Ep 61: Does April hate America?

In this week’s episode, April and Tracie unpack the false assumption that some folks have expressed--that April “hates America” since she has chosen to relocate out of the States, and to West Africa, no less. This question leads April and Tracie to think about the hierarchies and racism built into conventional assessments of different cultures both within and outside of America.

Check out our discussion/reflection questions for this episode:  https://joyousjustice.com/blog/jews-talk-racial-justice-ep-61 

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about Joyous Justice where April is the founding and fabulous (!) director, and Tracie is a senior partner.: https://joyousjustice.com/

Read more of Tracie's thoughts at her blog, bmoreincremental.com

Read Tracie’s initial reflections on D. Watkins: https://www.bmoreincremental.com/post/2017/03/14/stoop-stories-too-poor-for-pop-culture

And a return to his work more recently: https://www.bmoreincremental.com/post/representation-matters-what-d-watkins-helped-me-understand-about-museums

D. Watkins’ memoir identifies Sister Souljah’s book The Coldest Winter Ever as what set him on his path as a writer and teacher. Learn more about the book: https://bookshop.org/books/the-coldest-winter-ever/9780743270106

Transcript

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- [Tracie] When April heard that some folks had been asking a family member whether or not she hates America, it led us to a conversation about American exceptionalism, racism, and limited imaginations.- [April] This is Jews Talk Racial Justice with April and Tracie.- [Tracie] A weekly show hosted by April Baskin and Tracie Guy-Decker.- [April] In a complex world, change takes courage.- [Tracie] Wholehearted relationships can keep us accountable.- Hi, Tracie.- Hey there, April, it's great to see you.- Good to see you too. Are you ready for us to do another episode?- Always ready to talk to you April.- Aw, I feel similarly, Tracie Guy-Decker. So, I raised this with you last week. So I was recently talking to someone close to me who has a lot of connections back home in the states. And they shared that various people, and I haven't circled back to this person to say like, do the people, do these people have things in common, or are they part of a similar network? But this person shared with me that a number of people have asked them, as it related to my transitioning to Senegal, if I hate America. And I was really taken aback by this question. And then as I thought about it more, it just opened up into this whole thing. that I'd love to dissect and unpack and somewhat lovingly obliterate with you in our conversation today. I mean, I'll just tell you my first gut reaction was just immense resistance, since spiritually, mystically, I think it's very toxic to have a primary orientation around hate with anything significant in my life. And I'm certainly not propelled by hate in any area of my life that I am aware, like that literally is antithetical to the essence of my entire orientation, spiritually and practically, to this world. I mean, like, even like the organization and work that houses this podcast is called Joyous Justice.- Right, right.- For a reason, like it's so central. And so to me initially, it was just a very personal, I had a scrunchy face. So the very first response was like, huh, that doesn't make, that's not me. Like what, it just didn't-- Yeah.- Whatever kind of peg it was, didn't fit in the hole that I am. It didn't match, the puzzle pieces didn't connect. And then the initial thought was, on a personal level, everything I just said, it doesn't fit. And then, as it sunk in, later on in the evening, post this conversation, I started thinking about it through my sociological lens and shared it a little bit with you. And that's really what we wanted to unpack here. It's less about the specifics of me and more about, to me what that statement, and I don't fully know for certain, but to me, what it indicates about the perspective about the person around a range of different things, that would be the foundation of such a thought or a similar question even coming to the surface because that's not on the radar for me. So I wanted to take some time to dive into this.- When you first told me about this conversation that you had had one of the things that came up for me is that I have a relative by marriage who lives abroad and has for a decade, I guess. And whenever I tell people that this person lives abroad, not once have I received that question, you know, does he hate America? It just doesn't occur to people. But, and so then when we started talking, it occurred to me that the way that Americans, the way that Americans who choose to live abroad are often called ex-pats, ex-patriots, as opposed to immigrants, right? It's a similar nomenclature around the identity of the person in question. So, you know, my white relative, versus you as a woman of color, the idea that there would be some sort of, that you're an angry black woman and that's why you no longer live.- That's one of the things here that immediately comes up to me. And the, so I'm just gonna list off a bunch of different things that came to mind after I had my initial response of, the word in Wolof that I just learned today in my Wolof lesson is duma. Like, I am not, like I am not hateful.- That's what duma means?- Yeah, like I am not around identity. Like I am not an angry person. Like what? And quite the opposite, that everything I do is rooted in love. So here's all the different things that come to my mind. Similar to what you said, it makes me want... So to me, there's all types of racial bias potentially involved in that, around definitely an obvious one, as you mentioned, the angry black woman trope. There's also, it's so flattens, right? Like, when I think of why I moved to Senegal, I think about being completely driven by love and a dream, and my desires for collective liberation and all the things that I have to learn here. I'm just gonna hop around. I wanted to try, often I have this struggle between wanting to organize my thoughts and make them tidy and linear. And then it's just easier if I just go with however it's coming up in my head. So to me, definitely part of this is also about racism or bias, and or bias about Africa. As you said, I think, as you mentioned when I first brought this up with you last week, as I was initially processing it, I think if I were a white woman living in, you said, you know, I think if you were a white woman living in Sweden or in Paris or something, the response would be,"Oh, wow, how adventurous!" Wow, she must be living her dream.- She's so brave.- It's wonderful, right? So there's a way in which, to me potentially the statement implies that, in order to move to the quote unquote, which is not how I see it, dark continent, you must have such an... In order to leave the empire, in order to leave the wonderful country that is America and go to Africa, you know? So to me, so there's something there. As opposed to the way I think of it, which is minus some of potentially problematic dynamics around power and colonialism, but in its best, most pure spiritual form is I think of the concept of Aliyah, of returning to a place of spiritual ascent, to a sacred homeland. I think of this as an African Aliyah, of me returning, and also the fact that people would say that when I'm a descendant of people who came from this continent. It's just, and I think it's funny. And I'm curious if some of the people who said this were Jewish. To me, clearly there's racism involved. And even if it was a person of color who said this, I would classify it as internalized racism if this was the question they asked. And if they're Jewish, I find it extra fascinating, since this is also something that for a number of people, not everyone is aware of this social analysis. This is something, if I'm remembering correctly, that is attributed to antisemitism. When people think that Jews who hold a dual citizenship or who spend time in Israel, hate Amer... it's a similar, problematic sort of thing. And so there's definitely either or thinking involved with this idea around, that it seems also too that they don't seem to see how I could have a multiplicity of love and commitment to multiple locations. Again, related to race, because I think if I were white and it weren't Africa, they could easily go,"Well, Sweden is wonderful," you know, or this place,"Australia is just so fascinating." That's amazing.- Right, right. I'm thinking about layered onto this. So a couple of years ago, before we were working together, I wrote a review of a couple of D Watkins essays, fellow Baltimorean, shout out. And Watkins writes these essays. He is a master code switcher. He can totally navigate predominantly white spaces. And, as I read some of his essays, one of the things that stood out to me, that was important for me to internalize on my learning journey of dismantling the internal racism, was that he can, he has access to white spaces, and could relocate into them and chooses not to, right? D Watkins chooses to remain within the poor black spaces of his upbringing. Like it's very clearly a choice because he prefers them. And I remember reading that from my place of white affluence and being like, but why would you, ooh, right.(April laughing)(indistinct) There's this-- Could you unpack that a little bit, in case, I think some people immediately got that-- Right, yeah, it was pretty quick. Right, so my, as I was reading this, I was like, "Why would you stay, right?" He's telling these stories of, playing cards with folks who don't have smartphones in the, early, mid 2000s. Don't, just cannot relate to the things that he's doing while he's in college and teaching writing. It's just a different world. And in my mind, as I'm reading this, why would you go back there? There was clearly a hierarchy in my mind, whereby the poor black spaces in which D Watkins was raised, were inferior to the more affluent, more educated, traditionally, in the academy, white spaces or predominantly white spaces where he was writing from. And so, the fact that he chose what my brain, what I had been taught from society, was the inferior space, caused cognitive dissonance for me. And it caused me to go back and like reread. But in my opinion, one of Watkins', truly genius moves is that he is able to create, he's able to paint the picture of these people who, his friends, in his world with this brush of just beautiful humanity. He's not sort of sugarcoating anything. He's very clear about where folks are flawed and where they, are fully human. But you really, even as a white affluent person, are able to sort of get past that cultural difference and really fully sympathize with the folks that populate Watkins' world. And so that was, I think for me, essential to my being like, oh right. He prefers it. It's not inherently hierarchical. That's my racism layered onto my assessment of both races?- And classism, right.- Yeah, all those things. Classism and elitism because the white spaces,- And all the message, just generally, all the negative messaging-- All of the hierarchicaL- About-- 'Cause it wasn't-- Started as racist.- Yeah, it wasn't just race.- And just to be clear, is he a mixed race person? It sounds like-- No.- He's white, he's black?- No.- WHat's his identity?- It's my understanding that D is black. He's a black American, both parents black, raised in the poorer parts of Baltimore.- Yeah.- And he tells a story about being in the hospital for something, and a nurse turned him on to a Sister Soulja's book. And that was it, that was it for him. Once he actually was reading something that was written for him-- Yeah.- That he could relate to.- Yeah.- That was from his culture, he never stopped reading after that.- Right.- That's the story that he tells in his memoirs.- I have so many things to say. You mind if I jump in?- Yeah, go ahead.(Tracie laughing)- Okay, right so-- I didn't intend to talk about D Watkins for so long.- No, it's perfect! No, it wasn't that long. So, and that's actually fascinating, right? Because in terms of my trajectory, and again, part of this is me and my leadership and my public leadership. And to me also, I'm especially interested in this, because I think it also relates to a specific way that racism plays out in the ways that regardless of the nuance and vibrance, and specificity that I share, the weight collapsed. The way that my narrative and my depiction gets collapsed into this hyper extreme caricature of perhaps even as something that isn't even part of who I am. So once to the point of, but who I am in part, right? To get into some of that, I also want to talk about that. And to me, what that implies, that someone would even ask that question in light of the fact that I am a multi-racial American individual who has multiple lineages from multiple parts of this country, who is a descendant of Native Americans, right? I have Cherokee, Chickasaw and Choctaw heritage. The land of America, particularly in the East and Southeast of America is my indigenous homeland.(April laughing) Not to mention, I want to add on three more layers to this at least, or at least two more layers, right? My African ancestors were stolen from Africa, and brought to the indigenous lands of my native ancestors and were quintessentially a part of building the entire infrastructure of what this country is today. I feel so, both different from a lot of people and fundamentally American, that it is laughable that question would be asked.- Right.- It's absolutely absurd. And so out of touch with not only my, but anyone who has indigenous or African heritage I think both, it's totally understandable to be clear throughout all of this, to say that there may be people who hate America. My major thing here is not specifically that in and of itself is an awful thing or undesirable. My big thing is as someone who is so openhearted about who I am and what I stand for, the fact that somebody would think something that is so profoundly not aligned with that.- They so clearly aren't seeing you. I mean, you have been, as you just said, you've been totally collapsed into actually into a pat trope saying,"America, love it or leave it," right? Like that sentence, love it, or leave it, has been weaponized against you in that question.- Right. And it's so oppressive and weird, and it's just, so that's one thing. And then also, as I was, I hadn't even thought about this component of it again, talking about who I am is that if this is someone, and mind you, these may also be like, if I talk to this person who's close to me again. Maybe these are folks who don't know me as well, but I have a feeling, it might be a mixture of different folks in the broader field, as well as folks who may be in more of an inner circle in our worlds is that if they knew who I was, they would know that basically since graduating college, pretty consistently, I've opted to live in poor working class, black community, similar to this author, D you just spoke about, and I feel safe in those communities. I've felt seen. It feels like the wholeness of me can exist, which is actually interestingly, one of the many reasons why I moved to Senegal. I've been thinking about this a lot recently, more so is that it's fascinating to me because I was conditioned to my whole life, and I feel like many Americans are to be so grateful for a number of the luxuries that we have in America. And now that I both have, and don't have some of those luxuries, I'm realizing the superficiality of a lot of them. And part of what drew me to Africa was a more extreme version of what I felt in working class and raised poor black neighborhoods, which is a deep sense of love and interconnectedness and wisdom. There was just everyday life. It was just part of the ethos that when you just bump into somebody in the subway, or have a brief conversation, they'll say something that's happening and then middle drop some profound wisdom that people pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to get in a seminar that is just a part of their living. And that connects me to my ancestors and my family into the fabric and the intensity of love and drive that I felt in my own immediate family, that I didn't find on my elite college campus. But then when I did internships and worked with working class folks, especially, but not exclusively working class folks of color, it felt like home. It felt like my family, it felt like South, even though it was in the Northeast, it felt like a richness and something that could hold me something that had complexity and that new pain greater than the pain I'd known, and could hold my pain and my joy altogether.- I think that's one of the things I think that what you just named is one of the things that Watkins does so beautifully, that allows someone like me who lived a totally different culture growing up. I mean, we grew up not that far from one another, but in totally different cultures. But one of the things that's really impressive is that in the world that Watkins paints, your traumas, the things that have happened to you, or even the mistakes that you've made, don't diminish your humanity. There's no judgment about that person was in prison, or that person sold drugs or that person, whatever. It's just that's the complexity of human life. And when you said like that, you could be fully yourself. That also resonated with this lesson that I learned from Watkins in his essays. Anyway, sorry to interrupt, but I just wanted to-- Yeah, but folks in a number of these communities, particularly in the States, they could hold complexity. At times, people would ask me"What about the antisemitism?" And I was like, I was really embraced as a Jew, but I was like, people were like, oh, that's, they would ask me questions or they'd say,"Oh yeah, I've worked with a number of Jews."That's really cool." It was not, people have all of this bias recordings and narratives that are largely made up at times. But if you were proximate to people, you would find is not the case at all. I like living in neighborhoods, in areas where I know my neighbors. And where there's just a sense of meaning and purpose beyond a pursuit of money. That there's, the word that I thought of, the phrase that I thought of as you were talking earlier, and something you just said was deep love. The love, regardless of different circumstances. And those circumstances need to be addressed. It's not people are given a pass per se, but we're also, it's more likely that I appreciated that it wasn't just me alone, isolated being someone or a rare bird who is seeing people's full humanity consistently that it was, I was in a community where that was the norm.- Yeah.- Where we can hold something, where if something was serious, we would hold that. But we would also hold that this person is likely in a process of recovery and on their own journey, just as much as we are. Yeah, so I think that there were 20 other things that I thought of about this statement, and what it says about the inherent default, and the person, this person close to me thought that perhaps it had to do, they attributed it to the fact that different people think that activists hate America, and to me, even that was weird. I thought maybe it's also just because of someone who's worked to be a change agent and leader in that regard for a long time that I'm intimately familiar with that famous Frederick Douglass quote. But I thought everybody knew that, I thought that was a common thing, that we fight for this country. And we critique elements of this country from a sense of profound love and dedication.- Right, because of it.- Because of it because of it, right? And so, felt so connected to the States, and I've often said, on the podcast on this podcast and other public spaces, I've often said it's actually quite hilarious that I live abroad because I've felt so dedicated to advocating for and being present in fights around domestic advancement and domestic justice that I refused. I patently refused to even consider going abroad in college. And I figured, we live in a world. So I'm glad a number of other students are doing that, But my tushie wants to stay in the places that other people don't find glamorous. I want to go to Dorchester and Roxbury in Boston. I want to go to the places where other people dismiss it. Not everyone, obviously there are range factor, you know? But I want to go to the places, I don't want to go to Botswana. I mean, actually now I do want to go to Botswana, but you want to go to Botswana. But in the purposes of my collegiate education and getting training, I want to learn how to be accountable to my neighbors, and how I can listen to them and what their needs are, and how I can leverage my knowledge, and access to resources and abilities to further their dreams. And I've said this in many different settings. And so it's still to me to this day hilarious, that I of all people,(April chuckles) am now living abroad!(April chuckles) I was like, "I'm not going to do go abroad."I'm going to do AmeriCorps instead," and I'm like,(April chuckles) I'm going to work with a Black Ministerial Alliance of greater Boston. Shout out to that circle, specifically, I almost said rabbi.(April chuckles) Specifically to Reverend David Wright, who's an amazing leader from Boston, and who I adore. And who I still have the privilege of keeping in touch with, maybe I'll send him this episode.(April chuckling)- When you first told me about this. One of the things that came up for me was a friend of mine-- Yes.- Recently posted black woman who is not Jewish, recently posted on Facebook about some travels out to the Western part of the United States, where she got to talking with some folks who are also traveling who were white. And it sounds like they had a real and deep conversation. And they talked about racism, and some of the challenges my friend has faced as a black woman. And this new white friend said, "Why don't you leave?" Meaning, why don't you leave America?- oof And-- I'll let you unpack that first.(April laughs)- Well, the question comes from both a deep acknowledgement of the trauma and the terribleness of racism, and also sort of an assessment that it was my friend, the black person who was the problem, or who the solution to this terribleness is for her to leave rather than actually dismantling racism, which is what apparently my friend said to her friend. And it sounds like actually this pushback was heard, because my friend actually posted some of what her new friend said in response to say like,"Why is your solution for me to leave?" But I think it's really telling in relation to the, does she hate America question? Some of the really deep rooted assumptions that we have about sort of what is changeable? So even in acknowledging the depth and depravity of racism, there was no sense that it could be changed. And so the only solution was to actually remove the oppressed, rather than dismantling the oppression. And I feel like there's some,(Tracie scoffs) something of that in the question, does she hate America as well? Like it's not fully-- And also I want to announce point out that in that narrative, it's more clear and explicit, an explicit pattern that shows up specifically, but not exclusively around anti-black racism around disposability. That it's just an easier default to think we're going to get rid of this person. We're going to exclude this black person. And maybe it'll be more pleasurable for you to leave, as opposed to what I said before about our ancestors were all this country, least of which black people, because of ongoing institutional racism, and exclusion from housing and multiple things, right? This entire country is benefiting from my ancestors work. So that doesn't make sense to me as a solution.- I think even more than that, it sort of implies that racism isn't a problem, except when there are black people there. It's like the young white person who says,"I'm really lucky I didn't have to deal with racism"as a kid because I grew up in an all white town," right? Like, no.- Pretty sure you were swimming in it!(April chuckling)- That is actually not a fair assessment.- Pretty sure you were at the deep end.- Right but that is what people say.- Right, no very, very common, yeah.- And those assumptions are sort of underlying, why don't you just leave, right? If it's so bad here, if you hate it so much, right?- Right, and so then the other part of this is just that I want to name explicitly is the total lack of, and I think part of it relates back to them. Part of it is the lack of ability to understand or perceive the profound breadth and depth of my dreams, of my love of all of the dimension, that my vision, that my choice and purposefulness and intention that my dreams possess, which I think in part at times might be because that person is not functioning from a place of radical imagination, right?- Certainly not.- But my dream is to one day own homes. I mean, who knows what's going to happen in my life. I also take life a day at a time. So let me just say that, right? But my dream in time is to have a home in the States, and a home here. My dream is to be deeply connected with all the facets of my world. I also think to your point earlier, or just continuing that this again is a part of a broader thing, that I noticed very rapidly that I felt like I'd been in a number of trainings and read books and been in different conversations with the very same people who all said, yeah, "You know,"our world is increasingly global"and we live in such a global environment." And as soon as I said, I was moving to west Africa, you would think that I said I was moving to Mars or something. We have, we're all on Zoom anyway, with most of our colleagues who live in the States, It's literally almost no difference other than what you think in your mind. It's going to be the same thing as your friend who lives five states over with a slight variation of when we scheduled the call. And it would take me a little bit longer to get there by a few hours. So it's fascinating to me to see also certain things that in terms of this idea of, America is known internationally. And some people who have self-awareness as Americans know this about Americans, that I think for much of the rest of the world, there is more interconnection and global awareness. But for a lot of Americans, this American, American culture around-- Exceptionalism.- Exceptionalism, exactly. Around this dynamic around American exceptionalism is playing out to me here in this, and that I'm like, it's literally the same thing. A number of folks who think of me as being on Mars. I'm literally similar to your friend in Tennessee or somewhere else who is just a phone call away, it's not that different. And that to me is a part of this, an additional piece of like,"She's going so far away." And I think if I were moving to the UK, or places where Americans have been conditioned to feel some proximity and awareness of, even though it's only an hour difference that I'm actually an hour closer.(April laughing)- It's not even just the proximity, it's also the the cultural hierarchy, right? If you were going to the UK, or if you were going to France or Italy, you know? Then it would be like, "You have to eat a gelato for me."(Tracie smirks)- Right!- Or if it were were Europe.- Yes.- Right?- There's clear, there is a clear cultural hierarchy in our minds, and European culture is ranked above any African culture. So it's not just that you're living abroad. it's specifically that you're living abroad in Africa.- Right.- That causes such cognitive dissonance, which I think is related to the cognitive distance I had, when I'm reading about D Watkins, who chose to go to the culturally less desirable, to stay in the less desirable culture, I'm putting air quotes around less desirable. I have disabused myself of that, but it all feels related to me, there's so clearly a ladder that poor black America is better than Africa, but poor white America is better than poor black America. Rich white America is better than everything, you know? There seems to be those, very clearly-- Those are all common tropes that I don't believe to be true, right? So I moved to Africa for a lot of reasons, but in the context of what we're saying right now, I moved to Senegal because I saw as a social justice leader, there was a tremendous amount of learning, and healing that I could do and experience here around healing broken relationships, and seeing what it looks like to really be in deep and loving, ongoing relationship through dissonance. It's been so healing for me to be around so many healthy, empowered, deeply embodied black people, just in daily life. Seeing black people have fun on their terms, and not working to conform nearly as much to white supremacy culture or dynamics. And as someone who believes profoundly in radical imagination and believes that we can co-create the world we want. One of multiple reasons why I relocated here is to feed my spirit and my mind in the way that lots of folks travel to other places. And that I found that there was something here on this continent specifically in Senegal that I could not find in the States, which I think is beyond the conception of some of the folks perhaps asking that question that Africa would have resources, would have wisdom, would have tools, would have healings that America does not have.- It's like at the end of Black Panther, when T'challa's like "We're not going to keep our stuff"to ourselves anymore." And the white UN members are like,"What are you going to do?" What do you got to help?- That, yes right?- Exactly that moment at the very end.- I'm here to get Senegalese Vibranium, right? And it is nourishing me fundamentally, and deeply and spiritually, right?- [April] Thanks for tuning in. Our show's theme music was composed by Elliot Hammer. You can find this track and other beats on Instagram at Elliot Hammer. If this episode resonated with you, please share it and subscribe. To join the conversation, visit jewstalkracialjustice.com, where you can send us a question or suggestion, access our show notes and learn more about our team. Take care until next time and stay humble and keep going.