Audio File
Transcript
My name is Christian Thomas Watkins. I’m thirteen years old.
My name is Zach. I am 16 years old.
My name is Rae Zellous. I’m 13 years old.
We interviewed Luc Mickens on June 14th, 2018.
I grew up… I want to say, like middle of the middle class. You know, my mom is white. My dad is black. You know, I was only raised by my mom, you know, myself and my brother. Her experience was definitely something, coming up in the 90s with two black kids. She’ll tell me stories about people in grocery stores. You know, “Oh, those… You adopted them. Oh, my God.” And she’s like, “No. Like, these are my children.” Racism is a huge tool used to, you know, oppress people and give other people power. And I got to experience both sides of that with a very neutral perspective, and, like, I did realize that there was still the same type of issues, the same type of, like, fun. I’m not saying it’s good that people are poor, but, like, poor people have issues buying certain things, but then rich people also have issues buying certain things, you know what I mean? I have trouble up keeping my middle of the line car. While the rich person has trouble up keeping his whatever, you know, his Mercedes. People, they-the rich especially, need to realize how they got to where they’re at and who actually built America with their sweat, blood, time, energy with their hands. Our people did, I think, most of that building. It’s some facts that, I think, America and even the world have to come to terms with and recognize as the truth.
The number one thing, I would say, for young African American boys and girls is to know their history. The first thing that our people did on this planet wasn’t slavery. We’ve got to read and study and know because it’s facts, what happened before 1492. Because civilization was founded in Africa by people of color, and not only the race thing, there’s all different types of shades of skin on the planet, but they make it seem like colored people haven’t done anything, but, you know, mathematics, astronomy, writing, like, architecture, and building, all these different things were invented by people of color. Egypt was like New York City, so we-we have a very rich history. Asians have a very rich history as well. Europeans have a very rich history as well with Greek and Rome and whatnot. You know, there is a system that purposely made our history nonexistent to us. You mean, imagine if you’re a 2 month old baby. No parents, no uncles, no cousins. Just out there. You don’t know what to do. You’re not getting into school. Not… you know? Imagine. I mean, that child will probably die within a year because they have no direction, so our direction, our history was taken from us. But it exists, though. Doctor Ivan van Sertima, Dr. Cheikh Anta Diop, John Henrik Clarke… And these are all historians. Our people did very great things for the planet.
I have a bachelor’s degree in political science and philosophy and a bachelor’s degree in dishwashing. To me, if I’m going to do something, I’m going to do it the best that I can do it. That’s why, you know, we won the championship in high school playing ball. I didn’t go to the NBA. But at that point in my life, I was playing ball. I didn’t get down about my life because I had to wash dishes. That’s just what it was. That’s how I had to get money, bills, phone, car, house. And I was landscaping at the same time too, and working out one hood. A lot of people want to be millionaires and billionaires and have all this money. You gotta think about what these millionaires and billionaires are doing all day. They have people working for them, but they’re putting in a lot of work, so, you know, working is always a thing. We’re not going to be slaves again. I’ll tell you that. If the sun didn’t work, I mean, the Earth would die. The sun gets up and does its job every day, even if it’s cloudy out.
Know thyself, that’s probably my above all favorite quote. Know thyself. Then that doesn’t mean what’s your favorite brand? What’s your favorite basketball player? You know, what’s your favorite food? It means those things. But beyond that, what’s your history? What’s science? What’s an atom? What’s the anatomy of your body? You know, where do you come from? What’s physics? What’s the planet? What’s going on politically? Of course you have best friends and your family. They’re going to look out for you and whatnot, but it’s up to you to handle your business and motivate yourself and be who you are. You have to create aspirations and goals for yourself, and then you have to go out and get them.