What If We Told The Truth About History? - "The Trayvon Generation" Author Elizabeth Alexander
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- Опубликовано: 4 ноя 2024
- Author and poet Elizabeth Alexander joins Stephen to talk about the content and goals of her new book, "The Trayvon Generation," which features works of art inspired by the struggle against racism. #Colbert #TheTrayvonGeneration #ElizabethAlexander
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The Late Show with Stephen Colbert is the premier late night talk show on CBS, airing at 11:35pm EST, streaming online via Paramount+, and delivered to the International Space Station on a USB drive taped to a weather balloon. Every night, viewers can expect: Comedy, humor, funny moments, witty interviews, celebrities, famous people, movie stars, bits, humorous celebrities doing bits, funny celebs, big group photos of every star from Hollywood, even the reclusive ones, plus also jokes.
Wow brilliant woman. Such compassion and wisdom in how she expresses herself and teaches all of us.
Truth matters. Yes, we can handle it, and we must handle it to move forward. Love the poetry, deep breath of fresh air.
No, you can't handle it.
The US legalized "Marihuana" to win World War II. Watch the 14-minute 1942 USDA video, *Hemp For Victory.*
The war on drugs is specifically intended to give police an excuse to target poor minorities.
*Hemp For Victory* became publicly available from the US Federal government in 1990 after being banned from history books and public broadcasts since the end of World War II, and yet Cannabis Sativa is still illegal and police are still targeting Americans over the exact same thing that stopped the Holocaust.
The truth is that no one cares about any of this. They'll protest and march and riot against police brutality, but it's too much trouble to watch a 14-minute government video that would change everything.
YOU WANT TRUTH? HERE IS SOME TRUTH FOR YOU: IT WAS WRONG FOR TERVOR MARTIN TO ATTACK MR. GUZMAN! I WOULD HAVE DONE EXACTLY THE SAME THING IF I WAS ATTACKED BY SOMEBODY LIKE TREVRO MARTIN!
Applause! Ms. Alexander, I agree. I was not taught any of this. I had to learn it as a young adult. Now I'm an old adult and I'm spreading the word. And then Trayvon. I still grieve that young man, and the countless names of people murdered just because they are brown. Blessed be.
👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽
He assaulted a Mexican man that was neighborhood watch, he wasn't killed because of his skin color. Maybe the way he was dressed and acted but if he were white it would have been the same. Keep segregating yourselves and you enjoy Emerson into the melting pot that is America.
Watch the 1942 USDA video, *Hemp For Victory,* and end the racist war on drugs.
Cyn Hanrahan, I suggest you read the Wikipedia page on the “Killing of Trayvon Martin”. Read the entire thing. You’ll be glad you did.
There is a line in the movie “Road to Perdition” where it is said “sometimes I despair for the species”. With Rumpie, his cult followers, china, Russia and Ukraine I feel that way too! I plan on getting acquiring a gun, that’s where we are headed!
Stephen Colbert your humanity, creativity & good heart are shining through the compassion of your words & behavior in this interview. Bravo Sir 👏
Are you on his staff!
@@peterrimmer567, that's a really intimate question!😖🤰😆
spot on
@@peterrimmer567 I call 'em like I see 'em.
He’s clearly on Colbert’s staff, in one way or another.
Thank you, Stephen, for bringing this wonderful human being onto your show. She speaks so wisely and should be widely heard.
More poets please! These beautiful people who see and feel so deeply are so needed to be seen in this world....
Thank you, Elizabeth, for creating this book. I was in 8th grade when Trayvon Martin was murdered, and I still distinctly remember sitting in my U.S. history class talking amongst the students about how disturbing and wrong it was. Out of around 25 of us, almost everyone was contributing and of the same opinion, in a rural Texas town/school that was 98% white and in a grade that hadn't had any black students in four years. BUT THEN the history teacher/football coach came in the classroom and started saying, "He shouldn't have been wearing a hoodie," "He shouldn't have been walking around," and "People have to be able to defend their neighborhoods." I will never, ever forget how--one by one--students changed their stances as they listened to what he was telling us, as he was not-so-subtly instructing us to see black kids as inherent threats and to justify the use of deadly force against them for something as commonplace as wearing a hoodie. I remember being so overwhelmed with frustration at not being able to articulate an argument in response, even though I and a few other classmates knew his words didn't make sense. All we could say was, "It's not right to shoot someone who hasn't even done anything." We just didn't have the knowledge to explain why, we didn't have people around us who were teaching anything relevant, useful, or accurate about racism, we didn't have black peers to communicate with or forge friendships with. Most of us had limited internet access, and what access we did have was heavily influenced or even monitored by parents and teachers who were of the same mind as the history teacher.
Looking back on that moment now, it's such a painfully clear representation of how racism is taught to children -- it's not something we're born with and have to grow out of, it's passed down from one generation to the next. Every 13-14 year old identified the event as undeniably wrong, until an adult in a position of leadership taught us in ten minutes how to justify murder with racism. We have to equip kids with knowledge so that they have the tools to protect their minds in these situations. All of my textbooks only ever offered "Slaves were a thing. Slaves were no longer a thing. Martin Luther King, Jr." What are we supposed to do with that except fall into the same pattern of racism as soon as an adult starts redirecting our conversations??
EDIT: I just wanted to clarify that I still made serious mistakes growing up that other people corrected me on, or that I re-examined years later with shame. Absolutely no one in a racist society can avoid having racially prejudiced thoughts -- but again, that's why knowledge is important, so that we can understand why those thoughts are wrong and self-correct.
Beautiful words. I wish ppl would just be nice and treat others how they would like to be treated. Not looking for complicated reasoning to justify being mean & hateful.
You have been eloquent enough. I just want to say thank you...
More people like you, please. Someone that still knows right from wrong, no matter how much brainwashed they are. Thank you!
Hear, hear… well done…
@@jennyfromtheblock.7153 100% - White people need to treat minorities how they want to be treated when they become one!!
What a gift, this woman is.
Stephen Colbert's humanity is always shinning through... powerful indeed ☺️🥰❤️👑
This woman is so intelligent and articulate. I wish I had a professor like her!
For a funnyman, you're a deep well. Thanks for spending your life doing this Stephen.
This is the golden age of late night television. To hear this thoughtful and moving poetry is a privilege.
Powerful words 👏 appreciate and love everything that was said here.
Beautiful Lines!!!!!
What an elegant, brilliant Woman - elevating us all to greater knowledge.
Thank you for bringing this book to my attention A Late Show. I will be buying this.
There are so many things which I found beautiful. The poem that Ms. Alexander read moved me. And equally, she could have read something of her own, as would be expected. But she didn't. She read someone else's. That is the sign of a loving and lovely, big hearted, confident person.
Wow.. I had never heard of this lady, and yet, as soon as she opened her mouth, I knew I had to pay attention.. I love the way these words make me feel.
Such a timely and meaningful conversation. Speaking Truth to Power. Thank you!🕊✌🏽
CRT is a "law school only" class for advanced college law studies "if" they are going to specialize in "civil rights litigations" after they graduate and become lawyers. This subject is NOT being taught in any K-12 school system in America. Kids are learning the TRUTH about the history of American racism from the internet and they won't be denied. I went to school during the 60's and 70's, culminating with graduating high school in 1976. I can tell you personally we were straight up lied to (by omission) in American History class for the entire 12 years. The truth can't be hidden any longer. We now have total access to ACCURATE historical facts.
No one cares about accurate historical facts. It is an accurate historical fact that the United States legalized "Marihuana" to stop the Holocaust. It's on film. Watch the 14-minute 1942 USDA video, *Hemp For Victory.* The license to grow Cannabis that is shown in the video reads, "Producer of Marihuana." There is an official government link to the video, and it's been on several RUclips channels for years. Absolutely no one cares. Videos of dorks getting haircuts get millions of views in a single day. That's what people care about. That's what people watch. Even the "educated" Left doesn't want to learn this.
Since World War II, the United States has been arming police like soldiers to go to war against the American people over the exact same Cannabis Sativa plant that saved America during World War II. No one notices and no one cares. The film was banned from history books and public broadcasts for 45 years after World War II in order to pump the voters' minds full of drug war lies about the "dangers" of "Marijuana." Now, the film has been publicly available from the US Federal government since 1990, and Cannabis is still illegal under US Federal law and Americans are still being beaten and killed by police over "Marihuana."
There were some high schools in Northern VA that were dabbling with CRT. That was the source of all the hoopla in VA. Goes to show how little it takes to make a big, disgusting mess. Embarrassing to the entire state.
THEY WONT BE DENIED.
YEE HAW. I have FAITH in the ability of most kids to distinguish truth from bullshit.
Even those whove been taught wrong, will sense it. I have to believe this will empower the growth of TRUTHFUL Conversation. Which wont be stopped, either.
I know Native American History because of my Native American Friends, & Loved Ones. Not school. Not parents. Not Church.
Instead, The People I Trusted. Because of Their Honesty.
@@yourturn777 My great grandmother was 3/4 Cherokee.
@@karincerstvik3840 BS. Telling the truth doesn't make it CRT. That is college only. If true, somebody's ass would be in a sling on the state and federal level for breaking curriculum rules.
Brilliant. I'm pessimistically optimistic about my daughter's generation because I see the change away from the (...) of our past behaviours and nonsense. I'm optimistic about what their generation will bring to this world.
I recently learned that the freed blacks in our area had had a separate graveyard on the hillside beyond our ancestral churchyard. Even though my family had Quaker roots and were staunch Methodists and had fought and died in the Union Army during the Civil War, they somehow never addressed this. In the 1980s a divided highway was built through that land coming up just to the edge of the church's graveyard. The issue of their being black people buried below there was never addressed.
And we’re learning that This is happened frequently
Ms. Alexander is so well spoken it was a joy to listen to her.
Going to get this book as soon as I can afford it. I'm glad Trayvon's name has not been forgotten. How powerful.
It’s so important to face the past. As a German I know and accept that my ancestors committed genocide. It’s very important to study the circumstances in which the holocaust happened. And how it could come that far. Keeping that memory alive is key so that it’s doesn’t happen again. That’s what we learn in school and I think it’s good that way.
Of course there is still racism. But I think it would be worse if we would deny our past.
IT IS EMPORTANT TO ACKNOWLEDGE THAT MOST BLACKS DIE AT THE HANDS OF ANOTHER BALCK WITH A GUN!
You know the guest will be good to great when they say hello to Jon
Stephen, thank you for having her on again!!!!
This isn't as eloquent as this deserves, but..i love love love this.
I love modern day poets, she's such a great example. With such a mess of a planet and society we're in now....it's probably the best time
A Love Supreme was a perfect musical tribute for Ms Alexander to walk in on.
I would love to see Stephen go to Walnut Grove, read this poem on and post the clip. As he is a proud South Carolina man, I think it would be powerful to hear him say "tell me your names, your dishonored names..."
Ms. Alexander talks about the light that is present in art, etc. That lesson was taught in the classic novel , A Wrinkle in Time by M. L’Engle; a novel I enjoyed teaching to my 6th graders. Such a valuable lesson…⭐️❤️
Those that practice it do lose their humanity.... but the trouble is that once it's gone, they couldn't care less.
OH, more like this, she's marvelous!
Thank GOD for the cell phones and cameras - the evil murderers of these young people cannot hide anymore, and those who protect the murderers are known! Thanks to those like Ms. Alexander for keeping it in the spotlight.
One of the best interviews ever!
Watching her, hanging on her every word, nodding and saying quietly, "yes ma'am, yes ma'am, yes ma'am, yes ma'am."
I feel shame that I didn't recognize any of the artists that Ms. Alexander mentioned who are in her book. Now I know what I need to know and whom I need to meet. Thank you Ms. Alexander and, once again, Stephen.
Treyvon was a tragedy. But the 12 year old who was shot in the park stillhaunts me the most. Those cops drove onto the grass of a public park and shot a kid before he could turn around. Why? He was playing with a toy gun at a park.
I'm haunted by the very idea about all the trigger happy people in this country, cops and common citizens alike, going around shooting unarmed people without rules and consequences.
@@cc1k435
Agreed. I was just talking about that video. Ive never seen such a terrible act take place in real time.
Because he is a child, and that is what kids do at any park to entertain themselves! Would it have mattered if he had a bat, a ball, or anything like that! Some vile person called the cops on this young boy and give him a death sentence! Calling the cops on black people can end in death! My people can't just "BE" and that's beyond mind-boggling. Our whole lives from generation to generation nothing has improved, We gotta understand that The Most High will right all the wrongs and injustices. People should not be surprised!!
@@messengerofelohyim1595 The caller did tell dispatch that he thought it was a toy gun. Dispatch did not pass that on to police. Not defending the cops who shot him though. Everything the cops did was 100% the opposite of what they should have done.
His name was Tamir Rice
Brava Elizabeth Alexander! Stephen Colbert 🧡!
Wow.. A Coltrane opener... I've been waiting for this for yearssssssssss...... Well done guys !!
Our dumbed down, consumer society has so little respect for history and learning in general. I read recently that nearly half of Americans don't even know who their 4 grandparents were. It's that old quote about those who don't study history are bound to repeat all its mistakes. And those individuals sure the heck don't care about inconvenient truths like the South lost the Civil War and that minorities are still repressed. Many whites today are terrified of how racially diverse the U.S. is becoming and their knee jerk reaction is to hate whom they define as "others".
With many aspects of racial division, I think of the Quaker community near where I live in New Hersey. An old community going back 320 years. They are a respectful community to this day, or so I thought because the slaves that worked hard in the homes of the area or the slaves that were once runaways, upon their death were still not equals and were buried in a cemetery apart from the whites.
I guess the Quakers were still people of their time and so they did not have the benefits of a secular education. There is no denying that the actions of many Quakers helped many slaves escape to a better life but we need to see them as a product of the time and place and thank them for having got as far as they did. Without the Quakers I fear that emancipation would have taken so much longer than it did and that we cannot judge these people by modern standards. Interesting point nevertheless.
Thank ou for sharing this. Much to meditate upon.
@@outlawJosieFox there were also Quakers who owned slaves. It's a white washing of history that they were all abolitionists.
Beautiful, true, sad, challenging.
Shout out to the band playing some Coltrane ❤️
I’m not crying😓 So moving
the arc of the moral universe is long, but it tends towards justice,
said a man who was killed on April the 4th,
in 1968
a few months ago, when this and every other show like it, were in broom closets,
I noted that the "pause for applause" had disappeared,
and how much I appreciated its demise
Teach the Truth. Why is the GOP afraid of the truth??
Well, for one, some of their parents and grandparents were caught on video hurling at Ruby Bridges for simply existing and attending school, and that footage still exists. They fear how they will be viewed, if history-FULL TRUTHFUL HISTORY- is taught and learned.
@@blackeyedsusan727 It's not just black history. Columbus' true history. Native American true history. All of it. I'm 61 and was taught a bunch of BS throughout school.
😆 🤣 😂
@@wash711 Agreed. I only mention that piece because it's more recent. People are alive who are witnesses to the truth, but he louder, lying racist voices win out. I mean, we have people denying the pandemic is real when we have all seen people suffer and die from it! It's madness!
Great Guest.
What a gift, tyvm.
How beautiful ! How powerful !
Makes zero sense to me that anyone would want to keep history from being told. Sure, it may make you feel horrible knowing your ancestors did some despicable things, but think about how the victims' descendants whatever it was feels? One perfectly legitimate reason TO educate so the same thing doesn't happen in the future 0_o
I'm thinking that those people who oppose accurate history being taught, feel the true history messes up their comfortable lives somehow.
beautiful interview. Thank you.
Now that is a radical thought. Telling the truth. And back to who suppresses truth still over there? #joy best let that #ride.
Southern mythology is uncritical erase theory.
So good to see poetry represented on mainstream 📺 (la caja tonta)!
I know when I turned my back on misogyny, it was in large part because I found out how big of an issue it actually was, it wasn't 'funny' or 'clever', it was awful and women were literally dying because they aren't treated as equals. I had less issues with viewing people of different races (an entirely artificial concept btw) as equals/interchangeable, but women seem so objectively different in my ignorance, so I thought Feminism was not only unnecessary, I thought it was actively stupid/wrong-headed. If we don't tell kids the truth, they'll just cling to the dumb-shit beliefs of previous generations, and it will be ugly. There is (nothing other than) endless propaganda in US popular culture, why not mix in some truth for once?
Who gave birth to you? Who fed you? Who cared for you?
Really good show...liked the poem.
The problem is not that we don’t teach the truth about history. The problem is we don’t teach much of anything.
For her intro-walk on , did JB & Stay Human just play a bit of Coltrane?
a love supreme baby ;)
we all need more TRUTH 📕
Being a teacher, this means a lot to me.
Ok, I'm going to try to make the argument nobody seems to want to get one more time. I'm a Virginian, born and raised. I have a big problem with this current trend of tearing down all the monuments and other historical objects related to slavery and the Confederacy - IN VIRGINIA. All these states that didn't exist during the civil war, but somehow felt the need to put these accolades up should definitely tear that crap down. However, as much as I love my home state Virginia is very conflicted about its past so it teaches history very badly. The things that I learned about the place where I was raised after I left there were astounding to me. I'm against tearing down all this stuff because the people who are pushing for it think that to do so is progress and that they are finally winning something. But here's the thing - they're not. Stuff is coming down because it's making white people uncomfortable now. If you let them tear it down and hide it away, that's not progress. It's allowing white Virginia to keep ducking the issues the way we always have and not really changing anything. Virginia was the capitol of the Confederacy. If we're going to make any real progress they have to own that. The answer isn't to hide away the objects of controversy; it's to change the conversation around them. You can't fix a problem you don't acknowledge the existence of. There's a reason nobody ever goes to Auschwitz and says, "Hey, we should really tear this down. " If we want real progress and lasting change, the evidence needs to stay out in the open because people are going to have to be forced to have the real conversations we've always avoided and the proof of things people want to deny needs to stay where it can be seen.
You are right, people need to know the truth about "hero's" from the past. If they are torn down and no one remembers what they really stood for then how can we get better?
Love the Coltrane intro music.
Power to the women it is their time to lead to help humanity evolve
To be a better human being
Better to learn our history then to keep repeating it
Become the change or be
Enslaved by big corporate
Peace is priceless
When you tell the truth
If you listen closely, Colbert mentions a Neutral Milk Hotel reference: "how strange it is to be anything at all" 5:08
Stephen Colbert what the if we told the truth about history awesomeness job
I know what shes saying about teaching the truth.
At 62, a '78 graduate of PA public education, I only remember being taught topical Civil War/ slavery issues. I've been telling all my friends and realtives...there was slavery during the Revolutionary War, and before. A history we were not taught in school.
Sago Elizabeth and Stephen.
Nice neutral milk hotel reference there
“Let them eat electric cake. At least there are no more mean tweets.”
- Stephen Colbert
Children are bathed in the happy neurochemicals (though also the painful chemicals in some families). They are bathed in the neurochemicals while they are being raised (given the opportunity to survive) and being fed the ideas and ideologies of their parents, neighbors and churchmembers. These ideologies, through the neurochemicals become bonded with the emotions of these human interactions into physical neuropathways. In that scenario, they will discard any contrary evidence aimed at their beliefs out of hand and resist any persuasion away from those beliefs as humans do.
Regarding Stephen's question about how racism affects both the victims and the perpetrators. The hardest neurochemical but highly rewarding, to obtain is serotonin, related to social status('one-upping'). You have to invent a polio vaccine, make the winning touchdown, marry the most attractive spouse, and other such types of activities that are recognized favorably by the community. Through racism and tiny acts of unkindenss,to have a whole percentage of the population that you can 'one-up''others' on so many occassions gives you a cheap, easy dose of serotonin once you relate the incident to your 'in-group'. That is why they do not mind losing their humanity.
That poem.
👏🏼
🙏
🙏🏼
This segment was way too short
Holy Hell its been 10 years? Watch "The Believer" with Ryan Gosling.
I didn't learn about Sojourner Truth until Women's Studies in college. I asked the same thing. Why didn't I learn this?
So minformation is something that reaches across generations
would have loved to be in her class at Yale
#abundance #yanggang4life #lovealwayswins
Stephen takes everything on his shoulders, I'm worried about his mental state (He's moments away from a suicide attempt)
"We have to teach people the truth." and stop calling it Critical Race Theory
"TREATMENT"..............THIS WORD CAME TO ME; THEY "TREATED ME' " HEINIOUSLY, HORRIDLY, DASTARDLY BAD/ CORRUPT"‼️ WHY❓❓
‘Årt 🦋a§hes away the daily dust, from one’s SouL’, Picasso 🎨🎵🎸 ☂️
"tell me your names, your dishonored names"....
That is Exactly how I feel. GRA,,,,cious. Carpe Diem, fronm,,,Seattle CD
My brother was declared genius, unused common sense, then his genius faltered. It is very difficult to get off that self directed high column of presence, to find self amist all commoners. Through a lie of omission he lost all. Now he lives like a hermit in the mountains.
👏💟
No, they'll rather build monuments to the most despicable and evil of men. Most people would be eager and glad to lock such characters in closets forever, but appearing decent is not even a level of decency these people aspire to.
If they were so eager and happy to defend the purity of history so much they'd do what it takes to make sure those statues remain standing as a reminder of a grim and ugly period, why are they as staunchly against teaching the impact and vestiges of history to their children?
Mmm, if only we all could tell the truth about history…
Sorry Steve gotta have humanity before you can loose it. Slave owners had no humanity to start
Aside from burying your head in the sand or just trying to find any ounce of joy where/when you can get it I don't know how anyone can find joy in these dismal times.
Did everyone go to school in the south?
When is your next covid break? Cuz humanity is hard.
book? Kind of looks like a cash in quick pamphlet. She states some obvious statements, but it's not the kids that are struggling as much with these issues as it is the older adults, but no one is brave enough to say that.
Were you guys really not taught about slavery in school?
These kids dont remember
the Kent State murders either. probly illegal to talk about it?
The people were adults at that time and wrote theor local papers to say that those kids deserved it are now serving in Congress and lapping up everything Fox News serves up. So no, the kids don't really know about Kent State, and that is by design.
A boy walks into an ice cream shop and says, "I'd like two scoops of chocolate ice cream, please." The girl behind the counter replies, "so sorry, we're out of chocolate." "In that case," the boy says, "I'll have two scoops of chocolate ice cream." "Sorry," the girl says. "We have no chocolate." "Could you give me some chocolate?" he insists. Feeling more irritated, the girl asks, "Sir, will you spell 'van,' as in 'vanilla?'" The boy spells, "V A N." "Now spell 'straw,' as in 'strawberry.'" "OK. S-T-R-A-W." "Now," the girl asked, "spell 'stink,' as in chocolate." The boy hesitates, confused, and replies, "There is no stink in chocolate." "YES." The girl says. "That's what I've been trying to tell you!"
allright