Identity and Belonging: The Souls of a City / CityLab Paris

hello everyone thank you for being here for look it's gonna be a great session I hope you can move closer it's all right I'm afraid of to my mind oh so am i yes yeah I'm sitting here you guys I have this amazing amazing group amazing group of two amazing couple of writers here MacArthur Genius grant recipients which we can make fun of whenever you feel like it two of the most important writers in the world today and and our our subject is the city and identity so let's let's let me go right at this and ask you sort of an obvious question it's a thought that I have on the subway in New York frequently where you know you're crushed in with hundreds of people you got a Jamaican guy next to a Chinese guy next to a Hasidic guy next to an Arab guy you know I often think that this is a wondrous thing because it doesn't end in chaos and I'm wondering if there's a lesson for the world about that you know we talked about I'll just use America as an example America's considered a melting pot right but it's actually not all of America that's the melting pot it's the cities that are a melting pot so I'm wondering if you could talk about I'm wondering if you talk about why from a perspective of identity national tribal creedal religious why why cities work the way they do what do people understand about other people that they can't understand other than being in close proximity thank you Jim Amanda you could have took that she will I think I love both of them so if you detect any repartee it's friendly repartee except when it gets not right yeah I think you just become acculturated to certain things you know I I can remember it's not like I've lived in a bunch of cities but I know like when I came to New York for the first time I absolutely hated it everything you're talking about the lack of space to being squished together this this wasn't a value I had actually had I grown up in a city in Baltimore but very different in terms of you know how spaces and how how space is organized city is the opposite of social media in a way you have to see the person right right right and then you you know you get used to it and then after a while you almost like it like it actually becomes a good thing so much so that when I first came here to Paris I actually fell in love in the subway it was it was the squishy together thing that felt intensely familiar to me that I liked right off the bat so but I think at the same time you can't mistake that for real social integration because everybody goes home afterwards you know we tend to live in our separate communities she's off to a great start Wow I did warn you that I'm sleep deprived I think I'm going to be the person who dampens things a little and say that we have usually him so that's fine we have to be careful not to romanticize cities because I think there's also something that can be alienating about it that you so I live in I live partly in Lagos and Lagos is huge and there's an energy there that I absolutely love but it can also feel as though people walk past one another and and and maybe I mean I don't know that that in places that are not cities that people necessarily connect whatever the hell connect is but so I think cities are lovely I think is lovely I think New York is a an interesting place my other favorite city is London I like the tube in London like how do you feel about Paris I find Parris it's okay keep going I'm not and I and you know I don't think Paris needs my love because a lot of people love this city but I don't think I would count myself among the people who do what is it about it that maybe it's not even a Paris thing maybe it's a general it just seems to me that the French did not get the memo that there are no longer a wall power and so there's a kind of I mean it's just a kind of sort of superior stiffness that is unbearable to me and and I think I think also the relationship is complicated because obviously I'm West Africa and France has a very complicated different yeah different which is why one also has because I mean and not to excuse or not to diminish British colonialism but you know at least the UK isn't in control of the Nigerian currency today in the way that that France is really in control of the CFA there isn't the relationship between the UK annex its former colonies is not quite as as fixed I don't think and so when I was I was teasing him about loving Paris and telling him that his sort of I love no no we're gonna have him rise to the defense in a second yeah he's getting ready but anyway I just not that there's anything wrong with you doing the James Baldwin's thing but here's the thing no but I understand it because I think we have very we have different perspectives I think that when you're an American you have a different relationship with France so just arriving here with my Nigerian passport at the airport I experienced the most humiliating annoying questioning and I could tell it's just because of the passport had I given an American passport it would have been entirely different okay so so I think it's just yeah I think it's just prejudiced that I carry with right when I frame this forever no no it's it's it's interesting I want to frame this very because we know each other well and I made this observation to you last night that I know you in New York I know you in Washington and I know you in Paris and in Paris you're so much lighter there's a there's a there's a happiness about you that is on an unburdened happiness and I'm wondering what what is this city do for you that New York and Washington don't I actually think it's the flipside of like if you think about Americana right and the relationship of Africans to America I have no historical this isn't my sin like whatever the French did and their colonialism I'm not there I can't use that word here they use it for you don't you give me fire I we don't have the historical relationship there's not detention so it was actually I was listening to what you were saying in terms of the stiffness and I actually perceive it to see the exact same thing but I like it I like the stiffness I like to hide the bound traditionalism but I think I have the luxury of liking it because it's distant do you not I mean there's no it doesn't bring back any sort of there's no colonial memory for it with me like I don't and as you as you say I mean when I come here I have an American passport so it's armed I recognize it's a love born out of a luxury you know I would say somewhat similar maybe and you can comment on its the way certain Africans feel when they come to America yeah in a way that I would not you know I think that's yeah I want you go ahead I want to talk a little bit about the relationship of writers to their cities there's a certain kind of person obviously who benefits from solitude being in the country being in the cabin other kinds of people who draw off the city there's a practical question embedded here which is a lot of cities and you hear this discussion at conferences like this a lot of cities want to draw the creative class to their downtown's instance right so so we can grapple with that one in a minute but the broader question is where do you write best and what is it about cities in particular cities that allow you to write best you're doing mainly nonfiction you're doing mainly fiction but go ahead I write best what when I write best of all when wherever I can write and it really depends on when the spirits smile but I find that when I'm in Lagos I don't write in general I don't write as well because there's too much noise and it's not just physical noises psychic noise and in a good way so I have family have friends there's a lot going on and I like to think that I'm I'm absorbing and when I go back to the US it's much quieter because I don't have a life in the US and so you don't have a life no well that's sad it's actually not sad it's all by design I'm quite happy and I know my family and my and I live in small-town Maryland and it's I like it I like the quiet bland American suburbia so that's then when I think I'm mostly right when I'm in the US there's nothing else to do well that's putting it a little - no it's just that I it's the space it's where I can create space for myself and silence and silence is important to me okay I think I really need the buzz and the energy of cities but you know I have to confess I am arriving at travel relatively late in life I think maybe later than most people in this room when's the first time you left the United States well I left the United States when I was nine years old to go to London and did not leave the United States again at I was 37 37 37 was the next time I left the United States so this is a lot of this is I mean even here have it I mean it's new for me you know I mean like I feel like a child I say that to say I'm reluctant to draw hard conclusions you know about what I actually do right but I mean it may be that you know cities are bad for me ultimately but it's all I know do you know I mean like right now it's all I really really know just do two quick turn on that practical question of what cities can do to make themselves amenable to creative people oh you know I'm not talking about tax policy and what is it about city no no but they should not really I did something okay I said that probably would disturb me on two levels one I guess I feel like as the writer I want human beings to do what human beings do like I don't want them like I get energy from human beings being human being it's not human beings trying to create an environment for me but on the second level I think the thing that has to be acknowledged is I get a little nervous whenever I hit is conversation about a creative class of people because there are actual people who are already living in those cities who have loyalty and love for those you know a cities and I always wonder whether they're being included in that conversation as creative you know we have a music forum in Washington DC called gogo it's one of the best local music forms you can ever hear but as a creative class has moved into a creative class has moved into Washington DC you actually hear less and less gogo in the city so the thing that was most creative and distinctive you know from my time there is actually being pushed out you know I mean because it wasn't necessarily recognized in that way yeah we do talk a little talked a little bit about that gentrification process because the downside of a city of a city revitalizing is that and I think about this in though in the case of Washington you have extraordinary number of liberal White's moving in and it's kind of like this this this dark magic trick or something like that evil magic trick where suddenly we're the black people who lived on 14th Street where the black people who lived on H Street northeast I mean to talking that out a little bit because there are if we're going to do the downsides of revitalization it could be plausibly considered one of the downsides of revitalization I'd like to talk about Paris instead really yes I'm sure the people out here from Paris are gonna be very excited about whatever you have to say right now because in some ways I feel similarly to sort of see in this that idea of sort of I think there's a sort of a boo-boo Elliott and I realize that I'm a member of a tonight yeah sorry about that I enjoy some of the privileges I think it was the MacArthur Genius that's the car that you got but something there's a conversation about things like you know how do we get a creative class and I think the first thing to do would be to have affordable housing for people have you know let's have apartments where people don't have to pay crazy money to live in them and I also think that fixing a city doesn't necessarily have to involve pushing out people who have been there for four generations I mean surely there has to be a way to to have both but the reason I said I wanted to talk about Paris I look I know that they're wonderful things about this city right but it's also about being inclusive if you talk to black people in Paris mmm-hmm it's it's very interesting by which I mean black French people mm-hmm it's very interesting how the relationship with Paris especially the sort of the creative centers of Paris they feel very excluded I have a French a black French band friend who said to me that when she goes into Paris proper she pretends to be Anglophone because she said if you're if you're a foreign blood person you get a bit more respect is that what you experienced on Aussie yeah yeah I mean I had a book that was translated in French and one of the best things about the book was I got to talk to French black people about France no I mean I I'd read enough to not be completely naive you know when I came in not to say you know there's no racist da da da da but and not just French black people also French people with origins in an emigrant from Algeria Tunisia and I think the interaction is definitely very very different and so it's clear that it's a luxury that you're enjoying I want to stay with your point for a second is that is that something that's unique to Paris to seek this this experience but I think that there's something about the the Harris example that I think New York I don't think for example that seeing a black person in the center of as a black woman here was saying to me that she and she was Nigerian so she wasn't French but she said she lived in the center of Paris and and whenever she was out people were just surprised to see her because there was a sense in which she didn't belong there was unusual I don't think that's the case in New York City with all its problems I mean not to I don't think that's necessarily the case in London either so I think that there is something about about this city that something particular about it no it is I think there's a definite difference like I began not being from it but I perceive a definite cultural conservatism that I don't feel in New York at the same time no you will go in spaces in New York very nice restaurant for instance and people will be very very happy to see you there no other black people in the restaurant not even the service not even the service which I do see here and somehow makes me feel more better about it then like about wow I can't even get a job here you know like you appreciate the idea of you but the actual friends I went to disturb and here's we were gonna be married to two things right the French and the Anglo tradition I went to New Orleans a few months back and the restaurant I went to everything went working there all over all of the servers were young black men that were under the age of 20 it was the most beautiful thing and I was like this is this is perfect I'm a New Orleans has a ton of problems but something about that was just I was like I've never ever seen this I feel you know absolutely fine the restaurant wasn't jari people would have worn black but it was something about the fact that they actually you know employed that they could be the face or the restaurant and that's something I don't usually see this is a broad essay question but I would love to get your thoughts on this the if the 19th century has been said by other people not just me 19th century is the century of the empire the 20th century is the century of the nation-state is the 21st century gonna be the century of the city-state I mean I ask you this is your very international people now and you move from city to city and you're comfortable some cities make you more comfortable some cities make you less comfortable obviously but you're comfortable in those scenarios do you think that we're moving toward a situation in which this the idea of the city state becomes salient again we see in America obviously the divide is not between Austin and New York it's between Texas and New York or sort of the middle of the country in New York and Los Angeles San Francisco take it away tone ah see how come Chimamanda can't go first she has jetlag I told you I was gonna be nice to her today I don't know honestly I don't know if you know I would have to I just think about the premise that a question first obviously that doesn't sound like a future I want to be part of but it's America that you write about already I mean I want to come directly to your writing yeah Donald what he means for America right right right but I don't want myself marked off like it's some sort of urban night from from the country you know I mean like like I don't want that to be the difference and and for very very real reason to be on you know the idea of just you know not wanting that that identity I mean my heritage is from the Eastern Shore of Maryland african-american heritage you know comes out of the country comes out of Mississippi comes out of the field comes out of you know Virginia and so I I was born well boy I am Who I am a you know 42 years unit Baltimore make you or America may not be Stern Show of Maryland made me be sure America yeah that was and I didn't have the same you know the kind of maybe physical connection that I you know wanted to but that was when my mother was front as with my mother's side of the family was from with my grandmother's that was where the stories were from on that dad ever I would we tend to forget black people live in the country to you know Jim I'll talk about the Lagos experience I mean do people in Lagos feel separated from what's happening outside of Lagos no I think I mean I actually find myself wondering why the hell should we even bridge the divide why should we breach the device because you're in your night or not a divider I mean no I mean that's that's an interesting question why why would you think that it's not good for the sake of civil society for the sing of equity and harmony not to bridge that rural urban divide but I think then I want to question the very notion of defied hmm because I I also think that this is sort of thing that happens in events like this I think that Lagos I think like oceans think of themselves because Lagos is kind of Nigeria's melting points people come from all over Nigeria Lagos is the place where you go to pursue the dream and that's what your dream will die or not and I think there's something about lagoons that is distinct I think from from the rest of Nigeria it's more progressive in general it's more I want to say it's more yes it's a melting point but also you find quite often very deep ugly and often politicized ethnic divides and they're ghosts so in Lagos you'll find the house of community fighting the Yoruba community often in the poor areas of Lagos and killing one another I think but also Lagos is the place where people sort of the build their houses but then at Christmas but he goes back to their ancestral home towns where they still have a connection so I think Lagos is that place that kind of belongs to you but nobody really very few people really are from Lagos in that way where you're you know where you're where you're Eastern Shore is where you're Rio you want your sort of deep ancestral love is I think of Lagos as my home but every Christmas I go with my family to my ancestral hometown but we go back to this point about not bridging the divide it is a preoccupation obviously of politicians in different parts of of the world why is it because it's unbridgeable it is not worth trying or you said something interesting about about whether it's worth bridging that that gap I think maybe because I don't know what it means mm-hmm because sometimes it seems to me that what we're really saying is how do we get those people in the rural areas to act more like us how do we get them to be and my feeling is that you know there's something to be said for areas in the wall that are not cities and you know there's so much talk in Nigeria today about agriculture and about how we need to feed ourselves and we can't do that if all of Nigeria becomes as much you can't grow it in Lagos can you talk about this in the context of today's America you know where you have cities that went 90 95 % for Hillary Clinton rural areas that you couldn't find a Clinton sign for hundreds of miles what does that mean and how do you refract that through the prism of this urban-rural divide it's worth is it worth repairing or is it just the way it is I think there is a population of people who live in a lot of those areas where I mean let's be very clear on average they tend to be doing better than most African Americans that live in the cities and most Latinos that live in the cities but maybe don't necessarily feel optimistic about you know the future for their children and I think for a long time in America's history you know the presidency is more than just someone at that you know in acts actual policy it's a symbol and I think for a long time symbol in the White House was at least the idea my child can be that one day you know this thing that happened when Barack Obama was elected with people would say well now I can tell my son my daughter that they can be President and I don't think folks consider the negative attack the flip side of that which is if this person can be President I can't now that sounds sort of illogical but race in America and whiteness in America has always been zero-sum it's always been like that it's not you know it's not an inclusive idea actually and so I think you know there was a negative symbol set bottles you know obviously by negative I don't mean an assemble that you know I wouldn't endorse but if folks they received it in a negative way whose sorrows rallies all these you know big you know multicultural crowds and this multicultural cabinet and you know they perceived it a certain way as an insult you know and I think that explains a lot about trumpism this city I think in that case is a stand-in for other devices that are already actually there it's a polite way of you know saying something that's actually already there right gentleman I want to ask the last question to you as the author of a new treatise on feminism we are at a rupture moment I think in American society and probably it's bled beyond the borders of America by now I think you see it in in in France too because of the the triggering event was this Harvey Weinstein controversy but I would just love to and I think the audience would love to hear your view about whether or not well whether or not my observation is right that this is actually a breakpoint a tipping point in the way we understand relations between the sexes I want it to be I hope I hope it is but I'm my sense is that it isn't and and it's because I mean Bill Cosby happened and and there's a bit of noise and then which just didn't make sense to me and for me following to Harvey Weinstein story I've been struck by how I read the comments the New York Times and I'm struck by how you know it's terribly liberal progressive people how so much of the comments are about blaming the women there's still I think there's never read the comments by the way well the first rule of the Internet I don't read things about myself but I do for me it's kind of a way to gauge especially when it comes to gender conversations how people are reacting and again we're not talking about Trump voters we're talking about people who read the New York Times and there's a lot of you know why did she wait so long why you assume that there's no overlap between the Trump voter ID we can I think we can safely see that the overlap is very limited he runs against the New York Times that's like you know they may fail into your terms I think that's defensible you can go on I that's why I want I want to hope that it is but I'm not so sure I think that the problem of gender is so deeply entrenched and I think it's so difficult to talk about because there's a sense in which people expect a kind of overt and obvious way of proving that something bad has happened that that it's that gender is a problem and especially places like the US it's it's a lot more subtle I mean have your Weinstein is kind of this florid example but it happens everyday in every industry you know the way that women are put down the way that women are judged differently the way and and it's somehow talking about it is difficult because somebody says to you well why do you really think Hillary Clinton being a woman contributed oh it's just because she's very stiff and she's not you know she and I want the emails and all of that and you think no there's a lot of it that's gender but it's not easy to sort of say here's the proof it's not like burning a cross in somebody's yard and and sometimes I worry that maybe what we need to do is shift the way we talk about it so that instead of saying maybe how the Weinstein shouldn't be what we use as an example of the problem with gender is is too cartoonish yes [Music] how see any words on this you have any thoughts on this because I'm in this like we started I agree to Raimondo Sonali thank you very much thank you to all [Applause]

Channel: AtlanticLIVE

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Id: 1dU3fRP6pHc

Length: 28min 19sec (1699 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 26 2017