Alice Walker is best known as the author of 'The Color Purple," but she is an activist who is often welcomed on the taxpayer-supported radical-left Pacifica Radio show "Democracy Now." On Friday, she was brought on to diagnose the United States after Trayvon Martin's death as a "very sick country" due to its racism: "We have been abused for such a long time here in this very misguided civilization."
"Our racism is a manifestation of our illness," she declared:
JUAN GONZALEZ: And Alice, having traveled through that area decades after she lived there, does it surprise you, this latest incident that’s happened in Sanford?
ALICE WALKER: Well, I think it’s happening a lot in places other than Sanford also, and I think it’s a symptom of our illness. We are very—we are a very sick country. And our racism is a manifestation of our illness and the ways that we don’t delve into our own wrecks. You know, I mean, we—as a country, we are a wreck. And part of it is that we have never looked to see where it was we went off the trail, you know. So, as shocking, as painful—I could barely look at what had happened for several days. And now I am looking at it, and I just—you know, I feel so much for this young man, because he was beautiful, and he was ours. And I don’t mean just, you know, ours, black people, but all of ours. I mean, these children, they are our future, and they have to be protected.
She began by discussing her feelings: "A great deal of sadness, of course, and also a real deepening and ever-flowing love for my people, because we’ve suffered so much from just this kind of news about our children, about our families, about our fathers and our mothers. So I send out to all of us a very big, warm, love—loving hug, because we need it. We have been abused for such a long time here in this very misguided civilization."
