PS: I was reading some of the early reviews that you shared on Instagram, and it's funny, because someone had said that the tone was seething, is that the word? Or angry, or any of those qualifiers that are always coded anyway . . .
HZ: Yes!
PS: I thought that was a funny misrepresentation, because to understand how systems of power work, and how pervasive they are, and to work still toward liberation, is hopeful to me more than anything.
"This isn't the only world that there is. This isn't the only world that ever was. And we have power to create something else."
HZ: Yeah! I mention Hartman, and there are other people that I quoted in the book that are related to the field of Afropessimism. I don't know if you're familiar, but that's something that comes up a lot in discussion around the theory, which is basically that . . . we're still within a world that is shaped by slavery: any progress that is made is still within the system, and there's no hope for us within this world. Which sounds hopeless. I mean, the name is Afropessimism: it sounds hopeless. But really, what is at the core of this idea is that despite all of this, there are other worlds possible. Which is, like you said, the most hopeful thing. Even if the whole world is against us, to know that we can shape new worlds is beautiful, and I always find it really funny when folks can't move past the initial part of this particular world, this reality is hopeless. And acknowledge the second part of the argument. This isn't the only world that there is. This isn't the only world that ever was. And we have power to create something else.
PS: Absolutely. In that, and I think it's something you touch on in the book, a police state is not an inevitability: none of this is intrinsic. It's just the way things are now.
HZ: Right, right.
