Ta-Nehisi Coates in conversation with Chris Jackson | One World Big Ideas Night

and to thank you for coming here tonight so this is Tom house new coats he's uh he's a writer it's written a few books and his newest book we were eight years in power in American tragedy is out today which is very exciting so at Tennessee and I have been working together for a long time now like maybe 10 years 11 years too long we've worked on together so I wanted to talk a little bit about about the process and the differences in the process between the first the second and third books and about what your expectations were today as we said I just I was is the publication date for we were eight years in power and it's been met with a lot of attention as you know a lot of reviews a lot in the excerpt that ran in the Atlantic there was a a wave of responses that came from that one which made me think back to your first book the beautiful spot over sports so Kendra [Laughter] so people struggle came out in May 2008 which you know also interestingly is at the beginning of this eight years that you described in the book and in the book in the new book we were eight years in power you talk about that as being a time of failure fear of failure in your life can you just take us back to what were you thinking was gonna happen in May if she's as an aide when your first book came out you know it's so funny because I it was two things that what happened I was I don't know if you remember this Chris but I was finishing the draft of a beautiful struggle at the same time I was finishing or writing the draft for that Bill Cosby story which is the first essay in the book if I say that I might not say that in the book but I was doing both at the same time and you know dead broke you're not really contributing anything beyond my beautiful smile to the household and I just remember saying they came out of my wife told her baby this something got to change there's this god of you know I felt like I felt like it was a huge opportunity to write a book and I felt like writing the Bill Cosby story was a huge opportunity and I you know however awkward I feel about this moment and I do it's not out of any sort of modesty about my particular talents will all work out and what anything I just feel like there are a lot of people who are talented but I felt like I was one of those a lot of people like that and I was like come on man come on you know what I had to do here and I finally gotten the kind of story that I wanted to write I had to kind of play someone to write and I had this book and the book was you know me like it was you know there was no filters with the out of it but you know writers I'm much more in control when they write books and it's their name on the book and so I just remember thinking something got a break you know I mean like something really really has to has to break and cannot it was like it will and what broke was not on the bestseller list that didn't happen at all wait for some reason a beautiful struggle felt like a success to me then and that's something like that I have to like constantly remind myself we did our first event and at the old human books that was up in Harlem yeah is that bookstore in Harlem right now there is a zombie bookshop kind of yeah so I think six or seven people showed up I'm gonna clean my dad my wife my kid Chris how the movie would have I mean who is here somewhere took pictures cuz Evan was there I've been Evan our where Evan some pictures and he sent them to me you know [Laughter] felt like you know this I completed a book I mean if people struggle writing books all the time so I thought it was it was like it was a huge deal for me even though you know it didn't you know sell anything it was still huge and so I don't know I just had this vague expectation that my life should change which is weird and immature except that it did I think it was correct you know what I mean there's actually the correct expectation I felt like if I could get the platform if I could get the resources if I can get to edit it that I needed that I could really really do something big I did think that at the time I didn't know what big meant I didn't picture this at all I just didn't had a capacity to think like that but I thought I could big would have been making a living which is what happened you know a few years after that and that was big for me you know it's not a small thing to be right and be able to make a living writing at all right right and skip ahead from May of 2008 to July of 2015 before between the world to me your last book came out a lot it changed in those seven years in terms of your reputation and your exposure but what were you expecting would happen then when that book came up one between a Weldon we came out oh man okay so we should understand about like book riding on any sort of piece is you you're always in your own head so take like even this more it's just take something like like we were ages and power you know I signed a contract I think a crucial thing to know is whatever I have ever signed up for with Chris much his initial chagrin but I would say ultimately to his great joy doesn't does not reflect the book I turn in you know I mean you're the whole story about between the world in me that probably shouldn't be repeated but suffice that it was not what he was supposed to be and so like once you get the idea of the book and I had it you know for what between the world to me would would be I knew that that was very appealing to me I knew that was something I wanted to read I knew something I wanted to exist in the world but with anyone else it was not clear to me today would and again that's not false modesty the fact that I matter is you know good books good ideas or good books that the author thinks his goodness added to thinks that these books die all the time they just die I mean I that's the norm I me but people struggle I died you know it really had it at that point and so I don't know I didn't I think we had a meeting at one point I thought turned in the draft and you told me that that that uh speaking my brows was behind a book big time so I but I didn't know what that meant but I didn't understand that I didn't have a you know I know we had these conversations where I asked you about things about like the business because I really it's all actually really really vague to me it's clear right now but at that point um I don't know I felt like by the end it was a good book did you feel like it was a book that would connect with people the way it did though did you feel like it was a book that I knew that Toni Morrison blurb was big I knew that I was clear tonight I understood that was a big deal but I didn't you know what this goes sound crazy even understanding that I didn't understand how much weight Toni Morrison's word actually carried like I know it's big but like I guess like in my mind I like imagine writers in terms of the field of artists actors you know directors you know even visualize like I might have imagined right the world of writing to be really small and it's not it's not as small as I thought you know I was totally unprepared for what happened out there between the world to me completely I mean it's like you know getting hit with a Mack truck a Mack truck filled with money you know your life can change in really good ways that you could not ever imagine and that can still be a problem and between the world and me was it was a problem it was a I don't regret it I don't wish it didn't happen but he definitely was I had no expectation do you ever look back at the book now and I don't know the last time I actually read something out of between the world interesting so you talked about how you process you know it's like over for me right and it's weird like I think it's like like this book this is open it's yours now it's not mining you know I mean I got another book that's due for Chris body ended a year that's like where you know that other things but that's that's where my my head is it's it's done right on of me my part is done I'm on an axe right okay so you talked about how in your process the book shifts from its initial original conception to to what it ends up being what what was this book supposed to be so we saw and we signed a contract and the contract said I think effectively it was supposed to be some sort of selected collection of essays so that could have been every long-form thing our for the Atlantic from the moment I got there and we talked about this like technically that's what the contract said so I could have just put that D I think it said two new pieces but the new but we was vague about what the new pieces work right like I could have thrown it in there and say you know it's my pleasure to present I hope you enjoy [Laughter] you know I'm gonna be really real about this gonna be incredibly real about this cuz I'm real about it in the book the contract I saw the two book contract I signed was again beyond anything I could have ever imagined and it weighed on me in a particular way hi you know I've been a writer now for 21 years when between the world and me came out and that um event changed things as I said I had been writing for 20 years for most of that time I couldn't have paid my rent by myself so I have very clear memories of what it's like to be at least in the terms of financing what it's like to be you know a failing writer and and I think that's a good thing because when I sign that contract honestly I felt like I owed you something all of you do you understand like I feel like I owed you guys and it felt like merely to package a bunch of essays that must be real you could get off with a web into a book and in a slap-up write like that just didn't fit into take my you know bag of money and go home that didn't feel like enough that didn't excite me like when I thought about that I couldn't even do the you know the intro and conclusion I just outlined just didn't like a good book I think you have to feel like the author has to be conducting something you know I mean through it you know sometimes I like at home like if I cook and I'm like in a bad mood and I'm not paying attention like the food's bad because I'm not do you know what I mean I mean maybe that he knows about this but whatever's in me is coming through you not I mean amy is coming through and when I went back and looked through the assays I looked at all blog posts I felt like I could do better like I just I could actually make a book a different book a new book granting a book you know that that's rooted in things that were already done but it just it don't have to be just a sloppy best of authors writers do that all the time so lazy I mean it's just like you know I mean maybe I'll get to a point in my career where there's like time for best stuff but that's not now you know what I mean I'm not that old and distinguished yes you know I hope to be but it's just it's not her it's not time you know it's still plenty of work you know to be done it and given what happened in the election you know I just I just felt chocolates to do something I was excited about and I hope that you're excited about it but the first responsibility is for me to be excited about and you know that best it just didn't feel we talked about this like it wasn't excited like when I thought about Aachen what is the thing that triggers your excitement though like X I know this is something that you go through with every book there's like this kind of like roaming for like what is gonna like set off the electric rygaards know what happened call who just did this panel she sent me these boxes she's print out all the blog goes and I had ever done in fact everything I've ever written for the Atlanta blog post and she sent them to me and I started reading through him in paper and I could see you know it was a moment when I just gotten into the Civil War and this was about 2009 and I guess I was still high and excited about you know the election of a black president and I said something to the effect I wrote something to effect like you know you know it's cool we got a black president but you know looking through you know this history and given away to their history my great fears that this is just a momentary respite that this is just a break that actually the norm is this this thing over here the actual history like I think about history is like a kind of planetary body exerting force like Jupiter is so big it actually affects the other planets in the solar system and I think a history in that way it bending and affecting the orbit of everything else and I thought damn I was thinking that dad like this was like I had like I could see myself becoming like I could actually see between the world and me coming together like in those blog posts and I could see you know later pieces like the case for reparations coming together and then I thought well that might be something like I obviously might write about the process by which I got to all of these pieces and try to articulate something you know about him and then when I sat down to do it I was like okay I think I got it and then you know somebody's essay is a wholly different essays that I'm not even related like one of these I think the intro to the Civil War piece is all about hip hop right which seems weird but it was the opportunity actually like something totally different you know about craft you know I just really really wanted to do right so thinking about those the actual pieces that you so the way the book is constructed there are eight of the essays in short for the Atlantic and each one of them is introduced by a new SSA the kind of situates where you were in your life and the service trajectory of Barack Obama's presidency and what was going on in the larger culture and really about like this sort of awakening to this core idea that I think is at the center of the book which is what you're describing about this sort of return of history in some way so the fact that history never left us in the first place did you do you feel like you learned something in the process of going back through this essays about these eight years that you hadn't actually grasped as well as a whole before it was going through the process of doing that that I got to that white president piece yeah because one of the themes that slowly slowly emerges over those eight essays is the idea of an heavy gravity or the notion of race is a social construct which is said so much by those of us on the Left that people have kind of like they think you mean this in some sort of let's all get a long way you know you're white I'm black that doesn't really mean anything but that's that's not really saying when you say race is a social contract what you're saying is that somebody actually constructed it that it was a done thing that somebody somewhere decided to put down certain policies there's actually consequence attached to it it doesn't mean that's all you know go hold hands you know and have a party we can do that too but that's not that's not why that phrase is important you know it's nothing you know particularly soft about that phrase at all and and if you take that seriously then you can then not just interrogate black people you can interrogate white people and what that even means and obviously some of that is in between the world and me and so why not turn that lens on on Trump I won't respect the popular notion that he's white and everybody else is white no I don't if it's a if it's a social construct what is being constructed and in doing that work that I came to this conclusion of he's the first white president and that's not just a cute thing to say like I can defend it in an actual argument because whiteness only has meaning within the realm of power and it was only the presidency of Barack Obama they gave the possibility of any sort of power dynamic between a black president and a white president you could have it you know and in such a way with black people are deployed you know in the case of sister soul's in the case of Willie Horton you know dusky salli wa sallim then you can have that sort of rhetoric but Obama was something different it was an entire suite of policies that have been racialized that have been you know subjected to the social constructs that is fundamentally different in addition to the fact that virtually the entire campaign was negative and I don't mean negative like me I mean it was I am NOT alright you know like that was that was the the seething heartbeat that's why you start with birtherism you know by the attack that you know I am a citizen this person is not you know I'm a citizen this person judging my case is a Mexican right you know in an entirely negative case which is the core of what whiteness is you know so once I got a man by that look that whiteness is the negation of something well I mean the popular notion which has been propagated regrettably you know even even among you know those of us on the Left holds it there there is a black and white race that's a real thing that you know if you have blonde hair and blue eyes a fair skin or whatever you know phenotypic efficiency features you want to attribute it to that that has some sort of great meaning in contrast the idea that somewhere along the line in Western history folks made a decision to attribute meaning to those features and to attribute meaning to the contrast and so what I mean is it in America accent black people historically and really accent a notion I'm sorry I have to because but I think this is appropriate so I just forgive me I don't mean to offend anybody but I think this is actually really really appropriate absent and absolute the constructs of the which is different than you know how I think about myself as a black person black culture you know what I like how I talk but absolute the image of whiteness doesn't exist throughout like in history that's how it comes up that's how you know you see it in the law it's always in reference to you know some sort of inferiority some sort of other it's deeply tied you know to the fact of living in a state like South Carolina for instance in the antebellum period and the majority the people around you are enslaved and you're in a democracy and you have done you know extensible democracy and you have to come up with some sort of science or logic that gives you the right to dominate these people you know and what you do is you create a mythology of the that's what you create and that then becomes your identity I'm more civilized I'm more elevated you know and I think I'm that process you know just haunts on politics you know up until dammit even you know one of the biggest areas of critique I had from Barack Obama was you know this idea of respectability politics which to my mind cannot exist unless you accept on some fundamental level black people don't work as hard as white people there's no non racist way to explain that idea there's no AI way to talk about that that doesn't get you back to white people and that's what it automatically goes but you say well why would that be what's actually going on you know and unless you're gonna talk about the history what else do you have except this something's wrong with these people mm-hmm it's interesting looking back at your essays one of the things that was interesting for me going to this process but he was was trying to remember what I used to think of you when you were first starting at the Atlantic and first writing your blog did you think of me I thought you already saw the college a really good writer who sometimes wrote about race but did not necessarily have like a theory of race in American history right and then when you get to the essays so you know I think you had ideas about race you cared about the ideas not race like in the first essays about respectability politics and Bill Cosby in your first kind of encounters with the phenomenon of Barack and Michelle Obama but it wasn't until we get to the case of reparations that we really see a theory of race develop and so one of the questions I have is like you know right go back to your first book and I think about how you were raised you're raised in a family that was very much like conscious a family it was a you know had black panthers and there was a kind of a revolutionary fervor and in a house full of books about black history and black philosophy and what is the difference between what you learned in that context about what it meant to be black and ultimately where you've gone in your people at all I mean I was kind of the great advantage of growing up in my house you know I spent a great deal of time obviously thinking about black people you know almost in an abstract sort of when understanding white people and racism I'm sorry thinking about black even a very directly actually and thinking about white people as a kind of abstraction and I I don't know man it's like it wasn't that people around me weren't saying offense it's like you know we talked about this all time you know it was you would hear people in your community say things like this whole country is built on slavery I'll say I mean maybe you know he's arms combat you know even I was a little skeptical right you know I mean and then you can read these books with all these footnotes anything this country was built on slavery actually true and I got data and at that point you know what you begin to understand is I didn't understand like black people as central to white identity and essential to like like I could have rhetorically yelled out somewhere this country was built on our backs but I didn't know what that meant right you know and I mean I like in the most specific sort of I didn't know isn't you know it's in the book in 1860 60 percent of all American exports what I understand I didn't understand that the greatest source of wealth in American history you know before the Civil War was a four million enslaved African Americans in the South I didn't get back to you an example I'm reading this great book by Ron chernow one town Ulysses Bryce exceptional it's really good and I was reading a couple nights ago and I came across what I thought was the most arguably the most singularly bravest act ever committed by a president in their private life Ulysses Grant who was dirt poor but as opposed to slavery is gifted in enslaved African American who he very quickly goes to the courthouse and you know sets free and I'm before I would've I wasn't really kind act but like enslaved black people were worth a lot I mean I mean would you have to end again forgive my language here but you have to imagine like if you somehow realize that it was morally wrong to own your house and then you just walked away yes and he'll pour - by the way you were dirt poor you went like a luxury and not only that everybody around you because it was a Missouri slaveholding states family married into the slave owners everybody around you believed that owning houses was really really important actually you were doing something immoral by giving up your house and you said I can't live like I didn't understand it in that way do you say like I would have just said I was good but I wouldn't have gotten hot I was huge right it was gigantic you know because I didn't understand the centrality of slavery of Jim Crow you know in amount of black people in in American history I just didn't get and most things I didn't get why he why did I didn't understand that's interesting so what was the what was the triggering event for that for you like when did you first find yourself pursuing that line of exploration so I started I was actually working on a book that the second book I'm contracted for and that book has a lot of what had maybe has a lot of Virginia in it and I wanted to understand for just for research acts it's so funny how this happens I wanted to understand what life was like and I wanted to be a good you know sort of history of antebellum and colonial Virginia and I was searching or you know just through Amazon and this book came up it's called American slavery American freedom by historian I'm Morgan and I tried to read it at first and I was like Madison Laurie and I'll put it down but I was talking you know in the blog I was talking this is probably somewhere in there I was talking about how I tried to read the book and the cool thing about my blog is I would have liked a lot of historians and if not his story is doctoral students and you know folks that were in the history and grad students were post and I think I'm some behind tried to read it and they were all like you really need to read that book you gotta go back but you really really need to go back and I went back and the book blew my Baba blew my head off I didn't know that like enslaved black people in this country and you know indentured servants had you know kind of lived around each other you know I mean it's got like you can see in Virginia literally whiteness forming by which I mean you can see everything like he'll say at this point in time you know this law was passed and in this law was passed and you can slowly see in the historical record like a notion of race as tied to power forming I can't tell you how freeing that was it was tremendous I mean in some ways it was depressing because you say oh this really is unnatural like like what under something that we did but it was freeing because I realized like it doesn't have to be this way like we made it this way like it doesn't like there's no thing in my blood even though this is what we think that says I see somebody who is lighter than me you know different color eyes in me and so therefore I feel some type of way about that and in fact we know that there is no thing because there are people who we call black in this country who have different complected skin have different eyes and different features who in another society would not be black on another time period would not be black and I don't feel any sort of way about them do you understand like it's only the social when you when you actually have a social constructs it says this right here is black but that don't imply of Brazil that wouldn't apply in I think I got like 40 different things you can check some crazy enough that didn't apply in Louisiana you know 200 years ago that would have no meaning you know on the coast of Africa five hundred years ago it has meaning now because of done things and that I mean how that was like the light bulb going on because they're not gonna look at the history and look at what happened to black folks and I could see a case right because there was laws there were things that had actually been done you know it wasn't by accident why Mike we met didn't like each other I never to believe this you know you just hit up in some chains right you know it's not what happened right there were decisions made and it was an entire architecture erected you know and not only that you know I you know continue to read later the wealth that was generated out of that architecture was ultimately indispensable you couldn't add in America without it and once I got dad I said you know I was against reparations I said oh oh and then when I started like when I could you know started doing it you know reading on housing discrimination I said you could try you could literally trace the system well within to the living memory of African Americans that you did not have America itself in fact if you did not have to go back to 1860 to make the case I thought oh man this is big right now that's interesting to think about its remember when you first told me I remember very vividly when you first told me you thought it was a piece of reparations I was like why is he doing I was like so where's that book you supposed to deliver it you're like peace and reparations so no you know what I gotta have this memory like I talked about like how crazy wasn't gonna Aspen ideas festival first time in the book and you know Atlantic does this every year and I have this memory of being there with another writer at the Atlantic and Rahm Emmanuel's brother Zeke Emanuel so it's two white people I'm sitting here and I'm trying to tell them this is it this is what they're like Negro oh this is this is the one this is it this is what's missing this this is it and I didn't feel like I had discovered it in fact what I felt like well how does everyone know like why are people overlooking this you know why is this you know the property of people who were dismissed I felt very strongly that that was I mean I didn't know again that you can't you know understand the effect but I thought you know this is big right well the Atlantic must have believed in it because it was a cover story and they supported it in so many ways they didn't you know like we're not talking about like Scott was my editor on that piece he says when he saw like the headline for the email he was like and then as he might do to pitch he was like yeah mm-hmm so I think the natural response is come on right good that wasn't just me so so so don't back to some of the pieces in the book speaking of things we should have known so you begin the book we're talking about the mean fact throughout the book you talk a lot about failure yeah and about how you didn't always achieve what you wanted to achieve in the book and I remember when I was when I first shared the book with people for the manuscript once we kind of got it to a place where I could share it with people in-house at Random House there are a couple of people who asked the question like why start with the Bill Cosby essay which you described as a moment of failure and shame right so why um to set the tone this is not a book about first of all what was what do you think was the failure of that piece the failure was my unwillingness to thoroughly interrogate the accusations which were out there at the time of sexual assault you hadn't got 250 women but it was like 8:00 at that time anything would change those but I like being a reporter I know what I could have done it's very clear but I thought about doing it at the time and I actually had an interaction about doing it at the time I know I could have got somebody on the record I know I could have got something more like it actually and intuitively I felt like it was relevant which seems absurd now you know given a subject I say but intuitive I felt like it had you know huge relevance and I was at that point you know so unproven you know to the magazine and I was you know trying to be with I thought okay just straight ahead story I can just tell I don't have to throw in this extra wrinkle you know I can do this I can execute this I don't know that I can execute you know with this other piece which in fact was essential piece but I couldn't I just I just couldn't see it man I had and I'm just giving you context right this is not a but I have you know as I outlining that and I say I had experienced so much you know I you know worked at Philly weekly got fired there went to the Village Voice got pushed out there with the Time magazine got you know you know and I was like man I just need to win I really need a win you know and so I was trying to write this essay you know what I mean that that you know I thought it couldn't pass muster and I was incredibly desperate and what that is is a lesson to me you you don't tell the story because it's easier you understand you don't tell us how good you feel like it's simpler or more direct because we're never to believe that's your reasoning it will ultimately be less true and that's what really happened with that piece it doesn't ring anybody who reads it in the context of everything that's happened since then since blamed but wait and it's in the piece which if anything makes it actually worse because it you know broadcast the fact I was I was aware of it you know but it's kind of like you know two gods and then we keep going in terms of starting a book with that I mean again you know this is not a book in which um I tell you how great I am I think about that essay all the time you know I think about it all the time I think it probably will be with me you know do the end of my career you know and so it felt honest you know to me because as failure all through the book there's grappling you know all through the book that's a you know kind of a thread you know in in the all through the new essays that's I actually felt like it was that you know the perfect place to start and and also just like this moment of triumph that on reflection you know what I mean looks a little differently right right the essays that follow you also feel like we're not you hadn't quite hit your stride yet that's right and you're very open about that in the book as well what do you think it took for you to finally I mean you kind of talk about like what you ultimately wanted your style to be this kind of combination of personal narrative a kind of historical investigation sort of profile that feels real and reporting that feels you know rigorous I don't wanted it to sound and he wanted to sound good right so what did it take to get you there practice right she's gotta get you know the best thing about getting to the Atlantic was it was like you know being a ballplayer somebody giving you a gym you know I just had I just had a ton of practice you know I wrote a lot you know over and over and over and over again you know until I got there it's tough because I think like I'm before a lot of people who do what I do not everyone you know you know we like everybody has a take today we're always writing these takes it's actually causing me some conflict at the Atlantic how I did it take and this way I don't think that's when people come to me for you know yes everybody on the stage is smart Oh get on with you you know to me but what are you doing what are you saying what do you build then what are you creating and it was not enough and I knew this was the case for reparations like it was not enough for people to read the case for reparations and say oh the logic lines up he's correct you know that piece had the hard do you do you know that me like I had to haunt you like you had to read about Claude Ross and the rest of your day shouldn't be right right do you know that mean but you should want to talk to I like man I need therapy I got to talk to somebody you know that me because he's in my dreams right you know what I mean like I just I never under like it should be bothersome and that's different than being right do you not I mean like I could have written a 800-word column for The Times I've been right you know I mean my logic could have the argument could have been correct but if you're writing you know at that length you're trying to do something different you know you're trying to get people to UM to be disturbed to be troubled like untroubled right I walked in that dude's house man I'll never forget this I hope don't think I put this in I walked into this house and you know like I knew like that there were people you know in Chicago you know who had been victimized by redlining and you talked to some of them and someone can work for your story some care and I walked into his house and he I think mr. Ross the first person I saw when I went to Chicago he said uh I said mr. Ross how long you been in Chicago and he told me I said where you originally from and he said uh Clarksville Mississippi I said he said yeah I said what brought you to Chicago and he said I was seeking the protection of the law and I said what do you mean there were no laws in Mississippi he said well why prosecute a white police white everything that's no law I said my god like in my head like I knew you know the man then he went through you know and spilled that out and then you know he talked about how he came to Chicago and he said you know I left you know no law and I came up here and I found no law in Chicago it's like that haunted me do you understand like when he said that like at that moment you know to this day I can't get that out of my head and so now my job is to conduct to you you know what I'm saying like that that's that's my job to take that feeling that I got from him you know and give it to you and you can't do that just by being right you okay you're messing up my store tonight we were having a moment we were sorry you should continue you missed it sorry distracted on my sneeze um so yes so I'm Anne Spencer what what were your monster that kind of writing that what were the stories that when you were like coming up in journalism with new software these are the haunting stories these the kinds of things I want to write well first things like hip hop right are you know you listen to like nos and you know you listen to one love and that third verse I was like I can't forget that I kind of forget that you know I'm not even clear that I like you know I write about this in the book you know like him you know saying you know he's talking to the kid and he tells the kid next time you shoot somebody make sure you know innocent people I was like I mean that's them and he says I'm more beautiful than that kid but I couldn't get it out of my head and then you know obviously you know moments in hip hop like that and I thought well I want to write in such a way people feel like that I can't I can't get it out of my head in terms of journalism it's wings I think of people who are doing nothing like what I'm doing but Ian Frazer at The New Yorker who writes totally differently than I do but I think I am like I'd often times his stuff you know really sticks with me in a particular way god I can't think his name Lawrence Wright who wrote the looming tower this is so bizarre cause I work for the Atlantic um so well the shot on a budget and I'm sorry Jeff but about the shot on a bunch of New Yorker people they publish more than us long it's right I mean you know like he's you know his book looming tower like you know like his rendition of al-qaeda you know haunted me it bothered me Elizabeth Kolbert who I think is an absolute genius when she writes about the environment yeah I know global warming's going on but when I hear her ass oh this is bad and that's that's that's the kind of feeling Katharine salts you know that that piece she wrote about the wave how basically Pacific Northwest is due to be destroyed and it has so much depth do you know I mean that you know like that's the kind of haunting literature that you know I try to produce what's interesting cuz none of those people rate like you do don't deploy like the first person voice and they also I wouldn't say our writers were poetic in the same way or rather I think it is I think hasn't Schultz it's actually I think those two are Ian Parker also who's funny and different but also like I remember his lines but yeah but I mean I don't mean that's the other thing I got started off with poetry before I did any of this you know I was you know listening to hip I've been being a very bad practitioner of it as a teenager but that shapes you that kind of shapes your aesthetics and in what you think about things I was telling my earlier today that like when I did um my president was black I just played distant lover over and over and over again I thought that's how people should feel like when this is done huh like now that's what is that feeling I think we queue it up no y'all should be noble Mikado I don't listen to it I mean you can't that's that's what's be like you can't describe I mean if I were to tell you it's sad you know it's mournful but you know there's this you know it's like listening like as I thought a lot about Marvin Gaye and it's his ability to deploy on on multiple levels you know he can do that you know sort of soul growl he can do this beautiful falsetto and any other sort of you know regular you know voice and he can do all of that and maneuver in such a way to make you feel a certain way so when I'm writing okay at this moment I'm in the room because I want you to feel something now not in the room now maybe like we need to drop back and do a little history do you understand what I'm saying and maybe I'll let this one person talk for you know an extra long time because it'll make you feel you know a certain way oh it makes me feel a certain way when I you know do it like that hopefully that can be you know conducted and what do you think you first did that to your satisfaction I was always trying to probably a black president yeah because that was the first time I wrote about French Jones I'm who's in between the world and I just kind of dropped it in there out of nowhere and I thought wow this actually changes the color of the piece when you do this you know like people will feel and if you put it in the right place people will feel you know I say well I always I try to build her like a kind of a crescendo you know you should feel almost devastated you know in a good way you know as you get closer to the end so just very much for this idea of races being kind of central to what you're writing you say some really interesting in the book which is that people started calling you with black yes there's a premium black writer I know you're very comfortable with I won't even ask you about that but but did you also talk about wanting to be identified as a black bear like that is not something you ever wanted to turn away from do you think sometimes that because this analysis of race and racial history in this country hits you so powerfully that it has in any way made it harder to see other things I mean people talk a lot about like even with this last election the role of class and gender in the election and I know one of the big responses to your to your piece about Donald Trump there wasn't bits in the book he said it doesn't see those things as clearly no I think I made a decision to focus on certain things I never are you that certainly not in that piece that race or racism is the sole way well the only way of understanding you know like one of their critiques when you're saying that this is the mono causal thing what about sexism that's not the point the point is not that his mother calls well the point is that it's essential which is a very very different thing the point is that it wouldn't have happened without this but that doesn't mean it wouldn't have happened without other things to you for instance where I you know read it in a different way oriented in a different way I had you know read it different well I guess more volumes of a certain type of history all right over it night I say totally different I said Donald Trump was the first male president do you understand like that's a that's an essay that somebody could do right but not me means I'm unprepared in a certain way you know what I mean I've read certain things when the case for reparations came out what what about Native Americans I would love to read that essay somebody should make the case for reparations if inator I would I would love to you know read but I can only do what I'm supposed to do I think like what happens and this is why I sort of detest all of these titles you know particularly the public intellectual thing because what public intellectuals are often called them to do is to explain the world and I don't really believe in that you know I can explain the world as seen through this lens and I think it's important I think you know the pathway or this this way of seeing American history through the lens of race and racism important but it's not the only way to see the country you know how we never say that my critics on the other hand you can't say that it because when they write about class is you say yes it was raised but you know what I mean is this all you know it's kind of this dismissal of race and the fact that so many of them are excuse me a white I don't think that's incidental you know and as I make the case in the book oftentimes the way they write about it and the way they describe it it's very clear it's not yet to do some when Nick Kristof says you know for instance you know don't call these people in Oregon you know bigoted or racist you know because they voted for Trump okay but then next line is because that's what I'm from right it's not a mistake right you say like it's not it's not a mistake you know he's not and maybe he went you know if he were here he would say right you're right I'm not you know totally objective they maybe that's not you know what he was said but I'm saying that that has consequences you know when you know Bernie says you know I'm ashamed that it you know the the the when he tells a young latinas I talk about in the piece their problem with the Democratic Party is identity politics we gotta get rid of identity politics in a week earlier you you know you see him tweeting out I come from the white working-class and I'm ashamed of the Democratic qualities inability to speech there was one or the other brother right burning is it's one of the other you know I mean either way it for matters what we don't write you know you can't have both and so you know what haunts this debate constantly is the idea that if I'm talking about being black I'm somehow bringing something extra to it but when you presume that the world is white and right from that perspective you somehow are doing something that's neutral you're not you know bringing in any sort of bias or anything like that I would grant you to make my arguments in a very directed and forceful way but part of that is um I'm late I do have to recognize the fact that I have very large I got that megaphone I got that position on the shoulders of a lot of other black riders are living in debt who schooled me I got that position the other certain experiences that I had you know in Baltimore that and I bring the bed at Howard University I say I didn't come here you know I'll be damned if I came here to sort of shuffle in you know what I mean play pattycake with these people right you know I mean like that's an embarrassment to everybody else that didn't get you know you you know out there these kid acts any day said you know who you writing for besides yourself said who are you writing for cuz he knew I was gonna say that tell you something I'm writing for that kid in 1995 long time ago who's at Howard University and write the new Republican picked up the New Republic and saw an excerpt of the bell curve a book aren't doing for his intellectual inferiority right and his only resource was to go and film with all the other black students and black professors they had no real ability to make his protest hurt oh no one you know cray there was some protests in that issue from other Ivy League professors which I don't only get in episode different taint a different sort of thing because we were angry we were pissed do you understand and so I have a responsibility I feel like channel that to bring nothing that's what's missing you know it's kind of chummy respectful you know sort of thing you know that folks do you know who have um I'm going off you know who have certain faculty positions with people or certain relationships with people listen that ain't my world man I came from a black world you understand what I'm saying that that's the tradition in which I am and so that mean that there aren't too many people with this kind of audience I just feel like I got a represent that for the felt to the fullness do you not I mean and be really direct and and clear about that and push these people man because they need to be pushed they need to be uncomfortable like [Applause] you gotta make it hot right you know right absolutely what we're gonna do is maybe turn it to you guys if you're not too hot I will take some questions from the audience we have some people with mics so if you want to raise your hand if you have a question I see so can I just Chris is too polite to say this yes but I'm gonna say it because I always said when we give speeches just I love all of you who came you know to support I really do but please please ask a question if you ask the question and if you do it in a you know a timely manner more people get to ask questions well we have one over here okay beautiful thank you so very much you the idea of you being our Baldwin resonates very strongly I wonder what your relationship is like with David Carr from the New York Times and if you could speak about it from that perspective of his impression seems to have been that he found a underutilized mind in Baltimore and found of which to give that oxygen to that voice I would love to hear anything you had to say about Baldwin anything you had to say about your relationship with David Carr well at that rendition of David Carr is not too far from the truth [Music] I came to New York in 2001 summer 2001 and those who have been a medium for a while we remember there was like this moment when people thought well when the magazine industry was really really booming and people thought this was the future and you know when magazines like the industry standard and everybody thought like something you know it's a great time for writers and I came in New York seeking that and the end had already begun before I got I didn't realize it but then not 11 happened then you know bottom fell out all of that and I found myself here with a with a 1-1 year old child wife Megan I think I was making 28,000 something like that you know in a basement Brooklyn apartment and me again as I said not really able to you know contribute much and David was a big shot by it he was first writing for the Atlantic and in New York Magazine and then for The Times and you know he was my editor at Washington City Paper and we had a good relationship but I didn't call him too much I was cutting off kind of shame you know I mean I felt like I was failing but he would call me up and he would take me to these fancy restaurants in Manhattan well what I thought was fancy at the time one time I came in Manhattan was short so he was like we can't go near that big virgil's which was breeding I was like wow this is a treat I mean it's huge she was huge you know I'm saying people call me and some things I would come home and I was talking I don't know what is why dude doing that why is he wasting his time with me you know and I advanced you don't to me got a couple jobs and got laid off and right before the Atlantic you know I just felt like I had like you know I forgot laid off from time I feel like I had failed every dollar I thought everybody my parents Phil Kenyatta Phil my son felt David would put all of this energy into me and like he'd done every time something went bad someway he said it's not you I'm so tired David was such a mean kick ass at it I mean he was loud with y'all blustery and he said it's them not you I would look I would say how could it be done and not me and he said it is he got to see you know some of this but he died before um before between the world and me came out I mean which is just heartbreaking I mean just completely completely that's his book that's his book he poured so much into me when no one outside of my family and Chris a little bit it's no one believed I mean it really my agent Gloria Loomis - I can't forget you boy cost glory but just a minority of people believe let's say no but a minority of people and he just you know poured over and over and over again I remember you know after actually I had the big beautiful show came out we did an event together and we were at dinner and in typical David fashion yeah we had a toast he wasn't you know he toasted water and he said here's to you tea all those who tried to kill you are dead [Laughter] really you you read teeny J school for a year and so I heard about two other int winters but I just wanted to know what influenced it like being a German school for a year head on me they're like what you've been in since then or what do you think about reading buddy in the future I think I didn't give them my best that was god I was a crazy year that was he I was actually writing between the world and me and so Wow Carrie J school was extremely hospitable to me I tried to give the kids what I had well you talk about failure that was that honestly was another you know one of those years where I feel like I didn't give as much as I could have it's difficult man you pulled it in five different directions but when you have kids who look up to you they should be your priority and I don't know that I quite executed hi I'm gonna toss this the question everyone's been asking your authors questions and you've done something in publishing which I don't think anyone else has done and the questions have been asked your authors like have you found your safe space in the world of publishing where have you find your inspirations from in the list that you've built in the authors that you've inspired and work with so deeply you can ask me a question well I'll quickly into that um thank you for the question I have a pretty safe space generally because I I'm editing not writing there's a there's a you know there's a whole story I could tell about like you know the kind of challenges within the industry but you know this is the thing that makes me happy to get up in the morning and go to work is the fact that I hear from Tallahassee really five times a day it's and and Eddie and Jenna and Kara and Kimberly like all these people are what gives me like energy and hope and excitement I mean can you imagine being able to talk to these people all the time like this is what I do all the time and it's an absolute joy but mostly it's a joy and thank you very much yeah one more I'm sorry okay hi I saw an interview with you where you said that the quote the arc of history is long and bends towards justice that you don't tend to care for that phrasing can you talk a little bit about that and particularly in the post Obama presidency with Trump what do you what does like justice look like under like what do you think ears what do you think white America wants out of this president that voted for him and what do you think they'll get let's go the last one I don't know actually don't know I don't know I [Music] really don't know because I think like one of the reason why I thought Trump couldn't happen was out of a kind of self-preservation you know listen I may feel however I feel you know about black people about brown people yellow people about women you know all colors whatever about the LGBT community but this is not the dude I want with it with his hand on the button not him he's just not the one and I thought that was a hyung understood sense I mean this is um all you can do is laugh cuz it's that scary right this SK I mean you got a guy conducting diplomacy with a nuclear rogue state over Twitter that's what's happened Secretary of State says one thing things they do comes out and contradicts it you understand like this is I mean that's just both ker I'm only talk about North Korea right now like this is dangerous this is like really really scary territory but the fact that it matter but I think about it I hate saying things like this I really I just hate saying things like this what I reflected on it though because as I arguing in the last essay it's quite clear that the constructs of whiteness the idea of identifying with whiteness was what brought us here it's in the socio-economic data it's the clearest through-line you know it is not you know like you can look at working-class people from all different communities that's not the through-line you know we're in class white people voting which are not working-class white black people brown people you know Asian people rich people poor people women college-educated not college-educated he won majorities of all of them all of them every single second you got to start getting into the fine you know like really dicing it up before you can find a majority that didn't go to trump at one point recently just before the essay was published three months ago i'm are you talking to like you're looking at every demographic group the only group of people you had a positive approval rate with was you know folks who identified as white and you know that nobody black could ever get away with this I mean Trump was in Puerto Rico hurling what I say I said Earling paper towels are people Jim Erica Obama doing this yeah I imagine Obama like going to Florida in a community of white people has been devastated and hurling paper towels at them like that's what you have to get you got to imagine a black man being caught on tape bragging about sexual assault about Hawaii woman that dude can't be governor you know much less president and you connect the fact that all those privileges that come through the constructs of whiteness right like the idea you can be mediocre be president why you just be completely completely mediocre and be president and the fact that that in dangers the world that actually and I thought like that connection would be made but it was it you know and and the horrible thing is when you think about it what you see is a like a death wish almost fact of it is it ain't the first time 1860 they tried to destroy the country for the right to hold slaves and to expand that right in fact that was the plan the land was to expand it into South America and into the Caribbean an act of national suicide because that's what it actually was for the right to hold people like in bondage that's incredible to think about Abraham Lincoln didn't come in and say you know hey I'm gonna you know Abbas said that wasn't the platform platform was I go that you expand that was enough for an act of suicide that is scary because what it says is this moment actually has precedent and a better historian and we could probably find other precedent besides that have a kind of suicidal wish you know within the constructs of power I don't know what these folks morning III don't know to be heard we we can get now you know and we all you know stand on the process was about to die with you so you know it's also interesting as she talked about this question of the arc of history bending toward justice might now you have a line in between the world to me where you said it bends toward the grave right it's like this is what we all have waiting for us and so there's a sense of like that that a lot of people have had from your work that there's something bleak about it and but we've talked a lot about what I think is the most sort of mmm fix me I never get a sense of feeling bleak or depressed I reach I feel a kind of invigoration and you write in the book I think really beautifully about kind of what your purpose is as a writer and what drives you yeah this is the thing you cue me up for right I'm cueing you up we got a whole act here you know you know what y'all did not any prep me so I thought about like that moment with Clive Ross right and how haunting it was but at the same time as haunting as it was it was actually deeply gratifying also because at that moment I understood like he drew out the line and you see you not understand like when you're black and you're coming up and these things are happening to you you you have like deep suspicions about why they're happy but you don't have as they say to receipts you know you don't really know what you think you got ripped off but you ain't got the receipts you know I'm saying you can't prove you know I got ripped off okay you know and Clara's gave me the receipt the work gives you the receipt you can do the math and then you can argue with people about and you donate crazy have the type of Chris you know a lot easier Chris you know I'd be one to answer and go fight with people you'd be like you can't do it you can't do it you can't because you know now now you know you got the receipts right now they don't recognize the receipts that's on there but you can't keep going like this open up the receipt is right there for anybody that wants to see it they're all that for anybody that want to see him that is empowering I can't control the ultimate you know faith the ultimate fate of my life in any sort of grasses who knows what's gonna happen I walk out in the street who knows my keys hey Parker I don't know you know I can't there's no power within me to undo you know some 400 years of history I don't have that ability but I don't have to walk around only with the mere suspicion that I got ripped off I can have the receipts you understand I can know and even if you act like you don't know I know you know and that leaves a lot of stress playing games with people right you know yelling at people getting upset I know I got it I got it you know I know we got the receipts whenever you want to look at them thank you very much

Channel: Penguin Random House

Views: 26,190

Rating: 4.8090453 out of 5

Keywords: book, author, write, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Between the World and Me, We Were Eight Years in Power, interview, panel, journalist, The Atlantic, read, conversation, Chris Jackson, editor, publisher, event, One World

Id: PO8JhB-kls8

Length: 70min 4sec (4204 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 04 2017