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<\/a><\/p>\nNOVEMBER 29, 2014<\/p>\n
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BY\u00a0MSAFROPOLITAN<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n What I especially admire about\u00a0Walter Mosley<\/a>, author of 37 critically acclaimed books including DEVIL IN A BLUE DRESS, is that although his novels explore serious\u00a0matters, they make a light read. In fact, people wrongly\u00a0think that seriousness is a sign of depth. Simplifying serious matters, which Mosley does skilfully, is often a mark of profound work.\u00a0<\/span>In\u00a0ROSE GOLD<\/em><\/a>, Mosley\u2019s latest novel, which also sees a return of the charming detective,\u00a0Easy Rawlins, to the literary scene, he does just that. The fast-paced crime novel is, among other things, about the disturbing relationship between African-Americans and the US law enforcement system. Although set in 1967, eerily, the plot that unfolds could equally be in today\u2019s America. I asked\u00a0Mosley\u2019s what he thought\u00a0about this via email.<\/span><\/p>\n ME:\u00a0ROSE GOLD<\/em>\u00a0deals, among other things, with police brutality against black people in 1960s Los Angeles, and although it is a work of fiction, I read in it some of the best descriptions of white privilege and black pain that I\u2019ve read. Could you say something about these two things \u2013 white privilege and black pain \u2013 and whether things have changed today.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n MOSLEY: Easy\u2019s experience of racism in Los Angeles in the late 60\u2019s is the explication of the murders and subsequent rioting in the streets of the 21st\u00a0century United States.\u00a0\u00a0What happened to him still happens to his heirs.\u00a0\u00a0Young black men are still gunned down for their rage.\u00a0\u00a0Prison has taken the place of literal slavery and prejudgment governs our courts, our police departments, and the expectations of our leaders.\u00a0\u00a0The proof of these claims is that the heirs of the European colonizers of North and South America who still believe that there is such a thing as a superior, or at least separate,\u00a0white<\/em>\u00a0race.\u00a0\u00a0They are unaware of the fact that slavery, genocide, and the ultimate racism that arose from these early colonial practices created a notion of the\u00a0white\u00a0<\/em>race.\u00a0\u00a0This color scheme is just that \u2013 a scheme to justify the oppressive political economy of the west.<\/span><\/p>\n ME:\u00a0The novel reflects a world where black life seems disposable to the American law enforcement system, and reading it during the (at present) ongoing situation in Ferguson, I found the story particularly resonant. What, if anything, can African Americans do to end their communities being so affected by racism within the police?<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n MOSLEY: Continuing from the ideas I expressed in answer to the previous question I would say that asking what black (and all so-called non-white) people should do to ameliorate their suffering is missing the point.\u00a0\u00a0The issue is that the so-called white race needs to understand that this notion (being a singular different race) is, at best, an evil metaphor and that once they release their desperate grip on this erroneous self-definition then the effects of racism will have no bases in the real world.<\/span><\/p>\n ME: I\u2019ve come across commentary on the situation in Ferguson arguing that police brutality in Ferguson is more about class than race, do you agree or disagree?<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n MOSLEY: Race is an economic instrument, actually\u00a0the\u00a0<\/em>economic instrument of the New World.\u00a0\u00a0To try and separate one from the other would be akin to saying the left eye is the true instrument of sight while the right orb is superfluous.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\nQ & A with Walter Mosley<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/h1>\n
about Ferguson, race and<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/h1>\n
his latest novel<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/h1>\n