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1. |
Insurgent Mood
02:05
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[Lorraine Hansberry]
I’m very pleased that those peoples in the world whom I feel closest to – the colonial peoples, the African peoples, the Asian peoples – are in an insurgent mood; and are in the process of transforming the world and I think for the better. I can’t quite understand pessimism at this moment; unless of course one is wedded to things that are dying out – which should die out – like colonialism, like racism and so forth. For me this is one of the most affirmative periods in history.
[Interviewer] Would you care to go on about that?
[LH] Yes… I think it's absolutely necessary that people who are just coming into their own in the world must be as dramatic about it as they possibly can; must embrace all causes, must embrace all methods. We’re talking about oppressed peoples who are that saying that they must assert themselves in the world. We have a great deal to be angry about. It’s hard to know what you should fight for or against but there are things to do. We must make some decisions in this country.
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2. |
The Bells of the World
03:28
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[Coretta Scott King]
The bells of the world have tolled long enough for death. Let them now ring for life.
[EF Schumacher]
This is now a very critical time; we are struggling with the problem of poverty and we don’t seem to be making any headway. We are moving into an era of energy shortages, we have the ecological crisis. Technology has become too big, too complex, too expensive and also too violent; so then let’s look in the opposite direction.
[CSK] The bells of the world… (the behaviour of most people…) have tolled long enough for death (…has been conditioned by circumstances)
[EFS] We need a technology for the people, for the spiritual and mental health of humanity, to fight poverty. A technology that works with nature and doesn’t bludgeon her all the time; an altogether more intelligent technology.
Our intelligence – our capacity to create new knowledge – is almost the most precious thing we have and therefore we have to become extremely sensitive to the abuse of this capacity.
[CSK] The bells of the world have tolled long enough for death… (We have the resources…) let them now ring for life (…to eradicate poverty). The bells of the world… (what we lack…) let them now ring for life (…what we lack is the will). The bells of the world…
[EFS] Organise, organise! Co-operate!
[CSK] …have tolled long enough for death.
[EFS] You can always find like-minded people.
[CSK] The bells of the world…
[EFS] The pioneers are already at work.
[CSK] …let them now ring for life.
[EFS] Everyone of us make up their own little mind what do we really think? Which means what do we applaud and what do we detest? We’re very muddled on that. Once we’re clear in our own little minds, then we look around for the pioneers who are already doing the right thing and join them. Join them! It doesn’t cost much. We’ve got to come to something more rational than what we’ve got now and if we don’t do it deliberately it will be forced upon us through the facts of the universe.
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3. |
Concrete Things
03:54
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Intelligence. Reason. Science. Concrete things change the universe… and I hope so.
I rather admire this human quality to make our own crutches as long as we need them. The only thing I’m saying is that once we can walk, you know, then drop them.
Intelligence. Reason. Science. Concrete things change the universe… and I hope so.
People say that there is no difference between today and the past but of course there is. Of course each generation brings a triumph of rationality.
We don’t need mysticism to exalt man; man exalts himself by his achievements and his power to rationalise… or EXCUSE me his power to reason! [Laughs] His rationalisation has its benefits too, I don’t know if we could get along without that either.
…once we can walk, you know, then drop them.
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4. |
Nobody Fights
00:55
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Most of my dream is outside of myself. I would like very much to live in a world where some of the more monumental problems could at least be solved. I’m thinking of course of peace. That’s part of my dream that we don’t fight; nobody fights.
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5. |
How Precious They Are
03:30
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Many of the things which puzzle other people stand out in more bold relief to us. Some of the values, some of the contradictions, some of the goodies that we most long for in another part of us we have already judged, you know, we have already seen their emptiness. And some of the really marvellous things that other people don’t pay that much attention to, we know how precious they are.
Joy. Beauty. And illumination. And communion…
We know how precious they are.
I suppose I think that the highest gift that man has is art; and I am audacious enough to think of myself as an artist. I want to reach a little closer to the world – which is to say to people – and see if we can share some illuminations together about each other. My dream is largely outside of myself, which is a happy thing to be able to say.
Civil rights, civil liberties; we know that these are not things to be toyed with because we’re still just barely getting our hands on them. We know how precious they are.
My word isn’t this marvellous; the inventiveness of the human mind and the human spirit that whenever life doesn’t seem to give an answer we create them. It gives us strength. I don’t think the time will ever come when we will dismiss the human spirit. There is something more to do with your life than accept it as it is.
In my time there is both joy and beauty and illumination and communion; we know how precious they are. Civil rights, civil liberties; we know that these are not things to be toyed with because we’re still just barely getting our hands on them. We know how precious they are.
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6. |
Money (ft. Mr Gee)
02:54
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[Lorraine Hansberry]
I happen to think that a life that has as its end
something of service and purpose – really doesn’t matter whether you’re making shoes or writing books or plays but has some end product – is a far more substantial life than someone who has gotten led into the way of thinking that tells him that money is the reason why we live.
[Mr Gee]
You got me killing for you, you got me dying for you, telling me a whole heap of lies wishing them to be true. Lost and heartbroken in a make-believe land, living off hope with no clue & no plan, and no funds and no cash and no drum and no pad, and no friends in high places who can bail-out my crash. Even my last straw has a price attached.
[LH] I for one can’t get terribly excited about anyone who wants to commit their lives to just making money as an end in itself. I can’t understand it. I think all values ultimately come out of a materialistic approach to life that there’s no such thing as simply saying to people ‘now be nice’; but you can’t be nice if you’re living miserably.
[MG] Damn that credit score’s gonna break my back, gonna break my bones, the dry valley knows: nobody ever passes go without a fistful of lack, without a fistful of guilt? Without a fistful of need? There’s ivory towers on the hill and ebony graves in the street. Colston knows what I mean; statue thrown in the stream with a bottom-line splash of a cash driven man.
They praise those that hate me. And seek to enslave me, now everybody money crazy in this make-believe land.
[LH] We really don’t have very much in the world at all if we allow any aspect of money values to transcend the requirements that are necessary for human dignity.
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7. |
The Prize
04:19
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Open your eyes. Open your heart. Something is wrong; we’ve left it too long. But there still is a choice: lift up your voice. Wake up.
Raise your hand. Break it down .Keep your eyes on the prize.
Open your doors; outside there is war. Something must give if we’re all to live. No more.
Raise your hand. Break it down. Keep your eyes on the prize. Lift your head…
[Lorraine Hansberry] Intelligence, reason, science;
…from the sand
[LH] …concrete things change the universe
Keep your eyes on the prize
[LH] …and I hope so.
[LH] Its in the struggle to overcome a problem – whether it ends in failure or what we might call for the lack of a better word success – that people exhibit their possibilities as beings. You know, Hamlet fails; but does he?
Concrete things change the universe… and I hope so.
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8. |
Make New Sounds
02:46
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Make new sounds. Feeling like… make new sounds …and they’re feeling like… make new sounds; and I’m glad I was here to make one.
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9. |
Total Identification
02:18
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[Lorraine Hansberry]
How do you talk about 300 years in 4 minutes? Sigh. We want total identification.
Was it ever so apparent we need this dialogue?
Its not a question of reading anybody out,
its a merger; and it has to be a merger
on the basis of true and genuine equality,
and if we think that isn’t gonna be painful…
we’re mistaken.
We want total identification.
Can’t you understand that this is the perspective from which we are now speaking? It isn’t as if we got up today and said, you know, what can we do to irritate America? Its because that since 1619 Negroes have tried every method of communication, of transformation of their situation; from petitions to the vote, everything, we’ve tried it all. There isn’t anything that hasn’t been exhausted.
Isn’t it rather remarkable that we can talk about a people who were publishing newspapers while they were still in slavery in 1827? And now the charge of ‘impatience’ is simply unbearable.
We have to find some way with these dialogues to show and to encourage the white liberal to stop being a liberal and become an American radical.
We want total identification.
[James Baldwin]
What makes you think I want to be accepted [LH: into this] into this? [LH: Maybe something else…] Maybe something else… but, you know, there’s no question of acceptance or tolerance here – we’ve got to sit down and rebuild this house. [LH: Yes, quickly] And very quickly and we have to do it together.
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10. |
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To try and create something and to have it received with any measure of recognition for the effort probably is the most fulfilling experience a human being can have. And there is nothing yet that has been written in poetry or song that has quite articulated the gratification of that. I don’t know how one can. So that I can only say it in personal terms: I get an enormous sense of personal fulfilment and a slight sense of justification for being. The people that I create give a great deal back. They really do talk back to you and get you angry; they really do have lives and ideas of their own.
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11. |
Aphelion (ft. Mr Gee)
02:55
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[Mr Gee]
So Where’s our hope meant to come from? Because We’re lost if we place our hope in you. We’re lost if we sit around and wait for you to change. Your system, your world, your mind, your rage; hoping that one day we’ll be seen as.... human.
And where’s our justice meant to arrive from? If this world is soaked in White supremacy; saturating its ancient laws, submerging all, like an infernal stream of thought forever flowing through time.
Drowning us at birth, seeping into our graves, placing tender droplets upon our foreheads, baptising our shame. Because Our freedom… Our freedom was once a crime, our freedom was once denied, our freedom was once despised…
And you can’t seem to abolish that thought From within your mind, no matter how hard you try. You Fear the equality of truth, will burst your riverbanks by changing its tides. Are we so difficult to love? So easy to hate, is it commonplace to devalue our lives? Under the pretence that we devalue your Space?
All Ghettos are man-made; orchestrated with a smile. All Racism is mapped, we just navigate its sick design. So Spare me your liberal cries, or carefully painted protest signs, because I know that today’s ally so woke can float with tomorrow’s white flight. It’s just a matter of time, as we all sink into this difficult history. 400+ years underwater and I’m still struggling to breathe.
So what happens to a dream deferred? Does it now explode into nothingness, without a question, without a word, without a thought or the idea that it will ever be heard? A Well meaning gesture drenched by the pressure of your system, your mind, your rage, your world; Hoping and praying that one day..... we’ll be seen as.... human.
[Lorraine Hansberry]
My position is that we have a great deal to be angry about, furious about, you know they’re still lynching negroes in America. And I feel as our African friends do that we need all ideologies which point toward the total liberation of the African peoples all over the world.
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12. |
Illuminations
02:58
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Intelligence. Reason. Science. Concrete things change the universe… and I hope so
This is one of the glories of man: the inventiveness of the human mind and the human spirit; that whenever life doesn’t seem to give an answer we create them. It gives us strength.
Intelligence. Reason. Science. Transforming the world and I think for the better. The colonial peoples, the African peoples, the Asian peoples are in an insurgent mood.
I really think I’m in the process of living my dream.
In my time there is both joy and beauty and illumination and communion between people to be achieved through the dissection of personality. That’s what I want to do: I want to reach a little closer to the world – which is to say to people – and see if we can share some illuminations together about each other. If I have any deep feelings at all as a writer, I have a suspicion of the universal humanity of all people; and I think it is possible to reach it.
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Fold Leeds, UK
Leeds UK group amplifying humanitarian perspectives & critical reflections on today’s world.
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