Eddie Glaude on the third founding of America (featuring musical guest Angela Predhomme)

Podsongs

Eddie S. Glaude Jr. is an intellectual who speaks to the complex dynamics of the American experience. His most well-known books, Democracy in Black: How Race Still Enslaves the American Soul, and In a Shade of Blue: Pragmatism and the Politics of Black America, take a wide look at black communities, the difficulties of race in the United States, and the challenges our democracy face. He is an American critic in the tradition of James Baldwin and Ralph Waldo Emerson. In his writings, the country’s complexities, vulnerabilities, and the opportunities for hope come into full view. Hope that is, in one of his favorite quotes from W.E.B Du Bois, “not hopeless, but a bit unhopeful.”

Glaude’s most recent book, Begin Again: James Baldwin’s America and Its Urgent Lessons for Our Own, was released on June 30, 2020. Of Baldwin, Glaude writes, “Baldwin’s writing does not bear witness to the glory of America. It reveals the country’s sins, and the illusion of innocence that blinds us to the reality of others. Baldwin’s vision requires a confrontation with our history (with slavery, Jim Crow segregation, with whiteness) to overcome its hold on us. Not to posit the greatness of America, but to establish the ground upon which to imagine the country anew.”

MUSICAL GUEST: Angela Predhomme is an American singer-songwriter and music producer. Her first album, Angela Predhomme, was released in 2008, and she has since released four more independent albums: Don't Wonder, Let It Fall, Will, and her most recent, Love. Predhomme also released a holiday EP in 2017 called Holidayolio.

LYRICS:

You've been denying it for years
These are deep-seated fears
It's not acceptance
It's not inclusion
It's collusion
It's the lie
It's there for all to see
Implicit supremacy
Why to hide it?
Why deny it?
Why the long face?
Why the lie?
If you're invited to a table
That you build with your own hands
It's not a bridge
It's not inclusive
It's exclusion
It's the lie
There's a serpent round the legs
And its eyes your throat
Feel it moving
Feel it rising
Feel the coldness
Feel the lie
If you decide your destiny
And control identity
You'll see the tightening
Feel the grip
Here it comes
It's the lie
Its the warped reality
At the heart of the country
It's the decay
It's the wreckage
It's the damage
It's the lie
The foundations are all rotten
And the termites caused destruction
The walls are caving
The roof is failing
It's coming down
It's all a lie
Somewhere in the wreckage
In the rubble of the righteous
Are the honest
Are the real
Is the pure
Is the truth

There's a reckoning to come
When the sorting will be done
Without derision
Without division
Without the hatred
Without the lie
The kiln is fired up
Rage is burning hot
Forge again
In the fires
In the flames
Beat out the lie
Build it for the third time
Rising from the ashes
Hope's renewed
Hope's revived
Hope's reborn
Without the lie