In the Life: Interview with Marlon Riggs [unedited footage]

[Interviewer:] As a film, or video maker, do you see yourself in a particular role as a maker? Or educator of gay and lesbian images? Or of images of people of color? [Marlon Riggs:] Of course. [laughs] I'm assuming that you - let me ask you a thing. Do you - are your questions going to be in...? In this sort of a - do I need to answer your questions in a way that incorporates your question into my response? [Interviewer:] Actually, if you could, kind of, like, repeat my question, and then, yeah. [Riggs:] Okay, so that's what I was saying. So, yeah, okay. I wasn't sure if it was going to be a dialogue, or what. [Interviewer:] Right. No, it's yeah. [Riggs:] Sure. [Interviewer:] Okay. [Riggs:] Ask me a question then, one more time, so I... [Interviewer:] Okay. [Interviewer:] As a film/video maker, do you see yourself in a particular role as a maker or educator of gay and lesbian images? Or images of people of color? [Riggs:] Oh, I think that my work is definitely about trying to destroy certain misperceptions of what it means to be gay. Or Black. Or a person of color. And to really challenge these very entrenched notions of our identities, in a way that excludes many of us from being a part of communities, that we in fact belong to. So that one who is African-American, and particularly, is into the African-American community, cannot be gay. Well, the image of what it means to be gay, excludes Black people, at least in terms of popular culture, popular mythology. And in many ways, I think, our own communities of gay and lesbian people, tend to internalize that too. So you see within the gay and lesbian press, within books, within fiction, within the Academy, that kind of privileging, often of whiteness as the standard of what it means to be gay. So in particular, I see my work as trying to offer transgressive representations against all of what seems to be very stereotypical in most of our thinking. [camera man, incoherent] [Interviewer:] In much of the recent critical writings, and newspaper articles written about the representation of lesbians and gay males in mainstream and independent film production, there has been a deficit in the dialog about women filmmakers and filmmakers of color, and images of lesbians and gays of color. Do you have any opinions or insights towards this lack? [Riggs:] That, I mean, that question can go in so many different directions. Mean, maybe we should confine it as to who you're talking, about in terms of production. Because you're talking about Hollywood. [Interviewer:] Mmm hmm. [Riggs:] Then obviously, simply, the lack of people of color, the absence of women in general is problematic. If you're talking about gay and lesbian cinema, that is cinema but produced by gay and lesbian people, in many ways, I find that, that too reflects many of the paradigms you find in main stream movies. Except here, the gay and lesbian characters, are gay and lesbian. Uh, but they're white, still. I mean, we can't escape the reality that within gay and lesbian America, racism continues to pervade this world, as it does elsewhere, in America. And to that degree, what you see in the cinematic representations exclude people of color. We simply don't count. We're not part of the picture, in the way, the way people imagine their lives and the way they also, in fact, often live their lives. At the same time, as I think you see generally within the culture, women who have been historically disenfranchised, lacking the means in order to speak as well as represent themselves. You find that too happening, I think, in gay movies. Particularly, if you look at the more successful crossover gay cinema. And I say gay because it really has not included that much in terms of women. There has been a few, of course, breakthroughs, by and large, much of the movie-making that we see coming out of our community is about and by men. And that's again, not to be unexpected, because historically men in our society whether they're gay, or whether they're straight, are privileged. I mean, patriarchy is patriarchy. And particularly, if you're white, and you can pass to some degree, you can enjoy the privileges of maleness. So, women fall short in that kind of paradigm, and so do people of color. I think though, that that is changing. It's not some monolithic picture. Uh, the belief that there are no women, particularly lesbian filmmakers out there, that there are no women of color who are doing works that address our issues as gay and lesbian people. That often gets overlooked whenever you see mainstream press talking about our cinema. And even when you see the mainstream press talking about Black Cinema. There's no acknowledgment of the tremendous variety of work being done by women as well as gay and lesbian people in our African-American, as well as other communities of color. It's as if the only people leading the, sort of, pack of production right now, are men, and men in a way, that really don't challenge in some fundamental ways, patriarchy. Uh, often those movies, and I'm talking here about Black Cinema, [Interviewer:] Mmm hmm. [Riggs:] privilege again, Black males as the heroes, as the protagonists, to the exclusion of everybody else. To the exclusion of course, of women. But also to the exclusion of people who don't fit as men, the macho image. So if you're not in the inner city; if you're not able to tough it out; if you don't have the rhetoric down; if you're not fighting for turf; your story is not worthy. And I think that that, that is changing, whether it's "Daughters of the Dust" whether it's Isaac Julien's work, whether it's my own work. I think that there are in-roads being made by a number of people who are challenging these kinds of representations. [Interviewer:] You, um. [Riggs:] And this has just come off, too. The first bit of tape... Also erasing the history of women's representations in women's own filmmaking uh, as sort of this new gay aesthetic, is being, you know, proclaimed. Well, I don't think there's one, any central aesthetic, but also I think that there've been a number of people who have been challenging what even we define as cinema for some time. [Interviewer:] Right. [Riggs:] So that there are differences and conflicts and struggles that are happening within our own communities around representation, and who defines what's representative. Who defines what's culture in this case of cinema. That is going on and so if you ask questions in a way, that confine it to that community, I think I can be more specific. More focused in my answers. Or just tell me, sort of where you... [Interviewer:] Okay. [Riggs:] what actually communities are you talking about. [Interviewer:] Well, it seems, for instance, in B. Ruby Rich's article that was in The Voice, that she did allude, a little bit, in like one paragraph's worth, or what not, to the barriers toward women getting films out there in this new Gay Cinema movement. I felt like that article did not spend enough time on that, I mean, [Riggs:] It didn't spend enough time on a number of issues. [Interviewer:] ….on a number of issues. Yeah, I mean, you know, she spoke a lot about Tom Kalin's work, and Todd Haynes' work, and stuff like that. Um, but basically, I can't recall her really talking about work from people of color or work from women that is out there. Or perhaps the barriers that are there as far as the snobbery that goes between film and video, and trying to get your work out there if the festivals aren't accepting video work. [Riggs:] I mean, and I think we also have to interrogate what we mean by cinema. There are many people who are deliberately choosing, not to try to make those mainstream movies, that is feature length, which will show in theaters. That is not their aim. Their aim is to do different kinds of work. Work that is perhaps more experimental in style. More personal, more demanding of an audience in terms of its interpretation and engagement with the work. [clears throat] I'm having sort of a reaction to some of this paint. [cough] Excuse me. Could you get me some water? [Woman:] Sure. [clears throat] [Riggs:] Sorry about that. I just sort of... [Interviewer:] It's okay. [clears throat] [Riggs:] Yeah, it's kind of strong in here. I'll see if I can stay in here. Maybe if I just keep opening the windows. [both laugh] […] see in service, you know. [clears throat] That's New York. [clears throat] [Interviewer:] Yeah. [Riggs:] But I guess what I was getting at, is that, we need to constantly define what we mean by cinema, gay and lesbian cinema. And what kind of expectations underlie our assumptions of what we should be striving for. That many of us deliberately, are not trying to break through, into that kind of Hollywood mold, of what is cinematic. Many of us are actually content with, not so much the smaller audiences that we might be getting, but the kinds of forms that we are using in telling our stories. Um, so that, you know, that kind of comparison and looking at, sort of our inability to reach certain audiences as being barriers because we're not looked at, uh, somehow as professional or having, sort of, quite acquired the tools of those people who are doing more break-through, crossover cinema. Many of us are using our work in a very different way. And using it to politicize audiences in a different way, I think. And are not simply there, in this kind of generic way, simply trying to tell stories. We're actually trying to engage in some manner, in social change. Uh, and the sites may be more specific, may be more focused, but, I think, that struggle, the work that comes out of that motivation is far more intense, in terms of its effect on people. And I think that's important. We often when we define these terms "gay aesthetic" or "gay lesbian cinema" over look that. Overlook the different strategies and the different audiences the different motivations that exist behind the work we do. And that needs to be reckoned with before we can start heralding some gay aesthetic or talking about the absence of women in this, you know, more conventional cinematic arena. Or people of color for that matter. [Interviewer:] You mentioned earlier a few names, like Julie Dash, or I can't remember the other names you mentioned. Do you - could you maybe speak a little bit about the, shall we say, underground, um, movement that's going with independent filmmakers, particularly gay and lesbian filmmakers, but, um... [Riggs:] I don't know how underground it is [both laugh] if you can see the work. If you simply know where it's showing, it's not as if we're doing it in secret, or doing it in some kind of covertly subversive manner. I think much of the work that we are doing, is subversive of many mainstream conventions, but I don't know if underground would be an accurate term to describe a work like "Tongues Untied" or Julie Dash's "Daughters of the Dust". Or Isaac Julien's "Young Soul Rebels" or "Looking for Langston". I think much of that work is trying to counter the hegemony of classic cinema. And even our own internalized aspirations for that look, for that kind of romantic storytelling in which we get, in many ways, a kind of narrative in which the players are bi-sexual, or gay or lesbian but the stories aren't really that different from what we see normally in Hollywood conventional moviemaking. That we're really trying to challenge expectations, challenge assumptions, challenge the relationship that we have as viewers to those images of us. And thereby challenge our own images, our own imagination about ourselves, and our relations with each other. So, I mean, I think that many people are actually actively engaged in that kind of work because it's not as high profile as, for instance, "My Own Private Idaho". Because the work in some ways, I think, is at times more affirmative of our relationships than some of these more successful movies, and I think that needs to be questioned. Why so many of the movies that are crossing over now tend to present homosexuality as pathological. Now I'm not saying that we should all be restricted to doing only positive images of us as successful, and well-adjusted, happily in relationships for the, for 15 years, but when you see a pattern over and over again in which the only people that get represented in our community are those in some ways that are vindictive, suicidal, murderous and that's not simply because of straight folks representations of us, but ours too. One has to question what is really happening here. Uh, but I think that many of us who are really dealing with the complexities, of our identities, and affirming that, in a way, affirming our differences, and nurturing that, find the work not receiving as much attention, and yet the work is reaching people, and is catalyzing other people to create their own images of self, of society, to construct their own utopias, in a way. And again, if I don't answer your questions, ask, I mean, if, if, if you need follow-up [Interviewer:] No, that was really... [Riggs:] Okay, but if you need a fo - just tell me. 'Cause sometimes I'm not quite sure, so just tell me. [Interviewer:] Right, okay. Yeah. [Interviewer:] Um, as far as getting your work out to the public, have you found any type of barriers, or, um, problems with getting distribution? Have you found modes that have worked well, in your opinion, for your work? Or ways that you could imagine that the systems could be better, or work better toward getting...? [Riggs:] I mean, I've always realized that the kind of work I do, has to have multi-faceted venues of distribution. I don't privilege theaters. I mean, and there are many people, who if you don't show a work in a theater, it's not as if it's really that important. You haven't reached the pinnacle, until your work, your cinematic, you know, achievement has been shown within a theater in a darkened room, with, you know, hundreds of people watching. And I don't think that that is the only critical site of intervening against the dominant representations of us as gay and lesbian people, and as people of color. Um, I think it's important to reach people, wherever they are. And that is in classrooms, my work goes there; that is in churches, it goes there; it is in bars, and I mean, divey places that I have gone and presented work, and spoken, because that is where people are. And if they are unwilling to go into the theater, or into the museum, which my work has been shown in those kinds of places too then I will reach them where they are comfortable, in order to begin that nurturance of personal, and by extension, political empowerment. Um, so I've found it necessary doing the kind of alternative work, that normally doesn't get picked up by, you know, major distributors that show within theaters. That it's necessary to follow all kinds of distribution routes. Community groups, to actually contact different organizations. To attend the festivals that are specifically addressed to our communities and try to breach those places, those events, those organizations and festivals that normally see the world in, kind of, classically conventional terms, for instance a Black film festival which regards really only race as being the paradigm for us to understand our identities, and does not acknowledge sexuality, or class, or in many ways, a more problematic understanding of Diasporan identities. Problematic, in that they challenge us to rethink our own. Um, so I've found that it's necessary to go to those places particularly after the success of my more, if you will, conventional work, which they highly respect, to say, "okay, now deal with this." And because of the logic of them having accepted and recognized a marriage of that, it's not easy for them to turn away something like "Tongues Untied" or "Affirmations". And so I find it, I find it's necessary to do that kind of multi-faceted approach, uh, to reach people, in all kinds of different settings and to really not internalize this belief that unless one shows work within a familiar Hollywood kind of framework, you really haven't achieved. That's bullshit. [Interviewer:] Um, how would you define yourself as a filmmaker? Do you define yourself as a Black, gay filmmaker? As a Black filmmaker? Does that change depending on where you're showing work? Has that changed as you've developed in your work? [both laugh] [Riggs:] What does that mean? I mean, [Interviewer:] Or do you feel that it's necessary to define yourself? [Riggs:] I don't feel it's necessary for me to go, to go through, and try to, I mean, people ask me, "What do you want to be known as? How should I describe you in this piece that I'm doing?" I say, "I'm an independent documentary producer. If you want to say Black, gay filmmaker, fine. If you want to say gay, Black, fine. If you want to say Black only, fine." I mean, I know, in my own internal psyche, that I am all of these things and more. Uh, and yet I find that it's necessary for people, in order to get a handle on me and my work to box me. And I think what I try to do is subvert that box. Not by, demanding a certain kind of label, but by simply doing the work that I do. So that it defies the conventions of those kinds of categories. Um, so I really don't usually niggle those kinds of issues with people. I let them call me whatever they want to. Now I'm not one, however, who doesn't want to be known for instance as a Black gay filmmaker because that will pigeonhole me in a way and I really want to be known simply as a filmmaker. Uh, I mean, there are people who don't want to be known as a Black filmmaker, they only want to be known as a "filmmaker". And I think, what that does is buy into the stigma associated with one's sexuality, with one's race. Because for instance, we don't, when we hear the name Tolstoy and Russian novelist, think that that is somehow a denigration of his work. And yet when we hear that in relation to Black, or gay, or lesbian preceding whatever they do: author, filmmaker, writer, whatever. It's seen somehow as diminishing their achievement and their stature. And I think that is because we have internalized those dominant culture notions about those terms. And we need to constantly, constantly, I think, challenge that in ourselves and realize that our identities, our Blackness, you know, our gayness, our lesbianness, whatever it is that constitutes our uniqueness as individuals should be prized. That's what nurtures our creativity. That's what nurtures, I think, our political struggle. And what makes us endure despite adversity in the world. So. [Interviewer:] Okay. Um, switching gears just a little bit. Your work has been shown on PBS. [Riggs:] I didn't, obviously I didn't mention that, but obviously public television, too. As one of the venues. [Interviewer:] Right, as one... [Riggs:] But you know, that's kind of obvious. [Interviewer:] How have you found PBS as a venue for presenting your work? [Riggs:] Problematic to say the least. I mean, most of my work has been shown on public television. At the same time, that does not guarantee, because of the way that public television is structured, and the ideology of the people who run public television that the work necessarily gets its proper due. Uh, particularly, not simply because of who I am, and because of how independent work generally is treated within the public television arena, that work gets marginalized, as our communities in society at large are marginalized. So that, for instance, in Seattle, "Tongues Untied" was shown at 3am in the morning. You know, or in Portland, it's not shown at all, despite a huge gay and lesbian population. Or in other cities it's shown at 11 o'clock, or at 1 o'clock in the morning. And one has to wonder, given the centrality these days, of sexuality in so much of the struggles in all of our communities. And not just in relation to AIDS, but in to relations to, of violence, of rape, of the kind of psychological torture with which we treat each other. Uh, the kind of abuse, the kind of internalized self-loathing that many people feel about their bodies, and about their sexual identities and repression. That this is a work, that you would think even though you may not be Black or gay, it's still relevant to you. But what, in fact, public television says, and the stations in particular say, by how they program, not only this work, my own, but all kinds of works that come from our communities, is that really this isn't that important. If you want to, you can stay up late and look at it, or you can tape it and get to it whenever you can. But as one station manager said when programming it at some God-awful hour in the morning, he wanted to make sure that no one ran across this by accident. And those who found it, really wanted to see it, and not just those who happened by it. It's said, that really the work therefore wasn't really that important. So I found that kind of, particularly in relation to, work of mine that addresses issues of sexuality. Race, minus sexuality, is much easier. "Color Adjustment" already, for instance, is being heralded. I just had a Con-, a screening at Congress for the Black Congressional Caucus, uh, The National Black Journalist Association, the Black aides, a-i-d-e-s of Congress, National Black Programming Consortium, I mean, it was like packed with the folk who didn't show up when "Tongues Untied" needed help. When I put out the call, and letters, and phone calls, that this work, and by extension, this community, which is your community, is being bashed. And you need to address how censorship affects us all, closes debate, stifles expression, and represses our identities. That this is something that's at stake for you too. No one answered that call, because it dealt with this taboo area of homosexuality. Now, in "Color Adjustment" which looks at constructions of the Black family in primetime entertainment television, of course, primetime has erased sexuality from the get. So, already you don't need to deal with it, except as an absence. And I think because of that, it's a far more comfortable work for people to get behind. Um, so it depends upon what I do, as to what kind of reception I've found in public television. Uh, I think it will for any other work that I have, and almost everything else that I'm doing now, for the foreseeable future, addresses the intersection of sexuality and race, and gender, and class, nationalism, and to that degree, I think those works will find it difficult, uh, difficulty getting tenure on primetime public television. [Interviewer, amused:] I'm curious as to which station told you that they had to schedule "Tongues Untied" at a time when they made sure that no one accidentally came across it. [Riggs:] Oh, that was a Seattle station at 3am in the morning. [Interviewer:] Mmm hmm. Wow. Um, I thought it was interesting last night with, uh, "A Place of Rage", June Jordan speaks about how she went to speak at a anti-racism rally at a college and there were hundreds of people there and the next day there was a pro-gay rally, and there was like 45 people there. And, just, you know, she was talking about the importance that we all need to fight together. You know, and that there was no reason, it was ludicrous that she could go to one rally and there was like, four or five hundred people there, students, and the other rally there was just 45. You know, which is interesting in what you're saying about the difference in the way your work is received depending on what topic it's hitting, and whether the folks show, or the folks don't. [Interviewer:] Yeah, you know, we all need to fight in these causes together, because [Riggs:] I mean, we all maintain, I think, these very discrete notions of our identity, and who we have affinity with. So that we can, to some degree, get behind a struggle around censorship, if we feel that it affects us. But in so far as it's directly applied to gay and lesbian artists, cultural workers, and one doesn't see any one direct connection to oneself, it's easy to ignore that struggle. And that happens over and over again. Or vice versa, from white gays and lesbians, and this has been part of the problem within our traditional gay and lesbian communities. Issues of color, issues of race, seem to be inconsequential in relation to gay and political - gay and lesbian political empowerment. So you find indifference there, which creates this kind of mutual apathy, but also suspicion and distrust. And the point is, how do we get beyond that? How do we recognize our inherent intersectionality, our inherent connections, to each other? Uh, and see that you are a part of me. I am a part of you. That which threatens you, threatens me, and vice versa. And that our struggles are blended. Not the same. Not always the same. But they do connect. The right realizes this. That's the amazing thing. The right is so adept at realizing that, you know, it's not simply - and you see this in how they go after different people. It's not just the old homosexuals with their pornographic work that are a threat to society. They go after people of color. They go after feminists. They go after people who are doing iconoclastic work that challenges in any way, mainstream conceptions of "art". They go after them. And they go after the institutions, more importantly, that have provided nurturance for this kind of transgressive cultural expression. They realize, one of the importance of cultural work as being central to political empowerment. They realize that. That's why so much attention is paid. And at the same time, they realize that much of this work, absent of any nurturance by our public institutions would simply die. Hence, all of the, you know, all of the fight and struggle over the NEA. Which has succeeded, given the recent testimony by the acting Chair. And now the battle over the public television funding. [Interviewer:] Right. It's a shame that, for instance, CPB ITVS has been in existence one year and this might be it. [Riggs:] Mmm hmm. [Interviewer:] You know, proving [?] it took five years to fight for [Riggs:] Ten years actually. [Interviewer:] Ten years, yeah. Yeah. [Riggs:] And all based simply on two line descriptions of what the first round of funded projects are. [Interviewer:] Yeah. Yeah. [Riggs:] Most of which, of course, that were attacked by the right, by the Senators in Congress, dealt with, were about communities of color. [Interviewer:] Mmm hmm. [Riggs:] Which is very, very revealing. [Interviewer:] Yes. [Riggs:] We are a threat. [Interviewer:] Just as a final question, I was wondering whether or not you would like to comment on the recent misappropriation of your work, um, for uses on the right agenda. The blatant misappropriation. [Riggs:] Sure. [Riggs:] I mean, we've seen that, time and time again, particularly in the last four or five years. Whether it's Maplethorpe's work, whether it's Serrano's "Piss Christ". Um, whether it's Todd Haynes's "Poison". Par- you know, "Paris Is Burning" by Jennie Livingston. I mean, over and over and over again, and you'll see it continuously too, it's not going to end. I mean, I think I'm just one more in this episode, sort of continuous episode of repression and the use of any work that challenges particularly, hegemonic notions of appropriate sexuality, which typically, even doesn't in itself deserve a public discussion. Heterosexual or homosexual, but particularly homosexual. How that kind of misappropriation tries to control us and police our expression, so that no one will be seduced in an intellectual and political way to a respect for our identities and for our communities. And I mean, what you see over and ove is the utter immorality of the right and the blatant distortion, falsification, ripping to shreds of work, in order to assert their power, in order to control us. So I'm not shocked by it. I mean, people who are up against the wall will do anything in order to preserve their preeminence in society. And that I think is what you're seeing, particularly in terms of white, heterosexual, heterosexist, homophobic patriarchy. You're seeing a community which has historically had privilege now being challenged. Having been challenged really since the '60s in an effective way in which that kind of hegemony has been unravelling. But challenged in a way, that now they see how it's not only the law, and it's not only government, it's not long - it's not only in business that one maintains power. But also through culture. Culture in some ways, even more importantly, because it's the way by which you inculcate the notions of who is entitled to privilege, before people actually receive it or earn it. Um, and realizing that anything that can be done, anything no matter how distorting, no how, no, no matter how gross in terms of the kind of blatant misuse of work, goes. And I've seen that, of course, in my - in relation to my own work, not only with the Pat Buchanan, um, misappropriation of "Tongues Untied" in his campaign ad in Georgia, which then played in other places in the South. But also how the Christian Coalition excerpted seven minutes of the tape, reduced it to this disjointed, hideous, totally grossly butchered piece of curse words. Ripping all of everything out of context, so it seemed like all I had done was simply string a bunch of non-sequitur, non-sequitur obscenities and called that art. And then having the nerve to send that to Congress, in order to influence content restrictions on the NEA. But again, you're seeing, you know, how these notions of "family values", "the tax payer", "the American public" are being used in a way to exclude us and also to maintain this very monolithic, uh, imaginatory - imaginary mythic concept of American community. A community that is composed of like-minded people who resemble the Jesse Helmses and the Reverend Falwells, uh, and so forth of the world. So I mean, it's chilling, because again, I don't think often times you realize what's really at stake. We respond in a sort of piecemeal way, you know, depending on who is attacked to the challenge against our voices, against our expression, against our right to expression. But it's not as if Black people realize what's at stake when gay people are silenced. Or what gay people realize when women are silenced. Or what women at times, feminists realize, when African-Americans are silenced. And of course I'm speaking feminists here who are white feminists. Uh, it's as if one can look at that in a kind of detached way and perhaps argue against censorship. But it's not in any way a mortal threat. And, and, I think, and I'm not exaggerating here, it is a mortal threat when our right to simply speak and to be heard in the public discourse, meaning that kind of discourse which is financed by our public institutions is being stripped away. When we are being policed, and when our identities effectively are being erased within society. "Get back in the closet." "Bow your head." "Submit." "Be quiet." That's what we're being told. And many of us are only beginning to hear that. And to respond accordingly. [Interviewer:] I heard once - I can't remember where I heard it from - that usually when society is on a crux of a major, kind of like tempo morale change, that the most violence comes out, the most say, misappropriation, the most twisting of ideas of that which threatens those in power, starts to occur. In a way, we're starting to see that. [Riggs:] Mmm hmm. [Interviewer:] Um, I think in the late '80s, you know, rising up again, right up to the, the L.A., you know, incidents. The national incidents actually, it's not only L.A. Even Toronto, [laughter] you know. Type of thing. [Riggs:] No, I mean, I think, definitely that our society is coming to a head. Uh, that the kinds of volcanic eruptions of violence, the cultural civil wars that go on now, uh, the backlash against feminism, the hysterical pro-life quote-unquote movement, um, is an attempt to try to return this society to the veneer of civilization that people once believed in. It never existed, of course. But it was a veneer that people accepted as truth. And you find people unwilling to, despite the overwhelming pressures of society and all of the populations that are just per force, by being here, ushering in a new order. A new kind of society. You find people refusing to go. Refusing to move. Refusing to be budged. And wanting to, not only hold where we presently are, but to return us back to those glorious days …head. Uh, that the kinds of volcanic eruptions of violence, the cultural civil wars that go on now. Uh, the backlash against feminism. The hysterical pro-life quote-unquote movement is an attempt to try to return this society to the veneer of civilization that people once believed in. It never existed of course. But it was a veneer that people accepted as truth. And you find people unwilling to despite the overwhelming pressures of society and all of the populations that are just per force by being here, ushering in a new order. A new kind of society. You find people refusing to go. Refusing to move. Refusing to be budged and wanting to, not only, hold where we presently are but to return us back to those glorious days when we didn't have any of these problems. When faggots and dykes were not even known to exist, were never acknowledged. When Black people knew their place and accepted it, so called, in the myth. Where women had their place and nurtured family and didn't exacerbate tensions in the household or in the workplace, or in the political arena. When we didn't have to deal with third-world populations. We didn't have to deal with our responsibilities to the environment. Where things simply seemed to be okay. And that world of course, will not return. It never really existed but it definitely will not return, because we are not going to go back into closets, to bow our heads. We are not going to return to cooking and cleaning, and doing the domestic work. Those days are over. And the right has not quite realized that. And I think you're seeing the kind of fervor from that community, in order, in part, to continue to deny the inescapable reality which is coming upon them. [Interviewer:] In the words of the Anita Hill trial, "They just don't get it." [both laugh] Yeah, great. [Riggs:] I mean, I think the 21st century is going to see major cataclysms. I mean, the Rodney King verdict, and the rioting that occurred, and the kind of malaise, as well as, just general convo, convulsions. We're gonna see much more of that, to the degree that we continue to deny the contradictions in our social reality. And it's going to occur in pockets. It will not occur in the kinds of pockets where we can feel that it's isolated and removed from us. It will continue to come closer and closer to home, wherever home may be. And that will force change. And unfortunately, it may be bloody. But I don't think that it has to be. With the degree that we continue to engage in this pathological denial of reality, we only create the kind of powder keg that will someday result in a major social explosion and devastation. I mean, people just seem so disconnected in general. It's not simply our own progressive communities. And if you just talk to people, what goes on in New York is utterly foreign to what goes on here. [Interviewer:] That's true. [Riggs:] And, and, and, and [Interviewer, simultaneously:] Yeah, I was doing [...] here. [Riggs:]... in California. You know, what goes on in my neighborhood, which can be only two blocks away is remote. Utterly remote from what goes on here down the street. Uh, a school district fails in this state, or in this district, and it does not matter to me. As long as I seem to be getting mine and my family, if I have one, seems to be getting theirs. Uh, and that kind of general alienation is suicidal for a community, because no community can exist that way. I mean, and it's, it's dangerous that, that kind of disconnection is being fed through our media, through our politics, through even, I think, our cultural movements. Even at times through our progressive movements, which tend to sort of Balkanize politics and identity issues in a way in which I can not talk to you, and you can not talk to me unless one of us is seen as wrong and one of us is seen as right. And of course, I have to be right, and so do you, so that it, it can be just, an impasse, in which all we can do is accuse each other of being racist, or sexist, misogynist. Oh well, you know the terms. [Interviewer:] Oh yeah. [Riggs:] And any kind of interchange that allows for both of us to grow and begin to actually comprehend each other, and then to find some affinity that allows us to move as community, to weave community, is prohibited. I mean, and that's, and for me that's the state of America. It's not just the left that enacts that kind of, that kind of... I don't know [laughter] I'm sort of losing it a little bit, because I'm getting tired. But it's not just the left that enacts that kind of dynamic, where we don't seem to go beyond our rigid boundaries of identity and politics, our comprehension of the world. It's America. [Interviewer:] I found sometimes a problem with the left, or a problem that I've had, is that often there are some people who are so eager to do the right thing, quote-unquote, that they forget about the baggage that they bring to that, and they're not willing to deal with that. And if it is pointed out, it causes explosions. [Riggs:] Mmm hmm. [Interviewer:] And not pointed out, I mean, in an alienating, ostracizing way, but it causes explosions. [Riggs:] Mmm hmm. [Interviewer:] Because their minds in the right place, or their hearts in the right place, but their mind always isn't. As far as the way information is being, um, processed. And that's something that, as the left side, um, I think we need to figure out how to deal. Because we are disparate, and the right is organized. You know? [Riggs:] Mmm hmm. [Interviewer:] Yeah. Yeah, we need to figure out how to deal with that. [Riggs:] Supremely organized. Supremely. [Interviewer:] Yeah. Yeah. [Riggs:] Just in terms of logistics, of being able to marshal the forces when need be, to get out the letters, to get people, we're so... alienated, and cynical, and jaded. Uh, that we simply allow ourselves to be bashed, with impunity.