Detroit's poet laureate on equality in northern Michigan, ahead of Traverse City visit

Austin began his interview by sharing an observation he made on his drive to work. Read a transcript of their conversation below.

AUSTIN ROWLADER, Interlochen Public Radio: I drive about an hour to get to the radio station and on my way there, I see three Confederate flags...

JESSICA CARE MOORE, Detroit's poet laureate: Way up in that part and in the midst of all that beautifulness, all the trees and all that beauty that's up there? No, come on. You're going to ruin it with that? With some flag that stands for the opposite of beauty, you know?

But to me, that's the metaphor for what America is like, having to drive past the mess and drive through the mess and I mean, it's tear down the mess sometimes. But the reality, what I do believe is that those folks in their tiny little world are miserable. And I don't believe that they're the majority of this country.

I mean, I don't see Confederate flags in Detroit. There are places you could go where you would not find one. You know what I’m saying? Good luck flying that for 24 hours in the ‘D’. You know I mean?

So they up there where they think it's safe, you know. They think they have some safety net and I don't have no interest in being their neighbors. So I'm good. I'm good.

It's one of reasons why I love living in Detroit, to be honest with everything that's going on in this country. It's one of the places I feel more safe.

ROWLADER: When you're driving around and you see a Confederate flag draped in somebody's window, what does that make you feel?

MOORE: I feel sorry for them, you know? They're sad people. When I see a Trump flag, I see the Confederate flag. There’s no difference. White supremacy is running the country right now. And they're completely open about it. It's not a secret. He's out and his people are very open about it. And he's got his colleagues there in the Republican party who are absolutely, their hoods are just off. I don't look at them any different than the KKK or any other supremacist group, the Proud Boys, they're all the same group you know, just different outfits.

I've never seen in my lifetime an acting president who would be this way. In my mother's time, we experienced very racist white presidents. They had segregation and that's why we had civil rights movements and people getting assassinated: Malcolm X and Medgar Evers and Martin Luther King. That’s why we're talking about the King holiday. This is a man that was assassinated in his thirties for trying to fight for human rights for black and brown folks in this country.

My daddy went to jail during that time period. So I know the stories, I've heard about it and they had to fight the good fight. So here we are now, the children of that movement, right? Having to again, fight the good fight.

And a flag ain't gonna hurt me. As long as somebody's not being violent, you wanna do your little flag and your miserable flag. Nobody cares about your miserable flag. It's not gonna affect my latte. It just isn't. It's not like I'm gonna cry. You know what mean?

ROWLADER: If you could go to one of these houses that I drive by and knock on the door and talk to the person that's inside…what would you say to that person?

MOORE: I would say: I pray one day you have the joy and love in my heart that I have for humanity. I pray that you one day can see how beautiful the planet is and how beautiful people are all over the world and that the world doesn't belong to them. I really would. I would [tell them that] the world doesn't, it doesn't belong to you.

And I would say, I hope that, you know, that you're lucky enough to take hate out of your heart because it's destroying you. It doesn't hurt me. The hate doesn't hurt me. It's hurting them. Those are people who are in pain.

Jessica Care Moore is the poet laureate of Detroit, and spoke with Interlochen Public Radio's Austin Rowlader.