‘I don’t process my whole life as a Black man’

Award-winning author on the need for open conversations about race

Literature and books are about creating understanding and Brampton’s Ian Williams is one of Canada’s best writers. Whether it’s novels or poetry or, now, his new book of essays, he reaches out by sharing his art and his world, opening up conversations — and winning prizes. On the phone to talk about his “Disorientation: Being Black in the World,” we begin with life’s experiences and the commonalities we have.

“No breathing human being wants to be painted with some large brush,” Williams said. “Sometimes I actually think Blackness is a kind of case study for the human experience. Nobody wants to be generalized. Nobody wants to be unfairly treated or disadvantaged. Nobody wants any of that. But we see it in a most pronounced way in Black interactions.”

The thing that’s great about you talking about it is that, while it might make people uncomfortable, there are also so many touch points of relatability.

That’s one of the first things I wanted to break down, this discomfort and the taboo nature of talking about race. People feel like they can’t talk about it until they have their positions and everything worked out; like you’ve got to have something smart and something fully formed to say about it. I don’t think so. I think this space should be just kind of open: if you’re good-hearted, and you’re genuine and you’re earnest that you can say the things you think and feel and have them corrected, or have them reinforced or have them expanded. That’s the kind of conversation we should have instead of this really judgmental one that’s happening this century, where you make a mistake (and it’s done) for you. It shuts down all kinds of debate and conversation.

The title of the book is “Disorientation.” Would you break down that word? What were you getting at?

Disorientation actually deals with the person of colour as a Black person, the effect of racist interactions on Black people. It’s a very particular kind of experience.

So what happens is I’m going about my day; it’s pretty nor

mal. I enter into a room or into a conversation and the conversation stops when I appear. And someone looks surprised. I simply wanted to say “Hi” as I’m on my way to getting another sandwich at the table. But, in that moment, I’m reminded that, “Oh, what’s different here is that you are not white like the other people in this room.” They’re surprised to see my Black face in this context. And that kind of whiplash happens. I forgot I was Black until the world reminds me of it. That’s the disorienting thing.

The followup to that is, because of that disorientation, we have to spend so much effort resetting ourselves all the time. There’s all this internal work that happens to get back to being myself, which is colourless. I don’t process my whole life as a Black man, just like women don’t walk around thinking “I’m a woman” all the time. You’re just a person doing your thing.

How do you work through that?

It can’t be worked through publicly because if you get angry you’re painted as the angry Black person. You can’t say, “The group of those three white people that I went to talk to made me feel really bad.” It just doesn’t seem to have a basis; there’s no footing, really, to enter into kind of a conversation about it.

Most of the repair work happens privately and it’s painful, in my case. It’s reaffirmation: “Ian, you write books … that’s not all there is to you. That person was seeing something else that’s not you. Maybe they thought you’re going to do this and you’re not going to do that. How can you be less alarming next time? Should you be more agreeable?” You know all of that noise that goes through the head. “Maybe I should have smiled when I entered. Was I dressed inappropriately? My mom said I should get a haircut; maybe my hair is threatening now, too much black hair.” You just won’t believe how exhausting it is to run through situation after situation and figure out what is it about me that caused difficulty in that moment.

In one essay you write about your grandmother’s advice about dealing with the white gaze, which is to not make eye contact. You say there are three outcomes of that: “a) you come to view yourself similarly, which begets self-loathing; b) you confront the viewer: what’s your problem? This option gets exhausting. It produces more bad looks, because once you go verbal you become the aggressor; and c) you look away. But you die inside. Your courage shrivels. At best, you retreat into the imagination.” How do we get to a fourth way?

It really requires some co-operation from the world. People of colour, we’re quite resilient. But we shouldn’t have to be more resilient than other folks just to have a good life. And so I think that fourth option requires kindness from the world. It requires the extension of a hand, co-operation.

You know, after Black Lives Matter and justice movements, I would actually walk down the street and a stranger would smile at me. And in that smile was communicated something like, “It’s not all bad. Some of us see you and it’s OK.” Something that simple where in the past it might have been neutrality or it would be nothing, or it would be maybe a slight hint towards … discomfort. But then there was a little break in white armour in that moment, and there was a little bit of benevolence coming back and being reflected. And I think more of that will make unnecessary my protective layer and my defensiveness in my processing.

There’s an essay, “The Drive Home,” your friend Pierre was stopped for going 20 kilometres over the speed limit. He ultimately was given two tickets worth $1,000 and had his car towed. I’ve only ever had two tickets — both for going 50 in a 40 zone in the city (outside of school hours) — and I regularly drive 120 on the highway without thinking twice.

If you think back to high school, Black kids smoked weed, white kids smoked weed. Black kids got criminalized pretty quickly; some got sent to juvie for smoking some weed, white kids smoked in their parents’ basement. No problem. They came to school Monday. We make such a big deal when certain people are doing something. And it’s very forgivable when other people are.

Who do you hope to reach with this book?

If there’s a specific person it’s that person who feels uncertain how to address or talk about race, the person who feels silenced or choked, who doesn’t have the vocabulary for it. Who understand it’s an important subject, but you don’t quite know how to enter it because of fear of repercussion. It’s not an issue of a failure of intelligence on that person’s part or empathy. But just understanding how charged this place is and our human need for self-protection. I hope to reach that person.