believein is worthwhile for humanbeingsin general,and in the future,and
do everythingyou can to throw yourself into the next century.And make
peoplecontendwith your baggage,whateverit is. The only way you can
take yourself seriouslyis if you can throw yourself into the next period
all the time.
beyondyour little meagerhuman-body-mouth-talking
I am concernedthat we are very shortsighted,and we think that the issuewe
haveat this momenthasto be addressedat this momentor we will die. It is
not true. It is only a minor skirmish.It must be wagedguerrilla-warfarestyle.
You shootit out, get behindthe tree so you don't get killed, becausethey
ain't gonnagive you what you askedfor. You must be readyto go out again
tomorrow and while you're behindthe tree you must be training the people
who will be carryingthe messageforward into the next period,when they do
kill you from behindthe tree.
You must believethat believingin humanbeingsin balancewith the
environmentand the universeis a good thing. You must believe-and I'm
beingbiasedand bigotedhereagain-that havinga societythat doesn't
solve everythingwith guns is a good thing. You must believethat when they
sell breadto Russiaand then go to El Salvadorand say that the biggest
problemin El Salvadoris Russia,that they're pulling your leg. And you
must not let them pull your leg. There are somepeoplewho have a problem
with peoplekilling people,and peoplerobbingpeople,and peopleraping
people,and peopleexploitingpeople,and peoplenot giving peoplejobs
becauseof the way they look and becauseof the way they're born. Someof
you are in heretrying to changeall of that right now. The thing that must
surviveyou is not just the recordof your practice,but the principlesthat are
the basisof your practice.If in the future,somebodyis gonnausethat songI
sang,they're gonnahaveto strip it or at leastshift it. I'm glad the principle
is therefor othersto build on.
I had never left Georgiauntil after the Civil Rights movement,so I didn't
know nothing aboutall of thesepeoplein the world. I knew two people.
White peopleand Black people.When I went to New York, the white people
were not the samewhite people.I was beingvery sensibleat this time. They
were too dark. I tried to make them becomeBlack. They didn't like that at
all. I would try to ask them: Who are you and where are you from? They
say:Well, what do you mean?And I say:Well, you don't look white. And
they say:Well, we're white. And I say:But you don't look white-white.If
you all had let me run it, we would all be colored.BecauseI grew up in
Albany, Georgia,and I knew what white peoplelooked like, and they looked
like none of them dark-skinnedwhite folks I saw up in New York who got
mad at me when I tried to bring them over. Respectmeanswhen somebody
joins you and they needto be white, you give it to them. You turn it over and
you say: Okay you got it-you are white. I could saveyour life, but okay
you got it-you arewhite. That's calledallowing peopleto namethemselves.
And dealingwith them from that perspective.Shakingyour headin your
little barredroom aboutit, or if somebody's crazy enoughto let you sit on
the stagefor a little while will not help the situation.It won't stretchyour
perimeter.
I didn't haveanythingto do with beingalive at this time, but if I had been
running it I couldn't havepicked a bettertime. I have lived throughthe
brilliant heatof the Civil Rights struggle.I have lived througha war that was
stopped.I meanthey talked aboutthesewomen who tell thesemen that if
you go to war we won't sleepwith you, right? That is not how Vietnam got
stopped.Not that they havetold us. I've lived at a time when peoplestopped
a country from beatinganothercountry.Of coursethey don't tell you you
did that and so you are still trying to figure out whereyou went wrong! I
hearit on TV all of the time. JanePauleywas talking to this man who wrote
this book aboutwhat was wrong with the 60's -he had beenin Washington
when they closeddown Washingtonthat May- (they closedthe city down!)
and sheleanedover to him, and shesaid,"W'heredid we go wrong?" and I
Soy,You fool. You wouldn't be on the Today showto evenask the question,
if we had gonewrong! We havenot gonewrong! The period I have lived
throughsaw a presidentof a country come down and he was not assassinated.
That is the way we like to do things.And if you want to know the other side
of it, take a look at Iran, or take a look at the way they took careof all of
thoseleadersyearsback.When you don't like who's in power,you kill 'em.
That is not what happenedwith Nixon. And we did it. We did that. Any of
you who havejobs that your mamadidn't have,we did that.Nobody elsedid
that!! It is a very goodtime to be alive-to be in this place,completewith its
racism,and its classism,and its garbagetrucks running through.
Peoplewho think that the only "women-only" there are are lesbianwomen
give me a big problem,causeI would haveto leavetoo many of my folk out
causethey ain't gonnatake that for one second.And if they camein they
would be homophobic.And you'll haveto challengethem aboutit. Can you
handleit? This ain't no nurturingplaceno more.Causewe're taking over.
Anything that says"Women," we're gonnacome.You can forgetit. Now if
you cleanit up and namewhat it is you want, then you might be able to have
it-but we might stormthat if we don't think it shouldexist. Causelike it is,
it is our world, and we are hereto stay.And we are not on the defensive.We
are not on the defensive.
Thereis an offensivemovementthat startedin this country in the 60's that is
continuittg.The reasonwe are stumblingis that we are at the point where in
orderto take the next stepwe've got to do it with somefolk we don't care
too much about.And we got to vomit over that for a little while. We must
just keepgoing. The media saysthat the Civil Rights movementwas a
dream.The media saysthat nothinghappenedin the 70's, and most of us get
up on stageand we talk as if that in fact is the case,and it's a lie. The only
way it will be true is if you believethem and do not take the next step.
Everybodywho is in this spaceat this time belongshere.And it's a good
thing if you came.I don't carewhat you went throughor what somebodydid
to you. Go for yourself.You give this weekendeverythingyou can.Because
no matterhow much of a coalition spacethis is, it ain't nothing like
coalescingyou've got to do tomorrow, and Tuesdayand Wednesday,when
you really get out there,back into the world: that is ours too.
Thesefestivalweekendsare placesof crisesand you can do wonderful
things in a crisis.I rememberwhen I got to Michigan one yearand they were
talking abouthow thesewomen during this thunderstormheld down the
stage,right? And it was lightning, and they thought"'We're Big Amazoos,"
right? That's crisis and it ain't that importantwhat you do in a crisis.you go
beyondyourselfanyway,and you talk aboutit for years.In fact, that's all
you pay attentionto: when that great day happen.You go wishing everyday
was like that. Everyday ain't like that, and what really countsis not what
you do this weekend,but take what this weekendhas meant-try to digest it.
And first thing, Monday, Tuesdaymorning at work, before twenty-four
hours go around,apply it. And then do it everydayyou get up and find
yourselfalive.Thankyou.