:00:12. > :00:18.Welcome to HARDtalk. I'm Stephen Sackur. The more things change, the
:00:19. > :00:22.more they stay the same. It is an adage that seems tailor-made for the
:00:23. > :00:26.vexed issue of race relations in America. After eight years of a
:00:27. > :00:31.black president, they made a swell of demographic and social change,
:00:32. > :00:36.black Americans still feel the bite of discrimination and prejudice. How
:00:37. > :00:44.best to respond? My guess today is Paul Beatty, a book -- his book
:00:45. > :00:49.deploys dark satire to undertake a black American experience. It is
:00:50. > :01:18.funny and provocative but is it also fundamentally bleak?
:01:19. > :01:25.Paul Beatty, welcome to HARDtalk. Let me start with a very broad
:01:26. > :01:29.question. It seems that cost -- optimism has also been seen as the
:01:30. > :01:35.default mood setting of Americans. You an optimist? No, I'm not. I'm
:01:36. > :01:42.not a pessimist either. Some reading the book, Sellout, it won the Booker
:01:43. > :01:49.prize, some would freeze it and think this guy has a very bleak
:01:50. > :01:57.worldview. -- read it. Bello I don't think it's very bleak. I think
:01:58. > :02:04.hopefully within the energy, it has normalised the bleakness. There is a
:02:05. > :02:09.vicious humour, it's very funny. Fundamentally, you have a book which
:02:10. > :02:13.says, pretty much, race relations and the experience of being black in
:02:14. > :02:17.America today is not that different from the way it has ever been,
:02:18. > :02:26.including the era of outright slavery, segregation and deep
:02:27. > :02:29.prejudice. I can say that. I'm 54. I'm not 254 sites aren't speak to
:02:30. > :02:41.how it's different and I'm sure it is different. My life is different
:02:42. > :02:44.within the 54 year span. Better? You refuse to say better. Barack Obama
:02:45. > :02:49.says, when he talks as the figurehead of the nation about race
:02:50. > :02:53.issues, he does say that change has come and things are better and we
:02:54. > :02:58.are making progress. Good for him, he's the President, he should say
:02:59. > :03:02.that. He shouldn't say it if it is not true. Bello C'mon, President say
:03:03. > :03:06.things that aren't true all the titles we have had a huge war over
:03:07. > :03:11.things that aren't true. It goes hand in hand. Explained to me why
:03:12. > :03:16.you won't say that. I don't speak to everybody else, only myself.
:03:17. > :03:24.Everybody who is African-American, California, Los Angeles, I just
:03:25. > :03:29.speak for myself. We is a word owned use of. It's from my perspective.
:03:30. > :03:37.Not trying to send this message from the body politic black. It's just my
:03:38. > :03:44.perspective. Those are my words. It's Obama's job in a weird way. The
:03:45. > :03:49.book is kind of about what is progress? What does it feel like?
:03:50. > :03:53.How do you measure it? You are talking about American optimism.
:03:54. > :03:57.Think there is some truth to that, in no. It's kind of an optimism that
:03:58. > :04:00.is sort of spreading to world politics in a weird way. And nobody
:04:01. > :04:05.is doing things that the Americans do. You have to kind of the
:04:06. > :04:11.optimistic, I do rate that is new or not. --I don't know. There has been
:04:12. > :04:17.a lot of police shootings in the news in the States. This is for me
:04:18. > :04:22.old hat. I can't remember are time when they went police shootings. You
:04:23. > :04:25.are a guy who grew up in southern California. I guess at defining
:04:26. > :04:30.moment for you probably was the Rodney King shooting and the riots
:04:31. > :04:34.in LA? Delly I don't know if it was a defining moment. It was a moment
:04:35. > :04:39.that these things happened and it was just one of those things, that's
:04:40. > :04:45.when the match finally ignites or whatever happens. The last straw. It
:04:46. > :04:55.was on tape. Let me say what I was going to say. Go on. Oh Balmer was
:04:56. > :04:59.in this new Smithsonian museum. -- Obama will stop standing in this
:05:00. > :05:08.room. He is flanked in a background of all this icon of iconography. A
:05:09. > :05:16.black woman Robin Roberts is asking him, he has a passion in her voice.
:05:17. > :05:19.-- she has a passion. She asks him about the specific shooting when a
:05:20. > :05:26.guy has his hands up and it is on tape and the cop just shoots the guy
:05:27. > :05:31.in the back. Balmer equivocate. I think it is that equivocation that
:05:32. > :05:43.doesn't read as optimism, in a weird way. -- oh Obama. People want to
:05:44. > :05:47.hear something beyond diplomacy. They want to hear what he really
:05:48. > :05:54.thinks. It's hard to read in a weird way. I remember when I saw it, I
:05:55. > :05:58.wasn't angry but it's just that,, what is the true power of the
:05:59. > :06:01.position. He is the commander-in-chief. He is not the
:06:02. > :06:10.police chief. It just a weird thing about what this needs. -- this
:06:11. > :06:13.means. We interviewed Professor Cornell West who is one of the most
:06:14. > :06:19.intellectual thinkers of Black America today. Hopefully he's just a
:06:20. > :06:24.great thinker. Exactly. When he thinks about race and when he thinks
:06:25. > :06:28.about Obama, I don't think it used the specific word a sell-out that
:06:29. > :06:34.you titled your book with. He is says that Barack Obama has sold out
:06:35. > :06:40.black America. Yeah. I have a hard time. It's weird. There's a lot of
:06:41. > :06:52.impulse behind that book. There was a funny book that was about uncle
:06:53. > :06:58.Tom, I can't think of the title. You go through the book and its every
:06:59. > :07:04.single black American who is of note has an entry in them. Some people
:07:05. > :07:10.will call Cornell West as sell-out for their own reasons. I'm not a
:07:11. > :07:17.person... I don't, you know, is not that I'm a huge fan of Obama, I
:07:18. > :07:23.think he has his faults. It's that thing, it's a hard thing to say that
:07:24. > :07:28.because somebody is of a certain race or a certain gender that they
:07:29. > :07:32.owe that demographic something specifically. It doesn't work like
:07:33. > :07:36.that. It's the notion of people should know better. Often that works
:07:37. > :07:41.in the reverse, the adverts. It is the people that should quote,
:07:42. > :07:46.unquote, know better. Some people are the most insensitive in a
:07:47. > :07:59.weightless top I'm not calling Obama ruthless. -- ruthless. You picked me
:08:00. > :08:03.up when I said Cornell West was a leading black thinker and you said
:08:04. > :08:07.that he is a thinker. Good point. A lot in the book and what you are
:08:08. > :08:12.raising is about identity. When it comes to being a black American and
:08:13. > :08:18.to a degree that blackness drives the way you live in the world and
:08:19. > :08:23.becomes your identity. What is the answer for you? I don't have Nance.
:08:24. > :08:28.I wish I did. The identity is shifting, it's changing. --I don't
:08:29. > :08:34.have an answer. One of the things about identity that is interesting,
:08:35. > :08:37.there is a concept of self actualisation. You reach this
:08:38. > :08:42.Nirvana and consciousness. Some of the book is based on a guy, a
:08:43. > :08:55.psychologist named William Cross who came up with a scale of Migro to
:08:56. > :09:00.black consciousness. -- negro. It's fascinating. It was done with such
:09:01. > :09:05.care. It is fascinating. The central character in your book who goes on
:09:06. > :09:12.to do these absurd things like he acquires a slave, he is a black man
:09:13. > :09:16.but he acquires his own slave and ghost on to segregate the school in
:09:17. > :09:21.the southern California town but he is a likeable character. -- he goes
:09:22. > :09:25.on. The relationship with his father was used as a social experiment. His
:09:26. > :09:28.father was trying in a way that you have described to condition him to
:09:29. > :09:33.become at the right-thinking black person. -- white thinking. Did you
:09:34. > :09:39.have that in your life? I didn't grow up with my mum is beautiful.
:09:40. > :09:44.She is a super genius. I ask my mum everything and she knows the answer.
:09:45. > :09:49.Did she discuss with you about how to live as a black person? My mum
:09:50. > :09:55.never talked about race with us. She didn't. Me and my sisters are all
:09:56. > :10:00.left-handed. Nobody in my family is left-handed other than us and we
:10:01. > :10:04.would ask my mum and she said that she tied our right hands behind our
:10:05. > :10:15.back. Whatever being left-handed is supposed to give you cognitively.
:10:16. > :10:22.She also race at Japanese... -- raised us as Japanese, we shouldn't
:10:23. > :10:36.get into this. She was trying to broaden our scope. Bow in the house.
:10:37. > :10:41.My mother is a huge Asia-phile. UMass irate these scopes of black
:10:42. > :10:56.thinking and black culture in a really funny way. -- you mass. Let's
:10:57. > :11:00.talk about language. You spray cuss words throughout the book because
:11:01. > :11:04.its street talk. No, it's not Straight Talk. I'm not going to let
:11:05. > :11:09.you get away with that because it is not. -- street talk. For me, the
:11:10. > :11:13.language is the whole thing to me. The book is about everything. We are
:11:14. > :11:24.talking about blackness. I am always thinking about what that is, self
:11:25. > :11:28.and what that means. My blackness is all cultural appropriation. It's
:11:29. > :11:34.from where I grew up. It's from my Latina American friends, my
:11:35. > :11:37.Filipino-American friends, you know, degrees to whatever black ears. I
:11:38. > :11:46.just happen to be black, thank goodness. -- whatever black ears.
:11:47. > :11:55.It's not just about black. It's everything. To me, it is everything.
:11:56. > :12:01.The language is how I try to render that. To me, the language is what
:12:02. > :12:05.you quote street talk, the way I talk to my friends. It's just the
:12:06. > :12:09.way we talk to each other because we have known each other. I have an
:12:10. > :12:14.academic background so it is some of that. What about this specific. I'm
:12:15. > :12:18.only picking on it because it is so emotive to so many different
:12:19. > :12:26.audiences in the United States and a round the world. The N word. What's
:12:27. > :12:32.the letter N word? For me, it's a difficult proposition. We don't use
:12:33. > :12:37.it on the BBC. People will know what an talking about. When I say that
:12:38. > :12:40.there is certain ways that you write in a way that a white person
:12:41. > :12:52.couldn't write. That word is an example. That's HARDtalk but you
:12:53. > :12:55.can't talk so hard on TV. Some people get offended. Absolutely,
:12:56. > :13:00.there is no reason why they shouldn't. That work comes up in
:13:01. > :13:06.that book because Mark Twain uses it to 100 and something times. It's not
:13:07. > :13:10.only black people can use it, people have been using it. That Mark Twain
:13:11. > :13:15.was writing in a different period. If white people use it today, they
:13:16. > :13:23.would get hammered. Why would they want to use it? Is that thing, it's
:13:24. > :13:28.a word. But it wrecked a Lent of... Slavery, disrespect, precious.
:13:29. > :13:39.Absolutely, thank you for that. -- prejudice. So what you asking me? I
:13:40. > :13:45.read in the New York Times, praise for the book was consistent and the
:13:46. > :13:50.critics loved it. Yeah. I read about reading you did in New York City.
:13:51. > :13:55.The writer who was present said it was interesting because the audience
:13:56. > :13:59.was predominantly white and the writer said it seemed to them that
:14:00. > :14:02.some in the audience didn't go whether to laugh or not. They were
:14:03. > :14:06.unsure of this territory. Yeah. I don't think that has to do with race
:14:07. > :14:11.necessarily. That's what room you are in. I read fop black audiences.
:14:12. > :14:16.Some laugh, some don't. The thing is not just about race Maginness stop I
:14:17. > :14:23.have won the Man Booker Prize. A huge price. -- prize.
:14:24. > :14:31.I'm trying to pay my something. I did a thing at the Cure and group in
:14:32. > :14:34.the States and a woman who was interviewing me was, like, as a
:14:35. > :14:39.white person I wasn't sure how to come to the book. A colleague said
:14:40. > :14:42.why do you start with the book was funny, and she said that opened up
:14:43. > :14:47.some stuff. The person who told you that is all so white. Everybody's
:14:48. > :14:52.bringing their own things and in securities to everything we read.
:14:53. > :14:57.We've become a very uptight culture. Some of us have, some haven't. I
:14:58. > :15:04.agree with you on some level. I think we have a hard time talking
:15:05. > :15:06.about grey areas. We are really good with pontification and
:15:07. > :15:10.prognostication, but it's that great stuff that for me is the most
:15:11. > :15:16.interesting stuff, the stuff where we are lost and I don't know what I
:15:17. > :15:21.think about something. It's a book, it's not a memoir, it's fiction and
:15:22. > :15:24.some of the stuff I believe some of the time and some of the stuff I
:15:25. > :15:28.don't believe, I'm just trying to tell a story. In one way, just in
:15:29. > :15:32.terms of plot, it's a story that doesn't have the ending you might
:15:33. > :15:36.wish to have. There's this wonderful premise that the main character in
:15:37. > :15:41.the book is actually being taken to the Supreme Court for violating the
:15:42. > :15:46.constitution. You kind of want to know at the end whether he's going
:15:47. > :15:50.to be found guilty or not. There is no resolution, is that because you
:15:51. > :15:56.don't believe in resolution in your life? It's a huge, psychological...
:15:57. > :15:59.I used to see my doctor and psychologist, there's a huge
:16:00. > :16:03.undertone in the book. The book ends with a discussion of what closure
:16:04. > :16:07.is. I've been talking for a while about the book in person, do you
:16:08. > :16:11.ever see it getting better, I don't know what that is, I don't know what
:16:12. > :16:14.people want from closure because people want different things and I
:16:15. > :16:19.don't know if I believe in a construct. We were talking about
:16:20. > :16:24.Barack Obama earlier, and when he won the first time, I had a friend
:16:25. > :16:28.of mine who I have known for a long time and he had an American flag in
:16:29. > :16:33.his car, and I said what's up with the flag, I'm don't know you as a
:16:34. > :16:38.flag waver, he said he felt like America has paid its debt and I said
:16:39. > :16:43.its debt to who? I said to us, to black Americans. I was, like, man,
:16:44. > :16:48.that's a huge debt. It's more than just ask. Not trying to put
:16:49. > :16:52.everything on equal footing but there's Native Americans, the
:16:53. > :16:56.environment, there's a huge thing -- just ask. There's a huge thing when
:16:57. > :17:03.someone feels like that debt has been paid so for me he is bigger. I
:17:04. > :17:07.want to come back to that. It's not just about race, there's so much
:17:08. > :17:11.going on in today's America and I want to know what you're thinking
:17:12. > :17:15.about and writing next but before that, there's one other thing about
:17:16. > :17:20.your writing that fascinates me. People have called you a satirist,
:17:21. > :17:25.you prefer the word absurdist. Absurdist is better. Whatever the
:17:26. > :17:30.right word is, you find ways to make really difficult stuff funny. Is
:17:31. > :17:35.there anything that for you is off-limits? In terms of getting
:17:36. > :17:40.entertainment, a laugh, comedic value. I don't think about it being
:17:41. > :17:44.off-limits, I think what the narrative on trying to tell. If
:17:45. > :17:48.language is so important, and I think there are things that can be
:17:49. > :17:52.read on the surface, like I violated some sacred trust, I don't think
:17:53. > :17:56.that. I don't think anything's off-limits. Everybody has the right
:17:57. > :18:00.to use whatever language they want to use. It's always been the case.
:18:01. > :18:05.If somebody feels like they don't have that, that's on them, I'm not
:18:06. > :18:10.trying to say it's equal and a level playing field, I'm not saying that
:18:11. > :18:16.either. Why do it if something is off-limits? That's for me. For you,
:18:17. > :18:21.the civil rights movement isn't off-limits, some of the great heroes
:18:22. > :18:25.of black freedom movements. Where would you end? Could you imagine
:18:26. > :18:31.writing a funny novel about a genocide? My first book is about a
:18:32. > :18:38.genocide! So, yeah, of course I could! Yeah, my first book is about
:18:39. > :18:42.that. So, yeah, I don't think about that stuff very much. It's not like
:18:43. > :18:46.I'm that sensitive that other people wouldn't think about that but as
:18:47. > :18:49.much as I can I'm considerate about what I'm talking about and how I'm
:18:50. > :18:55.saying it, the language is so important to me. These things, I'm
:18:56. > :18:59.sort of mocking them, but these are things I care very deeply about and
:19:00. > :19:04.are things that I respect. You can do both? Absolutely. Care and
:19:05. > :19:09.respect? In the same sentence, in the same joke, I think that can be
:19:10. > :19:12.done and I start by really killing myself, whether it's apparent or
:19:13. > :19:17.not, that's the person I'm picking on, I really try to test myself and
:19:18. > :19:22.where are my boundaries and stuff like that. That's where I start
:19:23. > :19:25.with, myself. Bringing it back to the United States today, Obama's
:19:26. > :19:30.leaving office, the next president is going to be Donald J Trump. You
:19:31. > :19:37.didn't know that when you wrote the book. It's a fascinating take on
:19:38. > :19:41.modern America but America's sort of had another shift since you wrote
:19:42. > :19:45.it. Yeah. How are you feeling about the United States of today? I think
:19:46. > :19:49.some people feel... They're pleased as punch, I'm not one of those
:19:50. > :19:53.people. I feel in a weird way similar to how I always feel, which
:19:54. > :19:58.is very cautious and very pessimistic. It was like that with
:19:59. > :20:02.Obama. I wonder whether you... I take your point, your writing isn't
:20:03. > :20:05.all about race, neither is your perception of the world, but
:20:06. > :20:09.nonetheless in the switch from Obama to Trump, there are some people in
:20:10. > :20:18.the civil rights movement and politics saying this is a disaster
:20:19. > :20:22.for minorities. It is. Or it might be. I don't know what will happen.
:20:23. > :20:25.This is a guy who ran a whole identity based campaign. There's a
:20:26. > :20:33.thing for me, there's a white self-hatred in a way. And Trump kind
:20:34. > :20:38.of fed into that. It's really scary. It always feels like it's 1913. I
:20:39. > :20:43.know a lot of people are trying to compare it to feeling like the late
:20:44. > :20:49.1920s and 30s with all the nationalism, but I'm going earlier
:20:50. > :20:52.somehow, that weird... Archduke Ferdinand match hasn't been struck,
:20:53. > :20:57.that will send the world into a weird kind of chaos. I don't know
:20:58. > :21:01.what Trump means. This guy was chosen for a reason, people feel a
:21:02. > :21:04.certain way. There's an image that they want to project, there's
:21:05. > :21:08.something in how they see themselves and how the country sees them, they
:21:09. > :21:14.want him to be that figure and that face of something that they feel
:21:15. > :21:23.that they are losing. It's really scary. I mean, a guy... Yeah,
:21:24. > :21:31.picking this retroactive, out and out antipathy for what he sees...
:21:32. > :21:36.It's very scary. Scary, does it make you feel alienate it from your own
:21:37. > :21:40.country? I can't say I never a person who's ever felt like this is
:21:41. > :21:44.my place, I live there, it's my home, but I'm not a person, like...
:21:45. > :21:51.I kind of know that it's not this place that was designed for me. But
:21:52. > :21:57.it's my home so I have to make it work. Its job supposedly is to make
:21:58. > :22:03.it also works for me, so these things are happening in concert. On
:22:04. > :22:07.the show we have had different, sort of, voices from the black American
:22:08. > :22:12.community. We've had al-Shaar can not so long ago and representatives
:22:13. > :22:16.from Black Lives Matter, there are approaches to protest, what's your
:22:17. > :22:20.take on how best to achieve change in the United States? -- Al
:22:21. > :22:24.Sharpton. I don't have a take on it, I always imagine it in these books
:22:25. > :22:29.but my take is to write, that's what I do, that's what gives me pleasure.
:22:30. > :22:34.I don't write to provide answers. I get nervous when people tell me how
:22:35. > :22:37.to think, it's one of the things about this election that's made me
:22:38. > :22:41.nervous. People are so comfortable being told how to think because in a
:22:42. > :22:45.weird way someone is telling you not to think. These things make me
:22:46. > :22:53.nervous, I'm always nervous. I've learned that I write from being a Jo
:22:54. > :22:57.at a point of being uncomfortable and apprehensive but at some when I
:22:58. > :23:02.write there is a sense that I'm unfettered. Much more bold on the
:23:03. > :23:07.page than I am in real life. That's interesting you say that, on the
:23:08. > :23:12.page you're fizzing with energy and yet you go to places people wouldn't
:23:13. > :23:15.go, so where are you going next? I'm intrigued to know where you're going
:23:16. > :23:20.to take the spirit that's in this book. I just write, I have stories
:23:21. > :23:24.that come to me when I over time, I have a couple of ideas. Are they
:23:25. > :23:29.going to be about contemporary America? Awoke one of them actually
:23:30. > :23:35.is and the other one might not be. My timelines are fuzzy. You opened
:23:36. > :23:39.up with this thing of the more things change the more things feel
:23:40. > :23:42.the same. One of the nice things, you know, my first novel I was 20
:23:43. > :23:49.years old and some guy recently wrote a review of that first novel
:23:50. > :23:53.about how still applicable it is. I think good art does that hopefully.
:23:54. > :23:57.I can relate to this, you once said that writing is hard, in a way you
:23:58. > :24:02.hate writing but you can't stop doing it. There's nothing that gives
:24:03. > :24:07.me the kind of satisfaction of writing. I don't want to throw it
:24:08. > :24:14.away just yet. So you're going to keep doing it? I hope so. I hope so
:24:15. > :24:16.too. Paul Beatty, thanks for coming on HARDtalk. Thanks, Stephen. I
:24:17. > :24:18.really enjoyed it.