Artist as Agitator : Ralph Wiley says black people sing the blues ‘to tell the story or send a warning.’ In his latest collection, the outspoken essayist does both.

Deep within the wizened countenance of the blues, black America’s warning flickers.

Or so Ralph Wiley contends in his essay “Why Black People Sing the Blues”: “That is why we sing the blues, to tell the story or give a warning.”

One could most certainly say that Wiley’s latest collection, “What Black People Should Do Now: Dispatches from Near the Vanguard,” sends a deeply resonant counsel of its own.

Wiley’s writings are as expansive as the man who has over the years filed features for such glossies as Sports Illustrated, Emerge and Premiere, as well as commentary and reportage for the Oakland Tribune and the Washington Post.

Like his first book, “Why Black People Tend to Shout,” which is heavy with irony and shot through with pathos, Wiley once again weighs in on charged issues that become headline grabbers. And Wiley explores deeper ramifications, he hopes, that will allow the active reader to look beyond those banner headlines.

From meditations on the Mike Tyson rape case and urban pathologies too often tethered to black males through media (“Strange Fruit”) and Los Angeles’ tense year of trials, unrest and slow-simmering rage (“Imagination”) to profiles of African American figures such as Muhammad Ali, Spike Lee and Washington D.C.-based radio host and station owner Cathy Hughes, Wiley runs a prose decathlon.

Wiley acknowledges that some people, black and white alike, don’t much care for the rub--neither his position nor his confrontational approach. In the volume’s first few essays, Wiley confidently delivers sharp swipes at just about anyone who’s lingered a little too long in the public eye: from wildly successful black women writers to the dubious effectiveness of black leadership to the predominantly white world of publishing (“Why Black People Don’t Buy Books”) and the comparably monochromatic law enforcement/judicial system (“Imagination”).

The often heated responses to Wiley’s unmitigated assessments only send the author into raptures. A smile crawls across his face, an incandescence shimmers just behind his eyes. He’s riled you. But more importantly, he’s gotten you to think, maybe even moved you to action.

Times: You say black people should be wary of leaders, wary of spokespeople. As a writer with definite opinions, how do you avoid becoming a provocative sound bite?

Wiley: I’m trying to walk this fine line and not be seen. Because every time a black person is competent of something, they want to make them into this social or political leader. But that’s one reason I wrote the book. I said: “Look at all of these different black people, most of whom you’ve never even heard of.” What is this you’ve-gotta-have-some-anointed-leader crap, like we’re a bunch of cattle and sheep.

We’re all bathed by the same culture, we all have the same images in our heads. When I say certain words--”17 - year-old single mother”-- (an) image jumps in your head, negative image, possibly racial . . . The media itself is a leader and it tries to dictate what black people should do now. . . . I try to create a little different imagery in this medium that I have as a writer. In this book the 17-year-old single mother grows up to own four radio stations .

Times: You see yourself as “artist as agitator.” Who do you most want to agitate?

Wiley: Oh, African Americans. The book moves concentrically outward. Initially, it’s for my mother because she is the one who gave me the environment . . . to do this. Then to my son, Cole, because I don’t want him to be bitter when he becomes an adult black man in this society. I want him to have some points of reference: “My father says this is what happens.” “Hate is the coward’s revenge for ever having been afraid.” That’s George Bernard Shaw. That’s exactly what the book is supposed to do.

Times: How do white readers react to your work?

Wiley: Well, “stupid” is not my market. Smart white readers react just as well as smart black readers and really the stupid people of both races focus on the one thing that they may disagree with in the book. . . . Well, it’s like I don’t agree with myself half the time. The very act of thinking is weighing options and disagreeing with yourself. I’m trying to get you to think through your feelings. You don’t even know why you’re feeling the way that you do.

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The essays’ titles can be misleading, or inspire a chuckle or simply an insider’s slow nod: “Why Black People Don’t Often Go to Baseball Games” and “Do All Black People Know Each Other?”

They are alluring hooks, like a carnival barker’s well-honed spiel. But Wiley isn’t into stand-up. Although the book started as satire, the crisis is far, far too advanced, too acute--joblessness, homelessness, racism, AIDS.

Look at the titles as a warm-up act and prepare for the real show: education. The state of things is nothing to laugh about, he says.

Times: You write that “Multiculturalists require a common truth of history. If college professors and other school teachers don’t like this, well, that’s why they call it hooky. We will find out for ourselves, share the knowledge, hope the raft doesn’t sink before we gather at the mouth of the river to account for our brief time here.” Do you consider yourself a multiculturalist?

Wiley: Absolutely. (He laughs.) And see , everybody’s mad at me.

Times: Because you’re not an Afro-centrist?

Wiley: I’m not a pure Afro-centrist. I understand Afro-centricity, and I appreciate what it can do for people who have been Euro-centricized to death--literally in some cases.

But in the end, the reality of America is multiculturalism. There are many, many African American people with deep strains of indigenous, Native American blood. And it goes without saying that there are many African Americans with many strains of European blood, not only in a bloodline sense, but in a cultural sense. . . .

Nobody’s trying to deny the accomplishments of European Americans. It’s not an academic debate. God passes out creativity in a very haphazard manner--he does not check your birth certificate.

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The same holds, Wiley underscores, with the thirst for (and the ability to excel in) education. He launches into an anecdote about a recent plane trip, which serves as a tidy metaphor for a thorny and amorphous problem.

While jotting notes inside his leather talisman notebook, Wiley says he felt a familiar, unwavering gaze from his seatmate. Wiley’s pose--a quiet moment of reflective study--didn’t square with the far-reaching and steadily duplicated media images of black men running drugs or gangbanging, he says.

“White people come up to me and say: ‘What are you doing? ‘ I’m writing. And you’re frowning? Kids today say going to school is ‘acting white,’ ” Wiley explains. Adults do little to dispel it. These are shackles that have long fettered the thinking--of those black and white and others. And so entrenched are these views that still many are bewildered when confronted with someone who fiercely breaks the codes.

Only part of Wiley’s plan is the homespun bootstrap theory. Look within yourself, but don’t stop there, he advises. “Stretch beyond self for greatness.”

The larger work lies in respecting and celebrating African American culture and individuals, closing personal chasms.

Times: You say feminists give you a hard time. In your introduction you write: “Women prove nothing by receiving (legal) judgments at the expense of black men while white men do the same as they’ve always done. If Mike Tyson cannot force himself on you, but William Kennedy Smith or a platoon of soccer players can, where’s the progress really?” How has a line like that gone over?

Wiley: The honor of black womanhood has never been protected. As black men that is part of our cultural shame, the fact that we could not protect the honor of black women. . . . (With) Mike Tyson and Desiree Washington . . . understand that (the issues raised in the case) are the baggage of 200 or 300 years. . . . So many black men have died for even just an accusation of raping a white woman. So a black woman, for a sense of worth says, ‘You are going (to jail)!’ . . . And there is a part of me that understands that. But . . . see how the white men can just do the most horrific things. Thinking about these things isn’t always the most pleasant thing in the world and people are going to react, but that’s artist as agitator.

Times: You address the conflict between black women and men. How do you propose that we begin an effective dialogue?

Wiley: That’s hard. All the divisions, the different schisms in the community which compound the difficulty of what we have to do ourselves in these cities. It’s not going to be like President Clinton comes on the air and says , ‘I’m sending millions to the inner city.’ . . . It’s not going to happen for us like that. . . . We have to do it ourselves and we have to work together. But I think if everybody’s voice is heard, then we can dialogue and we don’t allow the larger media structure to pit us against each other. Think through the images you see. Think through your own emotions.

Times: After we have informed ourselves, become discerning listeners and tried to mend these rifts, what might we gain?

Wiley: Well, I don’t know. It’s both ways. It’s like what Dickens said: We’re walking the line between tragedy and greatness. I smell a renaissance and I smell something burning. That’s the challenge. You’ve got to make it go one way or another.

That’s the beauty of being alive at this time.