FAN: Ta-Nehisi Coates Q & A

thank you so much by the way hi my name is Alison al Valda I'm a freshman at Northwestern I'm also a reporter for the daily Northwestern but I'm not here on behalf of the daily Northwestern um but my like editors up there so he can also like write stuff down as I'm talking to you okay cool so basically last week northwestern had this concert with lil uzi bird I don't know if you know who that is he's like that all my friends are dead going through my had something all my friends are dead anyway he uses the N word profusely like a ton and there was an email sent out to students who went to this concert saying you don't have a right to use this word which I hundred percent agree with I as a white person I don't have any right I haven't until reparations are paid until there's some sort of giving back there's no right but what do you say just I don't know what to do when I hear my friends using this word in a song I don't know what to do when it's just it's all the time well you know I don't want to get into what people sing in their showers you know you know if you you know you want to sing the whole DMX song and just shower or whatever that do today I think people should understand all the reasoning for why and this is you know devices would even in the black everybody didn't agree with this you know I'm sorry I'm going to say the word because I think you know in the converse like if you had used the word right just now I would have understood what you meant but I wouldn't have taken offense within the context of a question I understand why you did that communities in general of people well let's let's start even more basic than that words don't have meaning without context okay my wife refers to me as honey that's accepted and okay between us if we were walking down the street together and a strange woman referred to me as honey that wouldn't be acceptable the understanding is I have some sort of relationship with my wife hopefully I have no relationship with this strange woman when I was young and I used to go see my family in Philadelphia where my dad was from they will all call him Billy his name is William Paul Coates no one in Baltimore called him Billy and had I referred to my father as Billy that probably would have been a problem that's because the relationship between myself and my dad is not the same as the relationship between my dad and his mother and his sisters who he grew up with right we understand that it's the same thing with words within the african-american can be always in any community my wife with her girlfriend will use the word I do not join in I know saying hey I want to I don't do that I don't do that and perhaps more importantly I don't had a desire to do it you and you understand you know a while ago Dan Savage was gonna have this show that he was going to call hey I'm not gonna go at Dan's house I'm just not that's not my relationship with the LGBT community and and I understand it and I'm okay with that I don't have a desire to you know yell out the word you know I just don't have that the question one must ask if that's accepted and normal for groups of people we understand that you know it's normal actually for groups to use words that are derogatory in an ironic fashion why is there so much hand wringing when black people do it black people basically you know however you feel about it they're not outside of the normal rules and laws for Humanity Ida you know a good friend used to have this uh cabin in upstate New York which he referred to as the white trash cap he was white I would never refer to that cabin I would never tell him I'm coming to your white trash cab I just wouldn't do that and I mean I mean I think you understand why I wouldn't do it the question one must ask is why so many white people have difficulty extending things that are basic laws to go of how human beings interact to black people and I think I know why when your wife in this country you taught that everything belongs to you you think you had a right to everything get it right then go away I mean in your condition this way it's Mack you know because you you know your hair is a text or your skin is life it's the fact that the laws in the culture tell you this yeah right the go where you want to go do what you want to do be however and people just gotta accommodate themselves to you so here comes this word that you know you feel like you invent and that's what I will tell you how to use the word that you have in it you know what why can't I use it everyone else gets to use it you know what that's racism that I don't get to use it yes racist against me you know I have too inconvenient to myself and and to hear this song and I can't sing alone how come I can't sing along you know at me and I think you know for white people I think the experience of being a hip hop fan and not being able to use the word it's actually very very insightful it will give you just a little peek into the world of what it means to be black because to be black is to walk through the world and watch people doing things that you cannot do but you can't join in and do you know and so I think there's actually a lot to be learned from refraining tunne hussy just a reminder we're gonna favor students so I'm very sorry with those who are probably over about 25 we're probably gonna walk right by you so please please just take it the right way and please if you could just out of courtesy don't keep your hands up while he's talking and we're answering questions so this gentleman who I think is 24 and a half something like that hi hi Tennessee my name is Khalil Howard University what's up I just want to first I want to say I appreciate you it's good to see somebody who went through the same struggle you know I don't Howard and learning from the mecca to see somebody like you make it innocence so I just wanna say thank you for that I'm currently a student at Loyola Chicago School law and thank you watching you interact and going you you on your tours and stuff like that I constantly find myself in a smaller scale wondering this and I've never found the question so I'm hoping maybe you can articulate it going through what you go through you talked about earlier you said you feel like you're representing I'm the only black male in my section so I feel the same how do you not you don't seem mad how do you how are you not angry no that's a serious question how are you not I just read some of my review but do you have need tips alright alright I funneled it all into the book and that's probably why the reviews look the way they look but I I the rage is in the book and I think you know rage is actually an important feeling people try to make black people ashamed for being angry you know is there is something wrong with being anger anger is a human emotion it is normal to be is quite a bit to be angry about you know with somebody has robbed you and you are in a community in which everyone around you has been robbed and the robbery is ancestral you might be a little angry you know I funnel that into my work you know I have moments all the time you know when I'm working on this story and I'm working on one right now and I just you know had these moments well you know and I'll explain it you know maybe you know next year I'll come back you know after this is out but I just when I was doing a case for reparations and I that's yeah let me talk about something that happened in the past when I was doing a case for reparations there's a gentleman who leads that story by the name of Claude Ross and when I walked into that dude's house on the west side and he told me about how they robbed him in Mississippi by law by law the law was robbery it was a kleptocracy and how he came to Chicago and they he thought he was free and they robbed him again mr. Ross was I think 91 92 years old I was pissed I was and I wasn't and the thing I was pissed you know I remember walking out you know into you know she treats a lawndale and I was so angry not just that he'd been robbed but the people act like you know black and my granddad was a mystery and they couldn't figure out why lawndale was the way it was you know why Lawndale is the way it is you did it you know for well what happening here I take that and I just pour it into the writing I'll just pour it right in you know I pull all of that passion and all of that rage and all of that anger and you know all of those you know quote-unquote negative emotions I just pour it right into the literature ton huh see to your left over on the side hi my name is Anne Anna I'm a sophomore here at ETH as and so Vincent is a very diverse City there's like the demographics of E ths are a lot more diverse and you'll see in cities and high schools further north but as I've grown up here I've noticed I've become more and more aware of how segregated friend groups are and how segregated the people you interact with on a daily daily basis how I mean this has something to do with what you were talking about earlier with how housing was and housing districts that were set up long ago hundreds of years ago that sort of the people you grow up people you grow up who are around you in neighborhood the same neighborhood as you they tend to be the people you grow up with as friends and I was wondering how does how do you change this how do you not it's a housing office that integrated sorry is the housing oh I'm not even being flipped like that that's your answer sorry if I how does it happen that if I if I go to lunch and I sit down at a table that it's not a table with a group of white friends and a tape right next to a table with a group of black friends who coexist peacefully but in two separate worlds like how do I change that well I think the first thing is you recognize the limits of your power you won't change that and that's that's important to say I'm not trying to like step on your dreams you know I'm trying not to you know shovel a little bit of bull you know your way I think what you have to do is decide what what you want out of your life I don't really like I came up in a very very different way I'm from West Baltimore I'm came up in the 80s in a period of intense violence I'm people think it's bad in Chicago now and it is but believe it or not it used to be a lot worse I mean literally like you can look at statistics it was worse that was like that the culture net that made me and shaped my expectations you know of the world there was so much violence around me I guess I never had the expectation that I myself alone could stop it you know I had something else I had two things the first thing was I wanted the tools to fight it I don't want had to take it laying down you know I mean like if this was the way the world was going to be I wanted to be a part of the fight and that's why I write I get tremendous exhilaration actually being you know a part of the fight but the second thing is I think there's something to be said for your own morality okay what I always you know how I always think about myself and measure myself is even if the world is headed over the cliff and there's nothing I can do about it I think that there's something like in saying I'm not part of the group that's pushing it over the cliff I'm part of the group that's trying to stop it that's how I sleep at night do you not I mean like that that's like how I think I think about what do I need earthly and morally to be able to sleep at night and if this fight is going on and I'm not part of it I can't sleep I can't I can't sleep that that's the premise of my my my own entire interaction you know what the well who can tell what's gonna happen tomorrow all wrong maybe you will start maybe actually what haha who can tell did you do that of me who can shout I don't think you will but you right but you I'm not wrong before you know I mean you might whoa you know I think is gonna be a black president either see you know to get for listening to me he but the bigger point is principal the big one what is the thing like you know I try to ground my actions not in you know how the world will react but in the things that I can actually control you know so I would throw that question back at you are you comfortable existent in that space where do you sit you know at lunchtime and are you comfortable with your own seating arrangement that really is is the first step you know I mean like you have to you know ask yourself how do I want to exist within the struggle tunnel huh see right here hi my name is niala i'm a senior a THS i just applied to howard so um last year everyone that took AP Langenkamp as juniors had to read the summer assignment there are some assignments between the world and me and in the first week of class we like started in the packing and reading it and a lot of us kind of stopped here and it took a while to like digest what she meant by this I was hoping you could just elaborate on when you say race is the child of race races the child of racism not the father and the process of naming the people has never been a matter geology genealogy no genealogy and fizzy on I don't say that word so much as one is hierarchy Beyond and also got mentioned my world and ethnic literature classes here too so I was hoping you can just expand on that and what did you take I'm not trying I kind of input actually I'm not trying to embarrass you I'm actually interested in how it came across to a high school student um I think it was just because race is the social contract that white people have made so I think what you're saying by that is that it's something that was created before so that raised it so like our race had to come after ace had to come after time so yes that's exactly yet you see some sometimes you get sometimes you get put on the spot and you're ready again I mean it goes back to you know just expound on that wonderful you know answer the to gauge it goes back to the notion that the way we are trained in this society is to believe that there are discrete races you know for reasons of biology or divinity or whatever there is some pure descended race that you know comes from Africa and there's a pure descended race that comes from Europe and there's something that you can purely refer to as the Asian race and increasingly as a Latino and Hispanic race and as a Native Americans race this becomes laughable when you subject it to the test of history and the test of geography ok I'm sitting here and evidence that I'm black happy proudly black but I recognized that if I were born in Brazil and had the same features that I have right now I might check some other box like got like 40 odd boxes to me check in Brazil you understand if I were born in Louisiana 200 years ago somebody might call me something different than what they call me that this becomes absurd when people say for instance as you know as a common saw hopefully less common that fence is the way to end racism is for everybody to marry and to produce a race of beige people but we are that race of beige people they're black we already did that that that's what actually happened that's what black people are I mean if you study the history of it becomes you know I mean not to marriage by the way but through mass rape like we are the base the line can always be moved anybody that's been to an african-american family reunion understands that the very definition of african-american is a quote unquote mixed identity as much as you know such a thinking actually exists it already is a multiracial identity to begin with and yet we're still black you understand the line can be moved you know in the line is subject to power it's not subject to some you know pure sort of you know DN a test or or biology or anything you know nothing to do nothing directly you know to do with that the same is true for white people there's a you know a history you know in this you know country of immigration and if you look at 19th century America there's a period in time where Irish people are not considered to be white Tahlia people not consider to be white Jews have to negotiate you know their whiteness this should be very very instructive to you because when people say today for instance is while America is increasingly majority minority as though that's a fixed thing is what I can't be adjusted and said I can't be tinkered with it so it wasn't tinkered with before it can always be tinkered with and adjusted beyond that who has access even if it is a majority minority who has access and who has electoral power power within the political system is being tinkered with right now and can be I say you you have to you know recognize that you know this courts our vocabulary the idea of there's no such thing as racial segregation which presumes the idea there's a such thing as race you know there's racism which segregates there's racist segregation if you're going to say it's the thing is done it's not because of who you are it's not because you were born black it's because somebody decided you were a those are two different things it's not as you were born a certain way there's nothing wrong with you except that somebody decided that they wanted to plunder people who looked like you that's the only thing wrong and so I think like you know with motivates between the world than me and why I repeatedly use that phrase the people who call themselves like people who think they are white the people who you know you know whatever you know I mean you do the action of becoming white is to understand it it's an action it's not a state it's actually okay we're gonna we're gonna we're gonna take a total of two more questions we're going to take that gentleman's question up front and this nice lady's question back here and then Oh that'll be it go ahead so last year in sophomore year I lived in the south side of Chicago right the ninth Street and I realized that there there's a different community of those people in the black people who actually had the opportunity to live in mix races and I realized that liking your book that fear that the generation had passed down like that poison you were talking about like how racism there's a poison with fear there is a poison right I see black people being scared of black people right they don't it's like the media today portrays the black man you don't see him as a common man but you always have this some sort of alert every time a black man with dreads comes walking behind you with sagging pants or Jays on I've seen this is a culture in the southside of Chicago with people banging buckets and people were sag pants and people who dressed in colors but it's also like this lost people to a people who are angry or confused or they are so engulfed in ignorance than what you try to bring them out of their ignorance by trying to tell them to be proud of who they are they get angry at you because you won't because they won't accept the fact that they are beautiful I've tried to convince people like that all the time that being nappy is good play but every time you try to have dreadlocks or every time that's like you try to do your own thing they make fun of you for that and my question to you is the black community southside being is so lost is there a way that someone okay wake them up save those people well I probably would reject the premise I don't think they're lost I say that as uh you you got to be careful you cannot assume that because people are oppressed that they're ignorant it's important I mean I grew up in a commune probably more resembles the Western Chicago I guess then you know South South big but probably you know more with something like a Lawndale or something like that and I don't think it was anything wrong again with the people I grew up around I saw what hazard to guess that there's nothing wrong with the people that you're talking about living on the south side they probably know pretty well it did beautiful they probably know you know pretty well exactly what's happening to them you know they may not have the vocabulary for it they might not you know be able to express it but you know you I'm a journalist man and so my job and you know even though I write in this really aggressive manner most of what I you know I'm getting I'm actually taking from other people and then feeding it back out it's not mine they're not my wisdom you know again I you know I think about you know walking into you know when I was doing the case were about reparations walking in the cloud Ross's home and you know first question I asked was waves from he said Clarksdale Mississippi and the next question I asked them was why'd you move to Chicago and he said I was seeking the protection of the law I said whether the law in Mississippi you know what what what what do you mean they said well police was white District Attorney and prosecutors were white judges were white all the political officials were white that's the law now instantly understood what he was saying the name law means nothing if he didn't have a lot and there was no law that was profound I never would have thought about on my own I hadn't lived in 90 years you know I mean I hadn't I Aaron says that he had and so you know I always felt like as a journalist you really got to take people where they are you should and when I say you should I'm talking about myself the last thought you know I told myself I'm an A student man I'm the student I find out that folks who are living under the boot often know a lot more about the boot then you know folks who are you know observing okay and our last question for tonight a lot of pressure right now a lot of pressure uh-oh you up to what you sure you can quit oh well first I want to thank you for just keeping it real because I appreciate that um but I'm a grad student and I teach a course on race gender and intersectional theory at Notre Dame and so this is a two-part question because I'm also a comic fan so I wondered in reading some of the critiques of your work as being a male centric view of the black experience I wondered kind of what your response was to that and how you incorporate or plan to incorporate intersectionality into your work and then secondly I wondered if you can tell us anything at all about the what you're gonna write about our favorite goddess and queen or oh Monroe since you will be writing storm soon so you read the Black Panther comic right now yes do you see it in the comic book do you see any answers to your questions in the comic book to a degree I mean I'm an academic so of course I critique like I feel like nuance is always something that can be added so I just wondered what you have plans were the work is black male Senate I I have to write from from here you know I have to write from the space of what I am I can't try to you know represent one and I think the power of the work comes from that it comes from the you know sitting in this place here saying this is you know why I am I think well I'll tell you this I wrote a book beautiful struggle and uh published in 2008 okay I think the subtitle is literally uh father to sons and something else I can't remember what it is sorry it's all dudes I mean if you think between the world and me as dudes this book is all dudes it's all about I mean it really is I mean that is a dude I mean it was written like I was by consciously as a male sent a book no one actually at all about representation you know in that book no one asks me about intersectionality when that book was can't came out I think that's because very few people actually read that book the first time we first met I didn't but it was like five people there my dad was one of the people my wife was dead you know nobody can that's not I'm not saying that to say that the question is irrelevant what I'm saying is that something happened went between the world and me we're in inordinate as far as I'm concerned an unhealthy amount of weight was put on that book to represent a diverse and incredible experience between the world and we can't represent the LGBT experience it can't represent the experience of being you know black and disabled in this country it is limited in what it has to say specifically about black poverty in this country it is extremely limited about what it has to say about the strange place you know it must be to actually be black and be wealthy and still be you know in some sort of second-class tip and it's limited in what it has to say about the black female but a black woman's experience in this country expensive black women and black girls I think the problem and it's just what I believe is not between the world and me I think the problem is that there aren't more books like between the world and me I think the response says more about the publishing industry as it is than it does about the book I think and I'm speaking about this not just as you know author of but in its position as much as you try to resist people putting a crown on your head people want kings and queens they want you to represent everybody you can tell them over and over again that's not what I am that's not what I'm doing that's not why I came I'm very happy that you know you guys are reading and you're fit but you cannot look to me to answer for 40 million people that's not what I've ever done I know actually to do it anyway they'll actually to do it anyway I can't bear that wait I just can't it's it's not and I don't even think it's for me you know that I mean I I it feels artifice to say you know if you're taking that critique and say okay the next thing I write I will make sure to represent black women in a certain way because that feels like I'm actually you know in a sense almost pandering like I'm trying to get you to not criticize me or attack me for something that that I did I think my energy would be better spent doing all I can to make sure that you know when the microphone is offered to me to answer for things that I know are not my experience I make sure they did black women who are writing around me who I had that microphone to I think that's that's much more important you know I work hard to do that you know it was important to me that Deb Roxanne you know you're a comic book fan it was important to me that Roxanne you know wrote world of work on it I was like important to me I actually to do that you know it was important to me that that Yona you know or oh Black Panther and the crew you know with me it's important that our you know recognize you know my just well I guess official genius now friend you know Nicole Hannah Jones you know what I mean it's it's important to me that that you know I shout that I was important to me that I talked to you you know about the writers that informed me that I talked to you about Zora Neale Hurston you know that I talked to you about the Volia glint that I talked to you about you know all you know when and where I enter you know that mean what among lines the biography of either because that I'd talk to you about that but I can't be that that's not me that's that's not who I am you know what I mean and you know if that comes up short that's not intersexual enough then I'll just have to carry that I would much rather carried act then carry the artifice you know and try to you know dancing and be something else [Applause] [Applause] excellent work entry so much for everything we've done thank you so much [Applause] [Applause] okay I hope some of you can stay for the conversation in the auditorium that's gonna happen just in a few minutes thank you so much for those who need to go thank you for coming so who was blown away by that tonight [Applause] I think what would be helpful with respect to this conversation tonight is for us to think about how we want to frame the conversation and what we want to get out of the conversation so I think it was really he hit me really hard that he was talking about America based on the foundation of a myth and we're based on that the real truth is that it was based on and is based on white supremacy and I think a lot of people have had a lot of heart trouble wrapping their heads around even saying the words white supremacy and in the book he talks about how calling someone a racist or behavior as races is actually seen as a slur rather than a fact and so I think if we come at it from that kind of place of being curious about telling the truth and being able to see and frame things within this perspective of white supremacy I think our discussion would be really fruitful is that okay with everybody so how do you want to start with questions or you want to give your observation I was gonna start with a question for Marcus like he just had this conversation with him I thought was fantastic like did you get what you wanted to get was there a question that she wanted to get to but you couldn't get to like how was it well I definitely over-prepare right so I wanted to make sure though that we kind of cover some of his earlier pieces and don't get some of the more recent stuff he kind of navigated the way that he felt most comfortable but I was prepared for the case of reparation his first white president so I did I think get a chance to ask what I wanted to ask although I did not get to the Colin Kapernick taking a knee I think get to that but you know it was still we can talk about taking a knee tonight I know our students here at ETH know something very courageous and brave with respect so yeah I think we can talk about that tonight how many of you read the book I know the book is pretty new so or read some of the essays in the book yeah for me the whole ticket way in the book was just his honesty his truth-telling he called it compromising the comfortable narrative and it made me think of him talking about America as this great experiment now I was just wondering I've only been here three years we think the the narrative of Evanston is what's this evidence the experience does anybody got an answer to that question I saw your hand up I guess people all like to say that Evanston is so diverse and that's why we're here I've moved to Evanston because it's so diverse but really I'm gonna sit and work and do everything with people who look like me act like me and aren't the same things I've never loved me so I'm Steven Speight I actually teach here at the high school the the comfortable narrative of this high school is yes it's diverse yes we've done our work on equity yes we are moving and changing things but underneath that comfortable narrative is some hard truths the hard truth is that we accelerate the gap between achievement of white students and non-white students that is we accelerate the growth that white students show yes we have growths with non-white students but it's not the same rate of growth the uncomfortable narrative is that there is an embedded very strong silently but loudly speaking group of mostly white parents in this community who do not want our equity work to continue forward that that part of the pushback of saying well let's have mixed ability classes but in order to make sure when those kids come into the classes that our standards say safe we have to have high-stakes testing because we don't trust the ability of those kids to bring down the level of achievement for my student okay so diversity is nice from the outside but then when it's you sit in the classroom with me I don't trust your humanity enough to be up to my level that's the uncomfortable part of be at Evanston Township High School as a teacher of 26 years who still to this day and parent-teacher conferences talking about how do we know that you actually know what you're talking about teaching now there's kobler's it's not said like that but it's code of how's the math gonna work out for my kid they're taking AP they should get an A no it means you're up to a challenge you may not get an A in AP shocking okay but that's sort of the uncomfortable truth about Emison it's a great place but underneath that race place is some hard truths so what I hear you said spice spice so what would I hear professor respite saying is that there's a disconnect between the ideas of diversity and the ideas of really is what happening here in every Center what we mean by diversity I think Tom and his deep Tallahassee Coates speaks to that into in this book that they're two very different things and again we want to look at behavior outside of the context and the context always goes back to white supremacy and what that means even here in Evanston I think I heard him say that he was being undermined in his abilities to try to change those things by a power structure that exists not only in this school but in this town this town is desegregated to South Africa but it just has a really great PR machine that keeps it'll teach to like or and they've told the light of themselves so long they believe that it's a generational and if you're not generation you aren't a real of Estonian is that true I've got a comment over here okay hi I grew up in Evanston I've been here since I was seven years old I was probably part of the first group that was busted Timber Ridge in Skokie so I went to school with predominantly Jewish kids I feel my upbringing was great I feel actually privileged now that I have a better view of the world than what was going on even though my dad was working class and I'm the youngest of eight what I see the reality of Evanston being right now is there's a carefully constructed systemic racism that's going on and there's a great racial disparity and divide a lot of that that is current is due to the new influx of people coming around from other states like I don't want to be offensive to anyone but this is true Michigan Ohio Indiana South Carolina Tennessee things like that a lot of those people in Wisconsin did not go to school with mixed races and while I think America is built on immigrants it's my belief that corporate America is guilty of dumbing down America by passing over qualified Americans of all races saying that they can't find anyone who has the capabilities that these people that they have to bring in have I don't think that's true and I just have one comment about northwestern while Evanston is considered a welcoming city I don't think blacks are as welcome as Asians and Indians and other races blacks do not appear to be welcomed on campus because we're actually being arrested for criminal trespass there even though I'm a former student even though I was currently listed as a temp in their temple I was arrested now that's surprising to me the something like that could happen in Evanston but it does and lastly what I want to say is due to the downturn of the economy I think we've been pushed back to prior to the civil rights days because everybody was who was in power was giving jobs to their friends and families and people like them and if you were black you were left out in the cold so that's I have to say I loved growing up at American Evanston it was a great place I had a great education but I feel like the progress that we made has been pushed back on purpose thank you thank you can't you hear me now okay I think some people would probably awake how China high C says that he takes issue he often says I take issue with that is is do we have a mythology of how great Evanston was it is that a myth was Evanston really as great as it thinks it was or and I'm being serious I you know I I think I would say that you know what's true of the country is true in Evanston too that there are people here who have lived a certain way because they're living in another world they're living in another Evanston and that those who are struggling have been struggling all along and so I think those are the kinds of things that we have them have to reconcile if we're really going to do the things that we say we want to see here in Evanston especially in the high school and especially in district 65 right we have equity initiatives that are not really being implemented and not really readily acceptable and we haven't really told the truth about that and we're not really doing the work that we need to work to do so we have a question here okay after you guys so what I want to say is since being an ET HS student lived here 16 years almost practically all my life is that my experience here is one of them a Latino student a student that has been missed some like most people think that because of my brown skin I am Mexican ethnicity and they say oh you're from Mexico and you know you know but that Thor Tadas or anything like that but in actuality I've never gone to Mexico none of my parents are from there either and what this all is coming what this statement is really coming towards is like Evanston to me is we don't really speak of like a lot about other people's history for example like the native history of um of Evanston and just the need of people in general because most people don't know that John Evans the person that Evanston is named after slaughtered thousands of native Amer what yeah so history like that that we don't ever talk about in even though that we talk we say that Evanston is diverse we see that we are we know a lot about what is actually going on but naturally we don't know anything about our history and abettor like our actual past and we just decide to ignore that in our most of our history classes also which i think is probably important that we need to address thank you [Applause] yeah um I graduated from the from this high school in 1985 and as goq it's my experience that have said okay I respect the sister who said who she asked a question to say to the brother and she said she asked a question about how do I change the situation when I when all of my my classmates are sitting in different tables and stuff and I like I like the speaker's response when he said how comfortable are you are in you know are you in your skin and my experience was pretty much was pretty much you know as an african-american person was pretty much I was diverse I you know met what I had a lot of friends are sitting different when we had Beardsley both would Michael school cafeteria and and I was going on you know I was like a betta every flower sitting on all the different different cafeterias and I pretty much got around I played all you know three different sports lacrosse wrestling and and and soccer and all and all of my experiences were very very diverse I think I took advantage with all the different the different cultures I think I was pretty pretty comfortable within my own skin my main thing was I didn't succumb to the stereotypes you know I saw a lot of stereotypes you know like that these those and em I didn't you know my mom was real proud of the fact that she you know she brought me up as a person who did not succumb to the we I grew up in the south side she moved us out of the south side moved me up in the north side and she was an educator and a person herself and got me into to like speak you know speaking properly proper and everything like that being proud to be educated and all like that and not being afraid to being do you know meeting different people from different cultures and stuff and you know we brought our own son into being the same way you know that now our son he's he has his own business with your book and everything like that and so I think being you know I respected that one sister who said you know who asks if she you know how can she change I think the way is is just to be a kind of person who is is comfortable in your own skin and being not afraid to to you know glide around to the many different cultures of people you know and and take advantage of the of the diversity that evanston does have you know dr. Campbell and Tallahassee we're talking about with the politics of respectability and I just get real nervous when people start talking like that I think there is beauty in everyone's culture and there is a specific culture that has been cultivated being having been enslaved and survived slavery here in America and there's beauty and wonder in that and saying these and this I mean you know wasn't it Lorraine Hansberry who wrote in that vernacular especially and that was true to our culture and there shouldn't be shame attached to that there shouldn't have but there is because of white supremacy not because there's inherent disrespect in assuming that stereotype you you you are black but you're not a that's what Tana hasi said somebody else decided that that was being --is-- and so that's unacceptable that's not respectable behavior and so I think we have to be real cautious when we start talking about I'm acting this way so I will be more acceptable to other people does that make sense so when one of the things I want to throw out there and I don't want us to miss talking about is I thought it was really interesting when China hasti said why haven't white people saved themselves I really want to touch on that because after all of these talks and one of the reasons we wanted to do this talk back every time in the audience there's white people who stand up and say what can I do what how do I fix this what can I do in my own life so I'm curious how that question set with white folks in the audience and I know I may be putting you on the spot but you know it's out there and we you know I'd like for us to discuss that hi I'm a senior at ETH s this year and I'm actually going to touch on something that young man I don't know your name I'm sorry but who is also a neat EHS student was talking about with history in Evanston and how we've been neglecting to recognize that or at least I have been um today in my senior Studies class we learned about the housing situation with in Evanston and its history and we learned about foster school and with that just so many people in my class were just so surprised about what we're happening we were so angry but just in 2012 this is when the referendum happened and my teachers were showing us the places that voted against having foster school come back and they're all predominantly white places so it's just it's this is something new that I'm learning in right now but we see Evanston is such a diverse progressive place but I just want to remind those who don't know of the history to learn about the history because like everywhere else in the United States mostly we are 10 years behind when they told us schools needed to be segregated desegregated and we got rid of foster school this community school we did bus people these are all things that are in our history and in no way are we progressive in that it's all recent and still these things are going on that happened just in 2012 so I speaking I guess on how I felt when I saw the girl asked what can I do as a white person I think what I'm trying to do is educate myself because today I learned that I knew nothing about Evanston history and how not unprogressive we were and in it's it's not an excuse we have these resources and I feel like we need to just educate ourselves because too much of the problems are happening out of ignorance thank you so you know I'll do my best to answer this question you brought up and I appreciate you asking and you know it's I would say that I was thinking about the the comment that a gentleman made as a question about saving people and I started thinking about my own journey that had a has an immense amount of ignorance in it and the ignorance that with time goes away and I think the greatest lesson that I've had as a white person is that this work is about saving myself that I think that I deeply believe the interconnection of all humans and at the more that I'm able to develop genuine honest relationships with other people where I hear others genuine stories and embrace their humanity as they are I grow and I think part of the original question about the narrative of Evans I think part of it is this feel-good sense and I'll speak my perspective a feel-good sense of uh I live in diversity I moved here because of the diversity and I feel good be that I'm doing that but when it disrupts me and my access to the world I begin to shove away and say no no no no no not I didn't mean like that and but I find that no I do mean it like that like that's the real human engagement and I think that to sustain racial equity work as a white person is to understand that it's actually a selfish act that as a white person I grow in my understanding of humanity and myself and I grow and I think that any white person that isn't able to explore in that isn't well I think there's a lot of downsides to that I think it can't be sustained I think it's not genuine I think it has a lot of very negative implication despite good intentions so that's part of what I'd offer appreciate your comments I have a question here but I wanted to say something about the idea of actively doing something this young woman who said she's just learning you know learning her history it seems like a passive thing but it really is an active thing Tallahassee talked about you know going over this cliff and trying to be a part of stopping it so the ball because of history the ball is already rolling we're already rolling off the cliff so to do nothing is to allow them to go off the cliff you have to actively do something even if it's as small as learning something speaking up but just sitting and doing nothing is allowing the the flow of history to continue in a kind of downward motion so kind of anything it is something that here's another perspective I just wanted to add on what you were saying here but I think as white people we also have to be willing to call one another out it was very disturbing to me how many people left it's a little bit of a go to church on Sunday but what does your life look like Monday through Saturday fan brings in amazing speakers and I think it's very very comfortable for Evan stone Ian's and other North Shore people to come and to listen and that's the church on Sunday and like yeah I went I read that diverse book and I went to that talk but they don't stay and have the difficult conversation amen I'd like to add a different perspective I was born here my family has seven generations here I was raised at Milburn and Sheridan on an estate and prior to going to school I had two my father had to go to the superintendent because my sister and brother and I were not allowed to go to or inton which was just across Sheridan Road we had to go to noise so Evanston has always had and the reason reason we had to go to noise because we were children of a servant my father was the groundskeeper and my mother worked in on dodge and Simpson of the building that they're talking about now that was a grocery store she was the grocery clerk in that store Evanston has always kind of kept things undercover you never read or heard anything about Evanston in the media that's the radio and the news media prior to the late 60s and and of course once the civil rights came about then you could read some things about Evanston but prior that you didn't if I went over into Chicago to visit people in Chicago that didn't know me and I said I was from Evanston they'd say where is that because they'd never heard of it here in in the school system oh one other thing family focus who was foster school when I was in when I was in the elementary school age bracket however when we finally got what we called integration they sent the black kids to the white schools but the white kids didn't come to the black school consequently foster is now family focus instead of been integrated to school and that's because it was in the black neighborhood so there's a lot that goes on under coverage that you don't know about unless you're here northwestern had a quota system for the number of blacks that they would take you could get into Garrett but in any of the other departments maybe you could get into maybe you couldn't and there were numbers that they had about esta how many blacks there loud I won't quote them because I don't know how accurate they are but I do know that it wasn't until the the 60s that blacks came to Northwestern in numbers and that's when things begin to change and I know I'm taking a long time so I I've been here a long time so I can give you some more information if you want thank you and I just want to say do we understand I know how many people are from Evanston that that's still how evidence in works there's elementary schools for each of the nine Awards in Evanston but the fifth war which is the predominantly black Ward is the only one that does not have an elementary school so therefore those kids go to the other schools and that's one of the reasons why Everson is so diverse and and that family we don't have a neighborhood school the kids in that Ward that family focus is in danger of being displaced and the building that family focus is in is in danger so that's something that a lot of people don't know about so if you're thinking again what can do here in Evanston you can talk to Colette I can't remember her last name who's Alan who's the head of family focus on how you can help and how you can help secure the space of Foster where our family family focus is I and Rob Robin Simmons you can reach out to the fifth Ward alder person it's a long story event but inquire after yeah thank you the discussion after the discussion is really where we need to sit right it's the uncomfortable space for us to sit in I'm upping the ante like I'm actually looking at the intention behind diversity if the intention behind diversity is for someone to be someone else's Savior I don't need it I don't need it but the intention behind the diversity is for us to be allies bringing everyone to the table then that's diversity so I want to question the intention when we talk about diversity because now that's the new word that's thrown around and I'm not okay with the word unless there's an intention behind that word that's authentic and real and the intention should be that we are allies at the table and that when one of us is at the table we're bringing ten others that don't look like us speak like us talk like us pray like us or have the history of us at that table then we're allies thank you we're gonna take two more comments before we wrap things up it went really fast tonight hi so I grew up in Evanston went to Evanston Township I was part of racial experiment as they called it at foster school my brother and I and second persons in grade I I grew up very close to Evans Township I grew up in I it's very cliche to say didn't see color but I didn't that was my family that was my block that was my neighborhood so when I went to this experimental thing at foster I had I could not basically they switched all the white kids were treated like black kids and all the black kids were treated like white kids and it was not a good experiment I don't think it was useful because I I never understood the purpose I don't think the kids were told the purpose it didn't I I didn't understand what the problem was because I didn't have that problem now I'm speaking as a white woman of course but so meaning I when I was a kid in Evanston I thought it was a lot more comfortable in Evanston than it is now actually and I'd come back to Evanston as an adult many years later I think it's less comfortable now in Evanston I think that our diversity is BS basically I don't think we are a diverse community the way we were when I was a kid and that was 50 some years ago just my thought now but I was part of this experimental situation at foster 50 some years ago well I think we need to hear more about that after this because that sounds like a really problematic experiment it was it was well I never just so we can shoot let's hope we can fit people in yeah but Maggie want one yep peg been up here right here been okay I've been living in Evanston for 30 plus a years I'm from originally from Jamaica about 20 years ago after we bought a house we had kind of a lot of visitors from the block that came to see us and some of them actually wanted to know how many people are gonna live in our house and who they were and we were like that was kind of weird but coming from Jamaica and I look at diversity the purpose of diversity is not for us to lose our identity to other people are for them to lose to us I see diversity as able to create opportunities and that's what we want a friend of mine who was in in the 60s in the civil rights movement she always said to me that one of the worst thing that happened to black people in America is desegregation I'm not sure if I agree with that or not but I think racism is systemic it's not something that changed overnight it becomes a part of you I sub in the district and we were doing civil rights and I asked seventh graders who believe that racism will one day end and I was so hopeful that these young people would think that in their generation it would and I had only maybe 2% who believe it will one day in most of them think it will not because they said it passed from generation to generation so what I'm saying is that what black people need are opportunities we need equal access to education we need equal access to banking we need equal access to housing and those are where we are excluded so the problem is deeper than diversity it is a on the laws or the problem we have african-american that are locked up at a high rate for crimes that white folks would get a or sentence so we could sit here and I could imagine we talking another 200 years or a generation talking about the same thing but what we really need to do is to look at the laws that are on the book that's where the problem our big problem lies because these laws are this criminal in their process a lot of times we'll say that's right you know what I really appreciate your comments but we've got to start to wrap things up so we're gonna give one more question thing here and I think there was somebody over here - yeah okay I just wanted to make a quick comment well condense coming as quick as possible I grew up in Inglewood on the south side I grew up in a very violent time which was the 80s but the drug dealing probably the same time the young man who spoke today and grew up and I seen I've seen also from that tragedy of seeing a beautiful awakening happen also in that in saying that I'm saying that with the diversity in evanston lived in New York I grew up around a lot of people that you see common sense Kanye and what I'm seeing right now is that even though we make comments about what we expect everyone else to do for us and I've seen diversity in your city council here recently there has to be accountability for our problems by our own people I grew up in Chatham my dad was an entrepreneur her dad was a gas station owner here black businesses in Chatham black banks black loans if there's gonna be changed it's gonna come from us it's not coming from anywhere else when they reverse Brown versus Board Education we had no say-so in it until we decide that we are going to stand up for ourselves there will be no change last last comment um I'm gonna up your ante a little bit that I don't think we need diversity I think we need equity we ask the question of why white people don't save ourselves and I think Tallahassee mentioned this one of his articles that as a collective we don't save ourselves because we're benefiting from it and the fact is that we wrote racism into law and I think we need to write equity into the law and I think we see a lot of young minds here from Evanston and I'm gonna pose a question that obviously can't be answered tonight because we're running out of time but for the leaders of our education system or particularly Evanston high school what policies and procedures that you guys can put in place to create racial equity within your institutions within a larger system Marcus asked me to let you know about a text I got from Tallahassee and his agent who is here from penguin Random House he said on the entire tour this was the most extraordinary experience that he had best interview best audience best Q&A he says I know they're great he says gotta come back so fabulous thanks to all of you for coming out and staying thanks for coming to fan programming we appreciate it I actually am a strong believer that they're coming together as a community and talking and listening and learning is actually huge a significant it's not everything but it's not nothing so I appreciate the time and energy that Ivan stone Ian's put into coming into this building thank you so much everybody love you have a good night [Applause]

Channel: ETHS Wildkits

Views: 36,889

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Id: 5p_cgzF1Neg

Length: 73min 22sec (4402 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 22 2017