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Tonya
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Tonya
Post Number: 5494
Registered: 07-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, May 16, 2007 - 11:27 pm: | 
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Walter Mosley on telling the truth about race, power
By: Stephani Maari Booker
Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder
Originally posted 5/16/2007
Noted novelist speaks his mind at local college
Walter Mosley, author of the famed mystery novel Devil in a Blue Dress (Washington Square Press, originally published 1990), insists that he is a novelist, not a “mystery writer,” as many people label him. However, even the label “novelist” limits this writer, as he has also published science fiction, erotica and nonfiction. When Mosley was at Macalester College on April 24, he gave a lecture that was based on his book of political writings, Life Out of Context (Nation Books, 2005).
Some of the most intriguing and provocative parts of Mosley’s lecture were his accounts of how he in his life as a prominent writer has had to deal with institutional racism. One incident happened when he was a board member of the noted writers’ organization PEN: “There was a woman who worked at the front desk, and she was a White woman…and she was leaving. Everybody who worked at PEN was White, and it was in New York, supposedly representing writers of America.
“So I said, ‘When we replace this person, can it be a person of color?’” The hubbub in the organization that Mosley’s request started led to him quitting PEN’s executive board in disgust.
Mosley went on to detail a history of getting into hot water by pointing out the lack of ethnic diversity in organizations and events centered around writers. He was once president of the Mystery Writers of America; he once went to a dinner held by the organization, where he was to receive an award. He noted that he and one other person at the dinner were the only ones of color in the room.
When he brought this up to a leader in the organization, “Their response to me was, ‘They don’t want to belong. They don’t want to be involved’— They’re telling me ‘they’! They should be saying ‘you’! They said ‘they’! As if somehow I was part of them.”
As a panelist at a recent discussion held by the National Book Critics Circle, Mosley asked the moderator, “‘Who are these people I’m talking to?’ [The moderator] looked at me and said ‘We’re the National Book Critics Circle.’ I said ‘This, right here?’ He said, ‘Yes, this is the National Book Critics Circle.’ I said, ‘You mean this room full of White people is the National Book Critics Circle?’”
Mosley has learned from his experiences that “…You can’t just bring people of color in — you actually have to change the culture of the organization.” He is currently in the process of doing this work with the progressive magazine The Nation, which began when their leadership responded positively to his criticism of the lack of diversity at a lecture held by them that he attended.
“So that worked,” he determined. “They didn’t hate me. They didn’t make me have to quit. They didn’t make me have to say bad things about them.”
Mosley’s willingness to openly point out racism is rooted in his philosophy that one should tell the truth at least once a day: “It’s a real important thing to tell the truth. Most Black people don’t do it…
“You’re sitting there in a room full of White people, supposedly representing everybody; you’re the only Black person in the room figuring out how you can work with these White people. But it’s important every once in a while to say, ‘You know, this is not right. This is wrong.’ But it’s not an easy thing to say, and people are not going to like you for it.”
The writer’s truth-telling isn’t just directed at White institutions. Mosley also had a lot to say about how civil rights activism is being presented as the job of older people: “In the Black movement, this becomes very true. Who are the Black leaders? Everybody’s like over 60!
“It’s amazing: Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson… There’s like a whole bunch of them, and they’re making a living off of this, and they try to fool you and say, ‘I know this because I know more than the younger generation; the younger generation don’t know.’ The younger generation knows!
“…There’s just a notion that the older generation wants to hold the younger generation down,” Mosley insisted. “Coretta Scott King dies, and you see pictures of her at 70 years old. All the people who are in charge, who are those older people, they’re showing Coretta Scott King as an old person. But when she was a political activist, she was in her 20s. When she was going up against the monolith of American racism, she was 23, 24, 25, 27. So was Martin Luther King; so was [Rev. Ralph] Abernathy; so was Malcolm X.
“All those people were young when they were fighting, and it’s important for young people to be able to take the mantle… Older people need to be able to stand back and allow younger people to take the lead. They’re going to make mistakes when they take the lead; there’s no question about that. But still, they have to take the lead —without youth, we have no country.”
One controversial “truth” that Mosley disseminates through Life Out of Context and his lectures is that African Americans should stop supporting the current political parties and “form an interest group and vote for what’s important for them.” With collective political power, Mosley asserts, African Americans can control the people in public office, no matter what political party the officeholder belongs to.
When people say to him that there’s only a choice between George W. Bush and the Republicans or the Democratic Party, Mosley responds, “‘Yeah, man, I can have Bush — if he do what I say, I can have Bush. I can have anybody: If I have political power, he’s going to do what I say! It doesn’t matter who he is; it doesn’t matter what I think about him. If I have the power, I can make him work for me!”
Stephani Booker welcomes reader responses to sbooker@spokesman-recorder.com.
Copyright 2007 All Rights Reserved :: Legal and Privacy Policy
http://www.spokesman-recorder.com/News/Article/Article.asp?NewsID=78753&sID=13 |
Chrishayden
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 4411
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, May 17, 2007 - 01:18 pm: |
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Mosely means well but he is wasting his time. If he wasn't half white he would probably not try to spend so much time around white folks or wonder why they don't have more people of color around them.
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Tonya
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Tonya
Post Number: 5503
Registered: 07-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, May 17, 2007 - 02:50 pm: |
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I agree. |
Troy
Veteran Poster
Username: Troy
Post Number: 650
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: 
Votes: 1 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, May 18, 2007 - 10:56 am: |
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Chris, Tonya I hear you but; like most things it is a little more complicated:
Walter is a smart dude and a interesting character. This fact more than his 50% whiteness probably better explains white folks tolerance of him.
Again, being 50% white helps as it helps Obama (at least with white folks).
Walter also self identifies as Black. However, more importantly Walter, more than any other author of his caliber, is visible and activity participates in the Black community. Walter has attended and participated in every single Black event, of significance that I can think of. He has published books with independent publisher Black Classic Press, who in turn advertised with AALBC.com.
Walter is at a point where he can tell the truth without worring about what other perople think. Sure there are a lot of people who do this; but no one will hear these people. When Walter speaks people will write about it. Walter has a platform.
I don't think Walter is wasting his time. If he is we would all be better off wasting a little more time.
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Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 8639
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, May 18, 2007 - 01:03 pm: |
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Kudos for giving an intelligent rebuttal, Troy. Chrishayden is the master of the knee-jerk reaction, mostly because he's a jerk and, beneath the folds of fat, he has knees. |
Tonya
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Tonya
Post Number: 5525
Registered: 07-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, May 18, 2007 - 01:26 pm: |
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I didn't take Chris's comment as a slam on Mosley infact I think he pretty much said the same thing you did, Troy, he just used less words and he didn't praise him as much. I think Chris and I feel his efforts are admirable but it seems like a waste of time because more people aren't speaking up as he does, especially more people with his strong voice and position, they're being 'safe' and silent. |
Tonya
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Tonya
Post Number: 5527
Registered: 07-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, May 18, 2007 - 02:47 pm: |
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My Bad. TO ME: "...it seems like a waste of time [since] more people aren't speaking up as he does, especially..." |
Yukio
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Yukio
Post Number: 2345
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, May 19, 2007 - 05:30 pm: |
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"If he wasn't half white..." thats ignorant!
He's not trying to integrate a lunch counter. He is committed to an important struggle, however. I'm not so sure that committed to it, though.
The struggle to change powerful white institutions from the inside. That has more to do with ideology that one's so-called racial ancestry.
It is interesting how we blame things on race [Mosley's racial ancestry], but not racism--the exclusion of people of color from white institutions.
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