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What Next: A Memoir Toward World Peace
Mosley, like many New Yorkers, has tried to make sense of the events of 9/11--and his own reaction to them. He remembered his father's stories about World War II and how he didn't think of himself as an American until German soldiers shot at him. How did he feel--and how did African Americans feel--about the unfolding debate of what brought America to this tragic juncture. Was the displacement his father felt, a half century ago, still a part of this new generations' experience?
In What Next, Mosley addresses these questions and others, inviting the reader into a dialogue that is brilliantly argued, and poetically concise. What Next offers food for thought and is a call to action for African Americans and freedom loving people everywhere.
In What Next, Mosley addresses these questions and others, inviting the reader into a dialogue that is brilliantly argued, and poetically concise. What Next offers food for thought and is a call to action for African Americans and freedom loving people everywhere.
124 pages, Hardcover
First published September 11, 2003
4 people are currently reading
152 people want to read
About the author
Walter Mosley
202 books3,887 followersWalter Mosley (b. 1952) is the author of the bestselling mystery series featuring Easy Rawlins, as well as numerous other works, from literary fiction and science fiction to a young adult novel and political monographs. His short fiction has been widely published, and his nonfiction has appeared in the New York Times Magazine and the Nation, among other publications. Mosley is the winner of numerous awards, including an O. Henry Award, the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, a Grammy, and PEN America’s Lifetime Achievement Award. He lives in New York City.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
July 21, 2011
Hope Gets In your Eyes - A Pulpist Calls for World Peace
I will never know what it feels like to be black, let alone what it means.
As a child, prowling for candy with a pocketful of change, I never fell under the suspicious glare of a profiling store clerk. As an adult I haven't been passed over for a position for which I was qualified - nor for that matter passed by a cab I was attempting to hail - simply because of the color of my skin. I never got arbitrarily smacked by the short end of the stick, discriminately snatched by the long arm of the law - and when I eventually did - by both - it was due to my own damn foolishness. No, I've not suffered any of the myriad indignities that are the unwanted legacy of my forced-to-be-Founding brothers and sisters. But as a white man, and as a convict, I do know what it feels like - if not exactly what it means - to be a minority within a so-called minority, one of the fewest among the too-many few.
What NextThis puts me in a unique position vis-à-vis Walter Mosley's What Next: A Memoir Toward World Peace (Black Classic Press $16.95), a book - and a call - that was intended neither for a white man nor a convict. On the one hand this is not my conversation; on the other I can't help eavesdropping when my ears start ringing. Mosley may not be talkin' to me, but he sure as hell is talkin' about something that concerns me and everyone else in the unfree world.
Excuse me if I wedge a word in edgewise.
Briefly, What Next is a deeply felt, deeply thought, softly spoken manifesto for the emancipated, a call for those who've gained their freedom to now turn their efforts to those still shackled to tyranny, both here and (especially) abroad.
Mosley makes and takes his case to "Black America, [and] its fine-honed attention to the etiquette of liberation," though it could just as well be meant for everyone. That he bases his argument upon examples set by his father, LeRoy Mosley - "a Black Socrates" whose words and ghost permeate the soul of this tome - makes it distinctly personal.
Like his father, Mosley found himself under attack for the color of his flag rather than his skin. For Pops it was across the pond in WWII, when German bullets turned out to be anything but race-based; for the son it was here at home, on 9/11. Both were targets because they were American, nothing more and nothing less; and both were forced to reconsider what it meant to be red, white, and blue - and black. The revelations left them with enemies they never even knew they had.
But why the hate? Why the hurt? Why the harm? Again shadowing Dad, Mosley digs "asking why, and then spoiling readymade replies." And he's not at all happy with the answers he's being given.
There's a root to all evil, all hate and hurt and harm; our enemies are there for some reason. We gotta get to the root - and the reason - before we rush to judgment. "How do we know when someone is our enemy?" Well, not because someone has told us so. And certainly not by becoming them. Again with Dad: "My father would never become his enemy to make a point." (Are you listening Mr. Ashcroft?) Now that's a creed for every color.
And don't think for a minute that Mosley's falling for the fear factor either.
"If we give in to fear or support the domination of the world's impoverished billions by our corporations," he writes, "then strife, war, and death are inescapable. And in that conflagration, we too shall be consumed." Mosley, the Good Soldier of Peace - responsible, alert, and astute - is takin' out a little fire insurance.
But what to do? Polls show - and Mosley knows - that most African Americans already - rightly - resist the strong arm approach to peace; it's high time to harness that sentiment and put it to work. Brace it with a well-informed community; advance it with a campaign of pressure, protest, and boycott. Put the PAC-squeeze on the shot-callers (begin locally); and if they keep spitting bullets, pull out the protests and - even better - the boycotts, because we all know how the powers-that-rule value their bottom line.
Mosley's goal is "unequivocal world peace and security, freedom from starvation, and respect for the sovereignty of all nations." A bold and - some might say - foolishly hopeful proposition. Mosley may be a hard-boiled Utopian, but he's no fool. He knows that hope is not a course of action and that action begins at home. This is his beginning. What Next may have come too late to stop the war; let's get beyond hope before it's too late to start the peace.
I will never know what it feels like to be black, let alone what it means.
As a child, prowling for candy with a pocketful of change, I never fell under the suspicious glare of a profiling store clerk. As an adult I haven't been passed over for a position for which I was qualified - nor for that matter passed by a cab I was attempting to hail - simply because of the color of my skin. I never got arbitrarily smacked by the short end of the stick, discriminately snatched by the long arm of the law - and when I eventually did - by both - it was due to my own damn foolishness. No, I've not suffered any of the myriad indignities that are the unwanted legacy of my forced-to-be-Founding brothers and sisters. But as a white man, and as a convict, I do know what it feels like - if not exactly what it means - to be a minority within a so-called minority, one of the fewest among the too-many few.
What NextThis puts me in a unique position vis-à-vis Walter Mosley's What Next: A Memoir Toward World Peace (Black Classic Press $16.95), a book - and a call - that was intended neither for a white man nor a convict. On the one hand this is not my conversation; on the other I can't help eavesdropping when my ears start ringing. Mosley may not be talkin' to me, but he sure as hell is talkin' about something that concerns me and everyone else in the unfree world.
Excuse me if I wedge a word in edgewise.
Briefly, What Next is a deeply felt, deeply thought, softly spoken manifesto for the emancipated, a call for those who've gained their freedom to now turn their efforts to those still shackled to tyranny, both here and (especially) abroad.
Mosley makes and takes his case to "Black America, [and] its fine-honed attention to the etiquette of liberation," though it could just as well be meant for everyone. That he bases his argument upon examples set by his father, LeRoy Mosley - "a Black Socrates" whose words and ghost permeate the soul of this tome - makes it distinctly personal.
Like his father, Mosley found himself under attack for the color of his flag rather than his skin. For Pops it was across the pond in WWII, when German bullets turned out to be anything but race-based; for the son it was here at home, on 9/11. Both were targets because they were American, nothing more and nothing less; and both were forced to reconsider what it meant to be red, white, and blue - and black. The revelations left them with enemies they never even knew they had.
But why the hate? Why the hurt? Why the harm? Again shadowing Dad, Mosley digs "asking why, and then spoiling readymade replies." And he's not at all happy with the answers he's being given.
There's a root to all evil, all hate and hurt and harm; our enemies are there for some reason. We gotta get to the root - and the reason - before we rush to judgment. "How do we know when someone is our enemy?" Well, not because someone has told us so. And certainly not by becoming them. Again with Dad: "My father would never become his enemy to make a point." (Are you listening Mr. Ashcroft?) Now that's a creed for every color.
And don't think for a minute that Mosley's falling for the fear factor either.
"If we give in to fear or support the domination of the world's impoverished billions by our corporations," he writes, "then strife, war, and death are inescapable. And in that conflagration, we too shall be consumed." Mosley, the Good Soldier of Peace - responsible, alert, and astute - is takin' out a little fire insurance.
But what to do? Polls show - and Mosley knows - that most African Americans already - rightly - resist the strong arm approach to peace; it's high time to harness that sentiment and put it to work. Brace it with a well-informed community; advance it with a campaign of pressure, protest, and boycott. Put the PAC-squeeze on the shot-callers (begin locally); and if they keep spitting bullets, pull out the protests and - even better - the boycotts, because we all know how the powers-that-rule value their bottom line.
Mosley's goal is "unequivocal world peace and security, freedom from starvation, and respect for the sovereignty of all nations." A bold and - some might say - foolishly hopeful proposition. Mosley may be a hard-boiled Utopian, but he's no fool. He knows that hope is not a course of action and that action begins at home. This is his beginning. What Next may have come too late to stop the war; let's get beyond hope before it's too late to start the peace.
August 23, 2007
An often overlooked and underrated contribution to Mosley's body of work. This memoir really captures a number of the personal and very human responses to 911. Mosley asks and seeks answers in this book for many of the questions that popped up and for some still seem unanswered.
June 20, 2009
Again. as I read though Walter Mosley, I have the opportunity to be challenged: Do I want world peace? What am I willing to do for it?
February 21, 2015
As an Amazon Prime member, I am able to get a free Kindle book each month via their Kindle First program. I haven't been keeping up and have a bit of a backlog of titles, so when February rolled around, I decided I would read my Kindle First selection right away. I chose Emily Bleeker's Wreckage. Unfortunately, this has been the weakest book I've gotten through the program and one of the most disappointing books I've actually bothered to finish.
The premise of people getting stranded on a desert island has certainly been attempted before but the inherent drama of the situation is undermined because we are introduced to two of the survivors early on as they agree to participate in a TV interview. This reveal is allegedly justified because there are secrets about what happened on the island which are slowly revealed during the interview process, but these secrets are so obvious that there is no tension. Basically, I finished the book because I was hoping that the big reveals weren't so obvious but, alas, they were. Neither of the two survivors wanted to do the interview and their rationale for doing so was unrealistic.
The characters are thinly drawn and borderline unbelievable, especially those of Kent and the TV interviewer. The interviews never felt plausible and really undermined the story. Here's hoping for better luck next month.
The premise of people getting stranded on a desert island has certainly been attempted before but the inherent drama of the situation is undermined because we are introduced to two of the survivors early on as they agree to participate in a TV interview. This reveal is allegedly justified because there are secrets about what happened on the island which are slowly revealed during the interview process, but these secrets are so obvious that there is no tension. Basically, I finished the book because I was hoping that the big reveals weren't so obvious but, alas, they were. Neither of the two survivors wanted to do the interview and their rationale for doing so was unrealistic.
The characters are thinly drawn and borderline unbelievable, especially those of Kent and the TV interviewer. The interviews never felt plausible and really undermined the story. Here's hoping for better luck next month.
July 28, 2013
In this short, non-fiction book, Mosley lays out his thoughts regarding the world, and how to make it a better place. He has obviously given this a lot of thought, and he uses a nice, straight-forward method of explaining his thinking. He shares several stories about his father, and how his father overcame adversity and fear, and extrapolates these ideas for his readers. Mosley's suggestions are very workable, and he realizes that change is a slow process, and one that will take individuals working together to change perspectives, not something that will happen quickly or easily.
July 27, 2011
Written after 9/11 and Americans not understanding how anyone could have this attitude for Americans. Calls together many threads that help one see America from an outsider's perspective of us, our entrepreneurs, our capitalism, and our government's looking out for our own favored interests.
I appreciated the perspective, and then his call to African Americans with their unique experiences from fellow Americans, and their ability to become more pro-active and leaders.
I appreciated the perspective, and then his call to African Americans with their unique experiences from fellow Americans, and their ability to become more pro-active and leaders.
July 17, 2014
that 3rd star is just cause it's Mosley. otherwise, this maudlin and depressing memoir/essay would get a star because it exist and another star because it's heart is in the right place.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews