Found a great website tonight--

http://blackademics.org

Featuring interviews with such giants as Angela Davis and bell hooks. I particularly enjoyed the bell hooks interview for this little section:

PF: Alright, I want to go through a list of questions where I’ll shout out two things and you can pick one and expound upon it if you want but just looking for really brief answers. Diana Ross or Beyonce?

bh: Diana Ross.

PF: Bush or Nixon?

bh: Two uglies, it’s impossible, they should both be.. you know, go to a peaceful death.

PF: Haha, okay. Drive-in or DVD, like the movie- a drive in movie or DVD?

bh: DVD.

PF: Temptations or the Four Tops?

bh: Temptations.

PF: Okay, work at a desk or work in the streets?

bh: Work in the streets.

PF: Carter or Clinton?

bh: Carter.

PF: Okay, now another question-Shawn Carter or George Clinton? Shawn Carter being Jay-Z, the rapper.

bh: Shawn Carter without a doubt.

PF: Biggie or Tupac?

bh: Tupac. Tupac had more vision I think than Biggie had.

PF: John McWhorter or Alan Keyes.

bh: Another, like, strike.

PF: Haha. Okay, attack or be attacked.

bh: What’s that? Attack or be attacked… I think that’s another strike because I’m not violent.

PF: Okay, Cornel West or bell hooks

bh: Cornell West and bell you can’t separate the two that’s like the others are a strikeout that’s like you want them together cause then you have more power.

Later, she talks about the scholarship she's involved in these days--her new book is on black people and organic farming, and issues around diet and sustainability--sounds really fascinating. Also, I had no idea that she lives in KY!

The Angela Davis interview is a little less exciting, but she talks about the ever-present issue of energizing the activism of "our generation," and a little bit about the prison-industrial complex and penal abolition vs. reform.

Also, on the subject of the prison-industrial complex--for one of my final projects this semester I compiled a guide to researching this and its surrounding issues in IUB libraries and Monroe County in general--it's here.