Daniel Black, BLACK ON BLACK: On Our Resilience and Brilliance in America
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[1:03]Daniel Black is the author of Black on Black on our resilience and brilliance in America.
[1:09]And you might not expect it given the heaviness of the topic.
[1:12]But we had a lot of laughs in this conversation.
[1:16]Daniel is an author and professor of African American studies at Clark Atlanta University.
[1:20]His books include The Coming, Perfect Peace, and They Tell Me of A Home.
[1:24]He is the winner of the Distinguished Writer Award from the Mid-Atlantic Writers Association.
[1:28]And has been nominated for the Towns and Pries for Fiction, the Ernest J. Gaines Award,
[1:32]and the Georgia Author of the Year Award.
[1:34]He's also the author of Don't Cry for Me, which we talked about on this podcast another
[1:38]time.
[1:39]He was raised in Blackwell, Arkansas, and lives in Atlanta, Georgia.
[1:42]Welcome, Daniel.
[1:43]Thank you so much for coming back for a second time on Mom's Don't Have Time to Read
[1:46]Books.
[1:47]This time to discuss Black on Black on our resilience in brilliance in America.
[1:51]Or maybe I should say Black on Black like five times because that's what it's like.
[1:55]It's actually called Black on Black Black on Black Black on Black Black on Black Black Black.
[1:58]That's right.
[1:59]Black on Black on Black on Black on Black on Black on Black.
[2:01]Oh, okay.
[2:02]All right.
[2:03]Anyway, welcome.
[2:05]I'm glad to be here.
[2:06]Thank you, Zippy, for having me so honored.
[2:08]Your last book was a really tender, beautiful novel to Encribe for Me, which we discussed.
[2:14]And now you're back with a very personal, very raw and open and almost painful and yet
[2:23]hopeful, all mixed into one collection of thoughts and feelings and essays and all of
[2:29]that.
[2:30]Tell me a little bit about when you decided to write this, why you decided to write this,
[2:35]how it came to be and kind of what you want readers to take away.
[2:40]Well, Zippy, I think there are two reasons I decided to write this as a collection.
[2:45]One of those was when everything was happening with George Floyd, I just got to the place
[2:51]where I said, at some point, at some point, enough has to be enough, something just
[2:59]has to give.
[3:00]I said, you know, we just cannot keep burying Black men over and over and over and saying,
[3:06]oh my God, this is bad, oh my God, this is bad, oh my God, how awful, oh isn't this terrible,
[3:11]isn't this, oh, you know, at some point, we have to stop this.
[3:17]I decided that I wanted to say some things very directly to America and that's why I decided
[3:24]I wanted to write this book because if the pen is in fact as powerful as the sword,
[3:29]which I believe it is, then at this point, I'm literally fighting for the life of Black
[3:35]men.
[3:36]I'm a Black man.
[3:37]So, you know, I just decided I needed to speak to America, unfiltered.
[3:43]I love it.
[3:44]You started out with a really powerful introduction, which I would love to read a little
[3:49]bit of.
[3:51]And then you go into, you know, we can talk about some of the themes that you went into
[3:56]everything from your own sexuality and how you sort of owned that over time and the role
[4:03]of the church and how you feel about prayer and what the church can do and so much.
[4:09]But you basically set the stage for us and all of your experiences with this introduction,
[4:15]which you call a sermon, which feels like you could be standing up.
[4:19]I'm not going to do this.
[4:21]Maybe I shouldn't even read it, maybe you should be reading it, but I'm going to give it
[4:24]my best shot as a white woman here in New York City, you know, reading your sermon.
[4:30]But anyway, do with this what you will.
[4:31]I write because I believed I was ugly.
[4:34]Then I wrote myself into beauty, I write because I hated who I was, then God told me
[4:38]I was divine and shame had no place in a divine soul in exchange.
[4:42]I promised God to tell the truth, the real naked glorious truth that we are all gods made
[4:46]in the image of a perfect marvelous creator.
[4:48]I'm going to jump around a little bit, but I promise to tell that God is not concerned
[4:53]with flesh and blood, but with spiritual ecstasy shared between the living and the ought to
[4:57]be living.
[4:58]So with pen and paper, I said about the duty of setting the world free.
[5:01]I write because we rape.
[5:03]I write because we hurt.
[5:05]I write because some pain can't be described.
[5:08]It can only be felt in the marrow of a story or the lyrics of a song.
[5:13]I write for the boy who wanted to be a man, but couldn't figure out how, but the girl
[5:17]who dreamed of beauty, but inherited brilliance instead.
[5:21]I write that they might not give up the fight, that they might know that failure is in
[5:25]others eyes, not their being.
[5:27]It is in others judgmental hearts, not their sacred difference.
[5:30]I write that they might live, that their stories might be holy and sacred, read by others,
[5:36]standing at the cliff, weeping, trembling.
[5:39]I write to soothe wounds too deep to hate to heal.
[5:43]And then you, I'm just going to jump around.
[5:45]I write that troubled black youth might happen to past a mirror and dance at what they see.
[5:50]I write that elders might know their lives were not in vain.
[5:53]I write to tell gay brothers they're straight to to shed light on the power of love and
[5:57]everyone's right to have it.
[6:00]I write to give readers permission to take it back to tell the world to kiss your ass
[6:04]as if it thinks you're going to die to satisfy other people's outdated and equated beliefs.
[6:09]So I write and I'm going to write until the wind out sings my pen.
[6:13]If there's no paper, I shall use the wall.
[6:17]If there is no wall, I shall use my hand.
[6:20]If I must relinquish my hand, I shall use the very earth upon which we stand and scratch
[6:25]into the dust, the sentiments of liberty.
[6:28]And then you go on and then at the end, you say, then we'll rise like the sun and comfort
[6:33]like an evening breeze and satisfied like a shading tree and be finally whatever God is.
[6:38]This is why I write all you have to do is read.
[6:43]Oh my gosh, wow, powerful, powerful.
[6:46]I feel like if you were reading this and I was sitting there, I would be crying is how
[6:50]I feel.
[6:51]So anyway, I did not do a justice.
[6:56]How do you even, how do you feel like with all of this stirring up and like, you know,
[7:02]your siren call for everybody to basically wake up and pay attention?
[7:06]Like what is that?
[7:07]How it's so emotional.
[7:10]It is emotional and it's exhilarating.
[7:11]I must admit, it's exhilarating.
[7:13]You know, see, I had no notion that this book would kind of come out of the gate,
[7:19]sprinting the way it's doing right now and I'm so humbled.
[7:21]I'm so excited.
[7:23]I'm so thrilled.
[7:25]And very much like you, everyone who's read it thus far has, I mean, I get hundreds
[7:29]of emails every day now.
[7:31]Oh my God, this book was so raw.
[7:32]Everyone used the word raw, interestingly enough, like, I've seen raw 30 times.
[7:37]Sorry, I'll come up with another one.
[7:39]No, no, no, no.
[7:40]In fact, it's a confirmation of something I think, which is really wonderful and folks seem
[7:46]to really love the honesty of this book, the vulnerability of it, you know, and that's
[7:52]what I want to invite all of us into a kind of vulnerability, where we stand in our
[7:57]truth, unashamed.
[7:59]And that's what I'm praying this book will do.
[8:01]And I read from it practically every day now, sometimes two and three times a day because
[8:06]you know how that goes and always are people always ask, oh my God, you got to read
[8:11]from that first essay, you must read from that first essay and I do and you're right,
[8:15]I probably sound different from you really is.
[8:17]You sound a lot better.
[8:18]I'm sure I shouldn't have just had you.
[8:20]I shouldn't have asked you to read, but no, no, it's fine.
[8:22]In fact, I kind of liked it in your voice because then, you know, because I've never
[8:25]heard it.
[8:26]So this is great, but it really is exhilarating and really what's I think most fantastic
[8:34]is the number of people who are reading it of all races, all creeds, all genders.
[8:40]It's just been fantastic to get the kind of adulation and praise from segments of the
[8:47]entirety of society.
[8:49]That's been a beautiful thing.
[8:50]Wow.
[8:51]Well, I think when we bear our most elemental parts of our nature, it enables everyone
[9:00]because underneath at all, there are so many of the same thoughts and feelings and when
[9:05]we strip everything else and let the inside show, then we have, we all recognize each other.
[9:10]Right.
[9:11]That's right.
[9:12]Tell me a little bit, you made a little joke.
[9:15]You were like, there was no being in the closet for me as I was like in middle grade singing
[9:18]and dancing and doing my thing and, you know, that it was always somewhat obvious.
[9:22]And even when you think back to parts of the time when you were like, you know, smoking
[9:29]weed and trying to be all quote unquote masculine and getting some praise for that, you realize
[9:33]like, well, this is like square peg ground hole type of thing.
[9:36]Tell me a little bit about coming into your own identity and your own sexuality in addition
[9:40]to race.
[9:41]So, sure, sure.
[9:43]You know, that essay about the closet was one of the most difficult to write.
[9:48]Not so much for the personal, but because I know that the closet is really a very complicated
[9:53]space.
[9:54]Right.
[9:55]And I know, and some people quite frankly are in the closet at for safety, right?
[10:00]in terms of the other ways of which others and our society deal with people who are different
[10:04]especially in terms of sexuality.
[10:06]But one of the things for me is that I was always, I was always so unbelievably expressive.
[10:13]I was always, always so unbelievably dramatic.
[10:16]I was always unbelievably artistic.
[10:18]I was, you know, I did theater, I did dance, I did poetry, I was the choir director,
[10:23]I played the piano, you know, all of these things that put me squarely in the middle
[10:29]of expression of culture, but that landed me completely outside of anybody's construct
[10:34]of masculinity.
[10:35]Right.
[10:36]Now, you know, when I was 10, 12 in rural Arkansas, I didn't know categories of sexuality.
[10:43]I didn't know terms like heteronormativity.
[10:46]There was no such thing as fluid when we were in the seven, you know, there was no
[10:51]such thing as LGBT, we didn't have any of that.
[10:55]So you were just funny, you know, you know, really, I mean, you know, it's funny
[11:00]how far we've come in terms of terminology and giving a certain kind of level of honor
[11:05]to levels of difference.
[11:06]But at the time, what I knew was that I was quickly evolving into the kind of boy no
[11:11]one wanted.
[11:12]Right.
[11:13]I knew that instinctively.
[11:16]I was very, very, very much aware of that.
[11:20]And people were telling me things, I don't know how explicit I could be here, but people
[11:24]were telling me things about ways I should treat girls and women that seemed so unbelievably
[11:30]abusive to me.
[11:32]And I just didn't want to do that.
[11:33]I, you know, I had a sister to whom I was very, very close.
[11:36]And when I imagined a boy doing that to her, I was like, oh, hell no.
[11:42]I'm not doing that, but it was what boys not only were expected to do encouraged to do.
[11:51]you know, and man would ask me questions about very almost of assaulting kinds of things.
[11:58]Like you've never felt a woman's this or you know, and I was like, wow, what I have
[12:02]done that, you know, and what I realized it be quite frankly is, okay, then if that's
[12:09]what man, man who is, I don't want it, I don't want it.
[12:13]The problem though was I had no other category because I never wanted to be a girl either.
[12:19]I was never, so I was like them, then what the hell am I?
[12:21]What do I get to do?
[12:22]What do I get to be?
[12:23]You know?
[12:24]And so I just kind of had to flounder in the dark and be nothing.
[12:28]And for years and years and years, I did no sexual, anything I had no because I was afraid
[12:34]to be abusive and ugly.
[12:35]And I was afraid.
[12:36]I was against God, you know, the whole thing, the whole thing, I did all that for years
[12:40]until I went to graduate school and learned conceptions and terms and all of that.
[12:44]And so I could construct my own freedom and all of that.
[12:47]And then I realized that even the way I understood my own sexuality was in a very fluid
[12:53]way.
[12:54]I never knew that I had to be only one thing forever and always, you know, that even if
[13:01]I had the thought of having sex with a girl or I had the thought of having sex with the
[13:07]one, you know, it took you out of the other category, you know, I didn't know the categories
[13:11]were completely and absolute, right?
[13:13]And so I began to, I began to think of myself and wonder what it was, what description
[13:22]I could grab a hold of that really explained the complexity of the way I had evolved.
[13:28]I was a reader also, you know, all of these complications.
[13:32]And so very simply, I got to the point by 25 or so when I said, you know, I'm a sexual
[13:38]being.
[13:39]That's what I'm clear about, right?
[13:41]And I'm just going to take the right to be sexual with anyone.
[13:44]I choose to.
[13:45]It doesn't have to be absolute.
[13:46]And yes, I can be sexual with men.
[13:48]And yes, I'm attracted to men all that sure, sure, sure, sure, sure.
[13:51]But there were some women I could imagine having sex with too.
[13:55]And I said, I don't have to erase that.
[13:57]I don't have to erase, you know, that truth in order for me to be clear about myself.
[14:02]And so the beauty, I feel like of that essay is I'm really simply trying to say that
[14:07]the closet is as narrow.
[14:09]The closet is as narrowly conceived.
[14:12]The closet is as problematic as what people understand to be freedom in some instances,
[14:19]right?
[14:20]And other words, in other words, I realized that people in the closet were hiding that
[14:24]freedom wasn't in the closet, right?
[14:27]And I was looking for freedom, right?
[14:29]And if freedom wasn't in the closet, then I don't want it.
[14:32]Then I can't go there.
[14:33]I mean, where do I get to be free?
[14:35]Where can I be by my full self, by full black, you know, fluid, expressive?
[14:42]Where can I be that?
[14:44]And what I realized is that most people in America were saying, you can't be all of that.
[14:50]You got to choose one of them and stick with that, you know?
[14:54]And I was like, well, hell, that's why God is invisible, because God doesn't believe
[14:57]in this bullshit we doing, you know?
[15:01]And so this is how my thinking began and quite frankly, I just got to the place where
[15:06]I decided that to write this essay collection, I was going to stand in my fullest authenticity
[15:13]and whoever could handle it, could stand with me and those who could not let you live
[15:18]in your limitation.
[15:19]Okay.
[15:20]I'm here.
[15:21]I'm standing.
[15:22]We're talking.
[15:23]We're talking.
[15:24]We're talking.
[15:25]We're talking.
[15:27]Bring it on.
[15:29]I can take it.
[15:31]Well, let's talk about God for a little bit because you do have a whole essay on the role
[15:37]of the church and how you view that and what they shouldn't do.
[15:40]So talk a little bit about that and your relationship with God now.
[15:44]Absolutely.
[15:45]God and I are best, best, best.
[15:47]God and my holy God.
[15:52]God, listen, God is God is my being.
[15:57]And I will say that, you know, I grew up in the church.
[16:00]I've always, always, always loved church.
[16:02]I've generally hated the theology of the church, but I love the culture of the church.
[16:10]Black church music is going to be hard to beat.
[16:12]It's going to be hard to beat black church music.
[16:15]It's going to be hard to beat black church ritual.
[16:18]Right?
[16:19]There's a way that black people, Zibi, do ritual when we go to church in terms of rhythm,
[16:24]in terms of cadence.
[16:25]In terms, I mean, you know, you, you've certainly experienced it.
[16:27]That it's authentically a part of what African's brought to this country called America.
[16:32]Right?
[16:33]And that is something I will absolutely never, ever, ever, ever, ever relinquish.
[16:38]I also love the black church for the role to play the civil rights movement.
[16:42]There is no civil rights movement without the black church.
[16:45]For those reasons, I hold onto the black church.
[16:48]My biggest thing is I want us to get rid of this debilitating theology.
[16:52]I want us to get rid of this theology that tells us to hate ourselves, that tells us that
[16:58]the gay people are going to hell, that tells men that they should govern women, that a man
[17:04]as a woman's head and all of this.
[17:06]Like, I think all of these are impressive notes.
[17:08]Even this, this thing, the Bible slaves obey your masters.
[17:11]What?
[17:12]I'm sorry to laugh.
[17:16]You said, I just want to say it for people listening.
[17:20]Daniel, he's, like, coming really closer to the camera and being like, what?
[17:26]And all of a sudden his face is like in my office.
[17:28]You know?
[17:29]And then you have to forgive me, because if you think about it, what God would say that?
[17:36]Yes.
[17:37]Would tell us, you know, and I think of, of course, you know, I have a PhD in African studies
[17:41]and so Black said, I studied this, this, you would tell my ancestors, they should have obeyed
[17:46]those people in that system.
[17:49]No way, no way, no way, which means then I'm questioning the authenticity of this book
[17:55]called, and I am, I am, I absolutely am.
[17:59]But that is against Christianity's religion and quite frankly, Zippy, that's against my
[18:04]own people in so many ways, because my own people believe in that book, some of them
[18:09]believe in it without question.
[18:12]And I think that is absolutely problematic.
[18:16]I think it's absolutely problematic.
[18:18]And I think it, I think it counters Black freedom in so many ways, and it's so many instances.
[18:24]And in fact, you know, I'm voting for a Black Bible, quite frankly, I'm voting for a new
[18:27]Bible that somebody, some bold person might have, might have, it guts to write one day.
[18:34]Is that you?
[18:35]Is that you?
[18:36]Is that you?
[18:37]I'm not, I'm not going to say anything else yet, I'm not going to say anything else yet.
[18:40]Zippy, but I'm telling you, if the day is coming, very, very soon, you and I will meet
[18:48]again.
[18:49]So you're secretly rewriting the Bible, that is big stuff.
[18:53]Huge, it's huge, it's huge, it's absolutely huge, but the truth of matter is it's long
[18:59]overdue, because I was really saying is, if you can speak for God, I can too.
[19:06]You can't, nobody can own God, you can't own God's thoughts, you can't own God's voice.
[19:12]No person can, no people can, and listen, human beings wrote the Bible as we know it.
[19:16]It was not God, human beings wrote that, human beings wrote, and I'm not mad about that,
[19:23]but human beings can write something else also.
[19:26]Hmm.
[19:27]Well, I can't wait to discuss that.
[19:29]Now that's an interest, I mean, not that this is not an interesting project, that is
[19:32]like a biblical scale.
[19:34]Yeah, it is, it is, you're against, but that's why I wrote Black on Black, right?
[19:40]The point of Black on Black is in many instances to trouble the waters, human here in America,
[19:46]to stir, if you will, what we think of as the comfort of oppression, right?
[19:52]To disrupt ways in which we are okay with, with each other's bondage, and I'm
[20:00]praying that this book will in fact do that work.
[20:02]Wow, oh my goodness.
[20:04]Tell me one story from your tour so far.
[20:06]I know it's still early days,
[20:08]but one connection you've made,
[20:10]some conversation you've had
[20:12]since the book is, since someone's read the book,
[20:15]that's just, you know that's yet.
[20:16]It's so many, and the book has only been out
[20:18]like two couple of weeks now,
[20:20]but just the most amazing stories.
[20:22]Probably the most poignant one was,
[20:24]I went on campus, you know,
[20:24]I teach at a black college,
[20:26]Clark Atlanta University.
[20:27]I was on campus maybe a week ago.
[20:29]And a young man approached me and said,
[20:31]hey, talk to black, talk to black.
[20:32]I got your book.
[20:33]I said, hey, son, thank you, thank you.
[20:35]He said, hey, listen, I actually read the whole thing.
[20:38]And I was like, oh my God, I'm so appreciative.
[20:40]And he said, I have to tell you something, Dr. Black.
[20:43]And I said, okay.
[20:45]He said, I never knew that like,
[20:48]and he answered it and I said, son, just say it.
[20:50]He said, I really didn't ever cross my mind
[20:54]that black people could actually write something
[20:59]something God said.
[21:01]I said, wow, he said, I just didn't know
[21:05]that like you could write something
[21:08]and like say that God said it.
[21:12]I said, I don't even think we got a thing called a Bible.
[21:14]It was not God's hand that came down from the sky
[21:17]and wrote on these pages.
[21:19]What are you talking about?
[21:20]Somebody, he said, yeah, but they weren't black.
[21:22]I was like, oh, was he not that was he black?
[21:27]Yes, yes.
[21:30]I said, oh, I said, son, I said, then I'm so glad.
[21:34]I'm so glad you've read black on black
[21:37]because the question of spiritual authority
[21:39]and who gets to construct that authority.
[21:42]You absolutely need to know that that is a human question.
[21:46]And the truth of the matter is every culture on the planet
[21:50]has said what God said.
[21:51]Native Americans have a notion of what God said.
[21:54]Jews have a notion of what God said.
[21:57]Europeans have a notion of what God said.
[21:58]Africans have a notion of what God said.
[22:01]And it can't be more or less legitimate
[22:04]based upon people's preference of people.
[22:08]One has to really understand that everybody
[22:11]gets to construct God because God is a construct.
[22:14]God is not really a person.
[22:15]God is a construct.
[22:17]But that doesn't mean God is not real.
[22:19]It just means that we're applying the name
[22:20]and the idea to do this thing, this entity.
[22:24]And so we had the most amazing conversation.
[22:27]And I just saw in his eyes, zippy, this enlightenment.
[22:31]Like I do get to participate.
[22:34]And it was just the most remarkable thing.
[22:37]My gosh, look at you.
[22:39]Don't around, change in lies.
[22:40]Well, listen, I'm certainly trying.
[22:42]Ha, ha, ha.
[22:43]Daniel, now I feel bad calling you Daniel.
[22:45]Dr. Black, thank you so much.
[22:47]Oh, thank you so much.
[22:48]Thank you so much for sharing all of this
[22:51]in your book with listeners.
[22:53]I mean, this is, I don't want to use the word raw again
[22:57]because, you know, I hate to be.
[22:59]No, please, you know, reductive or whatever.
[23:02]But I really think it's just so,
[23:05]let's see another word aside from raw, so true,
[23:08]so unfiltered and so passionate all at the same time.
[23:14]And that is a really great combination for a book.
[23:19]And so I will be watching you soar and congratulations.
[23:23]I appreciate it.
[23:24]Thank you for having me and to all the viewers
[23:26]and all the listeners.
[23:27]I'm so, so humbled to be included in this space.
[23:31]It is, it's just a sacred space and it feels so safe.
[23:34]And Zibi, I thank you for this creation.
[23:36]Thank you so much.
[23:38]All right.
[23:39]Okay.
[23:40]Next time, the Bible.
[23:41]Oh, yeah.
[23:42]Yes.
[23:43]All right.
[23:44]Thank you.
[23:46]Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms.
[23:48]Don't have time to read books.
[23:50]Don't forget to follow me on Instagram at Zibi Owens
[23:53]and at Moms.
[23:54]Don't have time to read books.
[23:55]Also sign up for my newsletter at Zibi Owens.com
[23:57]and sign up for my virtual book club
[23:59]and meet lots of authors on Zoom every other week.
[24:02]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan.
[24:03]Heck, texture sound for the sound editing.
[24:06]And thank you to Morning Moon Productions
[24:07]for providing this fantastic intro and outro music.