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Paul Beatty, Author

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Welcome to HARDtalk. I'm Stephen Sackur. The more things change, the

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more they stay the same. It is an adage that seems tailor-made for the

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vexed issue of race relations in America. After eight years of a

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black president, they made a swell of demographic and social change,

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black Americans still feel the bite of discrimination and prejudice. How

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best to respond? My guess today is Paul Beatty, a book -- his book

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deploys dark satire to undertake a black American experience. It is

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funny and provocative but is it also fundamentally bleak?

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Paul Beatty, welcome to HARDtalk. Let me start with a very broad

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question. It seems that cost -- optimism has also been seen as the

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default mood setting of Americans. You an optimist? No, I'm not. I'm

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not a pessimist either. Some reading the book, Sellout, it won the Booker

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prize, some would freeze it and think this guy has a very bleak

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worldview. -- read it. Bello I don't think it's very bleak. I think

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hopefully within the energy, it has normalised the bleakness. There is a

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vicious humour, it's very funny. Fundamentally, you have a book which

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says, pretty much, race relations and the experience of being black in

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America today is not that different from the way it has ever been,

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including the era of outright slavery, segregation and deep

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prejudice. I can say that. I'm 54. I'm not 254 sites aren't speak to

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how it's different and I'm sure it is different. My life is different

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within the 54 year span. Better? You refuse to say better. Barack Obama

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says, when he talks as the figurehead of the nation about race

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issues, he does say that change has come and things are better and we

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are making progress. Good for him, he's the President, he should say

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that. He shouldn't say it if it is not true. Bello C'mon, President say

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things that aren't true all the titles we have had a huge war over

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things that aren't true. It goes hand in hand. Explained to me why

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you won't say that. I don't speak to everybody else, only myself.

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Everybody who is African-American, California, Los Angeles, I just

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speak for myself. We is a word owned use of. It's from my perspective.

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Not trying to send this message from the body politic black. It's just my

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perspective. Those are my words. It's Obama's job in a weird way. The

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book is kind of about what is progress? What does it feel like?

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How do you measure it? You are talking about American optimism.

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Think there is some truth to that, in no. It's kind of an optimism that

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is sort of spreading to world politics in a weird way. And nobody

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is doing things that the Americans do. You have to kind of the

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optimistic, I do rate that is new or not. --I don't know. There has been

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a lot of police shootings in the news in the States. This is for me

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old hat. I can't remember are time when they went police shootings. You

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are a guy who grew up in southern California. I guess at defining

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moment for you probably was the Rodney King shooting and the riots

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in LA? Delly I don't know if it was a defining moment. It was a moment

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that these things happened and it was just one of those things, that's

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when the match finally ignites or whatever happens. The last straw. It

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was on tape. Let me say what I was going to say. Go on. Oh Balmer was

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in this new Smithsonian museum. -- Obama will stop standing in this

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room. He is flanked in a background of all this icon of iconography. A

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black woman Robin Roberts is asking him, he has a passion in her voice.

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-- she has a passion. She asks him about the specific shooting when a

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guy has his hands up and it is on tape and the cop just shoots the guy

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in the back. Balmer equivocate. I think it is that equivocation that

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doesn't read as optimism, in a weird way. -- oh Obama. People want to

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hear something beyond diplomacy. They want to hear what he really

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thinks. It's hard to read in a weird way. I remember when I saw it, I

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wasn't angry but it's just that,, what is the true power of the

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position. He is the commander-in-chief. He is not the

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police chief. It just a weird thing about what this needs. -- this

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means. We interviewed Professor Cornell West who is one of the most

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intellectual thinkers of Black America today. Hopefully he's just a

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great thinker. Exactly. When he thinks about race and when he thinks

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about Obama, I don't think it used the specific word a sell-out that

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you titled your book with. He is says that Barack Obama has sold out

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black America. Yeah. I have a hard time. It's weird. There's a lot of

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impulse behind that book. There was a funny book that was about uncle

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Tom, I can't think of the title. You go through the book and its every

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single black American who is of note has an entry in them. Some people

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will call Cornell West as sell-out for their own reasons. I'm not a

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person... I don't, you know, is not that I'm a huge fan of Obama, I

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think he has his faults. It's that thing, it's a hard thing to say that

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because somebody is of a certain race or a certain gender that they

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owe that demographic something specifically. It doesn't work like

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that. It's the notion of people should know better. Often that works

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in the reverse, the adverts. It is the people that should quote,

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unquote, know better. Some people are the most insensitive in a

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weightless top I'm not calling Obama ruthless. -- ruthless. You picked me

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up when I said Cornell West was a leading black thinker and you said

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that he is a thinker. Good point. A lot in the book and what you are

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raising is about identity. When it comes to being a black American and

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to a degree that blackness drives the way you live in the world and

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becomes your identity. What is the answer for you? I don't have Nance.

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I wish I did. The identity is shifting, it's changing. --I don't

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have an answer. One of the things about identity that is interesting,

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there is a concept of self actualisation. You reach this

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Nirvana and consciousness. Some of the book is based on a guy, a

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psychologist named William Cross who came up with a scale of Migro to

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black consciousness. -- negro. It's fascinating. It was done with such

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care. It is fascinating. The central character in your book who goes on

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to do these absurd things like he acquires a slave, he is a black man

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but he acquires his own slave and ghost on to segregate the school in

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the southern California town but he is a likeable character. -- he goes

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on. The relationship with his father was used as a social experiment. His

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father was trying in a way that you have described to condition him to

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become at the right-thinking black person. -- white thinking. Did you

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have that in your life? I didn't grow up with my mum is beautiful.

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She is a super genius. I ask my mum everything and she knows the answer.

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Did she discuss with you about how to live as a black person? My mum

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never talked about race with us. She didn't. Me and my sisters are all

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left-handed. Nobody in my family is left-handed other than us and we

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would ask my mum and she said that she tied our right hands behind our

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back. Whatever being left-handed is supposed to give you cognitively.

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She also race at Japanese... -- raised us as Japanese, we shouldn't

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get into this. She was trying to broaden our scope. Bow in the house.

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My mother is a huge Asia-phile. UMass irate these scopes of black

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thinking and black culture in a really funny way. -- you mass. Let's

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talk about language. You spray cuss words throughout the book because

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its street talk. No, it's not Straight Talk. I'm not going to let

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you get away with that because it is not. -- street talk. For me, the

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language is the whole thing to me. The book is about everything. We are

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talking about blackness. I am always thinking about what that is, self

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and what that means. My blackness is all cultural appropriation. It's

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from where I grew up. It's from my Latina American friends, my

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Filipino-American friends, you know, degrees to whatever black ears. I

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just happen to be black, thank goodness. -- whatever black ears.

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It's not just about black. It's everything. To me, it is everything.

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The language is how I try to render that. To me, the language is what

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you quote street talk, the way I talk to my friends. It's just the

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way we talk to each other because we have known each other. I have an

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academic background so it is some of that. What about this specific. I'm

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only picking on it because it is so emotive to so many different

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audiences in the United States and a round the world. The N word. What's

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the letter N word? For me, it's a difficult proposition. We don't use

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it on the BBC. People will know what an talking about. When I say that

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there is certain ways that you write in a way that a white person

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couldn't write. That word is an example. That's HARDtalk but you

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can't talk so hard on TV. Some people get offended. Absolutely,

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there is no reason why they shouldn't. That work comes up in

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that book because Mark Twain uses it to 100 and something times. It's not

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only black people can use it, people have been using it. That Mark Twain

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was writing in a different period. If white people use it today, they

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would get hammered. Why would they want to use it? Is that thing, it's

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a word. But it wrecked a Lent of... Slavery, disrespect, precious.

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Absolutely, thank you for that. -- prejudice. So what you asking me? I

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read in the New York Times, praise for the book was consistent and the

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critics loved it. Yeah. I read about reading you did in New York City.

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The writer who was present said it was interesting because the audience

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was predominantly white and the writer said it seemed to them that

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some in the audience didn't go whether to laugh or not. They were

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unsure of this territory. Yeah. I don't think that has to do with race

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necessarily. That's what room you are in. I read fop black audiences.

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Some laugh, some don't. The thing is not just about race Maginness stop I

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have won the Man Booker Prize. A huge price. -- prize.

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I'm trying to pay my something. I did a thing at the Cure and group in

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the States and a woman who was interviewing me was, like, as a

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white person I wasn't sure how to come to the book. A colleague said

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why do you start with the book was funny, and she said that opened up

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some stuff. The person who told you that is all so white. Everybody's

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bringing their own things and in securities to everything we read.

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We've become a very uptight culture. Some of us have, some haven't. I

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agree with you on some level. I think we have a hard time talking

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about grey areas. We are really good with pontification and

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prognostication, but it's that great stuff that for me is the most

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interesting stuff, the stuff where we are lost and I don't know what I

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think about something. It's a book, it's not a memoir, it's fiction and

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some of the stuff I believe some of the time and some of the stuff I

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don't believe, I'm just trying to tell a story. In one way, just in

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terms of plot, it's a story that doesn't have the ending you might

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wish to have. There's this wonderful premise that the main character in

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the book is actually being taken to the Supreme Court for violating the

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constitution. You kind of want to know at the end whether he's going

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to be found guilty or not. There is no resolution, is that because you

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don't believe in resolution in your life? It's a huge, psychological...

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I used to see my doctor and psychologist, there's a huge

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undertone in the book. The book ends with a discussion of what closure

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is. I've been talking for a while about the book in person, do you

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ever see it getting better, I don't know what that is, I don't know what

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people want from closure because people want different things and I

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don't know if I believe in a construct. We were talking about

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Barack Obama earlier, and when he won the first time, I had a friend

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of mine who I have known for a long time and he had an American flag in

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his car, and I said what's up with the flag, I'm don't know you as a

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flag waver, he said he felt like America has paid its debt and I said

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its debt to who? I said to us, to black Americans. I was, like, man,

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that's a huge debt. It's more than just ask. Not trying to put

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everything on equal footing but there's Native Americans, the

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environment, there's a huge thing -- just ask. There's a huge thing when

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someone feels like that debt has been paid so for me he is bigger. I

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want to come back to that. It's not just about race, there's so much

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going on in today's America and I want to know what you're thinking

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about and writing next but before that, there's one other thing about

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your writing that fascinates me. People have called you a satirist,

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you prefer the word absurdist. Absurdist is better. Whatever the

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right word is, you find ways to make really difficult stuff funny. Is

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there anything that for you is off-limits? In terms of getting

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entertainment, a laugh, comedic value. I don't think about it being

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off-limits, I think what the narrative on trying to tell. If

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language is so important, and I think there are things that can be

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read on the surface, like I violated some sacred trust, I don't think

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that. I don't think anything's off-limits. Everybody has the right

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to use whatever language they want to use. It's always been the case.

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If somebody feels like they don't have that, that's on them, I'm not

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trying to say it's equal and a level playing field, I'm not saying that

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either. Why do it if something is off-limits? That's for me. For you,

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the civil rights movement isn't off-limits, some of the great heroes

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of black freedom movements. Where would you end? Could you imagine

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writing a funny novel about a genocide? My first book is about a

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genocide! So, yeah, of course I could! Yeah, my first book is about

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that. So, yeah, I don't think about that stuff very much. It's not like

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I'm that sensitive that other people wouldn't think about that but as

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much as I can I'm considerate about what I'm talking about and how I'm

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saying it, the language is so important to me. These things, I'm

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sort of mocking them, but these are things I care very deeply about and

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are things that I respect. You can do both? Absolutely. Care and

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respect? In the same sentence, in the same joke, I think that can be

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done and I start by really killing myself, whether it's apparent or

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not, that's the person I'm picking on, I really try to test myself and

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where are my boundaries and stuff like that. That's where I start

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with, myself. Bringing it back to the United States today, Obama's

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leaving office, the next president is going to be Donald J Trump. You

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didn't know that when you wrote the book. It's a fascinating take on

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modern America but America's sort of had another shift since you wrote

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it. Yeah. How are you feeling about the United States of today? I think

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some people feel... They're pleased as punch, I'm not one of those

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people. I feel in a weird way similar to how I always feel, which

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is very cautious and very pessimistic. It was like that with

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Obama. I wonder whether you... I take your point, your writing isn't

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all about race, neither is your perception of the world, but

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nonetheless in the switch from Obama to Trump, there are some people in

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the civil rights movement and politics saying this is a disaster

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for minorities. It is. Or it might be. I don't know what will happen.

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This is a guy who ran a whole identity based campaign. There's a

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thing for me, there's a white self-hatred in a way. And Trump kind

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of fed into that. It's really scary. It always feels like it's 1913. I

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know a lot of people are trying to compare it to feeling like the late

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1920s and 30s with all the nationalism, but I'm going earlier

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somehow, that weird... Archduke Ferdinand match hasn't been struck,

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that will send the world into a weird kind of chaos. I don't know

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what Trump means. This guy was chosen for a reason, people feel a

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certain way. There's an image that they want to project, there's

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something in how they see themselves and how the country sees them, they

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want him to be that figure and that face of something that they feel

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that they are losing. It's really scary. I mean, a guy... Yeah,

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picking this retroactive, out and out antipathy for what he sees...

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It's very scary. Scary, does it make you feel alienate it from your own

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country? I can't say I never a person who's ever felt like this is

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my place, I live there, it's my home, but I'm not a person, like...

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I kind of know that it's not this place that was designed for me. But

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it's my home so I have to make it work. Its job supposedly is to make

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it also works for me, so these things are happening in concert. On

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the show we have had different, sort of, voices from the black American

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community. We've had al-Shaar can not so long ago and representatives

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from Black Lives Matter, there are approaches to protest, what's your

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take on how best to achieve change in the United States? -- Al

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Sharpton. I don't have a take on it, I always imagine it in these books

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but my take is to write, that's what I do, that's what gives me pleasure.

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I don't write to provide answers. I get nervous when people tell me how

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to think, it's one of the things about this election that's made me

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nervous. People are so comfortable being told how to think because in a

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weird way someone is telling you not to think. These things make me

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nervous, I'm always nervous. I've learned that I write from being a Jo

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at a point of being uncomfortable and apprehensive but at some when I

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write there is a sense that I'm unfettered. Much more bold on the

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page than I am in real life. That's interesting you say that, on the

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page you're fizzing with energy and yet you go to places people wouldn't

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go, so where are you going next? I'm intrigued to know where you're going

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to take the spirit that's in this book. I just write, I have stories

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that come to me when I over time, I have a couple of ideas. Are they

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going to be about contemporary America? Awoke one of them actually

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is and the other one might not be. My timelines are fuzzy. You opened

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up with this thing of the more things change the more things feel

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the same. One of the nice things, you know, my first novel I was 20

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years old and some guy recently wrote a review of that first novel

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about how still applicable it is. I think good art does that hopefully.

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I can relate to this, you once said that writing is hard, in a way you

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hate writing but you can't stop doing it. There's nothing that gives

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me the kind of satisfaction of writing. I don't want to throw it

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away just yet. So you're going to keep doing it? I hope so. I hope so

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too. Paul Beatty, thanks for coming on HARDtalk. Thanks, Stephen. I

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really enjoyed it.

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