WGBH Radio; The Callie Crossley Show

I'm Cally Crossley This is the Cali Crossley Show. Writer Ed we is both a product of Port au Prince and Brooklyn by way of observation and imagination. She has brought some of her island nation to America and exported some of what's here to Haiti. Her writing is global literature or the documents the paradox of so many living in exile a kind of Permanent Floating that comes from migration from living outside of one's native land and language in a new collection of essays Create Dangerously reflects on the relationship between art and exile and examines what it means to be an immigrant artist from a country in crisis. We'll talk to her about her new book. From there it's on to Baltimore native author Wes Moore. His book tells a tale of two inner city destinies and another man named Wes Moore. Up next A Tale of Two Cities from Port au Prince to Baltimore. First the news. From NPR News in Washington I'm Lakshmi saying the countdown clock

starts ticking this hour at Florida's Kennedy Space Center where Atlantis is due to launch into its final flight to the International Space Station Friday. That is if bad weather doesn't get in the way. There's a 60 percent chance of rain or thunderstorms that could keep the shuttle grounded a little longer. But as NPR's Russell Lewis tells us the astronauts are already on the scene and getting ready for Atlantis his historic flight. Just four astronauts will fly in the shuttle the fewest since 1983. Nassa can't launch more than that because in an emergency it would have to rely on the smaller Russian Soyuz rockets to rescue the crew. Still Atlantis Commander Chris Ferguson says it will be a history filled flight as America ends its 30 year shuttle program. We have a very eventful mission ahead of us. We have 12 days will be very very busy you can tell we have a bridge crew. And when when it's all over. I think I speak again for everyone when I say that will be very proud to put the right hand book and on the on the space shuttle program Atlantis is main goal is to dock with the International Space Station and drop

off a year supplies at the orbiting outpost. Russell Lewis NPR News Melbourne Beach Florida. The Mexican navy says there's a possibility still that the seven Americans have been missing since their boat capsized Monday in the Gulf of California may be alive. Officials say the water is warm and calm. The missing tourists were among dozens of passengers and crew members whose vessel overturned in a storm. At least one person a U.S. male is confirmed dead. The Senate may vote in a few hours on whether to start debating a measure this week to give President Obama powers to continue military action in Libya. But some Senate Republicans may block that effort in favor of debating spending cuts and the debt limit. Lawmakers return to Capitol Hill today with deficit reduction as their top priority. As NPR's Paul Brown explains Democrats and Republicans are hard pressed to reach a deal so they can move ahead on approving a higher debt ceiling before the government risks default. In a few weeks the Treasury Department says it will run out of options and shuffling money

around to pay debts in early August. Political scientist Norman Ornstein tells CBS he now believes that what was once unthinkable may happen because Congress still hasn't reached a spending and debt limit deal. I'm just not so sure this time that we get a deal until after we cross the Rubicon and actually see a breach in the debt limit. Republicans now say they want a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution in addition to spending cuts. Democrats say they hear the message on spending limits but they say budgets can't be balanced without some new revenues. Paul Brown NPR News Washington. At last check on Wall Street the Dow is down three points to twelve thousand five hundred eighty in trading of 2 billion shares. Nasdaq was up 8 points at two thousand eight hundred twenty four as simpy 500 up slightly. This is NPR News. Businesses are picking up more equipment than new workers based on the latest data out of the Commerce Department. NPR's Yuki Noguchi reports orders jumped eight tenths of a

percent in May. So the number of hires remains largely flat. The report underscores that manufacturing is one of the only strong sectors of the economy though businesses aren't hiring they are spending on equipment especially in transportation goods new orders for transportation were up 6.3 percent during the month. The report on new factory orders includes non durable goods which decreased during the month. But the report also revised its previous estimates on durable goods orders that was revised upward from one point nine percent increase to 2.1 percent. Yuki Noguchi NPR News Washington. The United Nations says there needs to be a far greener way of addressing the growing world food crisis. The U.N. saying any will world economic and social survey out today says the planet will have to increase its food production by up to 100 percent by the year 2050 in order to feed a population that by then could be as much as 9 billion. It says just seven countries are home to about two thirds of the most

undernourished people they include China Indonesia Pakistan India Bangladesh Ethiopia and the Democratic Republic of Congo. The survey suggests governments need to invest more in small scale farms that would keep people fed while reducing damage to the environment. Two explosions north of the Iraqi capital are blamed in scores of casualties today. A local military spokesman is calling it a security breach. Police say a car bomb went off outside a government building in the town of Taji which is Sunni dominated. This is NPR News. Support for NPR comes from the Annie E. Casey Foundation. Promoting a life long family connections for children and youth on the web at 8 ECF dot org. Good afternoon. I'm Kelly Crossley. This is the Cali Crossley Show. Today we're rebroadcasting an interview with Ed we to Dan ticket. She joined us earlier this year to

discuss her most recent work Create Dangerously The Immigrant Artist at Work. It's a collection of essays that's a mix of memoir Haitian history and anthropology. She joined us to discuss this collection and what it means as a writer artist and Haitian to work on this book both before and after the earthquake hit the island nation and we stand a good welcome. Thank you thank you so much for having me. So you say in the book Create Dangerously for people who read dangerously. That was very interesting it's such a fascinating title so tell our listeners where it came from and the concept behind creating dangerously. Well Create Dangerously comes for and I think a lecture that the French Algerian writer gave in 1057 it as it's called. Lottie Staunton the artist in his time. And it was translated and given the heading create dangerously and I love that element of the translation and I decided to

to borrow it. And it talks about really how artist wrestle with their with their creation especially in very interesting and difficult times and in the ambivalence of speaking out or not speaking out and and those are issues that I've been dealing with pretty much since the time I published my first book and. And I wanted to address them in the in these essays along with. The process of how artists come to their work and I profile a lot of artists in the book who are from Haiti a few not from Haiti but to to really explore that element of creation of how you create in difficult times and how you come to your art. Now as we've said you started this collection of essays before the earthquake hit Haiti last January. This is this was a series that was a part of the Toni Morrison lectures. So when you were thinking of creating dangerously before the earthquake and then

after was there a change in how you thought about that concept. Well I mean the one of the things that inspired the Toni Morrison lecture that led to the book was a story of a photographer named Daniel Moir who I had met many years ago and I was a young man he was brought to this execution where two young men just a little bit older than him or executed in what was Haiti's last state sponsored execution in 1964. And then you know being present at that time and then the next day walking my images of the execution decided that he was going to be a photojournalist and he's one of the iconic photo journalists of Haiti. And so this this notion of creating dangerously I mean it goes back for us and Haiti through the dictatorship in difficult periods before we're artist. You know we're meant to be who are meant to be oppressed and suppressed. Some of them worked had the opposite effect on

their art and so you had playwrights who then because they could not write the work of the plays and write the poetry and other types of work that they wanted to do would return to the Greeks they would restage as Felix Morse you know I did one of the great poets and playwrights into Guinea because there were people at that time who could not pick up their dead children out of the street. And so this part of how art you know people especially you know during the period of the dictatorship in periods after have always on some level had to create dangerously had to create again very difficult odds. And a lot of that. Those artists those writers ended up migrating but a lot of them also ended up staying and the way they were able to stay is by putting as part of their art this kind of Mauer not who or they gave themselves some credible deniability so that you know if you write it about into Guinea you could say it's Greek. But the people you are trying to talk to the people whose reality

that you're trying against all odds to reflect still see themselves in that art. So we tend to think if you think of the expression dangerously physical danger. I've always thought of sort of the the danger of this title as two ways. There's the actual physical and political danger and there are people and different places all around the world who are creating dangerously who are writing on prison walls and and who are actively involved in this type of dangerous creation. But there is also this metaphorical danger I think that any type of creation anything that you're sharing with the world there's a there's a risk involved there's the risk of self-exposure there's a risk of failure there's there's all these risk and I think it takes a certain level of bravery for anyone to to to to create and you know writing someone who has said about it is that you know it's easy just open a vein. That's right. You know that's another kind of you know that's

another kind of metaphorical danger and that's all those things go side by side and it's interesting that even those artists who were involved in you know sort of the physical danger of it they wanted they relished the opportunity to have that chance to transition from one type of risk to another which is perhaps the more ordinary kind of risk that all artist whether immigrant artists or non immigrant artists face. Let's give our listeners for those who don't know a little history of your personal history how you are an immigrant artist having left Haiti when you were quite young and then living in the United States the rest of your life just so that they have an appreciation of what you your personal experience as an immigrant means in this context. Well I was born in Haiti in 1969 and my mother says that at some point I'll stop saying. When we see injuries again and it was doing the dictatorship

the Duvalier dictatorship in my father was the first in my family to migrate he came to the United States he moved to Brooklyn when I was two. And then my mother when I was four and at the time it wasn't very unusual for people if you had relatives in Haiti for the children to stay with them until a certain point and I moved to New York to be reunited with my parents when I was 12 years old. And so I started I came here in 1981. I didn't speak English learned English primarily from my from my brothers. And Sesame Street I know there is and started writing I love Had a great love of storytelling Haiti has a very strong still and various levels of very strong storytelling tradition and I and I feel that those were my first the writing teachers my my aunts and my grandmothers who told stories and I love stories and I loved writing and when I when

I came here I started writing inspired by by the many brave and extremely talented writers from Haiti that I had that have been reading over the years and started writing really standing on their shoulders in the writers that I started reading here. My Angelou Toni Morrison Alice Walker James Baldwin Amy 10 Julio Alvarez among others. The reason I wanted our listeners to understand that is because some good thread through this through your essays has to do with being on the outside even though you're obviously an American you've been here. You are living outside of Haiti as put you apart of as you describe in this book the diaspora what they call the diaspora in Haiti. And I will just note this from the book for our readers it says but in the Haitian context it's used to identify the hundreds of thousands of Haitians living in many countries of the world. I meant it in the essay to list my own personal experiences as an immigrant and a writer of

being called Diaspora when expressing an opposing political point of view and discussions with friends and family members living in Haiti who knew that they could easily silence me by saying what do you know. You're living outside you're a diaspora. Well that's you know that's the that's the dilemma I don't think Katie is the only. The only communities that have that sort of the in out and it's like any other family relationship I consider it you know in spite of these sort of these types of conversations it's types of discussions that need to happen on some level. I still consider it a family affair you know sort of it's like any other family type of type of friction because we have a lot of people who have had by necessity to leave their country so that not only could they have a better life but that also the people that they are they left behind could have a better life. I mean the perfect example were my parents who

when they came here I first you know were undocumented and they didn't really see a way that they they could have a future until they had taken care of their life here and then send and then send for us. And a lot of that. I mean it's it's the pull and tug of this migration in my family for example my father and his brother his brother never left Haiti my father. Came here and there with they lived 30 years apart where they would see each other once or twice a year. So that's the dilemma. And and it's you know those are the continuous conversations and then just sometimes in good fun. But they do they do happen that you know it does exist. We are talking in a city of Boston which has a huge Haitian American population one of the largest in the United States so these feelings that you express on this page I have heard from other Haitian Americans and particularly when that earthquake happened there was a great deal of feeling I'm here and and yet this is happening

in a country that means so much to me. Well it was it was extraordinary to see after the earthquake for example and I'm so proud of Haitian Americans here and in the Boston area. You have some wonderful organizations here like Partners in Health which works with Haitian American. Doctors and nurses and so many went back to to to Haiti to help. And it but it was 60 it was extraordinary to see this proximity It's almost as if I mean I know people who were Haitian American first. Now we're entering another generation. And some of them who are sort of loosely felt loosely connected we eat the food we dance to the music is sort of how they were they felt about it. But after this earthquake happen who really kind of embraced you know return to the fold return to Haiti. And some people just you know young people just packed a suitcase and went back and it was it's extraordinary this to because often we see this image of Haiti

or this outsiders point in help. But it's that it's great that there's also this contingency of people who've lived here for years people who were born here who still have this great love of Haiti and I think the and moments of crisis and moments of tragedy that love is is even deeper it's it's it's it's even stronger. My guest is writer Edwidge Danticat we're discussing her latest book Create Dangerously. We'll be back after this break stay with us. Support for WGBH comes from you and from Orchard cove the independent senior community in Canton 12 miles from Boston is making exciting changes that will inspire residents to engage explore and live a healthier life. Special savings for new depositors at Orchard live dot org from history detectives on WGBH to the

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All you need is a clear title. WGBH will sell your car and the proceeds go toward the programs depend on WGBH will even have someone come and pick up your old car at no cost to. Learn more about WGBH is vehicle donation program at WGBH dot org or the world. Confront is wrong in the deficit my love. Coming up at 3 o'clock on eighty nine point seven. WGBH. Good afternoon. I'm Cally Crossley This is the Calla Crossley Show. Today we're rebroadcasting an interview that we did with Edwidge Danticat. She joined us earlier this year to discuss her recent work Create Dangerously The Immigrant Artist at Work. It's a collection of essays that's a mix of memoir Haitian history and anthropology. She joined us to discuss this collection and what it means as a writer

artist and Haitian to work on this book both before and after the earthquake hit the island nation. I want to remind our listeners before we continue our conversation about just some of the work that you've done in the past and some of the prizes you've won as a result of that fabulous work. Of course there's breath eyes memory which was an Oprah book selection which is a big deal. And then there's the dew breaker Brother I'm Dying. We could go on and on with the list. You have one the pushcart Short Story Prize the National Book Critics Circle Award. We've mentioned Oprah you were named one of the 30 under 30 for New York magazine and most people would understand the MacArthur Genius Grant in 2009 just as an appreciation of the fine work that you have done writing a lot of that work has been fiction. And this is nonfiction. And you talk some about trying to figure out when is it a good time. Particularly in

the wake of something like the earthquake or just dealing with the realities of life to write fiction. Talk about that a little bit. Well I've you know I started out as a as a fiction writer and when I started actually my first novel birthrights memory was a long essay that turned into fiction when I felt like I couldn't. There was nothing else that I could pluck from my life and I needed sort of a bigger canvas and I needed the freedom to invent invent things. So I've always felt very comfortable in fiction. I started writing nonfiction and between my my fiction books you know as essays in as a way to take a break. And in 2001 I wrote a travel blog about Carnival and a beautiful Southern town now somewhat devastated by the earthquake. A place called Jack men and they had sort of one of the premier Carnival is in Haiti and that was my first nonfiction book and I saw that as a kind

of you know a little bit of hiatus from from fiction. And then in 2004 my I had this this horrible but glorious at the same time you know where my my father. I was diagnosed with pulmonary fibrosis and died within nine months and my uncle who had raised me while my father was was here in the US. I spent 8 years with him of my childhood. He died after some upheaval in Haiti where he came to the United States where he had been coming back and forth for 30 years and was stopped at. You know he was asked at the customs with a legal visa and he was asked how long he would be staying and he explained that he had just lost his house and everything in Haiti and he was arrested and detained it was 81 years old. His medication was taken away and he died in the custody of the Department of Homeland Security. And at the same time I was pregnant with my little girl my first daughter. And so that was the that after I had this year and as a way to

process I started writing a memoir about sort of this this confluence of events and I seemed to have remained since that time. And sort of than my interest in the nonfiction world has lingered somewhat but to me ultimately it's all the same thing whether its story asks you know how it wants to be told. And certainly after a very large disaster I mean I've seen it now with even the work that's coming from writers within within Haiti who primarily. Before we'd leave the nonfiction to politicians in their memoirs and essays you know in and they see what we would call sort of more just what had happened. But since the earthquake a lot of you know Haiti's great fiction writers have also written about their experience doing in America think once something so large as happened you know you often have the poets. They're the first line. You know

they're their first cry and then you have the testimonials the nonfiction and ultimately you have more and more fiction we've seen that also in 9/11 you know 10 years on now almost from 9/11 in you have a trickle of 9/11 novels because I think it takes some distance to have the level of reflection where you're not replicating the exact reality you know where it's not where you're not writing what everybody already knows to sort of dig beneath those layers. So there will be I'm sure perhaps you know from from great writers both in and out of Haiti or maybe I was one of them said Daniel I feel the way Haitian writer said it could be someone who's never been to Haiti who writes the great Haitian earthquake novel but ultimately there will be I'm sure several. It could be next year could be 10 years but I think with fiction you sort of need more distance for example I could have not I couldn't have written fiction about the year that I had you know with my uncle and my father and my daughter I just it

just needed to come out another way and each story demands how it wants to be told ultimately. Well one of the. However if the stories want to be told if you are an immigrant artist you are often building off of those experiences and those people that you know in the home country as it were. And I was quite taken with an exchange that you had with your aunt and I love our listeners to hear your voice and and set this up a little bit and then and then read a part from the book. Yes this is from an essay in the book called The other side of the warder the expression love Board in Creole means both to people having migrated and also means to have passed away. And this was after the death of one of my cousins who passed away in Miami and we had gone through this whole experience of trying to send his body back to to to Haiti. And and when I got there my aunt his mother because he he was he had died

of AIDS and it was a you know my I didn't want that to be talked about in that particular way. And so this is an exchange we had when I got to Haiti after my cousin had been buried. People talk tons he went on they say that everything they say to you ends up written down somewhere. Because she was my elder my beloved aunt I bowed my head in shame wishing I could apologize for that. But the Immigrant Artist like all other artist is a leech and I needed to latch on. I wanted to quote the French poet and critique stiffened my limey and tell her that everything in the world exists to end up in a book. I wanted to ask her forgiveness for the essay that in my mind I was already writing the most I could do however was to promise her not to use her real name or my uses. She was silent

momentarily comforted by my tiny compromise. I changed the subject asking if she wanted to go swimming just to relax her body a little while I said before the return trip back to Port au Prince. I thought she would say no. She had turned me down before. Still I had hoped that she might surprise me and say yes I can't she began then corrected herself. I don't want to. That was so extremely powerful to me because you know I recognize attention of their proud of you and they know that you're right but they also know that you this is you know your material as it were. Everyone who has a writer in the family you know most people have a writer in the family face especially a nonfiction writer and that sort of the very material that feeds your work involves other people's lives. I mean I I have always tried to tread that very carefully because I I I acknowledge the involvement that two of you are pulling people in with you

which is why you know for example when I wrote my memoir about my father and my uncle I you know there was a lot about my my brothers and it for example and I try to let them see it. I tried to offer them an opportunity to first see it because it's important to tell your truth it's important to tell your stories but I like my relatives I don't I don't want to lose the overall tone of the book of course is because you wrote it again you were writing this before the earthquake and then afterwards so how do you feel now we're almost a year to the anniversary and still there's a lot of struggling going on. Just wonder how you feel about it. Oh I mean it continues to be of great concern of course. As we were approaching the the one year anniversary you still have something like 1 and a half million people homeless and you know and this is it's been a series of disasters since the earthquake you first

had the earthquake then you had the menace of the hurricanes most recently Hurricane Tomas and now you have the cholera which is extraordinarily alarming because of the conditions in the tent cities of the capital and elsewhere are rife for spreading of cholera but not just cholera but TB. And you've had some. A great number of violence sexual assault against young women and girls I mean the last time I was there I I saw something I had not seen in many. You know I've not seen in my whole life you have you know women young girls girls who seemed like very little who are walking around with these little bellies and because many of them were victims of sexual assault in the stern So there's it's very alarming. The fact is you know we've asked so much of Haitian people in terms of their resilience and they've been resilient have been extraordinary I mean they're. I think there are places that

would have been destroyed by now by the impatience of people but people are so used to being self-reliant to being reliant on their neighbors to making do with very little that they've they've they've borne you know they've kind of carried it so far. But I am becoming you know increasingly more concerned as we knew the one year anniversary of how much more people can bear. So even when you're here in the study goes to to the the the diaspora element you know even when you're here you still have your family you know families there it's like your heart is there. And a lot of us you know go back and forth to to see what we can do for our family members. But even if your family is OK and fine there's still all these other millions of people. They are suffering and it's it's a constant as if you had a sick relative that's suddenly critical. You know that's how I think Haiti is for all of us on a daily hourly minute second by second

basis it's there's a connection there that's very real because we have people we love their country we love. In a situation that seems to you know that's really testing and asking for all of their forbearance all their patients everything they have. And you do your work and really talking about all of Haiti and what Haiti is about and what it can be through so many different platforms. I mean not only writing fiction and nonfiction and these essays as you have but you're doing documentary work and you've written a children's book called eight days which was really about the earthquake for young adults you've written several young adult books. So you seem to be operating on many levels to try to get this story keep the story out and in front of the rest of us who may not be as connected. Well because I think on some level it's the same. It's the same thing. I mean one of the great things about having all the social media

and all this other means of communicating is that people within Haiti a lot of the artists a lot of the writers a lot of the television people are able to do some of that tooth you know through the Internet. And so they're also you know keep the story alive in touch by telling their own stories by by because when you tell your story when I tell my story when someone there's a young woman who blogs from a tent city in Haiti when she tells her story she joins her story to the largest story of the world. You know to the flood victim of in Pakistan. And so we're less alone in this you know and this and and so. Every voice I mean I believe in lifting every voice Every voice counts especially in a situation of crisis like this especially in such a complex and constantly unfolding situation as as we continue to have in Haiti now.

Speaking of lifting every voice your next project is called Haiti noir which is a series of stories can you talk about that. Well Haiti is. We started working on on Haiti about a year before the earthquake it's a it's an anthology a collection of stories short stories. And this series of detective noir type stories that is published there about 36 of them now there's one called Boston nor Oh really. Yeah. OK. And so in the Haitian community here I know Boston are set in Boston. Oh ok I see. So it's a series of stories about a particular city by different writers. And we have 18 stories in our book 80 nor are and 16 of them are by Haitian or Haitian American Haitian Canadian Haitian French writers. And it's a kind of reunion of all these different voices. Short stories from from Haiti and people will discover. All these wonderful voices through that actually we have some we have locally the poet Patrick C. van who opened 18 or so there's a local connection to the

book and it's exciting I mean for me because we people we have this Haiti to you know the Haiti that is currently in such distress. But we have this this other and it's the same place it's because it's all we've been together this these wonderful writers these wonderful artists and and it's and this is a great opportunity while people are a little more interested in Haiti to introduce them to all these wonderful writers who have nurtured my intellectual development and who I think people will find a great deal of beauty a great deal of just intelligence and and pace because we have you know we have some of the the world's most wonderful writers and Haiti and this is an opportunity. Two for people to get a peek of their work in translation some have not been translated before some have. So it's a it's a it's a it's a way to see this other sort of a it's a dark because it's meant to be the stories are meant to be dark but they're complex they're nuance and they're they're just

extraordinarily beautiful and a number of them are from the diaspora. Yeah. So it's also that's the that is very exciting for me about it because we get an opportunity to sort of get these writers to kind of meet in between these pages you know the this is another this is yet another bridge for for our writers some of our writers in Haiti and in these other writers in the Diaspora some are in front some are in Canada some are in the United States where you're an awfully powerful voice for. If immigrant writers certainly artists everywhere and certainly for for Haiti My personal favorite is the DU breaker my book club love that is so beautifully done I just want to give you that compliment why you're here and I am reminded of you. You have a note to a fictional character in breath eyes memory you say at the end of a letter. May these words bring wings to your feet. So I hope that to our listeners who are hearing this conversation and care about Haiti and and love your work that may your words bring wings to their feet as they as they read them. Thank you. Thank you so

much for being here. Thank you for having me it's been wonderful. OK we've been talking about writing the immigrant experience and Haiti's past present and future with writer Edwidge Danticat. Her latest book is a collection of essays entitled Create Dangerously The Immigrant Artist at Work. Up next we continue the conversation about writing and memoir with author Wes Moore. Keep your dial on eighty nine point seven. GBH. Support for WGBH comes from you and from Newberry court. A full service residential community for persons over the age of 62. Newberry court invites you to schedule a visit any day of the week. Visitors are welcome for tours on Saturdays and Sundays by appointment. Newbury CT dot org and from history detectives on WGBH to the experts uncover historical facts myths and mysteries to discover new surprising insights into our past explore with history detectives tonight at 8:00 on

WGBH too. I'm Marco Werman life for Venezuela's poor has improved since President Hugo Chavez came to power. Critics say it's Venezuela's oil boom that's responsible not the controversial leader but they do admit he put the plight of the poor in the national spotlight. Even though they support social programs because we've had things that we need to help these people. That story next time on the world. Coming up at 3:00 here on eighty nine point seven WGBH. Become a sustaining member of eighty nine point seven for as little as $5 a month. And you too could play a big role in public broadcasting all through the year and help produce on air fundraising. Each and every month the amount you give automatically renews. That helps

WGBH plan better and better plans means fewer fundraisers. Cheers for summer. You're going to get with the fungi help make everyone's day a little brighter. Visit at WGBH dot org. From Japan to Libya to New England. We've got your town your state and your world at WGBH dot org. Find the latest news from the sources you trust NPR and WGBH Boston at WGBH dot org. Good afternoon. I'm Kelly Crossley. This is the Kelly Crossley Show. Two men one name two different lives. Why does one go one way and not the other. That's the same of Baltimore native Wes Moore's book about choices and expectations. The Other Wes Moore one name two fates. Today we're rebroadcasting an interview that we did with him last year when his book came out. Once more welcome. Well thank you so much great being here.

This book I have to tell you has captured me and I'm also haunted by it. It's really hard to let go which I know is good for an author. But it's disturbing in everything that you write about and it's also poignant. So let's begin just with some facts so that people can understand how this all came to be. How did you find out about The Other Wes Moore. I first found out about him. I was actually a student at Johns Hopkins University I was doing a study abroad program in South Africa and I was on the phone with my mother and she said I've got something crazy to tell you. She said there are wanted posters all over your neighborhood. For a man wanted for the murder of a police officer and his name is Wes Moore and if you see him do not approach because he's assumed to be armed and very dangerous. And that was the first time that I'd ever learned about Wes Moore and so I came back to the United States and I started reading more articles because this this case absolutely gripped the city of Baltimore because the person that was killed he was a police sergeant a 13 year veteran three time recipient of police officer of the year and he was working as an

off duty police officer at a jewelry store. And these you know four guys went into a jewelry store and robbed a jewelry store. He ran after them tried to get them keep them from getting away and he was shot three times at point blank range. And but the more that I learned about the other Wes The more I realized that we had so much more in common than just our name that we both grew up in single parent households that we both. We're around the same age that we both have significant troubles both academic both academically and also in terms of discipline within our neighborhoods. And so it haunted me that how does this even happen. How does it happen that two kids with such similar backgrounds and such similar or similar experiences end up in two completely different places. And that's why it haunts me to the point that one day I decide to reach out to him and write him a note in prison. And a month later I received a letter back from Jessup Correctional Institution from Wes Moore. One of the things that you didn't mention but which should be mentioned is that you were both raised by single mothers. The circumstances were different. I was really didn't know his father very well but your father died and your father was married to your mother and. And

but the impact. It was intense as because of the absence of the Father. Absolutely. There was a you know quite a few conversations that Wes and I have had. Not now I'm not going to visit him I know. No Wes for close to five years visit him over two dozen times. And one of the things that I've really learned is how the impacts of for both of us of not having our fathers there have have really affected our lives and there's as there's actually a scene in the book when Wes and I are talking in prison and and he says to me you know your father wasn't there because he couldn't be. And my father wasn't there because he chose not to be and therefore we're going to mourn their absence in different ways. And I told him that I thought that was you know very accurate very fair point. But I think one thing we both also agreed is that regardless of the reasoning regardless of Regardless of why we both grew up with just our mothers that whole that was left in both of our lives was something that was so significant and so deep that I think both of us started looking for a lot of ways to try to fill that hole. And in many ways that we were looking were for both the case of both boys were not only dangerous and

counterproductive but I really had significant impacts on the lives we lead. I want to give our listeners a chance to just hear a bit of your book and following up on the point that you just made. Looking for a way the other Wes Moore to find his way in the world and to and to be a man he looked up to his older brother and this is a just a brief passage when you talk about how his older brother Tony was trying to shape him. And by the way readers West does not have his book which is why I'm reading this. So people will understand that Tony wanted the best for Wes but he still felt that part of his mission as a Big Brother was to toughen him up for the battles Tony knew Wes would have to fight as he got older. Some days Tony would have Wes and Woody meet him at the Murphy homes where he would assemble a group of Murphy homes boys the boys would circle up like they were getting ready to watch a gladiator fight. Tony would order Wes and Woody into the center of the ring. Then he would call out the names of a few of the Murphy Holmes boys at Tony's command West. Woody

and the boys from the projects would start wrestling and punching one another first tentatively but then with increasing viciousness until Tony jumped into the circle and grabbed the backs of their collars separating them like pit bulls in a dog fight. If you ever slacken. Tony would pull an exhausted west to the side. Get within inches of his face and say. Rule number one. If someone disrespects you you send a message so fierce that they won't have a chance to do it again. It was Murphy Holmes Law and Wes took it to heart. That just went through me when I read that. Yeah and the really unfortunate thing you know about that is when all that was happening you know Tony you know the West West was still nine years old. You know Tony was was 14 and you know Tony a Tony was a play to really a fascinating role in this Tony was actually the trigger man. That day he was actually want to pull the trigger that killed Sergeant Sergeant Prothero and he along with Wes and two other guys all received life in prison. And but Tony was fascinating because Tony tried hard to keep Wes out of

the drug game as Wes was growing up Tony knew Wes was a smart kid and Tony knew Wes had the potential to do well. And Tony really was trying to steer him in the right direction because Tony and fundamentally had essentially given up on himself. By the time Tony was around 14 or so. So it was that watching the relationship and the dynamic between big brother little brother role model and mentee really played itself out in many different ways throughout Wes's life. The theme one of the things for your book is about expectations and how they play a huge role in. Every kid's life and so you know I looked at that passage and I thought his expectation was that he was going to toughen up and West's expectation then of himself is that well this is what I'm meant to do to survive. And you on the other hand for you the expectations were quite different. That's right. And there was actually there was a time when Wes and I are talking in the prison and I highlight where I ask him I say. Do you think that we're products of our environments. And he looked back and he said actually I think we're products of our expectations. And I thought that was a really

important point because you know as as continued on in the book when he basically was saying you know if your expectation is that you'll graduate from high school and you go on to college and you'll be you know be a productive citizen you'll get married and have children and be a good father then then that's what you'll do and kids will generally meet those expectations. But if the expectation for you or for the expectation for the neighborhood that you grow up in are that you probably won't finish. If the expectation is that you probably will be involved in a criminal justice system that you probably will be in a lot of facilities for the rest of your life. Then kids will have a funny way of meeting those expectations too. And the importance of making sure that we're setting not just high but proper expectations for our kids really rate really rings true throughout this process of this entire book because once I realized that my expectations were different once I realized that I had people who are counting needed to to start doing the right thing even though I was having significant challenges coming up. I was able to be able to see more explore more and really start to prove people right on the expectations that they were setting for me because their expectation became my expectations of myself.

And even though you know it wasn't a smooth ride for you I mean you went to militate your mother had to send you to military school to sort of straighten you out and you ran away several times before you sort of got the message. But they say they hung in there expecting you to do better. They did I mean one thing I realized very early was even though I was giving my mother every reason to follow other folks lead and give up on me she wouldn't. And as frustrating as it was to me sometimes she refused to give up on me. And and it meant a lot and it meant a lot because she understood that that burden and that burden of child of going into adulthood can be very difficult for so many young kids. But my mother taught me something and she and she blew it and she repeatedly says and I think is absolutely right when she says kids need to think that you care before they care what you think. And she knew that the only way that I was going to be able to break out of the challenges that I was having and be able to break out of the of the norm of what the expectations were for so many kids who were growing up in and in our neighborhood was that she needed. She needed me to understand how many people cared about me because if I knew that then I would care what they thought.

And I would then be able to be able to meet their expectations. We're talking with Wes Moore whose book is The Other Wes Moore one name two fates. Now Wes when did when is the moment or can you from looking at both of your experiences determine when the other Wes Moore was really lost and when you were able to take a different path where you could have been lost but you managed to make a turn. I think in the in the case of Wes I think a real turning point for him. There are actually two pretty significant points one was was after he was picked up on attempted murder charges and he came back to the community and I think I think that was a really tough moment for him because I think that's the point that even his mother will acknowledge that it was at that point that she realized that he was probably too far gone. And I know that his mother was really was his biggest supporter. And it should be noted that she worked very hard she was working two jobs and trying her best to keep an eye on these kids and just couldn't do it all.

Absolutely and it's a very important point that you just made because also Wes's mother was the first one in her family to go to college. You know Wes his mother was actually been accepted at Johns Hopkins University and that and then the Pell grants were cut. And so she could no longer afford to go. So I can't help but think that his mother had the opportunity to finish school had she got a college degree from Johns Hopkins University I can't help but think that the prospects for her family would have been different for her would've been different and then in effect the prospects for her children then would have been different as well. So she was she was working you know very hard and was a stalwart supporter. But I think that was a real turning point for us in another turning point was when he went to the Job Corps. He had spent some time in the streets at that point really doing a lot with drugs. And he went to the Job Corps and got his GED started to really try to turn his life around but then he came back to the community after being in Job Corps which is a job training program all throughout the country and the best he could do was was make some you know make loose money on the different jobs he was making because he had a felony record because you know he really there really was no place that was going to welcome him back into society. He he then found himself

back on the street corners and doing what he knew how to do best. And as a way of taking care of his family. So I think there were larger lessons to be understood in that as we're thinking about recidivism and as we're looking as people are coming back into communities that are spending time in prison not just how we're preparing the community to welcome them back but then also how we're preparing them to come back into into the community because again we're talking 95 percent of people in prisons will come back at some point. And I think a real turning point for me was actually while I was at the military school because I think even though i even though I try to run away five times in the first four days from there and I hated every minute of it. When I first went it was also there that I began to understand that I was a part of something bigger than myself. It was there that I began to understand accountability it was there that I began to understand leadership and that it really mattered that I was there I got rank and I got responsibility and that's one of the point when I think I made it I made a psychological decision that my life was worth something more. It wasn't so much about the you know actually physically transporting me from one community to

another but it's about the psychological transformation that I was going through that I think helped help steer you know help steer me for the rest of my life. I mean and when you made the change you really made the change you know. Rhodes Scholar military veteran financial with the whole nine yards. I mean it couldn't be more different from The Other Wes Moore is life. Yeah. And yet you want to make clear that your book your story is not really about a good or a bad west. That's right. And I've. And that you've said that a lot of luck went into this. So you know this is a question you have to ask. I know every place you go but you got to ask try again ear what you know how could it be that you could just keep going forward I know about the support I know about your you're feeling like you know your life was worth more but when you see somebody and you read think about this other Wes Moore and the loss of the talent and the possibilities for him it's you got to go back and try to pick out. What specific can we do to

try to head it off for other people. Yeah well there's one thing I realize is that there is no one thing that we can do I mean I think you know parenting is extraordinarily complicated and particularly if you happen to be parenting in a neighborhood that in some cases is working against you in terms of you know helping your child go go through this part of this process of adulthood. But there are a couple things that I know and I know it from personal experience in the work that we do with kids is that as long as we're willing to be there to intervene and support that changes can make and we can genuinely make miracles happen. You know one of the things that I'm most proud of in this book is that it is actually the back of the book because we have we list over 200 organizations around the country that are actually doing the work on the ground. There are a lot of resources. Yes absolutely. It should be noted that a portion of the book the proceeds go to two organizations. Which are supporting you. Absolutely and in fact one of them is actually started in Boston city or is one of the organizations that is receiving a significant portion of proceeds in the other one is the U.S. Dream Academy which supports children of the incarcerated. So one thing one thing I know for sure is

that as long as we're willing to intervene as long as we're willing to actually step up and be part of the solution that we actually can make great things happen I mean I believe it's so firmly that it literally on the cover of the book is a saying that the chilling truth is that his story could have been mine and the tragedy how do you get a muster let me ask you this Wes how do you get young people because they now you have the benefit of maturity. How do you get young people to understand the power and impact of their choices. Well I think I think one thing you can do is help to show them the impact of the choices I mean one of the reasons that actually decide even put together this book is not in any way to make people sympathize or or you know with with with Westerners current situation or to glorify what happened. You know I make very clear who the victims of you know of February 7 2004 was Sergeant prosperous family. But one thing I want kids to understand is these are the ramifications for your decisions. This is what happens when the small decisions become big decisions and then also just help them to reflect on the small decisions that they make within their own life every single day and how they impact not only themselves but also impact people around them. And then in addition to that

showing that showing their caretakers and their Dulcinea mentors inside of their life how much potency we really do have in order to actually affect people. How much potency we really have in order to affect communities and affect the society that we live in a country that we live in. You know one thing when we talk about this this burden of expectations you know for kids and why it is so important because part of it is and I think part of the fundamental problem is the expectations that we place not only on you know so many kids in these communities but on the communities as a whole is they are relatively low. You know if we really believe that the cure for LS was going to be born in you know West Baltimore today or felt that you were the cure for cancer was going to be born in the South Bronx today then we would do everything it took to really extract those resources out of these communities the question is do we do we fundamentally believe that. But I do believe we can make that psychological change and actually create the expectations that will produce that will really fundamentally help people understand that these neighborhoods are not the problems these neighborhoods are the solutions to our problems as long as we're willing to put in the time

as long as it will not put in the effort to actually create that. I wonder what you would say to people what do you want the kids to take away and what do you want others kids who are you know primarily affected or could be and others who are not who are outside of looking on you know at this experience saying well I'm not going to deal with this you know but it touches me. Well for the kids one thing I want them to understand is that is that I understand. You know I understand the pain and the hurt that they're going through and how difficult it is and how challenging it can be to grow up. You know and not just not just in certain neighborhoods or in certain communities but for all kids in the challenges that you face. But one thing I want kids to understand is that you're not alone in this is that you have people who are there fighting for you and supporting you. Many people who you don't even know but who are out there helping to open doors and really provide support for you and as long as you're willing to give a hand out as long as you're willing to reach halfway there are folks who are willing to pull you the rest of the way. And what about the other people. And for people who don't you know who don't live in communities and think that think that this doesn't affect them. I point to this story as a perfect example

is that many people thought that the communities that West was living in and the route that I was living in that it would affect them and til four guys walk into a jewelry store in another part of town and it results in the murder of a 13 year veteran of the police force. These problems if we ignore them generally don't stay in one community they generally don't stay in one neighborhood. So these are all of our issues. And if we care about the success of this country long term we cannot continue going on having underutilized assets in the in the in the make of entire communities and act like this isn't a big deal and act like it doesn't affect us because it's only that side of town because it isn't just that side of town these are all people who can make a who can make a drastic difference in the lives of all of us. As long as we're willing to make that commitment. Well to quote from your book for the rest of us those who snuck in despite coming from the margins the mission has to be to pull up others behind us. What's more you're certainly doing that with this story. I congratulate you on it I hope everybody reads it. It is quite haunting and. I don't even know what to say that could leave you. It gives you a lot to

think about. We've been rebroadcasting an interview with author Wes Moore. His book is The Other Wes Moore one name two fates. You can keep on top of the Calla Crossley Show at WGBH dot org slash Calla Crossley follow us on Twitter or become a fan of the Calla Crossley Show on Facebook. Today's show was engineered by Antonio only art produced by Chelsea murderers. Well Rosa and Abbie Rosita where production of WGBH radio.