Remember, I Have A Ph.d. In English

Our Society Is Driven Today By So Much Ethnic Discord. We Have Black Lives Matter, Which I Praise And Celebrate. We Have The Demagogues Stereotyping Muslims And Resurrecting Racist Stereotypes They Used To Visit On Us. The Larger Goal Is To Show That We Are All The Same, We All Come From Africa, And We All Have The Same Larger Family Tree. It's About The Fundamental Unity Of The Human Community.

So, The Kind Of Precious Memories About Being Black For My Generation Won't Exist For My Kids' And Grandkids' Generations Unless We Preserve Them Through Fiction, Through Film, Through Comic Books, And Every Other Form Of Media We Can Possibly Utilize To Perpetuate The Story Of The Great African-american People.

You Can Find Virtually Everybody Black Back As Far As The 1870 Census. Why 1870? That's When The Ex-slaves First Have Surnames. But If You Find Your Great-great-grandfather In 1870 And It Says He's 50, That Means He Was Born In 1820 And You're Back To 1820 Already. For An American That's Pretty Damned Good, You Know?

Brazil Is The Second Blackest Nation In The World.

In The Old Days, You Lived In One Neighborhood, You Knew All Your Neighbors And Your Daughter Married The Guy Next Door. That Was Social And Economic Progress. That Model Is Gone Now. We Also Had A World Order That Was Fraught But Fairly Stable.