- So Ta-Nehisi spent 10
years, as we just heard,
researching and writing
"The Water Dancer,"
combing through documents of
oral histories of enslaved
people, visiting
three plantations--
including Thomas Jefferson's
home, Monticello,
in Charlottesville, Virginia.
And you told me that you
thought every black person
should go there.
Why?
Yeah.
Yeah, because there are sites
of memory in this country that
are very, very traumatic for us,
you know-- particularly places
of enslavement.
And you say black people
should go because white people
are already going.
White-- plenty
of white people go.
There's not problem getting
white people to Monticello.
- Yeah.
- Um--
[LAUGHTER]
But like-- you know--
god, I hate to say it like
this because this sounds
like an expression of pride.
But it's not.
We built that place.
Like it's-- I mean, literally--
like literally it was built,
you know?
[APPLAUSE]
And--
[APPLAUSE]
Again, that's a
statement of fact.
And to go there and to
see-- it is a metaphor
for the extent to
which the country
itself was dependent
on enslavement.
When you have, you
know, someone so-- you
know-- one of our greatest
founding fathers in Jefferson.
You know, I mean
you see how much--
like the extent.
I mean, this is a sprawling--
you can't-- people
think, now let me go see.
You actually can't go see
Monticello because it's
so sprawling and huge.
Like, it would actually take
you days to see, you know,
the entirety of what was.
And to know that all of that--
I mean, was just dependent--
Was run by the enslaved.
Exactly.
OK.
Exactly.
