Joe Stopped By
A Brief Interview
with author Andrei Codrescu

Q...You say in your interview with Lidia Vianu: "Taking a position on behalf of the outside, any outside (of language, of culture, of various establisments and mainstreams) is vital." You also say that you are much more "bold" on the page than your public persona belies. These statements seem to suggest that you find language empowering. However, your essay, "Joe Stopped By" is not what one would call incendiary. You seem to be very even-handed and reserved in your telling of this encounter with Joe, the elderly bigot. Joe's presence and his opinions seem to be treated as a matter of course. You seem to treat him with respect despite his ugliness. Is this a position that you find necessary for dealing with such a person—kill them with kindness, as my mother says? Perhaps that isn't it at all. Perhaps it is that as the writer you feel you already have power and control over him because you have taken this "outside" position—this position that gives you the moral high ground—and you do not wish to exploit him as a means to "make a point". Could you shed some light on this tension?

Codrescu...You are doubtlessly right about the last point: articulating anything gives you an unfair power. In a way, Joe is now one of the powerless, adrift in a world that has proven him wrong. His overly loud opinions express his own conflict, that between his experience and his obsolete world-view. Once, it might have seemed like his experience and his beliefs were of one piece, but that's no longer the case. A serious self-critique might just do him in. On the other hand, there is no excuse for his ongoing bullshit... there are a lot of frail old men who used to be real monsters. He wasn't one of those, thank God. As a writer, in nonfiction at least, I work by empathy. I don't find anything human alien, as the Latins put it, and God knows there is no room for self-righteousness on my part—I thought I got to that a bit in the story.

Q...It seems that many young writers write in response to issues of racism and "intolerance" but end up writing high-toned rants that treat the situation in a manner that does not reflect the complexity of the situation. What kind of advice would you give to young writers that want to bear witness to injustices they have experienced?

Codrescu...An excellent question. I grew up in communist Romania where ranting "correctly" was de rigueur. I have a fine ear for propaganda and preaching and I cover both ears when I run into it. My advice is, begin with empathy for the human condition and find the places of contact with the monstrous (or what seems that way) because the monster is in you, too. Remember Baudelaire's: "my hypocrite reader, my brother." I admire Dostievsky who can pull off a Raskolnikov without showing his convert fervor until the end.

Q...It seems that the end of your essay: "Can't win one way or another. If the opinions don't get you, life will. Diversity. What a joke." has a note of pity. Do you see it as pity or do you see it as true. It seems that you might be indicting the way in which diversity has become co-opted as a political platform, a theme, a metaphor.

Codrescu...You're right on the nail here, too. Politicians run on platforms like "diversity", writers should be happy with the wonders of differences. Incongruity, mystery, paradox, the elusive in-betweens... them's my country.