Q&A with Don Samuels

I was watching Tavis Smiley last spring and he made the point that in the economic rising tide of the last twenty years, all ethnic classes have ridden that wave other than the African-American community. So what’s your middle way through the ultra-liberals and the black radicals?
My middle way is both. This kind of mom-and-dad, kind of good cop/bad cop [game has] the Republicans and the Democrats playing with the lives of African Americans for their own ends. And it’s not very helpful at all. The Republicans are dad. They’re super dad. And the Democrats are mom. Super mom. And the roles are totally broken down to the male-female paradigm. And I think we are understanding now, in psychology now, that if you do that it is not healthy for a kid. That fathers need to be a little gentle. And moms need to be a little firm. Especially if dad dies. Mom has to be a little tough. And what’s been happening in the African-American community is that dad has died. For all intents and purposes, especially for poor black folks, there’s no dad. There’s no Republican Party influence. They themselves are not reaching in, and the black community is not reaching out to them. And so, it’s just Democrats. And this one-sided kind of thing driven by ultra-liberals is totally destroying our community. We’ve been loyal Democrats since the beginning. What the heck? And you haven’t done more for us yet? And then daddy is told never to come back home. We don’t want you. So Mr. Disciplinarian never gets a chance. Because now he’s a hardass and he wants to kick ass every time he gets through the door. So we need to get sane! Who’s the end product? Whose interest is this being done for? For your own party interests? Would you look at the end results? Your kid’s CRAZY! [Laughs.] So I think it’s time for us to come together and say there is a place for strong personal accountability and there’s a place for strong systemic accountability. And both must happen in equal proportions at all times. And white people shouldn’t be afraid to hold black people accountable. And black people shouldn’t be afraid to hold ourselves accountable because of black leadership that considers that betrayal. We all have to be open and we all have to be vulnerable and we all have to be accountable.

When Al Saunders called you a “house nigger” during your race against Natalie Johnson Lee, City Pages wrote, “Immigrants of color like Samuels represent diversity, and African Americans like Johnson Lee represent something far more complex, troubling, and intractable.” Do you agree?
In some general terms, that is true. But in specific terms, immigrants from certain slave colonies, immigrants of color, have a lot of the same experiences African Americans had. And certainly had it in their country. But once you come here, white people might say, “You’re an immigrant.” But back home, you were like black! And you knew that the lighter-skinned blacks and the white people still control everything. And they still do in Jamaica. If you go down to the tourist spots and see the people selling stuff on the side of the road, they are dark-skinned people. If you see the people running the hotel, they tend to light-skinned and white people. Still the same thing going on. Same repercussions, same trajectory. But once you land in America, white people become more comfortable with you as an immigrant. This is the truth. Because they hear an accent and they realize that there’s no baggage. Nobody in your family was lynched in the south. And there’s a chance that you don’t understand the complexities of race here. That you’re more open.

So do you consider yourself black?
Absolutely! I am absolutely black. And I understand why I am black too. I’m black because my white great-great-great-great-grandfather said I’m not white. [Laughs.] That’s the only reason I’m black! But I embrace it. First of all, because I don’t want to beg anybody to let me join them. And second of all, it allows me to help make the world a better place from a point in time and a place in culture. Everybody needs that to operate out of. And that’s what I’m operating out of while claiming all aspects of myself. I’m not going to deny that some corrupt slave owner ancestor that he is my daddy. OK? It’s just like saying my dad who beat my mom was my daddy. It’s not different than that. But to say he’s not my dad, I ran him off, I mean, that might make your mom happy, but it’s going to make you crazy. OK? And at some point we have to embrace all of our past and make sense of it—to let go of the destructive parts of it; to reject some of the destruction. But I accept the human person in it, but I reject his behavior. Now I look at you and I say, “Hey, cuz.” Now suddenly I become human more than just black. And I see a racist, and I see myself in him! And, oh, isn’t that scary.