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data-ttid="ByleWrapper" emProp="thor" emType="><span emProp="name" class="ByleNamWrapper-jbHncj fuDQVo"><span data-ttid="ByleName" class="ByleName-kwmrLn lOLCm byle__name"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ BylePreamble-iJolpQ iUEiRd jslZfG uhfVi byle__preamble">By </span><a class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ BaseLk-eNWuiM ByleLk-gEnFiw iUEiRd ggMZaT cXqSTL brYZgj byle__name-lk button" href="/ntributors/david-remnick">David Remnick</a></span></span></p></div><time data-ttid="ContentHearPublishDate" dateTime="2022-02-19T06:00:00-05:00" class="SplScreenContentHearPublishDate-bMGEVk gvRvVr">Febary 19, 2022</time><div class="SocialInsWrapper-hKMEXV ffgPVr social-ins social-ins--standard SplScreenContentHearSocialShare-gSVclr kUKgnn"><ul data-ttid="socialInslist" class="SocialInsList-cHVTIA ivmblD social-ins__list"><li class="SocialInsListItem-mbhR hHoUCw social-ins__list-em social-ins__list-em--facebook social-ins__list-em--standard thner"><a aria-label="Share on 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class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src="></picture></span></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK eRggVV grid grid-margs grid-ems-0 SplScreenContentHearGrid-kFpOdh fLkIyA"><div class="GridItem-buujkM kHPPIF grid--em"><div class="CaptnWrapper-jSZdqE iTuhkZ ptn SplScreenContentHearCaptn-iOfEOv ckLUKG"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnCred-ejegDm iUEiRd iicloT jbIJNS ptn__cred">Photograph by Andr Serrano for The New Yorker</span></div></div></div></hear></div><div data-attribute-verso-pattern="article-body" class="ArticlePageContentBackGround-cNiFNN kbAoLA article-body__ntent"><div class="ActnBarWrapperContent-lasBkU cAHp"><div class="ActnBarWrapperComponent-cjwxLS bEeSLb"><div data-attr-viewport-monor="" class="ActnBarWrapper-dhxmQh kNjTbQ viewport-monor-anchor"><button id="bookmark" aria-label="Save this story" class="ActnBarButton-dyFOZU hQrwCF bookmark large-screen"><span class="ActnBarSendaryButtonPrimaryIn-isbvyN cAwccV bookmark-button-in"><svg class="in in-bookmark" width="24" height="24" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" xmlns="><tle>Save this story</tle><path class="in-bookmark-fill" d="M20 23.9508L12.5 19.7312L5 23.9508V2.95081H14V3.93211H6V22.1845L12.5 18.5536L19 22.1845V8.83866H20V23.9508Z"></path><path class="in-bookmark-fill" d="M23 3H20V0H19V3H16V4H19V7H20V4H23V3Z"></path></svg></span><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ ActnBarButtonText-bYXYuh iUEiRd bkefvo gkccfO">Save this story</span></button></div><div data-attr-viewport-monor="" class="ActnBarWrapper-dhxmQh kAEsuD viewport-monor-anchor"><button id="bookmark" aria-label="Save this story" class="ActnBarButton-dyFOZU cjjxgx bookmark mobile"><span class="ActnBarSendaryButtonPrimaryIn-isbvyN cAwccV bookmark-button-in"><svg class="in in-bookmark" width="24" height="24" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" xmlns="><tle>Save this story</tle><path class="in-bookmark-fill" d="M20 23.9508L12.5 19.7312L5 23.9508V2.95081H14V3.93211H6V22.1845L12.5 18.5536L19 22.1845V8.83866H20V23.9508Z"></path><path class="in-bookmark-fill" d="M23 3H20V0H19V3H16V4H19V7H20V4H23V3Z"></path></svg></span><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ ActnBarButtonText-bYXYuh iUEiRd bkefvo gkccfO">Save this story</span></button></div></div></div><div class="LightboxWrapper-dxsWBV hhylRt"><div class="ArticlePageChunksContent-etcMtP imbgVA"><div data-ttid="ArticlePageChunks" class="ArticlePageChunks-fLyCVG lmuXQm"><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK eRggVV grid grid-margs grid-ems-0 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bDFJoo"><div class="GridItem-buujkM kHPPIF grid--em"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa bDyAMU body body__ntaer article__body" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="body__ner-ntaer"><p class="has-dropp has-dropp__lead-standard-headg">It’s important to say up ont: I n’t claim to approach Henry Louis Gat, Jr.—or Skip, as he’s known—as a subject of objective journalistic quiry. We’ve known each other first as lleagu at <em>The New Yorker</em>, where he wrote the Profil that make up his llectn “<a data-offer-url=" class="external-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Thirteen Ways of Lookg at a Black Man</a>,” and then as iends. Still, I don’t thk requir the prejudice of iendship to believe that Gat, who is now seventy-one, has left a lastg, multiform imprt on the culture.</p><p class="paywall">Gat was born 1950 and grew up Piedmont, Wt Virgia, where his fay has ep roots. His father worked a paper l. Town piics were still segregated but, wh the advent of Brown v. Board of Edutn, the schools were not. After a year at Potomac State College, Gat transferred to Yale, which was startg to open up to a sizable number of Black stunts. In New Haven, he began to explore the pths of Ain Amerin lerature and history. His awakeng did not take place only the classroom and universy meetg hall. Gat was also fascated by the trial of Bobby Seale and other members of the Black Panthers at a urthoe near mp, and joed the stunt strike solidary.</p><p class="paywall">After graduatg om Yale, he went, on a fellowship, to study at the Universy of Cambridge, where his most important mentor was Wole Soyka, the Nigerian playwright, sayist, and novelist. The English faculty at Cambridge did not take Ain lerature serly, acrdg to Gat, relegatg to anthropology. Soyka, who won the Nobel Prize for Lerature, 1986, helped nvce Gat to study Ain and Ain Amerin lerature.</p><p class="paywall">As a lerary cric, Gat ma an impact on the field by helpg to tablish a non of Ain Amerin lerature—one that was neher separatist nor a mere appendage to the tradnal, whe non. In “<a data-offer-url=" class="external-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">The Signifyg Monkey</a>,” he employed the tools of post-stcturalism and semtics to bear on both the vernacular tradn and thors as varied as Zora Neale Hurston and Ishmael Reed. Gat also unearthed and brought forward neteenth-century texts by Ain Amerin thors cludg Harriet E. Wilson (“<a data-offer-url=" class="external-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Our Nig</a>”) and Hannah Crafts (“<a data-offer-url=" class="external-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">The Bondwoman’s Narrative</a>”), and assembled the thirty-volume Schomburg Library of Neteenth-Century Black Women Wrers. Gat is a prodig cultural entreprenr, edg untls anthologi and reference works (cludg “<a data-offer-url=" class="external-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Aina: The Encyclopedia of the Ain and Ain-Amerin Experience</a>”), -foundg the onle publitn the Root, and publishg popular volum about Black culture and history. His book “<a data-offer-url=" class="external-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Colored People</a>,” which explor his fay and upbrgg Wt Virgia, is an important chapter the morn history of Ain Amerin memoirs. A llectn of Hurston’s says, “<a data-offer-url=" class="external-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">You Don’t Know Us Negro</a>,” which Gat -eded wh Genevieve Wt, me out last month; “<a data-offer-url=" class="external-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Who’s Black and Why? A Hidn Chapter om the Eighteenth-Century Inventn of Race</a>,” which he eded wh Andrew S. Curran, out next month.</p><p class="paywall">Perhaps his most important and lastg role has been as a teacher and an stutn builr. Gat arrived at Harvard 1991, and he swiftly reced an extraordary ncentratn of Black scholarship—William Juli Wilson, Cornel Wt, Lawrence D. Bobo, Evelyn Brooks Higgbotham, Suzanne Blier, and others—all while revigoratg the W. E. B. Du Bois Rearch Instute, which is now part of the Hutchs Center. Gat proved a dynamo of both tellectual energy and fund-raisg fse.</p><div><div class="ConsumerMarketgUnThemedWrapper-iUTMTf jssHut nsumer-marketg-un nsumer-marketg-un--article-mid-ntent" role="prentatn" aria-hidn="te"><div class="nsumer-marketg-un__slot nsumer-marketg-un__slot--article-mid-ntent nsumer-marketg-un__slot---ntent"></div><div class="journey-un"></div></div></div><p class="paywall">In recent years, he has been a prolific filmmaker, maly for PBS, puttg out documentary seri on herage (“Fdg Your Roots”) and history (“Renstctn,” “The Black Church,” “Ai’s Great Civilizatns,” and “The Ain Amerins: Many Rivers to Cross”). His book “<a data-offer-url=" class="external-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Stony the Road</a>,” a pann to the seri on Renstctn, creds the rearch of earlier historians, particularly Eric Foner, yet is a superb acunt of the roots of Amerin whe supremacy and stctural racism that afflict the untry to this day. A new film on Frerick Douglass is about to appear.</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-1 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">Gat is married to the Cuban-born historian Marial Iglias Utset; they live Cambridge, Massachetts. On the day of an immense snowstorm, we nnected over Zoom for a few hours and talked about matters past and prent. (We had a subsequent exchange over e-mail.) Our nversatn has been eded for length and clary.</p><p class="paywall"><strong>I’d like to start out by lookg back at your fay and Wt Virgia. You wre about this betifully your memoir “Colored People.” Tell me a ltle about Piedmont, where you grew up.</strong></p><p class="paywall">My fay never moved, om fourth great-grandparents down to me. We lived wh a thirty-e radi eastern Wt Virgia. I have ep roots those mountas. It’s not what you read about textbooks like “<a data-offer-url=" class="external-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">From Slavery to Freedom</a>.” It is not a typil Black experience, but is a real Black experience.</p><p class="paywall">In the year I was born, 1950, I believe there were about two thoand people Piedmont, and jt over three hundred were Black. It was an Irish-Italian paper-l town. And bee my dad worked two jobs— the daytime, at the paper l, and then as a janor at the Chapeake and Potomac Telephone Company—he had the hight e of any Black person Piedmont. We had the nict hoe. Wealth and poverty are always relative. In that ntext, we were the Black upper-middle class. My mother never worked a job outsi the home my lifetime. When she was a girl, she cleaned ho to make extra money. One of the reasons my father worked two jobs was so my mother would never have to work.</p><div class="Contaer-bkChBi byNLHx"></div><p class="paywall"><strong>As I unrstand , your father’s attu toward whe folks town was more easygog than your mom’s.</strong></p><p class="paywall">My mother was very spic of whe people. To help support her fay, by the age of twelve, she was cleang the Thompson hoe. She told this awful story of them plantg a twenty-dollar bill the chns of a sofa, to see what she would do. And she, of urse, returned . But, even at that age, she had figured out that this was a tt, and she eply rented that.</p><p class="paywall"><strong>Brown v. Board of Edutn, the pivotal school-tegratn se, me along when you were a kid.</strong></p><p class="paywall">In 1956, when I started first gra, the schools had tegrated, whout a peep, though big social events, like town piics, were segregated.</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-2 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall"><strong>You scribe the school very posive terms.</strong></p><p class="paywall">I’ve thought about this a lot and I’ve been asked about a lot. But I never once experienced racial discrimatn the classroom. Right before I started the first gra, someone knocked on our door, and was a whe person om the school system. They had tted all the kids enterg our first-gra class. My parents took this whe person to our formal livg room, where nobody ever sat down and all the furnure was vered clear plastic. They were whisperg hhed ton. And then the whe person left.</p><p class="paywall">My parents me out the kchen, where I’d been cloistered, and they sat down and they said, “Skippy, you took that tt a uple weeks ago. And had five hundred qutns, and you got four hundred and eighty-ne qutns right.” That set the tone for the next twelve years of my life. They expected me to be the smartt kid the class. The classroom was my playground. I was one of those kids, those ltle asshol, who hated summer vatn, man!</p></div></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan full-bleed-ad row-mid-ntent-ad"><div class="StickyMidContentAdWrapper-fSBzwl drzyIa ad-stickymidntent"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--mid-ntent should-hold-space"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--mid-ntent" data-no-id="4br9g"></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK eRggVV grid grid-margs grid-ems-0 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bDFJoo"><div class="GridItem-buujkM kHPPIF grid--em"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa bDyAMU body body__ntaer article__body" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="body__ner-ntaer"><p class="paywall">Now, I said I never experienced racial discrimatn the <em>classroom</em>. But don’t even thk about datg a whe girl. We performed danc a lot and operettas every year. But never, ever was a Black boy paired wh a whe girl. What they would do is pair me wh a Black girl my class. And then, when they ran out of boy-girl batns, they would put two Black girls together, or two Black boys together, or a Black boy and a whe boy—that was very darg. But never did Skippy Gat dance wh Brenda Kimmel!</p><p class="paywall"><strong>Why was Yale such a paradise for you?</strong></p><p class="paywall">I entered Yale as a sophomore. I transferred after a year at Potomac State College, Keyser, Wt Virgia. In the summer, I was workg the offic at the paper l. The phone rgs and the secretary says, “It’s for you.” It was an admissns officer sayg the admissns mtee had jt met, and “I’m pleased that you are gog to be a member of the sophomore class.” Oh, man, that was one of the happit days of my life. I walked down to the platform where my father was workg jt to tell him, and he was very happy. Then he said, “Who’s gog to pay for that? I said, “They’re gog to give me a scholarship, Daddy. It’s gog to be O.K.”</p><p class="paywall">Then my father told me, “Now, boy, I’m gog to give you some advice.” He said, “Don’t go up there Jim Crow-g yourself.” By this time, we were readg about Black tabl wh the nascent affirmative-actn groups of Black kids who were tegratg the historilly whe Ivy League and universi. He said, “Don’t go up there stg at somethg lled a Black table. Don’t go up there gettg Black roommat. Get yourself some whe roommat.” He said Jewish people been good to our people, and he said, “Get to know some Jewish people. Maybe they’ll help you your reer.” He knew that Jewish people had been volved wh the foundg of the N.A.A.C.P. and that they had been supporters of the movement. And he said, “For Christ’s sake, don’t go up there studyg Black studi. Your ass has been Black for eighteen years, and I a’t payg for that.” He said, “You gotta be a doctor”—that was always the plan. I got there and I went to my assigned room, Calhoun College, and was a quad and the other three guys were Black. I’d already fied my father.</p><p class="paywall"><strong>I wonr how that happened.</strong></p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-3 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">Yale thought that I would want to be wh other Black kids. And turned out I loved the guys and they tght me so much. And they weled me really warmly until about six weeks later, when they threw me out. There were only three bedrooms and four of and they had girliends. And so Friday and Saturday night I’d be sleepg on the floor, and they said, “Look, this is untenable. You need to leave.”</p><p class="paywall">Anyway, when I went to my first meetg of the B.S.A.Y., the Black Stunt Alliance at Yale, was terrifyg, bee all I wanted to do was to be Black—I didn’t want to be thought of as some Uncle Tom—but I didn’t know what the disurse of Blackns might be. I started readg Black books. I <em>ate</em> Black books. I graduated as a history major, but I fell love wh Ao-Amerin studi.</p><p class="paywall">Now, when I arrived, 1969, Yale had admted nety-six Black kids that hman class, the largt group of Black kids had admted one year the history of Yale. So, when I went to the anizatnal meetg of the B.S.A.Y., looked like Ai to me. It was like beg engulfed a blanket of Blackns.</p><p class="paywall"><strong>You’ve said that affirmative actn was sential.</strong></p><p class="paywall">Well, there were maybe a half-dozen Black kids who graduated om Yale the class of 1966. Their fathers would have been doctors, lawyers. I would venture that those kids, one way or another, had an avenue bee of their éle stat wh the Black muny and their proximy to an éle-stat person the whe muny who uld broker their way, through a prep school or whatever. Exeter always had Black kids. Senator Bce, one of the two Renstctn senators, sent his son to Exeter, who then went to Harvard and excelled. There was a long tradn of the Black éle beg ted at Harvard after 1870, and at schools like Exeter. But, g om Piedmont, I would not have been able to plug to one of those flows of accs and elevatn. It was possible bee of affirmative actn.</p><p class="paywall"><strong>After Yale, you went to the U.K., to Cambridge, on a fellowship. What was that like?</strong></p><p class="paywall">I had so many battl wh the English faculty. I wanted to wre about Ain Amerin lerature and Ain lerature. I was studyg wh Wole Soyka. We promised and I wrote about what we now ll the disurse of race and reason the eighteenth-century English lerary text. What did mean? What was the stat of the Ain the great cha of beg? What did the productn of lerature mean about the Ain’s place that cha of beg? Et cetera, et cetera. It’s the primal scene of stctn for unrstandg the history of anti-Black racism the Wt, which starts the Enlightenment.</p></div></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan full-bleed-ad row-mid-ntent-ad"><div class="StickyMidContentAdWrapper-fSBzwl drzyIa ad-stickymidntent"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--mid-ntent should-hold-space"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--mid-ntent" data-no-id="jnly0l"></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK eRggVV grid grid-margs grid-ems-0 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bDFJoo"><div class="GridItem-buujkM kHPPIF grid--em"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa bDyAMU body body__ntaer article__body" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="body__ner-ntaer"><p class="paywall"><strong>It seems the English faculty there looked at Ain lerature as if were folklore.</strong></p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-4 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">They refed to give Wole Soyka an appotment bee they said Ain lerature wasn’t lerature. It was soclogy, was anthropology. Thirteen years after I studied wh him, he got the Nobel Prize Lerature!</p><p class="paywall">There were two other Black kids at Clare College. One of them was an unrgraduate his send year studyg philosophy, Kwame Anthony Appiah. We beme fast iends and we’ve been iends for almost fifty years. He and Soyka took me to dner after we’d jt known one another for a few weeks. They said, Look, we brought you here for a reason. You are not gog to be a medil doctor. You are meant to be a profsor and you’re gog to do Ain and Ain Amerin studi. And I sat there and I cried at that table, bee I realized at that pot that they had named somethg that I eply wanted to do.</p><p class="paywall">Cambridge pneered “practil cricism,” or a versn of formalism the analysis of lerature. It was about learng to analyze a text not for s ntent, not for s them—as we would history class—but for s form. Form was ntent. At Cambridge, I was learng a whole method that I didn’t even know existed before. And I thought was magil once I learned how to do .</p><p class="paywall">At the same time, I was studyg wh Soyka, right? I thought, Wow, I uld do this wh Black lerature. To vert a phrase of Audre Lor’s, I uld e the master’s tools to dismantle the master’s hoe. I uld e a nservative methodology to prove to them that Wole Soyka served to be the English partment, that my people’s tradns served to be studied one of the world’s olst and greatt English partments. To paraphrase Jse Jackson, I beme a non-maker, not a non-breaker.</p><p class="paywall"><strong>More recently, you’ve bee immersed historil studi, particularly Renstctn.</strong></p><p class="paywall">The rise and fall of Renstctn is the key to unrstandg how we uld have our first Black Princy and then have be followed by an alt-right rollback and the clown of clowns, Donald Tmp. Renstctn was a time when Black people enjoyed an enormo expansn rights, wh the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments, and later wh the Civil Rights Act of 1875. The summer of 1867 was the first Freedom Summer. Black men the South got the right to vote before Black men the North. And, 1868, they voted. Ulyss S. Grant only won the popular vote by jt over three hundred thoand vot. A half ln Black men no doubt voted for Ulyss S. Grant. Black men had elected a Print.</p><p class="paywall">Black power was the vote. And, you know, they took away, bee, until 1910, nety per cent of all Black people lived the former Conferacy. South Carola, Mississippi, and Louisiana were majory-Black stat. Geia, Alabama, and Florida were close to . This was a huge ncentratn of power, and the fear was that Black people would domate the polics of those stat and eventually their enomic relatns. It never was a kewalk to the votg booth, of urse. Wh the rise rights me the rise whe-supremacist terrorist tactics, leadg to the Mississippi Plan of 1875 and then the new Mississippi state nstutn of 1890, which is the urtext of voter supprsn. Whout g the word “Negro,” “Colored,” or “Black,” the new state nstutnal nventn had an article that stuted procr to disenanchise Black people. The Mississippi Plan spread to other Southern stat. You want to know how effective was? In 1898, there were one hundred and thirty thoand Black men registered to vote Louisiana. By 1904, after Louisiana had adopted s anti-Black state nstutn, the wake of the Mississippi Plan, that number had been rced to thirteen hundred and forty-two.</p><p class="paywall">What those Renstctn amendments granted was stripped away through sharecroppg, vagrancy laws, peonage, and disenanchisement, which is why what we’re seeg happeng so many Republin legislatur today should terrify anyone who lov the prcipl upon which our great untry was found.</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-5 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall"><strong>In the send of the twenty-first century— the transn between Obama and Tmp—what are the historil forc that have given this prent-day bifurted Ameri?</strong></p><p class="paywall">If “the arc of the moral universe bends toward jtice,” the arc of the enomic universe Ameri has bent toward equaly. When I was growg up Piedmont the fifti, whe people wanted their kids to go to llege. In the wake of World War Two and the G.I. Bill, they were able to own hom. Some went to llege, but most went to work the paper l. You’d start the labor pool, then you’d get the craft unns. Then the craft unns the late sixti beme more tegrated. But your kids would do better than you. You had an expectatn that your children and your grandchildren would do better. And all that changed.</p><p class="paywall"><strong>John F. Kennedy won Wt Virgia, where you grew up. But then Donald Tmp won Wt Virgia by forty pots.</strong></p><p class="paywall">The reason John Kennedy beme Print is that he feated Hubert Humphrey the Wt Virgia primary. In 1960, a heavily Prottant state voted for a Roman Catholic and proved that he was electable. But now look at what happened to the curve of expectatns Wt Virgia. I love Wt Virgia, but people beme sred enomilly. No longer uld they believe that their children and their grandchildren were gog to do better than they had. And that’s when you’re open to magogu. You know, I had iends om high school who told me, “Skippy, that Barack? Nah, I n’t go there.”</p></div></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan full-bleed-ad row-mid-ntent-ad"><div class="StickyMidContentAdWrapper-fSBzwl drzyIa ad-stickymidntent"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--mid-ntent should-hold-space"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--mid-ntent" data-no-id="20lpw8"></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK eRggVV grid grid-margs grid-ems-0 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bDFJoo"><div class="GridItem-buujkM kHPPIF grid--em"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa bDyAMU body body__ntaer article__body" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="body__ner-ntaer"><p class="paywall"><strong>When you look at the Obama Princy, what legacy do leave?</strong></p><p class="paywall">My wife and I were watchg “Rpect,” the feature about Aretha Frankl, and durg the creds we see her at the Kennedy Center Honors for Carole Kg, sgg “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman.” It’s one of the great performanc, and Barack and Michelle are up the balny. I looked at them, and I thought, It’s a miracle what they were able to achieve—for him to w, first of all. And then the way they ported themselv such a regal manner: was Black Camelot. It was a great moment the history of mocracy and a great moment for the race, as my parents would say. I was very proud of him.</p><p class="paywall">But I knew that there would be phback. There’s a lot of nfn, particularly now about bat about the Constutn the wake of the 1619 Project. It was que mon to be anti-slavery <em>and</em> to be anti-Black. This disurse predat the foundg of the Republic. You know, go back to the <em>philosoph</em> the Enlightenment, even some of whom blsedly were anti-slavery, like Montqui and Voltaire. But they wrote really racist thgs on ocsn about people of Ain scent.</p><p class="paywall">And then you were seeg the alt-right efforts at rollback. Barack and Michelle Obama’s prence, that betiful fay the Whe Hoe, unleashed mons that had been lurkg jt beneath the surface of Amerin society, mons whose anctry go back to the begngs of the Republic and even beyond.</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-6 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">For all the people who were happy and who cried and thought this was the greatt moment the history of the Republic, there were a lot of people—some of whom showed up a year ago, on January 6th, at the Capol—who thought this was a nightmare. It is a long tradn and ’s a legacy of the rollback to Renstctn.</p><p class="paywall">Gog back to Wt Virgia, the reason people uldn’t go wh Barack is bee they saw no hope for their kids and grandkids. The enomy had fallen apart. And, when you have no hope, you start to hate people. You look for people you n spegoat. And there was the metaphor—the end rult of affirmative actn for them is Barack and Michelle occupyg the Whe Hoe. And the only way to addrs this sort of rentment is to assuage the fears of people who are aaid for their enomic future. Bee, as Eldridge Cleaver once said to me, the enomy is where the bber hs the road for everybody. When people believe that they have no hope, that’s when thgs get nasty. That’s when evil manifts self.</p><p class="paywall"><strong>The summer before last was the Gee Floyd moment and the trial that me after . How do that figure to this narrative of recent history? Do give you any hope that that there’s a way out?</strong></p><p class="paywall">The Gee Floyd moment was sui generis. There was a peculiar nfluence of factors, cludg people beg forced to shelter place. All of a sudn, kids had an exce to get out, and they uld do so ethilly. They uld leave their parents’ hom, where they had been cloistered. And then the ne-mute vio brought the murr of another human beg so graphilly, dramatilly to our livg rooms, to our nsc. Amerins are good people. This clearly was a crime. This clearly was an jtice, the ultimate rult of racism.</p><p class="paywall">So all those factors together led to the biggt rally for Black rights and agast racism our natn’s history. The March on Washgton was a Sunday-school piic pared wh the cumulative numbers who h the streets for Black Liv Matter. It was an amazg event Amerin history. But did have legs? What are s legaci?</p><p class="paywall"><strong>That’s what I’m askg.</strong></p><p class="paywall">Well, I’m on several boards of directors of not-for-profs, and each of those stutns has searched s soul for s own history of racism. And many of our board of directors’ meetgs start—like many events at Harvard and other universi—wh a very movg acknowledgement of the Native Amerin anctors on whose lands we stand. So certa symbolic forms have ensued which we nont the legaci of anti-Black racism. The thgs are enormoly important. They’re necsary but they’re not sufficient, bee ultimately the roots of racism n be traced to enomic fear and anxiety. That is the e. When we had an expandg enomy unr Lyndon Johnson, when we had guns and butter, that’s when affirmative actn was vented. That’s when the Civil Rights Act of ’64 was enacted. You uld be genero when you had enough money the bank. When there was a pie and only one piece is left? Well, I might like you, but I don’t like you enough to give you that last piece of pie.</p><p class="paywall"><strong>In Julian Lus’s <a href=">Profile of Ishmael Reed</a>, Reed lls the recent current of anti-racism life-achg books “the new yoga.”</strong></p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-7 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">Well, Ishmael, makg that statement, fulfills his obligatn as a satirist, as a gadfly, as the urt jter. That’s the role he’s supposed to play. He always tablish the edge of crique. I would fd myself somewhere the middle, sayg, aga, that the are necsary gtur but not sufficient on. This is the veneer of racism. We have to get to s substctur. What are s ultimate ?</p></div></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan full-bleed-ad row-mid-ntent-ad"><div class="StickyMidContentAdWrapper-fSBzwl drzyIa ad-stickymidntent"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--mid-ntent should-hold-space"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--mid-ntent" data-no-id="05m1e"></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK eRggVV grid grid-margs grid-ems-0 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bDFJoo"><div class="GridItem-buujkM kHPPIF grid--em"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa bDyAMU body body__ntaer article__body" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="body__ner-ntaer"><p class="paywall">People aren’t born racist. I grew up among the people. There are seven women om Piedmont I’ve known sce that first day of first gra Piedmont. They vis me and my wife every summer on Martha’s Veyard. They stay four days. Six of those women are whe. They told me the summer before the general electn that Donald Tmp was gog to w. And, implicly, they were sayg, “We’re gog to vote for Donald Tmp.” Not all of them, but a lot of them, as turned out, voted for Donald Tmp. Now they stay at my hoe. We eat out of the same pot. They love me and I love them.</p><p class="paywall"><strong>But didn’t surprise you. It didn’t eak you out.</strong></p><p class="paywall">No. In fact, I gave a talk on the Veyard that summer and told an dience filled wh the lerati and the amics who have hom there, “You guys got to be reful, bee my iends om Piedmont jt told me that Donald Tmp is gog to w. People are aaid, and Democrats have to speak to the fears. You n’t ll the people of Wt Virgia a bunch of bigoted racists. That jt mak them more right-wg. You n’t engage name-llg. You have to speak to their fears.” And that’s somethg we haven’t done sufficiently.</p><p class="paywall"><strong>Earlier, passg, you mentned the <em>Tim’s</em> 1619 Project. What do you thk of the crique of om var historians?</strong></p><p class="paywall">When I read the phback by the five historians, I found their tone mockg and srnful. I try not to engage that kd of tellectual exchange. I keep on my reigerator a quote om Anthony Appiah’s Ethicist lumn, where he says, “Democracy falters not when we disagree about thgs but when we lose tert tryg to make sense of the other person’s pot of view and tryg to persua that person of the mers of our own.”</p><p class="paywall">Now, I told Nikole Hannah-Jon that one thg I learned as an unrgraduate om the great historian John Morton Blum, and then began to practice as a graduate stunt, is that if you’ve got a mancript send to people who are gog to be cril of before ’s published, bee you actually learn somethg om their crique. But by that pot she’d already felt attacked and meaned.</p><p class="paywall">And there is a long tradn of sentially accg Black people of not beg smart enough by nature. And unwtgly­­—I want to state this refully—<em>unwtgly</em>, the tone of the crique partak, to me, of that disurse. I know most of the historians, and they don’t have a racist bone their body, but you n advertently partake of a stcture that’s hered a larger disurse. It’s one thg to say, “I disagree wh your this that the Revolutn was signifintly fuelled by a sire of some people to protect the stutn of slavery.” We n have a semar about that. I n ask half the class to take the pro and the other half to take the n, and then we uld e to a reasonable opn about the matter. The issu are enormoly plited, so crique is good. But nscensn is bad, particularly across the lor le and particularly at this moment the history of race relatns.</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-8 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall"><strong>You speak of the enomy. I was watchg an terview wh you which was nducted Wt Virgia. And you were asked about your polics, and you said, “Look, I’m left of center on issu about race, social jtice, and many more thgs. When to enomics, not so much—I’m much more nservative on that.” What did you mean?</strong></p><p class="paywall">I mean that I’m not a Marxist, not a socialist. I thk that a humane form of palism is one of the bt systems of advancement and realizatn of nate potential the enomic life of an average person ever practiced the history of the world. That’s what I meant. Entreprenrship is part of my DNA, and over all the Ain Amerin people were overwhelmgly pro-palist and entreprenrial. Look at the olst stutn the history of Ao-Ameri, the church, which was the birthplace of Black palism. Whout Black palism, there wouldn’t be a church. They weren’t gettg money om rich whe people— was llected om the members. They were stutns created by Black people and fund by Black people munally.</p><p class="paywall"><strong>How do that pot of view go over the classroom?</strong></p><p class="paywall">My stunts know they don’t have to repeat the gospel acrdg to Gat. They know they n le up and take potshots at me all day long, which is great. But I n’t thk of a society where racism has disappeared bee of socialism. I know a lot about Cuba now: I ma a film about Cuba, I wrote a history about race Lat Ameri, and I met my wife, who is a very proment Cuban historian, Cuba. Never has there been a leftist society that has oblerated racism. In fact, I thk Cuba is one of the most racist plac that I’ve been, owg to the fact that they pretend not to have any racism bee they pretend not to have rac.</p><p class="paywall">The problems of race and racism n only be solved enomilly. That is my argument. Only if people don’t feel threatened by my succs and n hope for a future wh our system where there’s enomic improvement for the subsequent generatns of their fay n we beg to addrs anti-Black racism. It go back to the Benjams— always has been about the money. What’s slavery? Slavery’s a fn of race and class one humanized enty. It’s one of the worst experienc the history of the human muny. And there have been many siar attempts to do jt that other untri and at many tim. But the movement of twelve and a half ln Ains across the Atlantic such a short perd, the va attempt to turn human begs to property, is a legacy that we have to live wh. The key word that sentence is “property.”</p></div></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan full-bleed-ad row-mid-ntent-ad"><div class="StickyMidContentAdWrapper-fSBzwl drzyIa ad-stickymidntent"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--mid-ntent should-hold-space"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--mid-ntent" data-no-id="lqwj5e"></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK eRggVV grid grid-margs grid-ems-0 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bDFJoo"><div class="GridItem-buujkM kHPPIF grid--em"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa bDyAMU body body__ntaer article__body" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="body__ner-ntaer"><p class="paywall"><strong>The other week, thirty-eight Harvard faculty members, cludg you, signed a letter qutng whether the anthropologist John L. Comaroff was beg fairly punished for allegedly vlatg the universy’s sexual- and profsnal-nduct polici. Days later, the people who signed the letter largely whdrew their support om , bee, as they said, they had not known the full story of what had been alleged about Comaroff. Michelle Goldberg, wrg the <em>Tim</em>, said the origal letter reflected an anxiety about “#MeToo overreach, stunt hypersensivy and mp kangaroo urts.” What’s your reactn to what happened?</strong></p><p class="paywall">That statement was heavily cricized—cludg by some ar iends—and rightly so. Which is why almost everyone who signed , cludg the two women who, wh all good tentns, wrote the letter, rented. I feel eply apologetic about . First, ’s a failure of scholarship to agree to be a signatory when you don’t know all the facts. I was horrified to disver that the letter I was asked to sign gave an extremely selective acunt of the charg. But, more important, we were, however unwtgly, lettg down our entire muny. Y, due procs is sential. But everybody, whether a stunt, a staff member, or a faculty member, needs to feel that, whenever ’s lled for, they n safely and fortably speak out and file a plat and be taken serly.</p><p class="paywall"><strong>At the same time, there is a lot of talk about so-lled woke culture fortallg open bate and discsn the classroom and on mp. Do you fd that thgs have changed that sense?</strong></p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-9 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">I -teach the troductory urse Ain Amerin studi, a fairly large lecture urse nstcted around the bat which Black people have engaged one another—and whe tractors—sce the eighteenth century. One pot of the class is to monstrate that there never has been one way to be Black, and that today’s polilly rrect posn n soon bee tomorrow’s disrd, “retrogra” posn. The urse is signed as a crique of any ia that the Black muny is not as diverse opn and makp as any other group of people. We’ve always had a left, a right, and a center. I end my fal lecture by sayg that if there is one thg I hope that the stunts remember om our class is this: there are forty-two ln Black Amerins, and therefore there are forty-two ln ways to be Black Ameri.</p><p class="paywall"><strong>Amid the Gee Floyd monstratns, we saw var stutns and rporatns try earntly to get on the right si of thgs by issug readg lists. I thk I’d rather get a readg list om you. If I were to ask you to remend ten works of fictn and ten works of nonfictn to a cizen wantg to get a handle on the non that you’ve worked so hard to refe and supplement, what would those works be?</strong></p><p class="paywall">Glad you asked!</p><p class="paywall">Fictn:</p><p class="paywall">1. “<a data-offer-url=" class="external-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">The Conjure Woman</a>,” by Charl W. Chnutt</p><p class="paywall">2. “<a data-offer-url=" class="external-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">The Autobgraphy of an Ex-Colored Man</a>,” by Jam Weldon Johnson</p><p class="paywall">3. “<a data-offer-url=" class="external-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Cane</a>,” by Jean Toomer</p><p class="paywall">4. “<a data-offer-url=" class="external-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Their Ey Were Watchg God</a>,” by Zora Neale Hurston</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-10 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">5. “<a data-offer-url=" class="external-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Native Son</a>,” by Richard Wright</p><p class="paywall">6. “<a data-offer-url=" class="external-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Invisible Man</a>,” by Ralph Ellison</p><p class="paywall">7. “<a data-offer-url=" class="external-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Mumbo Jumbo</a>,” by Ishmael Reed</p><p class="paywall">8. “<a data-offer-url=" class="external-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">The Color Purple</a>,” by Alice Walker</p><p class="paywall">9. “<a data-offer-url=" class="external-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">The Blut Eye</a>,” by Toni Morrison (or “<a data-offer-url=" class="external-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Sula</a>,” “<a data-offer-url=" class="external-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Song of Solomon</a>,” or “<a data-offer-url=" class="external-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Jazz</a>”)</p><p class="paywall">10. “<a data-offer-url=" class="external-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">At the Bottom of the River</a>,” by Jamai Kid</p><p class="paywall">Nonfictn:</p><p class="paywall">1. “<a data-offer-url=" class="external-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Narrative of the Life of Frerick Douglass, an Amerin Slave, Wrten by Himself</a>,” by Frerick Douglass</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-11 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">2. “<a data-offer-url=" class="external-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">A Voice om the South</a>,” by Anna Julia Cooper</p><p class="paywall">3. “<a data-offer-url=" class="external-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">The Souls of Black Folk</a>,” by W. E. B. Du Bois</p><p class="paywall">4. “<a data-offer-url=" class="external-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Black Sk, Whe Masks</a>,” by Frantz Fanon</p><p class="paywall">5. “<a data-offer-url=" class="external-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Not of a Native Son</a>,” by Jam Baldw</p><p class="paywall">6. “<a data-offer-url=" class="external-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">The Autobgraphy of Mallm X</a>,” by Mallm X and Alex Haley</p><p class="paywall">7. “<a data-offer-url=" class="external-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">I Know Why the Caged Bird Sgs</a>,” by Maya Angelou</p><p class="paywall">8. “<a data-offer-url=" class="external-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Angela Davis: An Autobgraphy</a>,” by Angela Y. Davis</p><p class="paywall">9. “<a data-offer-url=" class="external-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Playg the Dark</a>,” by Toni Morrison</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-12 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">10. “<a data-offer-url=" class="external-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">In My Father’s Hoe</a>,” by Kwame Anthony Appiah</p><p class="paywall">For reference:</p><p class="paywall">1. “<a data-offer-url=" class="external-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">From Slavery to Freedom</a>” (nth edn or later), by John Hope Frankl and Evelyn Brooks Higgbotham</p><p class="paywall">2. “<a data-offer-url=" class="external-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">The Betrayal of the Negro: From Rutherford B. Hay to Woodrow Wilson</a>,” by Rayford W. Logan</p><p class="paywall">3. “<a data-offer-url=" class="external-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Renstctn: Ameri’s Unfished Revolutn, 1863–1877</a>,” by Eric Foner</p><p class="paywall">4. “<a data-offer-url=" class="external-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">The Hemgs of Monticello: An Amerin Fay</a>,” by Ante Gordon-Reed</p><p class="paywall"><strong>Fally, Skip, what do you yearn to acplish? What’s left to do?</strong></p><p class="paywall">In one of the most betiful—of so many—passag that he wrote, W. E. B. Du Bois ptured the wonr of the Black experience the New World. He said, “The most magnificent drama the last thoand years of human history is the transportatn of ten ln human begs out of the dark bety of their mother ntent to the new-found Eldorado of the Wt. They scend to Hell; and the third century they arose om the ad, the ft effort to achieve mocracy for the workg lns which this world had ever seen. It was a tragedy that beggared the Greek; was an upheaval of humany like the Reformatn and the French Revolutn.”</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-13 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">It is this story that I am termed to tell, all of s plexi and nuanc, through wrg, lecturg and, more recently, documentary filmmakg. My mother thought that I was born to be a doctor. But, early on, I realized that I had a boundls fascatn wh the stori that nstute Black history, on both sis of the Atlantic. Jam Baldw admonished his rears, “Work: for the night is g,” riffg on a passage om the New Ttament, John 9:4: “I mt work the works of him that sent me, while is day: the night eth, when no man n work.” So many more stori about this “most magnificent drama” rema to be told, hence we mt make efficient e of the time we are given, leavg a legacy upon which other storytellers n build. This is what floats my boat.</p></div></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK eRggVV grid grid-margs grid-ems-0 PaywallInleBarrierWhWrapperGrid-fyrGfS jyGBoi"><div class="GridItem-buujkM kHPPIF grid--em"><div class="body body__le-barrier article__body article__body--grid-margs"><div class="ntaer ntaer--body"><div class="ntaer--body-ner"><asi class="PaywallInleBarrierWrapper-iBnuqk lfXXa-D" data-ttid="PaywallInleBarrierWrapper"><div class="ConsumerMarketgUnThemedWrapper-iUTMTf jssHut nsumer-marketg-un nsumer-marketg-un--paywall-le-barrier" role="prentatn" aria-live="pole" aria-hidn="te"><div class="nsumer-marketg-un__slot nsumer-marketg-un__slot--paywall-le-barrier"></div><div class="journey-un"></div></div></asi></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK eRggVV grid grid-margs grid-ems-0 ContentWrapperGrid-fvkmBv jfHKjr"><div class="GridItem-buujkM kHPPIF grid--em"><div class="body body__ntaer"><div class="ntaer ntaer--body"><div class="ntaer--body-ner"></div></div></div></div></div></div></article><div class="ContentFooterWrapper-jVNdRG bGJnrW ArticlePageContentFooterGrid-ccsXYy fzwwkW article-body__footer"><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan"><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK eRggVV grid grid-margs grid-ems-0"><div class="GridItem-buujkM kHPPIF grid--em"><div class="LkStackWrapper-NFLYw kgtXXB lkstack" data-ttid="LkStack"><div class="SectnTleRoot-dBGvdq kjAxEG LkStackHear-lKjbE hejl lk-stack--headg" data-ttid="SectnTle"><h2 class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ SectnTleHed-dKqZet dxqEAa dqtvfu jttyjJ">More New Yorker Interviews</h2></div><div class="LkStackContent-jyKicS gPhyME"><ul class="LkStackList-gGcjdZ dnMwpz"><li class="LkStackBullet-kQRqul iQHwiG lk-stack--lk-em" data-ttid="LkStackBullet"><div><p>Dean Baquet on <a href="/news/the-new-yorker-terview/an-baquet-never-wanted-to-be-an-edor" class="InternalLkEmbedWrapper-fhjgJW cQLtaa">his tenure as the Tim’ executive edor</a>, and the state of journalism.</p></div></li><li class="LkStackBullet-kQRqul iQHwiG lk-stack--lk-em" data-ttid="LkStackBullet"><div><p>Alexandria Os-Cortez on <a href="/culture/the-new-yorker-terview/is-alexandria-os-rtez-an-sir-now" class="InternalLkEmbedWrapper-fhjgJW cQLtaa">the “sh show” Congrs</a>—and her visn for how to change .</p></div></li><li class="LkStackBullet-kQRqul iQHwiG lk-stack--lk-em" data-ttid="LkStackBullet"><div><p>M J Lee on her arrival Ameri and <a href="/culture/the-new-yorker-terview/what-m-j-lee-wants--to-see" class="InternalLkEmbedWrapper-fhjgJW cQLtaa">why she reads the Bible before wrg</a>.</p></div></li><li class="LkStackBullet-kQRqul iQHwiG lk-stack--lk-em" data-ttid="LkStackBullet"><div><p>David Hockney shows off <a href="/culture/the-new-yorker-terview/a-tour-of-david-hockneys-newt-patg-seri" class="InternalLkEmbedWrapper-fhjgJW cQLtaa">a new seri of patgs</a> and discs the work he has left to do.</p></div></li><li class="LkStackBullet-kQRqul iQHwiG lk-stack--lk-em" data-ttid="LkStackBullet"><div><p>Stevie Nicks talks about style, spirs, and <a href="/culture/the-new-yorker-terview/stevie-nicks-tavi-gevson-nversatn" class="InternalLkEmbedWrapper-fhjgJW cQLtaa">wrg one of her bt songs</a>.</p></div></li><li class="LkStackBullet-kQRqul iQHwiG lk-stack--lk-em" data-ttid="LkStackBullet"><div><p>Patricia Lockwood discs her “<a href="/culture/the-new-yorker-terview/patricia-lockwood-has-always-sound-this-way" class="InternalLkEmbedWrapper-fhjgJW cQLtaa">atroc” early wrg</a> and how gettg <em class="small">COVID</em> rewired her bra.</p></div></li></ul><div class="LkStackFooter-KfRyO ebnmps lk-stack--footer"><div><p><a href=">Sign up for our daily newsletter</a> to receive the bt stori om <em>The New Yorker</em>.</p><p>Support award-wng journalism and get a ee tote bag. <a href=">Subscribe today</a>.</p></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan"><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK eRggVV grid grid-margs grid-ems-0"><div class="GridItem-buujkM kHPPIF grid--em"><div class="ContributorsWrapper-eNpWFu GWFsc ntributors" data-ttid="Contributors"><div class="ContributorBWrapper-bnVHbt gMon"><div class="ContributorBAvatar-bIGTqf eMWbvj"><a href="/ntributors/david-remnick"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW jvZaPI rponsive-asset"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa rponsive-image"><source media="(max-width: 767px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w" siz="100vw"/><source media="(m-width: 768px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w" siz="100vw"/><img alt="" class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src="></picture></span></a></div><div class="ContributorBContent-ubQdr jZTSSi"><div class="ContributorBHear-ledood XOIEx"></div><div class="ContributorBB-fBolsO giFhKz"><a href="/ntributors/david-remnick">David Remnick</a> has been the edor of The New Yorker sce 1998 and a staff wrer sce 1992. 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summary-em__image-lk summary-em-trackg__image-lk" href="/magaze/2008/12/01/fay-matters-henry-louis-gat" aria-hidn="te" tabx="-1" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-image-1" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" target="_self"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB rponsive-asset SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-em__image"><div data-tt="aspect-rat-ntaer" class="AspectRatContaer-bJHpJz jMoLpX"><div class="aspect-rat--overlay-ntaer"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-em__image rponsive-image"><noscript><source media="(max-width: 767px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w" siz="100vw"/><source media="(m-width: 768px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w" siz="100vw"/><img alt="Fay Matters" class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src="></noscript></picture></div></div></span></a></div><div class="SummaryItemContent-eiDYMl ldWYvC summary-em__ntent"><div class="RubricWrapper-dKmCNX kImuKS bric bric--disvery SummaryItemRubric-dguGKN fYiFyD summary-em__bric"><span class="RubricName-fVtemz cLxcNi">Personal History</span></div><a class="SummaryItemHedLk-civM cZPaWG summary-em-trackg__hed-lk summary-em__hed-lk" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-hed-1" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" href="/magaze/2008/12/01/fay-matters-henry-louis-gat" target="_self"><div class="SummaryItemHedBase-hiFYpQ iIjKeM summary-em__hed" data-ttid="SummaryItemHed">Fay Matters</div></a><div class="SummaryItemAssetContaer-gwhFFH VOyg summary-em__asset-ntaer"><a class="SummaryItemImageLk-dshqxb USLvL summary-em__image-lk summary-em-trackg__image-lk" href="/magaze/2008/12/01/fay-matters-henry-louis-gat" aria-hidn="te" tabx="-1" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-image-1" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" target="_self"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB rponsive-asset SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-em__image"><div data-tt="aspect-rat-ntaer" class="AspectRatContaer-bJHpJz jMoLpX"><div class="aspect-rat--overlay-ntaer"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-em__image rponsive-image"><noscript><source media="(max-width: 767px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w" siz="100vw"/><source media="(m-width: 768px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w" siz="100vw"/><img alt="Fay Matters" class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src="></noscript></picture></div></div></span></a></div><div class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ SummaryItemDek-CRfsi iUEiRd jxOIpm cPtisA summary-em__k">When science clash wh anctral lore.</div><div class="SummaryItemByleWrapper-boCfbi hYsZi summary-em__byle-date-in"><div class="SummaryItemBaseByle-fFbXkY cgDBtc summary-em__byle"><div class="summary-em__byle__ntent"><div data-ttid="BylWrapper" class="BylWrapper-KIudk irTIfE byl"><p class="ByleWrapper-jWHrLH dSEWiO byle byl__byle" data-ttid="ByleWrapper" emProp="thor" emType="><span emProp="name" class="ByleNamWrapper-jbHncj fuDQVo"><span data-ttid="ByleName" class="ByleName-kwmrLn cYaBaU byle__name"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ BylePreamble-iJolpQ iUEiRd jslZfG gnILss byle__preamble">By </span>Henry Louis Gat, Jr.</span></span></p></div></div></div></div></div></div><div class="SummaryItemWrapper-iwvBff hlYhBH summary-em summary-em--article summary-em--no-in summary-em--text-align-left summary-em--layout-placement-text-below-sktop-only summary-em--layout-posn-image-right summary-em--layout-proportns-33-66 summary-em--si-by-si-align-center summary-em--si-by-si-image-right-mobile-false summary-em--standard SummaryCollectnGridSummaryItem-WColm fvDIAb" role="button" tabx="0"><div class="SummaryItemAssetContaer-gwhFFH VOyg summary-em__asset-ntaer"><a class="SummaryItemImageLk-dshqxb USLvL summary-em__image-lk summary-em-trackg__image-lk" href="/magaze/1996/06/17/whe-like-me" aria-hidn="te" tabx="-1" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-image-2" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" target="_self"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB rponsive-asset SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-em__image"><div data-tt="aspect-rat-ntaer" class="AspectRatContaer-bJHpJz jMoLpX"><div class="aspect-rat--overlay-ntaer"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-em__image rponsive-image"><noscript><source media="(max-width: 767px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w" siz="100vw"/><source media="(m-width: 768px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w" siz="100vw"/><img alt="Whe Like Me" class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src="></noscript></picture></div></div></span></a></div><div class="SummaryItemContent-eiDYMl ldWYvC summary-em__ntent"><div class="RubricWrapper-dKmCNX kImuKS bric bric--disvery SummaryItemRubric-dguGKN fYiFyD summary-em__bric"><span class="RubricName-fVtemz cLxcNi">Life and Letters</span></div><a class="SummaryItemHedLk-civM cZPaWG summary-em-trackg__hed-lk summary-em__hed-lk" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-hed-2" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" href="/magaze/1996/06/17/whe-like-me" target="_self"><div class="SummaryItemHedBase-hiFYpQ iIjKeM summary-em__hed" data-ttid="SummaryItemHed">Whe Like Me</div></a><div class="SummaryItemAssetContaer-gwhFFH VOyg summary-em__asset-ntaer"><a class="SummaryItemImageLk-dshqxb USLvL summary-em__image-lk summary-em-trackg__image-lk" href="/magaze/1996/06/17/whe-like-me" aria-hidn="te" tabx="-1" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-image-2" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" target="_self"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB rponsive-asset SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-em__image"><div data-tt="aspect-rat-ntaer" class="AspectRatContaer-bJHpJz jMoLpX"><div class="aspect-rat--overlay-ntaer"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-em__image rponsive-image"><noscript><source media="(max-width: 767px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w" siz="100vw"/><source media="(m-width: 768px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w" siz="100vw"/><img alt="Whe Like Me" class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src="></noscript></picture></div></div></span></a></div><div class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ SummaryItemDek-CRfsi iUEiRd jxOIpm cPtisA summary-em__k">Anatole Broyard wanted to be a wrer, not a black wrer. So he chose to live a lie rather than be trapped by the tth.</div><div class="SummaryItemByleWrapper-boCfbi hYsZi summary-em__byle-date-in"><div class="SummaryItemBaseByle-fFbXkY cgDBtc summary-em__byle"><div class="summary-em__byle__ntent"><div data-ttid="BylWrapper" class="BylWrapper-KIudk irTIfE byl"><p class="ByleWrapper-jWHrLH dSEWiO byle byl__byle" data-ttid="ByleWrapper" emProp="thor" emType="><span emProp="name" class="ByleNamWrapper-jbHncj fuDQVo"><span data-ttid="ByleName" class="ByleName-kwmrLn cYaBaU byle__name"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ BylePreamble-iJolpQ iUEiRd jslZfG gnILss byle__preamble">By </span>Henry Louis Gat, Jr.</span></span></p></div></div></div></div></div></div><div class="SummaryItemWrapper-iwvBff hlYhBH summary-em summary-em--article summary-em--no-in summary-em--text-align-left summary-em--layout-placement-text-below-sktop-only summary-em--layout-posn-image-right summary-em--layout-proportns-33-66 summary-em--si-by-si-align-center summary-em--si-by-si-image-right-mobile-false summary-em--standard SummaryCollectnGridSummaryItem-WColm fvDIAb" role="button" tabx="0"><div class="SummaryItemAssetContaer-gwhFFH VOyg summary-em__asset-ntaer"><a class="SummaryItemImageLk-dshqxb USLvL summary-em__image-lk summary-em-trackg__image-lk" href="/magaze/1996/02/26/hatg-hillary" aria-hidn="te" tabx="-1" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-image-3" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" target="_self"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB rponsive-asset SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-em__image"><div data-tt="aspect-rat-ntaer" class="AspectRatContaer-bJHpJz jMoLpX"><div class="aspect-rat--overlay-ntaer"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-em__image rponsive-image"><noscript><source media="(max-width: 767px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w" siz="100vw"/><source media="(m-width: 768px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w" siz="100vw"/><img alt="Hatg Hillary" class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src="></noscript></picture></div></div></span></a></div><div class="SummaryItemContent-eiDYMl ldWYvC summary-em__ntent"><div class="RubricWrapper-dKmCNX kImuKS bric bric--disvery SummaryItemRubric-dguGKN fYiFyD summary-em__bric"><span class="RubricName-fVtemz cLxcNi">A Reporter at Large</span></div><a class="SummaryItemHedLk-civM cZPaWG summary-em-trackg__hed-lk summary-em__hed-lk" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-hed-3" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" href="/magaze/1996/02/26/hatg-hillary" target="_self"><div class="SummaryItemHedBase-hiFYpQ iIjKeM summary-em__hed" data-ttid="SummaryItemHed">Hatg Hillary</div></a><div class="SummaryItemAssetContaer-gwhFFH VOyg summary-em__asset-ntaer"><a class="SummaryItemImageLk-dshqxb USLvL summary-em__image-lk summary-em-trackg__image-lk" href="/magaze/1996/02/26/hatg-hillary" aria-hidn="te" tabx="-1" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-image-3" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" target="_self"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB rponsive-asset SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-em__image"><div data-tt="aspect-rat-ntaer" class="AspectRatContaer-bJHpJz jMoLpX"><div class="aspect-rat--overlay-ntaer"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-em__image rponsive-image"><noscript><source media="(max-width: 767px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w" siz="100vw"/><source media="(m-width: 768px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w" siz="100vw"/><img alt="Hatg Hillary" class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src="></noscript></picture></div></div></span></a></div><div class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ SummaryItemDek-CRfsi iUEiRd jxOIpm cPtisA summary-em__k">Hillary Clton has been trashed right and left—but what’s really fuellg the furi?</div><div class="SummaryItemByleWrapper-boCfbi hYsZi summary-em__byle-date-in"><div 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23.9508V2.95081H14V3.93211H6V22.1845L12.5 18.5536L19 22.1845V8.83866H20V23.9508Z"></path><path class="in-bookmark-fill" d="M23 3H20V0H19V3H16V4H19V7H20V4H23V3Z"></path></svg></span><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ ActnBarButtonText-bYXYuh iUEiRd bkefvo gkccfO">Save this story</span></button></div></div></div><div class="LightboxWrapper-dxsWBV hhylRt"><div class="ArticlePageChunksContent-etcMtP imbgVA"><div data-ttid="ArticlePageChunks" class="ArticlePageChunks-fLyCVG lmuXQm"><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK eRggVV grid grid-margs grid-ems-0 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bDFJoo"><div class="GridItem-buujkM kHPPIF grid--em"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa bDyAMU body body__ntaer article__body" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="body__ner-ntaer"><p class="has-dropp has-dropp__lead-standard-headg">It’s important to say up ont: I n’t claim to approach Henry Louis Gat, Jr.—or Skip, as he’s known—as a subject of objective journalistic quiry. We’ve known each other first as lleagu at <em>The New Yorker</em>, where he wrote the Profil that make up his llectn “<a data-offer-url=" class="external-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Thirteen Ways of Lookg at a Black Man</a>,” and then as iends. Still, I don’t thk requir the prejudice of iendship to believe that Gat, who is now seventy-one, has left a lastg, multiform imprt on the culture.</p><p class="paywall">Gat was born 1950 and grew up Piedmont, Wt Virgia, where his fay has ep roots. His father worked a paper l. Town piics were still segregated but, wh the advent of Brown v. Board of Edutn, the schools were not. After a year at Potomac State College, Gat transferred to Yale, which was startg to open up to a sizable number of Black stunts. In New Haven, he began to explore the pths of Ain Amerin lerature and history. His awakeng did not take place only the classroom and universy meetg hall. Gat was also fascated by the trial of Bobby Seale and other members of the Black Panthers at a urthoe near mp, and joed the stunt strike solidary.</p><p class="paywall">After graduatg om Yale, he went, on a fellowship, to study at the Universy of Cambridge, where his most important mentor was Wole Soyka, the Nigerian playwright, sayist, and novelist. The English faculty at Cambridge did not take Ain lerature serly, acrdg to Gat, relegatg to anthropology. Soyka, who won the Nobel Prize for Lerature, 1986, helped nvce Gat to study Ain and Ain Amerin lerature.</p><p class="paywall">As a lerary cric, Gat ma an impact on the field by helpg to tablish a non of Ain Amerin lerature—one that was neher separatist nor a mere appendage to the tradnal, whe non. In “<a data-offer-url=" class="external-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">The Signifyg Monkey</a>,” he employed the tools of post-stcturalism and semtics to bear on both the vernacular tradn and thors as varied as Zora Neale Hurston and Ishmael Reed. Gat also unearthed and brought forward neteenth-century texts by Ain Amerin thors cludg Harriet E. Wilson (“<a data-offer-url=" class="external-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Our Nig</a>”) and Hannah Crafts (“<a data-offer-url=" class="external-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">The Bondwoman’s Narrative</a>”), and assembled the thirty-volume Schomburg Library of Neteenth-Century Black Women Wrers. Gat is a prodig cultural entreprenr, edg untls anthologi and reference works (cludg “<a data-offer-url=" class="external-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Aina: The Encyclopedia of the Ain and Ain-Amerin Experience</a>”), -foundg the onle publitn the Root, and publishg popular volum about Black culture and history. His book “<a data-offer-url=" class="external-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Colored People</a>,” which explor his fay and upbrgg Wt Virgia, is an important chapter the morn history of Ain Amerin memoirs. A llectn of Hurston’s says, “<a data-offer-url=" class="external-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">You Don’t Know Us Negro</a>,” which Gat -eded wh Genevieve Wt, me out last month; “<a data-offer-url=" class="external-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Who’s Black and Why? A Hidn Chapter om the Eighteenth-Century Inventn of Race</a>,” which he eded wh Andrew S. Curran, out next month.</p><p class="paywall">Perhaps his most important and lastg role has been as a teacher and an stutn builr. Gat arrived at Harvard 1991, and he swiftly reced an extraordary ncentratn of Black scholarship—William Juli Wilson, Cornel Wt, Lawrence D. Bobo, Evelyn Brooks Higgbotham, Suzanne Blier, and others—all while revigoratg the W. E. B. Du Bois Rearch Instute, which is now part of the Hutchs Center. Gat proved a dynamo of both tellectual energy and fund-raisg fse.</p><div><div class="ConsumerMarketgUnThemedWrapper-iUTMTf jssHut nsumer-marketg-un nsumer-marketg-un--article-mid-ntent" role="prentatn" aria-hidn="te"><div class="nsumer-marketg-un__slot nsumer-marketg-un__slot--article-mid-ntent nsumer-marketg-un__slot---ntent"></div><div class="journey-un"></div></div></div><p class="paywall">In recent years, he has been a prolific filmmaker, maly for PBS, puttg out documentary seri on herage (“Fdg Your Roots”) and history (“Renstctn,” “The Black Church,” “Ai’s Great Civilizatns,” and “The Ain Amerins: Many Rivers to Cross”). His book “<a data-offer-url=" class="external-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Stony the Road</a>,” a pann to the seri on Renstctn, creds the rearch of earlier historians, particularly Eric Foner, yet is a superb acunt of the roots of Amerin whe supremacy and stctural racism that afflict the untry to this day. A new film on Frerick Douglass is about to appear.</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-1 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">Gat is married to the Cuban-born historian Marial Iglias Utset; they live Cambridge, Massachetts. On the day of an immense snowstorm, we nnected over Zoom for a few hours and talked about matters past and prent. (We had a subsequent exchange over e-mail.) Our nversatn has been eded for length and clary.</p><p class="paywall"><strong>I’d like to start out by lookg back at your fay and Wt Virgia. You wre about this betifully your memoir “Colored People.” Tell me a ltle about Piedmont, where you grew up.</strong></p><p class="paywall">My fay never moved, om fourth great-grandparents down to me. We lived wh a thirty-e radi eastern Wt Virgia. I have ep roots those mountas. It’s not what you read about textbooks like “<a data-offer-url=" class="external-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">From Slavery to Freedom</a>.” It is not a typil Black experience, but is a real Black experience.</p><p class="paywall">In the year I was born, 1950, I believe there were about two thoand people Piedmont, and jt over three hundred were Black. It was an Irish-Italian paper-l town. And bee my dad worked two jobs— the daytime, at the paper l, and then as a janor at the Chapeake and Potomac Telephone Company—he had the hight e of any Black person Piedmont. We had the nict hoe. Wealth and poverty are always relative. In that ntext, we were the Black upper-middle class. My mother never worked a job outsi the home my lifetime. When she was a girl, she cleaned ho to make extra money. One of the reasons my father worked two jobs was so my mother would never have to work.</p><div class="Contaer-bkChBi byNLHx"></div><p class="paywall"><strong>As I unrstand , your father’s attu toward whe folks town was more easygog than your mom’s.</strong></p><p class="paywall">My mother was very spic of whe people. To help support her fay, by the age of twelve, she was cleang the Thompson hoe. She told this awful story of them plantg a twenty-dollar bill the chns of a sofa, to see what she would do. And she, of urse, returned . But, even at that age, she had figured out that this was a tt, and she eply rented that.</p><p class="paywall"><strong>Brown v. Board of Edutn, the pivotal school-tegratn se, me along when you were a kid.</strong></p><p class="paywall">In 1956, when I started first gra, the schools had tegrated, whout a peep, though big social events, like town piics, were segregated.</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-2 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall"><strong>You scribe the school very posive terms.</strong></p><p class="paywall">I’ve thought about this a lot and I’ve been asked about a lot. But I never once experienced racial discrimatn the classroom. Right before I started the first gra, someone knocked on our door, and was a whe person om the school system. They had tted all the kids enterg our first-gra class. My parents took this whe person to our formal livg room, where nobody ever sat down and all the furnure was vered clear plastic. They were whisperg hhed ton. And then the whe person left.</p><p class="paywall">My parents me out the kchen, where I’d been cloistered, and they sat down and they said, “Skippy, you took that tt a uple weeks ago. And had five hundred qutns, and you got four hundred and eighty-ne qutns right.” That set the tone for the next twelve years of my life. They expected me to be the smartt kid the class. The classroom was my playground. I was one of those kids, those ltle asshol, who hated summer vatn, man!</p></div></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan full-bleed-ad row-mid-ntent-ad"><div class="StickyMidContentAdWrapper-fSBzwl drzyIa ad-stickymidntent"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--mid-ntent should-hold-space"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--mid-ntent" data-no-id="4br9g"></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK eRggVV grid grid-margs grid-ems-0 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bDFJoo"><div class="GridItem-buujkM kHPPIF grid--em"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa bDyAMU body body__ntaer article__body" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="body__ner-ntaer"><p class="paywall">Now, I said I never experienced racial discrimatn the <em>classroom</em>. But don’t even thk about datg a whe girl. We performed danc a lot and operettas every year. But never, ever was a Black boy paired wh a whe girl. What they would do is pair me wh a Black girl my class. And then, when they ran out of boy-girl batns, they would put two Black girls together, or two Black boys together, or a Black boy and a whe boy—that was very darg. But never did Skippy Gat dance wh Brenda Kimmel!</p><p class="paywall"><strong>Why was Yale such a paradise for you?</strong></p><p class="paywall">I entered Yale as a sophomore. I transferred after a year at Potomac State College, Keyser, Wt Virgia. In the summer, I was workg the offic at the paper l. The phone rgs and the secretary says, “It’s for you.” It was an admissns officer sayg the admissns mtee had jt met, and “I’m pleased that you are gog to be a member of the sophomore class.” Oh, man, that was one of the happit days of my life. I walked down to the platform where my father was workg jt to tell him, and he was very happy. Then he said, “Who’s gog to pay for that? I said, “They’re gog to give me a scholarship, Daddy. It’s gog to be O.K.”</p><p class="paywall">Then my father told me, “Now, boy, I’m gog to give you some advice.” He said, “Don’t go up there Jim Crow-g yourself.” By this time, we were readg about Black tabl wh the nascent affirmative-actn groups of Black kids who were tegratg the historilly whe Ivy League and universi. He said, “Don’t go up there stg at somethg lled a Black table. Don’t go up there gettg Black roommat. Get yourself some whe roommat.” He said Jewish people been good to our people, and he said, “Get to know some Jewish people. Maybe they’ll help you your reer.” He knew that Jewish people had been volved wh the foundg of the N.A.A.C.P. and that they had been supporters of the movement. And he said, “For Christ’s sake, don’t go up there studyg Black studi. Your ass has been Black for eighteen years, and I a’t payg for that.” He said, “You gotta be a doctor”—that was always the plan. I got there and I went to my assigned room, Calhoun College, and was a quad and the other three guys were Black. I’d already fied my father.</p><p class="paywall"><strong>I wonr how that happened.</strong></p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-3 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">Yale thought that I would want to be wh other Black kids. And turned out I loved the guys and they tght me so much. And they weled me really warmly until about six weeks later, when they threw me out. There were only three bedrooms and four of and they had girliends. And so Friday and Saturday night I’d be sleepg on the floor, and they said, “Look, this is untenable. You need to leave.”</p><p class="paywall">Anyway, when I went to my first meetg of the B.S.A.Y., the Black Stunt Alliance at Yale, was terrifyg, bee all I wanted to do was to be Black—I didn’t want to be thought of as some Uncle Tom—but I didn’t know what the disurse of Blackns might be. I started readg Black books. I <em>ate</em> Black books. I graduated as a history major, but I fell love wh Ao-Amerin studi.</p><p class="paywall">Now, when I arrived, 1969, Yale had admted nety-six Black kids that hman class, the largt group of Black kids had admted one year the history of Yale. So, when I went to the anizatnal meetg of the B.S.A.Y., looked like Ai to me. It was like beg engulfed a blanket of Blackns.</p><p class="paywall"><strong>You’ve said that affirmative actn was sential.</strong></p><p class="paywall">Well, there were maybe a half-dozen Black kids who graduated om Yale the class of 1966. Their fathers would have been doctors, lawyers. I would venture that those kids, one way or another, had an avenue bee of their éle stat wh the Black muny and their proximy to an éle-stat person the whe muny who uld broker their way, through a prep school or whatever. Exeter always had Black kids. Senator Bce, one of the two Renstctn senators, sent his son to Exeter, who then went to Harvard and excelled. There was a long tradn of the Black éle beg ted at Harvard after 1870, and at schools like Exeter. But, g om Piedmont, I would not have been able to plug to one of those flows of accs and elevatn. It was possible bee of affirmative actn.</p><p class="paywall"><strong>After Yale, you went to the U.K., to Cambridge, on a fellowship. What was that like?</strong></p><p class="paywall">I had so many battl wh the English faculty. I wanted to wre about Ain Amerin lerature and Ain lerature. I was studyg wh Wole Soyka. We promised and I wrote about what we now ll the disurse of race and reason the eighteenth-century English lerary text. What did mean? What was the stat of the Ain the great cha of beg? What did the productn of lerature mean about the Ain’s place that cha of beg? Et cetera, et cetera. It’s the primal scene of stctn for unrstandg the history of anti-Black racism the Wt, which starts the Enlightenment.</p></div></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan full-bleed-ad row-mid-ntent-ad"><div class="StickyMidContentAdWrapper-fSBzwl drzyIa ad-stickymidntent"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--mid-ntent should-hold-space"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--mid-ntent" data-no-id="jnly0l"></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK eRggVV grid grid-margs grid-ems-0 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bDFJoo"><div class="GridItem-buujkM kHPPIF grid--em"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa bDyAMU body body__ntaer article__body" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="body__ner-ntaer"><p class="paywall"><strong>It seems the English faculty there looked at Ain lerature as if were folklore.</strong></p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-4 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">They refed to give Wole Soyka an appotment bee they said Ain lerature wasn’t lerature. It was soclogy, was anthropology. Thirteen years after I studied wh him, he got the Nobel Prize Lerature!</p><p class="paywall">There were two other Black kids at Clare College. One of them was an unrgraduate his send year studyg philosophy, Kwame Anthony Appiah. We beme fast iends and we’ve been iends for almost fifty years. He and Soyka took me to dner after we’d jt known one another for a few weeks. They said, Look, we brought you here for a reason. You are not gog to be a medil doctor. You are meant to be a profsor and you’re gog to do Ain and Ain Amerin studi. And I sat there and I cried at that table, bee I realized at that pot that they had named somethg that I eply wanted to do.</p><p class="paywall">Cambridge pneered “practil cricism,” or a versn of formalism the analysis of lerature. It was about learng to analyze a text not for s ntent, not for s them—as we would history class—but for s form. Form was ntent. At Cambridge, I was learng a whole method that I didn’t even know existed before. And I thought was magil once I learned how to do .</p><p class="paywall">At the same time, I was studyg wh Soyka, right? I thought, Wow, I uld do this wh Black lerature. To vert a phrase of Audre Lor’s, I uld e the master’s tools to dismantle the master’s hoe. I uld e a nservative methodology to prove to them that Wole Soyka served to be the English partment, that my people’s tradns served to be studied one of the world’s olst and greatt English partments. To paraphrase Jse Jackson, I beme a non-maker, not a non-breaker.</p><p class="paywall"><strong>More recently, you’ve bee immersed historil studi, particularly Renstctn.</strong></p><p class="paywall">The rise and fall of Renstctn is the key to unrstandg how we uld have our first Black Princy and then have be followed by an alt-right rollback and the clown of clowns, Donald Tmp. Renstctn was a time when Black people enjoyed an enormo expansn rights, wh the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments, and later wh the Civil Rights Act of 1875. The summer of 1867 was the first Freedom Summer. Black men the South got the right to vote before Black men the North. And, 1868, they voted. Ulyss S. Grant only won the popular vote by jt over three hundred thoand vot. A half ln Black men no doubt voted for Ulyss S. Grant. Black men had elected a Print.</p><p class="paywall">Black power was the vote. And, you know, they took away, bee, until 1910, nety per cent of all Black people lived the former Conferacy. South Carola, Mississippi, and Louisiana were majory-Black stat. Geia, Alabama, and Florida were close to . This was a huge ncentratn of power, and the fear was that Black people would domate the polics of those stat and eventually their enomic relatns. It never was a kewalk to the votg booth, of urse. Wh the rise rights me the rise whe-supremacist terrorist tactics, leadg to the Mississippi Plan of 1875 and then the new Mississippi state nstutn of 1890, which is the urtext of voter supprsn. Whout g the word “Negro,” “Colored,” or “Black,” the new state nstutnal nventn had an article that stuted procr to disenanchise Black people. The Mississippi Plan spread to other Southern stat. You want to know how effective was? In 1898, there were one hundred and thirty thoand Black men registered to vote Louisiana. By 1904, after Louisiana had adopted s anti-Black state nstutn, the wake of the Mississippi Plan, that number had been rced to thirteen hundred and forty-two.</p><p class="paywall">What those Renstctn amendments granted was stripped away through sharecroppg, vagrancy laws, peonage, and disenanchisement, which is why what we’re seeg happeng so many Republin legislatur today should terrify anyone who lov the prcipl upon which our great untry was found.</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-5 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall"><strong>In the send of the twenty-first century— the transn between Obama and Tmp—what are the historil forc that have given this prent-day bifurted Ameri?</strong></p><p class="paywall">If “the arc of the moral universe bends toward jtice,” the arc of the enomic universe Ameri has bent toward equaly. When I was growg up Piedmont the fifti, whe people wanted their kids to go to llege. In the wake of World War Two and the G.I. Bill, they were able to own hom. Some went to llege, but most went to work the paper l. You’d start the labor pool, then you’d get the craft unns. Then the craft unns the late sixti beme more tegrated. But your kids would do better than you. You had an expectatn that your children and your grandchildren would do better. And all that changed.</p><p class="paywall"><strong>John F. Kennedy won Wt Virgia, where you grew up. But then Donald Tmp won Wt Virgia by forty pots.</strong></p><p class="paywall">The reason John Kennedy beme Print is that he feated Hubert Humphrey the Wt Virgia primary. In 1960, a heavily Prottant state voted for a Roman Catholic and proved that he was electable. But now look at what happened to the curve of expectatns Wt Virgia. I love Wt Virgia, but people beme sred enomilly. No longer uld they believe that their children and their grandchildren were gog to do better than they had. And that’s when you’re open to magogu. You know, I had iends om high school who told me, “Skippy, that Barack? Nah, I n’t go there.”</p></div></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan full-bleed-ad row-mid-ntent-ad"><div class="StickyMidContentAdWrapper-fSBzwl drzyIa ad-stickymidntent"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--mid-ntent should-hold-space"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--mid-ntent" data-no-id="20lpw8"></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK eRggVV grid grid-margs grid-ems-0 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bDFJoo"><div class="GridItem-buujkM kHPPIF grid--em"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa bDyAMU body body__ntaer article__body" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="body__ner-ntaer"><p class="paywall"><strong>When you look at the Obama Princy, what legacy do leave?</strong></p><p class="paywall">My wife and I were watchg “Rpect,” the feature about Aretha Frankl, and durg the creds we see her at the Kennedy Center Honors for Carole Kg, sgg “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman.” It’s one of the great performanc, and Barack and Michelle are up the balny. I looked at them, and I thought, It’s a miracle what they were able to achieve—for him to w, first of all. And then the way they ported themselv such a regal manner: was Black Camelot. It was a great moment the history of mocracy and a great moment for the race, as my parents would say. I was very proud of him.</p><p class="paywall">But I knew that there would be phback. There’s a lot of nfn, particularly now about bat about the Constutn the wake of the 1619 Project. It was que mon to be anti-slavery <em>and</em> to be anti-Black. This disurse predat the foundg of the Republic. You know, go back to the <em>philosoph</em> the Enlightenment, even some of whom blsedly were anti-slavery, like Montqui and Voltaire. But they wrote really racist thgs on ocsn about people of Ain scent.</p><p class="paywall">And then you were seeg the alt-right efforts at rollback. Barack and Michelle Obama’s prence, that betiful fay the Whe Hoe, unleashed mons that had been lurkg jt beneath the surface of Amerin society, mons whose anctry go back to the begngs of the Republic and even beyond.</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-6 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">For all the people who were happy and who cried and thought this was the greatt moment the history of the Republic, there were a lot of people—some of whom showed up a year ago, on January 6th, at the Capol—who thought this was a nightmare. It is a long tradn and ’s a legacy of the rollback to Renstctn.</p><p class="paywall">Gog back to Wt Virgia, the reason people uldn’t go wh Barack is bee they saw no hope for their kids and grandkids. The enomy had fallen apart. And, when you have no hope, you start to hate people. You look for people you n spegoat. And there was the metaphor—the end rult of affirmative actn for them is Barack and Michelle occupyg the Whe Hoe. And the only way to addrs this sort of rentment is to assuage the fears of people who are aaid for their enomic future. Bee, as Eldridge Cleaver once said to me, the enomy is where the bber hs the road for everybody. When people believe that they have no hope, that’s when thgs get nasty. That’s when evil manifts self.</p><p class="paywall"><strong>The summer before last was the Gee Floyd moment and the trial that me after . How do that figure to this narrative of recent history? Do give you any hope that that there’s a way out?</strong></p><p class="paywall">The Gee Floyd moment was sui generis. There was a peculiar nfluence of factors, cludg people beg forced to shelter place. All of a sudn, kids had an exce to get out, and they uld do so ethilly. They uld leave their parents’ hom, where they had been cloistered. And then the ne-mute vio brought the murr of another human beg so graphilly, dramatilly to our livg rooms, to our nsc. Amerins are good people. This clearly was a crime. This clearly was an jtice, the ultimate rult of racism.</p><p class="paywall">So all those factors together led to the biggt rally for Black rights and agast racism our natn’s history. The March on Washgton was a Sunday-school piic pared wh the cumulative numbers who h the streets for Black Liv Matter. It was an amazg event Amerin history. But did have legs? What are s legaci?</p><p class="paywall"><strong>That’s what I’m askg.</strong></p><p class="paywall">Well, I’m on several boards of directors of not-for-profs, and each of those stutns has searched s soul for s own history of racism. And many of our board of directors’ meetgs start—like many events at Harvard and other universi—wh a very movg acknowledgement of the Native Amerin anctors on whose lands we stand. So certa symbolic forms have ensued which we nont the legaci of anti-Black racism. The thgs are enormoly important. They’re necsary but they’re not sufficient, bee ultimately the roots of racism n be traced to enomic fear and anxiety. That is the e. When we had an expandg enomy unr Lyndon Johnson, when we had guns and butter, that’s when affirmative actn was vented. That’s when the Civil Rights Act of ’64 was enacted. You uld be genero when you had enough money the bank. When there was a pie and only one piece is left? Well, I might like you, but I don’t like you enough to give you that last piece of pie.</p><p class="paywall"><strong>In Julian Lus’s <a href=">Profile of Ishmael Reed</a>, Reed lls the recent current of anti-racism life-achg books “the new yoga.”</strong></p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-7 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">Well, Ishmael, makg that statement, fulfills his obligatn as a satirist, as a gadfly, as the urt jter. That’s the role he’s supposed to play. He always tablish the edge of crique. I would fd myself somewhere the middle, sayg, aga, that the are necsary gtur but not sufficient on. This is the veneer of racism. We have to get to s substctur. What are s ultimate ?</p></div></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan full-bleed-ad row-mid-ntent-ad"><div class="StickyMidContentAdWrapper-fSBzwl drzyIa ad-stickymidntent"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--mid-ntent should-hold-space"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--mid-ntent" data-no-id="05m1e"></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK eRggVV grid grid-margs grid-ems-0 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bDFJoo"><div class="GridItem-buujkM kHPPIF grid--em"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa bDyAMU body body__ntaer article__body" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="body__ner-ntaer"><p class="paywall">People aren’t born racist. I grew up among the people. There are seven women om Piedmont I’ve known sce that first day of first gra Piedmont. They vis me and my wife every summer on Martha’s Veyard. They stay four days. Six of those women are whe. They told me the summer before the general electn that Donald Tmp was gog to w. And, implicly, they were sayg, “We’re gog to vote for Donald Tmp.” Not all of them, but a lot of them, as turned out, voted for Donald Tmp. Now they stay at my hoe. We eat out of the same pot. They love me and I love them.</p><p class="paywall"><strong>But didn’t surprise you. It didn’t eak you out.</strong></p><p class="paywall">No. In fact, I gave a talk on the Veyard that summer and told an dience filled wh the lerati and the amics who have hom there, “You guys got to be reful, bee my iends om Piedmont jt told me that Donald Tmp is gog to w. People are aaid, and Democrats have to speak to the fears. You n’t ll the people of Wt Virgia a bunch of bigoted racists. That jt mak them more right-wg. You n’t engage name-llg. You have to speak to their fears.” And that’s somethg we haven’t done sufficiently.</p><p class="paywall"><strong>Earlier, passg, you mentned the <em>Tim’s</em> 1619 Project. What do you thk of the crique of om var historians?</strong></p><p class="paywall">When I read the phback by the five historians, I found their tone mockg and srnful. I try not to engage that kd of tellectual exchange. I keep on my reigerator a quote om Anthony Appiah’s Ethicist lumn, where he says, “Democracy falters not when we disagree about thgs but when we lose tert tryg to make sense of the other person’s pot of view and tryg to persua that person of the mers of our own.”</p><p class="paywall">Now, I told Nikole Hannah-Jon that one thg I learned as an unrgraduate om the great historian John Morton Blum, and then began to practice as a graduate stunt, is that if you’ve got a mancript send to people who are gog to be cril of before ’s published, bee you actually learn somethg om their crique. But by that pot she’d already felt attacked and meaned.</p><p class="paywall">And there is a long tradn of sentially accg Black people of not beg smart enough by nature. And unwtgly­­—I want to state this refully—<em>unwtgly</em>, the tone of the crique partak, to me, of that disurse. I know most of the historians, and they don’t have a racist bone their body, but you n advertently partake of a stcture that’s hered a larger disurse. It’s one thg to say, “I disagree wh your this that the Revolutn was signifintly fuelled by a sire of some people to protect the stutn of slavery.” We n have a semar about that. I n ask half the class to take the pro and the other half to take the n, and then we uld e to a reasonable opn about the matter. The issu are enormoly plited, so crique is good. But nscensn is bad, particularly across the lor le and particularly at this moment the history of race relatns.</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-8 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall"><strong>You speak of the enomy. I was watchg an terview wh you which was nducted Wt Virgia. And you were asked about your polics, and you said, “Look, I’m left of center on issu about race, social jtice, and many more thgs. When to enomics, not so much—I’m much more nservative on that.” What did you mean?</strong></p><p class="paywall">I mean that I’m not a Marxist, not a socialist. I thk that a humane form of palism is one of the bt systems of advancement and realizatn of nate potential the enomic life of an average person ever practiced the history of the world. That’s what I meant. Entreprenrship is part of my DNA, and over all the Ain Amerin people were overwhelmgly pro-palist and entreprenrial. Look at the olst stutn the history of Ao-Ameri, the church, which was the birthplace of Black palism. Whout Black palism, there wouldn’t be a church. They weren’t gettg money om rich whe people— was llected om the members. They were stutns created by Black people and fund by Black people munally.</p><p class="paywall"><strong>How do that pot of view go over the classroom?</strong></p><p class="paywall">My stunts know they don’t have to repeat the gospel acrdg to Gat. They know they n le up and take potshots at me all day long, which is great. But I n’t thk of a society where racism has disappeared bee of socialism. I know a lot about Cuba now: I ma a film about Cuba, I wrote a history about race Lat Ameri, and I met my wife, who is a very proment Cuban historian, Cuba. Never has there been a leftist society that has oblerated racism. In fact, I thk Cuba is one of the most racist plac that I’ve been, owg to the fact that they pretend not to have any racism bee they pretend not to have rac.</p><p class="paywall">The problems of race and racism n only be solved enomilly. That is my argument. Only if people don’t feel threatened by my succs and n hope for a future wh our system where there’s enomic improvement for the subsequent generatns of their fay n we beg to addrs anti-Black racism. It go back to the Benjams— always has been about the money. What’s slavery? Slavery’s a fn of race and class one humanized enty. It’s one of the worst experienc the history of the human muny. And there have been many siar attempts to do jt that other untri and at many tim. But the movement of twelve and a half ln Ains across the Atlantic such a short perd, the va attempt to turn human begs to property, is a legacy that we have to live wh. The key word that sentence is “property.”</p></div></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan full-bleed-ad row-mid-ntent-ad"><div class="StickyMidContentAdWrapper-fSBzwl drzyIa ad-stickymidntent"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--mid-ntent should-hold-space"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--mid-ntent" data-no-id="lqwj5e"></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK eRggVV grid grid-margs grid-ems-0 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bDFJoo"><div class="GridItem-buujkM kHPPIF grid--em"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa bDyAMU body body__ntaer article__body" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="body__ner-ntaer"><p class="paywall"><strong>The other week, thirty-eight Harvard faculty members, cludg you, signed a letter qutng whether the anthropologist John L. Comaroff was beg fairly punished for allegedly vlatg the universy’s sexual- and profsnal-nduct polici. Days later, the people who signed the letter largely whdrew their support om , bee, as they said, they had not known the full story of what had been alleged about Comaroff. Michelle Goldberg, wrg the <em>Tim</em>, said the origal letter reflected an anxiety about “#MeToo overreach, stunt hypersensivy and mp kangaroo urts.” What’s your reactn to what happened?</strong></p><p class="paywall">That statement was heavily cricized—cludg by some ar iends—and rightly so. Which is why almost everyone who signed , cludg the two women who, wh all good tentns, wrote the letter, rented. I feel eply apologetic about . First, ’s a failure of scholarship to agree to be a signatory when you don’t know all the facts. I was horrified to disver that the letter I was asked to sign gave an extremely selective acunt of the charg. But, more important, we were, however unwtgly, lettg down our entire muny. Y, due procs is sential. But everybody, whether a stunt, a staff member, or a faculty member, needs to feel that, whenever ’s lled for, they n safely and fortably speak out and file a plat and be taken serly.</p><p class="paywall"><strong>At the same time, there is a lot of talk about so-lled woke culture fortallg open bate and discsn the classroom and on mp. Do you fd that thgs have changed that sense?</strong></p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-9 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">I -teach the troductory urse Ain Amerin studi, a fairly large lecture urse nstcted around the bat which Black people have engaged one another—and whe tractors—sce the eighteenth century. One pot of the class is to monstrate that there never has been one way to be Black, and that today’s polilly rrect posn n soon bee tomorrow’s disrd, “retrogra” posn. The urse is signed as a crique of any ia that the Black muny is not as diverse opn and makp as any other group of people. We’ve always had a left, a right, and a center. I end my fal lecture by sayg that if there is one thg I hope that the stunts remember om our class is this: there are forty-two ln Black Amerins, and therefore there are forty-two ln ways to be Black Ameri.</p><p class="paywall"><strong>Amid the Gee Floyd monstratns, we saw var stutns and rporatns try earntly to get on the right si of thgs by issug readg lists. I thk I’d rather get a readg list om you. If I were to ask you to remend ten works of fictn and ten works of nonfictn to a cizen wantg to get a handle on the non that you’ve worked so hard to refe and supplement, what would those works be?</strong></p><p class="paywall">Glad you asked!</p><p class="paywall">Fictn:</p><p class="paywall">1. “<a data-offer-url=" class="external-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">The Conjure Woman</a>,” by Charl W. Chnutt</p><p class="paywall">2. “<a data-offer-url=" class="external-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">The Autobgraphy of an Ex-Colored Man</a>,” by Jam Weldon Johnson</p><p class="paywall">3. “<a data-offer-url=" class="external-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Cane</a>,” by Jean Toomer</p><p class="paywall">4. “<a data-offer-url=" class="external-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Their Ey Were Watchg God</a>,” by Zora Neale Hurston</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-10 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">5. “<a data-offer-url=" class="external-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Native Son</a>,” by Richard Wright</p><p class="paywall">6. “<a data-offer-url=" class="external-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Invisible Man</a>,” by Ralph Ellison</p><p class="paywall">7. “<a data-offer-url=" class="external-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Mumbo Jumbo</a>,” by Ishmael Reed</p><p class="paywall">8. “<a data-offer-url=" class="external-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">The Color Purple</a>,” by Alice Walker</p><p class="paywall">9. “<a data-offer-url=" class="external-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">The Blut Eye</a>,” by Toni Morrison (or “<a data-offer-url=" class="external-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Sula</a>,” “<a data-offer-url=" class="external-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Song of Solomon</a>,” or “<a data-offer-url=" class="external-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Jazz</a>”)</p><p class="paywall">10. “<a data-offer-url=" class="external-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">At the Bottom of the River</a>,” by Jamai Kid</p><p class="paywall">Nonfictn:</p><p class="paywall">1. “<a data-offer-url=" class="external-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Narrative of the Life of Frerick Douglass, an Amerin Slave, Wrten by Himself</a>,” by Frerick Douglass</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-11 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">2. “<a data-offer-url=" class="external-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">A Voice om the South</a>,” by Anna Julia Cooper</p><p class="paywall">3. “<a data-offer-url=" class="external-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">The Souls of Black Folk</a>,” by W. E. B. Du Bois</p><p class="paywall">4. “<a data-offer-url=" class="external-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Black Sk, Whe Masks</a>,” by Frantz Fanon</p><p class="paywall">5. “<a data-offer-url=" class="external-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Not of a Native Son</a>,” by Jam Baldw</p><p class="paywall">6. “<a data-offer-url=" class="external-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">The Autobgraphy of Mallm X</a>,” by Mallm X and Alex Haley</p><p class="paywall">7. “<a data-offer-url=" class="external-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">I Know Why the Caged Bird Sgs</a>,” by Maya Angelou</p><p class="paywall">8. “<a data-offer-url=" class="external-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Angela Davis: An Autobgraphy</a>,” by Angela Y. Davis</p><p class="paywall">9. “<a data-offer-url=" class="external-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Playg the Dark</a>,” by Toni Morrison</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-12 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">10. “<a data-offer-url=" class="external-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">In My Father’s Hoe</a>,” by Kwame Anthony Appiah</p><p class="paywall">For reference:</p><p class="paywall">1. “<a data-offer-url=" class="external-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">From Slavery to Freedom</a>” (nth edn or later), by John Hope Frankl and Evelyn Brooks Higgbotham</p><p class="paywall">2. “<a data-offer-url=" class="external-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">The Betrayal of the Negro: From Rutherford B. Hay to Woodrow Wilson</a>,” by Rayford W. Logan</p><p class="paywall">3. “<a data-offer-url=" class="external-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Renstctn: Ameri’s Unfished Revolutn, 1863–1877</a>,” by Eric Foner</p><p class="paywall">4. “<a data-offer-url=" class="external-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">The Hemgs of Monticello: An Amerin Fay</a>,” by Ante Gordon-Reed</p><p class="paywall"><strong>Fally, Skip, what do you yearn to acplish? What’s left to do?</strong></p><p class="paywall">In one of the most betiful—of so many—passag that he wrote, W. E. B. Du Bois ptured the wonr of the Black experience the New World. He said, “The most magnificent drama the last thoand years of human history is the transportatn of ten ln human begs out of the dark bety of their mother ntent to the new-found Eldorado of the Wt. They scend to Hell; and the third century they arose om the ad, the ft effort to achieve mocracy for the workg lns which this world had ever seen. It was a tragedy that beggared the Greek; was an upheaval of humany like the Reformatn and the French Revolutn.”</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-13 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">It is this story that I am termed to tell, all of s plexi and nuanc, through wrg, lecturg and, more recently, documentary filmmakg. My mother thought that I was born to be a doctor. But, early on, I realized that I had a boundls fascatn wh the stori that nstute Black history, on both sis of the Atlantic. Jam Baldw admonished his rears, “Work: for the night is g,” riffg on a passage om the New Ttament, John 9:4: “I mt work the works of him that sent me, while is day: the night eth, when no man n work.” So many more stori about this “most magnificent drama” rema to be told, hence we mt make efficient e of the time we are given, leavg a legacy upon which other storytellers n build. This is what floats my boat.</p></div></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK eRggVV grid grid-margs grid-ems-0 PaywallInleBarrierWhWrapperGrid-fyrGfS jyGBoi"><div class="GridItem-buujkM kHPPIF grid--em"><div class="body body__le-barrier article__body article__body--grid-margs"><div class="ntaer ntaer--body"><div class="ntaer--body-ner"><asi class="PaywallInleBarrierWrapper-iBnuqk lfXXa-D" data-ttid="PaywallInleBarrierWrapper"><div class="ConsumerMarketgUnThemedWrapper-iUTMTf jssHut nsumer-marketg-un nsumer-marketg-un--paywall-le-barrier" role="prentatn" aria-live="pole" aria-hidn="te"><div class="nsumer-marketg-un__slot nsumer-marketg-un__slot--paywall-le-barrier"></div><div class="journey-un"></div></div></asi></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK eRggVV grid grid-margs grid-ems-0 ContentWrapperGrid-fvkmBv jfHKjr"><div class="GridItem-buujkM kHPPIF grid--em"><div class="body body__ntaer"><div class="ntaer ntaer--body"><div class="ntaer--body-ner"></div></div></div></div></div></div></article><div class="ContentFooterWrapper-jVNdRG bGJnrW ArticlePageContentFooterGrid-ccsXYy fzwwkW article-body__footer"><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan"><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK eRggVV grid grid-margs grid-ems-0"><div class="GridItem-buujkM kHPPIF grid--em"><div class="LkStackWrapper-NFLYw kgtXXB lkstack" data-ttid="LkStack"><div class="SectnTleRoot-dBGvdq kjAxEG LkStackHear-lKjbE hejl lk-stack--headg" data-ttid="SectnTle"><h2 class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ SectnTleHed-dKqZet dxqEAa dqtvfu jttyjJ">More New Yorker Interviews</h2></div><div class="LkStackContent-jyKicS gPhyME"><ul class="LkStackList-gGcjdZ dnMwpz"><li class="LkStackBullet-kQRqul iQHwiG lk-stack--lk-em" data-ttid="LkStackBullet"><div><p>Dean Baquet on <a href="/news/the-new-yorker-terview/an-baquet-never-wanted-to-be-an-edor" class="InternalLkEmbedWrapper-fhjgJW cQLtaa">his tenure as the Tim’ executive edor</a>, and the state of journalism.</p></div></li><li class="LkStackBullet-kQRqul iQHwiG lk-stack--lk-em" data-ttid="LkStackBullet"><div><p>Alexandria Os-Cortez on <a href="/culture/the-new-yorker-terview/is-alexandria-os-rtez-an-sir-now" class="InternalLkEmbedWrapper-fhjgJW cQLtaa">the “sh show” Congrs</a>—and her visn for how to change .</p></div></li><li class="LkStackBullet-kQRqul iQHwiG lk-stack--lk-em" data-ttid="LkStackBullet"><div><p>M J Lee on her arrival Ameri and <a href="/culture/the-new-yorker-terview/what-m-j-lee-wants--to-see" class="InternalLkEmbedWrapper-fhjgJW cQLtaa">why she reads the Bible before wrg</a>.</p></div></li><li class="LkStackBullet-kQRqul iQHwiG lk-stack--lk-em" data-ttid="LkStackBullet"><div><p>David Hockney shows off <a href="/culture/the-new-yorker-terview/a-tour-of-david-hockneys-newt-patg-seri" class="InternalLkEmbedWrapper-fhjgJW cQLtaa">a new seri of patgs</a> and discs the work he has left to do.</p></div></li><li class="LkStackBullet-kQRqul iQHwiG lk-stack--lk-em" data-ttid="LkStackBullet"><div><p>Stevie Nicks talks about style, spirs, and <a href="/culture/the-new-yorker-terview/stevie-nicks-tavi-gevson-nversatn" class="InternalLkEmbedWrapper-fhjgJW cQLtaa">wrg one of her bt songs</a>.</p></div></li><li class="LkStackBullet-kQRqul iQHwiG lk-stack--lk-em" data-ttid="LkStackBullet"><div><p>Patricia Lockwood discs her “<a href="/culture/the-new-yorker-terview/patricia-lockwood-has-always-sound-this-way" class="InternalLkEmbedWrapper-fhjgJW cQLtaa">atroc” early wrg</a> and how gettg <em class="small">COVID</em> rewired her bra.</p></div></li></ul><div class="LkStackFooter-KfRyO ebnmps lk-stack--footer"><div><p><a href=">Sign up for our daily newsletter</a> to receive the bt stori om <em>The New Yorker</em>.</p><p>Support award-wng journalism and get a ee tote bag. <a href=">Subscribe today</a>.</p></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan"><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK eRggVV grid grid-margs grid-ems-0"><div class="GridItem-buujkM kHPPIF grid--em"><div class="ContributorsWrapper-eNpWFu GWFsc ntributors" data-ttid="Contributors"><div class="ContributorBWrapper-bnVHbt gMon"><div class="ContributorBAvatar-bIGTqf eMWbvj"><a href="/ntributors/david-remnick"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW jvZaPI rponsive-asset"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa rponsive-image"><source media="(max-width: 767px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w" siz="100vw"/><source media="(m-width: 768px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w" siz="100vw"/><img alt="" class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src="></picture></span></a></div><div class="ContributorBContent-ubQdr jZTSSi"><div class="ContributorBHear-ledood XOIEx"></div><div class="ContributorBB-fBolsO giFhKz"><a href="/ntributors/david-remnick">David Remnick</a> has been the edor of The New Yorker sce 1998 and a staff wrer sce 1992. 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summary-em__image-lk summary-em-trackg__image-lk" href="/magaze/2008/12/01/fay-matters-henry-louis-gat" aria-hidn="te" tabx="-1" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-image-1" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" target="_self"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB rponsive-asset SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-em__image"><div data-tt="aspect-rat-ntaer" class="AspectRatContaer-bJHpJz jMoLpX"><div class="aspect-rat--overlay-ntaer"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-em__image rponsive-image"><noscript><source media="(max-width: 767px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w" siz="100vw"/><source media="(m-width: 768px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w" siz="100vw"/><img alt="Fay Matters" class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src="></noscript></picture></div></div></span></a></div><div class="SummaryItemContent-eiDYMl ldWYvC summary-em__ntent"><div class="RubricWrapper-dKmCNX kImuKS bric bric--disvery SummaryItemRubric-dguGKN fYiFyD summary-em__bric"><span class="RubricName-fVtemz cLxcNi">Personal History</span></div><a class="SummaryItemHedLk-civM cZPaWG summary-em-trackg__hed-lk summary-em__hed-lk" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-hed-1" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" href="/magaze/2008/12/01/fay-matters-henry-louis-gat" target="_self"><div class="SummaryItemHedBase-hiFYpQ iIjKeM summary-em__hed" data-ttid="SummaryItemHed">Fay Matters</div></a><div class="SummaryItemAssetContaer-gwhFFH VOyg summary-em__asset-ntaer"><a class="SummaryItemImageLk-dshqxb USLvL summary-em__image-lk summary-em-trackg__image-lk" href="/magaze/2008/12/01/fay-matters-henry-louis-gat" aria-hidn="te" tabx="-1" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-image-1" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" target="_self"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB rponsive-asset SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-em__image"><div data-tt="aspect-rat-ntaer" class="AspectRatContaer-bJHpJz jMoLpX"><div class="aspect-rat--overlay-ntaer"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-em__image rponsive-image"><noscript><source media="(max-width: 767px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w" siz="100vw"/><source media="(m-width: 768px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w" siz="100vw"/><img alt="Fay Matters" class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src="></noscript></picture></div></div></span></a></div><div class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ SummaryItemDek-CRfsi iUEiRd jxOIpm cPtisA summary-em__k">When science clash wh anctral lore.</div><div class="SummaryItemByleWrapper-boCfbi hYsZi summary-em__byle-date-in"><div class="SummaryItemBaseByle-fFbXkY cgDBtc summary-em__byle"><div class="summary-em__byle__ntent"><div data-ttid="BylWrapper" class="BylWrapper-KIudk irTIfE byl"><p class="ByleWrapper-jWHrLH dSEWiO byle byl__byle" data-ttid="ByleWrapper" emProp="thor" emType="><span emProp="name" class="ByleNamWrapper-jbHncj fuDQVo"><span data-ttid="ByleName" class="ByleName-kwmrLn cYaBaU byle__name"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ BylePreamble-iJolpQ iUEiRd jslZfG gnILss byle__preamble">By </span>Henry Louis Gat, Jr.</span></span></p></div></div></div></div></div></div><div class="SummaryItemWrapper-iwvBff hlYhBH summary-em summary-em--article summary-em--no-in summary-em--text-align-left summary-em--layout-placement-text-below-sktop-only summary-em--layout-posn-image-right summary-em--layout-proportns-33-66 summary-em--si-by-si-align-center summary-em--si-by-si-image-right-mobile-false summary-em--standard SummaryCollectnGridSummaryItem-WColm fvDIAb" role="button" tabx="0"><div class="SummaryItemAssetContaer-gwhFFH VOyg summary-em__asset-ntaer"><a class="SummaryItemImageLk-dshqxb USLvL summary-em__image-lk summary-em-trackg__image-lk" href="/magaze/1996/06/17/whe-like-me" aria-hidn="te" tabx="-1" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-image-2" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" target="_self"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB rponsive-asset SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-em__image"><div data-tt="aspect-rat-ntaer" class="AspectRatContaer-bJHpJz jMoLpX"><div class="aspect-rat--overlay-ntaer"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-em__image rponsive-image"><noscript><source media="(max-width: 767px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w" siz="100vw"/><source media="(m-width: 768px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w" siz="100vw"/><img alt="Whe Like Me" class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src="></noscript></picture></div></div></span></a></div><div class="SummaryItemContent-eiDYMl ldWYvC summary-em__ntent"><div class="RubricWrapper-dKmCNX kImuKS bric bric--disvery SummaryItemRubric-dguGKN fYiFyD summary-em__bric"><span class="RubricName-fVtemz cLxcNi">Life and Letters</span></div><a class="SummaryItemHedLk-civM cZPaWG summary-em-trackg__hed-lk summary-em__hed-lk" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-hed-2" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" href="/magaze/1996/06/17/whe-like-me" target="_self"><div class="SummaryItemHedBase-hiFYpQ iIjKeM summary-em__hed" data-ttid="SummaryItemHed">Whe Like Me</div></a><div class="SummaryItemAssetContaer-gwhFFH VOyg summary-em__asset-ntaer"><a class="SummaryItemImageLk-dshqxb USLvL summary-em__image-lk summary-em-trackg__image-lk" href="/magaze/1996/06/17/whe-like-me" aria-hidn="te" tabx="-1" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-image-2" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" target="_self"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB rponsive-asset SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-em__image"><div data-tt="aspect-rat-ntaer" class="AspectRatContaer-bJHpJz jMoLpX"><div class="aspect-rat--overlay-ntaer"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-em__image rponsive-image"><noscript><source media="(max-width: 767px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w" siz="100vw"/><source media="(m-width: 768px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w" siz="100vw"/><img alt="Whe Like Me" class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src="></noscript></picture></div></div></span></a></div><div class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ SummaryItemDek-CRfsi iUEiRd jxOIpm cPtisA summary-em__k">Anatole Broyard wanted to be a wrer, not a black wrer. So he chose to live a lie rather than be trapped by the tth.</div><div class="SummaryItemByleWrapper-boCfbi hYsZi summary-em__byle-date-in"><div class="SummaryItemBaseByle-fFbXkY cgDBtc summary-em__byle"><div class="summary-em__byle__ntent"><div data-ttid="BylWrapper" class="BylWrapper-KIudk irTIfE byl"><p class="ByleWrapper-jWHrLH dSEWiO byle byl__byle" data-ttid="ByleWrapper" emProp="thor" emType="><span emProp="name" class="ByleNamWrapper-jbHncj fuDQVo"><span data-ttid="ByleName" class="ByleName-kwmrLn cYaBaU byle__name"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ BylePreamble-iJolpQ iUEiRd jslZfG gnILss byle__preamble">By </span>Henry Louis Gat, Jr.</span></span></p></div></div></div></div></div></div><div class="SummaryItemWrapper-iwvBff hlYhBH summary-em summary-em--article summary-em--no-in summary-em--text-align-left summary-em--layout-placement-text-below-sktop-only summary-em--layout-posn-image-right summary-em--layout-proportns-33-66 summary-em--si-by-si-align-center summary-em--si-by-si-image-right-mobile-false summary-em--standard SummaryCollectnGridSummaryItem-WColm fvDIAb" role="button" tabx="0"><div class="SummaryItemAssetContaer-gwhFFH VOyg summary-em__asset-ntaer"><a class="SummaryItemImageLk-dshqxb USLvL summary-em__image-lk summary-em-trackg__image-lk" href="/magaze/1996/02/26/hatg-hillary" aria-hidn="te" tabx="-1" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-image-3" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" target="_self"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB rponsive-asset SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-em__image"><div data-tt="aspect-rat-ntaer" class="AspectRatContaer-bJHpJz jMoLpX"><div class="aspect-rat--overlay-ntaer"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-em__image rponsive-image"><noscript><source media="(max-width: 767px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w" siz="100vw"/><source media="(m-width: 768px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w" siz="100vw"/><img alt="Hatg Hillary" class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src="></noscript></picture></div></div></span></a></div><div class="SummaryItemContent-eiDYMl ldWYvC summary-em__ntent"><div class="RubricWrapper-dKmCNX kImuKS bric bric--disvery SummaryItemRubric-dguGKN fYiFyD summary-em__bric"><span class="RubricName-fVtemz cLxcNi">A Reporter at Large</span></div><a class="SummaryItemHedLk-civM cZPaWG summary-em-trackg__hed-lk summary-em__hed-lk" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-hed-3" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" href="/magaze/1996/02/26/hatg-hillary" target="_self"><div class="SummaryItemHedBase-hiFYpQ iIjKeM summary-em__hed" data-ttid="SummaryItemHed">Hatg Hillary</div></a><div class="SummaryItemAssetContaer-gwhFFH VOyg summary-em__asset-ntaer"><a class="SummaryItemImageLk-dshqxb USLvL summary-em__image-lk summary-em-trackg__image-lk" href="/magaze/1996/02/26/hatg-hillary" aria-hidn="te" tabx="-1" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-image-3" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" target="_self"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB rponsive-asset SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-em__image"><div data-tt="aspect-rat-ntaer" class="AspectRatContaer-bJHpJz jMoLpX"><div class="aspect-rat--overlay-ntaer"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-em__image rponsive-image"><noscript><source media="(max-width: 767px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w" siz="100vw"/><source media="(m-width: 768px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w" siz="100vw"/><img alt="Hatg Hillary" class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src="></noscript></picture></div></div></span></a></div><div class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ SummaryItemDek-CRfsi iUEiRd jxOIpm cPtisA summary-em__k">Hillary Clton has been trashed right and left—but what’s really fuellg the furi?</div><div class="SummaryItemByleWrapper-boCfbi hYsZi summary-em__byle-date-in"><div 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