Mikey Alfred Is Bringing His Dreams To Life Through Illegal Civilization [Interview]

So I'm a human first. I don't care what job I'm doing, no one's getting hurt in front of me without me stepping in and trying to help.

Also the overarching thing, my belief is that as black people we need to do a couple things mentally. As kids, when a white kid is in a store and he says, "Mommy what is this?" She says that's ravioli, and he touches something — "Mommy what's this?" And she says, "Oh you know put that back, but that's Chicken Campbell's Soup."

When a black kid is in the grocery store and he says mommy what is this, she says, "Be quiet, stop asking questions." You know when he touches something — don't touch that, that's not for you, you don't own that, that's not yours. No matter how strong and how loud and how whatever black people might act, we are taught to be submissive.

You ever meet these guys where they're really tough and they'll be super gnarly and beat up other people of color, and then when you tell them to go in a board room they get scared? They start being mousey? You know you tell them go to a meeting and they start looking down and they can't make eye contact?

You know that comes from us as kids. You know in the 60s to be a good black person was not to annoy white people. And we just have to unlearn that. It's like we have to learn that we are valid, we belong there, we can do things, we can do what we want, and no you don't have the authority to tell me what to do.

Something else I truly believe, in which is why Illegal Civ has the film aspect, the clothing, is because we have to build our own institutions. We keep trying to play other peoples games and of course you're going to lose when it's not your game.

That's why I look up to Jay-Z and Diddy so much. Instead of trying to play the record label's games they started their own record labels. Instead of trying to play the fashion people's game they started their own clothing line. That's what we have to do on every level — small, big, whatever.

Hopefully, that can one day get into law and congress and policing. Where we can police our own communities, we can give ourselves laws and guidelines, and we don't have to get it from people who don't look like us.

It's crazy to me that it's still like, almost 200 years later, when you look at Congress and you look at government, it's still majority not us, you know?

I consider Illegal Civ at this point a creative empire and I find it fascinating that it has managed to maintain its skate culture roots even as you've expanded the brand and have built relationships with people unassociated with that culture like Kendall Jenner, Chief Keef, and others. What do you think allows Illegal Civ to frequent all these different spaces?

Like I said, Jay-Z is one of my favorites. An interviewer asked him once, "When you do a deal with Def Jam or whoever, does that take away from your street cred?" And he's like, "Not to people who have really been in the street."

I think that Illegal Civ is similar in a sense that we really are skaters for real and put that time in, put that blood and sweat into it, and a lot of other people know that. And all the people in the skate industry know that. So it doesn't matter if I hang out with Tyler or Chief Keef or whoever. Because you know what's up, you know? There's nothing I can do to take away from my credit as a skateboarder. I've spent too much time doing it, I've put too much of myself into it.

And every time I'm with those people it's to bring skateboarding up and help all of us. Skateboarders are the lowest paid athletes in the world, it's crazy. There are people who play cricket who make more than skateboarders.