October 8, 2024 • 47 mins
Meet Roxane Gay, the prolific and critically acclaimed New York Times-bestselling author, editor, essayist, respected academic and celebrated cultural commentator, whose intellect, charm and singular perspective capture the zeitgeist of our era. Roxane’s next highly anticipated book OPINIONS: A Decade of Arguments, Criticism, and Minding Other People’s Business, an exhilarating collection of her best nonfiction essays on culture, feminism, politics, and everything in between, will be published by HarperCollins on October 10th. Roxane is beloved for her bestselling books, including BAD FEMINIST, HUNGER, AYITI, AN UNTAMED STATE, and WORLD OF WAKANDA(Marvel). She has a widely read newsletter, The Audacity, AND an exciting new imprint with Grove Atlantic, Roxane Gay Books. EnJOY!
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Craig Ferguson Pants on Fire Tour is on sale now.
It's a new show, it's new material, but I'm afraid
it's still only me, Craig Ferguson on my own, standing
on a stage telling comedy words. Come and see me,
buy tickets, bring your loved ones, or don't come and
see me. Don't buy tickets and don't bring your loved ones.
(00:21):
I'm not your dad. You come or don't come, but
you should at least know what's happening, and it is.
The tour kicks off late September and goes through the
end of the year and beyond. Tickets are available at
the Craig Ferguson Show dot com slash tour. They are
available at the Craig Ferguson show dot com slash tour
or at your local outlet in your region. My name
(00:45):
is Craig Ferguson. The name of this podcast is Joy.
I talk to interest in people about what brings them happiness.
On the show today, my guest is an author, public speaker,
and academic, very very very clever person and if you
(01:05):
haven't read any of her work, I urge you to
have a crack at it. She's really clever, and I
don't agree with her on everything, and that's even more interesting.
Please enjoy Roxane Gay with the microphone with your finger there,
(01:26):
so I'm all enough. It's funny though, because you do
have a quiet voice, and and I'm I but I
thought it'd be that. But you have a very loud voice,
but not necessarily in volume correct.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
When I'm writing, I'm very loud, and other than that,
I'm actually pretty quiet.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
I think that actually being quiet when you're talking is
a way to make people lean in. I think it's like, wait,
what what? What's what's she saying? The I you you're
a very a person of many of opinions. I've been
reading a lot of your opinions, and I think because
you've been doing this for quite a while. By the way,
(02:08):
you're my first doctor of philosophy, so I'm very excited
to because I want to ask you about philosophy in
a doctoral sense. But have you ever read do you
ever write things? Because you've been doing this for a while,
do you ever look back at stuff you've had an
opinion on and go I really don't feel that way anymore.
I don't know what I'm going to do about that.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Not really, and it's not because I got it right
the first time. It's just that most of the things
that I believe in are for me, fundamental human rights,
and so, if anything, I've gotten more progressive over time.
I think the more comfortable I become, the more I
(02:49):
recognize that everyone should have a certain level of comfort,
and so it just pushes me further left. The one
thing I know that I sort of have gotten wrong,
and there's an essay in one of my first books,
Bad Feminists, where I talk about how amazing Bill Cosby is,
So you know, I definitely got that wrong.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
But I think we all got that wrong. I wouldn't
pick yourself up on you know, you weren't the only
one I actually was fascinated by. Did you ever see
Dave Chappelle's take on the whole Cosby thing? Because it
was fascinating when he was talking about how you can
admire someone so much and then find out something really
horrible about him, and what do you do? You know,
(03:33):
I mean, obviously he phrased it or framed it in
a comedic sense, but it's a weird thing. Do you
ever meet people that you admire? Because I've done this
a lot. You meet people you admire and go eh,
particularly actually, you know, God, be honest sometimes writers because
they can be two different personalities.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
Yes, I have met a lot of people I admire.
I've been pretty lucky for the most part. I've had
really good experiences. But there is a disappointment sometimes where
you have an idea of someone and then you have
to confront the reality of them and recognize. You know,
(04:14):
performers are performing and then when they're not in front
of the camera, they're themselves and we don't actually know
that person. And I know that intellectually, but when you
have a favorite and you meet them and they don't
live up to your imagination, there's a disconnect there for sure.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
It's it's quite an interesting thing because I think now
writers people, I mean, you're an academic and you talk
and you're a professor, so I mean there is a
great there is a stand up in front of a
room full of people aspect of your job. But it
feels to me like all writers to an extent have
to be performers. Now, you can't just write and throw
(04:55):
it out there. Well you can, but it'll be hard
to sell it.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
Yeah, it's I think a lot of my peers find
it really frustrating, and I admit I do too, in
that I became a writer because I don't want to
be in front of a camera. I don't want to
be on TV. I'm very fortunate to have had the
type of career that has afforded me such opportunities, so
I don't take it for granted. But every single time
(05:20):
I just think, oh my god, this is not this
is not what I'm supposed to be doing. But it's
really hard to find readers, it really is, and so
it's many harder too. Oh it's so hard. It's just
hard to sell books, no matter who you are. And
so many of us have made peace with the fact
that we have to turn to different avenues to reach readers.
(05:43):
And that's okay. You know, I like being read, so yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
I mean it's an odd thing though, because you I mean,
I haven't done it. I've done it a bit myself.
When you write a book and you go on a
book tour and then you have to read out passages
from your book, I mean, and I've seen you do it,
and you're very good at it, but I whatever, excuse me, whatever,
I've had to do it. I've thought this is I
(06:10):
want the voice in your head to be your voice,
in that you know you're reading it in your head
as a reader. I don't want you to hear even
doing audiobooks. Do you do audio books of your work
now as well? You have to write, I do.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
I didn't do my first two or three books, but
I did my memoir Hunger, and I also did the
audiobook for Opinions, and I suspect I'll be doing the
next couple audiobooks as well.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
You have to. I mean, it's just part of the
game now, Like you're saying, I I did you ever
have anyone else do an audiobook of your work?
Speaker 2 (06:42):
Absolutely? Two really great audio voice actors have done my work.
Robin Miles has read my fiction both Difficult Women and
and on Tamed State, and she's such a phenomenal voice actor.
She could read anything of mine any day of the week,
and I would be proud to have her interpreting my work.
(07:03):
And then Bad Feminist in the United States was read
by Bonnie Turpin, and she is an incredible voice actor
as well, And again I would happily work with her
on anything at any time.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
I always thought that I've only ever had one person
do it once in an anthology of short stories. I
wasn't available to do the short story that I'd written,
and they had someone else do it, and it made
it much better than anything. It's like, oh, that actually
sounds like proper right. But I don't think that's an
issue that you ever a problem with. Can I ask you?
(07:36):
Because bad feminist is where I became aware of you
at first the Ted Talk really before anything else. But
I saw the Ted Talk of bad Feminists. I'm going
to ask you two things about it. First of all,
how do you do a Ted talk? Who finds you
to do a Ted talk? Do you apply?
Speaker 2 (07:52):
No? Someone from TED reached out to me and asked
if I would be interested in doing a Ted talk
at TED Women, which no longer exists, but at the
time it did. And I was really scared because I
don't like public speaking and I know that TED is
a really big audience. However, they work with you very closely,
(08:14):
and they you know, there's a reason why TED talks
look so good and sounds so good, and it's because
for six months before the Ted talk, they're working with
you on the talk and so on. Unfortunately, I rewrote
my talk the night before, so the thing we had
been working on was something entirely different from what I performed.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
It's quite interesting, though, because when I watch that now,
because I looked at the Ted talk again, I'd seen it,
you know, I think it was like twenty fifteen or
twenty sixteen or something. Wasn't there a long time ago?
What I went back on it looked at you don't
seem as confident performing then as you do now. You
(08:54):
kind of you. There's been a real kind of movement
I think for you in terms of familiarity and confidence
on stage. Does that happen in writing too? Yes?
Speaker 2 (09:05):
It does. I still I think most writers have a
certain level of insecurity, not insecurity per se, but anxiety
about the work and is it good enough? And have
I said what I wanted to say how I wanted
to say it. But I'm almost fifty years old now
and made and so you know, when you've been doing
(09:29):
it as long as I have, there are certain things
that I'm more confident about absolutely, you know.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
But does that lead you to get more personal? Because
you know, your memoirs and stuff like that come a
little bit later in your career, right, they does it
help you become more personal as you get more confident.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
No, it actually makes me feel like getting a little
less personal. But really it does, and only because the
Internet has become a lot more hostile than it used
to be, and so I've always been careful about what
I shared, despite what people may think. I'm a very
(10:08):
private person, so I've always known what I'm sharing and
why and what I've held back for myself. But it
feels like, especially as what is whatever they're calling it now,
as Twitter has devolved into whatever it is now and
other social media platforms have gone in a similar direction,
there's just less I mean, people have opinions, and I
(10:31):
respect that you don't have to love everything I do.
I get it. You know, I'm flawed like everyone else.
But there's a difference between criticism and just cruelty.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
And I agree. And I think there's also the idea
of that you have to be hostile to someone who
doesn't have the same opinion of you seems like an
odd thing, and that's that seems like universal on the
kind of social platforms, that if someone doesn't have the
same opinion as me, then it's not the opinion that
(11:04):
you challenge. It's the person themselves that at home and
and thing, yes.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
And you're right, everyone does it. I've done it, and
I'm trying to do better because I mean, there are
certain opinions like if you're a Nazi, you're a Nazi.
I understand that and you but I'm absolutely going to
tell you how horrible you are. Right, And I've been
talking about this quite a lot lately at events, But
(11:31):
we are in a very inelastic age where people are
becoming more and more brittle and calcified and have decided
that it's their way or no way. And you know what,
we believe what we believe, and oftentimes we believe it
very deeply, but there's no way to reach other people
(11:53):
if we are that calcified. I'm not suggesting that if
we all sit together in a circle and hold hands,
the world will be a better place. And when it
comes to certain issues that people are particularly committed to,
there is no compromise, Like you can't compromise on the
value of human life, you can't compromise on the ills
of terrorism or war. And so it's a question of, well, then,
(12:18):
how do we talk about these differences of opinion, How
do we talk about these issues on which we profoundly disagree,
And the answer is I don't know, And sometimes I
wonder do we even bother? I hope we do, But
talking is not going to be enough.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
Is there a Is this maybe a product of recent
I mean, because I can be as negative about recent
times as antibody, and I can say, you know, this
is a time when everyone, everything is polarized, and everything
is you know, we can't get along. But it also
seems to me maybe a contrary position is I can't
(12:58):
think of in any any time And maybe I'm wrong
about this, but I can't think of a time in
human history where people attempted to try and get along.
It was like nowhere the king, nowhere the other king,
or we think the biscuit turns into Jesus. No, we
don't think the biscuit turns into Jesus. And there was
no attempt to try and find that. There was very
(13:21):
little in the way of attempted to find home and
grand And I think maybe the frustration of current times,
and maybe I'm wrong. I'd like to know what you
think is the idea that we are trying to to
try and find a way to live in some kind
of compromise.
Speaker 2 (13:40):
I think some people are, but clearly not everyone. I
do think a lot of people, but I do think
there are a lot of people who genuinely want to compromise,
who want to find a way for all of us
to coexist. But there are so many who don't. And
we're seeing this right now, particularly with regard to the
(14:03):
current political climate and the election, where Republicans are at
least a version of Republicans that are currently in power,
are doing everything they can to try and rid this
country of immigrants, and quite frankly, almost all of us
are immigrants, including them as the other denial.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
That I mean. It's It's an interesting thing though, because
you know, like most things, it becomes extremely you know,
I mean, at what point do you join the argument?
Do you know what I mean? It's like like, right now,
there's this thing about illegal immigrants, and I don't want,
I don't want to get into the nuts and bolts
(14:42):
of the politics of it, because I feel like the
minute that we do, our conversation becomes you know, about that,
And what I'm more interested in is the idea of
coping with or addressing the disagreement and dealing with the
fight that we do have to share the same space,
and we do have widely different opinions, and how does
(15:05):
the United States of America and the world really how
do we share the same space if people have radically
different opinions.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
A I was gonna say, the challenge is that xenophobia
is not an opinion, and I don't think that we
should treat it as legitimate when you are saying that
there are groups of people and they tend to be
people who are brown or black, when you say that
those people are criminal, that they eat pets, that whatever, ludicrous,
(15:37):
that's not actually an opinion. There's nothing to counteract that
with because if you are so far gone as to
believe that, then there's nothing we're going to really talk about.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
And not just in case anybody cuts up this conversation
and size chunks, Let's be clear, it's not me that
the opinion, because it's like, wow, did he say that? Right?
Honest conversation. So let me ask you this in the
(16:12):
let's go back to bad feminist just for me, because
that was the jumping off point for me because you
took a you took out a recognizable I want to say,
it's feminism a polemic. Is it fair to say that
it's a It's an idea, right? You took an idea
of modern feminism and you and you extrapolated it in
(16:34):
a way which I hadn't seen done before you you had.
Can you explain it a little, because I don't want
to explain your work to you. You you explained it
to me.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
Yes. So my first essay collection, Bad Feminist, which came
out ten years ago, which is hard to believe, was
really my way of thinking through my relationship to feminism,
particularly given that oftentimes we expect feminists to be perfect,
to have entirely consistent ideas and ideologies, and you know,
(17:06):
ideally we all should, but we're human, and I wanted
to be able to write about feminism while also acknowledging
my humanity, my flaws. And so it's part personal essays,
lots of cultural criticism where I'm looking at various books, film, television,
cultural trends, but from a black feminist perspective and from
(17:29):
a bad feminist perspective, if you will, What is.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
The what is the term bad feminist? Why does it?
Why does it be bad? Maybe? Can it? Is it?
Why is it bad? Is it just different?
Speaker 2 (17:42):
It's well, it was partly tongue in cheek when I
came up with the title yeah, because I was thinking
about my feminism when I was writing the title essay,
and I was like, well, I'm definitely a feminist, but
I'm actually kind of bad at it, because, like you know,
one of the examples I use in the book is
that I love hip hop, and so much of hip
hop is degrading to women and misogynistic and it's a problem,
(18:06):
and I want to be able to talk about that.
But I mean, if a certain fon comes on, I'm
going to probably dance, And so I thought maybe I
should just call myself a bad feminist. It was also
a bit more serious in that traditionally feminism, mainstream feminism,
has prioritized the needs of middle class white women and
heterosexual women, women who are not disabled, and things like that,
(18:30):
and they've always teld more marginalized groups. We'll get to
you later. We have to first lift all women up
as if we're not women too, And so if that's
good feminism, I repudiate that, and I'm absolutely a bad feminist.
So it's part tongue in cheek, part critique.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
It's an interesting situation, because I mean it's completely I mean,
I completely agree with what you say. I wonder though,
if feminism is is gender specific, and then when you
obviously I mean it's about you know, it's about the
rights of correct me if I'm wrong. And I don't
(19:09):
know what I'm saying here, but feminism is about equality
of the sexes. Let's say that that fair thing to say.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
No, I mean I think that it's yes, I mean,
on the surface, sure, but it's more than equality. It's
about equity because equality suggests that if we give everyone
the same resources, things will turn out the same.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
But that's not okay.
Speaker 2 (19:33):
And so what we need to figure out is how
do we make sure that everyone has equal access to
what they need in order to thrive. And for different
groups of people it might be different things. And so
I tend to focus more on equity than equality. But yeah,
it's really about how do we have gender equity. How
(19:53):
do we make it such that women are safe, women
have bodily autonomy, women are listening to, not attacked, etc.
Equal pay for equal work, support in the home, in
terms of a more equal distribution of domestic responsibility between
the genders. For people who are in heterosexual relationships. And
(20:17):
the reality is that feminism is for everyone and when
women do better, everyone does better. Children do better, men
do better. And so it's always interesting that there's resistance
to feminism because it helps men too. There are all
kinds of cultural responsibilities that we place on men that
don't help them, that don't serve them, that force them
(20:41):
to have to try and live up to some ideal
of what masculinity is. And if we start to rethink
what gender is and what it means and what roles
we are assigned to, and we can challenge all of that,
I think it just makes everyone happier, safer, and better off.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
I agree If for you say it's true, and I
believe it is, where does the where does the resistance
come from? Then who would resist that? It seems like
it is. It's common sense. If it helps everyone, Why
wouldn't everyone want to do it? Why what's the motive
do you think behind the idea of not aliving the change?
Speaker 2 (21:21):
Well, that is the question, and you know that is
the question. Why why are so many people so resistant
to gender equity? And part of it is that it
challenges the systemic power that we have all been raised
(21:44):
with and a lot of times, when you hold power,
you don't want to share it. We see this all
the time, whether it's presidents refusing to seed or older
people refusing to step aside. You know, what Biden did
this year was incredibly rare. It just rarely happened. Like
over at Saturday Night Live, Lauren Michael's is like, Yeah,
I'm going to ride.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
This books until it's dead.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
It's just like, Wow, you don't think there's anyone else
in this country or this world who could run SNL
not like you, but as well. And so people get
very attached to power, and we're human, So I understand,
but are we so attached to power that we harm ourselves?
Speaker 1 (22:26):
But power is it is connected to fear as well,
I suppose, isn't it Like if I don't have this power,
then I'm vulnerable. I am in danger if I don't
have this power or I'm mortal, I'll die or I'll
you know, I won't have I won't be able to
continue if I don't have what I have right now.
Speaker 2 (22:44):
Absolutely, And also I think there's an element of fear
that excuse me. I know how I've treated people with
this power, and I don't want that to happen to me,
so you know, it becomes a bit of a that's interesting.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
Yeah, I mean you you get yourself. I mean like
as you say, you're you're coming up on fifty years
old or you're fifty years old, you're pro arguably the
peak of you know, human productivity, and you know, and
you're you're you're firing and on all cylinders right now.
At what point do you think I'm gonna I'm gonna
(23:24):
stand back? How do you know it's time to step
down or step away?
Speaker 2 (23:28):
That's a good question with writing. You know, it's an art,
it's something that is pleasurable. And I think most writers
tend to write until they have nothing left to say.
And I'm not there yet, but I don't know I'm
going to write until I don't like it anymore.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
I think plenty of writers keep going well after the
nothing true, very true. But I think that it's kind
of interesting though, because it requires a degree of self examination.
Is this unpleasure? You know, it's unpleasant to look at
yourself and go, am I am I done? I always
(24:06):
equate it because I think I do stand up comedy
for a living, and I think to myself well, you know,
I'm sixty two years old. Why am I getting? What
am I complaining about? You know, when I was young
on gum go oh and see those things. I don't
like those things and those other things, and what about
those guys? And I don't really, I don't really have
it to say about that. I've said all the things
(24:26):
I had to say about that. But now I find
myself talking to my contemporaries about the fact that it's
falling apart. I suppose that I'm older, and so the
things that I observe are different. The problem I have
with it is sometimes you distance yourself from the people
that you were talking to twenty years ago. Maybe they
(24:47):
didn't go with you they maybe they didn't travel with you.
Because things do change. An intelligent mind will alter over time,
and which is good.
Speaker 2 (24:57):
Actually, I would hope that you know, when you asked earlier,
have I changed my opinions on anything? Not really, But
I hope that I'm doing better work, and more thoughtful work,
and more nuanced work now than ten years ago, fifteen
years ago. I hope that I'm still growing, that I'm
still evolving. I think I am.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
I think it's fairly obvious that there is a development
across your career. I talked to Tony Scott Ao Scott
from The New York Times Film and Literary critic recently,
and he said, when he was younger, he too. I mean,
he still feels the same about what he likes and
(25:38):
what he doesn't like and how he approaches it. But
he said when he was young, he felt like every
every film he didn't like, or every piece of work
he didn't like, was almost like a personal affront, or
like a crime that he had to, you know, fight against.
And I wonder if is there anywhere I mean, it
(25:59):
was interesting you said there. As you get older, it
seems to push you more progressive and you get more
Is there anything where you thought? I really was very
angry about that, But I see now that maybe there's
another approach to it. You still don't like it can
still be an an injustice, but there may be a
different technique to handle it. No good, it's a fair answer.
(26:28):
You must No, you can't ever be a politician, because
because you just said, nah, I don't think there is.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
No I really can't ever be a politician. I have
no less than zero desire to be a politician. You know.
I think I I tend to have some generosity toward
myself when I look back at my work, not because
I think it's perfect, but it's because I know I
did the best I could with the skills and the
(26:56):
knowledge that I had at the time. Right, and you do.
So I don't lose fire as I get older, but
I think I have become more judicious about where I
aim my fire. Okay, so that's what I would say.
I would say it's less everything deserves my approbation and
more let me be a little bit more targeted, let
(27:18):
me be a little more careful. So I think I've
gotten more careful.
Speaker 1 (27:22):
And more skilled thoughtful. Yeah, yeah, yes. What about the
the hate and the abuse that anyone who expresses an
opinion will get? And you express your opinions air you
dately and loudly, and then an arena where people can
(27:43):
you know, in topics where people have a lot of
nasty and bad things to say? Do you have any
do you ignore it? Do you process it? Do you
how do you deal with it?
Speaker 2 (27:54):
Depends? I it's challenging. It is the hardest part of
what I do, because I just when you're a writer,
you don't really assume that people are going to read
your work. You tend to think I'm going to be
writing into a void and there's not much I can
(28:18):
do about that. And when you are lucky enough to
find an audience and then be able to sustain that audience,
you don't only have people in your audience who agree
with you, of course, nor should you want that. You
have people who disagree, and then you have people who
disagree so passionately that they want to tell you about it.
(28:40):
And then you have the trolls, and there are quite
a lot of trolls, and so I struggle with it.
And that's why I left Twitter. I was just I
was I couldn't do it anymore. I loved Twitter when
it was good. It was such a great place.
Speaker 1 (28:52):
It was a lot of fun, was much fun. I know,
I remember it, and it was.
Speaker 2 (28:59):
The seventeen years and now it's a complete cesspool.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
Yes, and it's just all of it. When that way,
I loved it. I got into it, like I don't know,
it's about twenty ten or something like that. Idiotzard got
me into it and said, you know, it's just a
great way to contact people and sell tickets, and it's
revolutionarized it's going to change the world, and I was
(29:26):
like great, and it was and then very quickly, well
not very quickly, just over over time it became because
these people, the people that were mean, used to being
a normally, and now it seems like it's it's almost
that's what you do on these things.
Speaker 2 (29:47):
It's yes, because especially the way the algorithms have been honed,
they prioritize interaction, and the things that received the most
interaction tend to be negative encounters, disagreements, talons, etc. It's
(30:09):
really unfortunate that tech has decided that this is the
way forward and that so many of us have succumbed
to that. But it's so hard not to. And I've
written about this because I do think about it quite
a lot, and I think part of it is that
most of us have relatively little power in our day
(30:31):
to day lives, and then you can go online and
you can point out an injustice great or small, and
people will listen to you and they will join you
in the crusade, oftentimes mindlessly, but they'll join you nonetheless.
And I think that's intoxicating for a lot of people,
and even that I can understand. But then it goes
a bit further, and there are the people who make threats,
(30:54):
and some of those threats are idle, but many of
them are not, and you don't know which one is which,
so you have to take them all serious. Yeah, and
that becomes really that's the hardest part, is not knowing
like is this death threat real or is this just
someone having a little weird fun. So that's frustrating, and
(31:16):
it's unfortunate because I think we should be able to disagree.
You can even like dislike me, you can make fun
of me, But why does it get to threats? Why
do you think that's sort of the next level?
Speaker 1 (31:29):
I think I think perhaps it's. Look, I'm not trying
to make excuses for anybody, but I think observing it,
the behavior of it, to me, it seems it's kind
of like an announcement that I don't have the skill
to do anything else. You know. It's like I don't
have the skill to disagree with you. I don't have
the wherewithal, or the intelligence or the education to combat
(31:54):
you on a point. I just instinctively want to lash out,
and I have the only thing I have is insult,
you know what I mean. It's like I feel like
it's a little bit like Heckler's at a stand up show.
Most people are just there, you know, and for the
show and then but that little bit. As a friend
(32:17):
of mine, a country singer called Trace Atkins, I was saying, hey,
what do you I was asking them about social media?
I said, most people are fine, and he said yeah,
but the way I look at it, it only takes
one third in the pool to make me enough want
to get in there. And You're like, yeah, I understand.
So what do you do? How do you combat it?
(32:38):
Do you do? You do you shut it down? Do
you have security? Do you what do you do?
Speaker 2 (32:44):
It depends. I have security at most of my events,
which is again something I never imagined, but many of
the threats are directed to the venues where I'm doing events.
And I speak at a lot of colleges, and I
teach at a college, and that gives me a lot
of pause because not only am I there, but other
(33:06):
people's children are there, and you know, everybody is someone's child.
Everyone is just you know, a human in their own right,
and nobody should be in danger because they're going to
listen to a writer they want to hear, and the
writer themselves should not be in danger because you disagree
with their opinions. But there have been bomb threats, there
have been threats of mass violence, and given this country's
(33:29):
penchant for mass violence, with ar fifteens and the like,
you have to take every single threat furiously. So, you know,
several years ago I started noticing these security guards or
bodyguards or whatever at my events, and then they started
like standing closer and closer to me throughout the events,
(33:50):
and I was like, Wow, this is getting real in
a way I never anticipated.
Speaker 1 (33:57):
And the experience, I mean, is it right? It's terrib effect.
Does it affect how you I think I know the
answer to this, But does it affect what you write?
Speaker 2 (34:08):
No? That's what I I You know, the minute I
change what I write or what I say, the minute
I don't go out on stage, I capitulate. And I
mean we always capitulate one way or another, two different things,
but not on this. I mean, every time I walk
out on stage, I just wonder, it's today of the day.
(34:29):
And that's a horrible feeling. Nobody should have to feel
that way, nobody, And so I don't relish it. Especially
I'm married, happily married, so I always worry about my wife,
who also receives threats now and my parents. People have
hunted down my parents who are like my mom has cancer,
(34:50):
my dad is seventy nine, seventy eight. Like what are
you people thinking? These people are the best people in
the world. They have never harmed anyone. Why would you
take it that far just because I wrote something? And
the reality is, and my critics will be the first
to tell you this, I'm not that radical. I'm a
centrist in many ways, and I'm not proud of it.
(35:11):
I've been pushing myself further left for many years, but
I am not the most radical writer or thinker out there.
So what exactly are you responding to here that has
you so incensed that you have decided to take up spreads?
It's baffling.
Speaker 1 (35:28):
Well, you know, you're a gay black woman, so right there.
But it's like, okay, there's going to there's a certain
subject that I already met at you before you even
say anything. You know, Yeah, It's it's so frustrating because
(35:53):
I think the radicalization of people is it Maybe this
is naive, but don't you feel sometimes that if you
could reach people on a this sounds awful even say that.
But there's some people you feel like if I could
sit you down and reach you on your own and
(36:14):
have a conversation with you, I feel like I could
get to you. And I'm wondering sometimes if writing isn't
an attempt to do that. If you can read, you
can change your mind.
Speaker 2 (36:28):
I would love to believe that were the case, And
of course that certainly motivates a lot of what I do,
the belief that you can reach other people. And I
do believe there are people who are reachable. I also
believe there are people who are unreachable, and I do
think I know the difference, but clearly, and history has
borne this out time and time again, sometimes we need
(36:50):
something more than reaching people, And like, what do we
do with the people that can't be reached? And there's
no solution that I can even begin to think of,
because I even free speech first and foremost, but I
also believe that, of course there should be consequences if
you say terrible things, if you make threats, if you
say violently racist or xenophobic, or homophobic or transphobic things.
(37:16):
You don't have to be in prison. That's not realistic.
But maybe you don't get to enjoy public life as
much anymore. Maybe people will push back and tell you
what they think about your trash opinions, and maybe you
will lose opportunities because people don't want to be associated
with that kind of bigotry. So I would love to
(37:38):
believe that we could find ways of addressing these issues
while preserving the sanctity of free speech. And I think
thus far we kind of have. But there seems to
be very little deterrent right now for people to say
any old thing and get away with it. And that's,
you know, I guess that's life.
Speaker 1 (38:00):
It's funny that I was reading a book recently about
a Gorvidale book called Empire was one of the novels
of Empire series, and in it there's there's discussion or
a part where it recounts when William Randolph Hurst the
(38:20):
early part of the twentieth century, had presidential ambitions, but
he published a quatrain by Ambrose Pearce that foreshadowed the
assassination of President McKinley. It was and because of what
happened there, basically William Randolph Hurst's political career, the reaction
(38:45):
to that basically incited violence or it was perceived to
be incited violence against the certain president. He was canceled
for one of a better word of the early part.
That's when I said he still was an immensely powerful
romance wealthy man who owned a lot of newspapers and
did whatever he did, but he didn't get to go
further in what he wanted to do at that time,
(39:07):
which was to be president of the United States. And
I wonder if if there is a specific call to
violence for an individual, that's not free speech. Absolutely, that's
not that's not free. Free speech is opinion. Free speech
is you know, the Voltaire thing. I may not agree
(39:28):
with what you say, but I will defend to the
death you're right to say it. I think that was
Voltai certainly some clever French blow and I think that.
But the idea that I should be able to say
what I want about you, it's not actually free speech.
I think free speech contains it's about the polemic, it's
(39:49):
about opinion. It's about what you do. You know, because
I read you and I don't agree with everything you say,
and I certainly don't want to talk to you about
the stuff that I don't agree. But what I do,
but what I do think is that you put it
forward that way, which is this is what I think.
(40:09):
You know, this is what I believe, and that I
think is free speech. I think to threaten someone with
violence is a very different thing. I don't think, oh
yeah speech, I.
Speaker 2 (40:21):
Don't either, but I do know that free speech absolutists
will definitely suggest that that's part of free speech. And yeah,
I know, I recognize that. You know, we have become
very fast and loose with the Constitution, but only in
ways that are self serving, like when you especid and
(40:42):
I recently wrote an essay about gun ownership and the
Second Amendment and the ways in which it has kind
of run amok. And when you look at the Second Amendment,
which is like fourteen words long, cuty people who defend
their right to own assault weapons. People are very people
interpret things the way they want to.
Speaker 1 (41:04):
And so I mean that that's the problem, and I
think the eternal conundrum is that is trying to live
with people that you'd rather not love with, whether it's
whether it's your family or you know, or a whole
swath of the country. You know, it's difficult. You when
(41:28):
you were when you were growing up you're you're from
an immigrant family, your family of patient? Is that right? Yes?
Now I am. I'm a I'm an actual immigrant. I
immigrated here. But you know, my children, of course, are
first generation, and and my value, the values that I
brought into the with me are not quite the same.
(41:52):
I actually had one of my oldest kids said to
me once that I don't need to know this. It's
not Glasgow in the nineteen seventies. I don't need to
behave like this. You know, this is of no use
to me. I can't remember what it was with something
about carrying a stick in your trousers or something. And
I think that did you experience conflict with the generation
(42:14):
that came before because you're the child of immigrants, because
you are, your values very different to your parents than
the generation before you.
Speaker 2 (42:22):
I mean, there was definitely conflict, particularly because Haitian culture
is very I love my culture, it's very it's just unique.
But Haitian parents, especially my parents their generation, are incredibly strict,
and so there were all kinds of things that my
brothers and I wanted to do growing up that we
(42:44):
were not allowed to do, and that was incredibly frustrating.
And so there was oftentimes conflict about that, and it
could be things like as simple as I want to
spend the night at a friend's house, which absolutely no
non starter with a Haitian parent, at least for a
long time.
Speaker 1 (43:04):
And I'm totally with your parents on this, by the way,
I have to say, I.
Speaker 2 (43:08):
Mean when looking back now, I'm like, yeah, they were
kind of onto something there. But you know what's interesting
is that now I recognize I'm not even recognized. Now
I understand what they were talking about. Now I understand
what they were worried about. And I have a lot more.
Speaker 1 (43:34):
Patience.
Speaker 2 (43:34):
I guess that might be the word, but oh yeah,
there was definitely there's always going to be conflict. And
sometimes we just be like, you just don't understand, and
they were like, no, you don't understand, but.
Speaker 1 (43:46):
You teach and you speak. Academic institutions, which of course,
by the very nature, are pre emily filled with young people.
Do you find yourself in conflict in a generational term
with with with opinions that you are surprised that you
would be in conflict with them about you kind of
(44:07):
speaking from about Salfie as well, like why.
Speaker 2 (44:12):
Yeah, all the time, it's so hard I'm teaching. I teach,
and I've been teaching for fifteen twenty years now, and
I love it, but I feel like I'm getting to
the point where I don't necessarily want to do it anymore.
These the kids are great, and they're allowed to be young.
It's just this particular generation it's challenging. They and every
(44:39):
generation has this. So I know that the generation like
baby Boomers, feel this way about my generation, gen X.
Gen X feels this way about Gen Z and Gen
Y or whatever the fuck, but they just partly, especially
for the kids I'm teaching now, they have known only
COVID for college, so they didn't even get a traditional
beginning of the colleg experience, and so they're dealing with
(45:04):
the cultural trauma of a pandemic and the political fractures
since twenty sixteen, and there's a lot of challenges. And
they're also able to articulate mental health issues in a
way that feels very anathemat of someone my age. Like
(45:26):
sometimes it's just like, oh my god, they all speak
in therapy speak. It's not a bad thing. I think
it's great for people to talk about mental health and
to talk about their feelings and to advocate for themselves.
But for someone who's a little older, it's just okay,
I have to learn all about this now. But then
also there's just the little stuff like I had a
student named Faith a couple semesters ago and I was like, oh, Faith,
(45:49):
it's taking all my self control not the same faith
to you, And she looked me dead in the eye, blank,
and she was like, what's that?
Speaker 3 (45:55):
And I was just like, come on, well, I mean
you must not people do it say it take all
my effort to not saying rocks and to you as well,
I mean, you get it.
Speaker 1 (46:10):
No one sings Craig though no one's gonna Craig so
and we're the lesser for it, but it should be
rock sanded. It's been an absolute pleasant talking to you.
I am a huge fan of your work and I
I and I like I say, I don't agree with
you and everything, and I love that that you and
I can sit and have a conversation for forty five
(46:31):
minutes and it really doesn't have to come up. What
we can talk about is is interesting, well to me,
very interesting. I hope it's still being too much, but sure,
more power to you. Keep on it. Don't give up
and don't let the bachelards grind you down. I won't
thank you so much. Craig, Oh, no thout, no bathing,
The Craig Ferguson Pants on Fire Tour is on sale now.
It's a new show, it's new material, but I'm afraid
it's still only me, Craig Ferguson on my own, standing
on a stage telling comedy words. Come and see me,
buy tickets, bring your loved ones, or don't come and
see me. Don't buy tickets and don't bring your loved ones.
(00:21):
I'm not your dad. You come or don't come, but
you should at least know what's happening, and it is.
The tour kicks off late September and goes through the
end of the year and beyond. Tickets are available at
the Craig Ferguson Show dot com slash tour. They are
available at the Craig Ferguson show dot com slash tour
or at your local outlet in your region. My name
(00:45):
is Craig Ferguson. The name of this podcast is Joy.
I talk to interest in people about what brings them happiness.
On the show today, my guest is an author, public speaker,
and academic, very very very clever person and if you
(01:05):
haven't read any of her work, I urge you to
have a crack at it. She's really clever, and I
don't agree with her on everything, and that's even more interesting.
Please enjoy Roxane Gay with the microphone with your finger there,
(01:26):
so I'm all enough. It's funny though, because you do
have a quiet voice, and and I'm I but I
thought it'd be that. But you have a very loud voice,
but not necessarily in volume correct.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
When I'm writing, I'm very loud, and other than that,
I'm actually pretty quiet.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
I think that actually being quiet when you're talking is
a way to make people lean in. I think it's like, wait,
what what? What's what's she saying? The I you you're
a very a person of many of opinions. I've been
reading a lot of your opinions, and I think because
you've been doing this for quite a while. By the way,
(02:08):
you're my first doctor of philosophy, so I'm very excited
to because I want to ask you about philosophy in
a doctoral sense. But have you ever read do you
ever write things? Because you've been doing this for a while,
do you ever look back at stuff you've had an
opinion on and go I really don't feel that way anymore.
I don't know what I'm going to do about that.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Not really, and it's not because I got it right
the first time. It's just that most of the things
that I believe in are for me, fundamental human rights,
and so, if anything, I've gotten more progressive over time.
I think the more comfortable I become, the more I
(02:49):
recognize that everyone should have a certain level of comfort,
and so it just pushes me further left. The one
thing I know that I sort of have gotten wrong,
and there's an essay in one of my first books,
Bad Feminists, where I talk about how amazing Bill Cosby is,
So you know, I definitely got that wrong.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
But I think we all got that wrong. I wouldn't
pick yourself up on you know, you weren't the only
one I actually was fascinated by. Did you ever see
Dave Chappelle's take on the whole Cosby thing? Because it
was fascinating when he was talking about how you can
admire someone so much and then find out something really
horrible about him, and what do you do? You know,
(03:33):
I mean, obviously he phrased it or framed it in
a comedic sense, but it's a weird thing. Do you
ever meet people that you admire? Because I've done this
a lot. You meet people you admire and go eh,
particularly actually, you know, God, be honest sometimes writers because
they can be two different personalities.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
Yes, I have met a lot of people I admire.
I've been pretty lucky for the most part. I've had
really good experiences. But there is a disappointment sometimes where
you have an idea of someone and then you have
to confront the reality of them and recognize. You know,
(04:14):
performers are performing and then when they're not in front
of the camera, they're themselves and we don't actually know
that person. And I know that intellectually, but when you
have a favorite and you meet them and they don't
live up to your imagination, there's a disconnect there for sure.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
It's it's quite an interesting thing because I think now
writers people, I mean, you're an academic and you talk
and you're a professor, so I mean there is a
great there is a stand up in front of a
room full of people aspect of your job. But it
feels to me like all writers to an extent have
to be performers. Now, you can't just write and throw
(04:55):
it out there. Well you can, but it'll be hard
to sell it.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
Yeah, it's I think a lot of my peers find
it really frustrating, and I admit I do too, in
that I became a writer because I don't want to
be in front of a camera. I don't want to
be on TV. I'm very fortunate to have had the
type of career that has afforded me such opportunities, so
I don't take it for granted. But every single time
(05:20):
I just think, oh my god, this is not this
is not what I'm supposed to be doing. But it's
really hard to find readers, it really is, and so
it's many harder too. Oh it's so hard. It's just
hard to sell books, no matter who you are. And
so many of us have made peace with the fact
that we have to turn to different avenues to reach readers.
(05:43):
And that's okay. You know, I like being read, so yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
I mean it's an odd thing though, because you I mean,
I haven't done it. I've done it a bit myself.
When you write a book and you go on a
book tour and then you have to read out passages
from your book, I mean, and I've seen you do it,
and you're very good at it, but I whatever, excuse me, whatever,
I've had to do it. I've thought this is I
(06:10):
want the voice in your head to be your voice,
in that you know you're reading it in your head
as a reader. I don't want you to hear even
doing audiobooks. Do you do audio books of your work
now as well? You have to write, I do.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
I didn't do my first two or three books, but
I did my memoir Hunger, and I also did the
audiobook for Opinions, and I suspect I'll be doing the
next couple audiobooks as well.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
You have to. I mean, it's just part of the
game now, Like you're saying, I I did you ever
have anyone else do an audiobook of your work?
Speaker 2 (06:42):
Absolutely? Two really great audio voice actors have done my work.
Robin Miles has read my fiction both Difficult Women and
and on Tamed State, and she's such a phenomenal voice actor.
She could read anything of mine any day of the week,
and I would be proud to have her interpreting my work.
(07:03):
And then Bad Feminist in the United States was read
by Bonnie Turpin, and she is an incredible voice actor
as well, And again I would happily work with her
on anything at any time.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
I always thought that I've only ever had one person
do it once in an anthology of short stories. I
wasn't available to do the short story that I'd written,
and they had someone else do it, and it made
it much better than anything. It's like, oh, that actually
sounds like proper right. But I don't think that's an
issue that you ever a problem with. Can I ask you?
(07:36):
Because bad feminist is where I became aware of you
at first the Ted Talk really before anything else. But
I saw the Ted Talk of bad Feminists. I'm going
to ask you two things about it. First of all,
how do you do a Ted talk? Who finds you
to do a Ted talk? Do you apply?
Speaker 2 (07:52):
No? Someone from TED reached out to me and asked
if I would be interested in doing a Ted talk
at TED Women, which no longer exists, but at the
time it did. And I was really scared because I
don't like public speaking and I know that TED is
a really big audience. However, they work with you very closely,
(08:14):
and they you know, there's a reason why TED talks
look so good and sounds so good, and it's because
for six months before the Ted talk, they're working with
you on the talk and so on. Unfortunately, I rewrote
my talk the night before, so the thing we had
been working on was something entirely different from what I performed.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
It's quite interesting, though, because when I watch that now,
because I looked at the Ted talk again, I'd seen it,
you know, I think it was like twenty fifteen or
twenty sixteen or something. Wasn't there a long time ago?
What I went back on it looked at you don't
seem as confident performing then as you do now. You
(08:54):
kind of you. There's been a real kind of movement
I think for you in terms of familiarity and confidence
on stage. Does that happen in writing too? Yes?
Speaker 2 (09:05):
It does. I still I think most writers have a
certain level of insecurity, not insecurity per se, but anxiety
about the work and is it good enough? And have
I said what I wanted to say how I wanted
to say it. But I'm almost fifty years old now
and made and so you know, when you've been doing
(09:29):
it as long as I have, there are certain things
that I'm more confident about absolutely, you know.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
But does that lead you to get more personal? Because
you know, your memoirs and stuff like that come a
little bit later in your career, right, they does it
help you become more personal as you get more confident.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
No, it actually makes me feel like getting a little
less personal. But really it does, and only because the
Internet has become a lot more hostile than it used
to be, and so I've always been careful about what
I shared, despite what people may think. I'm a very
(10:08):
private person, so I've always known what I'm sharing and
why and what I've held back for myself. But it
feels like, especially as what is whatever they're calling it now,
as Twitter has devolved into whatever it is now and
other social media platforms have gone in a similar direction,
there's just less I mean, people have opinions, and I
(10:31):
respect that you don't have to love everything I do.
I get it. You know, I'm flawed like everyone else.
But there's a difference between criticism and just cruelty.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
And I agree. And I think there's also the idea
of that you have to be hostile to someone who
doesn't have the same opinion of you seems like an
odd thing, and that's that seems like universal on the
kind of social platforms, that if someone doesn't have the
same opinion as me, then it's not the opinion that
(11:04):
you challenge. It's the person themselves that at home and
and thing, yes.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
And you're right, everyone does it. I've done it, and
I'm trying to do better because I mean, there are
certain opinions like if you're a Nazi, you're a Nazi.
I understand that and you but I'm absolutely going to
tell you how horrible you are. Right, And I've been
talking about this quite a lot lately at events, But
(11:31):
we are in a very inelastic age where people are
becoming more and more brittle and calcified and have decided
that it's their way or no way. And you know what,
we believe what we believe, and oftentimes we believe it
very deeply, but there's no way to reach other people
(11:53):
if we are that calcified. I'm not suggesting that if
we all sit together in a circle and hold hands,
the world will be a better place. And when it
comes to certain issues that people are particularly committed to,
there is no compromise, Like you can't compromise on the
value of human life, you can't compromise on the ills
of terrorism or war. And so it's a question of, well, then,
(12:18):
how do we talk about these differences of opinion, How
do we talk about these issues on which we profoundly disagree,
And the answer is I don't know, And sometimes I
wonder do we even bother? I hope we do, But
talking is not going to be enough.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
Is there a Is this maybe a product of recent
I mean, because I can be as negative about recent
times as antibody, and I can say, you know, this
is a time when everyone, everything is polarized, and everything
is you know, we can't get along. But it also
seems to me maybe a contrary position is I can't
(12:58):
think of in any any time And maybe I'm wrong
about this, but I can't think of a time in
human history where people attempted to try and get along.
It was like nowhere the king, nowhere the other king,
or we think the biscuit turns into Jesus. No, we
don't think the biscuit turns into Jesus. And there was
no attempt to try and find that. There was very
(13:21):
little in the way of attempted to find home and
grand And I think maybe the frustration of current times,
and maybe I'm wrong. I'd like to know what you
think is the idea that we are trying to to
try and find a way to live in some kind
of compromise.
Speaker 2 (13:40):
I think some people are, but clearly not everyone. I
do think a lot of people, but I do think
there are a lot of people who genuinely want to compromise,
who want to find a way for all of us
to coexist. But there are so many who don't. And
we're seeing this right now, particularly with regard to the
(14:03):
current political climate and the election, where Republicans are at
least a version of Republicans that are currently in power,
are doing everything they can to try and rid this
country of immigrants, and quite frankly, almost all of us
are immigrants, including them as the other denial.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
That I mean. It's It's an interesting thing though, because
you know, like most things, it becomes extremely you know,
I mean, at what point do you join the argument?
Do you know what I mean? It's like like, right now,
there's this thing about illegal immigrants, and I don't want,
I don't want to get into the nuts and bolts
(14:42):
of the politics of it, because I feel like the
minute that we do, our conversation becomes you know, about that,
And what I'm more interested in is the idea of
coping with or addressing the disagreement and dealing with the
fight that we do have to share the same space,
and we do have widely different opinions, and how does
(15:05):
the United States of America and the world really how
do we share the same space if people have radically
different opinions.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
A I was gonna say, the challenge is that xenophobia
is not an opinion, and I don't think that we
should treat it as legitimate when you are saying that
there are groups of people and they tend to be
people who are brown or black, when you say that
those people are criminal, that they eat pets, that whatever, ludicrous,
(15:37):
that's not actually an opinion. There's nothing to counteract that
with because if you are so far gone as to
believe that, then there's nothing we're going to really talk about.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
And not just in case anybody cuts up this conversation
and size chunks, Let's be clear, it's not me that
the opinion, because it's like, wow, did he say that? Right?
Honest conversation. So let me ask you this in the
(16:12):
let's go back to bad feminist just for me, because
that was the jumping off point for me because you
took a you took out a recognizable I want to say,
it's feminism a polemic. Is it fair to say that
it's a It's an idea, right? You took an idea
of modern feminism and you and you extrapolated it in
(16:34):
a way which I hadn't seen done before you you had.
Can you explain it a little, because I don't want
to explain your work to you. You you explained it
to me.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
Yes. So my first essay collection, Bad Feminist, which came
out ten years ago, which is hard to believe, was
really my way of thinking through my relationship to feminism,
particularly given that oftentimes we expect feminists to be perfect,
to have entirely consistent ideas and ideologies, and you know,
(17:06):
ideally we all should, but we're human, and I wanted
to be able to write about feminism while also acknowledging
my humanity, my flaws. And so it's part personal essays,
lots of cultural criticism where I'm looking at various books, film, television,
cultural trends, but from a black feminist perspective and from
(17:29):
a bad feminist perspective, if you will, What is.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
The what is the term bad feminist? Why does it?
Why does it be bad? Maybe? Can it? Is it?
Why is it bad? Is it just different?
Speaker 2 (17:42):
It's well, it was partly tongue in cheek when I
came up with the title yeah, because I was thinking
about my feminism when I was writing the title essay,
and I was like, well, I'm definitely a feminist, but
I'm actually kind of bad at it, because, like you know,
one of the examples I use in the book is
that I love hip hop, and so much of hip
hop is degrading to women and misogynistic and it's a problem,
(18:06):
and I want to be able to talk about that.
But I mean, if a certain fon comes on, I'm
going to probably dance, And so I thought maybe I
should just call myself a bad feminist. It was also
a bit more serious in that traditionally feminism, mainstream feminism,
has prioritized the needs of middle class white women and
heterosexual women, women who are not disabled, and things like that,
(18:30):
and they've always teld more marginalized groups. We'll get to
you later. We have to first lift all women up
as if we're not women too, And so if that's
good feminism, I repudiate that, and I'm absolutely a bad feminist.
So it's part tongue in cheek, part critique.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
It's an interesting situation, because I mean it's completely I mean,
I completely agree with what you say. I wonder though,
if feminism is is gender specific, and then when you
obviously I mean it's about you know, it's about the
rights of correct me if I'm wrong. And I don't
(19:09):
know what I'm saying here, but feminism is about equality
of the sexes. Let's say that that fair thing to say.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
No, I mean I think that it's yes, I mean,
on the surface, sure, but it's more than equality. It's
about equity because equality suggests that if we give everyone
the same resources, things will turn out the same.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
But that's not okay.
Speaker 2 (19:33):
And so what we need to figure out is how
do we make sure that everyone has equal access to
what they need in order to thrive. And for different
groups of people it might be different things. And so
I tend to focus more on equity than equality. But yeah,
it's really about how do we have gender equity. How
(19:53):
do we make it such that women are safe, women
have bodily autonomy, women are listening to, not attacked, etc.
Equal pay for equal work, support in the home, in
terms of a more equal distribution of domestic responsibility between
the genders. For people who are in heterosexual relationships. And
(20:17):
the reality is that feminism is for everyone and when
women do better, everyone does better. Children do better, men
do better. And so it's always interesting that there's resistance
to feminism because it helps men too. There are all
kinds of cultural responsibilities that we place on men that
don't help them, that don't serve them, that force them
(20:41):
to have to try and live up to some ideal
of what masculinity is. And if we start to rethink
what gender is and what it means and what roles
we are assigned to, and we can challenge all of that,
I think it just makes everyone happier, safer, and better off.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
I agree If for you say it's true, and I
believe it is, where does the where does the resistance
come from? Then who would resist that? It seems like
it is. It's common sense. If it helps everyone, Why
wouldn't everyone want to do it? Why what's the motive
do you think behind the idea of not aliving the change?
Speaker 2 (21:21):
Well, that is the question, and you know that is
the question. Why why are so many people so resistant
to gender equity? And part of it is that it
challenges the systemic power that we have all been raised
(21:44):
with and a lot of times, when you hold power,
you don't want to share it. We see this all
the time, whether it's presidents refusing to seed or older
people refusing to step aside. You know, what Biden did
this year was incredibly rare. It just rarely happened. Like
over at Saturday Night Live, Lauren Michael's is like, Yeah,
I'm going to ride.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
This books until it's dead.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
It's just like, Wow, you don't think there's anyone else
in this country or this world who could run SNL
not like you, but as well. And so people get
very attached to power, and we're human, So I understand,
but are we so attached to power that we harm ourselves?
Speaker 1 (22:26):
But power is it is connected to fear as well,
I suppose, isn't it Like if I don't have this power,
then I'm vulnerable. I am in danger if I don't
have this power or I'm mortal, I'll die or I'll
you know, I won't have I won't be able to
continue if I don't have what I have right now.
Speaker 2 (22:44):
Absolutely, And also I think there's an element of fear
that excuse me. I know how I've treated people with
this power, and I don't want that to happen to me,
so you know, it becomes a bit of a that's interesting.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
Yeah, I mean you you get yourself. I mean like
as you say, you're you're coming up on fifty years
old or you're fifty years old, you're pro arguably the
peak of you know, human productivity, and you know, and
you're you're you're firing and on all cylinders right now.
At what point do you think I'm gonna I'm gonna
(23:24):
stand back? How do you know it's time to step
down or step away?
Speaker 2 (23:28):
That's a good question with writing. You know, it's an art,
it's something that is pleasurable. And I think most writers
tend to write until they have nothing left to say.
And I'm not there yet, but I don't know I'm
going to write until I don't like it anymore.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
I think plenty of writers keep going well after the
nothing true, very true. But I think that it's kind
of interesting though, because it requires a degree of self examination.
Is this unpleasure? You know, it's unpleasant to look at
yourself and go, am I am I done? I always
(24:06):
equate it because I think I do stand up comedy
for a living, and I think to myself well, you know,
I'm sixty two years old. Why am I getting? What
am I complaining about? You know, when I was young
on gum go oh and see those things. I don't
like those things and those other things, and what about
those guys? And I don't really, I don't really have
it to say about that. I've said all the things
(24:26):
I had to say about that. But now I find
myself talking to my contemporaries about the fact that it's
falling apart. I suppose that I'm older, and so the
things that I observe are different. The problem I have
with it is sometimes you distance yourself from the people
that you were talking to twenty years ago. Maybe they
(24:47):
didn't go with you they maybe they didn't travel with you.
Because things do change. An intelligent mind will alter over time,
and which is good.
Speaker 2 (24:57):
Actually, I would hope that you know, when you asked earlier,
have I changed my opinions on anything? Not really, But
I hope that I'm doing better work, and more thoughtful work,
and more nuanced work now than ten years ago, fifteen
years ago. I hope that I'm still growing, that I'm
still evolving. I think I am.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
I think it's fairly obvious that there is a development
across your career. I talked to Tony Scott Ao Scott
from The New York Times Film and Literary critic recently,
and he said, when he was younger, he too. I mean,
he still feels the same about what he likes and
(25:38):
what he doesn't like and how he approaches it. But
he said when he was young, he felt like every
every film he didn't like, or every piece of work
he didn't like, was almost like a personal affront, or
like a crime that he had to, you know, fight against.
And I wonder if is there anywhere I mean, it
(25:59):
was interesting you said there. As you get older, it
seems to push you more progressive and you get more
Is there anything where you thought? I really was very
angry about that, But I see now that maybe there's
another approach to it. You still don't like it can
still be an an injustice, but there may be a
different technique to handle it. No good, it's a fair answer.
(26:28):
You must No, you can't ever be a politician, because
because you just said, nah, I don't think there is.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
No I really can't ever be a politician. I have
no less than zero desire to be a politician. You know.
I think I I tend to have some generosity toward
myself when I look back at my work, not because
I think it's perfect, but it's because I know I
did the best I could with the skills and the
(26:56):
knowledge that I had at the time. Right, and you do.
So I don't lose fire as I get older, but
I think I have become more judicious about where I
aim my fire. Okay, so that's what I would say.
I would say it's less everything deserves my approbation and
more let me be a little bit more targeted, let
(27:18):
me be a little more careful. So I think I've
gotten more careful.
Speaker 1 (27:22):
And more skilled thoughtful. Yeah, yeah, yes. What about the
the hate and the abuse that anyone who expresses an
opinion will get? And you express your opinions air you
dately and loudly, and then an arena where people can
(27:43):
you know, in topics where people have a lot of
nasty and bad things to say? Do you have any
do you ignore it? Do you process it? Do you
how do you deal with it?
Speaker 2 (27:54):
Depends? I it's challenging. It is the hardest part of
what I do, because I just when you're a writer,
you don't really assume that people are going to read
your work. You tend to think I'm going to be
writing into a void and there's not much I can
(28:18):
do about that. And when you are lucky enough to
find an audience and then be able to sustain that audience,
you don't only have people in your audience who agree
with you, of course, nor should you want that. You
have people who disagree, and then you have people who
disagree so passionately that they want to tell you about it.
(28:40):
And then you have the trolls, and there are quite
a lot of trolls, and so I struggle with it.
And that's why I left Twitter. I was just I
was I couldn't do it anymore. I loved Twitter when
it was good. It was such a great place.
Speaker 1 (28:52):
It was a lot of fun, was much fun. I know,
I remember it, and it was.
Speaker 2 (28:59):
The seventeen years and now it's a complete cesspool.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
Yes, and it's just all of it. When that way,
I loved it. I got into it, like I don't know,
it's about twenty ten or something like that. Idiotzard got
me into it and said, you know, it's just a
great way to contact people and sell tickets, and it's
revolutionarized it's going to change the world, and I was
(29:26):
like great, and it was and then very quickly, well
not very quickly, just over over time it became because
these people, the people that were mean, used to being
a normally, and now it seems like it's it's almost
that's what you do on these things.
Speaker 2 (29:47):
It's yes, because especially the way the algorithms have been honed,
they prioritize interaction, and the things that received the most
interaction tend to be negative encounters, disagreements, talons, etc. It's
(30:09):
really unfortunate that tech has decided that this is the
way forward and that so many of us have succumbed
to that. But it's so hard not to. And I've
written about this because I do think about it quite
a lot, and I think part of it is that
most of us have relatively little power in our day
(30:31):
to day lives, and then you can go online and
you can point out an injustice great or small, and
people will listen to you and they will join you
in the crusade, oftentimes mindlessly, but they'll join you nonetheless.
And I think that's intoxicating for a lot of people,
and even that I can understand. But then it goes
a bit further, and there are the people who make threats,
(30:54):
and some of those threats are idle, but many of
them are not, and you don't know which one is which,
so you have to take them all serious. Yeah, and
that becomes really that's the hardest part, is not knowing
like is this death threat real or is this just
someone having a little weird fun. So that's frustrating, and
(31:16):
it's unfortunate because I think we should be able to disagree.
You can even like dislike me, you can make fun
of me, But why does it get to threats? Why
do you think that's sort of the next level?
Speaker 1 (31:29):
I think I think perhaps it's. Look, I'm not trying
to make excuses for anybody, but I think observing it,
the behavior of it, to me, it seems it's kind
of like an announcement that I don't have the skill
to do anything else. You know. It's like I don't
have the skill to disagree with you. I don't have
the wherewithal, or the intelligence or the education to combat
(31:54):
you on a point. I just instinctively want to lash out,
and I have the only thing I have is insult,
you know what I mean. It's like I feel like
it's a little bit like Heckler's at a stand up show.
Most people are just there, you know, and for the
show and then but that little bit. As a friend
(32:17):
of mine, a country singer called Trace Atkins, I was saying, hey,
what do you I was asking them about social media?
I said, most people are fine, and he said yeah,
but the way I look at it, it only takes
one third in the pool to make me enough want
to get in there. And You're like, yeah, I understand.
So what do you do? How do you combat it?
(32:38):
Do you do? You do you shut it down? Do
you have security? Do you what do you do?
Speaker 2 (32:44):
It depends. I have security at most of my events,
which is again something I never imagined, but many of
the threats are directed to the venues where I'm doing events.
And I speak at a lot of colleges, and I
teach at a college, and that gives me a lot
of pause because not only am I there, but other
(33:06):
people's children are there, and you know, everybody is someone's child.
Everyone is just you know, a human in their own right,
and nobody should be in danger because they're going to
listen to a writer they want to hear, and the
writer themselves should not be in danger because you disagree
with their opinions. But there have been bomb threats, there
have been threats of mass violence, and given this country's
(33:29):
penchant for mass violence, with ar fifteens and the like,
you have to take every single threat furiously. So, you know,
several years ago I started noticing these security guards or
bodyguards or whatever at my events, and then they started
like standing closer and closer to me throughout the events,
(33:50):
and I was like, Wow, this is getting real in
a way I never anticipated.
Speaker 1 (33:57):
And the experience, I mean, is it right? It's terrib effect.
Does it affect how you I think I know the
answer to this, But does it affect what you write?
Speaker 2 (34:08):
No? That's what I I You know, the minute I
change what I write or what I say, the minute
I don't go out on stage, I capitulate. And I
mean we always capitulate one way or another, two different things,
but not on this. I mean, every time I walk
out on stage, I just wonder, it's today of the day.
(34:29):
And that's a horrible feeling. Nobody should have to feel
that way, nobody, And so I don't relish it. Especially
I'm married, happily married, so I always worry about my wife,
who also receives threats now and my parents. People have
hunted down my parents who are like my mom has cancer,
(34:50):
my dad is seventy nine, seventy eight. Like what are
you people thinking? These people are the best people in
the world. They have never harmed anyone. Why would you
take it that far just because I wrote something? And
the reality is, and my critics will be the first
to tell you this, I'm not that radical. I'm a
centrist in many ways, and I'm not proud of it.
(35:11):
I've been pushing myself further left for many years, but
I am not the most radical writer or thinker out there.
So what exactly are you responding to here that has
you so incensed that you have decided to take up spreads?
It's baffling.
Speaker 1 (35:28):
Well, you know, you're a gay black woman, so right there.
But it's like, okay, there's going to there's a certain
subject that I already met at you before you even
say anything. You know, Yeah, It's it's so frustrating because
(35:53):
I think the radicalization of people is it Maybe this
is naive, but don't you feel sometimes that if you
could reach people on a this sounds awful even say that.
But there's some people you feel like if I could
sit you down and reach you on your own and
(36:14):
have a conversation with you, I feel like I could
get to you. And I'm wondering sometimes if writing isn't
an attempt to do that. If you can read, you
can change your mind.
Speaker 2 (36:28):
I would love to believe that were the case, And
of course that certainly motivates a lot of what I do,
the belief that you can reach other people. And I
do believe there are people who are reachable. I also
believe there are people who are unreachable, and I do
think I know the difference, but clearly, and history has
borne this out time and time again, sometimes we need
(36:50):
something more than reaching people, And like, what do we
do with the people that can't be reached? And there's
no solution that I can even begin to think of,
because I even free speech first and foremost, but I
also believe that, of course there should be consequences if
you say terrible things, if you make threats, if you
say violently racist or xenophobic, or homophobic or transphobic things.
(37:16):
You don't have to be in prison. That's not realistic.
But maybe you don't get to enjoy public life as
much anymore. Maybe people will push back and tell you
what they think about your trash opinions, and maybe you
will lose opportunities because people don't want to be associated
with that kind of bigotry. So I would love to
(37:38):
believe that we could find ways of addressing these issues
while preserving the sanctity of free speech. And I think
thus far we kind of have. But there seems to
be very little deterrent right now for people to say
any old thing and get away with it. And that's,
you know, I guess that's life.
Speaker 1 (38:00):
It's funny that I was reading a book recently about
a Gorvidale book called Empire was one of the novels
of Empire series, and in it there's there's discussion or
a part where it recounts when William Randolph Hurst the
(38:20):
early part of the twentieth century, had presidential ambitions, but
he published a quatrain by Ambrose Pearce that foreshadowed the
assassination of President McKinley. It was and because of what
happened there, basically William Randolph Hurst's political career, the reaction
(38:45):
to that basically incited violence or it was perceived to
be incited violence against the certain president. He was canceled
for one of a better word of the early part.
That's when I said he still was an immensely powerful
romance wealthy man who owned a lot of newspapers and
did whatever he did, but he didn't get to go
further in what he wanted to do at that time,
(39:07):
which was to be president of the United States. And
I wonder if if there is a specific call to
violence for an individual, that's not free speech. Absolutely, that's
not that's not free. Free speech is opinion. Free speech
is you know, the Voltaire thing. I may not agree
(39:28):
with what you say, but I will defend to the
death you're right to say it. I think that was
Voltai certainly some clever French blow and I think that.
But the idea that I should be able to say
what I want about you, it's not actually free speech.
I think free speech contains it's about the polemic, it's
(39:49):
about opinion. It's about what you do. You know, because
I read you and I don't agree with everything you say,
and I certainly don't want to talk to you about
the stuff that I don't agree. But what I do,
but what I do think is that you put it
forward that way, which is this is what I think.
(40:09):
You know, this is what I believe, and that I
think is free speech. I think to threaten someone with
violence is a very different thing. I don't think, oh
yeah speech, I.
Speaker 2 (40:21):
Don't either, but I do know that free speech absolutists
will definitely suggest that that's part of free speech. And yeah,
I know, I recognize that. You know, we have become
very fast and loose with the Constitution, but only in
ways that are self serving, like when you especid and
(40:42):
I recently wrote an essay about gun ownership and the
Second Amendment and the ways in which it has kind
of run amok. And when you look at the Second Amendment,
which is like fourteen words long, cuty people who defend
their right to own assault weapons. People are very people
interpret things the way they want to.
Speaker 1 (41:04):
And so I mean that that's the problem, and I
think the eternal conundrum is that is trying to live
with people that you'd rather not love with, whether it's
whether it's your family or you know, or a whole
swath of the country. You know, it's difficult. You when
(41:28):
you were when you were growing up you're you're from
an immigrant family, your family of patient? Is that right? Yes?
Now I am. I'm a I'm an actual immigrant. I
immigrated here. But you know, my children, of course, are
first generation, and and my value, the values that I
brought into the with me are not quite the same.
(41:52):
I actually had one of my oldest kids said to
me once that I don't need to know this. It's
not Glasgow in the nineteen seventies. I don't need to
behave like this. You know, this is of no use
to me. I can't remember what it was with something
about carrying a stick in your trousers or something. And
I think that did you experience conflict with the generation
(42:14):
that came before because you're the child of immigrants, because
you are, your values very different to your parents than
the generation before you.
Speaker 2 (42:22):
I mean, there was definitely conflict, particularly because Haitian culture
is very I love my culture, it's very it's just unique.
But Haitian parents, especially my parents their generation, are incredibly strict,
and so there were all kinds of things that my
brothers and I wanted to do growing up that we
(42:44):
were not allowed to do, and that was incredibly frustrating.
And so there was oftentimes conflict about that, and it
could be things like as simple as I want to
spend the night at a friend's house, which absolutely no
non starter with a Haitian parent, at least for a
long time.
Speaker 1 (43:04):
And I'm totally with your parents on this, by the way,
I have to say, I.
Speaker 2 (43:08):
Mean when looking back now, I'm like, yeah, they were
kind of onto something there. But you know what's interesting
is that now I recognize I'm not even recognized. Now
I understand what they were talking about. Now I understand
what they were worried about. And I have a lot more.
Speaker 1 (43:34):
Patience.
Speaker 2 (43:34):
I guess that might be the word, but oh yeah,
there was definitely there's always going to be conflict. And
sometimes we just be like, you just don't understand, and
they were like, no, you don't understand, but.
Speaker 1 (43:46):
You teach and you speak. Academic institutions, which of course,
by the very nature, are pre emily filled with young people.
Do you find yourself in conflict in a generational term
with with with opinions that you are surprised that you
would be in conflict with them about you kind of
(44:07):
speaking from about Salfie as well, like why.
Speaker 2 (44:12):
Yeah, all the time, it's so hard I'm teaching. I teach,
and I've been teaching for fifteen twenty years now, and
I love it, but I feel like I'm getting to
the point where I don't necessarily want to do it anymore.
These the kids are great, and they're allowed to be young.
It's just this particular generation it's challenging. They and every
(44:39):
generation has this. So I know that the generation like
baby Boomers, feel this way about my generation, gen X.
Gen X feels this way about Gen Z and Gen
Y or whatever the fuck, but they just partly, especially
for the kids I'm teaching now, they have known only
COVID for college, so they didn't even get a traditional
beginning of the colleg experience, and so they're dealing with
(45:04):
the cultural trauma of a pandemic and the political fractures
since twenty sixteen, and there's a lot of challenges. And
they're also able to articulate mental health issues in a
way that feels very anathemat of someone my age. Like
(45:26):
sometimes it's just like, oh my god, they all speak
in therapy speak. It's not a bad thing. I think
it's great for people to talk about mental health and
to talk about their feelings and to advocate for themselves.
But for someone who's a little older, it's just okay,
I have to learn all about this now. But then
also there's just the little stuff like I had a
student named Faith a couple semesters ago and I was like, oh, Faith,
(45:49):
it's taking all my self control not the same faith
to you, And she looked me dead in the eye, blank,
and she was like, what's that?
Speaker 3 (45:55):
And I was just like, come on, well, I mean
you must not people do it say it take all
my effort to not saying rocks and to you as well,
I mean, you get it.
Speaker 1 (46:10):
No one sings Craig though no one's gonna Craig so
and we're the lesser for it, but it should be
rock sanded. It's been an absolute pleasant talking to you.
I am a huge fan of your work and I
I and I like I say, I don't agree with
you and everything, and I love that that you and
I can sit and have a conversation for forty five
(46:31):
minutes and it really doesn't have to come up. What
we can talk about is is interesting, well to me,
very interesting. I hope it's still being too much, but sure,
more power to you. Keep on it. Don't give up
and don't let the bachelards grind you down. I won't
thank you so much. Craig, Oh, no thout, no bathing,
Host
Craig Ferguson
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