The great evil of American slavery was involuntary servitude or forced labor. I really believe that the true evil of American slavery was the narrative of racial difference that we created to justify it.
(The mainstream media) are so vested in our first black president not being a failure that it's going to be amazing to watch the lengths they go to to protect him. They, I believe, will spout this racist line if some of their colleagues up here aren't doing it aggressively enough. There is going to be a real desperation.
You can't understand what happened to Michael Brown in Ferguson, you can't understand what happened to Eric Garner in New York City, without understanding this narrative of racial difference that was created during the slave years.
It was always a false assumption that white American writers cannot write novels about race unless they're approaching it from a very oblique angle.
The greatest evil of American slavery was not involuntary servitude but rather the narrative of racial differences we created to legitimate slavery. Because we never dealt with that evil, I don't think slavery ended in 1865, it just evolved.
Certain black leaders would believe that you have to go through their prism: 'If I lay my hand on you, you're OK.' So many people have made a living off of the pimping of race.
My kids speak of both subtle slights and blatant racism. It's a narrative I never imagined for them.
In general, the mass media tell us that black people are not loving, that our lives are so fraught with violence and aggression that we have no time to love.
The problem is, is the White House and this administration have created a war against police officers in this country, with their allegations and false assertions that there's widespread and pervasive racism in the United States of America that lives in the heart and minds of the men and women in blue. This is a false narrative. It is dangerous. It is reckless. It has resulted in the loss of lives. They are not being held accountable.
You have to be careful about over-politicizing the utterances of people of colour because, oftentimes, there's poetry that seeks to go beyond that narrative.
When you have the national narrative being "crack is awful and black people are using it," why go against that narrative when you want to get that publication in The New York Times or wherever? It encourages people to play right into it.
The F.B.I. was very happy with the article they produced, which was entitled, "The Black Merchants of Hate," that came out in early 1963. What's significant about that piece is that that became the template for what evolved into the basic narrative structure of The Autobiography of Malcolm X.
There, in the middle of this mall is the Washington Monument, 555 feet high. But if we put a one in front of that 555 feet, we get 1555, the year that our first fathers landed on the shores of Jamestown, Virginia as slaves.
