"JAMES BALDWIN TELLS US ALL HOW TO COOL IT THIS SUMMER"

"It's a very serious question in my mind whether or not the people of this country, the bulk of population of this country, have enough sense of what is really happening to their black co-citizens to understand why they're in the streets. I know of this moment they maybe don't know it, and this is proved by the reaction to the civil disorders. It came as no revelation to me or to any other black cat that white racism is at the bottom of the civil disorders. It came as a great shock apparently to a great many other people, including the President of the United States. And now you ask me if we can cool it."

http://www.esquire.com/features/james-baldwin-cool-it

Ahh #JamesBaldwin, such a major gap in my education. All of this interview is amazing - The piece on the definition of looting.

It's a little scary how many of these things can be said so many times and we don't internalize them. It's like, how do we hear - or maybe, what are we supposed to do after we hear that we aren't doing?

This - "the American Republic has created a surplus population. You know it's created not only people who are unemployable but who no longer wish to be employed in this system...

You can't talk about job programs unless you're willing to talk about what is really holding the structure together" - is a super interesting problem. How to exist in America when you don't want to be part of our capitalism?

And - "I'm not sure that you should be asking me these questions at all. But I'll do my best to answer them." so many people should be saying this so much more often.