Race, Identity & Culture

Caryl Phillips, author of five novels, a work of nonfiction and many scripts for film, theater, radio and television. His new novel,"Crossing the River" (Knopf), tells stories of slavery and the relationships forged by and among some of its perpetrators and victims. Phillips takes liberties with time in following the lives of three African children sold into slavery by their desperate father -- one freed and sent back to Africa as a missionary, one searching for her lost husband and child in the American wild west and one, a World War II GI stationed in Yorkshire, England.

Novelist Albert French. He found inspiration for his first novel, "Billy" (Viking), in the true story of an 11-yr-old getting the electric chair in the 1930's. "Billy," is the story of the "legal lynching" of a ten year old boy in the deep south who inadvertently kills a white girl. French writes in "Delta" dialect, epitomizing racial hatred in America. (Interview by Marty Moss-Coane)

From 1953 until 1989 Helen Suzman served as an Opposition Member of the South African Parliament. Suzman was a pioneering political leader in the fight against apartheid and anti-semitism. For thirteen years she was the sole representative in the Parliament to reject race discrimination.

Wilma Mankiller, the first female chief of the Cherokee discusses her memoir.

A new young poet and short-story writer Sherman Alexie. He's a 26 year-old Native American who grew up on the Spokane/Coeur d'Alene Indian Reservation in Washington State.

Palestinian-American Naseer Aruri. He's a professor of Political Science at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. He's the author of a number of books, his latest is"Occupation: Israel Over Palestine," in it's second edition (1989), which was selected by Choice magazine as one of the "Outstanding Books for 1984/85." Aruri has written many articles on human rights, the Palestine question, Lebanon, Islam, and U.S. policy in the Middle East in scholarly journals and weekly magazines.

Poet and syndicated columnist Jim Northrup. Northrup's first book is "Walking the Rez Road" (Voyageur Press), stories and poems which concern the lives of native people living on a northern Minnesota reservation. Northrup looks at 19th century treaties with 20th century eyes. His work also has to do with the aftermath of the Vietnam war. Northrup was a Marine who served in the war. (The "rez" in the title means "reservation").

Khanga's new book, "Soul to Soul," is about her family's multi-cultural, multi-ethnic background. Her grandparents met in jail where they were being held for political activism. Her grandfather was African-American and her grandmother Jewish. They moved to Russia, where Khanga was later born.

Abu-Jaber's first novel "Arabian Jazz" is now out. It explores the lives of two sisters in upstate New York, the children a Jordanian father and an American mother.

Terry has a discussion about the politics of identity, the strengths and limitations of social and political movements that define themselves by ethnicity, religion, gender, and sexual orientation. She talks with Ellen Willis, professor of journalism at NYU; Edward Said, professor of literature at Columbia; and Gayle Pemberton, associate director of African American studies at Princeton.