I'm not gonna pull punches, as you see. I never pull punches in my writing for
other people or myself, you know what I mean? Like, there's a younger version of
Saeed out there somewhere who's like, 'Damn, girl, did you really have to put me on
blast like that?' I'm like, 'Yes I did.'
Saeed Jones is a former BuzzFeed LGBT editor and author of the award-winning
poetry book "Prelude to Bruise." His memoir "How We Fight for Our Lives" is
about growing up as a gay Black man in Texas and navigating his relationships
with his family, partners and his own identity. I sat down with Jones to talk
about the memoir, writing about trauma and how we can all fight for our lives.
You have this great line – another great line – that says "if America was going to
hate me for being Black and gay, then I might as well make a weapon of myself."
And I think there's a lot to be said for how we use our bodies and our identities
as weapons today – and our hearts – and our hearts –
How do you think we can weaponize ourselves
for good, for change, for love – and against what? Right, I mean I definitely think
my writing is weaponized, or rather, I think of my writing I
guess as a kind of tool. I think at that point in the book I
was – I don't know – 21, 22, which is to say, a mess, and was so unhappy. The
context that I observed, I was right about that, but my response was really
still rooted in toxic masculinity, and I think it's important for gay
men, for queer people, to think about those moments or those spaces in which
we find ourselves inadvertently leaning on these traditional toxic
structures for strength. And so I think I was really trying to project strength. I'm
tough. You hate me America? Well, I hate you. You know what I mean? And I feel like
that – it's like, that's kind of fuel, maybe, but it burns out really quickly.
You can't live like that. And you see in the book I realized really quickly why I
can't. But yeah for me, I think that energy though does go
somewhere, and it's in my writing, it's in my public communication – you know, Twitter,
doing public speaking events. For me, the weapon with time
became 'Oh, I can use my my art, I can use my craft to do that, and isn't that
better than literally trying to use my own body to do so? I think it is. I think
it is.
There's a scene in your book which I found very powerful, which was when you
are looking at the names of all the Black poets in your notebook and you get
emotional and you basically say that you know these these these poets have either
died of something tragic – AIDS, poverty, something tragic – and then you think
about your own experience and you say something that really gave me goosebumps,
which is that Black boys, they never really get
away from death – they just have more time. They can buy themselves more time, more
poems, more breaths. And I found that to be one of the most hard-hitting themes
in the book. This theme that being a Black gay boy is a death wish.
Yeah, so at one
point I say, witnessing
what happened to Matthew Shepard, I'm like, okay, so being gay can get
you killed. Witnessing what happened to James Byrd Jr,
a Black man who was killed by three white supremacists four hours from where
I grew up in 1998 – okay, so being Black can get you killed. And then here I am. Uh-oh.
And so, the death wish is – that's what I perceived at the time. And
I don't feel that it is a death wish, but that's how America made me feel. That is
what I intuited based on what I was reading in the culture. We have trans and
non-binary loved ones and friends and co-workers who, it's like a
constant litany of names. I don't know a genderqueer or trans person who doesn't
have the name of someone who has died and been killed for living their truth.
It's just – my God, you know. And so that is a heaviness that for different
ways and different reasons we shoulder and I'm not going to tell anyone not to
be afraid. I'm not going to tell anyone that stakes aren't high, because
they are. That's a fact. And all I can do as an artist is say, well, I have felt
that way too. I don't feel that way now. Things have
changed – the community, the self-care. Hopefully it helps people go,
'Hah, Saeed was there and now he's here and I'm kind of there too,
so maybe I can get there as well,' you know? That seems more useful than saying
then trying to dissuade people of what they intuitively feel, you know?
Because we have so much work to do and of course progress takes time, I
understand that – everything doesn't happen overnight, but my God, people are
dying overnight. So it's like, that's what we're always struggling with.
I want to talk a bit about healing and you know, healing is a
nonlinear process and I feel like when you write memoir it's even more so a
nonlinear process, because you are – and I think you mentioned it later on in the
book when you're talking about Daniel –
you write characters or you
write scenarios to get over them, to control them, to resolve them but then
when you actually write memoir all of this stuff comes back to the surface,
right? So, did you feel like you had any support around you to deal
with it? Like what did you do for self care while you're writing? Yeah, yeah this
is a great question. I mean often I would travel. I would say about half of the
book I wrote outside of New York City where I was living at the time. I actually
came here – and I came here and I wrote the coming out chapter, my freshman year,
that I actually wrote in Queen West, that neighbourhood here, so I would
travel a lot and find places where I could get away from the noise of New
York City and spend time with myself. I don't know, my friends were very
supportive, my therapist was incredibly supportive. We do need to have people in
our lives who have known us through various iterations of ourselves and can
tell us the truth. And then just, you know, I think self-care as a writer is reading.
So I studied the form tremendously. I didn't read a lot while I
was writing it but before I felt I really had to prepare myself from
reading other – Mary Karr is a writer I've been thinking about a lot today – in
terms of seeing how they navigated that difficulty, so I would like read her
books and then reread them and then study interviews where she would talk
about – 10, 20 years after she's written
Liars' Club, how she feels about it and that was helpful. And now you have
recently won the Kirkus Prize for non-fiction for your book – What a time!
Yes, what a time! And that's exactly what I was going to ask you next – you wrote this
great piece for BuzzFeed in 2015 about what it was like to be a Black
writer in the publishing industry and basically how racism is not – you don't
get rid of racism by going to these soirées and dressing up and looking real
cute, and so now it's been about four years since that article was published
and you have two books under your belt. So do you feel like the publishing industry
has genuinely made room for writers like us? Not really. Statistically
it hasn't changed that much in terms of the demographics of people who are in
publishing, and the reason not much has changed is because an outsized portion
of a conversation about diversity of representation is on writers. It took me
10 years basically to write this book. None of us can single-handedly diversify
the industry if we're depending on writers because we move at the pace we
do. So I feel that it has not changed substantively enough because I'm still –
when I sold this book, for example, eight publishers bid on it and
that was great – that's very impressive and very exciting, but it also meant that
I spent time in the offices of eight New York City-based publishers, which is to
say, I was usually the only Black person in the room and if there was another
Black person in the room it was an intern sitting in the back taking notes.
You know what I mean? And they weren't a black queer person
empowered to spend money, so I think we need more editors,
we need Black people in sales and marketing. We need queer people.
Publishing is a lot more straight than I realized initially as well, so yeah, it's
the behind-the-scenes aspect, where the power is –
who are the publishers? Who's the head of sales, head of marketing? Who's coming up
with these book covers cutting off the faces of Black people, lightening
characters' skin? That's not the writers making those decisions, so
that's the issue and it's getting better but I find generally applauding
people when it comes to race and sexuality and gender stuff
doesn't help. You applaud people, you say 'Good job,' and they
immediately slow down. It's true. And you're just like, no, keep on, keep on.
On a similar note I feel like we're having this huge
moment for queer trans writers, for writers of colour – anyone really with an
intersecting identity ,whether it's in publishing or TV or film – we've got Lena Waithe
for president, hopefully – I feel like I'm kind of torn because I'm like
the gates are open, let's charge these gates, let's get this money – and on
the other hand, I'm like, well, do I want to contribute to the stereotype that
they think that our lives are tragic and and traumatic, and it feels like when our
stores are being told they always want the trauma. And you know, even in the
editing process – 'Tell me more about this.' And it feels like it's just
very – it's crossing that line of exploitation. Do you kind of deal with
that in your own writing? Sure, sure. I came to this
book having worked as an editor, whether I was personally editing or assigning
personal essays for example – that was something – and what
am I asking of people? I still think about election night 2016
in New York City and around 10:00 p.m. I grabbed my Macbook and started
reaching out to people saying, 'Do you want to write about what's happened to
you,' in real time. And, listen, that perspective was important – we did need to
hear from – it was like, we were all kind of like, 'What is happening?' and that
essay form is a way to get insight. It is a powerful form but yeah you
have to be thoughtful. So yeah, I think if you feel
that you were ready and if you feel that you have found your professional team of
collaborators then that's the conversation: how do we do this in a way
that helps me sleep at night. Yeah, I think any writer and certainly editor,
that needs to be an ongoing dialogue. How do you feel? Do you feel I'm taking more
than I'm giving? You know what I mean? In terms of support. Or do you feel like
you are talking about these often painful or transformative experiences
for a reason, and that's why with this book it was like, how we fight
for our lives. I did a lot of things – I try to use a lot of
narrative strategies to make it clear that I wasn't just trying to set
myself on fire for readers' emotional entertainment or education. I'm not gonna
sacrifice my life, but I am going to show you what I've learned
about my life, so that you can learn about your own, and that I think is a
more empowered position. I agree, I think even in earlier drafts you
think everything needs to be on the page and then you – it is respect, it's respect
for yourself and the people who raised you and your experiences. Is
it out there too just for shock or is it out there because you want someone to learn?
And so there's a lot of difficult stuff in the book – a lot of personal stuff,
still, told in a very respectful, masterful way but what was it
like to have this book now with your life in it and share it with
the people around you? Because in the book you talk about your uncle, you talk about your grandma, so what was
that like? Funny. My grandma read the book, and for example, I told her, I sent a note with it – I sent
galleys to my family, because I was like well, they never told me not to
read it, they never were like, 'What's going on with it?'
They were patient and trusted me and so – but I sent a note, that I was
like, you don't have to read the middle basically, because the middle, I'm in
college and a lot of sex – like you don't have to go there, I get it.
And they all did. They all read it and my grandma was like, 'It was kind
of raunchy.' And Mildred, as you see in the book, she's not a practical joker, she's not
like a funny, funny lady, but we laughed. I know the book is a lot about my past
and you certainly – you do get really familiar with a part of my story but
it's just a part. I think other people feel more intensely of knowing so much
about me. I think other people have a more – and because, I'm like, it's me. Yeah.
I'm like, welcome. You know what I mean? It kind of feels like welcome to the party – I've been here the whole time. And maybe people, you
know, friends or acquaintances – friends know, but maybe acquaintances are like, 'Oh,
that's why Saeed is not here for slut-shaming at all,' – because I'm not I
don't play. We do not do slut-shaming, you know what I mean? That's why
masculinity every – Me Too came along, I was like, 'Let's go.'
You know what I mean? Because obviously it's rooted in experiences and I've
been thinking about them for a long time. So I guess people have a context, but I'm
like welcome to the party. Join me. I feel that. Well, that is it for all my
questions, Saeed. "How We Fight for Our Lives" is available everywhere now so
please get a copy. It is phenomenal. And thank you again for joining us.
Buy it for people you love. Buy it for people you hate. Be like, 'You're trash. You need
this book.'