Nikki Giovanni

Nikki Giovanni has always been one of my favorite poets, and here's an interview that includes her thoughts on racism while living in Trumplandia:

Isn't it amazing that 10, 20, 30, 40 years can go by and we're still fighting war? We're still talking about war and we still have to figure out ways to survive and create through war. What is the answer?

I wish I knew. Right now, we know that the answer is getting rid of Trump and his Nazis and his racists. That'll be the beginning. And even though you could say, well, Biden is just another white guy and he might be, but at least he can put a sentence together. At least he has some kind of idea that we're all Americans, and that's one thing that has to be learned: We in this country are all Americans.

I'm always laughing, but if I were president, okay, the one thing that I would do is I would go to the United Nations and I'd have a big, long talk with them. I'd say that what we have to do now is start to refer to ourselves as earthlings because we live on this planet. As we are growing in this planet, as we are learning each other and as we are spending time in space and we are, we have to be prepared to explain who we are.

If you or I ran into a Martian – I don't know what a Martian would look like – and the Martian said to either one of us, "Well, who are you?" I couldn't say I'm a Tennessean, because they wouldn't know what I'm talking about. I couldn't even say I'm an American because they were like, "What's that?" What I have to say is, "I'm an earthling. I'm from the third planet from yellow sun." I think it's time that we all got used to the idea that we share this earth and we are a part of this earth. I'm not being softhearted or I'm not trying to be anything. I'm just saying, it's time that we got over this land and this religion and "This is the way I want you to act. If you don't act that way, I'm going to kill you. I'm going to fight you. I want your oil or I want your whatever it is you have." It's time that we stop that.

Years ago I put her words into a video of a song of mine...still waiting for her to contact me to back that $$$$ truck up, by the way. Hmm.