Ep. 65 – How the Hip Hop Generation Transformed Democracy: A Conversation with Bakari Kitwana

[0:00:07 Peniel] Welcome to race and democracy, a podcast on the intersection between race, democracy, public policy, social justice and citizenship. Mhm. All right, we are very thrilled to have with us, uh, brother Bakari Kitwana, who is an internationally known cultural critic. Hip hop activist, executive director of Rap Sessions, which for 14 years has conducted over 150 town hall meetings around the nation about difficult dialogues facing the hip hop in millennial generation. He’s the author of many books and anthologies, Um, including with the hip hop artist and icon Rakim Sweat. The Technique. Revelations on Creativity from the lyrical genius Hey, was the 19 4020 Nasir Jones hip hop fellow at the Du Bois Research Institute in Hutchins Center at Harvard University. He’s a former editor in chief of the Source magazine where I know his work from, and he’s the co founder of the first ever national hip hop political convention, which brought over 4020 18 to 29 year olds to Newark, New Jersey, in 2004 to create and endorse a political agenda for the hip hop generation brother Bakari Kitwana. Welcome to race and democracy

[0:01:34 Bakari] Thank you. How you doing today?

[0:01:36 Peniel] I’m great. I wanted to chop it up with you about just everything. Especially, You know, I’m a gen Xer like you and so inspirational for all of us who wanted to write about black politics and hip hop and culture and social change to talk about masculinity. And I want to talk about black masculinity and sort of a search for a post patriarchal black masculinity to talk about, you know our feelings and to talk about our political empowerment at the same time. And you’ve been in the game for so long. It’s a real thrill to have you and to be ableto talk to you and chop it up, especially in the context of the pandemic. Black lives matter. And I know like me you’ve seen over the last 2025 years the rial growth of black women’s political empowerment, not just through black feminist thought and activism and black queer feminist thought and activism, but in so many different ways. Kamala Harris encompasses and encapsulates this symbolic, you know, as the first black woman vice president elect. But then you’ve got the activist Tamika Mallory, Alicia Garza and Opel to Mehdi and Patrice Colors and no name and all these different folks who have really stepped up in a much bigger way to take their rightful place and be recognized as organizer’s and mobilizes. So I want to talk about all those things. But first I want to talk to you and ask you, you know, how did you get into into hip hop and journalism? The source is one of the all time, most important expressions of the culture, and you were editor of the source. And you know, you’re the writer of, you know, thousands of op EDS and essays, and you’re also a convenor. So you’re this thought leader to globally for the hip hop generation, especially that hip hop generation connected to Generation X. What inspired you to take on this role?

[0:03:36 Bakari] Yeah, that’s a great question. I mean, I think there’s been a lot of, ah, lot of contributing variables. I grew up in Long Island, um, strong

[0:03:51 Peniel] island. I went to school in Strong Island, Stony Brook

[0:03:54 Bakari] University s So I was my My high school years were 1980 to 1984 And so, um and I have I have siblings that are eight and nine years older than me, my brothers and they you know. So I was ableto be introduced at an early age to a lot of the music that came before hip hop. Of course, they were, like anti hip hop there,

[0:04:19 Peniel] like this is

[0:04:20 Bakari] not music. What do you guys just people talking? You know what I mean? And so I think that. But I connected with hip hop very early. I saw something powerful in it. I majored in English as the undergrad, and so I was just fascinated by this power of language. I was an early, um, kind of, you know, I looked at the work of James Baldwin ahead of a lot of people. Um, that now it’s fashionable. Um, I was I did my masters degree in English with With With a thesis on James Baldwin in his work on DSO. I had read James Baldwin early. I met how keep on the booty as a as an undergraduate and ended up going to work a Third World press after I left graduate school, got immersed in publishing and got immersed in the black power movement with the you know, by way of the folks who were on the ground. Participants from the Institute of Positive Education, People like Jacob Carothers, people like, uh, Hannibal at Freak and Maulana Karenga and Columbia Salam and and many Gil Scott Heron showing Sanchez, Gwendolyn Brooks and many, many others. And so But while I lived in Chicago for five years after I finished my master’s degree, I then I also encountered um uh, God, what is the brother’s name? Who? Before the Mayflower, Lerone Bennett Rome. Bennett lived in him and my girlfriend, who then became my wife. They lived in the same building, so I would see Lerone Bennett on the elevator. We’d have these crazy conversations about publishing in the history of Black Power, etcetera. And so I was talking to him about Ebony at that point. But I was also working at Third World Press and we were looking at the impact of things like the Isis papers and chance of Williams destruction of Black Civilization and John Henrik Clarke. All of those folks, I’ve advancer tema and so I began to realize from talking with these activists, some unknown soldiers, unnamed soldiers in the black power movement that I needed to connect with my own generation. And so I began to look at what was the major force. And at that time it was hip hop. And so I wanted to take my editing skill set to the source magazine Finagle. My way there on the rest is kind of history, but but the formation of my my political thinking Waas you know, being engaged with these folks out of the black power

[0:07:12 Peniel] movement. Yeah, that’s Ah, great segue because, you know, my my my scholarship has been on black power studies and it’s coming out of my my activism and my mother as a Haitian immigrant, but ah, hospital worker, trade unionists and and converging there. And Sonia Sanchez was one of my advisers, a temple university for my PhD. I wanna I wanna ask you about just being a black man and especially in this context, sort of straight black man and sort of the evolution that has happened over the last 30 years on, I think in 2020 you sort of see a cultural mash up because we see some brothers have really evolved, including generation acts, and some have it, and by evolving, I mean really challenging the ingrained sexism and misogyny, the homophobia, the queer phobia transphobia that I think we all grew up in. I grew up in New York, Brooklyn and Queens, and certainly that was a part of my life. Talked to me about how it was then, when we think about late eighties, early nineties black consciousness movement, a new black consciousness movement that’s definitely inspired by the black power era. But you think about Public Enemy and these are all people. You know, Chuck D you think about X Clan? I was rocking X Clan. I’m a little younger than you. I started college in 1990. It is to the East black words, you know, and and Malcolm Malcolm X, The movie. Malcolm Martin and me, Public Enemy telling us it takes a nation of millions to hold us back. Talk to me about that period and why that was so consequential for Black, for hip hop, for black folks but also what what black men were trying to do. And then and then I want to ask about the evolution of them, thinking about poor, righteous teachers and thinking about Tribe called Quest and Native tongues and thats kind of this kind of new version and vision of blackness that people were trying to connect to before the black lives matter movement way were out in the streets with Reverend Al Sharpton. We were out in the streets with Reverend Herbert. Dour Tree. We were out in the streets in Philadelphia with Ramona, Africa and others. E and I was out on those streets. I’m my mother. I’m a proud son. Haitian immigrants were out on those streets. So talk to me about that that period, cause I think a lot of folks that period has become history. But you lived in and I know I e you think you’ve been right there?

[0:09:44 Bakari] Yeah. And what’s interesting about it is I feel the most interesting thing about it right now I think is I feel like the the black lives matter movement has kind of done some revisionist history on which they kind of just leapfrog over all of those years. And, you know, if you know the work of of Vincent Harding and his brilliant there is a river, he talks about the history and evolution of black political struggle and how each generation builds on the next. So I wonder. I’m wondering and I’m lost in understanding how the black lives matter. Movement understands itself without really delving into that period. But that might be another podcast, but I think some people

[0:10:34 Peniel] have. I think Barbara Ran’s b has. And Barbara

[0:10:37 Bakari] Ransom is not a black lives matter activists. Yeah, but I think she

[0:10:41 Peniel] has in that in that book, I think she’s a supporter, she supporter. But I

[0:10:46 Bakari] feel like, let’s say when I read the the work of both Patrice Colors and Alicia Garza their books, you know both of them, you know, I would imagine born in like in the early early eighties. Um, but their points of reference and much of this black lives matter movement has been the sixties, the Panthers and S O. I feel like. And even when the in the framing of their national convening their point of reference was Gary completely missing or not mentioning or choosing not to mention the national hip hop political convention that took place in 2000 and four, which built on the Gary Indiana convention. So I feel like there’s a lot of history that happens that prepares the way for black lives matter. Andi. I think that they need to be familiar with that history as well as what happened in the sixties. I mean, I think that one of things that happens is you have these big, um, you know, the sixties was so huge and transformative that for many of us who grew up in the what I call the hip hop generation, it was almost impossible for us to begin to imagine the politics that didn’t parrot, you know, the politics of the sixties. And so it took us time, I think, to begin to imagine what was our own generational thrust, that that was different. But I think absolutely the sixties movements framed our politics. I mean, as a student, I spent a lot of time with with Kwamie Touray on his, and at the time he was running the All African People’s Revolutionary Party. I

[0:12:31 Peniel] met Juan Torri Graduate school. Obviously wrote a

[0:12:38 Bakari] great biography, so Yeah, so So I spent a lot of time with karma. Tori hey, was, you know, hey, spent a lot of time in, um, Rochester, where I was undergraduate. His sister in law, Zozo Layer, lived there she was from South Africa and the sister of Miriam Makeba. And so he would come through to town often when he came to the U. S. And he kind of adopted us a students. We have us. We go over to the house and sit down and chop it up with him. And it was a very important part of my formation even before I got thio Third World Press. But back to your other point, which was what was happening. I mean And then I think about things like the the National Black United Front, Comrade World, the Million Man March. I mean, like Ramona Africa and in the movie, like all of those Al Sharpton and the protests around not just Tawana Brawley, but many of the police brutality incidents. Um, those things were instrumental theme the the street protests in response to Yusef Hawkins. And

[0:13:47 Peniel] absolutely that was around there. Do you think you know Bacardi? Do you think that part of the reason why some people try toe overlooked aspects of that history black radical Congress is that in many ways some of that history is intersectional and you think about death? Richie’s arrested development and looks at black women and and she was part of those. You know, there’s there’s movements that air intersectional going back to obviously Combi River Collective, but even deep into the 19 eighties and nineties but that a lot of these movements actually weren’t you know, I I was at the black radical Congress that

[0:14:26 Bakari] movements weren’t intersectional

[0:14:28 Peniel] intersectional. Yeah, in a sense of like when I’ve been in movements and movement meetings when black women were trying to talk about, you know, feminism and socialism and, you know, black power activism and radicalism and nationalism, and we’re really getting real pushback. Sometimes people trying to shout them shut them down on day. You know, you’re trying to inject something that’s interesting. You know, I think I think, But I think I actually appreciate your point that people are. You still have to deal with the history E. Yeah, one of reasons why sometimes people, um I think short changed. The eighties and nineties is because in a lot of ways, there were aspects of that history, even as you have parallel black feminist movements that are going on at the grassroots level at the national level. In a way that I think is dissimilar to now. In 2020 um, you still had toe. You still had a framework of patriarchy. Visa vee, Black liberation.

[0:15:37 Bakari] Yeah. I mean, I think that that’s interesting. So interesting way of thinking about it. I mean, of course, the terminology even of Intersectionality comes out off the black power thrust. Well, Kimberly Crenshaw being at Cornell University in a black studies department program, you know what I mean? So so I feel like I feel like it’s hard to parse it in that way for me. On most certainly if I talk about the national hip hop political convention as an example, way had a women’s caucus with at the convention on banned women prominently involved. The co chairs were Raz Baraka and Angela Woodson, who’s out of out of Cleveland? Rosa Clemente was heavily involved in say, Like Stokes. I mean, I mean, I feel like so much of my evolution as a political thinker. You know, it is always, um, there with with with women s Oh, I don’t I don’t I don’t I don’t I don’t see it that distinctly different, but I do think that there are other reasons that that may be at work for that. But to your point around the eighties and some of the hip hop stuff, I mean, the hip hop was this was was critical, Um, and it was critical, I think, because off we were coming out of that. There was a look back at that black power movement and there was a desire to see ourselves distinctly and in terms of the masculinity, most certainly I think there weren’t a lot of places where you saw the voices off young black men front and center, and so hip hop kind of became that space. And I don’t think that it was even, I would say in the earlier days, you really go back into the early early eighties, Um, in in mid eighties, when people are first getting record deals and stuff. There are There are a lot of women in those formations. So I think there is a project done by being done right now by headed by a woman named Akula. Narrow, who is a hip hop artist from New Haven, has spent a lot of time in Germany. This project is called the Keepers. That’s kind of unearthing this history of women and hip hop. That’s kind of been hidden, I think. Eso I think that there is a lot of that, but in terms of the in terms of the black political influence of the black power movement on this generation, I write about this in the new book Out in February, 100 Souls by Abram Candy. I think you’re also in that book is Well, yeah, for 404 100 those I’m sorry. And so and so I write about this and I write about the influence of those years on people like Van Jones on people like Toronto. Berg on people like, um, latasha Brown A black voters matter, Um, people like, um, Hakeem Jeffries on. So I feel like on people like, um, the sister who runs Planned Parenthood. Alexis McGill Johnson, who was also the head off P. Diddy’s citizen change and kind of was involved with the whole voter die a swell as the Russell Simmons work around. Uh uh, what was national? What was Russell Simmons hip hop group called Man National Hip Hop? It was a hip hop political. The hip hop Summit Action Network was the was the organization Alexis was involved in that also. So I think that you see the impact of a lot of these folks. Now you talk to them. Even Yusef Salaam and these folks is earliest orientations around. Black political thought came via hip hop on DPI. People like you’re talking about Rock Cam and poor righteous teachers and Ice Cube and Public Enemy and on many, many, many others. X Clan. They just celebrated, I believe. What is that? The 20th and 25th anniversary of To the East Black Words 30 30? That’s right. That’s right. And that brother um, Paradise Gray, who have been in contact with for years he also right was has been involved with the He was one of the founders of One Hood, the organization that Grocery X runs out of Pittsburgh. That’s had a big impact on a lot of the political activism that’s happening right now amongst people within this millennial generation. So I think that all of that evolution is a connection in terms of the masculinity. I mean, I feel like, um, again, I think there’s a lot of revision is history around the around the queer, the interface of hip hop in the In the Queer Community. And again, I think that this becomes problematic primarily when you look at hip hop on Lee as music. And so in my work, I’ve tried to get people to think about hip hop as a generational moment. And I think when you think about hip hop is a generational moment and a generational thrust much the same way that you think about black power as a generational thrust, or, um, or the civil rights movement in the civil rights era as a generational thrust, I think you start to get more into the nuances of the ways in which people are thinking through culture and politics. I think the same is true of hip hop because you can’t if hip hop is just misogyny than what do you do with Rosa Clemente? You know what I mean? What do you do with the organization or hip hop group like the Deep Dick Collective? Which the brother who does the policing work now trying to think what his name is? He was one of the artists in that group. You know who I’m talking about? Um, you’re not sure I’ll have I’ll have to think about it for a second. Oh my goodness, he is at the forefront of policy around policing, and I cannot think of what his name is right now. Oh, my goodness, I’m not to think about feel that’s right. Feel God. That’s right. That’s right. So I feel like it’s shorthand that people are doing. But let me push. You think this is nuances? Yeah, it’s complicated. No, no,

[0:22:13 Peniel] I think it’s always complicated, but what do you think about the fact that really when we think about especially I wanna fast forward and get tow our time? This black lives matter again. A straight black men CIS gendered black men. Um, I think one of the things I appreciate by Abram Kendis book How to be an anti racist Ah, book that I teach in Abram. I think he’s fantastic. He’s been one of my really one of my mentees. I’m 10 years older than Abram, but but brilliant, um, when he talks about his own evolution, saying that he he admits, and you talked about the Isis papers earlier, he talks about having gotten through a very Afrocentric phase. You know, white people are are sort of just like the nation of Islam genetically, you know, geared to commit these acts of evil and evolving from that right. He talks about his homophobia. Is transphobia his own sexism? Um, what do you think about the challenges? And I, you know, I really think about this in the context of Ice Cube and contract for Black America in the way in which Cube, who I’ve always admired, and I was one of the first people to Baeza record America’s Most Wanted and then death certificate is a follow up. These brilliant masterpieces 1990 and 91. But Cube, I thought, allowed himself to be played by the Trump administration by in quotes negotiating with these white supremacists around black empowerment. And some of that had to do with It’s not that the plan was bad, even though the plan wasn’t as far left to say, uh, AOC and other people. But Derrick Hamilton and others were connected to helping him write that plan about riel investment and wealth building for the black communities that plan was ever follow. It would actually absolutely be a game changer, Um, but in a lot of ways, Cube came out front and center. And instead of connecting with BLM folks instead of connecting with people, like even people from an earlier generation like Sherrilyn Ifill, who’s had a legal defense fund who I know who is a friend and whose brilliant he just came out on his own. And I think one of things about our generation, I’ll say My general Generation X, I’m born 1972. Is that the way we were used to it being, whether it’s Jesse Jackson or or even Reverend Sharpton, who I really admire, Andi others. Even if we said you saw a woman’s caucus, it was male leadership, you know. It’s like, you know, like s So there’s a difference. I mean, one of the interesting parts about I think the black lives matter movement is this idea of centering black women. But in doing so, uh, saying that black men especially I think straight black men who have been used to being at the center can be part of the movement and can be even leaders but their servant oriented leaders. And you’re not necessarily gonna be the first person in the photo op, you know what I mean? And so when I saw a cube do that and I wrote something about Cube CNN saying, You know the dangers of that perspective and how he allowed himself to be used. But I thought a lot of it was because there’s so many of these black women on not just, you know, Briana Taylor posthumously. But you saw the Vanity Fair issue that Tana HAC did British Vogue. The work of Roxane Gay. I just had trustee MacMillan Cottam do a program for us. There’s just been so much play that I think that brothers can get nervous and I understand why the nervousness. But I’d love us to contextualized and see that just because she’s getting the play doesn’t mean that your leadership is lacking. It just means that we were building a new paradigm.

[0:26:00 Bakari] Yeah, well, I mean, I think Ice Cube is a bad example. Oh, no. Tell me, Pushback, brother pushback. I think I see Cuba is a bad example because I feel like I feel like ice cubes made a lot of missteps, and a lot of those missteps are rooted in his own evolution. You know what I mean? Like Ice Cube has been. You know, I’m not just Ice Cube. I feel like P. Diddy has made made similar missteps and Kanye West as well. I mean, I feel like and and some of that has to do with the ways in which the black community, um, has centered celebrity, you know what I mean? So these guys get toe hide behind their celebrity, and often, you know, people are celebrating them because of their celebrity in their wealth. So I feel like that kind of gave Ice Cube a certain level of arrogance that made him imagine that you know, nothing is going on already. Eso when p that he says, Well, we’re gonna build a black political party like I mean, that idea has been around for a very long time. Like what? He’s saying it as if this is an original idea. And I feel like that’s what I skewed. Did I think Ice Cube rather than I mean like a logical to me connection for Ice Cube would have been to have a conversation with Van Jones or to have a conversation with Davey D Cook out of the bay, who he knows. But you mentioned you

[0:27:32 Peniel] mentioned Van Jones and I know Van a little bit, too. We were both part of the Route 102,014. But what do you think about Van Jones is work with the Trump administration and Jared Kushner. Don’t you think that that is another version of negotiating with white supremacist? Even Malcolm X tried to do it. Um, Marcus Garvey tried to do it. Kesha blames new books at the World on Fire shows us when some black women tried to do it. But I would tell people as a rule, never negotiate with what? Yeah, that’s rule number one.

[0:28:02 Bakari] I think that van, um, e I don’t know if you’ve read his last work trying to remember the title right now. The messy truth I think it’s called, I think in that book he talks a lot about, You know, I think that Van has been very fearful of, uh, you know, the country kind of descending into a really dark place if Trump was re elected, for one thing. But I think that in general, even beyond that before that, I think he’s really concerned about the danger that this partisanship within American politics poses for the future of American democracy. And so I think that if you look at his work, I think that his interest is in, you know, I mean one. I think it is a kind of romantic, uh, romanticization of Democrats and Republicans working across the aisle. And I think this gets to your topic of your podcast around racing democracy. I mean, I think that there is, ah, certain point in which we’re in a moment in which a lot of folks who are visible are very invested in the Democratic Party, more so and possibly equal to, ah, black political agenda. And I think that historically, are people who have been at the forefront of black political have advanced, ah, black political agenda. I think that when we get steeped into and pull down into this, uh, you know, imagining that were part of the Democratic Party and that the Democratic Party is going to advance our issues and they don’t have a history of doing that. I think we start to get into a little bit of deeper Ah, deeper trouble. And so that’s what I see with I think Van wanted the victory around the criminal justice reform work. And, you know, there was a certain idea. Well, you’re going to deal with who’s in power. I think Ice Cube took that same stance. Well, the Trump Administration is in power and he is the president. So I’m gonna deal with who’s gonna deal with me. I mean, the problem with that becomes there’s so many people. Ice Cube could have talked Thio. And so often people have to understand who are celebrities. It’s not about you, you know what I mean? There is a community of people who are out here fighting and working on these issues. And maybe it might be a good idea to see who those folks are rather than this going out. But I still was, really If you looked at some of his work, he was very, very, um, disturbed and and shaking. I think by what happened with George Floyd as well, a lot of other people, and I felt like this. A lot of this was his response to that.

[0:30:43 Peniel] Now, when you think about BLM and this year in terms of 2020 and so many black women like Stacey Abrams, but of course you have people like Reverend William Barbara on Bond. This next generation hip hop generation, Generation Z or generation I, Whatever we want to call them. What do you think? One. I mean, with issues like defund the police. You’ve got President Barack Obama, who I push back against on this saying that defund the police. And Joe Biden says that, too, in a elite conversation cost the Democrats. The Senate cost them seats in the House of Representatives. The route has a new story out saying on I’ve written about this too, that no, in fact, defund the police helped win the White House because without George Floyd protests, you wouldn’t have gotten the the anti racist coalition to get 81 million people to the polls like their lives depended on it, you wouldn’t have been able to turn Georgia blue. So what do you think of Andi? You’ve been such a big part of this with the hip hop summits and what you did in 2004, what you’ve continued to do but the roll off of hip hop Andi and politics and our democracy, you know? And so I’m thinking really here of, um, people like the Cory Bushes and the A, O. C. S and Jamaar Bowman and so many different people who are running and in certain ways to me, they they’re running as like hip hop politicians in the best sense of the word, eh? So I look at Alexandria, Ocasio, Cortez, Ayanna Pressley, Cori Bush and to me, that’s hip hop, you know, because hip hop was speaking truth to power. Chuck D. Who’s one of my idols? Who said we were the black CNN uh, poor, poor, righteous teachers tribe called Quest Common Nate natives, native tongues. Hip hop was given it the raw and saying, We need a green new deal. Hip hop that. And that’s what I love about black lives matter with the black lives matter policy agenda where they’re saying, Here’s what we’re gonna do for immigrants, for people are poor, but people are non able body. These were people who I grew up in Southside Jamaica, Queens with There were no white people Southside Jamaica, Queens. I grew up in a side of Sakura’s neighborhood. She I teach Asada and Asada says that I didn’t

[0:33:04 Bakari] see any white people. I grew up there, too. I didn’t see any white people. You wanna talk about segregation? You know what I’m saying? You wanna talk

[0:33:11 Peniel] about segregation? I didn’t see white people till high school, period unless it was on television. That’s how segregated my

[0:33:18 Bakari] neighborhood. No one, no one

[0:33:19 Peniel] drove past. That neighborhood was like, Okay, you know. So what? What

[0:33:25 Bakari] do you

[0:33:25 Peniel] think about the role of hip hop now in 2020? Because I think with these politicians, I think with black lives matter. And I think so. So often, hip hop has always been intersectional about issues, and now it’s being even more intersectional about identity and what I mean by that. Hip hop always talked about food justice. It talked about police brutality. It talked about health care and people seeking health care treatments that just warrant Western or Eurocentric health care treatments. It talked about public transportation. It talked about nuclear war, talked about domestic violence, talked about all of it. And now we’re seeing how deep it ISS because the world is just so so messed up. But hip hop Oh, and we you know hip hop is global. Of course, they’re talking about this in Africa, London, China because of hip hop right. And so what do you feel like as we move forward? Especially? Like I said, I think for the first time, we’re seeing hip hop generation politicians, including some of the people you’re writing about in your new book in terms of, um, Hakeem Jeffries. His his brother Hassan is a great scholar in his own right. Okay, so what do we what do we think about what’s what’s next for us? You know, in terms of that hip

[0:34:40 Bakari] hop generation, I think I want to kind of just kind of talk a little bit about some of the things you said one. I feel like there was there was a this idea of defunding police losing the house and the Senate. This is an interesting idea coming from a centrist Democrat who was the president and was more committed to the Democratic Party than he was to doing anything for black people. So, um is not surprising that that’s his shorthand of the situation. I mean, people, people turned out in the election, in my opinion, I’m also the co editor of a book called Democracy Unchanged. How to Rebuild Government for the People came out in March um, something I co edited with David or Andrew Gumbel and William Becker. And, you know, people turned out, I feel because they came to realize that democracy was threatened. Amira Baraka used to always say that as black people, we fight for self determination and we fight for democracy. And I think that you saw that top of the ticket activity around really the question of democracy and people coming to the realization that Trump was really you know, taking the country off the rails has never been ideal for black folks. But we certainly didn’t want to see it get worse. And so I think I think that was the response to that. To me, is the assessment of what happened with this election? I don’t think it was really about, um, to fund the police or not. The funding police question, I think, is important. I think that is interesting to see the evolution of these ideas. Um, you know, Angela Davis talks about the importance of speaking across generations as we articulate a politics. Um, even if there aren’t things that we can see happen in our lifetime, we have to begin to speak those those things into existence and with this idea of abolish the police and abolished prisons. She has certainly done that and other other folks have done it. And I think that we’re starting to see the fruition of the evolution off of a black, a black politics in terms of hip hop. And it’s interesting because, you know, I didn’t make a hip hop connection to those folks. I think hip hop has evolved in some interesting ways relative to the question of democracy. But I feel that those are I think hip hop has always had a broad vision of democracy. I think hip hop has always had a broad vision off off humanism. I think hip hop has always had a Pan Africanist on internationalist vision, and I think that what we’re seeing now is, in my opinion, the foremost thought leadership of hip hop and its politics is happening at the local level. These aren’t big name artists, so I think that when you see just Siri X or you see a group like Rebel Diaz or someone like TEF Poe out of out of ST Louis with the organization, hands up united. I think all of these or someone like a cool narrow or someone like Invincible out of Detroit. I think all of these artists are really coexisting as artists and activists. And to me, that’s the next evolution off a hip hop politics of meaning. These are people who are trying to build community where they are in Pittsburgh, just Siri’s organization, One hood. They’re presenting a challenge to themselves. Thio. Imagine how how do we? What do we what does a liberated black community look like? And they’re centering their activism in this a T intersection of hip hop and activism. So I think that’s where I see the conversation going. Or you could look at someone the evolution of artists like Boots Riley, who was prominent in the early nineties. And you know now, more recently, you know, had the film s o. I think that the but we do see with major artists some of the personal becoming enter into the realm of politics with someone like a meek mill, um, or Jay Z and others who are fighting around these issues and, you know, emerging younger artists like Corday, you know, joining the protests and and others. So I think that It’s a mixed bag, but I think hip hop is present. I don’t know how much I see hip hop directly interfacing with some of these folks that that you’re talking about other than the sister out of Missouri. Um, because I do think that that grassroots Ferguson movement had prominent hip hop artists again. Grassroots artists at the forefront, people like TEF, Poe and T Dub. Oh, and I’m trying remember the brother’s name who was a councilman? His name escapes, and he’s also, I think, a spoken word artist or hip hop artists as well. And I think I think that work, Um, what was instrumental to what we see with black lives matter? And again, there’s a lot of revisionist history around the impact of Ferguson on what became a global black lives matter movement.

[0:40:09 Peniel] All right, so my final question and this gets us back to the whole idea of, you know, race, democracy, but also masculinity. In terms of hip hop in our politics, what do you feel are our chances? And do you have hope right now for this sort of post patriarchal masculinity within black politics within, within the hip hop generation within black lives matter within American democracy so that we can have this struggle for citizenship and dignity and self determination that Amiri Baraka talked about one of my mentors to, but in a way that z expansive and inclusive and is not bound by these old frameworks that even Martin and Malcolm, who have written about extensively a times to come to very, very nuanced. So this is not saying they were bad people, but who faltered in terms of the vision of a liberated future. So what do you think about that?

[0:41:08 Bakari] I mean again, I think some of these some of these grassroots independent artists who are also activists, you know, I used to have long conversations with them, one of dead prez about this. And, um, you know, I would say you’re you’re you’re an artist and you’re an activist. He’s like, I really I don’t really put one of those identities ahead of the other. I kind of see these identities both living in one body, and I think that’s what we’re seeing to me from some of the hip hop artists who I feel are in at this community level. But in terms of the masculinity and the Patriot and the post patriarchy. Um, I think that, yeah, there’s there’s absolutely there’s hope. I think that some of these young brothers who I have mentioned, I believe they are pushing back in very interesting ways. One of the things that we did, Um, this year we partnered with black voters matter and Faith in Action on one hood to put on a hip hop political education summit on Black Men and the Vote, and we brought a wide diversity of black men. Into this conversation. We had Damon Dash. We had, um, Professor Griff. We had em one. We had bun B. We had grassroots activists like Jr Fleming, who does anti eviction work in Chicago, of folks doing anti violence work like Kwabena Nixon out of Milwaukee. Um, trying to think of some of the other folks that brother, the brother Terrence Mohammed, who works with the Poor People’s Campaign and Hip Hop Caucus, and the brother Mondale Robinson, who works with the organization Blackmail Voter Project on DSO. I think that it Z, the conversations were very robust. The conversations were very much to the left of where the Democrats are with an agenda for black people with an agenda for black men. I think that these are men who are leaders in their community, who are fathers who are husbands who are open minded, who are working with people out of all communities and wanna work with people out of all communities and have a very radical analysis of of gender. And I’m hopeful that when I look at this leadership of this generation of young people and and and activists and their open mindedness and their persistence and their hard work that we can build a politics of meaning that is respectful and inclusive. And I think that we’re already seeing some of the early work at that tempo again. I mentioned they started the organization him, and I’m trying to remember the brother who’s, uh my God, I can’t think of his name is right now. Dream Defenders Phil Agnew. They

[0:44:08 Peniel] started a position called Black

[0:44:10 Bakari] Black Men build this year, and they have been very, um, intentional. I think about not Onley being inclusive but advancing a certain identity around black masculinity. I mean, the one thing that I would caution about these conversations is I think it’s very important as we think about the self determination Azaz a non negotiable that black men should have self determination in these conversations around what they want to see a masculinity, uh, look like that is that is a responsible masculine masculinity that is an informed masculinity. That is an enlightened masculinity. And I think it’s going to be work to do on that primarily in many ways, because there there aren’t a lot of places in the society that that that reinforced that this, uh, this kind of positive, informed outlook. But there are many places in the society that reinforce the opposite.

[0:45:12 Peniel] All right, we’re gonna leave it there on that hopeful note we’ve been chatting with Bacary Quit Wanna, Who’s a journalist? Bought leader whose work has appeared in The New York Times. The Village Voice, The Los Angeles Times He’s lectured at Princeton University, Harvard Stanford University. He’s the author editor of many books, including Why White Kids Love Hip Hop, The Hip Hop Generation, The Rap on Gangster Rap. In his latest book, his latest anthology, Rather is Democracy on Change. How to Rebuild Government for the People, Bacary. Thank you so much for joining us you’ve been It’s been an honor. You one of the the folks who got me interested in writing and in thinking about about hip hop, about politics, about race, democracy on so many different levels. So I’m really, really great.

[0:46:00 Bakari] Look, I’ll take that credit because your writing is brilliant. Your writing is amazing, and I’m really I’m enjoying the Stokely Book and the Sword and the shield. I was completely inspired by and maybe want to run out and read everything that you’ve written. So I really appreciate you.

[0:46:24 Peniel] Thanks for listening to this episode and you can check out related content on Twitter at Peniel Joseph. That’s P-e-n-i-e-l  J-o-s-e-p-h and our Web site, CSRD.LBJ.utexas.edu and the Center for Study of Race and Democracy is on Facebook as well. This podcast was recorded at the Liberal Arts Development Studio at the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Texas at Austin. Thank you.