James Baldwin said that the “hardest” and “most fearful” thing in the world for the writer is simplicity. This is especially the case for writers who write about race. On January 17, award-winning UWEC English professor David Shih will share how he came to understand that his worst, most convoluted writing about race revealed a fear of telling the truth. Join us for a conversation on how this realization guided his approach to completing his current nonfiction book project—coming your way soon! We recently caught up with David and learned more about his upcoming event, his forthcoming book, and the impact of teaching on writing. Scroll on for the complete interview!
B.J. Hollars: Tell us a bit about your craft talk. What inspired this topic, and what are you most excited to share?
David Shih: It was inspired by the book I am writing now, a memoir/cultural criticism hybrid. I find that some of the most tortured language today comes from the decision to write about race and racism. I include my own writing in this lot, of course, which is always going to be a work in progress as long as I am one myself. The challenge may come from imagining multiple audiences while we write—always tricky—but also from imagining ourselves being someone we’re not. I plan to share my experiences about writing about white people, which began as the most natural thing in the world to me when I was an assimilated teenager. What was exciting for me to learn was how quickly your story or essay about race and racism falls into place as soon as you’re willing to write about what scares you the most.
BH: How has teaching about race impacted your creative work?
“My job as a professor and as a writer is basically the same, which is to get someone else to see something that they might otherwise miss, but the way you go about that work is and should be different.”
DS: It has mattered a lot. I don’t think I could have written this book even ten years ago—at least not very well—because I was still learning how to bring that knowledge from the class onto the page in a way that wasn’t just a dressed-up transcript. I absolutely don’t want my creative work to be an extension of my pedagogy, although I expect that it might be received that way by some. My job as a professor and as a writer is basically the same, which is to get someone else to see something that they might otherwise miss, but the way you go about that work is and should be different. And then when undertaking both endeavors, teaching and writing, you have to leave something for the other party to do that you, as the “authority,” should not know yourself.
BH: Can you share a bit about your latest book project?
DS: As I mentioned above, it is a memoir/cultural criticism hybrid. It covers social issues that are important to Asian Americans today by focusing on my own experiences as a Chinese American belonging to a generation that saw some of the greatest shifts in meaning for Asian identity in this country—Gen X. I expect that readers will learn more about the history and dynamics of anti-Asian racism in this respect, but the book’s narrative is not ultimately instrumental in the way that we see in Kendi’s How to Be an Antiracist or DiAngelo’s White Fragility. It is not a “how to” book. For that to be the case, I would have to have the answers already, and I wanted to write the book because I didn’t have them. All that said, the closest comp in purpose and approach, if not in style or content, might be Cathy Park Hong’s excellent book Minor Feelings (2020).
BH: In your craft talk description you mentioned a "fear of telling the truth." Can you tell us more about that fear, and that truth?
“To me, the truth is whatever scares you into silence”
DS: To me, the truth is whatever scares you into silence. People do tend to know what it is but may not have to confront it because they have options—money, position, a generous partner, whatever. These options allow you to maintain the status quo in your own life, which, if you’re in this place, is probably comfortable enough in superficial ways. Baldwin knew that a hypocritical society was the outcome of hypocritical individuals whose private lives were inconsonant with those they showed to the public. So if there were ever going to be any reduction in harm socially, it had to begin at the personal level, and the reason is that you cannot hide the truth from everyone. Someone else knows that you’re lying. Maybe a lot of people. This is what Baldwin meant when he said that black people can never be strangers to white Americans—only witnesses—no matter how much the latter long for that innocence. It is the same innocence that he saw them maintaining in their stories.
BH: Who are some writers who have impacted your understanding of writing on the subject of race?
DS: Well, as for so many others, James Baldwin is probably at the top of the list, which is why the talk centers on his idea of the fear of telling the truth. I didn’t read him until I was a doctoral student. Better late than never. And even then I didn’t quite understand him in the way that I thought I understood Richard Wright or Ralph Ellison. I think we naturally expect writers like them to be writing about black people. And they are, except my mistake was thinking that they could do so independently of white people. Baldwin disabused me of that fallacy right away. In his essays, he wrote not so much about black people but about white people and in a way that took others decades to catch up with, if they ever did. I would not be writing my book if not for Maxine Hong Kingston. I tend to return to The Woman Warrior whenever I feel stuck and prosaic. It taught me how to count syllables in my sentences and how one too many or too few could wreck everything. It’s probably why I write so slowly. But it also taught me how to be an American and honor my parents at the same time. There was nothing that seemed off-limits in that book, no fear at all, which was such a valuable lesson. It is a wonder.
Tune into to David’s craft talk on January 19 at 7PM. Thanks to our co-sponsor, L.E. Phillips Memorial Public Library!