Salon@615 with Ta-Nehisi Coates

[Music] [Music] well good evening everyone I'm honored and excited and a bit flabbergasted to be here tonight with all of you but especially with our esteemed author Tallahassee Coates a writer that I look up to personally and have many of your dog-eared books in my home and many of your articles saved yet you didn't tell me that yes and as especially your Kanye essay but we're not gonna talk about that maybe later okay okay I just talked about okay I think it was one of the reader questions so I'll save it I'll save it also kind of birth and but I was absolutely blown away by this profound and beautiful book which combines my two favorite flubs flood of subjects african-american history and literature and it read like poetry to me we've been gorgeous sentences with lyricism and work songs and a sitting mattock pagesturning plot and before we get started with interview I just want to point out that I think it's kind of fantastic and interesting that we're sitting in a theater named after James K bulk our 11th president who bought and sold and broke up families and slaves but I think it's interesting the White House right yes yeah like actually from the White House but I think it's interesting to be here with a book about slavery and a theater that's paying homage to a slave owning president um so I think it's really powerful to have this discussion tonight so speaking of plantations I recently saw your interview with Gayle King on CBS this morning were you at Monticello kind of walking around the property you both were sitting kind of at a exhume site kind of looking at some of the artifacts and you had found some marbles and I wanted to pull a quote from the book on page 22 where Hyrum is kind of talking about lock lists and he says and then we were passed the wheat fields crossing the green lawn and through the flower garden until I saw elevated on a small hill the big house of lock lists shining like the Sun itself when we were closer I took in stone columns the portico and the fanlight of the entrance it was also magnificent and I've heard you say that you know you had a big influence lock us from Monticello and an interview said something kind of interesting us and that you're kind of buzzing after you were there and you kind of had this energy and you wanted to write it's love to note what were you buzzing with did you feel kind of the slaves stories kind of coming with you did you feel possessed when you went back to write like what was kind of happening when you were there doing that research well that's a great question nobody's acts like that um and I've been on tour for like six weeks now so that's a compliment um what did I feel I I don't know I think like um it is you know obviously you know when you're working on something like this you spend a lot of time reading okay and you can get some of what it was like to be a slave person to be tasked as we said in the book to be an enslaver to be you know quality as we say in the book but I mean it's just nothing like being there you know I mean like you walk into an actual replica you know of an enslaved Cabot it's just a little stuff that strikes you like you know like the window you know what I mean in a lot of enslaved dwellings in Virginia they have like these are crawl spaces where I guess it's not a crawl space it's more like a storage space so if you you could pick up the floor like this basically or a piece of it like a square of it and insulate people would hide their precious things there the fact that a lot of these ones at least at Monticello would have a loft you know what I mean where you could you know a child you can imagine like actually as I literally did imagine crawl up and like you know sleep in the loft or store things in the loft this sounds like small insignificant you know just to treat us but in fact it's quite important so you don't have those little details you can't construct a human being you just have this kind of automaton that says slave yeah and if you don't sort of file that down if you don't detail it if you don't give it the richness that that it deserves you risk committing almost a second atrocity because you're writing about people whose humanity was stripped away and if you're not writing with that kind of energy that I felt I think I've you know felt you risk stripping it again in the literature you see because they're not they don't have all of the little things that make us us you know and make us human beings yeah so I think what I laughs I could just feel it you know I mean I could feel yeah them III could feel it and I was very anxious to get to record that feeling you know on to the page yeah thank you yeah thank you it might seem kind of like a tuning fork you were kind of struck by that soil look you know in Tennessee were no stranger to plantations and I know that you went to many different plantations for your research but so often okay Mia for research I came to Tennessee for much plantation so I didn't actually didn't get to the front when I at that point so water dance has this whole back story where I actually started in the Civil War and I went on the Civil War tour when I was here and I believe we in fact I know we started over in Memphis and we made our way here and wait I think I went down to Mississippi to Shiloh you know a bunch of Fort Donelson you know a bunch of places that you know where Grant had had for grant spent a lot of time you know obviously campaign in here and while I didn't make it to plantations they I made it to a I made it to quite a few small towns with a memory of the Civil War is alive it was probably the first time in my life I encountered people that actually like carried the Confederate flag it was like a big thing for them you know I mean I got huge huge and not even like in the north where you find people with a you know a confederate flag this is a kind of you you know I mean but no like literally yeah you know I mean it was ancestral to them you know the first time I actually had conversation with people who you know what part of the Sons of Confederate Veterans I can remember one night when I said sorry to distract but I'm when when I am on this tour and I believe I was only black person on the tour and we would like go to a different place each day and we ended up in some small town and you know we had a great dinner and everything food was exceptional and these guys come in he's the Civil War reenactors who the toys has hired and they all have Confederates like all of them you know what I mean now you can look at it's kind of part of the show you know what I mean and they were gonna do this whole thing where they were gonna fire a cannon right and I said the rest I don't think I'm gonna stick around for that and I didn't make a big thing out of it you don't vote says I'm just not gonna stick around it's okay I get it you know you do you that's all good I'm not that type of person you know what I mean you do you all mine yeah I'm gonna go back to my hotel room and do me and and that's all good and the next day man I got you know introduce you know the Carter caravan and we were in and everyone just profusely apologized like they were really really apologetic but I don't know today what upset in the sense that I mean I guess there was some of this you know this really you know Civil War like we recognized this kind of bags but what they were mostly said about thought this was so beautiful but they get inconvenienced me they were upset because they felt like they had been impolite to me like I was a guest and it wasn't even about the history or what the flag meant it was like a civility thing almost and it was the most fascinating thing you know not like I you know my thing in those moments actually is to be the writer and just sort of watch and just sort of listen I actually don't you know even though I'm argumentative in a lot of my texts I actually don't do a lot of that in person because you're trying to get a sense again of people and that was just such a key observation for me you know what I mean and and a lot of that actually is in the book because they're moments where you disagree with people you find things that people stand for actually appalling yeah but even with them just like this like you have to find those little things that make them human and I'm sorry I cut off your question no you're good you know in the South I think we have a type of southern amnesia and this romanization of the past and you know there's weddings that happen on plantations yeah and graduate parties yes I monticello to Bach yeah yeah yeah and I think that's interesting that this book is invested in the power of kind of looking back but you just said something really interesting that it's your job to kind of watch and that's also kind of hiring stop and the boy is he's constantly watching and recording and it made me think about the role of the writers often the role of paying close attention to the world and capturing those details and I was wondering how much of Hiram is in you are vice versa how much of you is in Hiram what it would always with fiction I think there's slices of yourself and of your psyche that you kind of pour into your characters that's yeah I mean a lot probably a lot and I would say the slices of me and everybody mm-hmm you know but obviously it's a protagonist it's not a mistake that you know at various points he ends up writing you know but yeah I think that that thing about watching probably is a big thing I mean like my closest friends I'm probably you know pretty loud and good guys and hahaha but as a you know in a job capacity as a writer it really does require you to pull back and just let people talk and let their lives-- pull out and you know like this started for me and I guess is the part of me that's really in hi room this actually like I started for me at a very very young age like people would tell me things that I had no idea why they were telling me no I mean they'd be just tell me stuff I you just spill out you know I'm a man I grew up in and in Baltimore I had a really difficult time and yeah be a middle school with these you know hard-ass dudes you know what I mean and they would tell me all of these things like these you know things that they you know what I mean to preserve their own sort of mass you would think they would not say you know I actually think that was like part of how I ended up you know being in you know journalism because I found that for whatever reason if I just sat back people would entrust me with things you know and you can't help but then begin to observe you know the little as I said contours that you know make make people people and that's a lot of what Hyrum is it happens to hire him again and again you know he just sits long enough and he's not talking and people just start sharing and spilling their story and he's like it always happens right he doesn't understand why yeah yeah so since I brought up Gale I have to bring up her bestie the and of course because we have the same I'm a moderate TSU um and yes you know it's the second night straight I've been with somebody from the HBCU yeah it's a beaut I was with Terry Jones last about man so it's a beautiful thing yes great and Terry has a great essay of you know what she did with her Oprah money it's a really wonderful thing okay so what was it like of course and you've got to several times for things were to get that call from Oprah and to have that sticker on your book you know I think it under interview called her kind of the point guard for public yes she is about by which I mean you know like she is she's a great distributor you know you would never there's nobody else who you would want to be with yeah I mean who could you know do a better job at just setting you up yeah you know I my situation was a little different because I knew that she was relaunching a book club and I knew somebody was gonna get picked and obviously my publisher my editors were very interested who that somebody might be and so I would get like these little reports as things would you know go but I still didn't you know I mean like you can't write a book and think well you have one at all I got an early copy god okay so you didn't even know you were like madness and then you found out a little bit okay what do you think were you surprised well I mean it's Oprah like you know always a man I mean my dream is to how about for like you know the interlacing hands which kind of days together but I'm saying like did you think like this Otis feels like an Oprah pick yeah of course so that's the thing so I'm not asking you that because like I don't know what that is like I mean I know what it is like I've already seen books that she picked but when it wasn't like you can say this is the book I even we were done like it wasn't like oh wait done Oprah's gonna like this clearly is right up her alley you know and it was only after we picked it you know what I mean we started looking back are you like oh yeah like there are a lot of things in here that we you know I mean ancestry and lineage yeah yep yeah and obviously there's a lot of stuff with gender and women you know what I mean that would ring for her but it was not a thing that you know we were thinking about at the time yeah so you started this book in 2009 before between the world and me before the memoir before all the books that we know you for and I think a lot of people have asked me why fiction but really that was your drama from the jump and really you've been kind of you said that you've kind of been returning to this novel back and forth between each of the books and so I had a kind of a two-part question what is that 10-year writing journey been like for you and how has your relationship to the truth changed toggling from nonfiction to fiction and what's that interplay for you with that emotional truth that you wanted to convey through this novel Wow can you say that again sorry it was like slowly seven questions nice one give a good ASL look so I'm interested in with that that 10-year writing journey was like for you and going back and forth going back and forth and like I'm interested in that tall go because you're going nonfiction a fiction nonfiction fiction and obviously you're beholden to a type of truth and nonfiction right you're beholding to a type of fact but here there's an emotional truth that you're investigating and what is that dilation back and forth you know how does one kind of spell out the other and kind of inform both of those genres that you're kind of straddling between um yeah that's a great one um I think yeah like this is my first novel and so I mean whatever and as you mentioned I started it before between the world to me I'm an aside as far beautiful between the world and me was published so like I think maybe people presume that because of the success of that book I mean some of my other work that like I wouldn't have the same sort of jitters that any sort of first-time novel this has and that's not true because as I said I started it before I'll let that happen that's the first thing but the second thing is I just some it's a lot of nonfiction writers I think they have a novel in them and they published a novel then they quickly abused of that notion you know disabused of that notion and I was like man just don't I just can't be one of those you know I'm saying like don't I can't embarrass myself like whatever happens here you know what I mean doesn't mean everybody has to like it right but it can't be like my god this dude [Laughter] yeah you know they say yeah and and one of the things that happens is if you experience a level of success I think you know across fields the great danger is you'll be surrounded by people who just blow smoke up your ass I mean that's a that's the thing that happens so often you know what I mean so like when you have people whose art you love and then they just go off in this direction and you wonder why yeah you know what I mean um they are surrounded by people who are telling them that their God you know I mean anything that they do is great and so to be straight with you you know after the success that between the world and me had I felt like I was in a very dangerous place I had this book I've been working on this book you know as I said by that time for about 15 6 so I've been working on for six years the plot was pretty much set missing mostly you know what it was but um and I didn't have a editor like this I don't have a publisher like this but there is great incentive when somebody has a name - not so much care about the quality and just put it out people buy because it's the name but long term that's like brand death right you know what I mean because people will eventually figure it out you know what I mean and so I just I really wanted a for people who were fans of my nonfiction and careful readers of it they didn't have to love the book but they had to be able to say okay you know what I mean I see he's looking he's going over here but he's bringing that same level of rigor and integrity you know artistic integrity to it yeah that was really really important and I just I don't know man I was scared when gonna happen and I you know I can remember like at one point you know it's like when we work in a we were eight years in power and I texted my editor Chris Jackson I said to him I said listen I'm scared it's gonna get lost and we never actually was before that because I hadn't signed a contract with us as I'm scared since never gonna happen he said listen if it don't happen it wasn't worth it to begin with hmm you know if it's worth it you little keep calling you'll get back to it and you will get it where it needs to go so I had several crises of faith you know but the main thing was just you know as you can see when I'll talk about in my Flybe no but I've grief embarrassing myself there's no wonder you know what I mean I just don't want to embarrass him no yeah which is by the way different than trying something artistically and it not working I don't fit failure you understand what I'm saying I'm never embarrassed by failing you know I've you know in comic books I've failed I don't know how many times you know issues I would love did not know I wouldn't love to take them back I'm fine that's what happens that's learning but I was trying my best you know I mean I was doing what I could do yeah I'm glad you talked about that actually in your essay about Conan you talked about kind of the stress of success and what it did to you after running the world and mean I think you compared it to like a wave that kind of overwhelms you and kind of subsumes you and it's something that I think writers don't talk about often because of course you're supposed to be so grateful right right and you know not supposed to talk about kind of the stresses of success all right thank you for sharing that yeah my follow-up to that is you know this is a book of fiction but it's also has some magical realism elements to it which is kind of entrenched in this kind of Latin ex tradition that has to do with kind of political subversion but also very much tied to ordinance in Africa and spirituality and thinking about you growing up a comic books and you know working on black panther you know hash tag with Wakanda forever [Laughter] so I'd love you discussed kind of you know it kind of seems natural that magic would end up in the book but I'd love for you to talk about you know it's not in some imagined future like Wakanda it's it's in the deep past right well the first thing was I felt like a I mean part of that is my taste you know I mean but but I think bigger than that when I went back to research and read the narratives of enslaved people the supernatural is always very very present in their lives you know it's President Frederick Douglass's life is fred is present in Harriet Tubman's life like it's always there yeah and I just I felt like in addition to you know me being thrilled about the idea it was an accurate representation of how do you experience the world if that makes sense and so it felt like a no-brainer to me I think it strikes like people are always surprised by it you know but I think maybe that has more to do with how the epoch of asleep has been represented about our pop culture actually yeah then you know how people view things at the time yeah it makes me kind of think you know we have the phrase black girl magic but as I was reading the book so much of that magic comes from having to subsist through white supremacy right and that's where you know that power is found through the book through this instructional trauma trigger that's the catalyst exactly so a major theme of this book is about memory and the power of the story and it made me think about that can kind of give me an idea of Sankofa that go back and get it and that we must return and reclaim our past in order to move forward and this idea that Hyrum that's made manifest in Hiram that he is a person who watches and records everything but the one member he cannot access is his mother beans mm-hmm and it made me think about post traumatic slave syndrome and this kind of concept of you know what does that do to a people hmm and our DNA and why did you want that to kind of be Hiram's kind of origin story because I think is always things that we don't want to talk about I mean when I wrote this I mean wanted one of the barriers that was apparent to me that I would have to get over these and you hear this I mean you hear this you're hearing this with Harriet right now you heard it with 12 years I don't want to see another film or read another thing about slavery I'm done and now and I get that you know I think part of that has to do with the trauma of it I think another part has to do with again how it's been represented in the pop culture there is a tremendous amount of attention paid to the visceral labors of enslavement I saw glory I don't need to see another five minute with being seen or two-minute whipping saying or one man but there I get it I got I got what it what it was I understand and so I think a lot of people when they're confronted with it they react in that way but one of the things that I got from the narrative and I've said this over and over again is read from the time and as bad as the torture is as bad as the you know the being work dis is bad as the you know being raped isn't all of us bad but by far the worst thing is the destruction of black families and they talk about I'm not saying I mean I that's the thing that highlights you know everything you know what I mean the story that I think about a lot that you know was ringing through in this one and it was really ringing through you know in the character thing is huge elephant files in a book this Republic of suffering it's about a book about how death changed I'm sorry how the Civil War changed how Americans saw death itself because there was so much dying and there's a moment when a woman who's a you know mistress of a plantation she is grieving for her I don't know six seven eight it's a lot son she sent off to fight in the Civil War for the Confederacy and all of them are dead and she's sitting there she's grieving and she's crying and as this enslaved woman who was you know clearly served her for years who's there ostensibly to comfort her but what the enslaved woman says is now missus you and I even and she says that because this woman has sold off all of her children and I I thought about that a lot you know what I mean like it was the family thing that got that woman yeah and that comes across so so very often and so I really saw an opportunity to take us back and to say you know maybe we missed something mm-hmm like we think we know but I think there's a thing that we actually don't know something that we forgotten and I know we forgotten because I think about how we talk about ourselves and how we talk about our families and this constant discourse of black people ain't this black people ain't that black father's ain't black you know I mean like it's a constant thing that we don't really care about each other and we don't really care about our families and I would argue that the history points to something else the history says otherwise and so one things I was really trying to get to in this book is the extreme lengths that people will go to to reconstruct rebuild maintain you know support ensure the survival of their families and the extreme degrees that black people went to you know in this country historian Eric Foner he talks about how I'm well into the early 20th century you could pick up black newspapers in this country and you would see ads from black people who had survived the epic of enslavement searching for relatives who had been sold off this is an important message here and I'm sorry I'm going off again but this is this is an important message here in Tennessee because what this book is really talking about is the crime within the crimes massive crime of enslavement but the less talked about krama of the domestic slave trade and how many black people have their origins in Virginia but ended up in places like you know Tennessee Mississippi Alabama etc and they didn't go there obviously by choice they went there because they were being sold and in most of those sales what was involved was the destruction of a family and I just I really wanted us to sit with this for a moment you know historian was telling me the other day some 40% of African Americans having ancestors even trace back to Virginia that is a shocking testimony because we talked about I could I say on my family's from Mississippi my family's from Tennessee my family's from Alabama like we have almost like if you think about like we think we know but we've actually forgotten that we were even here in this United States from somewhere else very often before we got to the place that we think we're from and the way we got there was through the comb the commission of a great crime you know it's been erased because it's underneath an even larger greater crime and so I was really trying to take us you know back there we think we know but but maybe we don't maybe there's some part that we forgot and I think that's made evident and the relationship between higher Vina I'm not gonna try to spoil too much but it's very early on in the novel so don't get mad at me but you know Hiram's orphan very early and he finds Dena who's lost five kids and they're not bonded by blood but by loss and you know Athena reminds me of a lot of black mothers and my family my mom's not here so I can say that's the very stern hmm and you know I think black mother love is a little bit different and Tina loves Hyrum a little bit differently in a reminded me of Sula when Hannah is kind of talking even saying did you love us and she's like love you hmm she's like are you alive hmm and so you know but how that since the family is made different how socially how marginalized communities make our own family yeah I think it's really made evident in the book and and he knows it you know he can't it so like one of the rap the rap on things she lives you know all the insulated community that works you know in the tobacco fields they live in this area that they call the street and thena is it's thought to be the meanest woman on the street does that's what they call and you know when the kids are playing and in front of her you know little cabin she comes out with a broom and swats him away you know in a minute he's always talking about somebody and has something to say but when he's off and as you say the first place he goes is to feint him and the reason why he goes there is he knows that this woman has lost five kids they have taken her children her husband has has passed away they've taken her children as sold them on a read on the racetrack literally on a racetrack and unlike a lot of the other in the slave community that's there that if only to survive just buries that pain in much the same way Hyrum actually buries the pain Tina will not forget and her anger is the representation of you know her insistence that she not forget that she not forget her kids she not forget what was done and if she's resentful you know the rest of the communities because she feels like that they should be angry and that anger actually is the attraction the maternal attraction for Hyrum because even at that moment he knows there's something deeply true about her and her thing with him is that he forget it I'm just like don't forget don't forget that's not your family that's not your family yeah yeah you've talked a little bit about research but I kind of want to circle back to that one of my favorite writers and poets is Robin cost lowest and she talked us about research as a form of devotion and when I was reading this book it's so remind me of so many slave narratives that I've read you've already mentioned Frank Frederick Douglass but a lot of aqueon oh and Harriet and Jacobs with incidents of life at the slave girl and I wanted to know if you can kind of give us a fuller picture of some of the other primary and secondary sources that you encountered things that were maybe even though you already knew some of this or that there were some surprising facts and also a craft question and I loaded my questions but so was that part all right okay and then another writers in the audience but it's so hard when you final this research and then how do you artfully weave it into the book and not wait it down because it read so gorgeously and seen this so that we weren't weighted down by all these facts that's what editors are for register yeah I first place you don't think about that you just you know throwing what you feel like you need to throw and it didn't add it is just if you got good ones down you know they help you prune it back I mean it was I didn't you know I was researching up until you know like the last days I was writing so you're talking about ten years of stuff um I don't know man I read about like horse racing I didn't know how many enslaved people were jockeys mm-hmm there's a you know a race track saying it but I probably imagined it a different way at the time I thought is gonna be like a more prominent than it ended up being and that's okay you know these things you research him you know you you have to know it all the way through whether you you know gonna use it whether you end up using it or not you can't shortcut that process it's like a test right like it might be on a test you just don't know gotta study like he's gonna be doing the test you know there was that oh my god I've read a ton about women's fashion so basically white women's fashion in the antebellum period I know too much about that yeah there was some crinoline yeah which was a word I'd literally did not know before I started you know the men and how the men in that period used to wear black waistcoats and at the top had all like like little dumb stuff like that the Brogan's you know even in the fashion among enslaved people you know the fact that they had this rough cloth is actually we call him it was called Austin and Berg but it was called Abel call it Negro cloth because it was only given the black people's only fit for black people everybody looked it up and it's very rough fabric yes extremely yes exactly exactly the dancing which is actually where the title comes from the music at a time you know as you mentioned it works songs in there which I derived from actual work songs that I came across the way you says too much there was a way you the very process for I'll have literal video where I had a guy at Monticello and I said to him I said okay take me through every step for how you raise a tobacco plant and he went through the whole thing and then I went to another dude and did the same thing and I boiled down to like one paragraph like stuff like the videos Wiley it's collectively about 20 minutes and it ended up as just warm very impressive but it goes back to those details I think one of the slaves is in charge of the apple orchard yes and it's kind of booked and did because we start with all of the attention that he has yes and cutting and then at the end when that slave is gone yes you know it's kind of its kind of haunting it and even though it's a tiny detail it's those textures you know I could attach the stuff may even like minor characters like that you know when they go like you really mess up you know speaking of music I recently saw you on Jesus and marrow talking about the novel there's a really great interview but you mentioned that rappers who remain influence on your writing and I love this idea one of kind of expanding notions of what the traditional Western literary canon is you know basically it's full of a bunch of dead white dudes so I love that you're you know adding rappers to the Canon but also the the novel Reds so musical to me and so lyrical not just because there's work songs in there but you're out your actual sentences felt like I wanted to read them aloud and I also know if you get the audiobook which I also listened to Joe Morton it's awesome Joe Morton there's a narrator and he actually sings some of the work songs so I highly suggest you check that out but I wanted to know kind of what your relationship was to kind of what your relationship to kind of have music influenced your writing and so much of the : response and there's actually one section in there where it kind of sounded like that rap hype man that's you know in the background like maybe that's why I got it from okay no you exactly yeah yeah yeah I know exactly what you're talking about and I got it from this tribe called quest's all scenario and I kept listening to it over and over again and that was like my influence yeah that section is like about Harriet Tubman but that was what I was Stan was thinking a trial called quest and leaders of the new school actually know I mean it's the first real literature I knew and it was actually what I wanted to be I mean you know I can remember being well I don't know eleven no not even at all I mean I guess yeah like ten eleven and I guess hearing rock him for the first time and being like wow that's what I want to do right whatever he's doing yeah I need to go through their heads you know and then going off to college and Nas coming out and just feeling like wow like went like this is I mean I listen to it too I had a party with some with some friends the other day man and you know we were listening to it and all this were going through like what we felt you know in our gut like you know the first time we heard like New York state of mind and whatever that feeling was ever since I you know started really really writing because I was writing a piece I was writing poetry at that point I have been trying to make people feel like that like I felt when I first heard in New York state of mind you know what I mean and it is it's a it's a feeling that escapes words the feeling actually somebody saying something and you feeling like you're actually there but even in being there you see more than what you would actually see were you there because it's them it's their eyes and they're a can you know that you know there are Tunes or all of the you know the small tragedies that are happening you know in a moment there's a part in that song he's in the shootout and he runs into basically you know the project lobby and the lobby he's like full of kids and he's a kid at the time that he's singing he's like 18 19 years old he's not out you know you know a particularly older person but it's filled with kids but the kids are not innocent kids their kids who a drug-dealing like him we're basically its competition but he doesn't say all like it's like two balls right but you get it and to be able to and so and you get in that like the whole like the entire tragedy of the situation like it adds an extra level to the fact that he's shooting out you know with these folks outside the project to be able to do that and about I don't know 15 or 20 words I mean that's pretty exceptional you know and like that was the the level that I was really trying to get at that's the level I always try to guess I was trying to get at with between the world and me I mean with everything I'm always trying to get or nah it's not much different than poetry you know what I mean like like it was it was why I was happy as a writer that poetry was the first thing I did even I wasn't very good at it because they're trying to get you to do is cram as much feeling and emotion and experience into as few words as you possibly can you know you aim if what kind of you know efficiency that's right that's right that's right and I very much tried to carry that over into my nonfiction and fiction I'm a little worried cyma talks I'm like what's next we coming for no no no no no you know poetry man for me I mean and I don't know sometimes like part of it is you know you know I'll just tell you this and you'll get this um so um one of my my great friends I went to school with as a poet you know up in Pittsburgh you know Harvey and we you know when school together we both toilets at the same time and we got this idea when our mentors was this guy Joe Diaz Porte was a great poet at the time too right so we all got this idea that we were gonna apply to Provincetown workshop right Yusef Komunyakaa was teaching a workshop and I adore Yusef Komunyakaa I still do you know what I mean and we get up there so it's myself Yona Joe Diaz Porter and it stays loses his young dude of time you know old friends like all hanging out man I got no workshop and I did that for a week and I was like nah brah this ain't you you know I mean this ain't you you are a really really good basketball player but you're not going pro like you're not you might want a college championship but you are not a lot of redic like you're not even or even a traffic to be honest with you and I just sound but sometimes sometimes I wonder like knowing now how it actually works and knowing that talents had a season like it's actually not a straight line like this you don't I mean like things happen you know you go through life you live I always wonder like what would I have that happen if I stuck with it you know but I'm not going back okay because it was too hard it sounds really really hard I mean I think it's like that idea we talked about failure and I think Monk has that quote of just like I'm always practicing that idea that even though you started the poetry that distillation that you're the language that you're to prosody that eared to imagery and metaphor that's still prevalent that attention to an afferent repetition is in your work yes don't thank you Prince thank you but you mentioned for this day to like when I teach I always start with poetry it's the first thing I teach like like nonfiction you know I mean I teach this class and why are you writing for reporters but we start with poetry first always taught them that you know some of them to understand sentences and what they're trying to do you know I heard some finger snaps yeah so you mentioned Harriet Tubman so I don't know if we could talk about her yeah I mean it's been in all the with you okay so there's you know a character Moses in the book was like an homage to Harriet Tubman and also the biopics out so it seems really timely right now that your books coming out in the film why did you want to incorporate her story and she has an interesting quote that I pulled out that kind of haunted me and she says to forget it's to truly slave to forget is to die and I'd love to hear you talk about Moses but also what have we forgotten and what do we keep forgetting now in our society now I made this I think at one point I did you know I was like I figured out they did the underground river was in this book right and then I started you know going back and you know being like biographies and histories and everything and I remember I was reading one of the biographies and it was you know a relatively recently written one and a biographer said we really we can't even retrace every escape she made and so like as a writer you immediately become curious when somebody says something like that right because that's okay that's the point where imagination jumps off and it probably was my rooting and comic books at that point that you know decided what I was going to do with that and I don't I can't particularly reconstruct how that notion became tied to memory except to say that I was I was always interested in that you know but I uh I don't know man I mean I'm from Baltimore you know I mean my family's from the Eastern Shore Harriet Tubman's from that you know Eastern Shore of Maryland you know and so it really felt like a natural thing to do you know the hardest thing was like I just didn't want her to be stiff you know once again like it's this idea how do you draw a human out of that and you know I just I think like that story or how pulling a gun when they do really stuck with me I think I had this I did this is somebody you know who really just don't take no stuff like this this woman is not playing yeah and I just kind of wrote in that way yeah I'm not I mean I just kind of combine that with a little obi-wan Kenobi yeah got harriet tubman you know yeah yeah you know you bring her to life and it's a really fascinating section um we have some audience questions but I want to ask just one more question um it's gonna be a little bit clunky but if you'll help help me there's a character really want to discuss and I don't know how we can discuss her without spoiling anything so I'm gonna try my best okay I don't say her name but there's a white woman abolitionist and the novel who's a pretty complicated kind of iconoclastic figure and to me she kind of read it's like the seemingly woke white woman mmm I put Woking quotation marks I think it's being locus fraught and she kind of complicates that notion of freedom and the novel and she says but freedom true freedom is a master - you see one word dogged more constant than any ragged slave driver she said well you must know except is that all of us are bound by something some will bind themselves to property and man and that all comes forthwith and others shall bind themselves to justice all must name a master to serve all must choose I think he was right I thought I was like one aha moments of clarity I mean other things that I night not I thought yeah yeah not at it clearly like you know what I mean but I thought that was one of the moments where she she had it okay what do you think I mean obviously why I could be disturbing right because she's a quite acquainting that were actual slavery right no well I think she's complicating freedom and the Underground Railroad and that she has her own aims that are hot that are kind of this aerial view that are higher than the movement and she's an individual yes free people yes and it reminds me of how there's well-meaning white folk right some are probably here and but that often sometimes you know talk about tripping that trip and say problematic things for the movement and you thought that was problematic well I think the notion of freedom that you always have that one is not truly free and even you you talk about in the novel and with the underground of even when you know people do get north that living free is another kind of concept yeah it was just a very complicated figure that I was trying to kind of figure out and not how we how do we rub that tension and the movement with I don't know the abolitionist I don't know she was very complicated for me and interesting yeah I mean but you know that's the history though I mean and they would like that you know and I just think it's difficult man I mean I think um I don't know I mean it's you know in this time you know in this woke time which i think is awesome by the way because I'm just gonna say this then you can feel free to disagree I lived in a time where people ain't give me a walk my I've seen the other side we're like well-meaning white people is a problem but like I have lived in a time when it was mostly like ill meaning like just didn't know and they're like and I'm someone like at the universities like I understand this is not you know has it spread everywhere but like I can't like very well remember like when he's just the ink here like this is an upgrade and I think like what people like should understand is in life there are no like um you don't get an upgrade and have no problems like there's no this is better and all my problems are now solved you know I mean the best you can hope for is a better problem and it's not like so it's not like woke white people on a problem like woke men you know our problem or you know woke straight people a problem like we're problems right we're all problems right but um that's a better problem to have you understand an ill meaning men it'll meaning no just I just don't I'm not even trying uh you don't obsess yeah so having said that doesn't not that does not make one immune from critique though right like that doesn't mean you know you just you just understand you know their loved ones right that's what you get to so I mean I just it's always like it's hi I mean it's extremely it's just like cliche and I kind of get annoyed when people say this but it is because people always say this when they want to ask me a quiet like white people want to ask me a question they say I can never know what it means and I just ask the question I get it you have to do this choreography acknowledge or just ask the question let's have a conversation yeah you know but I I get it right because the fact that I matter is though like I can be in as much sympathy as I want would say the me to movement right but my experience is like coming to age as a young person in New York going to parties and being able to get drunk and fall asleep drunk on the train and not worry about somebody feeling me up that's my experience you know I mean and you can like unfold that and you know pull that out you know to my enticements growing up in Baltimore bomb is a very very violent place in the time that I was growing up and so I have the experience of worrying about my body but I don't have the experience of wearing about somebody doing something to my body and on top of that being this private shame I don't want to talk about that you understand like I don't I don't have that and so you you can't really get to that place with somebody yeah you know you can empathize you can sympathize you can listen to him you know and so what that means is like you know in the case the person you're talking about as you say they had a luxury of being real abstract they don't have a specific relative or person that they're thinking about that they have in mind let alone themselves that they're actually thinking about they don't have they're not tied and in the same way and so um that's a definite complication you know what I mean but you know what once again what you want in life is you want your choice of problems you know cuz it's gonna be problems yeah you know it's gonna be problems yeah thank you and also we didn't get to but there I think he'd do a great job with giving agency to women and the story and especially Sophia's story in the possession of her own body so thank you for know I appreciate that and I would just say that that could not have been done alone you know I was um people you know once again you know we are in a time where people are like why do we need to first see why do we need this and I don't really understand that because if you're gonna write I mean here's the like these writers man oh I can imagine myself as a Pakistani carpenter you know what I mean who you know wife died after 20 years I mean you can I'm not saying you can but I would want to talk to a Pakistani carpenter given the opportunity I would take that yeah I would take that you know what I mean not even out of politeness to Pakistani carpenters or that is that too but just out of I don't want to know I mean I don't want to just imagine of planting I want to go I want to see it I thought you know that that would and so I think like the same thing holds for these experiences you know like there were gonna be obviously enslaved women in this book and so it probably moved me to have readers who were directly connected to that experience in a way that I was not you know because once again I'm a dude who could fall asleep drunk on the train right you know what I mean and so what you want is people who can bring input they don't you know what I mean that don't necessarily ins and yours I mean I I know a lot of people again you know what in this time will can white people write about this can white people can write about whatever they want they just need to respect it yeah it's real simple you know and so what I was trying to do is respect in it for that what that meant was having a community of readers that hailed from the community I was actually writing about it's important okay now for the readers questions and it's Kanye time okay I was I'm a big fan of your 2018 article regarding Kanye West any new feelings about his new Jesus is King album no I haven't listened it's hard man you know and I'm not even boycott just some it's not good oh man you know I see I try to actually kind of thought that though I thought I thought it might not be good and I'll tell you why because like even when I wrote the essay I wasn't he did that thing when he released like five albums over the summer and I listened to most of them and they weren't trash but they sounded like um I mean they were rushed you know I mean you got Kanye and nos and I was like wow this is a Kanye produced nice album I mean it was if I had it wasn't good I mean it wasn't good you know even a push your TV which people really really liked I mean I just felt like okay but you know I mean this is a dude whose talent is just and I just song I feel bad man I really feel bad because I think like one of the key or the trigger right now article was how do you hold this do to count but not drag him out and just beat the out of him right which was yeah I mean anything I was happening on Twitter I'm not saying that's wrong but if you're gonna write you know I mean you got to like try to give us at least some idea of what this feels like from the outside but what he might be thinking right and what I understood was the following what I understood was I don't a much much smaller level had a thing that I loved to do you know like Kanye presumably loves to make music I love to write that thing had made me more famous than anything I had ever expected on anything I could have ever dreamed of and I imagined you know it's the same for him even though he probably would say it's not I don't know how you imagines you know the life he has now how you would have and again like I said you know I mean there is death there are no you know unadulterated unvarnished joys there are always problems that come with things and for me it was complicated by the fact that it wasn't like famous not actually what I was aiming for I wanted the respect of you know my peers that was really what I wanted you know I wanted you know my fellow writers to feel like when I walked in a room they were like you know and what happened was something much more than that and then that brought a bunch of problems no I was quite fortunate a because I wasn't I didn't happen at the level that it happened to him okay but in addition to that I had such a tight community you know I had that HBCU experience right all of my you know all our and so that's what I'm talking about though right so everywhere I've gone just about 90% of these events and we're getting into our 20s in terms it like I've had that experience there's somebody out there that recognizes right so I got community everywhere I go my closest friends come from that community I'm tight with my family you understand I'm saying so I have like shields against you know even though a lot of it was difficult I like I have people to keep me centered if I'm off they're gonna tell me ain't nobody scared of me you know I mean he said not people that eaten off of me you know I mean they got their own thing going on that preserves you and he ain't got none of that and I just I fear for that man I really really really fear for that man because when can't nobody tell you anything that's tough yeah that's tough you know what I mean so I just imagine him you know out there in Calabasas you know you know what I mean and how many people do you have who knew you before you were Kanye you know how many of those people are around you how many people you know and I just some that's tough that's a really really tough place to be here so to the extent that IV I just feel bad I felt bad at the time I feel bad now yeah you know cuz I think black folks I mean he's doing harm but I think brothels gonna be I we're gonna be fine you know we survived worse than Kanye but what is Kanye gonna be fine you know you mentioned Twitter and so another question are you glad you left social media yes well I'm uh still on Instagram no your honor ing Yamaji which is a different I mean I'm sure some of y'all knows it's very different interaction I think the ability to come up with a thought on your phone and immediately hit it and tell the world I guess that was a bad idea that was not good even IG actually slows you down a little bit right cuz you have like a picture or something so if forces like like you have to do other things you can't just you know think of something just you know I'm saying and you can't like even though you can regram you can't like instantly retreat in the same way like it maybe not I'm intentionally it actually slows you up a little bit in a way that Twitter just doesn't people just talk yeah you know and they talk as though what they're talking about and what they're saying is not recorded forever tonight kinda yeah so no I mean I just should have been in the first place you know it was always bad you know I can't I can't think of one for me I'm not speaking very bad but for me I can't think of a real redeeming feature yeah how accurate do you believe Baldwin's predictions were in the racial forecast of America and I actually had a Baldwin quoting here from Giovanni's Room of home is not a place but an irrevocable condition which we think about from your novel to sort of what the one I think about and this is probably the one that so I always say I love Baldwin you know what I mean I think he was finest essayist you know a 20th century at least perhaps finest American Essays ever he had that efficiency that I'm talking about like he'd be just you know I mean pushed so much into a sentence and I'm still chasing that you know myself I think we probably diverge in our sense of the country and probably our sense of white people in our sense of power and I think that's because even though he turned away from the church he was raised in the church and so probably the power of love and the idea meant more to him than it means to me I love the fire again I love the fire next time it inspired between the world and me but probably at the end when he you know talks about how you know we basically have to love white people into the future can't do that I just don't have that you know I have respect I have talked to I don't have hate but I don't that like I'll again I think like a lot of this and this is not just football but I think this is like for a large swath of me and and black America you know my own community I'm kind of distance because I didn't grow up in the church so I don't like I don't understand like forgiveness I don't get it you know I don't quite get the power and I'm sure it's there you know to me again if I had a different tradition and if I was raised very differently I don't get somebody doing something to you and you forgiving them I don't understand it I don't and this is I understand is an extreme example but I don't understand a cop shooting your brother and then you hugging the person I just I don't have that but it's Clinic but that's the thing that's like that's the thing it happens so much it's clearance the thing I don't understand it forgiving Dylan roof you know I'm Dylan Ruth you hurt me like that's how I've been you know um I understand being against the death penalty in that case because you oppose the death penalty and you understand what like I'd like you know what I mean like and I'm not talking about vengeance I think there's a place between vengeance and you know forgiveness I think there's a place between hey and love I just um and I think about this even like where Martin is the Kings possibly like it's just something I'm missing right I haven't come to my but I don't I don't get it man I don't I just I just don't I don't see much evidence that in forgiving white people being loving towards white people which is just another word for power so I was substitute substitute any other group in there by the way I just like that doesn't strike me as a as a force that moves you know people in moves history so I probably have a much doc of view of how power works I think power respects power you know and the moments you know in black history where you actually see progress it is because and very often because you know things outside of ourselves you know what I mean events outside of ourselves that happened and we were trying to leverage and folks had to respect it you know but um I think that's right like he probably had was a bigger definitely was a bigger belief and bigger believer and the power of love as a healing force and I just I don't have that what advice would you give young aspiring writers who want to write on issues of slavery and race oh I mean once again I would get them the same advice that I would give white people don't want to write about black people respect your subject just show some respect you know what I mean don't sit on your ass and try to imagine you know I know that's costly because a lot of novelists actually do that I'm just not a fan of that you know I think you should respect folks and why you are you know feel yourself connected to it you know as a black person you know born you know within this experience you should understand that these people were very very different from you and you should do your best to understand them and then you should put all of that research and thinking and a draw and you should go try to write but I think the first part is really really important yeah it's my last question naming becomes really important we see that and between the world to me we have the dreamers and in this book we have the world of the quality in the world of the past then slaved in the slavers why was it important for you to create this new lexicon this new language these new monikers for how we see and understand the slavery system yeah always do that because I think like um hey I guess not even thinking about it um I just feel like so I mean one of the things I often say is you know white supremacy is bad enough you know but then on top of that people try to Gaslight you and they try to act like it's not happening and it's actually your fault and this is what you know what I mean and so one large aspect in getting free is just figuring out no this actually really is happening but then once you realize that and you see it all around you it's like the words are no longer appropriate anymore you know and so like it does important between the world and me while I talk about can I shout out the sound man by the way we have had trouble hook with sound everywhere I've gone and this has been flawless and great so thank you all the way is but thank you in between the world and me is this whole part you know I try to talk about you know all of these words that we use you know race relations that's the one that really you know gets me you know even you know I would argue you know even in the book I argue like even the term white people itself you know as though it's a thing you know a real thing that somehow you know in the bones these are words that I've secured the evil of what's actually happening and so I'm always because if the whole thing is a lie how can you accept the vocabulary hmm so I'm always I think in search of new you know vocabulary to name the condition again just to take it back to him I mean that's the most beautiful thing these guys construct an entire you know derived from the language that we ourselves construct to describe the reality and so often it just feels so much truer to the situation I was with our Terry Jones yesterday she was saying she was on but we talked about words the same question she some of the word conversate right she was like you know conversate is not to converse it's not even to have a conversation it's not to talk to it means a particular thing it describes a reality that we were struck to describe until somebody said conversate it was like that's it that's the true way to express what's going on here between me and you conversate that's it and I just feel like you know when you're talking about black folks in this country so often we just we just don't have our conversation we don't have our right word yet so like I think you know in the water dance in between the world amis to search for those right words yeah well thank you for conversation [Applause] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] you

Channel: Nashville Public Library

Views: 787

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: Ta-Nehisi Coates, the water dance

Id: ATvvgJulHao

Length: 62min 59sec (3779 seconds)

Published: Thu May 07 2020