‘We Will Spirit You Out’ : Kabir Suman in Conversation with Maya Angelou
Maya Angelou, born Marguerite Ann Johnson; poet, memorialist, novelist, educator, dramatist, producer, actress, historian, filmmaker, and civil rights activist. Kabir Suman, singer-songwriter, musician, poet, journalist, political activist, TV presenter, occasional actor and Member of Parliament, India. ——————————————————– Kabir Suman. In your autobiographical work, The Heart of a Woman, you wrote: ‘Being a black American is qualitatively different from being an American.’ Would you please elaborate a little on this and tell me if that statement would be valid today? Maya Angelou. Absolutely. That’s a recent book. The Heart of a Woman is only a part of a series of autobiographies. I believe myself to be the only serious writer in the United States who has chosen to use that medium as a vehicle for the expression of my work. That book was written only about three years ago. There is still, and there always has been a qualitative difference between being an American and being a black American. Let’s look at the differences: all white Americans arriving on this soil, before America was the United States or after, for the most part came here willingly. Only a very small percentage of white Americans, that is Europeans came here under bondage. And that bondage was a different bondage. In truth, less than two percent of the colonialists came here as bondsmen and bondswomen. For the most part, Europeans (English or Anglo-Saxon or whatever) came here willingly, escaping conditions which they found untenable. No African paid his or her way on a slave ship, paid passage—other than in blood and tears and sweat and agony and fear. That quantitatively makes the difference in the spirit and the intent between the two peoples. If everything had worked out back in 1650 so that there were no slaves and no bondsmen, even that would already make a difference. But 1650 was one of the peak years, because slaving had not by that time so crystallized, it was not ‘big business’ at that time. It only became big business by the end of the seventeenth century. Early in the eighteenth. The majority of the Africans brought to this country were brought from the period until 1850. These people, my ancestors, were brought and they lived under a condition called ‘Chattel slavery.’ That made quite different psychological complexions—first for the slave and for the slave-holder, and for the white who didn’t hold slaves. We bring the baggage of our inheritance, whether we like it or not, with us—the intangible and invisible baggage with us. And it weighs upon us to varying degrees, but it does weigh, and it makes for a different carriage, a different physical carriage between us. If one person has no baggage and another is carrying a hundred pounds, it weighs upon that ‘another’ person. That makes for the different stance, if you will. And my suggestion is that the psychological stances are different, depending upon the varying baggage. K.S. I am going to borrow your statement I quoted before. Is ‘being a black American’ writer qualitatively different from ‘being an American’ writer too? Angelou. Yes. I would say so. The pressure on me, Maya and me, the collective black, is such that I cannot write esoterically. My pen owes its every movement to the struggle. I know it sounds terribly romantic and all that, but I don’t mean it to be. I am who I am because of who I am. I am all those people who have been oppressed, who have been enslaved and murdered, and who have been discriminated against. And so, that’s who I am. So, when I write, I am obliged to write because of who I am. And that means then that I am obliged to talk about it. So, the white writer sometimes feels he or she can talk about the clouds, the sky, the waving of the first green, and I write about that too. But when I am really on my job—black Americans say ‘when I am on my J’—I have to get to my axe. My axe is always hewing on the same stone, and that is: how can we make this country more than what it is today? K.S. Considering your views about the differences between the American and the Black American, would it be justified to suggest that there is an America and an Black America? Angelou. Yes, of course. Some years ago I was on a plane and I picked up a Time or Newsweek magazine, and there I found this quote: “I don’t know why people think this is one country. There are at least, forty Americas, or more. The people of Kansas are convinced that they are America, they are the real America. Go in Texas. People in Texas know that they are America. And then if you go to New York and they know that after New York, you leave New York and you ain’t going nowhere. So, that’s where it is. That’s America. There certainly is a black America. There are many black Americas for that matter. People who are convinced, who stand tall in their conviction that they are black America. Some are radicals, some conservatives, some are religious, some are very young, some are very old—these are all black people who are certain that they represent Black America. So, certainly, it si safe to say, at least, there is a White America and a Black America. And there are, at least, fifty White Americas. K.S. If you say there is an America and a Black America, that would be one thing. But if you say there is a White America and a Black America, don’t you think it would be another? Angelou. I see what you are saying. Well, the Black America is different from America. It is not our wish. Our current president [Ronald Reagan] for whom black Americans did not vote in herds, in millions, is still our president. Whether the people vote for him or not, the moment he comes in and takes office,