studies and culture at the university of virginia and a visiting scholar for public knowledge of writes about culture and the arts, and is currently at work on a book about walking and garnett is at the end, i'm reading these out of order. [applause] >> honoring the jeffers who is rite next to garnett, is a poet and has received fellowships from the national endowment for the arts and the foundation to the library of congress. she is the author of four books of poetry is at work on a fifth and exploration of the life and times, of phyllis weekly.

[applause] >> keep na jones has been published, in pr, crash magazine, and she has received fellow shps from penn center, usa, and, is currently a candidate in fiction and rodney jack school lar, in the program for writers. [applause] >> fugely, a i so yet professor of english and african studies and a resent writer, at the university of mississippi. he is the author of the novel long division. how to slowly kill yourself and others in america and a forthcoming mem would you ever called heavy.

[applause] >> so, let's jump right in. i thought, that i would lead by asking you a question about james baldwin. why not? so, when i was searching for a writer, on the american black experience, baldwin felt inhe have vittable. he was expatri set and he died nearly 30 years ago. >> what makes his writing continue to resonate. do you turn to him as i do for comfort? >> okay, well the first thing i should say, because my university will get very angry is that i just was promoted to full professor -- >> congratulations. [applause]

>> so, my colleagues might be watching this morning. so, well, james baldwin, i have a very involved relationship with him because my father was friends with him. so, when i first encountered his name, i encountered it as my dad mention that go they hung out in the village together and everything. and i met him when i was 14. and i remember someone, his assistant coming up behind him and draping a fur colored on camel haired coat and i thought that's going to be me. [laughter] >> but, as an adult, in graduate school, his words along with audrey lord's work saved my life i. i was one of only two african-americans, i'm the first to graduate in poetry, in the

program at university of alabama. so it was very, very isolated. my friends were the ladies, who cleaned the university, the building, and we would talk about those sort of things. and i remember, i was young then, i was in my 20s, feeling a real rage and his rage helped me. but it was sustained and it was intellectual, it was not messy rage. it was purposeful rage and that was a real lesson that i learned from him. >> at one point he says, or, slightly paraphrasing in those days we were trembling, and

talking about the 60's. but, if we had not loved each other we would not have survived. and time and again, that's where i return to baldwin, that he writes, you know, with a force. he writes, with a fairness at times, but, throughout, time to get an essay after he is say is this love, in his his belief in the love. and we stand away thinking well, love, here we go. but for him, love was this vibrant potent cohesive active forceful thing, which allowed us to see with more clarity, allowed us to feel more deeply. and, to not only in a -- seek

clearly and one of the wonderful things is that he argues for the full humanity, of people, whose humanity is treated less than bad by appealing to our common humanatism so he never is in search of an enemy, and, is recognized in how much the did he go greinvestigation of, we can't be great, great in ourselves, and continually reminds us to put ourselves in someone else's shoes. and, force with someone, that we have to argue as a human being, complex, and that we are never let off the hook to love them. so, in other words, our criticism doesn't preclude a responsibility to love.

our love doesn't preclude us tize krit sizing people. he will never lose his relevance , is he reminds us how important potent love is, and should under guard, and, propel our criticisms are reflexes to each other. his work resonated with me, since 15, 16. it resonates more, in presidential times, we see the most magnificently liars lie to us. one of the things that his work encourages me to understand, particularly, when we have, you

know, the right harkening back to go this great past, and the left, rattling a american exemption nall limple that still seems to not exist. american, and it is rooted in deception. it is rooted in dishonesty and no way to get from point a, to b. unless we're honest about a. when we see the worst of america on display, i think his work is a reminder of what we -- what the americanness of us could be. as child interested in the arts.

there was a real reclamation of our heroes. so it was a time when they, these people were not far off ideas. they weren't people that i discovered in college. they were part of miguel lament tri school experience. so, when i learned about baldwin it felt like i was walking, into a place where i wanted to be for the rest of my life. he felt like, as well as the others, just like a supreme example, of the person that i wanted to be in the world. and the things that i wanted to do for myself and my community. >> fantastic. so, i have another baldwin question for you all. which ties into the fire, this time. so here's baldwin describing his experience as a reader. you think your pain and heartbreak are unprecedented.

but then you read it was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the things that connected me with all the people who were alive. or had been alive. so, my question, that ties into that quote is, what was your experience of participating in this collection. we write in isolation and we're published, individually. so, once you add copy of this book. what felt different about it. how does it feel to be part of a choir, rather than a solo wift. >> well, i'm a leo, i share a birthday with monica lewinsky, and, so, it's a motley crew and slash. it's a motley crew.

one of the things, as a poet who does research, what i find interesting now, being someone who is 49 is the way that younger folks look at baldwin, but, we need to take him in historical context. we look at him as one of our great profits. but he was vilified. so one of the things as someone who does history, mys say sticks out like a sore thumb because it is about the 18th century and i'm sure some people are flipping through, what does this have to do with police brutality? >> the thing that struck me about you know, his saying, you aren't the first people who suffered is, that the 18th

century is the o.g. black lives matter. the british were a police force. addicts was a black man and the first to fall in the "boston massacre," and all these other black men who were allege ga taiting for liberty and full citizenship. it's sort of curious because i'm a radical black feminist, and i think a couple of people are like why are you writing about the black men? you reconfigure the past. so that's what i think about baldwin. he wasn't celebrated as a

prophet during his time but his words are very time limit you go on social media and you see, these quotes by him, and i find this really interesting because, you know, black arts movement despised him for being a gay black man that was not truly black, whatever that means, and, now, we're all realizing like he was like -- abraham to us. >> many of us write in silence. you have four walls staring at you, and it can feel like you're writing in a void. for all but the most confident writer there's this fear that you might be writing into a void, that the silence in which you are writing, your work might be met with that same silence.

it goes handed out to the world and no response. so, on a, being in this book is, just suddenly have the word responding, and not merely to you but as part of a broader conversation. one of the things that i come back to again is that same remark that baldwin made, that, you know, we were trembling, but we hadn't loved each other. so reading the offers says, given it definition of friend ship. it is going, oh, you too. so, this book, did that, ah, my experiencers not my own. that you, too, you too, and so there's a sense of solidarity

and friendship, and, ah, this is how we survive. and so to have your experiences, echoed, or mirrored, or in some places challenged, so, it had that effect. but, when he was writing to his nephew, he got into this issue of innocence. where he said, your countrymen, they have seen what's going on. they can talk to your grandmother and speak to her, and she's been there, and she's seen all these things and she's not hidden. and, i think of this book, like, baldwin's grandmom, here is this book, multitude of witnesses, saying, here's what it is like, to live in america. here's what it has been like to get us to this point.

here are some possibilities ahead and here are some of the limitations imposed, upon us, as he is talking to his nephew and here we have tried to fight, and, navigate, around these limitaindications, and here we are, in our richness, and, more than anything else, it reminds me that, what happens to us, is not the entire story of who we are. we are more than what has happened to us. so reading this book became a potent reminder of that. it was part friend ship, inspiration. >> you know, during ferguson and the baltimore uprising i witnessed a lot of that via

twitter, and i would be up, 1, 2, 3:00 in the morning, and unable to look away and i did that with brown, and, there wouldn't be much to say except, oh, my god, i can't believe this. i can't believe this is happening. this is this time. and, some nights wealth just sign off, i love you. i love you. and, now in hindsight i realize how much damage watching hour-after-hour that footage did. but i felt like i wanted to be a witness to that. and, so, when i see my name again, with all these other writers, it does feel like i love you. and i want to be here for you and support you because, even after we close our laptops, we have to go out into the world and navigate and show up at our

jobs and for our families and ourselves in a real way. you can't slouch through life. so it just affirmed for me we're all going through this, that's up here, bow this level, i know these people are here for me. that feels really good. so special. >> thank you for that. that was a great answer. i just think public expressions of black joy are part of the reason we're still here and all up here today. and so, when i saw my name in the book, and when i got the hard cover i was just, i'm from jackson. you are the greatest writer my world, damn, i made it. [laughter]

>> that's honest. and the second thing i felt was that a lot of different people asked me to use my work and often i say no, because for a lot of reasons, because, i don't have the intelectuawal work, and spiritual work to write the blacks say, i was just like, you know, floor lot of different things, i want to put something, that speaks to this joy, this joy that i got from the root. my grand mom and i can say like, a lot of people , i would not have annthol low geesed that

piece, in the world, because i wouldn't have felt comfortable with what was on either side of my piece. and i think these folk provided i mean massive amounts of history, love, and, i think we pushed in that pushed against that notion of being black male, and so for me it felt like the piece found its way home, and, i'm just really happy. sometimes we need to say we're happy and i'm happy. >> can i just say one thing? exactly, because, i told myself i was never going to be on another race panel. and -- because i just got tired of explaining for people, how bad it was to be a black person. i just, you know, because that's not the entire experience. but when you asked, okay, i

said, all right. right? when my agent came to me and said, you know, you have -- okay i'm on it. and then they said you're getting paid. and i was like. [laughter] >> okay then. >> and thank you for those groceries by the way. that money spent real well. [laughter] >> i'm proud of it. i'm so happy that we were able to come together, into you know, form this course and to do this. because, i think it's a great book. [applause] >> thank you.

>> so, i'm going to ask -- i hope that now, you don't get mad at me, but i'm going to ask you. because i'm curious. so, a two-part question. does this afternoonthol guy provide more answers or questions? second part is, what questions are you sitting with right now? >> representing black joy is very important, if we recall that coined by black love is black wealth. right? my question and, i hope i don't make anyone mad asking this

question is, why is it always black people who are raced and why don't white people ever feel that they have a race? that's my question as i finish this, because we aren't the ones who invented race. david hume invented race and we are living with the wages of that sin. so it's always interesting to me, that, for example, when i teach my students, and i say to them, when you write a story, why is it that no one ever has as race until the colored person walks into the room? because i don't assume that everyone is white. right? i assume that everyone looks like me. so, i think that, what i'm curious about is, why aren't

there any books where white people examine -- now with white, i can feel people flinching in the room. if you say african american woman ornative american woman. but when you say white woman. people start jumping. like you're accusing them of something. i'm not accusing anyone of anything. but i do wonder why it is, that this is our burden, right? to discuss. i mean i -- i welcome the challenge. but i would like my white brothers and sisters, you know, transgender, lgbt, straight, etcetera, to start. >> where then it becomes

sphwhrien me why i'm not a bad person. i would love to have a real intellectual engagement. in a different one in different places and so i remember in the

first we said here is a what looks like bu a thin in the collection with all these other essays suddenly all these questions began emerging. what might it look like when we start to think of the lineage. how should we think of lineage and how has the heritage and an important part in important inheritance all of us celebrated. we write about family. the issues have a belonging with identity and love and a rich sense of self answers i found all these emerging and it's one of the terrific things about the

book. it's been with the flow and so [inaudible] [inaudible] it doesn't become burdensome and feel like a way that.

there is a response that there is joy and complexity and contemplation and confusion and some of these lead to the question that upset me in as a writer one of the questions is how do i write and try to bring people's attention to the way in which people have often marginalized. the court holds that you're capable of and the part of reason i'm writing this for you is to show you that you can transcend that.

it's no wonder because of this difficulty how do i say here are all the different ways for stereotypes or limitations were different frustrations that are in a place before you in front of you and so how do i convey all of that and at the same time the opposition that executed to get around it and how do i write in a way that has empathy such a

hard thing to say to put your self in someone else's shoes. but the question is how do we forcefully make the case while at the same time appealing to the common humanity and what are the ways in which we can appoint and also what are the ways that a firm very strongly and forcefully flail at the same time that make it clear it's not an attempt to exclude and that by degrading others, you have degraded herself.

>> the question that stayed with me and continues to stay with me is what happens. i'm thinking this woman left a job interview and never made it home. what happened to her from the moment she was put in that car until she showed up in the more it and when they invited me to be part of this anthology and i was going through my work deciding what to do, i write speculative fiction and of the most naturathe mostnatural thino contribute the speculative home

because i felt like i wanted to work with the perceived ambiguity. for me it isn't that ambiguous. i also wanted to work on black joy. being in charleston, south carolina with my cousins in the summertime i wanted to work with these things and look at what the supernatural horror is because for me it is terrifying. it's nothing short and to think a woman could be pulled over and within an hour be dead. and so for me it is what happens and others don't do the works expecting a bunch of poems of a speculative nature that it was important to have back there because that was the best way

for me to address this because from my art and what i am trying to do, this felt terrific with the worst possible outcome as a woman who is always on the go and i could keep pulled over and stopped and then but. and the idea that there could be a recording yet no indictment what does that really mean and what are we up against. so i'm reading through the anthology and i still think we have to keep that in our mind as we continue our work because the entire lives are lost and recorded. isn't that every horror story that there is a recording that there is no closure at the end of that and so for me that's the

persistent question. >> i want to answer that question and also speak to being in this space right here today. morrison wrote two decades ago she wonders what happens to the imagination of a black writer who is constantly conscious of representing the race to people who consider themselves graceless. it's not a rhetorical question for those who are constantly forced to deal with carrying the weight of what i would call the worst. i thought a lot more out of the question and being in the space

today because of the audience and also because of the history of this space right here next to the flag which means a lot. easy thinthe easy thing would bk about how messed up that flag is a. it encouraged and reminded me that there's other work to do. that is heavy work dealing with our being in the space next to that in this space where lots have been terrorized and sanctioned. it's important and crucial work for us to do. the way that i've been abusive

i'm not talking about my relationship come i'm not talking about misogyny, i'm not talking about all these things and so. you can use and then i need to get to work and uncover and explore the nuances of all the other things that might have little to do with to categorize bodies like mine. so reading this anthology helped me get to the answer again. it's how messed up a thing to us isn't about always needs to be

done. i am not loving myself in ways i need to and i love my grandma and children and children i don't have it encouraged me to do that work. >> i think that it's time for questions now. is that correct? i don't know where you should go. there is a puppy and. thank all of you for being here. two other books between the world and me and also a new book that his recently released

invisible man got the whole world watching and so lookin sog at those three books and what you are dealing with, essentially the issue of white supremacy in 2016; ten is -- so my question is. they talked about love as a whole humanistic approach. my question is in 2016 these problems still exist. is there a time that if we are not going to reevaluate then self determinism because for me, 8% of people that are employed in only 20% which means we can

feed ourselves so it's not an answer to white supremacy to be a consideration of what came out of the movement as the self determinism and how they take control of their own institutions. >> that was deep. [laughter] why is it always me that has to make somebody mad in the room. i do think that there are several factors to what you said. this economic self-determination is really important. as someone from my mothers side of the georgia sharecroppers thabutlived off the land, you ki just remember all of my uncles

hunted and fished and kept gardens. my mom and her sisters, and the man kept gardens, too. so, very quickly, yes i think that is something we need to explore. it is a place that we need to. ongoing work i think about what they talked about in terms of love and so as a black woman who loves my black brothers, i don't want to blow up any bridges but i do want to challenge them to talk about black masculinity in a way that acknowledges that they can have pain without foregoing strength that there is

pain and acknowledging that. that'but when we talk about ecos as the key, this is probably what's going to irritate people, we have to think about the fact that the west african economy of the 18th and 19th centuries is based upon the trends of the atlantic slave trade and that wasn't brought into africa. that was in a collaborative effort with europeans. that doesn't mean that mitigates the european ugliness and brutality against us. we can chew gum and rub our tummy at the same time but i think that's basing everything on economics is a bit problematic and what i would like to say to connect with what was said is to me, the key to

the dismantling of white supremacy is humanity not whining to them please love us. i am loved by god and that's who i worry about. i don't enter into a room carrying that they love me. i try to spread love but if they don't love me that's okay because i know who my master is, but i do feel that humanity is the key to acknowledging our common humanity and that seems like a via moment but it's complicated because when you think about slavery you think about the fact the same time that the trans-atlantic slave period was going on, imperialism

was going on and then the intellectual apparatus of dismantling not only black humanity but the native indigenous humanity and if so what you're talking about is you are able to treat people badly because you don't think that -- you think they are one step above orangutans. you can sell a woman away from her baby because she doesn't feel as strongly as a dog feels about its puppy. so when you dismantle people's humanity, then what it does is make you feel better about treating them badly and right now, we are seeing what is happening with donald trump. yes, i said his name in mississippi. [laughter]

what we are seeing is that you get all of these disenfranchised poor white people who don't understand it's not the colored folks that are keeping you from having power. it's people like donald trump. [applause] you have people who do not understand because everybody wants to feel better than somebody else. i struggled with classism even as a marginalized person so that's what i feel about those sectors. >> one of the joys of being an essayist is you can write your own ignorance and the like before him so much because it's a way for me to admit and get away with how much i don't know.

this is not to insult or demean the question. but a loft above my pay grade i would say this much and i hope i'm not being presumptuous there is so much work to be done and if we look and think what has happened and why are we still hear them fighting somhere invie types. but remember again, so much of the center oatthe center of then where he pointed to his grandmother as a witness to say here is how we respond to those that plead innocence. go ask her. she's not hidden.

you know where to find her. and i think what all of us are doing is to say here is this book you plead innocence but here's something to deal with your professed innocence and so one of the first things you try to do is say you are not without excuse. and so at the very least to keep relentless and keep bearing witness and this means professing in all of its richness and joy and frustrations and potential but here we are in the limitations you could imagine those imposed

upon us and so one of the things we are arguing for is not so much to say we have every right to not be excluded. one is to say what does it mean to live and move and not have to deal with having that excluded or pushed away from us because of the complexion heritage or what have you. >> next question. >> thank you. and apparently thank you for creating such a work of love and hope. my question deals with a mississippi writer that's also an ex- patriot. richard wright's first that he

learned his first meet growing lesson when he was very small. as a collaborative effort of all of you together, did you find that there were certain -- and i like your symbol where you dealt with this. did you find that there were ethics that were coming through in the 21st century may be not jim crow and through those ethics is to lead as both a father and educator for my wonderful students that are here today. we have a responsibility equally to teach these ethics of living so that they are not to use a dedicated the book to and is not with them beyond your book can

be a healer to live within the ethic of apparently living within the skin. >> i think there's nothing -- i don't want to say there's nothing we can do to prove ourselves, but there's nothing for us to do to prove so they won't kill us. it's not pulling up your pants and dressing a certain way for a certain haircut or a certain kind of speech. so for me there are moments in my life i'm afraid. maybe i don't want to say what's on my mind, and those are the times i really have to eventually become more fit and challenge myself to speak up for do the brave thing because i think of the people i yam responsible for and the people i love and who love me and who i can try to.

thinking about my sisters and brothers, nephews and niece. when i think about those people in my life, i am thinking i need to do the brave thing now to make it a little bit easier for them. i need to do a loving thing now to make it easier for them so on a micro level i want to be the auntie at the radio city music hall, what's cookout in the summertime. let's go to the lake. i want to have those every day experiences of your living your best black life because i have no control over what happens in the world and that is the most difficult thing to reckon with and that is what renders us what we feel so helpless. his mother sent him down south to hang out with his dad and her baby didn't come back. we know the story and we know and it held it's the same thing.

she sent her son to go with his father and he never came back. so i can't say there's something i want to teach my nephew and niece is a certai there is a ceo be black to be safer. i want to fill them with an endless capacity for self love, love of community, family, relationship and hope that they can have their best life. that's all i can do because the rest of it is just too much work. that's where the depression comes in and self neglect because i can't think about that every day. i can't think about the way this white person wants me to be. i have to navigate this world and go out and i can't be -- i don't know what you want me to wear today. when you see me and you see my hair and my outfit and my

makeup, i don' don't put your thinking with expression of plaque that is. first time i should be laughing and cheering and hey girl. so i don't know what kind of blackness you expect me to embody or an act for you. i can't do that. i can only be myself. [applause] >> we are talking here about limitations. one is talking about black people and what kind of essay speak to one o[inaudible] one of the significant things about this book is asked over and over again coming an in askg this same question what does it

mean to live different? this is in part in a lot of things is the way people are talking about what does it mean to live in a pluralistic age so it's not what does it mean to see blacks in america and what does it mean to live different [inaudible] it's a more pluralistic america. the book is also addressing questions that extend well beyond black-and-white and asking how do we live with the difference. if there's a responsibility for the ethics of living is living with a different. and it's the basic thing we tell kids all the time. look, listen, touch. be aware, listen to others, be aware and be a part of it.

what does it mean to live with those. >> are we out of time -- we have time for one very short question. >> i will keep it short. what affect and influence if any did richard wright have on your career, and particularly with some of the things you all have talked about today and i wanted to ask that since he grew up and was educated here in jackson. >> my mother taught at jackson state university for a long time. she was a student at jackson state university and richard wright and margaret walker alexander, the reason i'm up

here today, i think they do. do. to fina friend work but import work. richard wright taught me as a young writer that it was okay for me to be angry, to be artistically angry as a big black boy. my mother told me i needed to do constructive things but she didn't say i needed to use my art to explore that anger. he showed me there are parts i could explore. but it's crucial we have to talk about margaret walker alexander and i think often what happens for folks outside it's important and he knows he is under explored margaret walker alexandebut margaret walkeralexe who told me that i needed to write to and for my people and as a friend of my mother she told me the difference for your people and to your people.