35
But, and so my point is, I've always been writing as a way to

00:44:38
sort of escape and deal with emotions and to kind of figure

00:44:41
out who I am.

00:44:42
I go to my poetry for questions a lot.

00:44:43
I don't know what's going, even to this day.

00:44:45
If I don't know what's going on in the world, I'm writing,

00:44:47
probably some kind of poem about it.

00:44:48
But to create a book, especially one that's for

00:44:51
younger adult readers, it would have happened was.

00:44:54
I was at an event with one of my dear friends who's also a world

00:44:57
famous author.

00:44:57
We don't need to give him a shout out today.

00:44:58
Actually, I will shout out to Jason Reynolds and love that guy

00:45:02
and he was doing a book signing .

00:45:04
I was just telling you all the story upstairs.

00:45:06
This kid comes out of line to me and he says Where's your book

00:45:10
?

00:45:10
Like, your black gay guy grew up poor, but you're married.

00:45:13
Now you got to be like which your story Right?

00:45:16
And I was like I don't.

00:45:17
I remember saying like I published on the stage, not the

00:45:19
page, or something ridiculous to this kid, you know.

00:45:22
And I thought to myself, like are there stories like mine,

00:45:27
written in ways that might appeal to this young little

00:45:29
black boy who might be gay, or what do I do about this?

00:45:31
And so I felt this, this calling, almost this need to

00:45:35
write something, especially for young readers.

00:45:37
And then what wound up happening, just like probably a

00:45:39
lot of my academic work, is the more I wrote that book, the more

00:45:42
I began to understand a lot more about myself.

00:45:44
And so the title is how the Boogie man Became a Poet.

00:45:47
I wrote that book almost as an answering an essay question how

00:45:50
did the Boogie man become a poet ?

00:45:52
And so I wrote that thing and I was hoping that a younger

00:45:55
person would pick it up and be like, oh, now how to not be

00:45:58
afraid to be yourself.

00:46:00
So that's what happened.

00:46:02
Speaker 2: That's good, that's good.

00:46:03
Thank you both for that.

00:46:04
Yes, we chatted about colleges upstairs in the green room.

00:46:11
This question is as a student of FAMU, dr Candy, how would you

00:46:15
, how would you recount your experience on that campus?

00:46:18
How would you recount that?

00:46:20
Talking about school, we're talking about academics.

00:46:23
How would you recount that experience?

00:46:24
So?

00:46:25
I mean, I would say and what did it mean to you?

00:46:30
Speaker 4: Well, I think it was probably the first place that I

00:46:37
felt safe, and what I mean by safe is I felt safe to express

00:46:49
myself and learn myself.

00:46:51
And I also felt safe to express and learn myself because at

00:46:58
FAMU, those who are Florida Agricultural and Mechanical the

00:47:02
University of course got to sound this out fully, because

00:47:04
you know for other folk who went to HBCUs that are less than

00:47:08
family.

00:47:08
Wait a minute wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute

00:47:11
wait a minute.

00:47:12
Speaker 2: Langston University, bowie State.

00:47:14
In the back, elizabeth.

00:47:15
Okay, go ahead.

00:47:17
Speaker 3: I know you got a security team.

00:47:18
Be careful.

00:47:19
Speaker 2: HBCUs.

00:47:20
Okay, so you know.

00:47:22
Speaker 4: FAMU was there.

00:47:25
It was when I was there.

00:47:27
There were people, black people , from all over the nation, even

00:47:31
all over the world, and so that allowed me.

00:47:36
There was not this sense that you had to conform to a certain

00:47:42
form of blackness Because there weren't white folks there who

00:47:47
were telling us, like the young brother in Texas that quote,

00:47:52
being an American is conforming.

00:47:55
You know, there wasn't that, there wasn't that sort of demand

00:47:59
to conform or to shape, shift or to change, and that was

00:48:03
really the first time I'd experienced that, and so it was

00:48:11
safe.

00:48:12
You know, personally and culturally, and I think that's

00:48:16
probably why I was able to not only grow a lot as an individual

00:48:22
but even grow a lot conceptually, and I actually

00:48:25
write a lot about that and how to be an anti-racist, and in a

00:48:31
way, that space allowed me to think both good and bad things

00:48:38
and sort of work through my thoughts, you know, about race,

00:48:41
about blackness, about whiteness and so on and so forth.

00:48:44
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I'll just add, since we're doing a plug

00:48:46
for HBCUs, no, but just to you know, executive privilege here.

00:48:51
I attended the HBCU as well and when I think about, before I

00:48:56
got to my HBCU, the exposure to black books that I had was nil,

00:49:00
it was very limited.

00:49:01
And when I got on this campus and I saw these people that

00:49:03
looked like me and resources in a facility and library that had

00:49:07
all this history in it that I did not have access to, I just

00:49:11
gobbled it up and I just started learning more and more about me

00:49:14
.

00:49:14
And you know, mahogany Books was the brainchild of my husband

00:49:18
.

00:49:18
But I also say it wouldn't exist if I had not had that

00:49:20
experience at Langston University, because I learned

00:49:22
about myself.

00:49:23
I learned about the triumphs that we had and also the parts

00:49:27
that were not as beautiful.

00:49:28
But if I had not known that, there would not have been this

00:49:31
yearning to make sure everybody else had access to black books.

00:49:34
But I felt at home and was exposed to things that had never

00:49:38
been exposed to, that really focused on me and I say me as a

00:49:41
black person.

00:49:42
So that experience, I mean, was mind blowing.

00:49:45
But here you say that from your experience and how it's shaped

00:49:48
and how it really formed a lot of your ideals and who you are

00:49:51
is powerful, so thank you for sharing that.

00:49:54
Speaker 4: And if I could just add very quickly that in my

00:49:56
English one-on-one class, my first semester, that's when I

00:50:01
first met Zora Neverson- Ah yes, yep, absolutely, just want to

00:50:06
also say shout out to the black folks who graduated from PWIs.

00:50:09
Speaker 3: Thank you very much.

00:50:09
We in the building, we in here, right, and my book about a very

00:50:13
particular black experience that occurs at PWIs.

00:50:15
Shout out to black student unions and black cultural

00:50:18
centers.

00:50:19
Speaker 2: Yes, yes and.

00:50:20
Speaker 3: American Studies departments.

00:50:21
Thank you.

00:50:23
Speaker 2: Okay, okay, okay, dr Black Towers, baby, our last

00:50:27
question here, man, okay, two, I think we have time for just two

00:50:31
.

00:50:31
What advice would you have for young readers who are finding

00:50:35
their voices as authors?

00:50:37
There's young people who are looking to do that as well.

00:50:40
What advice for them?

00:50:44
Speaker 4: Well, first let me just say that I really admire

00:50:52
young people who are already finding their voice as authors.

00:50:56
I did not even begin to find my voice as an author until I was

00:51:04
probably, to you, quite ancient, and so I just want to just

00:51:10
express an admiration and I also want to express an affection

00:51:18
for sort of what you're doing, and but I also my biggest piece

00:51:24
of advice for that young person and I would probably say this is

00:51:29
the case even for older people is that is to really be correct

00:51:34
and to really be courageous.

00:51:38
You know, as you think of what you want to say and what you

00:51:41
want to write.

00:51:42
And when I say courage, I'm not sort of speaking about courage

00:51:49
as the sort of absence of danger , but really the strength to do

00:51:57
what's right in the face of something that's dangerous.

00:52:00
And I think in the case of a child, it can be dangerous to

00:52:05
create and think of a story that nobody is thinking about or

00:52:10
that nobody has written it in that way, and so you're like, oh

00:52:16
, maybe I shouldn't do that, nobody's thinking of that,

00:52:18
nobody's created a character like that.

00:52:20
And I just want to encourage you to be courageous, right and

00:52:26
to find that strength to create that character to create that

00:52:31
story, and because I think that the authors that I admire the

00:52:38
most are the authors that are most courageous.

00:52:42
Speaker 3: If I may I love that response I would say find a way

00:52:50
to discover people whose voices you're in conversation with, and

00:52:55
by that I mean I think about, for example, a book like how to

00:52:58
Book a man Became a Poet I'm like shout out to Elizabeth

00:53:00
Acevedo and Mahogany Brown and Jacqueline Woodson and like so

00:53:05
many other authors who are writing in similar kind of ways.

00:53:07
And for young people, there are writing groups, probably in

00:53:10
your community, your neighborhood, their poetry clubs

00:53:13
.

00:53:13
There are youth competitions.

00:53:15
They are not in all places, not in all rural places or urban

00:53:18
places, but please know that now I'm so excited because now

00:53:21
those kinds of opportunities exist.

00:53:22
When I was a kid they weren't around.

00:53:24
Poetry slam teams and teachers doing things with writing was

00:53:27
not around.

00:53:27
So anyway.

00:53:28
So think about whose voices yours are probably already in

00:53:31
conversation, right with your friends, right with your cousins

00:53:33
, right.

00:53:34
Speaker 2: Yeah.

00:53:35
So lastly, Dr Kendi, now that this book is out in the world

00:53:39
two days ago, 48 hours shout out to the book birthday of

00:53:42
Barakoon for young readers.

00:53:44
What, yes, that's yes, that's out, it's out.

00:53:50
What would you say when you close the last page of that

00:53:56
manuscript that you wanted your intention to be as this book

00:53:59
floats among all of us in the world?

00:54:00
What do you want that intention to be with this book?

00:54:06
Speaker 4: So if this book is for young people and even older

00:54:13
people in an introductory text to slavery, and even slavery by

00:54:22
another name, as one author called it, if it's an

00:54:26
introduction, then I would hope that it truly would be an

00:54:32
introduction.

00:54:32
It truly would be a beginning.

00:54:34
It would allow us to begin exploring some of the questions

00:54:38
that we raised as we read that book, by finding other authors

00:54:44
and finding other books and researching for ourselves.

00:54:47
Because I just do, I think, because we don't understand

00:54:54
slavery, like we just don't understand this country and we

00:54:58
don't understand the modern world, and I just think that the

00:55:02
more we understand slavery and the more, the earlier we

00:55:05
understand it, I think, the more knowledgeable as a, as a

00:55:09
citizen, as you know, as a community and a society will be,

00:55:13
and the more knowledgeable will be, the less likely we will be

00:55:15
able to be manipulated, you know , by people.

00:55:19
Speaker 2: Absolutely.

00:55:20
Thank you so much, dr Ibram X Kendi, dr Tony Keith Jr.

00:55:23
Bigger, bigger, bigger, bigger, uh-uh, yes, yes.

00:55:33
Speaker 4: Yes, yes, yes, thank you, thank you all for being

00:55:34
here.

00:55:35
Speaker 1: Yeah.

00:55:35
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