Marc Lamont Hill: Peace, everybody. You listening to The Classroom and The Cell Podcast with Marc Lamont Hill and with me is …
Mumia Abu-Jamal: Mumia Abu-Jamal.
Marc Lamont Hill: Man, I don’t know how you able to keep that, that deep, serious voice when you do your intros, man. You’ve been consistent for 40 years with that. (Mumia Abu-Jamal laughing) Man, I always feel, I feel like a I feel like a goofball. You being there all “Mumia Abu-Jamal.” You work on that? (Mumia Abu-Jamal laughing)
Mumia Abu-Jamal: Yes, sir, yes, sir, you know, absolutely. You know, radio was something I studied, not like professionally or in school, but like when I had my first job at a radio station in Philadelphia, man, I was like the equivalent of a copy boy in a newsroom.
Marc Lamont Hill: Yeah.
Mumia Abu-Jamal: Pull the wire services, call the police stations all around the city and check and see what was happening, and you know, whatever the anchors and reporters needed. So I would, you know, when I wasn’t doing that, I’d be like, listening to them and taping them and studying them. So it was better than going to a school, because I was sitting there like, “Damn, this guy’s good!”
Marc Lamont Hill: Man. So, one of the things I wanted to talk to you about, because I’m thinking about you–you talking about your journalistic training–I was reading earlier today, a piece you wrote in 1982 about Christmas. You were talking about, I’m sure you remember the piece. It was long. It was a little different than your normal style in terms of the sentence structure and how much detail you went into, but it was your first Christmas incarcerated, first Christmas in a cage, man. I got two questions for you about that want because I wanted to get your reflection. The first thing is more on the personal level. You know, we talked in an earlier podcast, I believe it was the second one about, you know, about the loss of your beloved wife, Wadiya, and the loss of your beloved daughter Samiya, in December. But, December is also when you got locked up. You know, what does–when you think about spending four decades incarcerated, wrongfully incarcerated, wrongfully convicted–does Christmas conjure anything for you? Does this time of year make that sting more or less? Or is that not even on your mind anymore?
Facility recording: This is a call from Pennsylvania State Correctional Institution Mahanoy This call is subject to recording and monitoring.
Mumia Abu-Jamal: I’m glad we had the little interruption. It allowed me to think a little bit. But you remember the movie Groundhog Day?
Marc Lamont Hill: Yeah.
Mumia Abu-Jamal: That’s what prison is–Groundhog Day. And to cats who’ve been down for a long, long time, every day is the same, and that’s one of the secret tricks of prison, because the administration never wants change. Right.
Marc Lamont Hill: Right.
Mumia Abu-Jamal: So the only change that occurs in prison is the change that men and women in prison do within themselves, right, actuate and activate within themselves, you know, to study, to grow, to learn, to be, to love, you know, and to struggle and to continue existence. But you know, it don’t come from the outside in. It comes from the inside out. That’s real.
Marc Lamont Hill: That’s real, man. Since you’ve been incarcerated, Christmas has changed a lot. It’s gotten even more, if you can believe it, commercialized. It’s become even more bound up in capitalism. You know, Black Friday used to start after you ate your grandma’s Thanksgiving dinner. Now they be starting at the beginning of November. They got Cyber Mondays, Black Fridays. Everything is online.
Mumia Abu-Jamal: It’s pre-Thanksgiving then.
Marc Lamont Hill: It’s pre Thanksgiving, you know. And, you know, Christmas has never been about the Advent. It’s never been about the birth of Christ as a historical figure or religious figure. It’s always been about transforming or exploiting a religious holiday for–to make money. But also, in those 40 years that you’ve been incarcerated, 42 years, we’ve also seen the rise of alternatives. You know, more Black folk have embraced the cultural nationalist tradition of Kwanzaa. We may not have held on to the political nationalist project as effectively, but we damn sure held on to the cultural nationalist project. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So talking about both of those things. One, what does Christmas mean to you? And how have, and how should, Black people think about it?
Mumia Abu-Jamal: Well, you know, Christmas was not ever..
Facility recording: This is a call from Pennsylvania State Correctional Institution Mahanoy This call is subject to recording and monitoring.
Mumia Abu-Jamal: Once again. Thank you.
Marc Lamont Hill: Getting a lifeline. (laughing)
Mumia Abu-Jamal: [unintelligible] holiday, you know it was a holiday, but it was a holiday of: think about our ancestors, you know, in bondage. You know, it was a break from work that–you dig what I’m saying?
Marc Lamont Hill: Yeah, yeah.
Mumia Abu-Jamal: In that sense, it was a holiday. But it really wasn’t a break from work, if you really think about it, because while cats might not have been in the fields, their mothers and grandmothers and their wives and daughters would be working in a kitchen.
Marc Lamont Hill: Right.
Mumia Abu-Jamal: And work is work wherever it happens. But, you know, I remember as a child, you know, Christmas, but you know, it wasn’t like a great, great thing for me. I mean, of course, you know, you get these toys, and toys are gone like a–broke–a week later. (laughing)
Marc Lamont Hill: Right.
Mumia Abu-Jamal: Boys are rough on stuff. But, you know, I, I remember with when my kids were very young, we did the Kwanzaa thing because–
Marc Lamont Hill: You were early adopter.
Mumia Abu-Jamal: Yeah, yeah. But, you know, it was like an opportunity to talk about our people’s history and, you know, ideas, you know, for the seven days, and you know they remember that, you know and that had far more meaning, because it was, it really was a Black creation or recreation, you dig. that talked about what our people have been going through.
Marc Lamont Hill: Let me ask you a question about that. As somebody who came up in the Panthers and somebody who came up in the Black radical tradition, was it difficult to embrace Kwanzaa, given the very complicated history that Maulana Karenga, the founder and creative–creator of Kwanzaa, has to the Panthers to Black radical traditions? There are people who
Mumia Abu-Jamal: Yeah.
Marc Lamont Hill: see him as a traitor, as people who see him as a sellout. There are people who see him as an enemy.
Mumia Abu-Jamal: Well, it was very difficult, but guess what? It, you know, in terms of a way to frame a bigger picture and to talk about, you know, Black history, Black struggle, in that space where everything is–everything–you know, on TV and radio and the newspapers, is projecting this false kind of Christmas idea. I mean, forget the fact that you know, Jesus wasn’t born on December the 25th.
Marc Lamont Hill: Wasn’t even born on December, right.
Mumia Abu-Jamal: Or December, I mean, you dig? You know, like this was more authentic, you dig? And it was more–I had to look beyond the political and embrace the cultural–and as a tool of, you know, teaching, teaching kids and talking to these kids, you know, and giving them something to hold on to that was more authentic to their history and their and, I mean, you know, you the personal is political, okay.
Marc Lamont Hill: Yeah.
Mumia Abu-Jamal: But we had to go beyond that, because that was a contribution, you dig?
Marc Lamont Hill: Yeah.
Mumia Abu-Jamal: You know, even years later, when I think back to, you know, the wars we went through, the point of fact, we were tripping a lot, because culture is a tool, you dig? And..
Marc Lamont Hill: Yeah.
Mumia Abu Jamal: culture can sometimes be the first note of a revolutionary opera. If you dig what I’m saying. You dig?
Marc Lamont Hill: Yeah.
Mumia Abu-Jamal: Culture can carry ideas that people need, right? To get through this thing, but also to continue to struggle, you know?
Marc Lamont Hill: Right, like unity, self-determination, creativity, hope. You know, those things are powerful. You know, I know Maulana Karenga, and in fact, I recently did a Palestine event with him. And so, you know, I never want to feel like I’m talking about both sides of my mouth. I have engaged him on the Kwanzaa issue. And I have, you know, been a celebrator of Kwanzaa, both in my personal life, but more importantly, kind of publicly, you know, extolling the value and virtue of Kwanzaa. You know, I don’t, I haven’t dug deeply into the history of Maulana, Karenga in the 60’s and 70’s. I know it’s a very complicated, fraught, messy moment, and so, you know, I need to do that reading. But for me, the legitimacy of Kwanzaa does not hinge upon Karenga or about any particular ideological camp. You know, there was a time, and we talk about this in our book, The Classroom and The Cell, you know, where the political nationalists and the cultural nationalists were at war for who was going to win. And, you know, all that stuff matters, but in a way, it doesn’t at the level of practice. We can make our traditions what we want them to be. And I think it’s important, yeah, and I think it’s important to disconnect capitalism from our tradition, exploitation from our tradition.
Mumia Abu-Jamal: That’s right. That’s right.
Marc Lamont Hill: You know, but remind ourselves of the value of the Nguzo Saba [the seven principals of Kwanzaa] or other traditions. I don’t care what tradition is, we’ve been giving, gift giving. We’ve been doing gift giving during the winter solstice, that’s my son talking in the background, we’ve been doing gift giving during the winter solstice since long before there was a Jesus, a Christianity or anything else. African people have always had these kinds of traditions, and so..
Mumia Abu-Jamal: Absolutely, absolutely.
Marc Lamont Hill: We morphed them into this historical moment and into this geographic location, but we as a people, I’m talking about Black people, but really, we could talk about oppressed people everywhere, we shouldn’t be ashamed to make up new holidays and to craft new traditions that respond to our conditions on the ground right now.
Mumia Abu-Jamal: Think about this: What people in America have been the center of cultural transformation greater than Black people?
Marc Lamont Hill: Right.
Mumia Abu-Jamal: You know, Europeans came here and carried traditions straight from Europe, carried instruments straight from Europe. African Americans took European instruments, and made sounds on them. When you think about Jimi Hendrix on a guitar, he made sounds that ain’t never been heard before. You dig?
Marc Lamont Hill: Right, right, repurpose the instrument.
Mumia Abu-Jamal: [Unintelligible] all these cats, they did that too. Then think about Miles, who created art forms. You know, he went to Juilliard and say, “Man, y’all can’t teach me nothing.”
Marc Lamont Hill: Right.
Mumia Abu-Jamal: And walked out, and he was slick, he was a freaking genius.
Marc Lamont Hill: S$@#, man, jazz itself is a repurposing of those instruments. The bass wasn’t supposed to do, that the piano wasn’t supposed to be used in the service of that. [Unintelligible] that the trap set wasn’t supposed to be playing them kind of rhythms, not them syncopated rhythms, you know. But like you said, we made, we made it do what it we made it do, and what it needed to do.
Mumia Abu-Jamal: Do what it do man, and it’s still doing it you dig? I love you man, it’s great to hear you. I heard your son, you know, blessing you.
Marc Lamont Hill: Yes, sir, yes, sir.
Mumia Abu-Jamal: [unintelligible] always spend time.
Marc Lamont Hill: Young Malcolm loves you, and he loves to hear, Uncle Mu. You know when you laugh, or you can hear the smile in your voice, man, he lights up too, man. Oh, every-he smiling right now, listening to your voice, man. So I’m gonna put this boy to bed, brother, I love you, man. But I also want to say because you’ll never say it, but I’m gonna say it. December is a month, just like Black August is an important month in our struggle, December is a Black milestone. It’s a global milestone, because it’s the month where you were stolen from us, and we are going to fight with every breath we have, every beat of our hearts, every drop of blood in our body, every drop of energy in our spirit to make sure that you come home. And we’re going to yell “Free you till we see you,” my brother.
Mumia Abu-Jamal: Thank you and happy holidays to you, brother.
Marc Lamont Hill: Happy holidays, man, love you man. On the MOVE.
Facility recording: The caller has hung up.
Marc Lamont Hill: All right, everybody, you just listened to another episode of The Classroom and The Cell Podcast with Marc Lamont Hill and Mamia Abu-Jamal. If you love this podcast as much as we hope you do, hit the “Subscribe” button on the Marc Lamont Hill official YouTube channel. Also hit the “Join” button so that we can support and expand the platform. Every dollar generated from this podcast goes directly to the Mumia Abu-Jamal Defense Fund and other needs for Mumia Abu-Jamal. So if you want to support Mumia through this podcast, not only subscribe but also hit the “Join” button and become a member of the Marc Lamont Hill official YouTube channel. Thank you and happy holidays.
These commentaries recorded by Prison Radio.
