(ThyBlackMan.com) Our writer Dr. Boyce Watkins takes the time to interview Dr. Neal Hall who recently published the book entitled; Nigger for life…
1) What is your name, and what do you do?
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My name is Neal Hall, M.D. I am a poet, author, and eye physician-surgeon.
2) What is your educational and professional background?
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I received my college degree from Cornell University where I played football and achieved All Ivy League, All East Coast, and All American honors in Track and Field. I received my medical degree from Michigan State University and my ophthalmology medical-surgical subspecialty training from Harvard University.
3) Your anthology of poetry, Nigger For Life, is based on your discovery that no matter how hard you work, no matter how educated you are, in “unspoken America” you are first judged by the color of your skin. Many African Americans speak out against this injustice. Why do you think this silent racism still exists, and why should people listen to what you have to say on the matter?
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“Covert racism, born out of imperialist needs to maximize profit at the expense of racialized others, stands shielded by institutions, culture, stereotypical assumptions, and tradition.” – Covert Racism in the USA and Globally, Prof. Coates Nov 07
Economic exploitation is the foundational pillar of capitalistic greed long rooted in institutionalized racism in America. Racism was set to this land long before America became a nation of United States. As America moved to reconcile its purporting to be the quintessential civilized society and moral authority of the world with its own history of overt 
inhumane exploitation of people of color, silent racism became its new woven addition creating two Americas. One speaks gloriously of upholding the ideals and principles of freedom and justice – that all men are created equal, endowed by the creator with certain inalienable rights, among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The other is the unspoken America, stealth America, the real America – long entrenched in exploitable codes of color and culture. The unspoken America is where, for many, skin color remains an inextricable obstacle to dignity, equality, justice, opportunity, power and freedoms and does so far more for socioeconomic advantages than either of the two Americas would have you believe.
The majority of White Americans
will have you believe that it is
an isolated minority of Whites
responsible for the majority of racism
that minorities experience to the benefit
of the majority of White Americans.
– Nigger For Life Book –
Continued racial segregation and exploitation hides and distracts us from the true segregation America seeks – economic segregation. Silent racism has been tightly woven into the fabric of America to sustain generational economic profits and power. Understanding this is critical to freedoms not free in America.
4) How does your poetry shed light on this racism?
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There can be no healing if we do not look squarely at the wound and its cause. Nigger For Life looks squarely at the wound with thought provoking content, impactful clarity, and gut wrenching candor.
Nigger For Life draws from my real life painful experiences with and raw reflections on racism in America. Nigger For Life creates a no-place-to-hide mirror for the reader. It is the smelling salt for an urgent awakening that as Cornel West so kindly stated, “ . . . has the capacity to change ordinary people’s philosophy on social and racial issues.” A non-minority reader who discovered Nigger For Life stated,
“It’s not often that you actually ‘believe’ an author; believe his pain,
believe his story, his strength, his determination. I can hear the pain
in the voice of Dr. Hall, and I think it echoes the pain of Dr. King and
Malcolm X. This is the type of book that needs to be studied, reread,
and taught at contemporary African-American literature classes.”
5) How does your poetry work to put a stop to racism, and where can readers purchase Nigger For Life?
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No poetry in and of itself stops racism. Men of uncompromising conviction for equality and justice stop racism. I hope that my poetry inspires men’s convictions and or inspires men to have conviction in their fight for freedom and dignity. Nigger For Life can be purchase at http://www.surgeonpoet.com.
6) Do you have any advice for aspiring young African Americans who wish to follow in your footsteps?
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Footsteps are like snowflakes, none exactly alike. My steps are unique to me. No one should wish to follow in mine. Each man should aspire to find his way in his own footsteps. To aspiring young African Americans, I offer this unifying voice:
We are a culture within a larger culture of humanity with a steadfast belief that all men are born and remain free – equal in rights and that no man or organization of men shall exercise authority that usurps these basic rights and laws of nature. Always renew yourself to that most basic standard lofty men have fallen short of: that all men are created equal, endowed by the creator with certain inalienable rights and among these are life, liberty and the harmonious pursuit of happiness.
Ours is a long black trail of tears, which has made us uniquely qualified to be the true standard bearers, the true guardians of these most basic rights that are neither confirmed by nor derived from man or government. We must bear these basic rights with a clear understanding and committed strategy that to this end, our greatest might is in uniting and aggregating our individual and collective economics as leverage for socioeconomic equality and justice not just for black men but for “all men.”
History and experience have shown us that mainstream America – rooted in capitalist greed – will only do right by us when we give them a clear and powerful economic incentive to do so. We keep making the tragic mistake of trying to secure equality and justice by appealing to and striving to win America’s heart and mind. We keep making the tragic mistake of failing to realize that it is the power of our collective wealth that provides the greatest incentive for America to do right by us or to deter America from doing wrongs to us. We must develop the mindset and stratagem that there is power in uniting our individual and collective wealth as leverage for socioeconomic equality and justice for “all men.” This economic aggregation to overcome America’s existing economic segregation should be strategically coordinated for selective segregation from those who are unwilling to do right by people of color right now! Achieve this and all other oppressive ills against people of color will take care of and right themselves.
Our long black road to freedom has been least travelled and will be best travelled uniting and building black collective economics into a formidable force that leverages sustainable freedoms “not free “ in America: building black collective economics into a force that leverages endowed freedoms not fully allowed in this imperfect Union whose perfection – they tell us and sell us – is still in progress some 200 years later. Economics is key because it is the world’s medium of exchange of power. It is lord and master of oppressors anywhere and everywhere in the world. It is the reason they oppress. Control their lord and master, you control their oppression of you.
“Collective economics” is the one thing we’ve been kept from. We’ve been given certain voting rights, but they are not freedom. We’ve been given certain civil rights but they are not freedom. We’ve been allowed certain educational rights, but they are not freedom. Voting rights, civil rights and educational rights are incremental strives and progress, not of freedom, but of freedom denied in incremental steps of progress and strives.
James Baldwin wrote, “A piece of freedom is no longer enough for human beings; freedom is like life. It cannot be had in installments.” Collective economics is the one thing we have not linked nor have we been allowed to learn how nor have we been taught how to link to securing true freedoms not free in America. We can and must make black collective economics too big and too black for America to continue to fail us. We must wake up to rise up from this American nightmare posing as a dream professing justice and equality for all.
Malcolm X’s voice to tyranny was direct, clear, assertive, wise and very much relevant today. We must adapt and adopt what I believe to be his more poignant words in [saying that] the black man’s freedom is firmly affixed to, by any lawful collective economic means, necessary. Herein lays our best and sustainable opportunity for freedoms not free in America.
7) Is there anything else you’d like to share with our ThyBlackMan audience?
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I wish we found being treated like niggers far more offensive than our use of the word nigger to speak to and against long standing treatment as niggers. Nigger is not want I think I am. It is what white America thinks I am. Since they have all the powers, their reality – real or imaged – is to a large extent my realty. We are overly emotionalized to being called nigger to the extent that we have more disdain for being called a nigger then we do for being treated like one. Our fortunes shall turn to our favor when we reveal as much disdain for being treated like a nigger as we claim to have for being called a nigger.
Nigger For Life tries, in part, to get at this. It tries to provide a no-place-to-hide landscape to reflect and dialogue candidly on this. We should care far less about being called a nigger and far more about not being treated like a nigger, held back like a nigger, discriminated against like a nigger, not being compensated like a nigger, and being exploited for white socioeconomic advantages like a nigger. The word nigger, despite its historical and festering wounds, should be seen today as no more than a slight of hand distraction from the real battle against continuously being treated like niggers. To show greater disdain for the use of the word nigger over being treated like a nigger provides us with a hollow, misguided victory when we claim victory because whites stop calling us nigger to our face while continuing to treat us like one.
Staff Writer; Dr. Boyce Watkins
Dr. Boyce Watkins is the founder of the Your Black World Coalition. For more information, please visit http://BoyceWatkins.com.