In Conversation With Ta-Nehisi Coates

[Applause] thank you thank you very much Alisa thank you to six and I and politics and prose for convening us and I have to say it is remarkable and wonderful to hear in an introduction that by the way you've been a karcher fellowship that should be a footnote that's really amazing for the remarkable year that you're so we're gonna talk for a while up here explore some of the themes in the book maybe ask you some questions about yourself and then open it up to you guys task Tata see some questions we thought we might start out reading a passage if you don't mind from Shoreham your Baltimore days from the early pages of the book so I just want to you live in your life like you're just going through your daily life doing what you do and I've been a writer I mean it's 20 years ago and suddenly something like this year happens and I'm not sure why I was listening to the bargains like listening to somebody else it is it's incredible thank you guys for coming out I can't even process why I'm here okay fear is a big component of between the world and me and we're going to talk about that a little bit this is a book that's written in a form as a letter to my son and it is I tried to be as unsparing in the book is I actually him in conversation with him because I think that's the only way that we get to any sort of truth he called me today he's in school over in Paris and we'll give you some rich people's problems right here he's in school in Paris and we thought we were putting him into a bilingual school it turned out it was not up on label school there was only one other Anglophone there and that Anglophone transferred out today problems and he can barely understand to see for him like you know I'm joking that is rich people's problems but see when you're the kid and you're 15 years old you haven't seen anything else you have nothing else to compare it to and everybody else around you speaks a different language than you and he studied before but it's different when you're thrown into the game and I was trying to tell him today said listen I feel lonely I feel miserable this is what's going on and I am you know as I say in the book I made no effort to make him feel better because it is miserable and it must be lonely you know but in a year you'll be thankful for it but right now you're right it is miserable you know and that's like a basis of trust between me and him and so this this book is I think it comes out of that spirit between me and Samara I had that kind of trust that sort of candor and so I'm gonna read about fear in a very candid way and I am afraid I feel the fear most acutely whenever you leave me but I was afraid long before you and in this I was unoriginal when I was your age the only people I knew were black and all of them were powerfully adamantly dangerously afraid I had seen this feel all my young life though I had not always recognized it it's such it was always right in front of me the field was there and the extravagant boys of my neighborhood and their large rings and aliens in their big puffy coats and full-length fur collared leathers which was their armor against the world they would stand on the corner of Gwynn Oak and Liberty or cold spring and Park Heights while outside of mondawmin mall with their hands dipped in Russell sweats I think back on those boys now and all I see is fear and all I see is them guarding themselves against the ghost of the bad old days when the Mississippi mob gathered around their grandfather so that the branches of the black body might be torched then cut away the field lived on in their practice Bob and their slouching denim and their big t-shirts in the calculated angle of their baseball caps a catalogue of behaviors and garments enlisted to inspire the belief that these boys were in firm possession of everything they desired I saw it in their customs of war I was no older than five sitting out on the front steps of my home on wood Brook Avenue watching two shirtless boys circle each other close and Bucks old shoulders from then on I knew that there was a ritual to every street fight by laws and codes that in their very need attested to all the vulnerability of the black teenage body I heard the fear in the first music I ever knew the music that pumped from boom boxes full of grand boasts and bluster the boys who stood out on garrison and Liberty up on Park Heights love dis music because it told them against all evidence and arts that they were masters of their own lives their own streets and their own bodies I saw it in the girls in their loud laughter and their gilded bamboo earrings that announced their names thrice over and I saw it in their brutal language and hard gaze how they would cut you with their eyes and destroy you with their words for the sin of playing too much keep my name out of your mouth they was saying I would watch them after school how they squared off like boxes Vaseline DUP earrings off Reeboks on and looked at each other and you know I just want to say like really quickly about about that part when I was like a young man in that environment I didn't understand that these people were afraid that was not my perception I was afraid of everything you know all the behaviors I just named you know basically scared me and it was only later you know after looking back on it that I could see in each of those things which saw what was bluster but as a young person looked to me like power was in fact actual fear and one of the things I really really wanted to do with this book is invert the picture particularly of young African Americans but because I think rage is what comes to mind a lot of times I think you know violent power is what comes to mind and to you know make it clear that what you are actually seeing it's fear but that actually is the dominant emotion that that's at play there you know you're describing you're young you and still young you now is the celebrated best-selling author and with all the qualities Lissa described earlier but you say at the outset of that passage that you are afraid so how are you afraid are you still afraid and and what is the quality of the of the fear today the nature of it well it's different you know I mean you know I'm older I have a little bit more control over you know my circumstance and my body I think this this really comes out of the spirit of being in middle school which i think is a particular time you know in the mental growth of all people but I think in the period where that was happening in my life in Baltimore City in the in the 1980s and into the 1990s given what was happening in the cities at that time it was just a particular point a very violent point and so it was it was particularly scary to be yeah you know having more control less so now but then you know you have kids you know you you know you send your kids out into the world and you are I am you know very very much afraid you know for my son you know and it's the normal fear which you know for instance you know I felt today in the conversation I was having with you I think all parents feel and then it is the fear like when we're you know at home in Harlem when your kid goes out you know to school and you know what kind of neighborhood Harlem is and you know what happens in Harlem and that's a that's a different fear that's an extra layer that I think comes with you know being African American in this country did you know did you ever have a lot of fear as a writer would you have to conquer any particular fears I'm not saying even to to advance a controversial argument or something like that but just to believe that you had something to say that the world wanted to hear yeah I have a story for you about that I had a piece do for an editor who used to be with us James Gibney and I kept asking for extensions and he said to me the last time I actually said no said no if you don't turn this in by tomorrow I will go to James Bennett and I will tell him that I have no confidence in your ability to deliver this piece I said oh my god I can't happen that can never be said about me and I tried it out in the day and the piece random magazine life forms and what I got was that I was afraid that in fact what I was doing that I did not need more time that I did not need to think things over there I had not figured it out that I was just afraid that I was literally afraid that you know it was going to be terrible that I couldn't do it that actually was a big growth piece for me because then I could see the whole process so I'm not really like I do get afraid now but I recognize as part of the process and I just you know right right through it you know it's actually one of the things I try to impart on students what I'm teaching you know that it is it is natural to sit there and be afraid but you got to do it in spite of it and how about the writing in this particular book you said in one of the interviews you gave over the summer that you wouldn't have written this book in 2008 right you've changed right so what how did that happen well I think a couple things I mean one of the benefits of working for the Atlantic was particularly the time I you know when I arrived we were I think you're really trying to figure out who we were I said it was a lot of room you know for creativity I think there's still room you know but it was like really really entrepreneurial there was still such a thing as a blog as a blogosphere in a big way and we were trying to participate in that and figure out where we were in that and so I you know had this space you know at the Atlantic this blog which I could utilize however I wanted and I you know basically utilized it I mean there's no other way to say this to educate myself by which I mean I spent a lot of time in conversation with you know readers of the magazine readers of the blog you know about you know various subjects and one of those being really really close to my heart you know American history and it was sobering this is very very sobering and I think I don't want anybody to take this the wrong way but actually kind of radicalizing even more so than Howard University even more so than all the things that I had experienced after it was really that period for about 2008 to about 2012 because when I came to see is that you know we have a way of looking at the world as people you know who are Americans and it just you know going through life but historians and academics they just have this so harsh and you've such a harsh view of the world and there's no need I mean people say to me you know about this book and about a lot of my other journalism where is the hope I say man if you hung out with who I hang out with I mean you just you just need to go on a campus and just sit any American history department just for a minute I mean no don't go sit you know with you know you don't have to sit with like people that are throwing firebombs or anything like that just try to sit through a reasonably good and intelligent survey of American history say to 1860 1865 and then after it is sobering I mean it really really is so great and I think like one of the things for me is um these were not books that were you know in the dust that I mean this is like you know James Macpherson's you know book on the Civil War you know which is like a Pulitzer prize-winner Oxford history of America I mean he's a well-regarded books you know IRA Katznelson book you know which one a bunch of prizes last year for itself and maybe people aren't reading this book I don't know you know but Dad I mean not that period for me I think it's just some it changed my journalism you know because it forced me to write in a longer sort of way you know it opened you know my gaze just a little bit wider so yeah it altered a lot about how I wrote I wouldn't know I wouldn't have written any of this I'm gonna read this I wouldn't written the case for reparations I wouldn't wrote the mass incarceration article like that at that point I just I wasn't there yard you know it's it's funny one of the things you managed to do so powerfully is to constantly break news to us about our own history but as you say this stuff is being taught it's being read but it's as though we walk around not not knowing it I can't understand I don't um I I don't quite get it you know what I mean I mean one of the things that I'm very I was you know we did this uh brown bag at the Atlantic the other day and I was telling you know James I was telling audience that one of the things that happens whenever you know something is published you know in the Atlantic whenever like you see one of these long long pieces 15,000 you you guys if you could only see what happens we do books in short form right that's a very efficient way I mean if you guys could see like so like just to get me I will just take like the mass incarceration piece okay so like the vetting for that begins with you know we had a good crew of sociologists up at Harvard who met with me and my editor Scott Stossel you know gave us some preliminary thoughts when we had the draft they read it said this is what's wrong this is what's right it went through you know James it went through Atlantic fat checks that you got like three or four or five people on your backside correcting every little thing I mean just you guys cannot imagine like how small it can get I mean it literally can be like um I don't know you know you said the incarceration rate in you know 1972 was 231 point five for a hundred thousand but that was actually the 1973 incarceration and actually in that yeah you know you about a decimal point or so off I mean it gets like I mean really really so so I was telling you that by the time it's done by the time all that's done by the time I went through all those academics and historians by the time I went through Scott and James but I time I went through fact-check I know I'm right it's just I'm right I'm right and I'll fight anybody I'll fight anybody I'll debate you right on this street corner I'll be there you bring your sources I'll bring mine and we can do this I'm ready you know because it's a and and and I think that like youth like we think of fact-check and we think of that process as protecting the magazine but it protects the writer you know and and I don't know I mean your vision question was you know we in many ways I guess aren't saying and do things I think we have I think the journalism is new I think the journalism I think that's the new part of it you know I think the narrative that you know the reported actually piece of it it's new but that much of the history like the foundation of it is not new you know and and why it's treated that way I mean why you know a ground that's been tried by other historians who we cite and all our work I mean I but it shocks us I don't know why I mean I was water like listening to the bio you know like this notion of having you know what your work is sort of changed and no disrespect at all at all but your work is sort of changed the conversation and I'm thinking particularly the theory state they're going to between the world in be I mean these are not new notions I mean this notion for instance that you know undergirds the whole idea that you know this the you know the idea of race being you know social constructs it's old hat and academia you know like this even the poetic spended I put on it you know the people who believe they are white James Baldwin said that like 30 or 40 years ago there's nothing new in that at all and I will happily say that you know me I don't have and I'm not here to tell you that I'm a bearer of some new knowledge I'm really not I'm really not in my best you know I'm a synthesizer you know I think I excel it you know writing in a particular way to make it urgent but the actual information there's a lot of new information in there including your own story of course but but so why now do you think I mean why are you hitting the driver that you're hitting at the moment well I think two things happen I think that the election of Barack Obama I think that you know put you know people's gaze in a certain way I think the possession of cameras and everybody smartphone you know and the ability to record a you know an amount of police violence that maybe people did not understand existed or happened out there I think that's all two things a lot but you know I have to say like when I was doing this or you know when I've done any of what I've done for the LA I didn't understand it that was what was gonna happen you know like I didn't have the awareness that okay this you know this movement is gonna develop this black man I think is gonna spring up and people will be looking for something you know I was kind of writing out of an internal need and then it just you know I was lucky enough to have a match up you know I want to ask you about the reaction of the book you mentioned the president I mentioned this to you the other day I heard you at Howard the other day you've got a lot of great questions from the audience at Howard I heard you on the Diane Rehm Show a couple days ago and one of the astonishing things to me was Barack Obama never came up yeah in either of those conversations and so this you know the salience of this conversation about race is as great as its been since James Baldwin's time but you know we're in the seventh almost eight year the first you know administration of a black president why isn't he more part of the conversation I thought I had an answer for that I mean I thought at Howard University was because that you know like that conversation there was certain ground already laid and so people were going to I had nothing laughs but you sure didn't come up with the students either over the course of the day right no it didn't but I mean even among those students I felt that they were you know a different level here's my Howard University arrogance yeah but no really I mean that there's this real talk I mean they're not to be arrogant about I mean they they they have discussed Obama up one side and down the other by the time they get to me you know it's definitely true so by the time they get to me it's like okay you know we already dealt with yeah let's you know talk about something else do you think we all feel that way at this point but you know you made a good point about Diane Rehm I mean obviously doesn't apply to that I don't know maybe it's cuz it's towards the end maybe it's because certain folks have made their peace with certain things and have decided what they think I don't really know I don't really know so what has surprised doing the reaction you've gotten to the book the entire reaction I mean I'm serious the entire thing has been shocking I mean from the moment that blurb came in from Toni Morrison everything after that has been shocking it was a surprise to actually I mean I guess before that blurb came in it was a it was a surprise to get the book done teller laughing I'm isolating I'm not I'm not I wish my and there's nobody here for my publisher but they will tell you know it was a surprise to get the book done I mean I wish my editor would see because he will tell you I mean we went through like five transfers at the one at one point it was so bad that I printed out the entire draft ready came up with an entirely different structure for it numbered every single paragraph and then decided what number of the paragraph should match with which section and then instead of like doing a cut and paste job I typed the entire manuscript back into the computer to run it through my brain again right I mean I just got to do sometimes it you know figure out where it was but when I was doing that I had no real I didn't know where I was going I didn't know myself boy I gotta say though that you just kind of wrote I mean you just filed a big story for the magazine had and you remember you telling me that you also were working on a book and I said oh how's it going he said yeah I just turned it in but that was probably a draft I mean I probably was not the book I probably had done was turned in the draft and Chris my editor I probably told me this will not work as probably what happened and because like you know you ask this question about fear as a writer I mean you sit down and especially with books you you you are acknowledging and even with the mass incarceration piece you know what I mean like using daniel patrick moynihan i mean somewhere in my head is this feels right but this might not work like i think it's correct but i'm not sure that this is actually you know it's like you write the outline you say okay I think this is destruction that's like a you know a mathematical theory theorem that you think explains XY and Z and then you go try to prove it you know when you have to do the writing and by the time we got to the floor of giraffe and Chris said okay I think this is it everything after that was shocking and I think because every time you know III you know the book receives another accolade all I can remember is sitting in that little office in my apartment in Harlem and just being like you know I don't I don't think this is this might not be going anywhere I need to be honest for myself and say you know I know I gotta do my best but this might not be going anywhere and it is amazing that like that's how I see this book but everybody else sees the book after that like that process doesn't even exist for them they don't even know you know what it's like it's like my dad's in the audience right and my dad has a different perspective on me than people who know me from that introduction it's like that right can we just take a moment to recognize Paul Coates [Applause] [Music] but his only his perspective is gonna be very different you know I mean it's just a totally totally different perspective you know and it is not the perspective with that introduction you know I'm sure he's very proud of that introduction she's happy to see it you know a good time to be alive but it's many things that happen before introduction and that's kind of where you are with the book I mean there's so much that you remember all the trouble and all the stress it's definitely surprising talk a little bit about how you were raised oh my god some of which features in the book okay I'm gonna try not to embarrass my dad here my dad came out of a black panther party and he was deeply deeply influenced by the Black Consciousness movement to the 1960s but my dad is his own person and what that means is that there was a standard sort of line so people like that and we couldn't even hew to that line okay so for instance we didn't celebrate Christmas in our household right so people who hew to the Black Consciousness line had Kwanzaa but we didn't celebrate Kwanzaa either you see because my dad fought like lions it was fake Christian some sort of argument against quality' to ask him he is some sort of argue so deep you know and it made sense I mean I didn't like it at the time but it was it was a respectable to the point I don't celebrate Kwanzaa now you know to me like it was argument against why we should not celebrate Kwanzaa and so everything was questioned like I couldn't number in the 90s when people started wearing like the Malcolm X t-shirts with the gun mrs. iconic photograph and I talked about in the book Malcolm X looking out the window and he's got the gun and I tell the story in a beautiful struggle and everybody was wearing these t-shirts and it's very fashionable and I came out of this conscious household and Malcolm X was basically Jesus in my household why shouldn't I be able to have a t-shirt like that my dad said no say no you said you can't wear that so what are you making man his mouth and he said no because they're making an eye out of a gun it's the gun you know what I mean that's what Malcolm is being reduced to and you you can't be part of that everything was an argument and it still is I mean he write this manuscript you're not I mean before it's nice to this you know number one New York Times best that was not the feedback that was not the conversation and you know it wasn't like you might think like he would object to like the things in here that you know maybe you know are harsh or put you know hard light on him that wasn't the beast man but that wasn't the beef at all I mean he you know to be from with the writing and you know everything was an argument but you know it was great preparation because I left my dad's house and I went to Howard University where everything was an argument I didn't after I left Howard University I studied at the David Carr where everything was an argument at the city face at the city paper and you know it is I've been the course of my life you know and now I have fact-check so have you seen different reactions from black readers and white readers of the book yeah yeah and how would you describe you know in broad terms with if I had to if I had to break this up I would say among white readers there that you can sum that there's a you know a camp that says this guy you know hates white people and this is a you know basically a work of racism the second camp is this guy is the one what is the guy is the guy reads between the world I mean you'll know what you need to know about black people that's this is it this is it his you read this book and you got it it's over and then you know among you know they they're very learning and intelligent and wise and deeply intellectually curious white people who read the book and even like the book or dislike the book you know among black people it's the same thing you have ever learned it you know wise intelligent well-read you know deeply curious black people who either like the book or dislike the book and then you have and I think this is actually the most interesting applause and then you have black people who like the book but don't understand what the big deal is and I mean that sincerely I'm not being critical like like who just feel like well listen what he's saying is like what we know just actually nothing being revealed here why is the world going crazy over this why is this but you know worthy of a mic otherwise is worthy of in New York why is this nominated for National Book Award I knew here what's going on you know and I think what that has to do with is um the very limited space within which you know black black writers exist because I think the feeling is um there will be a number of books published by black authors there will be you know many more books that'll you know the ideal come about there won't be published a certain amount get through and you know hopefully when they're of a certain quality they get hailed by an audience that that is outside but the african-american community and I think that causes some amount of angst you know at least some amongst some group of black folks you know it's a problem I mean it's an actual actual problem did you think of you what you said you know one of the interviews you gave you said something else that surprised me a little bit you said you were surprised when white people found what you write interesting more or less yeah they'd always surprise you in that well you know if it's do you think of yourself as writing for a for a black audience or a white audience how do you known as one of your white readers I can tell you what sorry for condescending to you why am I surprised do i I probably would have told you that I was writing for a black audience before but and in some respects that's true but I think I'm writing for myself and I am an African American and therefore I'm writing for a writer but I don't know I think like I'm very but like in insulin in Toronto about what makes me happy about the writing and in terms of being surprised what that has to do it is I think like previous writers particularly during the 1990s when you know I was at how and I was reading writers who kind of occupy the space that occupy now I feel like they move out they wrote from a perspective of holding the white readers hand I'm gonna make some concessions to you I'm going to show you this I'm gonna show you that and then hopefully like we can all come together and your your and you'll and you'll get it you'll get it and I really try to write from over here and say you know you come to this come to this this is this world right here is as valid as any other world you should come to this that sounds more defiant than it actually is though because I think in general that's what other writers do you know in any sort of experience that's the kind of writing I actually write you know I like you know having to find my way you know within a different I don't want my hand hold I don't want to be talked to like I'm five years old and I can't understand certain things and I and I need a different language to access the expert I don't want that at all you know I want you to talk to me the way he would talk if I wasn't in the room because that's the truest representation of the experience but it wasn't clear to me that people would want that you understand like it wasn't clear to me that and I write I mean I guess there's a there's an era am I thinking right there which says you know I you know if I wouldn't want that and you know you respect people as intelligent you know readers and listeners why wouldn't they want the same thing I'm gonna open it up to you guys in a minute I'm maybe ask a couple more questions they're two mics so if people want to start lining up now would be a good time or I can just keep going because I'm very used you called yourself an african-american writer or a second ago how do you think do you think of yourself as a tribal person I mentioned to you before there's this great moment one of many great moments in the book at Howard University which is an extraordinary just a incredible section of the book your experience at Howard where you encounter um the great rebuttal to Saul Bellow's line about who is the Tolstoy of the Zulus and the answer was okay was it Ralph why was Ralph Tolstoy is the Tolstoy of the Zulus and you you realize that you've accepted bellos premise and and accepted the kind of phony notion of race then he would be in some way closer to Tolstoy than you would yet at the same time you attend do identify yourself as a black writer so how do you how do you reconcile well um you know there two things going on there is the fact that you know I growing up in the household that I am you know I grew up in I am a product of the sort of black consciousness moving myself you know and that that can't ever be gotten away from and I think that there's some beautiful things about that there's a way of looking at the country that comes out of that perspective that I think it's excellent at the same time almost against myself like I've you know assumed a much more cosmopolitan view of the world that I did not expect it almost feels like it happened to me my expectation that you talk to say 19 year-old me 20 year-old me was to live in a black world to spend my life in a black world dad that was it I didn't really expect to go anywhere else I didn't have any sense and I don't even mean like going into the white world I mean into the broader world as in literally the globe I look like I just that was not part of my framing I guess in many ways you know it comes back to the fact of going to Howard okay one of the intrud things I you know how it is is this very very black space but the people who were coming in have a great variety of experiences even as they're coming and they had they've been exposed to things out in the world that did I just had not made seen things out in the world that I had not you know I had girlfriends that had you know romantic partners they who just had his new way way more you know they'd just been exposed to way more and they brought that you know there's a moment in the book that I talked to about eating with a young lady whose dad was Indian and you know she'd spent some time in India and we went to eating she was eating with our hands and it looked so elegant to me even though it doesn't sound it looked incredibly and I had never seen anything like that and there were moments I that happening to me you know I like you know my wife I mean when she turned 30 you know she said I want to go to Paris and I said fine go and she said it's do you want to go and I said well why would I want to go I mean literally that was my thing why wasn't what's there for me what's there for me and and I think like one of the cool things is um I have been around people who don't allow me to sit in spaces that maybe I'm more comfortable you know I'm constantly being pushed out and I mean from the time I was a child and my parents were constant pushing me out and then when I went out into the world that like like the company I had constantly pushing me towards you know other experiences so so a lot of us like in me like that that kind of um I guess for lack of a better word accrued we're tribalism is with me I'm in conflict to be honest with you you know I mean I'm in conflict because I can't reconcile it you know I mean maybe maybe the way to think about it is I think there are ways to identify ethnically with a group of people and I think this is how Ashley I very much identified ethnically as an african-american but that doesn't mean that you're not curious about the broader world you know and it doesn't mean that you're not like um if you don't want to see the broader world you know what I think about and I wanna so it's just a very interesting question I met my wife at a period at time where as I said I had not seen much of the world and my romantic partners were all african-american and I think about now like if god forbid but you know we've nothing there I mean we've had this conversation if we split like what would my romantic pole look like that like as a 20 year old I could only see it you know I'm acting out when I was 23 I did it's only one way of really seeing that world I didn't was 21 in fact there was no other thing and now you know like so much has changed how would I feel who would I be who and who would I be like in that situation I don't know I don't know what are you learning about yourself living in Paris oh well how much of an American I am that's the first fingers that's very very clear I mean you know like people say you know I African Americans that is you know special if anybody feels this special thing but I think what they feel is that the French the first thing they notice about them is their American this which is just not an experience you can have in America I mean it's not possible you know what I mean but that's the first you know you go into the you know your cafe your restaurants Lenny here you speak you're awful French and they say it's an American it's a stupid American and and this will relief to that you see like this that's actually like is a different mask you know you have like you know there's a different you know way in which you're viewed and so that that's that that's very very different that doesn't mean two places you know less racist doesn't mean that they don't have issues with their own you know population coming out of the Maghreb coming out of West Africa they they definitely do but as an individual African American being at the experiences it's different I am learning to discipline myself and humble myself to my own ignorance because you know I'm studying French over there and I guess I thought this was like you know when I first thought you take a few courses and then you speak French and that's the end of it it's not the end of it it's very very hard and every day you walk out you you encounter your own failure I was telling I'm sorry before I left it is as though like being in Paris it's like every day when you leave the house you leave the house on rollerskates and you don't really know how to skate but everybody else around you has been skating from the time they were born and they're all you know doing tricks and they're spinning and then jumping up in the air and you're just trying to stay upright you know I mean that that's how it feels every day you know it's a great place great great feeling to have in your life very invigorating that's good you guys sir Tallahassee thank you for your work in Paris you will be walking this of the iconic James Baldwin are you planning on perhaps doing a story on him while you there no no I don't think so I don't think so and in here's why well I recognize what you said I recognize that that is that is a truth I wasn't I was following my wife you know I wasn't I wasn't following ball with you no I mean I obviously have tremendous tremendous respect and love football when it for his writing but I had almost no attachment to that tradition of african-americans you know going abroad to free I had nothing before I didn't understand that I didn't know why anybody would want to do it my wife told me you should see this you would like the things that you would love you know it's an old place you love old things you love history you should go dad was like what would compel me I you know I've been past the cafes where they with me you know tomorrow and all of these other places I just I don't you know I don't feel anything I don't feel any emotional anything you know it's like when I was at Howard I could feel it I felt the attachment so you know to Tony Morrison to Lucille Clifton to Soaring know her I felt it when I would when I would walk there till Elaine like I felt it I don't feel it there it's so weird I don't know why but I just I just don't have it in that way second year when it was reading your book for the first time I felt a kind of kinship insofar as almost as if I was seeing myself become a young black man again but also in a way that I'm also learning how to remain alive as a young black man but now thinking about in hearing you talk about the ways in which you've experienced yourself after publishing the book I wonder how you deal with the rupture between yourself in the pain and those words once they've left your your see that beautiful Howard University question beautiful how a university question when I came to Howard it's just so funny when I came just as I did I had three I did two classes and the first one was at 10 o'clock and it was like mostly freshmen and every single question was like that and I was like god I need coffee I'm having trouble here you know and the second one was like it just anyway um that's a great question yes go ahead to go violence's well the two things I would say let me let me answer the latter portion first because I think that's actually easier than the primary portion my body is still there you know I just left Harlem August 7th I lived across the street you know from a bar where every Friday or Saturday they would end up getting drunk and fighting and me and my wife would have to have this conversation about calling the police and I like it against calling the police and I argued against it because there's a bunch of a nuisance as it was much as I didn't like it if somebody you know the police that came there and you know choked somebody will shot somebody I would have felt horrible about it you see that's that's the difference right there right like I can't just call my kids I got to think about like three steps ahead I mean this is real they went back into the story on the strip where Eric garner got killed and they interviewed the merchandise I mean I don't call police about these guys no more I just don't I just don't because I don't want that to be a part of my heart that's a product of living within that space if I was living somewhere else up East Side whatever I'm calling the police you know what I mean because I don't have to I have to have that same freedom so I I don't know that any sort of status you know allows you to get away from that Henry Dumas who was one of the first when Toni Morrison was an editor at Random House great very poet you know who she was working with at the time killed by police you know and I'm not like focusing on the police I'm not you know saying it because there's also you know the very real violence of the community that you just I mean those guys don't know that you know what I am and even if they don't have any respect for that why should that you know why would they treat me any different so I don't know that this allows you to get away from it I don't know that there's a way of getting away from it that that that easily the first question though about feeling that the distance between like the writer like the actual craft of putting the thing and you know what happens afterwards I haven't figured that out like I really really haven't I feel like everyone around me is having a different experience than I am and I feel like it's um it actually just sort of go like sort of great frustration for me you know I means I have like friends were like man you should just enjoy the ride you know what I mean but it's like I spent my time you know trying to get this book right finally got it right met with the publishers in February February I believe they said okay you know we're gonna do this we thought okay everything's great we started sending out the galleys early in the summer you got this monsoon of like attention that you know you can never expect when you're actually sitting there doing the thing cuz you're preparing yourself for failure that's what you that's what you have to do is a right like you you you got to prepare yourself to be okay with given all of your energy to it and nothing you know no one hearing you like that that's the work of it and the opposite happened and that's a great problem but it's still a problem you know what I mean like you you you just like you have to prepare for failure you have to prepare for success - and I was not particularly prepared for success you know it's happening like right now like it's going like I'm going through it right now and I'm not like really processing because I haven't made the leap from the person sitting there writing you know and I guess the author you know I mean I'm still writing right now other things you know so it's like um I think get out yeah man you know yes sir I'm an educator and sometimes with my students it's really a struggle when teaching them about white supremacy and not having to leave the room feeling like they can't do anything at all so I want to know your advice and how you go about striking a balance and making sure your students citizens are informed but feeling like they can actually do something to fight against white supremacy and have hope for the future well you know I don't know how good my advices I can only tell you what I talk to my mind you know it's in the book I talk to my son and it is as follows I'm gonna say this time I'm blue in the face I'm just gonna say it over and over again slavery in this country was 250 years what that means is that they were African Americans were born in this country in 1750 1760 and if they've looked backwards their parents were slaves the grandparents were slaves the great-grandparents were slaves if they look forward the children would be slaves grandchildren would be slaves and possibly their great-grandchildren with the slaves there was no real hope within their individual lifespan of ending enslavement the most brutal form of degradation in this country since there was nothing in their life they said this will end within my lifetime I will see the end of this and they struggled and they resisted Ida B was one of my great journalistic heroes gave her life to the fight against lynching to end you know what is you know what is effectively our longest campaign of domestic terrorism in this country's history she gave her life you know didn't die but dedicated her life you know to that fight and and specifically wanted the Senate to pass an anti-lynching bill the Senate did not do that and they didn't even apologize till 2004 I think it was either be well has been dead for 70 years never saw the end of it for african-americans and I think for any other group not just asking I think for any other group dedicating yourself to any sort of honorable shot any group of people period you know I dedicated themselves to any sort of honorable struggle it is exceedingly rare to be alive to see the realization of that that's not the no Martin Luther King is not the norm Fredrick Douglas is nine-month living he was killed you know firstly immediately Frederick Douglass is not the norm Harriet Tubman is not the no Sojourner Truth is not the norm you know the norm is to argue for things and then to die David walkers Danone that turn is the law game over I mean this is the norm you know the norm is to make the argument and to not see the results of it happen in your lifetime and there's something beautiful about the desert gentleman and I'm sorry I'm forgetting his name but he basically was the last congressman out of it south to be voted out after reconstruction so this would have been the 1890s or so and he said and you know like I'm not one for this right but it gets me and he said listen you you may have gotten me today but we'll be back I mean that was the essence of it he said it much more eloquently than that but he said we'll be back we'll be back and a hundred years later he was right you know he was just correct but what he was looking was beyond his lifetime so I mean if it's like if your struggle is I will struggle only for that which may be realized in my lifetime well you see your vision is impoverished already you know I mean my commitment is rooted in the commitment of many more people who came before me who got to see the realization of nothing so what right do I have to demand in my lifetime that I only struggle on behalf of the things that I will see you know right now that's all I have [Applause] where is the black rider who can cuss out white folks using their language in the process and I mean it in a way where we could get you couldn't use but white folks would talk how did the but they just my question has to do with President Obama and your views on this he can't show any black rage he's an office and this is almost you could feel this gritty the teeth clenched this permissive jaw just waiting for him to go off because of all the things he's boxed in you know get a glimpse of certain terms that he says you know so sure but just just to address the first thing I think that there were people I mean I can my inspiration is ball and I think he wrote in that sort of direct way to - did you were alluding to it like that was actually my appeal his appeal to me like he was not miss he's very very direct you know he wasn't get you a hug he what says what's going on and III like I I was inspired by I took that you know for me that I could you know go out and write like that in terms of the president I think those are the terms on which you would have an african-american president at this point in history it is not particularly surprising you know I think you're right I mean there's certain things that can be expressed in certain things they can't be expressed and person that you know would be african-american and would be president at that time we'd have to have you know a kind of temperament at least in public to not say certain things did not do certain things and I you know I have to be honest like if dude if you're talking about the office of the president that's probably a good thing like I mean it really is I mean if you have decided that having an african-american president is a good idea and if you don't think it's a good idea that's another thing but if you say within the boundaries of a democracy and I do think it's a good thing you say within the boundary of the democracy that we have here how could this happen I mean this is how it could happen this is exactly how you could have you would have somebody who had the ability to when somebody is an audience and yells you lie even though it's the State of the Union and even though in the back of your mind you think you know you just calm calm you know you just you just said about it yeah I mean that's the sort of person it would be but you have you know some you know fool who's out here demanding that you produce your birth certificate and commanding a large you know percentage in terms of opinion of a major political party and you just come on say here's my birth certificate I mean I that dad is the line it's not for him to be angry this for me to be angry that's not his job you know he's not he's not a writer you know he actually has to do things we got a pass legislation you know that's not that's not for him to do and I don't expect that you know I've never written I don't expect him to Kalon do that I think politically it'd be a bad idea you know he you know he has to play his position um an Ethiopian by birth and an American by choice and my question would deal with the ethnicity and I happened to be like the lady you made a long time ago use my hand when I but again my question is in my Ethiopian Way of pronouncing your name I'll say time nahi see and people don't know how to pronounce my name Candace but my question is has your name being a hindrance to your success that's a great question why I'm saying this is there are a lot of inner city names No mhm and that has been a hinderance for their success I cannot question why I would have no way of knowing you know every let me personally I mean there certainly is great scholarship this shows that names that African Americans tend to give their children does hinder that people do discriminate you know based on names I have no way of knowing you know I have to be me though I have to be neat my I was named China hi sea bombed by my father's a name that my dad put a lot of you know energy and a lot of thought into I was very very important he was very very important to my return to my mother I have to live within that you know I just I just do and I can't spend too much energy thinking about people who you know only look at my name and then decide that you know I have nothing to say about the well I mean that's fine that's fine but then I have to move forward I have to you know keep going and so I don't I don't know I don't think about it too much you know okay but my question is not necessarily you but again people who has a name different than others right and they want to apply for a job for example because they're not cold well well I I don't I don't think it's because of their name I think it's because of racism I don't think their main causes anything I think that the name is a way of identifying people who historically in this country the society and the government in general has looked upon skeptically but it's not the name that's causing anything if it were not the name it would be some other way to do it so no I don't think there's anything you know wrong with the name thank you for the education no problem yes sir what's the one of my car - go ahead she was in Texas man welcome does everybody know where Thomas he's referring to just quickly so I was talking about like early on it like in the blog the education I received from the people who would comment on the blog and you know we got this really corny tradition of nicknaming each other I nicknamed on my comment as the hood this is one of my people thank you for all your contributions to do with it because I feel like as a writer you have faith in the written word is in if you read these words and you use it at least listen to my argument then maybe I can convince someone to you know mean think differently about something so when you when you really encounter those those moments when you've done everything that you possibly could and they still have you know more or less willful ignorance or some type of resistance which can be understandable what do you do in order to deal with those moments and also to make sure that you're carrying on without keeping that in the back anymore well I thought you have more faith in the word than I do writing for me is the act of figuring things out I mean you know the mass incarceration piece I had certain ideas when I started and then I had different ideas when I was done that's the wind for me and again after I've gone through that brutal process that people say what about this what about that by the time we get to the published article I understand certain things so you know it I hope people look evinced you know but if they're not I know I know and no one can really take that away from you I you know when I went into this book I had certain understanding about the world and then I went and talked to the mother my friend Prince John so I spent quite a bit of time talking about in this book and I understood other things that's the win for me that that's where the win is I hope other people come but you know if they don't it's just not starveling up to you you know so and what you want to my students yeah at MIT right tell me your name again Brian I that's right you got a big part of my writing students are you still in politics okay keep it a little closer to the mic oh yeah thank you the question I was gonna ask which is a little bit related to this is specifically for policy makers for people who are forced to speak as a living and and include you know rhetoric on issues how can they in those positions start to or try to dismantle the structures of wait I'm sorry talking about again so just in general policymakers people who are well I actually think a lot of that is our job you know I mean even I I said what I just said about convincing people I actually think like the player that is on me I think policy makers and politicians work within like what it's possible and it's up to writers in quote-unquote intellectuals and historians and excited to expand like that notion to expand the political imagination of people so that they consider things that they they would not so like in a case from reparation like part of that was to you know say no this is not some loony idea you know it's way way actually you know it has you know great roots you know in American history there's a very demonstrable case here you know and hopefully over the course of probably generations in fact people begin to think about things a little bit differently I mean I think they take the great example this is you marriage equality right every marriage equality does not begin with politicians figuring out some way to pass marriage equality actually begins with writers and intellectuals you know baking the cakes I said here's why you think this is lonely in it's a loony and insane here's why it's not and then it advances into the you know political process but I think like that's actually more up to us you know to open the space it's it's sort of clear the lane you know and then you guys do as possible within there I think that's what it is what you love to do oh man I can't I finished the first issue we are the first issue I have sketches in for the first issue on one to the second square we have the entire we have the entire thing outlined anyway we had outlined before it was announced so I know what happens in the entire first year how many issues is 11 or 12 11 or 12 I can't answer that I'm so sorry I really really am so I'm really really I'm sorry about that I mean all I can tell you is I deeply deeply loved the phone I was very very excited you know to be approached by Marvel to do it I was just up in Marvel's offices yesterday when we met you talked a little bit more you know about you know some some specific things that could happen I think when I first started I was less assured that this was gonna work I think you know now that you know I'm getting deep into it I think it is gonna work I'm sorry I'm so sorry you just have to wait till April I hope you like it hope you like you know what I'm trying to do I hope you have a good those can you tell you wrote between the world of me when Marvel approached you was doing the black panther how what gave you the confidence to say you know what I'm gonna do it honestly from everywhere I've been from California here what gave you that confidence to be like you know what I'm gonna do this and everybody has literally I have any confidence yeah was it wasn't a move that was made out of confidence it was like um I always wanted to do this I think it's gonna be a lot of fun I think I'm gonna learn some new things about writing I mean let me answer the the not fun question I know I said a fun question I am NOT in that category I don't wanna be in that category I don't want people put me in that category I'm not trying to attack you for that question I just I'm a writer you know I mean I write things I do not the movements I do not I don't even go to marches for the most part I just don't that's not it's not my role that's not my place it's not my process I am NOT a spokesperson for the african-american community I represent one particular 150 page you know if you that's what I have to give people who are interested in that view should and who are not you don't necessarily acquaint it I hope will read the book and then you know go seek out other people's views and read other books I don't have any desire to be a figurehead for anything at all you know all I want frankly is to be the best write of my generation that's it [Applause] [Music] everything else everything else and that's not out of disrespect you know for black folks I'm it's actually out of profound respect I mean I that that really is what is because I've watched people again during that period when I was in college in the 90s and it was very much involved to have certain african-americans no names I mentioned who had an expertise in a particular area and because the opportunities were there use that expertise to speak about everything and often about things that they knew nothing about you know and anybody who has any expertise in some of those eyes will immediately recognize it as such I don't want to humiliate myself like that well you really I wasn't raised like that I want humiliate my parents like that or humiliate the Atlantic like to it you know I mean I just don't that's not that's not what I do you know I write about you know what I know what I research without report it and that's it that's it that that's the ground occupy that's my you know one measly acre so to cultivate and that that that really is all I want that goes back to the question that gentleman asked about like the sort of public for something and actually being the writer and again if there's been difficulty it's really really in that you know in expecting a book to be some sort of representation for the entirety of an experience and expecting me to speak to you know broad questions or even specific questions about the african-american community which I have no expertise in at all I don't want any any part of it at all I just don't in answer to your other question um I didn't have any confidence but like I wanted the challenge of writing and it has been incredible to have to think about things totally different like to have to flip my whole frame so for instance take take take like the case that the mass incarceration piece right so we begin and we say Daniel Patrick Moynihan and I came up digs I Daniel Patrick Moynihan was born to a pathological family broken home father left here this happened here this happened here moved to New York moved Oklahoma okay and if you write that as a comic book writer you have to think what is Daniel Patrick Moynihan doing right now there's he's literally doing what conveys that he doesn't have a father what you know can somehow you know sort of pre say this later moment where fathers are gonna be like to be important in his analysis like literally what is this scene is he you know reading you know like a letter that his dad sent them you know is he going through you don't like oh what metals for that what what is literally happening you know you you can't think about idea first you know and the other thing is you know I said that you always have to have like cool things happening it always has to be some sort of you know cool oh my god that was really cool what he just did but that always has to be there you know and so uh compute allottee is very very different and I've enjoyed dead I've enjoyed that you know I I had no confidence that I could actually ultimately do it I just really wanted to try thank you mm-hmm we have time for two more questions okay okay sorry for those not at the mics now so tallahassee you kind of somewhat famously and conspicuously left social media a couple years ago and then more recently came back and for me as a white woman i am really thankful to the space that twitter gives me the opportunity to just listen i think a lot of times do a lot of talking we don't always get to listen very often so it gives me opportunity to listen to not just black voices but black women voices and not just black women voices the black women trans voices and digital Issa's etc eyes appreciate that opportunity they shall learn and to listen and so i do don't have a question I just wanted to say that I understand why you left Twitter and I know that you didn't have to come back but I'm really think well thank you next aren't you all right that wasn't a question we'll do two more y'all should have stayed now game all right hey no quit that's don't have a quick that's the lesson no quick oh there's a lesson in that boy yeah - microphone please I guess I wanted to say I had a lot of respect for your I guess just presidents that used to speak so earnestly and honestly about things I find a lot of times when I'm listening to issues and things people tend to like want to make everything so perfect sounding and I like that you just come off very clear and like how mister how I am is how I feel I guess my first question is obviously I heard your radio show and about how you were really interesting comic books and stuff and I wanted to know in the media and that kind of thing do you how do you feel the african-american portrayal in the media newspapers maybe TV shows that kind of thing um I think it's bad that's a rare you know notice you know better for me I think it's better I actually think it's even better than it was five years ago when I was in school you know and when I wanted to get into magazine journalism there were not a preponderance of black voices at the magazines that I read my magazine here at the Atlantic it just it just didn't exist and the Black Voices I did see felt like they came from an experience with no disrespect to this experience at all but that was foreign from me like I felt like it came from a very Ivy League perspective you know I don't think there's anything wrong with that there's you know great wisdom there that I go to myself but it felt limited to that and I wanted it you know to be broader and I think over the past few years is actually gotten but I mean the only thing I can say is I interned in 1996 with a gentleman by the name of William Jelani Cobb at Washington City Paper and he is a staff writer at The New Yorker now I just I mean we couldn't have seen that back then you know we couldn't and it's not you know really you know just us it's you know mike mccurry friend Nicole Hannah Jones who's that you know the Times magazine that didn't really exist you know it's Rachael gonzo who's over this general worth of I mean that that that sort of thing you know shadi Hilton who runs BuzzFeed news right now I mean I that just didn't exist you know so I think it's gotten bad it doesn't mean it is you know not a long way to go but I think you know when we've gotten battle and I guess I think we need to go to the last question here so I just like to ask you to respond to the increasing media attention to the changing face of the American electorate and the impact of immigration and a new attention that's being paid to the other people in this country many of whom have been here a long time but who haven't shared our history of enslavement and I'd also like to thank your parents for raising such a wonderful wonderful person it's really very encouraging to the rest of us thank you well I think we'll see I think we'll see I don't know and I don't respond to you to your question about immigration I guess I could be respond if you a question about parenting to still got a lot of liver left to you yeah yeah III don't know you know I don't know that our african-american powers ever you know based on our you know great numbers to begin with but beyond that I think that one must recognize that the definition of what a minority in this country is changes and shifts depending on the needs of the powers-that-be I say this over and over again it was a time when you know we existed in this country and Irish people were not white at the time we existed in this country and Jewish people were not necessarily considered to be white there was a time when Italian people would not necessarily considered to be white there are several groups with under the umbrella of what we call whiteness who can themselves documented history of being outside in this country and being discriminated against in this country we tend to posit that and say you know 2050 if the definitions remain the same but this will be a minority white country there's no guarantee the definitions will be will stay the same definitions haven't stayed the same in the past maybe they'll stay the same you know maybe you know maybe you know Emma immigration or you know will mean it there'll be something different but I just don't know and I think people talk about the world in 2050 like they do you know should probably pause a little bit you know I think they should pause on the predictions alright we have to leave it there [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] tough to top that [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause]

Channel: The Atlantic

Views: 29,354

Keywords: the, atlantic

Id: 8xRq4wx5wnE

Length: 73min 38sec (4418 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 02 2017