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Who’s Afraid of Post-Blackness?
B
orn in Boston on
March 20, 1971,
Touré is a cultural
critic for MSNBC, as well
as the host of a couple of
shows on Fuse-TV: “Hip
Hop Shop” and “On the
Record.” A contributing
editor at Rolling Stone,
his articles appear regu-
larly in publications rang-
ing from The New York
Times to The Village Voice to The New
Yorker.
Touré is also the author of a collection of
essays called “Never Drank the Kool-Aid,”
a collection of short stories called “The
Portable Promised Land,” and a novel titled
“Soul City.” He serves on the Rock & Roll
Hall of Fame Nominating Committee, and
is a member of the adjunct faculty of the
City University of New York’s Graduate
School of Journalism.
A devoted father, Touré lives in Fort
Greene, Brooklyn with his wife, Rita, and
their two children, Hendrix and Fairuz.
Here, he talks about his new book, “Who’s
Afraid of Post-Blackness?”
kw: I really enjoyed reading “Who’s
Afraid of Post-Blackness,” and I have a lot
of my own questions for you, as well as a lot
from my readers.
T: Whatever you want to talk about is
totally cool.
kw: What inspired you to write the
book? Let me guess, the incident in college
where somebody embarrassed you by say-
ing, “Shut up, Touré! You ain’t black!”
T: Yeah, that was definitely an inciting
incident. I had already been thinking very
actively about what it means to be black
since I was very young. So, that sort of got
the ball rolling, but the
more specific influence
C eLeBriTY was the success of Barack
i nTerview Obama which was an
indication to me that
something had changed in
by Kam
terms of race and what it
meant to be black in
Williams
America. We are not post-
racial, but some things
have
changed.
For
instance, I think the
younger generation has a more progressive
attitude, and that definitely played to
Barack’s favor.
kw: Harriet Pakula Teweles says: It’s
one thing for artists to feel that blackness
can mean anything. But how can so many in
the period you describe as post-blackness
give up being boxed in by race if they have
neither the educational nor economic
opportunities to leave the ghetto locality?
T: What I’m saying is that you have the
ability to embody blackness however you
wish. I believe Harriet’s right that you see
greater opportunity for education and
advancement as you go up the class scale,
but America is the land of rapid class ascen-
sion within a generation, within a decade,
even within a year. So, I don’t think this
only applies to middle-class black people. If
you go into the ‘hood, you’ll encounter a
huge variety in terms of blackness.
kw: In the book, you talk about being
from Boston, and how your parents taught
as a child you that some areas of the city
were dangerous for blacks. I learned that the
hard way when I was in law school there in
the Seventies, like the time I was refused
service in a pizzeria because I was black.
T: That highlights the stupidity of racism.
You were simply saying: “I’m just trying to
Page 8 The Portland Skanner September 21, 2011
give you money for the thing that you pro-
duce. I’m not looking to start a fight; I’m
trying to engage in the commerce that you
do every day.” And they’re response was,
“We don’t want your money, because
you’re black.” Unbelievable!
kw: Troy Johnson asks: Do you see any
value in the government census trying
to keep track of people by race: black,
white, etcetera? If so, how can we truly
become post-racial??
T: I don’t think the goal is to become
post-racial. I don’t want a world in which
we’re not thinking about race. I want a
world where people are proud to be who
they are, and where everybody feels com-
fortable imposing the beauty of their culture
on America. The goal is that prejudice based
around those differences ends. Post-racial-
ism is not the goal, because it’s not even
possible.
kw: Rene Harris says: One time during a
Twitter interaction with you, you freely
used the actual n-word, but only referred to
a slur against Jews as the k-word. When I
questioned you about it, you never
answered. Care to clarify now?
T: I remember that interaction. It tran-
spired a long time ago before I made a per-
sonal decision to not use the n-word any-
more. Twitter is a very particular venue
where it can be very easy for someone to
misunderstand something that you’ve writ-
ten. So, you have to be very careful when
you are dealing with really incendiary ideas.
For me to use the n-word as a black person
is not going to be as potentially controver-
sial as using the k-word. It can be tricky, if
someone reads my tone wrong. But there’s
a big difference between using a word and
talking about that word.
kw: Judyth also asks: What key quality
do you believe all successful people share?
T: The ability to take a “no,” because in
order to become successful at anything,
you’re going to experience a lot of setbacks
and a lot of doors closing.
kw: Editor/Legist Patricia Turnier asks:
What message do you want the public to
take
away
from
your
book?
T: Two things: First, I want the black peo-
ple made to feel like outsiders because they
like opera or sushi or scuba diving to know
that they’re not weird and that they are
black. You can do black and be black in any
way you choose. And secondly, I want the
self-appointed, volunteer identity cops to be
frozen in their tracks, because they’re not
really doing the race a service. It’ time for
them to take off their badges and let people
be black in whatever way they see fit.
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