[APPLAUSE]
Thank you very much.
See what happens when they offer special credit, huh?
[LAUGHTER]
Everybody comes out.
I'm very pleased to be back in Tucson.
I've been here before.
And it's always nice to be in any community that loves poetry
and you have such a great tradition here,
that it's always a pleasure.
I know that you don't have any trouble getting anybody
to come to Tucson because they know that there's
an intelligent audience.
And it's not that we don't like all of our audiences,
because we do, any poet does, but it's always nice
when they're intelligent, so.
[LAUGHTER]
It really is.
I'm very glad to be here.
And in the real world it's like 10 o'clock, so I'll start to.
[LAUGHTER]
I started at four o'clock this morning because it was--
I live in Blacksburg, Virginia.
And I teach-- now this is not important, OK.
But I hope I say something that is, but this isn't.
But I live in Blacksburg, Virginia.
I teach at Virginia Tech.
And I am privileged in my opinion
to teach many of the fine young athletes that we have.
And so I'm a fan.
Actually, I'm a fan of athletics for a number of other reasons.
Number one is that my father was a poor boy who
grew up in a city right outside of Mobile, Alabama.
And my father was short, he's 5' 7.
And those days, 5' 7 was good enough
to get him a scholarship to play basketball
at Knoxville College.
It was.
It wouldn't happen today.
Today, I don't know what my dad would do,
he was a mathematical genius.
But in those days black men who were mathematical geniuses
didn't get scholarships.
You got a scholarship to play ball.
So I grew up with a great appreciation of the boys,
and now women, who use athletic scholarships in order
to come to college.
It seems to be a big joke going on in the country
that these kids have somehow not kept their part of the bargain.
And everyone wants to say to black youngsters,
and it's amazing to me, and this is not
Nikki's lecture on athletics.
[LAUGHTER]
But it's amazing to me because we
tell those youngsters, you know, they
ought to be studying instead of playing ball.
Well, nobody's recruiting them for studying.
They're recruiting them for playing ball.
And these youngsters know what they have
to do in order to go forward.
And if you and I don't like it, then what we ought to do
is start recruiting them for something else.
[APPLAUSE]
No.
There's probably no hard work.
And I'm saying it because you all have a great basketball
team, I'm a great fan of yours.
[CHEERING]
I am.
I cheered for the Wildcat because I was always a big fan
of Bill Walton's.
And when his son came out I cheered for you all.
And now I keep up.
I mean.
[LAUGHTER]
Well, why should they just learn poetry?
I know NASCAR.
[LAUGHTER]
I had a student tell me that one day,
because they all call me Nikki, according to Nikki.
You always told me what you were interested in,
what do you know about what I'm interested in?
And, you know, we teach rednecks.
And I said.
[LAUGHTER]
They are.
And I don't know what else to call them.
And so, I said, well, what are you interested in?
He said, well, I'm interested in NASCAR.
I said, I can tell you what I know.
He said, what's that?
And I said [WHIZZING NOISE].
[LAUGHTER]
But I thought he made a point and I
ought to know a little bit about who Jeff Gordon is,
and Junior when they say that.
And what they mean and what the points are.
And, of course, I am from Knoxville, Tennessee.
And, of course, Knoxville, Tennessee
is a part of the old-- and this is not important either,
but it's a part.
[LAUGHTER]
It's not.
But it's a part of the old bootleg.
NASCAR, as you know, came out of bootlegging.
It came out of-- that's what it came out of.
It came out of them trying to outrun the revenuers
and they kept tuning the cars.
And that's exactly what it came out of.
And as liquor became legal they had to do something.
But by then they were so good with the cars they made NASCAR.
[LAUGHTER]
That's exactly what happened.
A lot of people don't know that.
And if you're on Jeopardy and you answer that, you owe me.
[LAUGHTER]
So that's a bit of superfluous information that I share today.
[LAUGHTER]
But I am, I'm glad to be here.
It's always funny when you get invited.
And to be invited to Tucson would be a normal thing.
But I a couple of years ago got invited to NASA,
to speak at NASA, you know.
Yeah.
I'm a big fan of space.
[LAUGHTER]
I am.
I'm very excited.
And I know-- most people, when I said that they got quiet.
Most people were like, well, how come they invited her?
Well, we know why, it was February.
[LAUGHTER]
No.
And we know that some manager said to some supervisor,
you know, John.
[LAUGHTER]
You know.
Who is our Negro for Black History Month?
[LAUGHTER]
You know they did.
And John is like, sir, we don't have a Negro.
[LAUGHTER]
So, it's like, well, you better get one.
So, you know.
We understand these things.
So, you know, he went over to their in file.
And you know they have an in file because they don't call
you any other time, you know.
[LAUGHTER]
And they flipped through and they got
me and they called my office.
The lady who runs my office is named Jenny.
And Jenny runs a good office.
She's been with me almost 20 years now.
And Jenny said to me, you know, Nikki, NASA called
but I don't know if we can work them in.
And I said, Jenny, we clear for NASA.
[LAUGHTER]
No.
I mean, I was so thrilled.
No, we're going to NASA.
Actually, their auditorium is very much like this.
It's a 600 seat auditorium in Washington D.C. for those
of you who file to NASA.
I have to tell you, I have learned.
I know there's some people looking at me,
like, they didn't really want you.
But I have learned, well--
some people think that.
But I have learned if you wait to be wanted,
you won't go any place.
[LAUGHTER]
You have to go where is it, wherever you need to go,
you know.
I gotta tell you, I looked good.
[LAUGHTER]
I did.
Very important.
And I was in a good mood, you know.
So I was smiling because you can't
let what other people think you're doing affect
what you think you're doing.
I'm a big fan and I know it's almost
outrageous at this point.
But I'm a big fan of affirmative action.
And I know a lot of people who got all them little crazy
Negroes running around.
I don't want nobody to give me--
I don't want nobody to--
I do.
[LAUGHTER]
No.
If we don't do affirmative action then
we're back to segregation.
Of course you make a place at the table.
I'm a big fan of reparations.
Reparations make everybody happy.
[APPLAUSE]
That's true.
Write the check, you know what I'm saying?
Being Black, we'll spend it.
We're not white.
White people are going to put it away.
[LAUGHTER]
We'll spend it that'll make everybody happy.
You have to think about these things.
Nonetheless, I was happy to walk into the auditorium.
Now I don't know if any of you have had the opportunity to see
about 600 white boys pouting.
[LAUGHTER]
But it is an awesome thing.
[LAUGHTER]
You know, and it's one of those--
And you could hear them like, I don't want to hear no poet.
And you know that somebody said do you want a raise?
In which case they were sitting there, you know.
But I have learned not to let attitudes bother me
because I didn't have an attitude.
I was in a good mood.
And so it's like, oh, I'm so happy to be here.
Because I am indeed a big fan of space.
I'm a big fan of the space shuttle.
And that kind of got a little better reaction.
I said, if I had my way, which is quite true,
we would be in third generation space shuttle.
Which we should be.
And, of course, what we're doing is going up and down,
up and down, up and down, because that's
all the space shuttle does.
But nonetheless, one of the reasons that a lot of people
are not excited about space is that they never knew
anybody who went into space.
And this is so easily taken care of.
If we built enough space shuttles.
We're not doing anything else with the money bombing
somebody.
[LAUGHTER]
Make a whole lot more sense, wouldn't it?
Sure, we build a space shuttle.
And what we do is what I'm going to now call the 10% solution.
So what we're going to do is, actually, we're
going to call Kofi Annan, because Kofi is not busy.
[LAUGHTER]
Yeah, if Kofi was busy we'd have world peace, right.
[LAUGHTER]
So we're going to call Kofi because he's
got a supercomputer.
And we're going to put everybody in it, right.
We're going to give every continent, what,
there's six continents, right?
Well, seven continents.
But only six we live on.
And we're going to put the numbers in there
and we're going to use the supercomputer
and we're going to pull up the numbers
and we're going to put up 10 people on a space shuttle.
Send them up and send them down, send them up
and send them down.
The object being, of course, that everybody
will know somebody who knew somebody
who slept with somebody who had a grandmother who
went to church with somebody who went into space.
You see what I'm saying?
And then space becomes more real.
Now, I'm 62 years old and when I was a young woman
there was a thing called macking.
Now many of you may not remember macking.
He remembers macking.
[LAUGHTER]
I can look and tell who remembers--
Julian remembers macking.
And macking, for those of you who are young,
you would go to, like, the Shark Bar in New York.
And it's one of those things that the guys are
going to go like this, right.
And they're trying to say something--
it's a pick-up line.
So what we're going to do is, we're going
to make space a pick-up line.
So the guys are going, like, hey, you ever been
with a guy who's been in space?
[LAUGHTER]
And, you know, women will go for anything, like, no, I never
had a guy in space.
[LAUGHTER]
And so now you go home with him, right.
And so the other people are like, if I
could get into space, I could get a woman too.
You see what I'm saying?
And so space.
[LAUGHTER]
[APPLAUSE]
Space becomes important.
And that's what you're trying to do.
Well, I know what you're saying.
I could see-- I could see the skepticism.
He said, well, Nikki.
[LAUGHTER]
He said, well, Nikki what happens when your number comes
up and you don't go?
Then the system is failing.
But this is what the beauty of this system,
actually my genius.
[LAUGHTER]
You've got to know when you've done something really good too.
You must know that.
The genius is, it doesn't matter.
So let's take Keisha in the Bronx right.
[LAUGHTER]
So the phone rings, you know.
Hello?
It says, this is NASA can I speak to Keisha?
This is Keisha.
So Keisha, you have been chosen to go into space?
OK.
She hangs up, we know Keisha.
[LAUGHTER]
Keisha turns to her grandmother, right.
And said, grandmother that was NASA,
I've been chosen to go into space.
So her grandmother does that grandmother thing, hallelujah.
[LAUGHTER]
Because grandmother is always so happy.
My baby has been chosen, right.
[LAUGHTER]
Grandmothers love you no matter what.
Grandmother goes to Wednesday night prayer meeting
and at the end of prayer meeting, right,
the preacher says anybody got anything to say?
And grandmother stands up.
My Keisha has been chosen to go into space.
Church says Amen.
Amen.
They put a banner up, right.
They have a bake sale.
Everybody--
[LAUGHTER]
Everybody's excited except one person.
And he's being, like, very sad.
So Keisha's like, what's the matter Kwame?
[LAUGHTER]
And he's like, I don't want you to go into space.
And so she's like, well, why?
And he's going to do that thing that makes fools out
of all women, right?
He's going to say 'cause I love you.
[LAUGHTER]
So Keisha's going to call NASA.
She said, NASA, this is Keisha, I can't go into space,
Kwame says he loves me.
[LAUGHTER]
Well.
[LAUGHTER]
Keisha's not the first woman to make a dumb decision
because some man said he--
Consider the Little Mermaid, I mean, come on.
[LAUGHTER]
So you say, Nikki, your plan failed but it didn't.
Because every time people from that church and people
from that neighborhood and people from the bank teller,
every time they see a satellite going across the sky,
they all look up and say, I could have known somebody
in space but Keisha fooling around with Kwame
and didn't go.
We're just trying to change the way we look at things.
We're going to Mars.
We're going to Mars because we have to go to Mars.
We're going to Mars because Mars cannot come here.
[LAUGHTER]
No matter what we think about Earth
we are an unstable species.
Every one of us.
No, we're not nice.
And we're scared of every damn thing.
And we are-- the minute a little Martian comes in here everybody
be trying to kill it.
[LAUGHTER]
They would.
If a little Martian came down right now,
they would surround this building.
All of us are toast.
[LAUGHTER]
We are gone.
So that they could get to this little Martian.
So that they could then kill him.
So that they could then perform an autopsy
and find out how he lives.
[LAUGHTER]