do you think e crazy people
in to do?
Then you try to y
committed m uicid
Ii total lie. That' t what hap­
pened. All 0 th people th t urvived
are now aying that they blew up
tan • nd I don't know what el e.
And you kn w t whole tim that
there i ammunition in the building
taking into account that th re are chil­
drenofalla inn entcrazypeople
in th building.
That whole idea of a ult and peo­
ple bein religio fanati , or looking
for orne kind of alvation, i a reflec­
tion of how people are earching for
peace of mind and h nnony in th
United Stat . Living h re in Cub
you have omething t compare it
with.
o
ion.
ow, you an 0 pain pill if
you hav an infection, but th infec­
tioni not oing to o away. You need
to g t rid 0 th urce. Oppr ion i
not v, but I think that we have been
o oriented into caping that a lot of
us don't want to recognize th f t that
in th first pia e th re i no pe. In
th nd pia , part 0 our healing
has got t do with truggling gainst
the urce 0 our oppres ion, and
that' healthy. It help you t make it
and. to trive. othing el e i going to
do it for y u.
Now our k.i cannot the ra-
ci m in th sam clear way that we
could ee it. We could it in the
"colored" igns, etc.
Today, go to any high schoo) in
any oppre ed community. The
cbool may be called Martin Luther
King High Scbool, but in reality, it
should be called "Drop Out High."
The treet may be called Abraham
Lincoln Street, but it houJd be called
"Crackl.ane." We are going to change
the name of the h pital, and we're
just going to call it "ButcherOencral. h
We're not going to call the police
tation the "79th Precinct"; it'll be
"Beat a Nigger Center, It or "Center for
Detention of Negroes and Other Peo­
ple."
If we put the name that d cribes
the content of what is happening to us
in all aspects of ociety, I think that we
would all be sbocked because as a
people, on of ourpsychological reac­
tions to constant change is denial. If
you really focus on it, it becomes too
painful; so we are people that are veay
heavy into denial. It takes various
forms. I remember when I was a kid,
I used to look at people who said they
grew up and never did see racism. I'd
be looking at them like they were out
of their minds and they j t couldn't
ee it. Their state of denial was so
heavy that they couldn't deal with it.
Q: � last time I was hue I asked
you obout the progress on your new
book. How are you doing?
T : It' lot 0 tudying
and lot of inv tigation, much more
than I had anticipated. It' gettin bet­
ter and getting long r, but it' cornm
alon fin. It' very diffi ult, very
taxing project, and I'm glad I'm doing
it, but it' not at all y.
Q: It's not as easy as the last one?
Q: Has r ligion in the U . histori­
cally b en refl ctive of h ipocrisy as
far as African American people are
concerned?
AS TA: Wtitingan autobiogra­
phy, writing about prison and so on­
that w a very palnful process for me.
This new boo k, intellectually is a tax-
ing proc b cause th world i
changing. It' not enough to just re­
peat what other people have id.
I think pro ive people and peo-
ple who really want to make ocial
change, especially African people,
have got rethink a lot of the con­
cepts that we've been fed.
- I thtnk we got to really work to­
wards developing a more Afrocentric,
more Third Wortd-centric point 0
view, in nns not j t tru ling
against somcthi
I used to think of a1 chan e
liberation, more in rms of just trug­
gling ainst opp ion. But now I
also think that struggle against op­
pression has to be also a very creativ
process in terms of truggling to find
another way to live. Struggling to
have new val , truggling to have
different kinds of relationship . The
kinds of relationships that I hear, for
example, in some of the rap music-­
we didn't come from Africa calling
each other "bitches" and "he's." I
mean that didn't happen. .
African people came here peo-
'ple who aid "Sister," "Brother." We
came here with a dignified form of
greeting each other, and I think that
we have got to reflect on how do we
recapture som of the very positive
things that we came here with.
The way we treated each other w
very much affected by a slave mental-
ity and by' the violent, nasty oap op­
era culture that i being impo ed on
us.
Q: What about the lack of leader­
ship among African people?
TA: I believe thai religion
in the United Stat h ,in many in-
tane • b nan i trum nt of ra i m.
You have all the e whit r i t
churc • the Aryan Church, the Bap­
ti ts, Meth di ts etc., all divided over
the i u of lav ry. And many of
th m upported lav ry, and m t of
th m upported gre ation.
The white church in the United
Stat has been hand in hand. in many
instan , with raci m. I think that in
t rms of th I ve trade th re'
whole group of poopl who had in­
v ted in th lave trade and are till
invested in th c ntinuation f that
oppression.
One of th thin that we a
T : We're going to have to
deal with it, and there i no way
around it because unl you have a
tratcgy, unl you have clear objec-
tiv .th nwhoi goingtofollowyou?
How re you going to tart a move­
ment unl you have a clear idea of
what you want. How are you going to
get there?
Q: In regards to your econd book,
and as we move towards the year
2000, what is your opinion about how
_w approach the question of power in
the African American community-«
i.e., se regation; integration, as imi­
lation or what?
transformed into an ther kind of men­
tality that i aneth r form of white'
supremacy. They y well, this i just
an ign rant tupid lave, this i an
ignorant, • tupid .riminal. It do not
surpri e me.
I cannot a human b in . That i not
how I want to live. That 1 not how I
wan my child t live, that i not h w
I want m grand luldren to live:
1 think on a very cons ious level
we hav ot t really recognize that
the kind of alienated ociety we live
in h' m de alienated and h tile
tov ard each oth r, and it' killing us.
When you
are in a raci t
chool
sy tem, it'
not just the
attitude of the
teacher. , it'
what you are
learning ..
Q: The media and our educational
ystem have st reotyped African peo­
pi as b ing backwards ocially and
intell ctually. Can you peak to how
we me t work to challeng this con­
ception ?
Q: Do you feel that our schools are
deteriorating and are no Ion er crea­
tiv and productive plac of learn­
in 1?'
Ithink progre ive people
and people who really want
to make ocial chan e
e ipecially Jrican peopl
have got to 'rethink alot of
the concept that we ve
been fed.
You have all th e Buppies with
ui and that. who really believe
that they are going to be the President
of General Motors, They might be­
lieve it for a couple of years until they
run against th wall: and when they
run against the wall, they better try to
live within th ir little middle manage­
ment ociety and try to convince
themselves thatth little stuff that they
can buy makes them free. But they
have to feel the verall raci m f the
'0 iety before they wake up to th
reality.
Q: How do you feel about the im­
act of rap music in the U.S. ?
P \ pie ha 'to leal With In term" of
our hi t ry IS that you had nch Incan
hicfs that al: cooperat d \: ith the
lave trad . And it was a question
cla; .
'ATA: I think there i a lot of
Hive rap rnu ic. 1 ee it as being a
oublc-cdged word; it reflec our
I form of communication. The vio­
I ce in rap i pr valent in the whole
culture. 1 mean it' all over. There'
only one olution, according to th
United Stat Government, as a way
to deal with anything, and that' vio­
len . You get orne crazy people in
Wa nd you atta k them. Okay. But
you knew they were razy from th
Jump. All nght. You have your shoot-
ut and they got hildren there and
your lution i phy ical confronta-
tion. You can't figure out any thin
oth r to do. YQu waited for all that
nrne and you d cide one day, clear
out of the blue, after yuh v neg ti­
atcd with a crazy man, that you are
oin to w it unt11 he writ thi crazy
d ument. But you break 0 the ne­
oti tio ,and y u tart putting in the
tank, kn eking down the wall ,
throwing in tear g and 0 o�what
Part of our struggle h' to b to
reject that culture and replace it with
something el e.It' not enough to just
reject something and ay, ttl don't
want that." What do I want? Livin I
Cuba, for example, has m de It very
clear to m that I don't want to live
like I s people living in the U rutcd
States.
I do not want to live in a' »ct
where I feel totally alien t from
people, where when I'm walkin
down the t t, I'm' red to I k
. people in the f c . I do n twant t hv
in a ociety where I cannot ay
"Hello" r "Good m min" to ' m .
o .
I grew up partly in Bl omin t n,
North Car lma wher when you
p ed people, you had to ay "G od
mornin ," yuh d to ay"G 00 eve­
rung." you h d to be a h-vna» he,n�.
I do not want t liv in a pia where am
':1\'1'1\: Pcopl in the U.S. ar
livin 1 In a country wh re 9 out of 10
tim • our hildren are in a I
environm nt that I h til. It'
h 1 environment where you have a
h r th t • Y' "I don' think y u
can learn
Matter of f r, I think you ar n
the .tupid ide; matter f f ct. you
don't I ok ti!!ing. I think you're kind
of on the u Iy 'Id .with them big lip.
Q: Do y u dunk th ho tility is
r at r toward African mal s?
more !'()- .
lui ali C()fLH.iOLL'i?
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