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Books by Walter Mosley
What Next:
A Memoir Toward World Peace /
Life Out of Context /
Devil in A Blue Dress /
Fear of the Dark (audiobook )
Little Scarlet (An Easy Rawlins Novel) /
Cinamon Kiss (audiobook) /
This Year You Write Your Novel /
Fortunate Son
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A Naïve
Political Treatise
A Review of Walter Mosley's
Life Out of Context
By Rodney D. Foxworth, Jr. Of the canonized American literary works,
James Baldwin's exquisite, provocative The Fire Next Time is
one of the few that have left an indelible impress upon both my
heart and mind. Essay compilation was assigned reading for my
12th grade English Literature class, alongside other works
produced by African American authors considered essential
reading—Invisible Man, Native Son, Black Boy,
The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, The Bluest Eye
and Their Eyes Were Watching God included.
Of course, as a 17-year-old high school
student, I was unable to appreciate the poetic beauty and biting
tongue of Baldwin's pen. It wasn't until a year later while on
leave from university that I discovered the magnificence of
Baldwin's talents, which are on full display in what is easily
one of his most popular works.
It can then be reasoned that comparing
Walter Mosley's latest monograph,
Life Out of Context
, to
The Fire Next Time—as Mosley's publisher has done—is
a bit overzealous, as Baldwin stands as one of the most
memorable African American memoirists and essayists of the 20th
century. Of course, had Nation Books not made the comparison
many others would have done so for them—it is simply a
comparison that is too difficult not to make.
Mosley is America's most recognized and
praised black male writer and social critic, and Baldwin
occupied that very same position during Civil Rights America.
The similarities end here, however. Baldwin's prose is
enthralling and explosive; Mosley's is layman like, direct and
to the point. And while The Fire Next Time nags at one's
conscience and forces one to question their own reality, Life
Out of Context acts as a sort of naïve political treatise
crafted in the hopes of extinguishing the next time fire that
has arrived.
Mosley begins this svelte book—only
104 pages long—with meditations on the space he occupies as an
artist and his identity as a writer. Mosley describes this
self-indulgent interrogation as necessary in his quest to
realize his "own feelings and therefore [his] chances for
liberation." Mosley relishes in this emancipatory act,
concluding "The contexts of other writers' lives are closed
to me. I don't associate with them. I don't do work that would
get me access to their clubs. There's nothing else to say about
it."
Content with his lot in life, Mosley moves
into a sweeping discussion that touches on issues of racism,
politics, generational conflict, and globalism.
"They [white slave owners and whites in
general] oppressed us," laments Mosley, writing on behalf
of Black America. But Mosley does not end with this lament;
instead, he further pushes the boundary.
"How can we call ourselves victorious in
a real sense when people live in virtual economic slavery in so
many parts of the globe?" asks Mosley, in reference to the
gains made by the Civil Rights and Black Power movements. Mosley
holds a mirror to Black America, and the image reflected back
might be shocking: "We are becoming what we have fought so
bravely against, and in becoming our enemy, we stumble and
fall."
Here, Mosley directs a finger toward Black
America, alleging that Black America is culpable, too, for many
of the world's inequalities and suffering. "Black America
is America," he writes. No longer will Black Americans be
exempt from condemnation or criticism when talk of American
arrogance and indifference comes up. Instead, Mosley demands
that Black Americans take a moral stand and accept the
responsibility that comes along with being an American.
"We became members of the society, no
matter how much that society might vilify us. And our membership
carries with it responsibility, not only for our own suffering
but also for those that suffer because of us and in spite of our
victories."
And how might we carry out our
responsibility? Mosley takes the role of lay political
philosopher, arguing for a Black Political Party. Having
discredited the Republican and Democratic Parties, Mosley lays
forth his ideas of a distinct Black Political Party. "As
long as you vote Democrat," writes Mosley "as long as
you vote Republican, you will be ensuring that true democracy
has no chance of existing."
None of this is particularly innovative
thinking. Political theorists and activists have espoused this
position for some time. And Mosley's proposal for a Black
Political Party is no new idea, though the concept has been
absent from both public and political discourse for some time
now. Perhaps Mosley will breathe life into the debate, though
this is unlikely. While The Fire Next Time grabbed
America by the jugular,
Life Out of Context
has failed to
make headways in the mainstream media.
Along with his proposal for a Black Political
Party, Mosley's most heartfelt appeal is to his own generation,
those blacks formed by the Civil Rights Movement and Black
Power, whom he feels have led the present crop of African
Americans astray.
"[The young people] express their
frustration in music and we criticize them for it," writes
Mosley.
"We say, 'You are disrespectful and
self-hating.'"
"'We are your children,' they
reply."
Mosley demands that younger Black Americans
be heard, not merely criticized. "We should edit out all
cynicism and derogatory notions from our voices and words,"
he writes. "These young people are our only hope. We
have to liberate them where we can, decriminalize them when
necessary, detoxify them if possible—but most important we
have to hear what they're telling us and make way for their
leadership."
Mosley's effort is a necessary work and America
needs his voice, but any comparisons to The Fire Next Time should
end immediately: The Fire Next Time is an invaluable
contribution to American letters never to be forgotten, while Life
Out of Context is a work that might never be remembered.
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Rodney D. Foxworth, Jr.
Associate Editor, LiP magazine
www.lipmagazine.org
cultural journalist & freelance writer
Ronald E. McNair Scholar
Ph.: (410) 978-0045
rdfoxworth@gmail.com
"I sit with Shakespeare, and he winces not. Across the
color line I move arm and arm with Balzac and Dumas, where
smiling men and welcoming women glide in gilded halls. From out
of the caves of evening that swing between strong-limbed Earth
and the tracery of stars, I summon Aristotle and Aurelius and
what soul I will, and they came all graciously with no scorn nor
condescension. So, wed with Truth, I dwell above the veil."
- W.E.B. Du Bois
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posted 3 March 2006 /
updated 1 April 2008 |
