By Steve KrakauerThis week’s BCC Interview is Thomas Chatterton Williams, contributing writer to the New York Times and columnist at Harper’s magazine. I previously interviewed Williams last year for an NBC News column, on his book about “unlearning race” and his personal story. Since then, particularly in the last month, Williams has risen to prominence as the organizer of The Letter, the free speech and open debate letter signed by 150 people that has garnered tremendous interest, positive and negative.
Williams and I emailed this week about how the media is covering race in 2020, the reaction to The Letter, Twitter pros and cons and more. And then, with all BCC Interviews, I published it in full, below. Check out past BCC Interviews with Fox News’ Greg Gutfeld or Ben Smith of the New York Times, and subscribe to Fourth Watch here. Read the full interview below…
From: Steve Krakauer
To: Thomas Chatterton Williams
Hey Thomas-
Well…you’ve been in the news a lot lately… At least in the bubble world of media Twitter. Before we get to the open letter that started the ball rolling with open letter season in the media, I want to talk about the current political climate in America. Your excellent book last year, “Self-Portrait in Black and White: Unlearning Race” has been particularly resonant over the past two months, with the horrific killing of George Floyd and the subsequent protests and riots that have ensued around the country and world. Your central premise hinges on the need to de-emphasis race in order to overcome racism. It’s perhaps more controversial now than it was even 9 months ago when it published. Has anything over the past few months changed your mind on anything you wrote?
Related, as you step back and look at the media landscape – leaving the “cancel culture” discussion for the next email – how do you see the coverage of issues related to race in the last two months? Racial essentialism seemed to be a topic reserved for a prominent but niche group of people. Are you seeing those points of view become more ingrained in the larger media, on TV and in print/online?
Thanks
From: Thomas Chatterton Williams
To: Steve Krakauer
Hi Steve,
My thinking has evolved mainly in one way: It’s going to be harder than I thought to get so many people to disinvest from race. I always knew that was the case with the racists, but it’s the so-called antiracists, in the Ibram Kendi/Robin DiAngelo sense of the term, who are most openly pushing a vision of racial essentialism now. They have the nation’s ear, and though there are a growing number of us—from Matt Taibbi to John McWhorter—who critique them and reject their Manichean vision of moral and political life, we are clearly fighting an uphill battle that is much steeper seeming than it was in October when my book came out.
So yes, this was the season that racial essentialism on the left went from niche to the only game in town. There is a brilliant comedy clip going around social media in which an anti-racist and a racist meet and realize they have everything in common: they think white people should only eat white food, they think interracial marriages can be problematic, they think white people really are different, it’s funny because it’s so devastatingly derived from reality. I am very concerned about what the baseline reality is becoming throughout our nation’s media and cultural institutions. Look at what happened at the Poetry Foundation since the summer of protest started. Or at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. I wonder if a Biden victory will quell these tendencies or exacerbate them.
From: Steve Krakauer
To: Thomas Chatterton Williams
Hey Thomas-
I loved that clip – such a perfect distillation of the issue (and frankly, the glaring problems with the issue). That was Ryan Long, a comedian I wasn’t familiar with before I saw that come up in my Twitter feed.
Which brings us to two issues – The Letter, and Twitter. I have to say, as much as I consider myself a fairly experienced observer of the Media Bubble (and a one-time part of it), even I’m surprised by the sustained discussion around the Harper’s letter on “Justice and Open Debate,” which you signed and helped organize the creation of. Clearly, the topic has touched a nerve, and it has become a “moment” in the media – the response letter, the subsequent exit of Bari Weiss from the NYT and Andrew Sullivan from NY Mag. But the dialogue around The Letter itself persists. I’m curious – are you surprised by how sustained the conversation has been? Has any component of it surprised you? Why do you think certain people who signed the letter have become hyperbolically dissected (you, JK Rowling, Bari, Jesse Singal, Yglesias) while others (Fareed Zakaria, Margaret Atwood, Dahlia Lithwick, Randi Weingarten to name a few) have not?
And then Twitter…oh Twitter. You are currently involved in some number of Twitter, uh, kerfuffles, and the thing that stands out most to me is that they generally are with people who – generalizing – I think are very good at their actual jobs but very bad at Twitter. What do you think is so alluring about Twitter to the media – and to you? I think at it’s best Twitter can foster dialogue between people that may not normally have it, but since it’s public, there’s obviously something performative about it too. I have certainly not agreed with everything you’ve tweeted – I think we’ve had a couple back and forths – but I wonder, is there anything you’ve regretted tweeting or engaging with at all?
Thanks
From: Thomas Chatterton Williams
To: Steve Krakauer
Hey Steve,
I am pretty astonished by the sustained attention to the letter. Today, two and a half weeks after publication, Charlie Warzel has a column in the NYT basically imploring people to stop paying attention to it. that is crazy to me. How to explain it? The only way it makes sense is to take seriously the notion that it is identifying a problem that is real and that many people feel exists whether or not they feel comfortable admitting it. Not to only quote NYT columns, but there was an incredible Cato Institute poll cited in David Brooks’s column today, as well, finding that 62 percent of Americans are afraid to say things the believe. In fact, the only group of Americans reporting that they feel comfortable expressing their real political views identify as “staunch progressives.” Liberals, moderates and conservatives all do not. our letter brought this kind of sensation of being stifled out into the open.
Twitter, the medium, incentivizes some of the worst behavior imaginable for people who are supposed to be deliberative and nuanced––which is to say writers. I’m not sure what it is you disagree with, but because I’ve ended up being so active on the platform lately, I’m sure there’s plenty you might find to take exception to. One grows an audience and can get a lot of support for one’s views. This feels good, of course. But the public aspect of taking stances and performing outrage is ultimately unhealthy. There’s no way around this fact. We are in a mass psychological experiment the results of which are not a foregone conclusion. I don’t know what the answer is here. If you’re not super famous and established it can feel like you need the platform. Zadie Smith, who is the model of a successful writer to me, once asked me why I engage with social media. My thought was that if I were as famous as she I would not. But I’m not sure that’s true. One positive for me is that, since I live outside the country, Twitter keeps me in the American conversation in a way that I feel I need to maintain. I’m honestly deeply conflicted about it all.
Best always, T
From: Steve Krakauer
To: Thomas Chatterton Williams
Hey Thomas-
Yeah I definitely agree with you at being conflicted about Twitter – I think the problem comes in when people can’t step back with some humility and introspection, some self-awareness, about the bubble itself. If you don’t feel like you need to just delete Twitter every now and then, you’re too inside. One of the things I disagreed about was your assessment of how the U.S. was doing compared to France/Europe re: COVID (I won’t bore you with the numbers!). Anyway, that brings up another point you brought up – living in France. You and I grew up in small towns right next to each other in New Jersey. How’d you end up in France? And… is it kind of the life you always wanted – writing professionally, enjoying success in that field, and living in France with your family? Any advice for a young up and comer who wants to, say, emulate that success and life path?
Ok last thing – who are one or two people in the media you’re a big fan of, that maybe people would be surprised about… or people may not be familiar with? Because man…in this time of media polarization and overheated nonsense, let’s end on a good note.
Thanks so much for doing this.
From: Thomas Chatterton Williams
To: Steve Krakauer
Hey Steve,
Not to bicker, but I just want to say: france had a higher per capita death rate, but until the last person with covid is cured, it’s premature to say what the per capita death rate in the u.s. will end up being. After france effectively flattened the curve, life here went pretty much back to normal. travelers from the US, Russia and Brazil are unable to enter the EU right now because they never effectively flattened. The new york times reports today that there were nearly 75k new cases in the US yesterday. There will be a lot of time to look back and take stock of just what happened in the u.s.
Both of my parents were francophiles without either having spent much time here. I was raised by people who genuinely loved the idea of france. For my father this love was probably linked to the notion of liberation paris has long held in the black american imagination. My parents steered me to french classes instead of spanish classes, even though I never could understand why I should care and never tried very hard as a student to master the language. It wasn’t until I was in college and had to get language credits in a hurry and decided to spend a summer studying in tours that I finally understood what they were so in love with. I fell in love with all the cafes and fell in love with paris when visited. During my senior year i fell in love with a french exchange student back at georgetown, though our relationship didn’t last too long, she helped me get a job teaching english in lille, on the belgian border, for the following year. I moved there without a hesitation and through my ex-girlfriend and others I made a group of french friends I stayed in touch with once I moved back to new york city and some of them moved there too. I returned to paris from time to time over the years and spent some months there wiring my first book in 2008. Through these friends I eventually met my wife and after a year in brooklyn, we moved to paris and started our family.
I miss new york city and miss my friends and family badly, but I love living in europe. There are many cities I could live in out here besides paris. Berlin and lisbon immediately come to mind, but here are probably dozens. Stockholm, antwerp, rome. Being a foreigner very much agrees with me. I like the feeling the society doesn’t completely have a claim on me. I can tune out and vanish. I also think when you look at it from a remove, you can sometimes see the US more clearly, which is a very useful thing for a writer to do.
If I were to advise a young writer, I would absolutely suggest they should consider leaving home and going somewhere far away. It doesn’t have to be france and it doesn’t have to be europe. My best friend josh yaffa went to moscow. It could be africa or latin america. There are so many people in the same corners of brooklyn. Travel can help you find a subject as well as a perspective. It certainly helped me.
I’m a huge fan of reginald dwayne betts. he’s an extraordinary poet and essayist. and I really like this writer named lauren oyler, she is hilarious, biting and courageous.