By way of Open Admissions, which I came across by way of Mariame Kaba’s newsletter, I found an interview that Zala Chandler did with Toni Cade Bambara on January 31, 1987, in her home in Philadelphia. Chandler interviews about her writing, her political work, her teaching - which are not, incidentally, discreet categories. Bambara shares about purpose and the conspiratorial nature of the universe when we do what we ought to do, what we came to this planet to do.
This interview is one place where Bambara shares THE slap-across-the-face-in-the-most-loving-way-possible question that I return to, when I remember to return to it. The question has come to me through multiple channels, which just confirms its utility, generosity, durability, etc.
Bambara reflects: “I had a ‘grandmother’ (not blood kin but spirit kin) who had a little statement that would just knock me out. I would come bustling over to her place with all kinds of questions and issues and so forth and so on. And grandma would just look at me and ask, “What are we pretending not to know today?” The premise being that colored people on the planet earth really know everything there is to know. And if one is not coming to grips with the knowledge, it must mean that one is either scared or pretending to be stupid.”1
Bambara also describes her work as an educator: “As a teacher, my main thrust in the classroom has always been to encourage and equip people to respect their rage and their power. To not back off from what you know to be the case.”
WORDS TO LIVE BY! Let me know if you want a pdf of the entire interview…… so much richness, on the politics of Harriet Tubman and Ida B. Wells, on the distortion of English because of its preoccupation with transaction/ownership…I may go on on a different week. For now, stay on.
I think this question applies to everyone, white people are just more removed from our earth-connected-cultures, way more dissociated in terrifying ways. We are pretending big time, hiding from what we know. ↩