The Rolling Stone interviews - Jann Wenner [126]
I see racism all over the world: one tribe to another tribe, the Japanese to the Chinese, and so on. It’s incredibly complicated and incredibly sad, and so I can’t buy your statement, “White people invented racism.”
Where did it start then?
I don’t know where it started. What do you think caused it?
Because they wanted to exploit people. Colonization. Why do you think there’s no Native Americans? Why do you think they’re on reservations?
You think that was the beginning of racism? The 1600s?
No, way before that.
We’re talking about history now, and I’m curious as to whether you’ve thought about what are the origins of prejudice, what are the origins of racism. “White people invented racism” makes it seem like you believe there was a grand conspiracy to deny the fruits of the planet to everybody by a group of people sitting in a room in Amsterdam in 1619.
You don’t think there was a plan to wipe out the Indians?
I think that’s certainly what happened, but I don’t think it was drawn up like the Magna Carta.
Look, that shit had to be planned. There’s no way . . . They saw the riches this land had and they took over. And that’s what the Afrikaners did in South Africa. And before that, that’s what all of Europe did when they split up Africa into colonies. I mean, [pause] maybe white people didn’t invent the patent on racism, but they sure perfected that motherfucker! They got that shit down to a science that’s being implemented now, full throttle.
You don’t see any decline in it, do you?
What, racism? No. I don’t smoke crack. [Laughs] If anything, it’s on the upswing—with eight years of Reagan, and now Bush. And now this war, America’s in this patriotic fever. I went to the Super Bowl, man, I wish I hadn’t gone. I was nauseous with all that flag-waving and airplanes flying overhead. God bless America.
It’s fascistic.
It was like being in Nazi Germany at that Super Bowl game! Instead of Leni Riefenstahl—
—You had NFL Films!
You had NFL Films and “Up With People.” [Laughs wildly] And Whitney Houston lip-syncing the national anthem. That marred the game for me.
Do you care that some people feel you hide behind the shield of racism, that you’re quick to call people racists to deflect criticism of yourself?
No. [Yawns] That doesn’t bother me, not at all.
Let me bring up two instances, quite specifically. When you opened your shop in Brooklyn, some dude from MTV asked you, “Spike, what are you going to do with the profits from this store?” And in what didn’t get bleeped out, you said you don’t ask Robert De Niro what he does with the profits from his restaurant. So you were assuming that he was asking you because you’re black and you were opening your own business. I won’t come to his defense—because I don’t know what was in his mind, asking the question—but look, Robert De Niro is not at all a political guy, but there are white artists who—
That is bullshit. That is complete bullshit. No white person who’s opened up a motherfucking business has ever been asked, “What are you gonna do with your profits?”
But people like Sting and Bono, who are political—
That is bullshit, that is bullshit. You’re telling me people ask Sting if his album goes triple platinum, “What are you going to do with your profits?” This is motherfucking America. When black people start to make some money, then it becomes a fucking problem. [Very upset, yelling] Tell me a time when a white artist was asked, “What are you going to do with your profits?”
I’ve asked white—
That is bullshit! No one would ever come to someone’s restaurant opening or book coming out and say, “Mr. White Person, what are you going to do with your profits?” I don’t care what you say, that shit don’t happen.
I’m telling you, I’ve asked white artists who have political points