a moment of clarity.

words.

ROLLING STONE: "In your life and in your value system, what are the things that do matter?"

VINCE STAPLES: "That changes over time, of course. But the fact that we don't look at people like they're people is the craziest part to me. Like, when all that church shit happened it was so sad to me. 'Cause it was like, "See this what I'm talking about: Everybody hates black people." Well that limits people's ability to connect. That's what happens when you make things about gender or color or things like that. 'Cause you can look at a white person all day and say, "Black people just keep dying." They're going to feel sympathy for you, but they won't have a personal connection because they'll never know what it's like to be a black person. Same thing: We'll never know what it's like to be white. The fact that it's not just "a person died": Everybody knows how that feels to be a person. That just shows that we gauge humanity based on the wrong things. What's important to me is people just being people. And that's what I care about: getting rid of all the bullshit that doesn't mean anything at the end of the day. You look outside, all this shit is fake. We make this shit. We can pick a system for taxes, we know how to work fucking phones, we know fiberoptics. Someone made fiber-fucking-optics, but we don't know how to treat people yet. Different wires made of different materials labeled different colors can make sound or picture come on a screen, and we don't know how to treat people. That's backwards as fuck."

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