PowerPoint; Octavia Butler, Our Future

This Bureau of America is entering an age when the demographics of race will be turned upside down. When by the year 2050 black and white Americans will become minorities to the nation's evolving Asian and Hispanic populations. And we'll compare notes on the color of our future with a claimed young novelist, Nancy Senna, author of Caucasia. Now in paperback from Riverhead Books. Caucasia is a stunning look at growing up the child of two cultures, one black, one white. And you have the power to make your point by calling the PowerPoint hotline now at 1 -800 -989 -8255. That's 1 -800 -989 -8255. In more ways than one, the color of our future is just ahead. But first, these headlines from PowerPoint News with Verna Avery Brown. While PowerPoint news and information to empower the community, I'm

Verna Avery Brown. Prosecutors in the Senate trial to impeach the president used the videotaped testimony of former White House intern Monica Lewinsky and Verna Jordan, the president's friend, in their efforts to prove Clinton attempted to obstruct justice. In this video excerpt, House manager Ed Bryant questions Lewinsky about a 2 a .m. telephone call from the president. Sometime back in the December of 1997 and the morning of December the 17th, did you receive a call from the president? Yes. What was the purpose of that call? What did you talk about? It was threefold. First, to tell me that Ms. Curry's brother had been killed in a car accident. Second, to tell me that my name was on a witness list for the Paula Jones case. And thirdly, he mentioned that he hit the Christmas present he had for me. This telephone call was somewhere in the early morning hours of 2 o 'clock to

2 .30. Correct. Did it surprise you that he called you so late? No. Was this your first notice of your name being on the Paula Jones witness list? Yes. Lewinsky later said she decided from that conversation with Clinton that she would deny their relationship to the lawyers in the Paula Jones case. House manager representative Aissa Hudson should have. I believe her testimony is credible. She is not trying to hammer the president. She is trying to tell the truth as to her recollection of this 2 a .m. call to her by the President of the United States from December 17th. The news is broken to her that she is on the witness list. It puts it in a legal context. This is a 24 year old ex intern. She might not have the legal sophistication of the president, but the president certainly knows the legal consequences as to his actions. What he is telling, a witness in a case that is adverse to him, is that you do not have to tell the truth. You can use the cover stories that we used before, and that might have been in a non -legal context. But now we are in a different arena.

And he says, continue the same lies even though you are in a court of law. Final arguments from both House prosecutors and White House lawyers are expected some time later this week. Senators see very little likelihood that Clinton will be removed from office and lawmakers from both sides of the aisle are reportedly working on language to censure the president for his actions. President Clinton wants a new policy on guns, no background check, no gun, no exceptions. Clinton is supporting legislation to acquire background checks on all firearms buyers who visit gun shows. There are 4 ,000 or more of those shows each year and currently non -licensed collectors in private hobbyists are exempted from background checks. Clinton says criminals who exploit that loophole are using the shows as a cash and carry convenience store. The National Racial Association says Clinton's proposal is public relations masquerading as substance. And here is a PowerPoint news black history footnote. There is growing belief by some in the African -American community that the word picnic was derived from racist white slaveholders, Activistic Gregory.

The word picnic derived from slavery, pick a nigger. Look, if I'm the great white master, I've got 2 ,000 slaves. I'm going to take my lady about 80 miles down the road to this huge waterfall. I'm going to hook that horse up to the buggy. I'm going to drive that horse up there. I'm going to chop the wood and make the barbecue. No, they picked one of those slaves. It was called pick a nigger. But the American Heritage Dictionary traces picnic back to the French word picanique. And for clarification, PowerPoint news asked Harvard University historian Richard Newman for his take on the word picnic. It's a French term originally that really means an excursion of pleasant time outside eating lunch. So I think that's where it comes from. Whether or not it was used by white slave owners in the way you described, I don't know that. I've never seen that in print, but I have heard it. And it may very well be true. If it is true, it seems

to me it's taking a word in the sense of much making up a word as taking a word that exists and giving it a racist connotation. Richard Newman is Tello's officer at the W .E .B. Du Bois Institute for Afro -American Research at Harvard University and the former managing editor of the Encyclopedia of African American Culture and History. Up next, PowerPoint's Ralph Wiley talks with writers Farai Chadea and Danzy Sinna about the changing space of America and what it means to the future. You can join the discussion by calling 1 -800 -989 -8255. For PowerPoint news and information to empower the community, I'm Verna Avery Brown. Color fades away with the light descended on the

day. Midnight sees your friend. Or could you call his name? Would you know his name? I could be for your love, but I don't know. Color fades away with the light. Good times here today. You're listening to PowerPoint and I'm Ralph Wiley.

There is a contrapuntal arrangement between our next two guests, contrapuntal usually being a musical term, meaning two or more relatively independent melodies sounded together, creating a new, more complex harmony, a poly harmony. Individually, the work of Farai Chadea and Danzy Sinna reflects this form, the style, the structure. Taken together, they reflected even more. Farai Chadea grew up in Baltimore, Danzy Sinna in Boston. Farai went to Harvard in Boston. Danzy went to Northern California, not to Octavia Butler's Earth seat commune, but Leland Stanford University. Farai labors in the vineyards of nonfiction as a journalist. Danzy is in the woodshed of fiction as a novelist. Neither is 30 years old. Yet they are friends and importantly to us, their latest books, the color of our future from Farai Chadea and Caucasia, from Danzy Sinna,

reflect an extraordinary talent. These two are among the very best African -American writing has to offer entering the new millennium. We could do worse folks, a lot worse. Welcome to Farai Chadea and Danzy Sinna. Thank you. Thanks. Hi. Hi. How are you? And it's funny because like you mentioned, we are friends. So this is the first time we've ever done anything together and I think it should be very fun. Well, we suspected that here at PowerPoint, but obviously there's a relationship that even goes beyond the friendship. It goes to really the way your books are composed. Let's start with you, Farai. Within your book, is this contrapuntal relationship via the interviews you conducted with today's teenagers, whom you have dubbed the Millennium Generation? Can you tell our listeners how your book is structured and why you structured it that way? Well, my book is basically a set of instructional tales. Instead of just sitting there and preaching

what I did was I traveled around the country. I talked to people aged 15 to 25 and I tried to put those stories into the context of how America is changing. And basically America is changing to the point where by the year 2050, there will be no majority that whites will be a minority like every other racial group. And so I think that this generation is especially plugged in to the changes this country is undergoing. Can you tell us some of the places you visited and describe some of the Millennium Generation that you talked to? Well, just to give you a couple of extremes, I met this guy named Earl at a college conference. He is at the College of William & Mary in Virginia. And so he is half Jamaican and half Chinese Panamanian. His mother is ethnically Chinese but grew up in Panama speaking Spanish, moved to New York, married a Jamaican man, had four kids. And he's one of them and he's sort

of this one man force for cultural melding. He's like, okay, I'm going to take my Chinese brothers to the Gospel Singalong. He's in the Black Students Association, the Chinese Students Association, the Caribbean Students Association, you know what I mean? So that kind of mixing of identities was something that most people were not familiar with until recently. Not that it didn't happen but the number of people who were mixed race has quadrupled since 1970. Then on the other end of the spectrum, I saw how deeply entrenched some of the really ground zero racism is between blacks and whites. I went down to Thomasville, Georgia and met with a couple who had a baby who died, an interracial couple. And it was buried in a church cemetery. The church was an all white church and the deacons of the church threatened to dig up this mixed race black baby. Because they were like, this is a white church cemetery, it's for white people. So we have a whole

spectrum of issues to deal with all the way from things that are, you know, fairly sophisticated to issues that really should have been dealt with 100 years ago. And not only those places, but also an interesting visit to Fremont High School in one of the depressed areas in Oakland, California, East Oakland, California. Colorado Springs, Aurora, Colorado. For I went everywhere. I tried to cover cover the map. I went to an Indian reservation in Montana. I went to the US, Mexico border. Because race is not just about how we think. It's about how all of us in this country think. And one of the things I tried to point out is that it means different things to different people because each of our communities is so different. Nancy, your book could have been called as well as Caucasian. Negritude for beginners or compared to what, which are the titles actually of the sections of the book. Right. Exactly. And from Caucasian with love, it's the third section. But I chose that third section to title the book. But you're right, either of those other two could have,

could have described, I guess, birdie Lee, the protagonist, sort of search for her identity. Both, both those other ones are parts of who she is as well. I'm Ralph Wiley, and you're listening to PowerPoint. We're talking with journalist Faria Chidea and author Danzy Senna about the changing face of America and changing interior faces. The color of our future and Caucasian. And you can get in on the discussion by calling PowerPoint at 1 -800 -989 -8255. That's 1 -800 -989 -8255. Nancy, you're writing about a girl and her sister, and it's fascinating the Lee character's name is Birdie. I kept thinking a little birdie told me, you're writing about a girl and her sister. The children of a black father and a white mother was the book cathartic for you. I think I wrote it after I had worked out a lot of these

issues. And it was kind of my putting it out into the world. But I had personally, as someone who's biracial, already kind of, I think, come to a sense of peace and comfort with my own racial identity. So the book was more me kind of working it out on paper. Lesson, it wasn't sort of my therapy, it was writing the book. But it was actually... Did your mentor told you this through the story? Well, you do a great job of juxtaposing the times where Birdie might have been put in an uncomfortable position because of how she looks. And the times that her sister, Cole, might have been in an uncomfortable position because of how she looks. A fantastic job of juxtaposing those levels of discomfort and very observant. A very observant little things that people notice when walking down the street, but I never saw them written down

before. The problem that some white mothers have with hair, if they have a black daughter, if they have a black husband and a black daughter, you'll often see them walking down the street and say, well, she doesn't know how to do anything with that girl's hair. And that's not how kindly some black women would put it. Oh, I know. I'm sure you do. That came up in my book, too. Ah, I see. One girl said, I can't use pan -team and I can't use afro -sheen. Right, that's pretty much something. Now, for both of you, for IU first, have you honed in on what your interior motivations were for writing this book, the color of our future? Now, exterior motivations could be the exhibit your talent to make a living, to contribute your voice to the company. Make your mama happy. Exactly. But it takes a toll to write a book. It costs dearly. As you know, there must be something inside driving you to do it. So what was that for you for writing? Well, for me, I view journalism as something which can help transform society. And I really do think that we need to perk up, realize that America

is changing and make some choices about how this country will change. If America is getting rapidly less white and more multi -racial, that's going to bring a whole host of issues. We need to do social, political, in families, in communities. And I don't want us to sleep through it. I mean, I really do not want Americans to sort of sleep through this massive transition and then wake up and say, what's going on? I want us to be fully aware of it. And I think especially also in the black community, we have our own baggage. We're like, okay, we're the minority. And those Asians and Latinos can just step off to the side. So we, as much as anyone else, have our baggage too. You're listening to PowerPoint. Our hotline number is 1 -800 -989 -8255. That's 1 -800 -989 -8255. We're talking with Dansi Senna and Farai Chadea about the color of our future and Caucasia. Same question to you, Dansi. What were your interior

motivations to write this book? Well, I mean, a lot of them were sort of autobiographical things that I had gone through growing up being biracial in Boston in the 70s. And that sort of continued to haunt me my whole life growing up in a family where each of us was treated differently because of the way we appeared. And yet knowing that we were all the same because we were in the same family. So that kind of tension between the visible and the invisible experience that I had growing up. And that I continued to have even as an adult. And it was the book I had to write. It wasn't really a choice. It was something that I had been obsessed with since I was a young girl. The subject that had been imposed on me for some of the outside world. And I really, it was the book that came to me and wouldn't leave me alone essentially. So there was no way I wasn't going to write it. It was just a matter of when. Well, those are usually the best kinds of Farai. Let's focus on the prophetic

issues and statistical data. You're greatest statistical data Farai. I love it. How you really cornered, well, actually you were cornered by I think an editor for the National Review or something. Could you tell us that story and then tell us more about the statistical data in your book and how it impacts the year 2050? Well, the story about the editor is a national review, which is one of the leading conservative publications. He basically started going off on this tangent about how minorities were very privileged. Don't you think that it's hard for a white guy to get a job of equal caliber? And I said, well, now that Newsweek where I used to work because only five out of a hundred reporters were black. And so it sort of went on from there with me throwing out both very specific and very general but strong, very factual statistics on how African Americans still earn less than whites. You know, have less success in the job market for the same qualifications, blah, blah, blah. And he's like, you know, basically what we came down to, he says, well, you know, everyone

knows. And if you talk to anyone and the thing is, it all depends on who you talk to. The whole problem of journalism sometimes is that we make assumptions that the people we know represent reality as a whole. And what happens if you've got a mostly white institution like mainstream journalism, which I love, you know, I'm a journalist and I love working in it, is that sometimes your personal perceptions seep into your portrayal of issues. And when it comes to race, I think that, you know, we have not ever truly come to grips with race in America, nor have we in the journalism profession come to grips with how race influences what we write. I mean, there's so much more, there's a disproportionate way high amount of coverage of blacks who commit crimes compared to whites who do. And because this country is majority white, most criminals are white. And on the other hand, there's not enough focus on issues like education as they pertain to, you know, racial achievement on issues of continued neighborhood segregation. So, so I think that, you know, basically

when I started working on this book, as much as I wanted to transmit the stories, I also really wanted to give people a statistical sense and a reality check about the inequalities that persist to this day. Fascinating. We're going to go to Terry at W .E .A .A. in Baltimore. Terry, you're on with Farai Chidaya and Danzy Sinan. Hi, I'm Terry. I hope you can hear me clearly. Ironically, I picked up both books in Barnes and Noble, and I was looking at them. I didn't buy them, but I definitely didn't. I had one comment about the conversation. Many years ago, I graduated in biology, and I work with a geneticist. And the fact of the matter, you know, he's talking about collecting genes from collecting blood from pure races of people. And there are no pure races in the United States. As far as black Americans go, medically, they're all

mixed. I mean, 99 .9, and let's say this recently, came over from the continent, you know, depending on the country they're from. But so I always find it interesting when people say, you know, biracial, whatever, I mean, there's nothing wrong with it. Fine, but the reality, from the scientific point of view, most African Americans are genetically mixed. That was the one comment. The other comment is I also work in the media. I see Shakaia on ABC, and I work in CBS. And I'm very concerned about how we cover stories. I was just talking with a colleague about, you know, what it makes statements like African Americans have a higher percentage of Alzheimer's or something like that. I think that we need to be very careful when we make statements like that, because, you know, we need to look at the gene pool, the population pool, which they made that statement. And actually I pulled the information off the internet, and it was, you know, they only get half truth.

You have to be very, very careful. So that's all I have to say. No, that's a great point, Terry. I've, I've, a faried Danza, let you respond. But, but keeping this caveat in mind, multi -racial origin is not new among African Americans in America. I mean, it's been going on since, well, we won't say Sally Hemings in Thomas Jefferson. We'll say before that. It's been going on. So, so how is the commentary? How is the discourse different now at the eve of the 21st century leading to 2050 than it was say a hundred years ago? Well, I would definitely agree with what Jerry was saying. I mean, I think race is a social construct. It's not something genetic and real. And that's something that still hasn't fully entered the American consciousness. And, you know, I identify as black, and it's part of a long tradition of multi -racial people identifying themselves as black, either because they had to or because they chose to. And I think that the multi -racial generation

that's sort of born after 1970 or even later than that, one of the major differences is that that their parents are married and that they're living with both parents and both cultures. And that is a very different experience from Sally Hemings or, you know, even the illicit kind of interracial romances and rapes and all these other ways that mixture came to be before that point. Well, also, Farai, you make a compelling point in your book. Tiger Woods was on the Oprah Winfrey cell and said probably accurately, although, you know, he made up a word, but it was probably an accurate word. He was callabination. But you point out, Farai. Well, I'll let you tell it. When Fuzzy Zeller made these comments, he wasn't talking about Tyro. You know, with Tiger Woods, when he was the victim of sort of this racist slur, like I hope he doesn't serve fried chicken at the master's dinner next year, which is this golf ceremony, fried chicken is very much

a reference to black. And I say, well, you know, Fuzzy Zeller, who's the guy who made the comment, didn't say don't serve Pad Ty, even though Tiger Woods emphasizes his Thai heritage as well. What that says to me is simply that there's always at least two issues when someone's multi -racial. First of all, I totally agree with the ante about the social contract construct and with Terry the caller because, you know, there's evidence that I have some white relatives from Scotland. You know, it's been traced back to 1827, but I'm not multi -racial in any meaningful sense. I mean, you know, some of my ancestors were. But first of all, you know, there's no such thing as a pure race. If you go to Africa and you look for a black person, you're going to find people between four foot six and seven foot eight, you're going to find people of all skin colors and hair textures. If you go to Europe and try to find a white person, you'll find people who are pale with red hair or blonde hair, people who are dark skinned with, you know, all of skin. I mean, it's just really, there's no such thing as a pure race anyway. But when we talk about multi

-racial issues, I think that what we find is that basically, you know, there's how we, how our heritage is. And it's also how people perceive us. And so even though Tiger Woods may have a multi -racial heritage, he's perceived as someone who is just plain black. And that's definitely true. I mean, it has so much to do with appearance. But at the same time, you know, I am seen as white, but I identify as black. And so I kind of resist the idea that that we're only what we're perceived to be by the outside world, because I think as you're saying for I, it's a mixture of the two. Right. And the way the two play off each other and it's this experiential thing that is a lot of the story, but not the full story, obviously. Because Tiger Woods does feel the need to bring his mother into the equation and, you know, say, you know, that's his choice in the end, you know. Absolutely. No matter what size these are. It's a resistance tendency in the black community to try to force everybody

to, you know, identify one way, because I think it, you know, I had a big fight with my family, actually, over the holidays. Oh, tell us about that. No, it was very funny because basically what happened was that, you know, it was like, you know, Christmas day, me, my mom, my uncle, my cousin, my sister. We were all talking. And the older generation was like, multi -racial is BS. And those people need to just shut up and be black. And my sister and I were like, you know, they let them recognize their heritage. You know, I think that there are political reasons to maintain affiliations to the black community. But we also can't, we can't follow the same thing that people did in the past like it before the one drop rule was enforced by whites. And now it's going to be enforced by blacks. And I think that really sums up what the battleground that you guys are on right now, although I didn't mean to say guys, did I? I'm Ralph Wiley. This is PowerPoint. When we come back, our hotline number is 1 -800 -989 -8255. Join us. We have

Farajadaya and Danzy Sinna, and they are talented. Internet services for PowerPoint are provided by World African Network, offering news, information, sports, and entertainment for African and African -American communities. Through broadband and new media technologies. The web address is www .wanonline .com. That's www .wanonline .com. And now, in honor of Black History Month. PowerPoint

presents Who Am I? Who am I? A black man who was a strategist and chief organizer of one of the most prolific marches on Washington? You could say I've truly thrived behind the scenes. I departed this earth in 1987. How well do you know Black History? If you know the answer to our Who Am I? quiz, call 1 -888 -682 -6500. That's 1 -888 -682 -6500. If you're first with the correct answer, you'll win one of two books. I dream a world by Brian Linker or Black Genius by Ellen Brown. This is Public Radio

and you're listening to PowerPoint with Ralph Wiley. This is Ralph Wiley and we're in future shock with Farai Chidea and Danzi Senna. We're going to go right to the phone lines because ladies, you have lit them up. We're going to go to Jackie at KTSU down in Houston, Texas. Hi, Jackie, you're on with Farai and Danzi. Hello? Yes. I'm glad to kind of nervous right now. You know I met home. Welcome to the club. I really believe that it's good to have a foundation and the books that you, I haven't read the books, but they sound like they're pretty good books. And I think that's a foundation, but I also think that the future of not just America, but the world, as far as our racial diversity is our racial structure, it lies in a renewing change of our attitudes

in regards to our trust and belief in God. And I also believe that when we begin to understand and no God's love for each of us, not just blacks and whites and ages, but for everybody, then and on and then when you see change in a racial structure as we know it. And I think that will begin to take on a drastic change when we start to know and who God is. Well, Jackie, I want to say that I definitely think that's great and I do believe in that, but I also do just something that constantly comes to my mind are the sort of justifications that various people use. For example, for slavery, many of them pulled completely random texts out of the Bible and used those as justifications for doing what they wanted to do anyway. So that I think when you talk about morality and enlightenment and God, I agree with you, but I also think that people, if people choose to, they

can always make the worst out of the best. Well, let me tell you for my own basic experience, I grew up in the South and during the time when there was real great race separation. And for a time, I didn't like white people. As a matter of fact, I almost hated them. But when I started to understand who God is and who I am, being my whole attitude, not only changed towards them, but my attitude started to change about myself. Well, it sounds like your faith is very powerful. Well, it's steadily growing, steadily growing. Well, interesting point, Jackie, and we've got so many callers, we're going to have to get on to some others. We're going to go to Francis in Montgomery, Alabama at station WVAS. Francis, you're speaking to Dansey Center and Farai Chadea. How you doing? Hello. Hi. And I want to say first to Farai Chadea, I've seen you several times on C -SPAN and I think you're an

excellent speaker. Thank you. And this is something that I want to bring up. I'll know if you've seen the Oprah Winfrey show almost a month ago. She was doing a special on Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hamming. Oh, no, I didn't see it, but I've read a whole lot about it. And it was an interesting show. And to make a long story short, it pretty much had the audience silence. And I had not seen the Oprah Winfrey audience that silence since Mark Furman was on the show. Well, Francis, you make a great point. And you know what I noticed? I did see that show and I saw the relatives of color of Thomas Jefferson and what was fascinating is that you could see it. And his thing, that made the audience get silent in the first place. Within two minutes of the show, she made this statement after doing several years of research with her team on the show. And she said this statement. She said that one out of five white families in America have a black

relative that they do not know about. It's so true. And I wanted to know how to do people... I'm trying to get into a question. How do you try to get people to drive that into a country like this? Yeah. Well, I just want to say that I have this little fantasy. Suppose I won the lottery. I would hire a whole bunch of genealogists and every time somebody made a really racist remark against black people, I would say, go find their black relatives. We can find them. Yeah, but the only problem is, as I've found, you know, even the ones who do know about their black relatives can continue to... Oh, you're right. No, you're having an interracial family, essentially. And I think one of the mistakes we make is thinking that just miscedinating, quote unquote, or having, you know, a lot of multi -racial babies will somehow solve this problem of racism. Right. And the fact of the matter is, you know, if we look at Haiti and South Africa and Brazil, even in these multi -racial populations where the mixture is

acknowledged, racism can still exist within the political structure. And so, you know, I sort of don't have a romantic idea about interracial families because I think they can exist with or without racism. Right. There's a lot of denial out there. Francis, thanks for pointing that out to us. We're going to go, um, Danzy, Farai, you've lit the lines up, so we're going to go right to Diane at W -U -M -B in Guess Where Danzy, Boston. Hi, Diane. How you doing again, Ralph? Hi. I have a question for Farai Chadea. And first, I'd like to say that your book, Don't Believe the Hype, is a book that everybody should have. Thank you. Lays out the facts very clearly. It's a wonderful book. Thank you so much. Now, my question, it's actually a premise, and I'll take my answer off the air, whether or not you believe that the increase in immigrants from Asia, South America, wherever,

bodes well for Black Americans. And my feeling is that it doesn't necessarily, because what I've noticed is that when other people come here, they tend to try to move toward whiteness as quickly as possible. Oh, yeah. And away from Blackness. Right. So given that, it seems as though even if the faces that you now that you see in government change and become more Asian or more Hispanic, the policies are probably going to reflect those of what we, the whites that are in power now. Right. In fact, if anything, they might be a bit more draconian, because they're not going to have the same relationship with us, the same history with us that whites have. Well, I think that you raised an excellent point. And I talk about this a lot in the color of our future, that a lot of African -Americans fear that we could just be pushed to the bottom of a bigger barrel. That's exactly what I think. I think if anything, in my mind. But I don't think it has to happen. However, what I do think is that if that isn't going to happen, if we're going to have a more positive outcome,

then we're going to be the ones African -Americans are going to be the ones to build bridges. Because the reality of the matter is that I think that both Blacks and whites for different reasons are uncomfortable with America becoming more multiracial. But we have to look out for our own interest. And what that means is doing coalition building now. You know what I mean? It's like, yeah. Doing coalition building in five years when there are going to be more Latinos than Blacks. That's the reality. Five years from now, Blacks will no longer be the largest non -white group in America. So now is the time for us to build bridges to other communities so that we are not caught outside of the bigger loop. I mean, I think that we are always going to have to define how we move ahead. And if this country is sort of left to its own devices, everybody wants to be non -black if they can be. I mean, that's the reality, the social, socio -economic realities that most people who are not Black or White. Well, I don't know for a right. I don't know. A famous film director said to me just the other day,

the key to America is to be Black without being Black. Oh, yes. That's a truth. That's a good answer for me. My last comment before I hang up is, coalitions are great, but too often when we form coalitions, we don't get any quo for our quid. So if we can make sure that we don't end up giving away everything so that all the members of the coalition benefit except for us. Right. And I think it's a good thing. Thank you very much, Diane, for calling. And in fact, for calling twice. You know, it's very impressive the way you two have reasoned out your existence in different ways and are trying to take control of the definition of identity, which for far too long. Frankly, the African -American community and the artists included allowed that to be decided by someone else. You're recording it in a different way, begun to know. You know the historical context of the writers and journalists and others who have come before you. So it's very impressive. If we're going to go to Line 7 Mark, W -H -Y -Y in Philadelphia. Yeah, that's right. I have a question for you, please. It's a great topic, and I'd like to read the books. And

you're talking about, you know, different groups immigrating to America. Now, hello? Yes. Oh, great. We're here. We're here. Okay. Well, on the thing is, I lived as a teenager in China and Japan, and I'm a white guy. And it was amazing to hear them talk about Americans as only being white. Right. And Blacks were just something else. And I gave up a job at an English teaching school, even, because an African -American went to apply for a job. And they didn't want to give it to her, because of course she doesn't speak English. So I said, have her work, and I was kind of disgusted by that. And it's outgoing back to America now, and having many first generations treat me strangely, don't like seeing their language coming out of my face. And then, a lot of Hispanics, too, they want her to have right to speak Spanish, but if I'm not one of the group, I'm not really welcome. Or they go, oh, you speak Spanish, wow. And I just wanted to know, do any of you have any ideas of us

growing as an immigrant nation, having something like more sensitivity brought on to people? I like somebody made the comment earlier about immigrants coming here and trying to be what they would call white, but there are a lot of things I could learn from Blacks and Asians and everybody. And I'd like to, but with the capitalization of different groups and everything, do you have any ideas of people getting together more to learn about the other groups instead of segregating themselves? Thank you, Mark. Sure. For I? Well, I'll be brief, and I'm sure Danji has some words on it. I was just giving a book speech yesterday, and I talked about how we all need a home base. And for me, you know, the home base is the Black community because I'm Black, but we also, you know, in the same way that we don't go into our houses and never leave, we also shouldn't go into our communities and never leave. So we should feel free to partake of other cultures. I mean, I live a 15 -minute walk from Chinatown. I enjoy going there. I enjoy the fact that it is a different culture than my neighborhood. And I think that we also need to be open to people who want to participate in our culture.

And it's very difficult because the reality of the matter is that sometimes people are going to say things that you find offensive. I certainly, I have a lot of friends of different races. And in most cases, there have been times when somebody said something, I was like, what are you talking about? But because we had a relationship, we were able to discuss it and hammer things out. That's sometimes harder than just sticking to your own kind, whatever your own kind is, because then you don't have those kind of beef. But I think ultimately, it's much more rewarding to be able to cross cultural lines, but it takes a little bit of work. Well, I think the sensitivity training that he's talking about, you both are doing what you can do. Danzy, what do you think? Well, I mean, I thought he raised a really good point. And what it points to is how we've all become very sort of chauvinist about our group and our issue. And I had a friend of mine who worked with me in an office, a white guy, who, you know, everybody sees me as the ultimate spy, because I wouldn't be kind of in the

white world, and they don't know I'm black, and they say things around me, and I get to go and tell all my friends all the racist things. Yeah, birdie, right? But I mean, I had a white friend of mine say to me, oh, I was at a dinner party last night, and it was all white, and they started making these comments, and these racist comments, I wish you had been there. That's essentially something. And my feeling was, wait a minute, but you were there, and you were offended by the comment, why couldn't you say something? And I think all of us think, oh, you know, if the comment doesn't apply to me and my group, then it's not really my place to say something, or I don't really need to. And, you know, I have to sometimes, I find myself speaking up and saying all black group if the conversation is homophobic or, you know, I mean, these are, I think we all have to stop thinking of ourselves as representatives, and all we, that's our only job is to represent our group. Well, for a ride, the year 2050 seems to hold a particular, either charm or dread, according to who you talk to. We talked to Octavia Butler in our first hour, and she talked about some possible things. Oh, I love her work.

What are your thoughts about this balance of the different sorts of power in this future, super diverse America? Well, first of all, I mean, right now America is about 25 % Latino black Asian Native American. The US Senate is 95 % white, the Fortune 500 corporate heads are 95 % white. So there's a much more severe segregation of power in America than the numbers of, you know, different groups would suggest. So that's the biggest challenge we face, you know, how to overcome the fact that power is held in the hands of some groups and not others. And it's going to take some work, it's going to take really revamping the education system. It's going to take, I think, a continuation of affirmative action. And my book has a very long, very reasoned argument why affirmative action is not some form of privilege, prejudice, so on, so on, you know. So we have to sort of look towards providing opportunity in order to address this imbalance of power. Well, it was my suspicion that if we got you two together, things

would never be the same. And looking at our phone bank, they are not. We have to go right back to the phones. We're going to go to Jonathan WHY and Philadelphia. Even in brother and even since this is how you're doing. All right, Jonathan. All right. Listen, I wanted to ask this question. Do you all think that the national dialogue or race is a distraction? Well, conservative forces are busy taking away the legislative gains that we made since the 60s. You know, California is doing its thing with the propositions. You usually what happens in California starts to move across the country. So I think that it's a distraction. You know, just like the whole Monica Lewinsky thing, it's just a distraction put out there in the public. I haven't really noticed the dialogue. I know there was supposed to be one, but I haven't really heard about it since then. I don't think you hear it around different things like the OJ Simpson case, so some African brothers thought to buy police. And it sparks, you know, corporate settings where I've been in. But I mean on a national tip, it doesn't seem

like there is no teeth to this dialogue. Even with your books, I think that they're wonderful. But it seems like a lot of times we end up preaching to the choir. Well, I don't know Jonathan. I think you're giving short shrills to these books. I really think you got to examine these books. I've not really seen anything like this. And we've got to go to Baltimore just for you for a ride. Of course, we're going to Christopher. Christopher? Yes. Are you there? Hello. I'm good to meet you. Yeah, first of all, speaking of tag of words, right? I think you need to do more research concerning genetics. In China, there was a group of people who had, in fact, the first people called Nike, which means black, your first emperor in China, food for shame. Christopher, we're going to put you on hold and come back to you after the break. This is Ralph Wiley and PowerPoint. We're talking to Danzie Sinna and Farai Chidea. You can join us 1 -800 -989

-8255. Stay tuned. Here's what's coming your way next week on PowerPoint. On Valentine's Day, romantic hearts are fine -tuned by candlelight, champagne, and roses. But what's the real deal on love in romance? Somebody tell me. Join us next time on PowerPoint when we focus on romantic love that most profound of all human relationships. All that in PowerPoint news with Verna Avery Brown. Join us. Music Peace and blessings, brothers and sisters. This is Dick Gregory, urging you to

support public radio and to keep listening to PowerPoint for the first word on issues and ideas that affect you, the nation, and the world. God bless. This is PowerPoint, Dick. Thanks for the mention. I'm Ralph Wiley. We're talking to journalists Farai Chidea and novelist Danzie Sinna. I'd like to ask you both, who are you in the tradition of? In your estimation? Hmm. Farai? Oh, dear. I've put me on the spot. You know, I don't pretend to be on the level of any of the writers I admire. But some people who I admire are Jonathan Kozole, who's written books like Savage and Equality's. Really documenting, you know, issues of pressing importance. Lauren Bennett Jr., who just has really documented black history, Ronald Takaki, who writes about the history of different groups in American society. He has a great book called

A Different Mirror. And of course, Lauren Bennett's best known book is Before the Mayflower, A History of Black America. So, you know, there's many people who I admire. I don't, you know, I don't want to put myself in their category, but there's... All the better. All the better, Farai. What about you, Danzie? Well, I mean, I did study the sort of literature of passing when I was in college. And I was fascinated with the whole Harlem Renaissance, Nella Larson, James Weldon Johnson. I loved Falkner and James Baldwin and Tony Morrison. So, I mean, these are the people who've inspired me. And like Farai, I'm sort of awed by them and don't purport to have reached their level. Well, as it should be, give it a few years. Now, we're going to go back to Baltimore to Christopher, who I think is of the school of thought of Dr. Francis Cress Welcing. I always want to put her in a vampire movie, you know, Jason's Dr. Cress Welcing. We're going to go back to Christopher and let him perform the role of Dr. Welcing. Christopher. Actually, I'm talking about Professor Diop, really, and

Dr. Charles French. I understand. And, you know, I just like to say that UNESCO, they have agreed that all of the mutation processes come out of the dominant gene coming out of the black woman. So, when we say that we are multi -racial, really actually we're wrong. Because there's only one race, that's the black race, coming from out of Kim and coming from out of Africa. And then you have a mutation. Now, if you believe in an ice age or you believe in a form of leprosy or a form of albinoism, then it's up to you, you know, according to your religion or whatever. Well, it might be kinder, Christopher, to say we're of the human race, which started in Africa. We started in Africa. Well, I also do want to point out, though. I mean, I'm the kind of person who definitely believes that we all come from a common genetic source, and that was in Africa. But, you know, to talk about one group as a mutation implies that there is some absolute standard. Like I said, you know, there are the coissons who are a tribe in Africa, who, you know, most

people call Bushmen or pigmies. They're itty bitty, teeny tiny. And then there's the Messiah. I mean, who's the mutation? I mean, you can go to Africa. I mean, you have a million down a little too. Well, like close to sort of Hitler. Yeah, I think that who doesn't have to choose our concepts wisely. Well, this is at least give, you know, especially the black people. I mean, these are professional people, right? With degrees. You know, we can just sit up and guess on this stuff. But like I said before, deep professor Diop and Dr. Diabango, they went to UNESCO and they proved that the black man is now in the first man, but also the last man. So, you know, that means that we can guess. But let's deal with science now and deal with facts. Every child that's born into the world is born with straight hair until, until the DNA takes over and remembers the climate, the mutation process. So, to say, for Tagglewood, to say, well, I'm black and I'm Chinese, yes, he has a Chinese

culture. But actually, really, Chinese people started out as black people. Like I said before, not key means black man. That's your first Chinese and you have food for she. I mean, people just have to do more research. We have to give more credit to not only more radical whites that were writing at that time before blacks could afford to write about these things. And I'll black professors and archaeologists that we have today. And we will not take anything away from them, Christopher, believe me. And we're going to go to Eric at WHYWIDE Philadelphia. Hi, Eric, how are you? I'm okay, how are you? Good. Mike, question is. Quickly, please, Eric, quickly. I've heard this discussion of the demographic trends for a little while and it seems there's another trend that might very much alter the meaning of the demographic trends, which is that we have a very rapidly increasing rate of incarceration, and a rapid trend toward disenfranchising those who have been through the criminal justice system. And my question is, you think there's a possibility that when those two trends combine the actual effect by year 2050,

it would not be so much that we have a multiracial democracy, but that we have a de facto minority rule apartheid dictatorship. Thank you, Eric. I totally agree. Can we talk about that in my book? I think that at least we're going to pass through that. We're going to pass through rule by the few of the many, and the few being whites and the many being non -whites. And we need to make that just a brief pit stop on the way to more equality, but I do fear for it. And I think that's why we also need to talk about class a lot more than we have been, and how the prison system is used to control poor people, and particularly poor black men. But class is something that's been left out of a lot of the celebration of diversity. And I think there's a reason it's been left out, because it's a dangerous discussion. Mm -hmm. Fascinating. Well, we would have loved to have gotten in Alfrida in Philadelphia, W -H -Y -Y. She wanted to be sure that we need to be aware of police brutality on Africans and African -Americans, and well,

we should. But we've been talking with Nancy Sina and Farai Chadea, the authors of Caucasia and the color of our future. Reading them both was like hearing Lauren Hill and Roberta Flax sing different songs at the same time about the same thing, or like Coltrane, unless they're young at once. Well, all of these analogies are too loose fitting or not. Farai and Nancy reflect the shape of things to come, and we need to pay attention to them, and of course, we'll do that. Thank you very much for being with us on PowerPoint. Thanks a lot. Thank you. Congratulations. To order audio cassette tapes of tonight's program, or any past edition of PowerPoint, please call PowerPoint at 1 -888 -682 -6500. That's 1 -888 -682 -6500. PowerPoint was written and produced by Tony Regusters and directed by Tom Woodward. Associate producers for PowerPoint include

Eric Lewis and Tony LaStrap. PowerPoint news is produced and anchored by Verna Avery Brown. PowerPoint's NPR technical director is Neil Tevald. Assistant producers include K. Marshall and Rashida Johnson. Legal services for PowerPoint are provided by Theodore Brown. PowerPoint's theme is from the CD -F stops by Craig Harris. The executive producers for PowerPoint are Reggie Hicks and Tony Regusters. PowerPoint, produced in Washington, D .C. is a production of Hicks and Associates of Atlanta, Georgia. For PowerPoint, this is your announcer, Candy Shannon, saying thanks for listening. PowerPoint is made possible by a grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting's Radio Program Fund. This is PowerPoint, a production of Hicks and Associates.