Carei Thomas

Artist-pianist, composer, painting, and drawing. I do extended spoken word that I call Pomemitry. I use them as portals for working in communities and working with communities on becoming self efficient and self growing. 55 years old. Del: What is your definition of the Civil Rights Movement? Carei: The Civil Rights Movement has existed since before Mesopotamian. The Movement developed to monitor and correct and /or help with the evolution of dignity of life for human kind. Del: Would the public protests and boycotts of the past be an effective way to make the change today? Carei: It's one of the things. I think in terms of history 'history is a thing of the past' there are a lot of things that happened that I feel bad about now when I talked to friends of my age. We talk about things that were going on in the 50's and 60's. Are they going on now, but a lot of them are not. Some of them are dated and would seem more antiquated now. There is a lot of the energy and momentum that has been. Because a lot of the history has become fragmented or nil by the generations that have come after. It seems like people forget we have to keep certain things alive. For example what the Jewish people have done with Hitler to make sure they know what happened. If we don't, we will have these generations growing up only knowing about Fear Factor, and those kinds of things. So it exist in fragments. I don't think the momentum is there. I think a lot of black and white folks who viewed it as a very positive thing has been choked off by the ill relevant relevance of watching TV to see reality, and not having extended family connections, not sharing religious values, and all of those funny things that some of us might have heard of and have taken as an antiquated notion. They stifled a lot of the keep the history living things that allowed for civil-rights to really be moving. I think it's good to see there is still some boycotting going on sporadically but a lot of the zeal and the poignant energy of it has gone out. It is not because we need another leader. Because I don't think we will see anymore Martin Luther Kings or another Malcolm X, Taguga, I've forgotten some of their names. Regardless, I think what Dr. King and Ghandi for years had been pointing to the fact that we are the leaders and we are in our own hands. On one hand we have some folks waiting for leaders and on the other hand some folks never knew much about the leaders anyway, and the third thing no one is talking about those people. So there's an emptiness that is allowing the in-between generations to get more hung on what are we going to watch today or what kind of clothes am I going to wear. Del: How would you define the relationship between the Black Arts Movement and the Civil Rights Movement? Carei: At one time they were very close. Artist have-I don't want to say forerunner the plight and the movement of human kind, but it has always been a part of it, as much as fried chicken on Sunday in the basement of the neighborhood church. I can still remember when Coltrane and Amiri Baraka, who was Leroi Jones, and some of those folks. And I know don't know if they are even in the brain matter of the younger generation now. The arts have always been there. I think now there is no one thing involved but I think we need vessels, we need necessary carriers of things to keep that energy going. There has been a static or a let down of that fluidity in the arts and the Civil Rights Movement. The arts are there, but I don't know if they are always connected. I really enjoy some of the things I hear in terms of the spoken word. I am not one of those people that think that everything they say is demeaning. Everything that I hear isn't just about our " bitches " or those "motherfuckers" but I do feel that a lot of it is a little watery or diluted, because there is not the concentrated essence of history. Del: What you think is most important issue that African Americans have to address today? Carei: Themselves. Themselves too for and by themselves. It is the kind of thing that being the only child growing up on the west side of Chicago and seeing the old Jewish neighborhood store get burnt up and being upset about that because I had to go all the way over to Oak Park to get something simple as a grapefruit or a banana. I was pissed off at some of my own folks because I was working at a halfway house on the near West side of Chicago. And Fred Hampton and some of the Black Panthers had their place right there and we saw a lot of folks doing some wonderful things in terms of breakfast for the needy and really helping people in our real legit way not just feeding them hate. And on the other hand I saw genius type young black males get caught up in the 'let's get them and let's blow them away' mentality and turned their energy in the wrong way and burned up property such as the old Jewish man who really had nothing to do with the craziness. And then I saw a realization that I am going to put the rest of my life into looking at the Òverific systemic mess upÓ that allows for all of us to get caught up and makes us frightened. Del: What do you think of the Civil Rights Movement today? Carei: I think it's weak. We have these neat salon type of affairs. On community TV. It's done in a esoteric kind of way. It seems somewhat self-serving. There's some other "black leaders" that have community meetings on the north side. But, we talk among ourselves. We have run smack dab out into the total fabric. We can't be hoarding amongst each other, and patting each other on the back, and excuse the expression, masturbating each other, with our problems and our needs. To see who can say it the best, the most articulate. When in fact their needs to be A-C-T-I-O-N ongoingly. I don't mean do some action and then we are not heard from for the next six months. There needs to be a continuity of service that needs to happen to really make the resounding civil rights issues known and understood. If someone would ask me if things are better now than it was? In some ways it is, but as far as real actualization of what Dr. King and the rest of them were talking about. We have some churning to do. Del: Control The word control makes me think of who is in control, in terms of what the truth is . A lot of times we growl and humble about things that are going on like with CNN and Clear Channel where large organizations are taking over. Let's say ABC, and CBS, and all of them, the possibility of being under one roof. And still systemically, things are working that way, and people have a tendency to move to the hippiest thing there is. I don't feel as much control coming from the "other" aspect of our society as much as a control coming from those of us who "know what we need" that "know what is supposed happened" and so that control is stifling a lot of the innocence. A lot of the folk that might not have the charisma to point out the things that are really needed for their security, for the civil aspects, for the everyday ordinary aspects of life. Del: Dehumanize Carei: I think that is a realization. People can call me a 'nigger' and all of that has been done for years, now if I don't watch myself I will use that stuff coming at me as a way for me to stand still and immobilize myself. I feel that we have to work at ways of turning poison into medicine and that dehumanizing thing has always existed. Way back to three crosses on Calvary and Jesus being stabbed in the side. We have to come to a place where we are stronger within to withstand dehumanizing and to be able to take that in the same way that Tai Chi is able to take that energy and turning it another way. Del: Stigma Carei: What is the definition of stigma? Webster's dictionary definition for stigma-is a mark of disgrace. We have a realization that we don't have to be those things that people say we are, if it is negative or degrading. That happens when we don't have the marrow, M A R R O W of our existence it is life giving. Way down in the center of our lives. We need to have good memories of people who have good hearts and know how to raise kids. We don't have many memories or those life images that bring about tears, like orgasms, like a death in the family, the delight and joy of seeing someone close or far from us make it. Those types of things have to happen. There are these funny neuter/neural kinds of things that are going on. We don't have to grow our nails, we can put nails on, we can eat food that is all ready made, we just have to put it in a microwave, pretty soon we will have greens where you just add water. When that kind of stuff is going on we don't have any self-starting stuff going on. So anything like stigmas or stereotype thing can go on and even be redefined. You don't know what something is, a person can make it become anything they want it to be. We have to have education that has true vital history in it. If we don't have education and it is not coming from our own and going to our own. We are subject to stigmatization. Del: Traumatize Carei: There is a crossed-eyed catatonic thing happening with most people in this country, black, white, green, Latino, or whenever. But especially with black folks, because here we are in the 21st century and lot of black people still grapple with issues of hair and beauty. It's so much more of that crazy nonsense cosmetic categories to live-in. The true traumatization is that numbing kind of thing, there is a catatonic zombie like thing. Grow folks that hopefully would have the will, and the stamina to carry this thing forward will growl and cry and then 'they' will throw a new television at them or some new material thing and then things will be cool again. So the trauma is the other way around it's not the kind of shocked trauma it's a kind of enclosed kind of trauma. Del: Loss Carei: Because systemically things are turned around a lot of folks don't know about loss. I think this is one of the things we have always been struggling with. A lot of us don't know what loss is because we haven't had anything anyway. Which worked as a hip thing in those early years after reconstruction and in the early Civil Rights Movement. I don't hear people talking about Spellman and Morehouse and Tuskegee much anymore. At that time the things that we did have we really revered. It's sad because a lot of the younger generation now don't know loss, because they don't know the beautiful proud fraction of our black heritage. So there again is this numb feeling. Del: Identity Carei: Again systemically there's not much happening. I looked at one of the black conferences not too long ago on TV and everyone got up and referring to what I mentioned about control. I was waiting for someone to get up to say that all the of these thing we saying are what's going on and we are all right. But there was still this type of thing going on where people were saying yes I hear you, but mine is really the thing that is going on. Del: Survival Carei: Survival is gonna happen, because we are like roaches. I really want to explain that for those who don't know. The reason we are here now is because we have been here so long, that's what Louis Alemayehu used to say. I know what he means. And I think a lot of us intuitively know that. Del: Inspire Carei: It has to come from within. It has to come from more than seeing Star Jones wear different wigs each day and figure out what color her hair is going be that day. Inspiration bye-bye to the barber shop. Inspiration has to come from every day ordinary people. There has to be more connection to the person who lives upstairs. I live on Portland and I go out of my way to say hello in the morning to everyone. We have so many different cultures. Not only do we have Hispanic and Latino that's just a fraction of what's going on. We have people in those groups that are Ecuadorian, Guatemalian, and Peruvian, and Colombians, and, of course Black folks, Jamaicans, folks from the South. We have to revere our community. Just like rock, stone, and water. The things we do ripple out into the community, and if we can't put ownership and love out there for things that are immediately around us then we are gone. Del: Hope Carei: It matches that thing I said about the roaches. We survive. Even the way some of the cynical down parts of the things I am saying are hopefully pointing out in my way some of the things I think are slowing down the momentum of this movement. We are meant to move. Del: Closure Carei: This thing that is already done makes no references amends all irony while continuing to unwind. This brief reality. This one beautiful thing. This light and darkness. Detours, returns, circles into spirals of unfolding color, yet to be named. Amends everything. We were meant to be right. Heaven is here. We have to realize it. We have to realize it with our actions.

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