The Interview with Dante Stewart.

Hello to new subscribers and welcome to Sitting in Silence, a newsletter for readers, writers, and thinkers. The Interview has become a popular feature for the newsletter. I love talking to writers of all stripes regarding their journeys. They never disappoint. This issue’s conversation is with Danté Stewart.

Danté Stewart is a minister, essayist, and cultural critic. He is author of the phenomenal Shoutin’ In The Fire: An American Epistle. He is a good friend. We first met in the only way possible during the early pandemic: online. But I look forward to the day when we meet in person.

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And now for our chat…

Maurice: What are your earliest memories of reading or writing stories?

Danté: There is a memory of my grandmother that lingers both in my mind and spirit. When we were children, she would always tell us the story about Grandma Charlotte Mitchell and her cutting down the white man tree. It goes something like this: My grandmother laughs as she begins to tell this story and says that when she was a child, the berries from the berry tree would be her and her siblings' friends on the way to school. Escaping the agonizing cuts from the needles of the berry tree, their hands would be covered in the black redness of the fruit and their tongues tasting the twang of the seed. Well one day, while they were picking berries, the white man whose land this tree was on, started messing with the kids, telling them, “Don’t you be messing with my tree." Like the good Southern children they were, they told Grandma Charlotte Mitchell about it, complaining in that youthful snicker that sounds both sad, joyful, and revengeful. A few days later, Grandma accompanied the children on their way, grabbed the hoe that she would use to sickle the farmland and cut every inch, all the way down to the root, of the tree off. She was said to have said, "if my children can't eat those berries, then nobody will." Every time my grandmother gets to this line, she lets out her usual super-high-pitch-touching-the-ceiling type of laugh that I've only heard come from her belly. I guess there are a few things about this story that amaze me. But more than anything it was the resolute audacity of the black rightness to exist in the world and Grandma Charlotte Mitchell's belief that her children deserve not just the freedom of the world but also the sweetness of a berry. 

I was sitting with my grandma a few weeks ago and asked her about the time she remembered being in a crowd full of people. She then tells the story of a being in the grocery store as a sixteen-year-old young lady, the white woman coming up behind her and telling her, "get out of my way!" She said that she turned around, looked the woman in her eye, and told her through the grit of her teeth, "no, I will not, you move out of my way." And once again, she laughed at the story and herself. And this is partly the earliest and most enduring memory of reading and writing stories: the words and narratives and voices of the survivors encircled my own imagination reminding me that I come from a people unafraid of the world and holding a deep desire to pass on the wisdom that only comes through courage. 

Maurice: Where would we be without our beloved women elders? What I love most in those tellings is the laughter. Few things are more life affirming than laughter. By the way, for those who don't know, you are a talented football player. A cornerback, right? What were the stories like in the locker room and on the field? What did those stories teach you?

Danté: That's right. I mean when I think about this week. Every week follows a similar pattern: I wake up and work out and get my kids ready and love on my wife and then write and do it again and again. And in between those moments, I am on the phone with either my grandmother or my mother talking about some stories that have brought us to this moment. Indeed, some of the best moments of clarity and creativity and just the ordinary power of love come by way of these conversations. This is not to deny the power or the presence of men in my life--really, so much of my life is also a reflection of the stories that were dripping from their sometimes smiles and cries. This is to say that there is a particular feeling my brain remembers when I think about what my mother and grandmother have told me. 

And yes. I love your language. You said, "you are", which is right. It is not "you were". Haha. Indeed, I am a talented athlete, though my days of experiencing the always painful and exhilarating truth of my skill and limitations on the field are over. Speaking of football, each of them--my mother, grandmother, my father, and my late grandfather--really gave me the courage to believe that I could not just step on the field but actually accomplish great things on it. 

I was recently talking with my mother about this. "Ma," I asked her over the phone about six days ago as I ate breakfast, "when did you know that I had it?" She laughed. She knew what I meant. She knew that I wasn't asking when I had some possession of a thing outside of myself that was added but when she knew, without a doubt, that what resided in me--call it grit, sauce, Spirit, audacity--was as powerful as the willingness to throw yourself in situation where failure is possible. She didn't talk about that time I, in my oversized brown suit, stepped up in front of the church to air-guitar alongside the sweaty Pentecostal father-son-duo who turned lead guitars into masterpieces. She didn't talk about the time that my bony hand first grabbed a few pencils and started drawing Dragon Ball Z figures in my singular black notebook. Nor did she talk about the time that I, the 160 lb. freshman turned breakout sophomore, ran up every hill in Sandy Run, South Carolina that previous summer, being burnt toast in every 100m race I entered the previous track season, taking the opening kick of the season ninety-five yards. Or the screams. Or the yells. Or my boys saying, "he got it, he got it, he got it."

"Well," she said, "your grandma and I was talking and laughing the other day and said: that boy really got us up here at Clemson, South Carolina, after having not signed during signing day." She laughed again. "I said to myself," she told me, “This boy really got some guts." She said me, being at my lowest, stepped onto the biggest and whitest campus in South Carolina, said that I was going to walk-on, earn a scholarship, and play some good football. I did just that. And that day, that morning we shared laughs and memories over breakfast, taught me a very important lesson that I try to remind myself of again and again: life is risky, success or failure isn't an accident, and the past, present, and future of ourselves is what makes us, and if you gonna do anything, do it so your momma and your daddy and your grandma and your late grandaddy remember. You just might fail. But you just might win. 

Oh, the locker-room. I guess now, being thirty and some seven or eight years removed from that familiar, thickened stank that smells something like grass and body spray and insecurity, the stories I learned were about what survives beyond the lights. I think so many of us want to go back to those moments. And in my dreams, one like I had a few weeks ago, we are indeed back in those moments. But when we wake up, we realize that gratitude is what lingers, and we try to take discipline, resilience, honesty, courage, and friendships along the way. One memory of the locker-room right now that I am feeling most is when I said I was going to quit football, didn't quit, went to practice, went home, called my momma, then walked away from Clemson, and then went to the lonely mountains of Western Carolina, quit football, left my cleats, and went back to Clemson to finish what I started with a whole lot of regret, sadness, and a newfound freedom. 

But this getting kind of longwinded. 

Maurice: HAHA! That's okay, bruh. This internet has a lot of space to stretch out. Again, sorry for the loss of your grandfather. He seemed like an all-time great. What made you start talking to your elders about their pasts and your past? Do you have a mission on your mind? I feel like you deal with ancestry a lot in your writing. 

Danté: That's real. And grandaddy really was. Just the other day, I went back to my phone to find an old picture of my son Asa and stumbled across a video of grandaddy singing one of his favorite songs as he lay in the hospital bed. He, and this was in 2019, got lost for sixteen hours, I think, was found in the late afternoon by what felt like the whole community around town and, at that moment, only could move his head, neck, and his mouth. "Come on daddy," I remember my mother saying when I started the video. "Come on daddy, let's sing." He started to sing I Know Prayer Changes Things. Just a few days ago, I kind of went down a rabbit hole to see what I could find about the song and what it means to black people. 

When Mahalia Jackson released her 1961 Grammy winning album, Everytime I Feel The Spirit, this melodic mix between funk, soul, and gospel, that song was the first song of the B-side. The album begins with a note of David playing his harp and then ends with the question: have you anytime for Jesus? My grandaddy, loving both Mahalia and Jesus, never really pressured us with the question of doctrine or how we could perform religion, but I do remember the spirit and sacredness I feel and felt every time I watch that video of him singing about prayer and it changing things. I have heard that those with dementia respond to music because it serves as a reminder to the brain of moments and things that have been logged in the subconscious as precious. Then there are the repeated memories, seemingly of the early past of their lives, that are repeated again and again. I wonder if, in the river he was found in and in the hospital bed he lay in, if that song was the only thing that kept him alive and breathing. I guess music does that to us: it reduces anxiety, improves mental alertness, and reminds us of the sheer pleasure and grace of being alive. You can't long live if you forget that.

So, when I think about the things I feel called to in this moment as a writer and about my people, especially my grandaddy and others, I think my mission is to invite others into that song or into that experience of the miracle of our black life. The last few years, ancestry has played a huge role in my understanding of the power of narrative, the shaping of the voice, how to think about history and geography, faith, and embodiment. But I guess, I am most overwhelmed by the pleasure of just recording their stories, writing about them, and shouting to the world in as many ways as possible the power I have found. I guess grief, loss, death, and love does that to you. There is something about getting older, losing things, picking up the pieces, and staring intently at them for meaning that clarifies what really matters in life and in this work that I do. Too often black elders live and die without ever having received their flowers or the words on the page and I guess, like so many black writers around and before, I want to do my part to change that. I guess my superpower is how deep I feel that their love should not be lost in life or in death but must be given to this world and to one another as a gift that must be experienced again and again. 

Maurice: As someone in the middle of my own fumbling attempts to honor my ancestors on the page, I feel that. I'm listening to "I Know Prayer Changes Things" writing this to you. That power and that grace is all over the song. I remember when we first met, we had a conversation about the music we write to. You shared yours and I shared mines. LOL. Can you talk about the place music has in your writing life?

Danté: Oh yes, it's all up and through it. For me, and this is not the only music I listen to, pausing and listening to gospel has a way of grounding me and reminding me of the places I've come from. It also kind of pushes me not simply back to myself and back in time, it propels me forward, in a weird and powerful way, toward dreaming again of a world where we can rejoice in the reality of our being alive, together, imperfect, and progressing. And that's really what music does to us right? It brings us together. It invites us into an experience--sometimes pleasurable, sometimes painful, sometimes problematic, and sometimes powerful. It holds the complexity of our human expression without the demands for perfection. For me, both gospel and post-rock instrumentals I listen to (that's my writing music), take me somewhere that I long to be. It puts me at ease. And really, sometimes it makes me cry because of the beauty of the melody and the intuition and genius of the composer. That's not to say that all music does this. I don't care from some music and definitely wouldn't force my unique flavor onto someone else, but yeah, for me, that's at least some of the words I would use to describe it. 

Now to the more practical side, I can't read or write without music. And when I find a song that I like, I can listen to that song for hours. I'm very particular about this. The song can't have words. It must follow a path. It must have emotion to it. It must take me somewhere, dreamlike, trancelike. I want to both wander and wonder. I want it to make me write and then pause and then tear up and then imagine what the reader will feel when they read a sentence I wrote that would have been rewritten, edited, and shaped in such a way that they will either laugh or cry with me. I don't know if many people know this about me, but I wrote my book and read my audiobook to the same exact song. Literally. It's a song entitled "The Exhibition" composed by German-British musician Max Richter. The song is so overflowing in emotion. It starts out slow. The notes are elongated, overlapping, almost bouncing in between one another. It is as if the song is the introduction of a life, one that has been made small, must find itself and its way into the world, stumbling against things but realizing that each movement and progression is indeed the right way. Underneath the heaviness of the chords, there are higher pitched notes which move at a pace faster that what is above or around it. Then moments later, the sound grows and grows and grows, until it explodes into something like magic. Lostness really. I imagine a person, young, afraid, searching, bound, insecure, talented, audacious, courageous, sad, angry, hurt, willing, honest, hopeful, and most of all, full and whole. By the end of the song, and this is the moment where I found myself most passionate and rhythmically paced and cadenced in my own writing, the drama is complete, the journey is over, whatever has been longed for has been found. And then: I begin to play the song again and again and again and again and again. 

I guess what I'm trying to say is that my writing is music and music is my writing and life is full of complexity and sadness and journeying and being lost and being found and writing sentences that feel like both magic and grief. When I find a new song, just like when I start a new essay or book, I visit that song and book and writing more than once. I think I remember Kiese saying that if you love something then you must return to it. And I think he's on to something about life and writing. I really think he's on to something about trusting ourselves enough to show up again to conquer the insecurity and distrust. It's about trusting the process, trusting the composer's (which most times is you) imagination, and trusting that once the song is over, people will return again. And when they don't, they will leave with something better than when they came. I imagine that's a part of the connection between writing and music. Your voice is your voice. Your song is your song. Now get out and do what you do and know best. 

Maurice: That's a whole word, Dante! I'm so thankful for those musical artists who add so much to our world. Speaking of which, you've been doing an extremely popular series on your Instagram page about America, justice, and self-love. Can you talk about the ideas behind it? What do you see as your role as a writer and creator? Do you consider yourself an activist?

Danté: Yes bruh. Indeed. And regarding Instagram, I just kind of fell into it. For years I've felt like I've had things to say and wanted to try and figure out how to get them to people in as many ways as possible. For so long I had tried different things and finally came to the conclusion that short, quick, thoughtful, and deeply reflective post on our common human experience are what people really resonate with. This is especially true for so many people who desire a more liberating spirituality than what they have experienced in the past and are experiencing in the present. I think this gets at where I see my role today. I would like to think of myself as someone people can come to, as I think of others, with their doubts and fears, and even their complexity and goodness, to be seen and heard. I really take time to think through and pray through what would be said in any given day. This just doesn't happen. To use the religious word, I "consecrate" myself, laying bare before the altar of our lives, hoping that something sacred and divine can happen. This is where I think being a Christian can be life-giving rather than simply controlling and demeaning. For so many, their experience of religious space has been one where their body and their knowledge is either not taken seriously or either something to be "saved". I'm not interested in being that type of Christian. I am interested in being the type of person that sees another's experience as real and as compelling as my own, deepening my awareness of what we both mutually offer one another, and sharing the gift of our lives as something to be treasured and not despised. Who taught us to hate ourselves or to believe that God stands over us as someone who is not amazed at both the possibility and preciousness of our interior and exterior worlds? That's where I want to go and remind us that God is love and if love ain't in it, then I must let it go. 

So, through the insecurity, the fear, and the doubts that I find encircling my own mind when I show up in the world is the truth that what I'm trying to do and doing is sticking and people feel as if I can be a safe and dependable presence. 

Activist? Nah. I can't say that I'm an activist because I really feel that I'm not out in the world doing the type of organizing work that such a word deserves. I am a storyteller. My superpower is the page and the voice. Of course, there are times where my body must rush toward the outside world to stand in solidarity but that's just not my everyday experience. What I do, and do best, is to think about the lived situation of those who are often erased, devalued, and unprotected, and I find ways to reveal the beauty, creativity, and sacredness of their everyday movement. Is that activism? Possibly. Would it be a noble title for my work? Of course. But personally, I like the idea of being like Toni Morrison and James Baldwin and Toni Cade Bambara and Amiri Baraka, which is to say: I like the idea of using words the re-invent, retell, and re-imagine. That's body and spirit work, just as the organizing is. 

Maurice: I love what you say about hoping for encounters with others that are sacred and divine rather than controlling and demeaning. And, indeed, Baldwin talked about the importance of witnessing as a kind of activism. You have a beautiful family. You're a husband and father. What kind of world do you hope for your children?

Danté: Thank you big bruh! I appreciate that! I am so in love with the idea and the experience of being a father. It is a demanding task, one that takes so much away from me but also, paradoxically, gives me more than I can imagine. What do I hope for my children? Wow. I was recently asking that same thing to myself in a writing block for the next book. One of the chapters is really digging into this question. A few weeks ago, as I was taking Asa to school, him stumbling over his toys just before passing the office that has all the books, he says, "daddy, I'm going to be a writer." This three-almost-four-year-old, ever mindful of being able to communicate how he feels and senses the world, will grow up knowing that he can be something that his daddy never really imagined. 

Where I'm from, a place South Carolinians called "The Corridor of Shame", options were limited--which meant that the ability to dream was as well. There was nothing to be ashamed of in and of ourselves, and if you meet me, you know I ain't ashamed, but there was something shameful about the conditions our imaginations had to crawl and climb in. I think about home often. I think about the many friends I grew up with that just didn't make it out. I mean that really just couldn't find the space nor the community that gave them dreams far beyond what they believed for themselves. I think about that and I also think about my children. They will know that anything is possible. Like, anything. Of course, that doesn't mean roadblocks and disappointment won't come. What that does mean is that you have a parent and a model who has been there and if you so choose to walk that way, there is both the hand, the heart, and a mind to guide you. 

What else do I want? I want them to be able to close their eyes, ask what they see when they imagine freedom, and when they open, what they see will be as concrete as the darkness such dreams were born in. That's what I want. I want them to live in a world where they don't have to be perfect, in pain, or in performance to be seen, inspired, and protected. I want them to live in a world where their ordinariness is their superpower, and their presence is the gift the world protects with vigor and eagerness. 

Maurice: What are you enjoying in life now?

Danté: Thank you for asking this question. As of late, when people ask me how I'm doing, I usually respond with "in this present moment, I'm _____." If I go back a day or two, I may be feeling different or go forward a hour or so, I may be full of anxiety. Right now, in this present moment, what I'm most enjoying is listening to "Let's Go Crazy" by Prince, "Mysterium" by Hammock to rain sounds while I work, the consistency of my workouts and writing, and every different day that I am getting with my family. I think someone asked me some time ago, "did becoming a father change you...like did becoming a father click a switch that made you feel like everything matters more?" I answered that I don't think so. What it did do for me, much like when I first put on a helmet, first ran the curve in the 4x1, first touched the field at Clemson, first got married, first published something (the list could go on), is it made me more aware and pay attention more to the everyday joys of life. I've been exploring magical realism lately. I've been fascinated how writers can take reality while also uncovering the magic that is tethered to what we call today or yesterday or tomorrow. I think there is something truthful about the worlds in which these writers build and dream. I like to think of what I'm enjoying right now like that: I find there is a grace and magic and goodness in being alive and living the life that I have been given while also looking forward to the life I will live. 

Some days I'm not always enjoying this life I've been given. Some days, instead of an open field with trees and sunlight and freedom, I feel I am in a cold, dark cave that closes in on the soul, with water from some river being heard dripping against the walls, reminding me that what I desire most in close but yet still so far away and only to be experienced in darkness. That's some days for me, to keep 100. But there are days, like today, and really these last few days, where I notice I haven't had a panic attack or that the words come a little bit easier or my body feels a little bit lighter when I run or that my family's laughter feel more frequent and present. On those days, like right now, I am listening to the rain sounds layered on the song that will repeat itself for the next hour, I remember that there are not perfect stories or no real promises in life that are not also locked with consequences, and I inhale (1, 2, 3, 4), exhale (1, 2, 3, 4), look at the picture that is in my journal of me from back in the day playing cards, and then I look at the picture of my family that is over my shoulder, and I read the affirmation I wrote this morning: "I am one of the greatest young American writers of this decade." 

Too much belief? Nah. 

Just enough to keep me trusting that the hand I was dealt was the hand I played with audacity, discipline, creativity, honesty, and love. That's it. That's joy, family. There's always another game, another hand, another chance. We won't always lose.