Transcripts For CSPAN2 Michael Arceneaux I Dont Want To Die

Can sign up for our newsletter for more updates. This coming monday join us for neil shubin discussing his book some Assembly Required decoding 4 million years of life from ancient life to dna. This event will conclude with time for your questions. If youd like to ask the speaker something go to the ask a question but not the bottom of the screen whereyou can submit your questions. We will get through as many as time allows. At the bottom of the screen you will see a link to purchase your copy of i dont want to die poor through a partner of the bookshop. Also support Harvard Bookstore so a huge thanks for your generosity during this uncertain time. Your purchases and contributions make this new virtual author series possible and now more than ever ensures the future of a landmark independent bookstore. Thank you for showing up for authors, publishers, indy bookselling at Harvard Bookstores virtual space. We appreciate your support. And now im so pleased to introduce tonights speakers. Michael arceneaux is the author of the celebrated essay collection love, sex, family, race and other reasons i put my faith in beyoncc. Robert brown, previously was writer at large for new York Magazine and a staff writer for grant land which i missed dearly. His other writings have been published widely in the New York Times and in other publications. Tonight they will be discussing michaels newest book i dont want to die poor, and essay collection which evokes the experience of survival. The rave reviews of this book quotes the splintering process of Financial Insecurity and in essays brian arceneaux catalogs his effort to form a life among one of americas most acclaimed falsehoods. Observing that arceneauxs brilliance lies in how quietly he leads us to our own empathy forcing us to examine what it means to exist in a world that makesit increasingly difficult. Were delighted to host this event tonight and without further ado ill find things over to michael. My first question in this post technical getdifficulty world. You wrote a book that people love and it was critically acclaimed. New York Times Bestseller all that stuff. What went on in your head when you were like, lets try to do it again. Is that terrifying . Are you trying to meet expectations that were in your headoriginally or were you kind of like, i want to write books plural . If i were white i would have gotten my book deal a lot sooner. I had a vision of my life and career and i think in a lot of ways this is the book i wanted to work on in my early 30s but i didnt want to talk about Student Loan Debt because i knew early on that was impacting my life and you work in media, youre very clear about the narratives and you can always tell when something isnt going to change. I feel like in a lot of ways it still the same boringtrite representation of gay black men. You see what i mean, traditionally in a hyper lineal way. I didnt know necessarily i was writing another book, it was contingent on the first one. But yeah, i knew i could debut this out the book i wanted to write, it would do well enough to where i could tell this. I had another idea, its kind of maybe like a trilogy and then probably quickbooks and write for a while. I dont know i cant be sure of anything in this economy. Does writing about Something Like Student Loans something that wants you and you cant get ever get too far away from with this process of writing about it . Equal parts triggering and therapeutic or like, for me as someone that also has a number, and amount of Student Loans that are so large it doesnt even. Im kind of resigned. Ive kind of accepted unless something crazy happens in my life this isjust a bill i pay until an 80. One of those things. For you, dealing with it head on, what was that process like . You were already thinking about this that they dont disappear but deciding to write about it, does that add to the stress and anxiety . If i could write about them i probably wouldnt pay themoff. At first , i would not be content but i wish i could pay it until i was 80 and accept it but i never had the option. No, its more like youre going to pay us. I had no choice but to face it. I dont really like talking about money, generally dont like talking about debt, didnt like any part of writing or admitting. I knew everything that i needed by the time i went in and write it but i otherwise i wouldnt have put it out there but i knew it would be more revealing than anything in my thesis because talking about money is far more personal if youdidnt grow up with it. Its also right because as i outlined in the premise of the book, i didnt go all the way but a lot of things that happened last year where i spent most of the time writing it were awful times. I struggled with it a lot more than i thought i would so it was a nightmare to write it and live it while knowing that honestly, what most of us are going through right now is the fragility of the situation, how much is beyond your control or the fact that no matter how you get just a little bit ahead you donthave much of a financial base. So a lot of that is i was humiliated writing the book. Cathartic i guess but mostly it just was a pain. I needed to get it done. Thats what it was. Something that was super interesting to read that i dont know if id even fully unpacked myself is its like the kind ofconnection between you know , the decision of your late teens, early 20s and lingering shame. It is kind of crazy. A lot of people talk about college and it being one of the bigdecisions of your life. Its kind of a romanticized version of it. Like where you go, that campus determines a lot but theres also the other part which is like a financial thing that you a lot of times are an 18yearold deciding. Not always laterally but you know, you just dont really know what youre getting yourself into, especially if you come from a family where money is not a casual thing. Theres not a slush fund. Just that idea of shame was so interesting to read and i think we will relate to a lot of people who pick this up. I realized i didnt grow up with a lot of money but my mom is one of those people who is dealing with being a just a little bit poor, but there are things where journalism, you dontmajor in that. I kind of knew i was the only one going. It wasnt even like achoice , i didnt realize it was a big deal. Sort of like the debt stuff, i didnt go into it blind. I knew you didnt make a lot of money at first but what no one could know as is that media as we all traditionally understood it imploded and i graduated when that happened and the Great Recession happened so its like a virtual job so in some ways i didnt really know but even, i was 17 and i did a lot. I didnt have blinders. I guess i just didnt realize how so much of what i thought existed was not going to be there anymore and also the fact that i was growing up in the 1980s, starting with reagan and bush and to trump, theyre all kind of tied together. Theyve been screwing up people all under 40. Thats the stuff that nobody could have known but the shame is that i felt like i didnt want to be another black man letting my mom down and she literally does not think that but theres also the fact that to the larger point of the book, thats not fair and mostly its all that financial stuff when literally its just you going against the system. Going to take a quick pause. I dont want to diepoor. If youre watching this, theres a button on the bottom to purchase if youd like. Because thats what were talking about. Also, it is a good title. Whoever did your book cover, fantastic. I love the cover. One thing, i think it was the Second Chapter in the book. If you havent read it im going to try not to spoil too much but i want to talk about certain points in the book. Youre talking aboutreality tv. Youre talking about a world in which you almost became some on camera talent. Which is funny because it wasnt referenced in that chapter but there was a point when we were almost on camera people for a show. Yes we were. So moving on, that chapter did remind me of something that i think so many folks have to deal with which goes against everything you know which is this idea of turning down the wrong money. If you dont, if you were in a position where you dont have a lot of money in your account and you know about these loans that just kind of float over your head and never disappear and then an opportunity shows up that even like, youre at a point where any money in his lifechanging money. That idea of still saying no is a particular type of lunacy. And like, delusion in your own long game that you have built in your own head with no idea if its going to pan out. Talk me through what that process is like because its something i think about a lot and ive seen people take. Ive seen people take what was obviously the wrong money but i was jealous of them but i also knew they had about nine months to do the most with this money which is kind of what you were talking about when you talked about sherrae from real housewives. I was trying to do a lot of Different Things inthat chapter. I think when we make these neat cultural references its adorable but in that chapter in my case, in that year i didnt add that part of the book for later but ill say there was something that happened in, to me professionally that was beyond my control and unfortunate that should alter the trajectory of my career and would be off the path of things i wanted to do so this one media outlet owed me a lot of money but i really did need the money but the thing was i truly believe. I dont, im not one of those people that i think theres badmoney and good money but i have a larger purpose. I do realize i have nothing against Reality Television and if i thought that maybe it would be a means to an end , that i could get through it and ultimately like, we review that type ofthing. But as i write in the book im like, there are literally on the whiteboard talking about me like somebody i dont even know and its like trying to tell you about black homophobia. But also as i mentioned in the chapter which applies to me because im a black gay man to is that i think what it doesnt show on youtube is people would be into it because i think so many people, copy gay black men and our culture. Then theres this other show but not really but as much as i love the real housewives i think its funny how they get money off of how we are created and you have to show and theres nothing wrong with being on youtube but uncomfortable because i think its great but the fact that fundamentally there blake gay black men and these executives value them so that applies to me to, not wanting to be poor but they dont value people the same me the same way other people dont value me generally so i was trying to a lot of that and recognize the fact that i get why some people do this. I just personally think it wasnt worth it. One person i wont mention by name warns me but yes, it wasnt worth it. They would have played me. I will say that being in the world of criticism and occasionally taking a healthy hater approach to things that need to be calledout , it does provide us certain amount of checks and balances when your lifechanges. When things pop up im like, am i about to do the thing that i called corny for five years . If i feel like im about to do that, thats pretty much my indicator to say no because i feel like coming up especially in the industry its like you want to do it your way and then, but youre watching people a little bit older than you just like take checks and when you are like a raw twentysomething youre like how could you do that . And you become 33 andyoure like okay, i get it but i still cant do it. You know they would have made me look like a bit. You know they would have been crazy and unprofessional. I know my heart but i also know my mouth. The thing about that is people go into that thinking i will be different. You think youre special. No one is special, they would have played me. One thing i thought as someone who knows you and someone who is also a black man from the south that shares lots of cultural references, when youre writing a book, something that you hope to be consumed widely, theres a world in which you tone down some of the you know, the harris references and then theres a world in which you are like you know what . Im not going to handhold basically, handhold white people who might not know the people and talking about every fifth or sixth line which kind of feels like when youre working with white editors in journalism who dont know what youre talking about. When youre writing this where their moments where you were like, should i , am i getting too referential or is there a moment where having this be your book you want to double down . Im sorry keep going. I literally never think about that. Theres nothingwrong if you do think about it. If you do, thats fine if that works for you. My thought about that is i read a bunch of stuff from people of all types and if i dontknow what theyre talking about igoogle and figure it out. Its not that hard. I guess that comes with consequences like the niche references that people thought i use but im not going to bend to a lens that doesnt ever bend to me so i think ultimately, i dont think its antagonistic but i thinktrust the reader. Theres nice older white people in their 70s email, many would say i didnt quite completely understand everything but i really got the heart of the story or they did what ido. They looked it up there like i get it now. And it might introduce them to something they wouldnt have thought of the same way. So no, i refuse to. I start the chapter with i dont care about white people like that and its not a dig against white people , is to say so so often we can pander to likeness and think theyre writing about blackness, theyre not writing about being black,their writing about being black and a white state and how people react to you which is fine but theyre not the same. If you like it, youlike it. If you dont, you dont. What would you say going back to reading yourown book , what would you say is the chapter or the anecdote or the story that you enjoyed rereading. Not necessarily you enjoyed writing the most because enjoying writing sometimes isnt real becausewriting is hard stuff. Like, with the story. Is there a story you feel like. Holding is about who you are is there one story where your life and will open this book and show you one story that i think is going to get youinto this book. What is that . The book is still really funny that if i had to pick something for somebody to read, maybe the best to know me would be the chapter from the essay where i recommend the i tried writing in a coffee shop in harlem. Because it was where i could get out, i cried reading it in the audiobook. I didnt hate writing it. I think it was the most honest thing ive ever written and i think it kind of speaks to the core of who i am. Like, the anger that comes. It reveals fundamentally a kind of a chaos and how youre considered in compassionate with people so maybe that one but otherwise abr wrapper chapter. Finally, ive been waiting for it. Theres something in reading, you write actually i feel like theres a lot of it that is kind of, its inspiring to me because i find myself when i think about the book for essays or things that i want to write that feel superpersonal, i as an excuse to not do it i run straight to the, how will someone feel about this when it comes out . Why did i just run to the end . As soon as an idea pops up at the top your life i cant do that because so and so might beoffended by it. And then i step away from it and in reading this, its a reminder that just write it. Write it and then get it out first and then make that decision. Writing about like for you, how has the process been of writing . I dont want to write all my personal stuff about coke in my life aftereveryones dead. I want to write some stuff that people are alive and can see and thats difficult. How has that process been for you . Youre talking about people who will then read it. Im always cognizant of the fact that you are. When youre writing your story youre also putting in other people story so its important to be considerate and in not only how much of other peoples stories you include whether or not you even need to include some of those aspects. In the case of maybe the budget and there were things that honestly i think because something truly happens to somebody ill talk about, what does that add to the book in a lot of ways . Perhaps, not perhaps it would have but it would have been the rightthing to do . No so its not in their area and so in that way, that could be something different. But my main goal with i can be jesus is im talking about anybody especially my family is just to be respectful so my parents dont read my books but i think ive mentioned before my aunt said if i wassuccessful , i just try to be honest and respectful but also, the fact that my mom has stories about me that maybe are different forother people. If its an individual person just doesnt, if it doesnt feel right to include it then idont. Because i still think there are other ways to tell a larger point. Also i think for someone that feels like writing would be a part of their life for a long time, i think its also you dont have to force everything right then. Like holding on to some stuff , maybe figuring out the right time to tell that story. I feel like its also helpful. Theres something very i think awesome that you said at the end of the book. Which you know, i think informs why the book exists outside of the financial things that come with writing a book and writing a book being your job. You did your job. But this idea of learning to forgive yourself which is something you say i think ill make and it might evenbe on the last page of your book. But its very interesting because i think about i feel like my 30s are just making up for the sins of my 20s in terms of financial irresponsibility and those moments where its a recession and youre like do i go to this party or pay my phone bill . Those moments where you are confronted with you i do the thing i need for my mental sanity or do i think do the thing for my mental state ability . That not always being the most responsible decision and then you look in the future and youre like wow, if i had just done this or that or this or that, things would be different. But also just learning to be like, thats what you needed to do in that moment. Dont beat yourself downabout that. I think its a really good, really amazing thing for someone to read because theres a good chance everything that has beat themselves downabout that. How did you get to that . Do you find that you are practicing what you preach . Or is it still kind of hard to forgive yourself attimes . When i put in the book didnt really mention it. Otherwise, yes, i meant it because i needed to believe it otherwise i act like that type of thingwill come back. One thing and