All language subtitles for MasterClass Walter Mosley Teaches Fiction and Storytelling - 08. Fiction, Race, and Representation

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Fiction, which is
the seat of desire,

is what tells us what
our world is like,

what we wish our world was
like, what it had been,

and what we wished it had been.

When you read western fiction--

and it's probably true
of everywhere else, too--

you'll find that
before 1920, as a rule,

there were no women outside
of certain roles in fiction.

There were no
people of color out

of certain roles in history.

They didn't really
have a history.

They were supporting characters
to a broad white male story.

Those people, those
characters, nobody

imagined that a woman
could be strong enough

to knock out a man
because no woman was

written about like that.

Nobody could imagine that a
Black man could understand

the theory of relativity because
nobody had written about that.

Nobody could imagine a
sophisticated, sensitive

Indian, Native American.

If you want to be
in the culture,

in the history of the culture,
considered in that history,

then you have to
exist in the fiction.

If you don't exist in the
literature of that country,

your people don't exist.

People are not going
to read history.

They're not going to study.

They're not going to think
about-- newspapers aren't

going to cover your people.

So I wanted to write about Black
people living in Los Angeles,

now along Central
Avenue, and what

their lives are like,
and where they came from,

and what they were thinking,
and what they were eating,

and what music they were
listening to and making

and creating, and what kind
of trouble they got into.

And if I could write
about that, then

other people could read
about it and say, hey, wow,

my life is a lot
like their lives are.

And then you're a
part of history.

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When I'm thinking about the
history of literature, of film,

of theater, it becomes so
difficult to wonder if it's all

been a conspiracy because it
kind of feels like a conspiracy

because what happens is,
if everything that you see

and read has nothing to do with
the people you know and love,

then you begin to think
that you and your people

are in some way lesser.

I remember reading
"Treasure Island".

I love "Treasure
Island", you know.

And I wasn't
thinking about race,

so it wasn't that there
all these white people,

except at the very end,
Long John Silver escapes.

And he escapes because his
Negress had rowed a boat up

the thing, and she
helped him into the boat

and then rode away with him.

And I went, Negress?

What's that?

Like it sounds like Negro.

I guess it was Black.

And I kind of liked
seeing a Black person.

And then I kind of
like-- but it pointed out

that I hadn't seen any so far.

You know, from the beginning
of the 19th century,

there were lots
of people of color

all over because, you
know, they owned the world.

People came from Africa,
from India, from China,

you know, from the New World,
and they lived in England.

But in the costume dramas,
there's only white people.

It's a lie.

It's a lie about how
the world existed.

So I have two lies.

First I have a lie that there's
only white people doing things.

And second, I have
a lie that I can't

add Black people with real
Black Lives into that.

And these are issues
to be thought about.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

The interesting thing about
Alice Walker and her book

"The Color Purple"--

which, by the by, is
not my favorite book.

I mean, I like it.

But it's not, you know, one
of those big, heart-rending

influential books for me.

But the thing about her
writing that book was she

wrote in a language
that I understood,

and I felt I could write it.

And I mean, she was
a very good writer.

And so I had a lot to
learn to get to that place.

But still, I could
imagine getting

to the place of
writing that language.

You know, when I read
"Hamlet", I like Hamlet.

But I'd never be able to write
that language or those people

or that stuff.

But when I read
"The Color Purple",

I said, I know these
people, I know this life,

I know this language.

I can be a writer.

She opened a door to a place
that I knew I could go to.

All the other doors were shut.

And what Alice did with
"The Color Purple", says,

I'm writing about something that
I know and that I believe in,

and you know many
of the same things.

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Los Angeles in the late
'40s was an amazing place

for all kinds of people.

But let's just talk
about Black people.

These Black people had
either been into World War II

or had had people there.

They had had experiences which
no Black people in America

had ever had, you know,
in the real country.

From the war they
would come back

to Texas or to Louisiana
or Alabama or Mississippi,

experience the intense
racism there, and say, look,

either I'm going to leave or
I'm going to kill somebody.

So you have this
great migration,

and it's a fantastic one.

People were moving
up to New York.

They were moving up to Chicago.

They were moving
out to California--

and other places, you
know, Seattle and Portland.

So these people who came to LA,
life was completely different.

You could buy a house.

You could get a job.

You could get three jobs.

Lot of people did.

You made money, sent your
kids to school, owned a house,

met people.

You had a really
lively Central Avenue.

Oh, you know, Jelly Roll Morton,
all the major jazz musicians

are on Central Avenue.

You're partying.

You're having a great time.

There's racism.

The police departments made
almost only of white men

from the South.

So you had to
watch it, you know.

If they caught you, they
might do something to you.

But that's nothing new.

Easy Rawlins comes in
there and he says, look,

this is made for me.

He said, well, you
know, it's hard here.

A lot of other people, if you
came from, you know, Norway,

you say, well, that
sounds really hard,

the way you're living.

And they say yes, but
it's 10 times better

than I had it when I lived
down in the Deep South.

So you have conflict and
you have celebration.

And in between those
things, you kind of

have a life in
which you can learn

a lot about somebody's life
and a lot about his or her

interaction with other cultures,
other people, other places.

And so later, much later on,
when I start writing stories,

I start writing stories about
Black people doing things

with each other, you know?

I started writing about
people like my father,

people like Raymond Alexander,
people like Jackson Blue,

Etta Mae Harris.

I'm writing about Black
people living Black lives

as normal lives.

Not as Black lives, this is
what a Black person does.

Well, this is what a
person does in this culture

in this situation.

And I realized one
day that my subject

was not mysteries or crime,
but Black male heroes.

And that really
kind of shocked me.

I went, right, I'm talking
about these people.

And they're all heroes.

It doesn't matter if they're
a murderer or they're a coward

or they're a detective
like Easy Rawlins,

if they're a kind of a corrupt
businessman like [INAUDIBLE]..

Doesn't matter if
they're Etta Mae

Harris, who can
knock out any man,

or Mama Joe, who's also a witch.

Doesn't matter.

They're all heroes.

Now of course, the
women are also heroes.

But the Black male heroes
are the major characters

in my novels because there
have been very few novels

written about Black male heroes.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Most important thing in writing
is telling a good story well.

That's the most important thing.

If you enter a story
and say, well, I'm

trying to get
people to understand

what it's like to be a
Chicano working in the fields

picking strawberries,
well, I mean,

that's actually a very
good thing to want to do.

But what you have to
worry about is the story.

You look at something like
"Grapes of Wrath", I mean,

"Grapes of Wrath" is
a political novel.

You know, it's about the Okies.

It's about people who've
had their lives taken away

by the machinations of
investment companies, banks,

the wealthy, and nature itself.

But if it's not a good story,
I'm not going to read it.

If you said, well,
you should feel this

and you should feel that and
you should feel-- who cares,

you know?

Even somebody who's
Black who says,

well, this Black person is mad
because this and this happened,

I'm not interested in that.

Just show me the story
and allow the reasons

to come out behind that.

So I'm actually
saying, you know,

the opposite of what
many people might say.

Tell me a good story.

And in that good story, I'll
buy anything else you add.