Transcripts For CSPAN2 Mychal Denzel Smith Stakes Is High 20240712

Really thrilled with engagement level we had with all of you. You will be doing a lot of focus stuff and some pretty compelling conversations into the fall. I would say we were probably not be doing any close events until 2021 which is a bit of a bummer but we want to be real about that and the statements but with what were doing. Well keep bring you guys really interesting conversation with authors. So if everything from a wonderful event coming up in october, a conversation you wont want to miss. We just book of that. Everything from that to a conversation with matthew mcconaughey. If thats not a wideranging list of events, its going to be quite a false or stay tuned. You can follow all of our fence on magic city books. Com. I wont go through the full list here. Tonight im so thrilled to have a conversation with mychal denzel smith in a book that seems like it was written for the moment we are living in, although books are written quite a bit before their published and printed and Everything Else but sometimes we have these kind of prescient minds that are tapped into what is going on. Especially for us in tulsa and everything is been having in our community, 2021 will be such an important year for our community as well. Stakes is high. We had an event a few years ago, one of my favorite books several years, if possible, and im kind of ripping off a blurb he said about the book that kind of understand the pandemic before the pandemic actually happen because against americas response. Michael understands america in the way he was able to presage the world were living in at the story moment, this kind of weird 2020 stage were in. I think it really going to enjoy this conversation and thank th, mychal, for writing the book. Its kind of a mirror for us to see who we are and what we are doing right now. Weve had the great pleasure of doing this conversation, i got an interview a lot of wonderful people but im always thrilled to have that off to another wonderful writer who can be in conversation, the tonight are very special guest moderator is kali fajardoanstine who has written an awardwinning book that i would encourage all of you to get come will be posting links, sabrina and karina, lets see, it was a finalist for the National Book award, a finalist for the story prize. Its got a Pretty Amazing list of accomplishments before the net is just the killer book of stories that you will not soon forget hopefully im not sporting this but i heard there is a novel on the wing 2020 was really excited about that. So kali and mychal been conversation. If you have questions during the chat, please put those in the q a and we will get to those throughout the conversation. And i know you guys have tickets angevin copy of stakes is high but if you are more copies for your friends, relatives competed like to read or than once, whatever the reason, will be posting links it and also have copies you. Without further ado i will turn over to kali and say thank you to both of you for joining us come really appreciate you giving us the time. Thank you so much, jeff. Hi, mychal. Im so excited i have so much to ask you tonight when i was like going to the book i was like seriously reading the way i just to read when i was a teenager. Like when you find a secret treasure of information and others like printing off quotes from you and i ran out of ink, like i was like wow. To begin the book is a triumph. Its glorious and amateur able to pull in from the current moments, from history and job all these wideranging topics that fused together because her part of the american story. These issues range from justification, poverty, the history of modern policing, the me too movement, and is very essential ideas of the american ethos as we as nation of those particular in power want to see ourselves as who we are. My first question for you, i just want to get right into it, what was the process of putting this book together and what is the story of america that you are trying to tell with stakes is high . Thank you, first of all, to jeff and magic city books and you, kali, for participating in this, and if you want who is watching us and tuning in and who has bought the book already. Its fantastic. So the book came together this wasnt the book i intended to write after my first one. I published invisible man in the summer 2016 and was was happy with it and achieve my goal, publish a book and that is basically all the want to do for my life. And then i turned 30 that year and it turned 30, two days before the election of 2016. It was the sort of existential crises of turning 30 that i wasnt planning on because i was like, no, turning 30 is not that big a deal. Its just a number, its just an age. And then my waist size went through oh, no, this is different, something is happening to me. I say that because i didnt have a plan for after 30, right . Societally im in this position which i can have any think about what do i want in my life to look like as the still relatively young black man in america who didnt plan for having a life after the age of 30 because i presumed that i would not make it to that point. So now like a future i have to start thinking longterm answer thinking for the future. But then two days after i turned 30 the election of donald trump and there was like a be there wont be a future. Maybe here we are at the end. But it sort of like sitting in between those two feelings of things, i cant want now to plan for my own personal future, but the world seems to be at this impasse, like wed go toward our extinction in a relatively short time, or we could work on the problems that we have. This book was trying to find the place in which we could build the next world. And so the intervention ascension of china make our what i was getting was that theres a narrative that we tell ourselves as americans about america and about being americans that prevents us from seeing our problems in any way that fosters collective actions towards the eradication of them. I started on a different book, scrapped that one, started on this one and had adverse like 13 different essays i was going to write and the words at different subject matter and i thought that was way to go about it. In the writing process everything sort of collapsed around certain broad themes, like i was writing this, this is related to this over and theres ways of combining these things and they also collapsed into this and i think also at the same time i was thinking about, in the book, about new york city where i lived and had come with all these idealism scum the idea how i was going to be like all the millions of people that come to me or will find my community and defined my success and define everything im looking for. Not realizing even as a critic of america in the American Dream that i was doing packed with the same thing i was criticized for people doing. Its like new york city was this microcosm of this broader idea that theres just more possibility here, the more potential. But new york city is a gilded city. Its poverty right here, Homeless People sleeping right there in front of those buildings that go for millions of dollars, and police sweeping them off the street. Its a place were donald trump and his family was able to become this rich family by virtue of being slumlords. It holds all that possibility we want for it, but it also is defined in so many ways by these structures, these ideologies that run throughout American History, that run throughout every institution that we have. So i am trying to find a way to own my own place in that story. To say, look, even those of us who spend our time looking at American History, looking at the american presence and trying to critique it into its best form are subject to it, right . Not just subject to it but get swept up into the idealism of it, in that we think our critiques needs to be couched in certain ideas around american patriotism, about wanting the best for the country. But that makes of devoted to certain symbols and things that keep us attached to an idea that america in and of itself possesses this type of spirit and is able to overcome everything. So thats the story i was trying to tell about america and trying to capture about this moment, how the book comes together, its me wanting more all of us to be able to say that the story that we have committed ourselves to is the one that is leading to our destruction. Thank you, mychal. I also want to let the audience know, if you have questions you can use the q a feature and i will be able to see those at any time. This is also fascinating, and while youre talking to you and i share something really strange in, and that is my birthday is november 9 and i turned 30 the day before for the day after the election. The book opens, stakes is high opened with that fateful night, and i think youre talking about what is the american story. One of the things that was really challenging for many americans, especially those who consider themselves liberal and progressive come was the fact that a country elected donald trump to the presidency on that night. I walked by the hotel where we had this big part in denver. Were supposed to go celebrate this the story when of the first woman president. Didnt happen. Can to talk about that night and that significance and why you chose to open the book with this night . Yeah. In part it just was, its the defining moments, right, of hr most recent history. I think it was inescapable. Like, when i say i was working on another book, i was working at something that was completely divorced from the ideas that i was exploited in this book. It was supposed to be like black masculinity, where those ideas get for him and i was going look at the Basketball Court and prison at all of the stuff, right. Thats where i i was going to start. One of those sites is the barbershop and eyes going to explore the barbershop, and everything therein. When i started writing that book, the first sentence was about election day because i was in the barbershop on election day and was about the conversation that was happening. So i knew i couldnt escape it and thats what maybe switch over to writing this book. The psyche of those people youre describing, people who feel themselves to be liberals, progressives, people that are on the right side of history, the psyche was broken and it was something that was unfathomable about this. I cant say that i was completely like i dont want to pretend that i was in a position in which is like oh no, of course donald trump would win it. I wanted to believe that Something Else was possible. I was like no, we had the first black president , first woman president , that seemed like a natural progression. But i think what so many of us didnt take into account in what i was trying to get through that night, because i was on democracy now during the election coverage, and trying to come to terms with the fact that donald trump was going to win while being on air. It was like of course this happen. It would look at American History we know that every moment of progress, no matter how miniscule, have nine, like whatever it is, theres always a backlash come theres always retrenchment. The ideologies that a been inscribed in the founding always find a way to reassert themselves. And so we went through eight years of first black president , and theres so many things we can talk about with regards to that. I critique it the entire time i lived through it and i critique obama as a public figure and political figure and all those things. For all the limitations of the first black presidency, it did represent something that, for many, was the form of progress, was saying like theres new possibilities available to people before a large section of the country, especially agreed white van he believed america to be the birthright, what it signaled was they were losing. They were losing something. They were losing hold of their identity. They were losing hold of their power. They fought back, and donald trump is that last gasp. Its the boxer that is look, im on the ropes and i got to try one last thing and a throw that haymaker and just hope for the best. Sorry, everybody, for the sports analogy but thats what it was. And they landed, they landed the punch and we are all paying the price for it. If i was going to examine american, as it is, and do we say we are and you we say we want to be and break down even the of whom constitutes we, like i had to look at that moment. I had to look at that night and had to reckon with my own emotions about it and my own shortcomings and run not being able to see it. Yeah, and especially the night, the grief still ripples out till today. It will keep going. You talk about white men and the sort of like last reached for power, which brings me to the section of the book, justice. In this section talk a lot about modern policing. I think a lot of americans right now are starting to learn the history of modern policing at how did we get the system and what does reform look like what what does abolishing the police look like . I would love to you talk about, like where is the history of this coming from . I know in the book you mentioned the london police. Could you talk about that, please . Yeah. Like the First Modern Police force in the world starts out in london, and what they are doing there is they are looking for a cheap alternative to the army to be able to suppress the uprising in a colony of ireland. I wish people are fighting for the independence. England does want to let go of control. They are using up lots of resources with the army and i cant figure out new ways of been suppressing those folks come controlling the population. So they the adopt the idea of e modern please force essentially, like when we say modern police force, because you can look and see like different forms of policing throughout history. You can look at Medieval Times in europe and say the nights are pleased essentially, like they were coming up of the monarchy and they collect the taxes and they enact violence on people who did not live up to the laws that a been set forth by the monarch and all that stuff. But in modern Police Force One that is publicly funded, one that is armed, one that is part patrolling neighborhoods all that, that starts in london and that gets copied in the u. S. Post independence in the 1800s when youre looking for in northern cities ways of doing exactly what theyre doing in england, which is to suppress labor uprising essentially. You will have workers saying these capitalist robber barons are taking my wages or paying me low wages, putting in unsafe conditions, i dont like it, and then theyre going to strike the what do they capitalist robber barons do but like form lease forces to suppress those uprisings. And then those become part of municipalities, and then you also have to recognize the way which policing as a format arises in the south and southern cities and southern plantations as a means of catching runaway slaves, like thats what their job is. So thats the history of how we establish policing in the u. S. I point to it often because i just want people to understand that it hasnt moved far from that. Like, the job of the police in those days is to reinforce a secondclass citizenship. It is to say who is valued, what is valued. It is to protect the property of the landowner of capitalist and it is, and some of that property is people, some of the property is enslaved people, and it is to reinforce racial hierarchy. It does the same thing, now, and it also polices gender identity. Police determine what counts as a crime, and when they respond to Domestic Violence calls and which so often it is a main beating on women. They take the site of this man whos been beating on this woman in part because their reef enforcing that give that this form of violence is legitimate and it is that something the states need to get involved with. It reinforces gender identity in that so many trans women, their bodies are police on the street. Doing survival sex work who were then arrested for doing that and then thrown into jail. They are always reinforcing the very ideas that are at the core of who american spirit as legitimate and worthy of rights. So understanding that then, if we understand police that way, which i dont think we do, so much of how we understand police is shaped by our tv shows and her films in which police are doing these differing heroic acts and swooping in and saving the day for all these terrible bad guys that exist in the world that hellbent on our destruction, and weve been, like theres from the american imagination says theyre preventing us from all out chaos. But what police are being called in to do is just reinforce and ensure that the inequalities that are baked into the system are maintained. And if we think of police that way, then the question becomes what purpose would police serve in a just society . What purpose would police serve if we were in a position in which everyones needs were met no one was a social pariah on the basis of race, gender and sexual identity, class. What would happen if there wasnt so much ownership of private property and there was more Public Ownership . What would happen if everyone had access to education and health care and clean water . I think about that so often comes just the fact that people who dont have clean water. It boggles my mind, but it is being police. To say is a people that deserve this and these are people who dont. But in a in a just society, ina society that establishes those things as rights for everyone, what role would police serve . And i think it scares people right now to think of a World Without police because all the vacancy because with even socialized to believe is danger is always knocking on my door. Danger is always out there. So people that are other always out there. The people that are, you know, when he wasnt president yet, he said mexico is sending criminals, sending rate this people believed this. They think it is the police in whatever form they may take, in this instance i, what the police are going to protect you, the people with guns who are armed with the authority of the state to kill with impunity are going to protect you on this imagined other that is coming to hurt you. But if thats what you are afraid of, the solution is never going to be police. Because all the police can do is arrest those people and throw them in jail, or they can kill those people. You have a society thats always going to be producing those people, right, you are always going to be producing those kinds of people you will always be selling those divisions and i was going to be putting people in situations of desperation Sowing Division act in ways in which seem criminal in order for their survival. If police are necessary in the system in order to make someone feel safe, and they dont make all of us feel safe, right . But if they are necessary in the system, why would they be necessary in a system in which anyone actually has access to things that make them safe . Its a reimagining of safety, a reimagining of community, a reimagining of what it takes to ensure that the behaviors that you dont want to see in the world are not actually taken because, like so many things e criminalized but not all of them are harmful to other people. They are just means of surviving. Yeah, definitely. Our population skyrocketed and indie book to talk about the criminalization of poverty and how its a crying to be filtered when you dont have access to take a bath and you cant even take care of yourself, that becomes the crime. It may be think about there has to be people who grew up thinking that the police are meant to protect and serve, because thats the Public Relations campaign they have told us. But when i i grew up i did that feel safe. I was told dont trust them if you get pulled over in middle of nowhere, make sure you try somewhere else. You could be assaulted at any time. These are things that were always on my mind. One of my questions along with this is, like what does it look like to sort of allow that information about the other side of the story to get out . Might, it seems like they have a very direct Public Relation campaign, i get Propaganda Machine almost thats giving this message of the police are there to uplift us and protect us here like, are the ways we can ship that narrative . Is it happening right now . I think its happening a little bit now, right . Especially the past five to six years of what is nationally known or internationally known as black lives Matter Movement put a focus on policing and to say like, the our communities that are subject to certain forms of policing batter hyper violent and that did not allow for the freedom of movement that of the people enjoy. A long time sort of that was the basic critique and that was it. Its just like okay, maybe police should stop killing as many people as they do. They still kill a thousand people a year at least, but there was at least some acknowledgment that in some instances police do the wrong thing. I think now to this past some in response to the killings of Breonna Taylor and george floyd, but especially george floyd because we saw that one, there was a more radical cry. It was defund the police. Was abolished the police. That is a starting point for the activist side, means that conversation has to be different. Because if youre going to engage and have to do with the fact thousands people in the street are saying this, i dont know that it had an impact in terms of completely shifting that narrative for people to do that, but ive been thinking about this a lot just in terms of come at a sort of right about this in the book, like the idea of writing and its impact through the course of writing a book, feeling like theres a futility to writing, especially in the face of such grave the violence to say that what am i doing . Just writing words. The has to be a record of people who dissented. Her has to be a record for those who come after us to say, because we see this all the time, right, anytime and injustice of the past is brought up in the present, theres a course of people who will just say, well, thats a a person of their time. Like they were acting in a way that most people did during that time. Theres always the record of people who believe that action to be romcom believe that idea to be wrong. We have to leave that. We cant leave future generations without access to that because without it it leaves you in a position of key like you are alone, as it, as if youre the insane one for believing that these things are unjust. As a Propaganda Machine exists and i think about it in terms of just yesterday the announcement of the historic settlement in the civil case of Breonna Taylor and her family in the city of louisville, the monetary compensation is one thing but to ask for a lot of Police Reforms as part of that package. All this means is there going to kill their neighbors. This is not some solution, but also that part of the campaign, to make you think the police are friendly and the police are trustworthy and the police are someone you should put your faith in but they dont solve problems. They dont do the things that theyve been asked to do by these, by every municipality and nationwide. They just dont do it. They dont prevent crimes massively. Crime in itself is just a construction around statuses that have been deemed undesirable by certain people and those people have been in power and those people have been largely like white men deciding wascriminal so you send the police after the quote unquote criminals. Thats their job. Thats all theyre goingto ever do and it doesnt matter how much volunteer work they do , there are always going to do what their mission has been from the beginning so i think about that in relation to something i wrote about in the book with Shirley Chisholm and how when she was a new York State Assembly woman she presented a bill in response to Police Violence to say that, all police going through training must complete a civil rights course. They had to learn the history of the people they were policing and they had to learn about injustice and i say in the book i like to think that she knew that would mean those people couldnt become police. Because once you know, once you know exactly what the history of policing is and you know how violent and how repressive it is i would like to think any person of conscience wouldnt stand for it youd like to think that. I want to bring up Shirley Chisholm because i was ignorant and i had not heard of her and i was like, what . Why was i not educated and now i looked her up and now im like what is wrong with me, i dont need to go read 800 novels so can you talk about this political figure and what she means to you and you mentioned this statue. It also made me think about what if some of these racist statues were replaced with people that are meaningful to our groups and the people we come from . I would love to hear more about her. Shirley chisholm, her fame and the thing people keep talking about her for is paving the way, especially towards obama in 08 and again with hillary in 2016. She was a black woman to run for president on the democratic ticket. She was not successful obviously but she was also the first black woman elected to congress and she was the first is the thing that people get hung up on. As a trailblazer who did these things and made it possible for an obama later and made it possible for Hillary Clinton later and then she popped up again in discussions around alexandria ocasiocortez, because she was from newyork but also took on the political establishment in their ability to be able to get elected to congress. But she came to me in part, i mean im wearing what i was wearing on democracy now, that woman wore a yellow one but it has a Campaign Slogan on it from 72 when she ran for president , catalyst for change and she ran and explicitly sort of antiracist , and a feminist campaign. Even though she was like im not running a campaign for black people and a campaign for women, im running for all americans but her platform was in a movement in politics at the time and she very famously gives her first speech on the house floor before anything has happened, before shes given a vote on anything its an antivietnam war speech and she hasnt been established in the congressat all. Its her very first speech and she works for the expansion of food stamps, Free Breakfast Program and all of this stuff, all these antipoverty measure throughout her career and the thing is on the night of the election, im thinking about her becauseshe was being celebrated in these different ways and im thinking about her because they are putting up that statue not far from where i live. But i was thinking about what she actually stood for and what she worked for in her career and that statue is going to stand there and the folks that i see on the street right now are going to sleep underneath that statue of that woman who fought to end poverty sowhere are we . What meaning are we trying to give to the statue if her very legacy is not something that people are willing to fight for but shes being used in this way to bolster certain ideas around, you can do it, everything is possible. Trailblazer, all this stuff. Its another way in which we use historical figures that then we adopt into this american exceptionalism narrative and that america always comes out on top. That america is the reason that Shirley Chisholm is able to do what shes able to do. America is the reason why Shirley Chisholm had to do what she had to do and that is a part where we are unwilling to integrate into the story is that america can celebrate Shirley Chisholm for being the first black woman elected to congress but never ask why she had to be first in 1968. Why it took that till 1968 for that to be possible. An american can celebrate Shirley Chisholm for being the first black woman to run for president , but not ask itself why she was only able to get like two percent of the democratic vote and not enough delegates to do any sort of wheeling and dealing on the Convention Floor but what are the reasons why you reject the actual politics of this person, the mission of this person even though youre trying to fold them into this american story, one about the idea that everyone has the potential to overcome all their obstacles without asking why those obstacles are there in the first place. Its fascinating. Im a fiction writer and i mostly write novels to be able to spend time in these pages and learn this information, in what felt like arelatively short amount of time , so i actually have somequestions now. Its one of the most pleasurable things to learn. Im glad there was enough information in those pagesthat my editor kept trying to make me write more and more. Every sentence, every paragraph is springloaded with the history behind it. With the projected future. Everything has such residents of meaning. Now i have a question about the process for you as a writer and where you get your influences and where you pull from. On of the things i love about the book are all the epigraphs. I think theyre still called epigraphs when theyre in front of a chapter. You have this beautiful book in severance, i always love the myth more than the reality and its what enabled me to do this for so long, we talked about the myth of this place and you have this wonderful epigraph from morgan parker. I kept thinking the only thing left is outerspace. What was the process like of finding these when youre reading . Are you keeping track of them in a notebook or something . Can you talk about thewords while you were building this book . I did keep track of themin a notebook. There were so many unusual ones and it was just, i dont know how much you find when youre writing in that process, while youre doing all the working but i was reading a lot and not everything wasdirectly researched. It was like im interested in readingthis right now so thats what im reading. I dont know how this sounds to people but it does feel like theres some sort of cosmic intervention to say i was supposed to be reading this right now because there is something in here thats meant to be used by me, that im supposed to bepulling from, that the ideas are forming in a way that becomes clear when i read this thing. So i was reading severance and i was like, thats exactly what ivebeen trying to say. Thats exactly what captures it exactly. I was reading beloved and thats the thing, thats what im trying to do with this chapter. Exactly that feeling so yes, it was just a matter of the things that i had already read and that i had come back to or would come back to me in ways that i didnt anticipate but it was just like, i was reading morgans book and that was very early in the process and it was like, what im trying to say here is that there is no escape. Theres very little and it was also because itwas in conversation with other things that i was doing. But i was writing that forethought, that introductory chapter and i was thinking through a tribe called quest and thinking about the song Space Program and that other morgan quote, it fits perfectly with this idea here. So it wasnt always purposeful. It wasnt like i need to read this book because it has information that will work for me that i was in the strand one day looking through these books as i do because i lovebookstores. The thing i missed from pandemic times was going to a bookstore as soon as they open up, it was the first place i went but i was looking through the new york section in the strand and it was this slim book and i picked it up and theres so much here. Theres so much rich here. This is something that i need here, this is something that it captures the idea that id i either want to build on or dont think needs to be improved upon. That encapsulates exactly the thing, using them as epigraphs in that instance, its the surprising people. These are the things you need to be thinking right now to absorbwhat im trying to do here and to relate to it. Also just citation all practice is im not alone in this. I think that dispels the myth of the writer as this total solo artist. Were in conversation with each other all the time and we learn in communities and i think thats important to note is that knowledge isnt produced by a Single Person on their own. Its produced in conversation with each other, in community with each other and i want to be able to show my work and show people these are the places you can explore. I especially love the idea of showing the work because i think often in white supremacy, a lot of it is about hiding the work and hiding the pathway to power and you provide by doing this theres so many references, youre providing anadditional reading guide. Just get yourself further and youre laying out the framework that this is how you can achieve through this breath of information. Could you talk about the title, where the title from the book came from . The title is actually the first thing that came to me and i think it was the reason this became a book in the first place. As i said i was setting up a completely different book but i cant say a thing about aces high, but they lost soul album. The thing about a particular lyric on one of the songs is that they lost soul black racists. And i hear it and that the dont line and its also kind ofdepressing. The longevity of your group can be compared to racism, its never going anywhere but that was the germ of the idea is to say the clear reflection in the presidency of donald trump. [inaudible] the permanence of capitalism, the things have to reassert themselves because they are big into the very foundation of the americanidentity. So when i think about that i think about the very name of the album. Stakes is high and it being rooted in that lack vernacular and saying theres something also permanent about the status of blackness within this country. The idea of blackness being a marker by which everyone else measures access. But just the phrase itself, stakes is high i dont know how much higher they get than what were experiencing with the timeline that we have. You can look right now atthis country , just this country. Just in this country and the fires raging out in california in the Pacific Northwest and the hurricanes gathering in the gulf coast while the entire country deals with a Global Pandemic of an airborne illness and say oh yeah, weve got generations and generations to deal with this problem. No we dont. We just dont. Were late to the game in dealing with climate disaster and its like look, its not just that angry white men took that last punch and wanted to get power back. Its that the things they want to do with that power will accelerate to all of the problems that we are facing and like, our very existence, the sustainability of this planet, i just lost it. But its the ability of this planet to sustain life. Were up against that. Were up against a tight timeline in order tobe able to deal with it. So stakes is high and they dont get any higher than what they are right now. I think of all the books, your book matches the pitch of the energy right now. Which is yes, we are on the edge of like either we have to rebuild or maybe its over. So this kind of gives us a little bit but you kind of veer off into this idea of an alternate timeline which i think a lot of people are doing more and more and we were doing it in the early days of the pandemic every day but my calendar has this on it but this happened. That is one of the things i absolutely adore about the book is this idea of mythmaking and story building. Yes, i love it. So what do you think the role is of the imagination and being able to provide us with a pathway out of this, a pathway out of all of it, all the oppression andinjustice. What can we envision to be able to move forward . Do you have any thoughtson it . I think i said something to the effect in the book is imagining where we want to go will teach us how we get there. What do we want . And i think our political imagination has been so stifled because we get caught in these fouryear election cycles in which we are always choosing to the lesser of two evils that people can try to debate that you know and and be like no, but theres a possibility of this. No, you are choosing to which one will be less bad for the time being and thats what were presented with every single time. And if thats the best we can do, its the best we can do believing that the american president is our savior and whatever side we fall on, its that singular person, that singular figure that will rescue us but its the best that we can do is choosing from the Democratic Party or republican party. If these are the things we believe from moment to moment are the best we can do, then we are doomed. If we cant think beyond that and just say out loud what it is we we actually want and this is the thing that frustrates me about especially the Democratic Party is that they say that those are thethings they want. The loftier goals they saybut then they say its not possible. Unless you say it out loud, then you get a bunch ofpeople on board with it obviously is not going to be possible. Obviously if you write it off in the beginning, its not going to be possible and i think about the alternative timeline a little bit in their and i talk about imagining a world where Shirley Chisholm would have won the election in 1972 but sort of writing it off immediately as fantasy because its just like there was no place where america would have to be a completely different country for that to even be possible so i want to imagine what thats like. I want to know and i can do that by myself but again, it comes back to an idea that i believe in democracy. And i believe that we should be doing that together and that we have ideas about what a better life looks like from the one that we have. Its a matter of listening to those things, believing that they are possible and believing we are responsible for one anotherand responsible for that future for other people. Its hard to imagine all of that when youre up against reality and the reality is that there are people, millions of them who refuse to even put a piece of cloth over their face to protect their neighbors from catching this deadly airborne illness even in the face of 200,000 of them dead. Theres a selfishness to this. Theres an individualistic ideology running through so many people that believe that the they only have to look out for themselves. Im saying like, thats disruption, thats the place that were going right now. Thats as you say where its either going to end right now or were going to figure out a way to make itwork. And the only way of making it work is to have the imagination to be like, the world exists as it is but theres another world that could be if were willing to try. I love that, im a big proponent of the imagination. I spent all my time in it. I have time for one more question so i just wanted to ask you, i didnt feel pessimistic or bummed out about your book, i just felt like this is cool. I feel like i have community with this person. I agree with a lot of this but i can see some people feeling dejected and a little pessimistic after reading this. What feelings do you want to stir in people, what do you want yourreaders to take from this book . If thats the feeling, sit with it. I want whatever feeling that you have as a response to todays tobe your feeling. Im not going to police your feelings but i want people to sit with it and if it depresses you, if it makes you feel hopeless, start asking why does it make you feel hopeless. What is lacking here that makes you feel like theres just no hope for these things to come to pass and those are the places that i think, those are the places where then you need to act. If you believe that theres dumping wrong, here, whatever issue it is, whatever community a thing there is, whatever it is, if theres a pot in here that makes you go thats just impossible, thats the place to start. Thats the place to be like, i need to talk to other people about this and i need to get in community with other people to be able to fix this thing because that is exactly where we end up all the time is just being like, the issue is too big for me. Obviously its too big for one person. All these things are too big for one person to tackle. I want people to sit with whatever feeling that this work produces in them and say okay, why do i feel that way. How can i find other people who are dealing the way that im dealing and how can we then be in community with one another so that we dont feel that way anymore. I love that. If you so much michael, mychal denzel smith. The book is stakes is high out now and you should encourage everyone you know to get acopy and thank you magic city books. Thank you again. Everyone by it for serena and karina when itcomes out in 2001. Everybody. Fox news has entered the publishing world by announcing fox news books, import nation with harpercollins. The Partnership Includes a three book deal and will launch november 24 with the release of fox news post pete exit book modern warrior. This years nobel prize in literature has been awarded to at least group for unmistakable poetic voice that with austere beauty makes individual existence universal. She was the poet laureate of the United States in 2003 and 2004. In other award is a Macarthur Foundation announced their annual genius grant to provide each of the 21 recipients hundred 25,000 a year for five years without any restrictions on the use of the grant money. This years macarthur fellows include young adult author Jaclyn Wilson and mk jenison and Christina Rivera garza. Also in the news and pd bookscan report print book scales were were up six percent for the weekend on october 3 and simon and schuster is remembering one of its longtime editors, alice mayhew who died earlier this year. During her more than 50 year career miss mayhew edited numerous bestsellers and awardwinning books including bob woodward and Carl Bernsteins all the president s men and the Late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader ginsburg is my own words to name justa few. And schuster have released an ebook of remembrance of of the late editor that can be downloaded for free. Book tv will continue to bring you new programs and publishing news. You can watch all our past programs anytime at booktv. Org. Class on our Author Interview program after words former Deputy Assistant attorney general in the Bush Administration john you weighed in on president ial power and the u. S. Constitution. Some of the discussion. I startedout wearing of president trump. I wasnt a supporter of his in the 2016 election and the thing that worried me was that he was a populist and the constitution seems designed to stop populists. Its fairly antidemocratic in nature in a lot of ways like the senate and judicial review and the electoral college. The presence of the states is an important part of the constitution so i was worried when trump came in as a populist who want to achieve an agenda that he feels he received a mandate for that he would strain against or even go beyond the constitutional restraints of his power and i was worried at the beginning that he was doing that in things like the travel ban , threats to build a border wall without congressional approval and urged them to try to use his president ial powers primarily for National Security and when Foreign Affairs were at their height and to understand that Domestic Affairs that his role is really to enforce the law and then to work with congress to get legislation passed. I think what happened since 2017 to today is that i found his critics have become the ones who have i think on too far in trying to stretch the constitution because i think from they think he so outrageous they want to attack after attack on his legitimacy, to trumps critics have talked about getting rid of the electoral college, who have talked about packing the supreme courts to add six new members to get to 15. Want to return us to a world of permanent statutorily protected independent councils which i think women allies arepolitics. They want to nationalize large parts of our economy for a green new deal. I think that has left trump undeniably using the constitution more as a shield , using constitution to pursue his own self interest but that leaves to him the field of relying on more traditional interpretations of the constitution so i argue either intentionally or unintentionally he has become more the defender of the