E-mail a friendDanny Glover
airdate January 30, 2004
Danny Glover is best known as an award-winning actor, producer and director, with credits that include the film version of The Color Purple, the Lethal Weapon series and TV's Brothers and Sisters. He's also a passionate activist, who speaks on such issues as literacy and civil rights, and board chair of TransAfrica Forum, the lobbying organization on Africa and the Caribbean. Glover is co-founder of Louverture Films and exec producer of the Oscar-nominated documentary about Hurricane Katrina, Trouble the Water.
Danny Glover
Tavis: Danny Glover is my kind of Hollywood actor. I guess you really can't call him an actor. He's an actor-vist. This guy has courage and conviction and commitment to the kinds of human rights causes around the world that he so believes in. He just got back from Venezuela and Haiti doing human rights work and supporting Dennis Kucinich of Ohio for the Democratic nomination for president. My pleasure to welcome to this program Danny Glover.
Danny Glover: Hey, how you doing, Tavis?
Tavis: Danny, how are you?
Danny: Good, good.
Tavis: Nice to see you.
Danny: Good seeing you, man.
Tavis: So before I get to Dennis Kucinich--well, I should probably start with Dennis Kucinich because, uh, this week, a busy week with the New Hampshire primary and this coming week a big week with the South Carolina primary. Dennis Kucinich is the longest of the long shots, but this guy stands up for what he believes in, has said he is not gonna get out of the race. He's going all the way to the Democratic convention. Why are you supporting Dennis Kucinich?
Danny: That's the reason why I'm supporting him, 'cause he stands up for what he believes. And I think this period still, we have to talk about whose values most align themselves with your values and my values in terms of his position on the war, his position on the occupation, the fact that he has a plan to end the occupation, his position on health care--single-payer health care, his position when it comes to the death penalty--his position on the whole idea of a human--a foreign policy which considers human beings first, you know, which is a far cry from the present administration and even past administrations, Democratic or Republican.
Tavis: President Bush would say his administration considers human beings first. He considers Americans first, and the reason why he's fighting this global war on terrorism is to protect and save American lives. And to that you say what?
Danny: Well, the problem is it's not just America now. We're talking about the world. The world is in crisis. We can't just look, sit here, the 275 million people here and look at our situation and not look at that situation in a different context which includes the whole world. And I think that--that's the problem with the foreign policy. And we're talking about American people or are we talking about American interests? That's 2 different things, and certainly the Bush administration has aligned itself and talked about primarily America's interests. And those interests aren't consistent with the interests of people not only in this country but people in the world. Those aren't--these interests aren't consistent with those things that are important to people around security--I mean, security, job security, health care, issues around--around education, and that's what we have to talk about, and that's what Dennis Kucinich talks about.
Tavis: Does a guy like Kucinich eventually hurt the Democratic Party if he stays in a race past a point in which he realizes he's not gonna be the nominee, or you don't care about that?
Danny: Well, I think that's important--that's an important discussion, and I'm sure that's the discussion that's going on within the campaign, within Kucinich's campaign as well. There's a point where we know that the most important thing is to defeat Bush, to defeat the present administration. And I think what the more progressive voices that we have in this, have in the race, provide us an opportunity to push the Democratic Party to a place it hasn't been in quite some time, and that's the fight for working people, to fight for the things that we all believe in.
Tavis: How disappointed are you in the Democratic Party?
Danny: Uh, well, I'm really disappointed in the Democratic Party. Um, I've been to the point that I, and people could argue over where I made a strategic mistake, I supported Nader in the last--in the Green Party in the last election. But I really think that--that it's time for us to claim ownership to the Democratic Party, and we have to claim ownership as progressive people, as progressive people, which I think, and I feel personally, and I'm certain it's consistent with a number of other people, that progressive people's needs are the ones that have to be primary and foremost, and those are the needs of people in this country, of the majority of people in this country. So I'm disappointed in what we've done, in the way in which it has become taking the centrist view. I'm disappointed in the way that it has abdicated its responsibility to working people and poor people, and that's what it has done, you know, whether it's in my city, San Francisco, or whether it's in other places in the country.
Tavis: Before we talk about poor and working people not just here but around the globe, I mentioned that you just returned from Venezuela not long ago and Haiti just days ago. Before I get to that discussion, let me ask you, um, why it is that you are such an actor-vist? I called you an actor-vist because you're an actor and an activist, so I just combined those 2 things and called you an actor-vist. But it occurs to me as I sit here looking at you, um, that you want to do more than just 'Lethal Weapon' 1, 2, 3 and 4. I assume that you are an actor first 'cause you love the profession.
Danny: Well, I love the craft.
Tavis: You love the craft. But is that ever jeopardized, Danny, by you being so strongly and adamantly, uh, progressive in your views?
Danny: Well, I don't think it's jeopardized by what people feel about me, because people feel that I'm gonna be honest about something, whether I'm supporting literacy and education--
Tavis: But has that ever cost you work, though, you think?
Danny: I can't--I don't know. I really can't say, you know. I mean, in a business that's just so temperamental, you never know. The career goes one way and then it goes another way, you never know. But I don't think about that. I mean, that's not--when I sit down at the table, when someone asks me to become involved in a case, a death penalty case, if someone asks me to make a statement about the war, I don't think about my career. I think about what I'm doing is the moral thing to do. And that is that. And however I stand and that feels to people, however irresponsible sometimes people--to myself or whatever, to however they may feel--then I feel that I'm doing the right thing to do. When I make that decision--when I make that decision, it's a decision made with a great deal of deliberation, a great deal of consultation, and a great deal of thought gone into it.
Tavis: Where does that come from, though? Because, I mean, there are a lot of folk, um, in this industry, and quite frankly in the world who are not actors who have conviction, but they don't have the courage and the commitment to step out and to let folks know what they think. Where does that come from in you?
Danny: Well, I don't know. Look here, you don't know what fear is until you deal with it, and you deal with it in so many ways. To say that I don't experience fear, that I'm not afraid, I'd be giving you a bunch of crap if I didn't...but if I deal with my fear and deal with the fear of what may happen by confronting the issue, then I've come to terms with that, and I understand that more. So to say where it comes from, it comes from a sense that something is wrong. I mean, whenever I look at the situation--and I'm not gonna be, I'm not gonna, you know, I'm not gonna save anybody from this--when I look at a situation where I say that there are more African-American men in jail than in college, that troubles me, you know. Then I say what is my responsibility, my generational responsibility? What is the responsibility of those who are in office now? How have they dropped the ball in that situation? How do they begin to say on the one hand that we have specific interests that we're concerned about and that excludes the majority of people? Those are the kinds of things that I question. So what I do is simply--I don't do the work, Tavis. What I try to do is to validate those who are out there doing the work, those people out there who are talking about those issues and communities, those issues about housing and communities and poverty community. I want to say that there's someone who's listening to you, and that comes from basically what has happened to--for all of us, that we're people of consciousness, we're people who are caring people and who want a different world, a world that is effective and a country that's effective, then we've got to make our statements about this. We never talk about those things. I don't know why other people don't do it. But I don't sit around and say that because there's a whole cadre of people who aren't artists, a whole cadre of people who aren't famous who step to the plate and do it every day. But you know what they don't get? They don't get the media exposure. They don't get the people who are saying this. They don't build, they don't talk about--there's a great deal of local leadership in this country, and it goes unheralded, you know, this local leadership that's happening in this country.
Tavis: In your work as, and partly in your work as just a human rights activist, and partly in your role as the chair of the TransAfrica forum, you just got back from Venezuela. You were there at the same time President Bush was there. Now I know the two of y'all--
Danny: No, no, no. He was in Monterrey.
Tavis: He was in Monterrey. That's right.
Danny: The conference was going on.
Tavis: Exactly. You were in Venezuela, and I raise that because the president was in Monterrey but he avoided President Chavez of Venezuela--didn't want to speak to him, didn't want to get anywhere near him. But you were with President Chavez, eventually, in Venezuela. What were you doing in Venezuela?
Danny: We went to Venezuela--we had been invited to Venezuela as part of a delegation--the TransAfrica Forum delegation--myself, Bill Fletcher, James Early, uh...Julianne Malveaux, Pat Forbes, Sylvia Hill. We were part of a delegation just to--first of all, because we were invited to celebrate Martin Luther King's birthday in Venezuela, and they were celebrating Martin Luther King's birthday.
Tavis: In Venezuela.
Danny: But look here, we were talking about Martin Luther King. We're not just talking about a civil rights leader. We're talking about a human rights leader. They celebrate his birthday in South Africa as well as in other places in the world as well. We were there ostensibly to celebrate his birthday. At the same time, they were opening at least 4 Bolivarian schools and naming those schools in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King. So people were very versed in the philosophy of King, one of nonviolent transformation. One that talked about poor people, one that said that--that it is our responsibility to provide health care, education, literacy, to end poverty for poor people, which is what Martin talked about.
Tavis: So why does President Bush not like President Chavez? He does not like this guy.
Danny: Well, he has his own reasons, but it's obvious that there's something that's happening in South America, something very extraordinary is happening in South America. You see it to some degree in Venezuela, you see it in Brazil, you see it now in Argentina, possibly in Bolivia, Uruguay--something is happening in here. And perhaps what they're talking about is real issues about sovereignty. Now we start with the free trade agreement of the Americas, which everyone has stepped back from to some degree. There was a great number of demonstrations in Miami just a few--a month or so ago, when there were meetings around there. And everyone is taking this very strong position in terms of having a voice, a real voice of equity in this agreement. So who has led the fight against that, who has been the most vocal person about this free trade agreement America? President Chavez has been. And basically he has been the person that has stood up, and has I think, to some extent, has brought another level of leadership that's happening in South America. And it's very important because, if you look at South America, and one of the reasons that TransAfrica went, is that places like Venezuela or Brazil, it's 50-60% African descendants. Places like Uruguay, Afro descendants. Ecuador, Afro descendants. We talk about the war on drugs in Colombia. The ones who are catching the most hell from that war are Afro descendants. And this is, I think, is information that African Americans must know about as well. So we were part of this delegation, and we talked to the opposition. We talked to the opposition, we visited schools, we visited programs--the shantytown program, which provided health services to people in barrios. The literacy program, the Mission Robinson Program, which is a literacy program--which is designed to end illiteracy in Venezuela--these are the things we talked about.
Tavis: You are such a busy guy and you do so much, and I have so little time. What I do know is that people the world over, people who are disenfranchised politically, socially, economically are better off because of your activism. Danny, nice to see you.
Danny: Well, well--
Tavis: You gotta come back with us again.
Danny: We gotta do this again.
Tavis: Got a lot more to talk about, brother.
Danny: All right, then.
Tavis: Good to see you, Danny.
Danny: Good to see you.
Tavis: We'll be back with Cincinnati Bengals head coach Marvin Lewis. Stay with us.
Back to January 30, 2004