TDS Time Machine | Conversations with Authors

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I just noticed how people dress differently and different, like in Reno, Nevada. The ice-breaking question when I was signing books was, why did you choose that t-shirt? I mean you think this was like a lecture tour, so people bought tickets and they're going to the theater. Right. And so you would just think maybe you'd put on a long pair of pants or shorts that weren't cut off. Maybe if you were going to buying a ticket. What was the climate like? Was it a particularly hot and humid environment that people thought, well I don't want to perspire? I asked a woman and she was wearing a Count Chocula t-shirt. She was in her 60s and I said, is that your good Count Chocula t-shirt? And she said, I didn't think anyone was going to notice. You know, I think it's the same thing. You know, when people go to the grocery store wearing anything, I think it's the same thing. Except this, they bought a ticket and they spent 50 or 60 bucks and same thinking. But the people are all, I mean I like them all perfectly fine. I just noticed from city to city. One other, were there other cities where it's, are there some people that come in with the top hat and tails? Like is there a more formal... San Francisco, I think I find people... Are they trying too hard in San Francisco, do you think? No, no, but they put a little effort into it. That's just, I noticed. Did you find anyone came up to the table and you didn't say anything? And they were like, hmm. I worked really hard on this outfit. Like did anyone come up with like epaulettes or like a Michael Jackson outfit or anything like that? Nothing that, nothing that severe. I love the Count Chocula thing because I didn't even know that that t-shirt, like she must have gotten it when she was 20. She was in her mid 60s and she had a Count Chocula t-shirt on. And I think she had sweatpants on with it, but she had, it was a whole outfit. She had the whole, she was working the whole outfit. We can settle this right now because you've got like 30 more cities to go. I think you should ask people to all wear the same thing. Everyone should come in like a yellow jumpsuit. Well, I like, you know, I know that there are people who go on their book tour and they're like that. But I talk to people so much that they are like, let me let you go. Let me let you go. Because, because I'm either, I'm either in a room by myself, I'm either in a room by myself writing or I'm out in the world, you know. So I, and so it's good opportunity if there's a theory that I'm working or a poll that I want to take and, at the beginning of the theory. Well, you're asking, so at a book signing someone will come up to you and you're asking them polling questions. Yeah, like I had a theory when I started the tour that men with beards had guns. But you know what I've discovered? What I've discovered, men with beards have fathers who have guns. I'm 80% right on this, 80% right. Men with beards have fathers who have guns. Were the beards grown at gunpoint? Was this, is this a situation where they wouldn't normally grow it? But the father was like, I insist. I met a guy and he was from the Phillip, you know, his family was from the Phillip Heads. He had like 17 hairs on his chin. His dad had bullets, not a gun. Not a gun. I don't know if he was going to throw him at people or what, but his dad just had a box of bullets, but no gun. Do you find that different, like if someone had a full beard, would you be like, we have to investigate this man's father? Like he would have an arsenal, like we're smaller facial hair configurations correlated with smaller weaponry. No, I met people with like van dykes whose dads had arsenals. Really? Mm-hmm. And they would, would they ever be taken aback like, why do you want to know? Like that. Yeah. But then also on this tour, I was out with a friend and I've done it since junior high school. And we went to a restaurant for lunch and then the waitress asked if we want to desert. We hadn't thought about it. We thought, okay, let's split a piece of banana cream pie. Sure. And then I looked across the room and there were two other men splitting a piece of pie and they were around our age and they were gay. I'm assuming they were. And I thought, because straight men would not share a dessert. So I started asking men at the book signings, would you share a dessert with another guy? And they said, like one guy said, you know, I'd share a plate of buffalo wings. He said, he said, but like a piece of pie, that's just crossing the line. I'm like, I'm pretty secure in my sexuality. But for the first time, because as soon as you said that, like, sure, I share pie all the time. And now, so now I have to feel like, oh God, is this the right lifestyle I'm leading right now? I'm going to go home to my wife and be like, honey, I think we have to talk. I met these other guys and they had just recently shared a piece of cake, but they told the waitress, we're not gay. They wanted her to know, by the way, that they weren't gay. But then I met a whole other kind of guy who's just all about the dessert and he would eat frosting off another man's if it was. If that's what it was being served on, you know. See, here's how I know I'm not gay. In that situation, I would do this. Let's explore diabetes with owls. It's on the bush house now. Take it to test. My morning flew by and I didn't have time to cook anything. And I looked up at the clock and now it's 10 a.m. and I'm hungry and it's March. That's what I said to myself this week, realizing that life is super chaotic and we just don't have time to do everything that we want. What do I want? Easy nutrition that's ready for me whenever I want that actually tastes good. This is where my friends at Hewlett come in, sponsor of this podcast. That's H-U-E-L. 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My go-to is chocolate peanut butter. Then on days where I want something more customizable, I use the Black Edition powder. I'll blend it with ice and milk if I'm doing a whole smoothie moment, or I just shake it with water from being lazy. With a bigger boost of 40 grams of protein, same complete nutrition, just a different vibe. The RTD plus powder duo has basically become my insurance policy against chaotic days. With a limited time offer, get Hewlett today with an exclusive offer of 15% off online with the code DailyShow at Hewlett.com. New customers only. Thank you to Hewlett for partnering and supporting this show. If you're busy, this is a game changer. My guest tonight and acclaimed historian, two-time Pulitzer Prize winning author. His latest book is 1776. Welcome to the program, David McCullough. David! How are you? Sir. Thank you. I always find that the Pulitzer Prize winner sits first. Nice to see you, my friend. The book is 1776. What a wonderful read. You and I are both historians and authors, to some extent. You chose to fill your history book with facts. Interesting choice. Tell me why. Stranger than fiction. Stranger than fiction. Stranger. How do you find new facts about a subject so poured over as the American Revolution? It's amazing how much there is that hasn't been worked over before. The best material for me, at least, was in diaries and letters, memoirs, all of which have survived all these years, and they're in archival collections or libraries. And that's how you can get close to the real flesh and blood people who were caught up in that drama. Do you believe that they wrote their diaries for historical perspective? Absolutely. Is there a self-consciousness in them? No. That's how there is. But most of the best of them are written by soldiers in the ranks or young officers writing home to their families or keeping the diary for their family. They're under such duress, they're living through hell, and they're not making anything up, and they're not doing it for the history books. Now, some of those who are in the positions of real leadership or responsibility, more conspicuous officers, at times may have been doing that, but they really don't know how it's going to turn out. It's awfully visceral. And they're living day to day, and that's so important to remember. And they don't know if they're going to get through the day alive very often, and they're trying to write it down. And also keep in mind, too, that there was no journalists covering the war. Newspapers didn't do that then. No town criers embedded? No, we didn't. No reporting at all. It's all what you can find in what the participants said, the protagonists themselves. And it ranges from a kid who was a Pfeiffer boy, who was 16 and looked about 14, John Greenwood. They're talking about a kid who's 10. You mentioned a kid who was working as a cook in here, who's 10 years old, and another gentleman who's 57. Yeah, and it ranges all over the place in age. And background. You also deal from both perspectives, which I thought was very interesting and difficult to do. Yes, well, thank you. And I became very sympathetic to what the British soldiers and the Hessian soldiers were going through. They were very courageous, brave people. They were on the wrong side, but they were nonetheless impressive. The Hessians, if I may, and no disrespect, seemed kind of a little prickish. There was a lot of... That's a technical term. There's a lot of... Cut off his head with a bayonet, stuck it on a pole, and put it outside the fort. The Hessians seemed to be like Drago and Rocky, like killing machines. True? Yes, yes. But that's what they were trained to do. That's what their business was. They were professional soldiers, as were the British. And we weren't very good at being soldiers at first. And some of these kids that fought in the Battle of Brooklyn, for example, Green follows off of a Connecticut farm who maybe had been carrying a musket for two weeks. And they're up against the best professional soldiers in the world. And Washington appeared to have somewhat of a disdain for these, especially for the New England soldiers. Guys that he thought maybe weren't of the quality of the Southern soldiers, thought that their personal habits were not up to snuff. No, he didn't like them. It's very interesting to read about his ambivalence. He tried to hide that bias, because that's really all he had to work with at first, when he took command. And he'd never commanded an army before in his life. He'd been in the French and Indian War and distinguished himself with courage and certain abilities. But he had never commanded an army. And here he had an army of New Englanders who were all people that he thought were dirty and everitious, and he didn't like them. And they had this odd idea that they would decide things for themselves. You know, they'd vote on whether they would do this or that. Please! Yes. Ridiculous! But he overcame that, and what's so interesting is the two best officers that he had. He spotted, within a few days after meeting them, Nathaniel Green and Henry Knox, one of whom was a Quaker, who had no business by his background being in the war at all, who had a limp, so bad that he would have been disqualified for service in the military, under kind of rules and regulations we have. Let's say. And Henry Knox, who had had part of one hand blown away in a hunting accident, who was a 25-year-old Boston bookseller. He had said, without those guys, we don't win. But they'd read books about the military. And that was an age and a time when it was widely believed, age of the Enlightenment. The good way to find things out was to read books. That's over now. Yeah. I mentioned earlier, it seems like what's almost so disheartening about reading it, even though it's an exciting read, is the redundancy of war. That the humanity of the characters fighting it, the feeling of powers that are out of their control, that are driving it, the redundancy of the arguments, it is so cyclical. Is that, as you read about these and you write these, do you feel like we're just always damned to repeat this kind of cycle? Well, I think you have to differentiate between wars. Now, this was the most important war in our history, because it's the war that makes possible our birth. It is the awful labor pain of the birth of a nation. And it was the longest war in our history except for Vietnam. And it was the bloodiest war on a per capita basis except for the Civil War. This was a very bloody long war. And people suffered. And you can't just judge the horrors of war by how many people died, because for every person that died, which we are being reminded constantly now, there are people suffering from grief and loss and questions. I think one of the lessons of this war, this particular year of this war, 1776, the most important year of the most important war in our history, is that it could have gone either way at almost any time. The wind blows differently at the Battle of Brooklyn than the British can bring in their share. Yes, literally. The wind had been in a different direction. I think we would have had quite a different outcome. Also, some wars are worth fighting. And this really was worth fighting. And the people who were in it felt that way. And it's a story that now we have at the Brethren Nation that resonates because we're proud of the story. And maybe that's the most important thing for it. We tend to see the people of the 18th century as sort of figures in a costume pageant. You know, with their ruffled shirts and their powdered hair, and they look sort of like fops. These are very strong people, very tough people. And we owe them so much that we really never can know enough about them. Well, it's... I have to say, what's so wonderful about it is the nuances it brings to the characters. Even a story that's well-worn and well-known by people. So thank you very much for coming on the show. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. 1776, it's on the bookshelves now. David McCullough! My guest tonight is a best-selling author whose new book is called, Hunger, A Memoir of My Body. Please welcome Roxanne Gay. Welcome. Thank you. Welcome to the show. Um, I know you from your writings. I know you from your columns. Many people know you from topics that range from feminism to politics to social commentary. But this book is something different. This book is a memoir... Yes. ...that takes us through your life in a way that I don't think anybody would expect. It takes us through your life through the prism of eating and through the prism of being a fat person living in the world. Yes. Why did you choose to write it in this way? Because I didn't want to write it at all. But, um, as I was thinking of what I wanted my next nonfiction project to be, I wanted to tell the story of my body because when you're fat in the world, people have assumptions about who you are and why you're fat, and they think you're stupid. Like, yesterday someone emailed me, do you know that exercise is required to lose weight? No. Never occurred to me. And so, um, you know, I think it's important to show, like, what it's actually like to live in this world, in a fat body. What's really heart-wrenching is the story that you tell in the book. And that is, you were gang-raped at 12 years old. Yes, I was. And that led to a journey of hating yourself, hating your body. How did that come to be? How does your world collapse? I know you write about it in the book, but I mean, how does that happen? I, you know, when I was 12, this thing happened, and it was so unexpected, and I was a good Catholic girl, and so I didn't even know, like, what sex was. I mean, I knew of the technicalities, but I did not know what rape was. Right. I certainly didn't know that you could be with more than one person. And so my world was shattered in the aftermath, and I just thought, I want to be stronger. I want to be bigger. And so I thought, if I eat a lot, those boys won't do this again, because I'll be able to fight them next time. Right. And they won't want to do this because I'll be fat, and boys don't like fat girls. And so in many ways, it was a deliberate choice. And of course, looking back at my girl, I talked to mom and dad, but, you know, 12-year-olds with secrets hold onto them very tightly. You know, something you didn't do. You didn't talk to mom and dad. Why? No. I was really scared, because I believed everything that we learned in church about premarital sex being a sin, and I was absolutely certain that I was going to hell. And then those boys went to school the following day and told everyone a different story that I wanted it, and so everyone started calling me a slut, and I just knew nobody would believe me, because it was going to be my word against these guys. You talk a lot about the consequences of living in a world that sees fat a certain way. Now, I won't deny, as a comedian and as a person, I've made a ton of fat jokes in my life. Absolutely. And there was a time when fat was seen as a novelty, as a choice. America's now gotten to a place where people are realizing it's an epidemic, they're realizing that there are effects. Yes. What are some of the effects that you've dealt with living in your body? Well, you know, there are a lot of things that you encounter. Like at the grocery store, people make commentary on what they see in your cart, and they send you unsolicited advice. I'm a writer and I do events, and I've had people come up to the signing line and offer me nutritional advice. I'm sorry, it's just insane. You know, the world doesn't fit... You don't fit in the world oftentimes. I write in the book that the bigger you become, the smaller your world gets, because you can't necessarily fit in theater seats. And airplane travel is such a pain because those seats are not roomy for anyone, and so you either have to buy two tickets, and then the airline is like, why did you buy two tickets? Or you buy one ticket and you encroach on someone else's space, and they're like, why didn't you buy two tickets? And so no matter what you do, you can't fit, and the world is not really interested in creating a space for you to fit. People just judge you and they say, you know, you're going to die nine years younger, which, why do you care? And then, you know, they think you're draining the health care system as they smoke a cigarette. And so it's just a constant sense that you don't belong, and people feel no compunction about being cruel about it. It's honestly, it's an amazing story, and I can only thank you for sharing it with us. Thank you so much, Trevor. Thank you for being here, Roxanne. Come here. You'll be available June 13th. Roxanne Day, everybody. We'll be right back. Thank you so much. Idle Money lies in your current account, picking crumbs out of its belly button, wondering, should I eat them? But when you start investing with Monzo, your money's always busy. It turns on regular investments, invests your spare change, and tops up your stocks and shares, Icer. It even helps you make sense of risk and return. Monzo, the bank that gets your money moving. You could get back less than you invest. Monzo current account required UK residents 18 plus T's and C's apply. Welcome back, my guest, tonight, a best-selling author. His latest book is called Half Empty. Please welcome back to the show David Raycalf. David Raycalf! What's happening? Not much. Thank you for having me. Please. What have you brought for our audience tonight? I've actually been eating so much candy backstage, and I'm about to burst into tears, so I'm really good. The book is called Half Empty. Once again, hilarious book. There is a warning on the book. Let me say it. No inspirational life lessons will be found on these pages. And it turns out to be true. Tell me about this. Tell me about the philosophy of the book. Well, the book is meant to be a defense of pessimism, melancholy, sadness, all the emotions that a self-selecting group, we can just call them Jews. My feelings are sort of baseline... Did not see that coming. You know, the baseline, that baseline way you see the world turns out to be as value neutral as having brown eyes. There's nothing particularly wrong with being more pessimistic than optimistic. Optimism is sort of broad-based, non-detail-oriented thinking. Pessimism is detail-oriented thinking. Well, see, here's what's interesting to me. I am pessimistic by nature, but optimistic by force. Because I force myself to then go back through history. Like, in other words, I have Purell, but then I realize, well, 200 years ago, we pooped in the water we drank. Exactly. So I look at it, what I do is I deal with my own neuroses, and then I try and place them in the larger context. But the only thing that gives me hope right now is that things are cyclical. That's the only thing that's giving me hope. Really? Yeah. But don't you think people in ancient times who had, like, bubonic plague and all that, they didn't have neurotic people then? They didn't have, like, oh, if I... But if I go there, am I gonna get that typhoid? You know, like... They just... Neurosis is almost a luxury, to some extent. A certain kind of neurosis, but I think that the more pessimistic detail-oriented people say, the more detailed-oriented people state in, you know, illuminating manuscripts or inventing telescopes, or what? I don't know. Telescopes to make sure there were no asteroids that were going to hit us. Exactly. Now, in the writing of the book, was your worldview in any way validated as you were this pessimistic world view, this melancholy? Did anything occur that... Any little sort of thing? Anything that might have... Well, you know, I was writing the book. I was... My editor said, you know, you seem to have a problem with accessing pleasure or feeling joy. So why don't you actually write about that? So the book was underway and the book was really late for a long time. I had this pinched nerve in my arm, and so I was, like, two years late. And my editor was sympathetic to a point, but, you know, it's a pinched nerve. You know, but my arm was on fire for, like, two years. It turns out to a big old tumor was pinching my nerve. So it's great, though. I mean, here's... It's great. I'm not crazy. Let me just... Can I just savor that, those two sentences juxtaposed? It turned out to be a tumor, but it was great. Well, here's the thing. If you're writing a book about how we should all look at the world in all of its flinty, afflicted, dark reality, the ultimate money where your mouth is moment is, oh, really, Mr. Smart Guy? Mr. Negative? Mr. I Feel So Bad? Boom, tumor. So, um... So, at least. So, at that point, you can go to your editor and go... I told you so. Exactly. Exactly. And so the book was really late because of that, because then I had, you know, radiation and surgery and... But to me, again, you look great. You look healthy. You look vital. How are you feeling? Like, is it...? I feel fine. I mean, I'm currently in chemotherapy, so... Right now? Yes. I mean, not immediately right now. But see, here's... Right now, as we speak, you are hooked up. I'm having chemo. This is what I've always wondered about, and it's sort of the old Woody Allen conundrum. People who worry about things that could happen to them. When the thing happens to them... Is there kind of a relief? Yes. There is a kind of... I mean, yes, it's like waiting for rain and then finally it rains. Oh, okay. Kind of. Or do you go like, I bet it turns into a tornado. Like, is it...? What happens at that point? Well, it turns out... Here's the thing. When it turns out to be your own mortality on the line, people generally tend to be quite optimistic about their long-term chances of survival. I think the will to keep on going is incredibly strong. Do I feel, therefore, does it extend to feeling optimistic about the Roberts Court? No. So, you feel like the cancer you can take care of, the Roberts Court... Citizens United, we're just completely screwed. That has metastasized. Precisely. That is wild. It's so interesting. Do you like your caregivers? Do they try and pump you up? Do they give you hope? No, luckily enough, they don't. They recognize me for what I am and who I am. There was a study. It even talks about it in the book. There was a study that shows that the long-term mortality of people with lousy attitudes is no different from people with great attitudes. So you can be the worst bastard on the ward and you will not die at any greater rate than the other people. People will simply be gladder when you do. But no, all that positive outlook stuff, I'm not... You know, all that sort of... I'm going to chemotherapy. My sky-high dimmy-choose and... What you're essentially saying is that the alternative, if you can't do that, if you can't sort of enact a sex in the city episode on your way to cancer treatment, if you just feel lousy all the time, then it's somehow your fault. I don't really subscribe to that. Right, right, right. It seems kind of blame the victim to me. Right, right, right. That's an interesting take on it. The only thing I would be concerned about is when you're a bastard, you're also requiring your following upon the kindness of strangers. There is a certain, like, the nurse coming in. Oh, yeah, you will get better service. You will. That's what I was going to suggest. Like, you know what? Let's give him a sponge bath with the brillo. Let's see how that goes. Your room will smell like a hobo camp, believe me. That's got to be the title of your next book. It is the title of my next book. Your room will smell like a hobo camp. Well, I'm so pleased to see you looking so good and being so sharp and... Oh, thanks, man. It's always great to see you. And I wish you all the book of hilarious happenings. Half empty. It's on the bookshelves now. David Raggolf! Welcome back by guest tonight. Best selling author. One of our favorites for forthcoming book is called Lafayette in the somewhat United States. Please welcome back to our program, Sarah Vowell. Sarah Vowell! Hello, dear. I have missed you. I know. And I'm so delighted that you can come join us. I'm glad I could be here at your deathbed too. Just like President Garfield of Ohio. It is similar. What do you think? Now, does McKinley deserve an Alaska mountain? I mean, then you're just throwing mountains around everybody. I mean, well, I mean, do we really want to talk about McKinley? I mean, who doesn't, right? Yeah. I mean, we'll get to Lafayette. I do want to talk about Lafayette because I'm fascinated by Lafayette. You know, I've been thinking about McKinley lately because, you know, because of stuff in the news with the Confederate flag. Yes. And you know how the Civil War, the people who were in the Union and the President at the time, a lot of the ones on that side were Republicans? Yes. And then a lot of the people these days who want to keep the Confederate flag on their stupid state lawns are some of them are Republicans? Yeah, it switched somehow. And you're like, what happened? Yeah. It was President McKinley. He had this guy, his name was Mark Hanna, and he was like his Carl R- The animator? He was like his Carl Rove. Oh, OK. He has a very nice tomb in Cleveland if you're in town. OK. And he decided, hey, it was, you know, in the 1890s. And he decided there are all these white guys down south who can vote. We should get them to vote for the Republicans. And so he sent McKinley down to south. And McKinley gave some speeches about how McKinley, a Civil War veteran, gave some speeches about how the Civil War was about American valor. Wow. And that's how they started. That's the first Southern strategy. They hit, so that's how they started courting. Why didn't that take hold until like George Wallace and the Dixiecrats? Well, it takes a while because the guys who still remembered Bink shot it. So they were still thinking like, I still don't trust the Democrats. They were shooting it else. It was a long process, but I feel they were successful in the end. They somewhat were. Don't tell them, sure. But let's go back even further now to the beginning of this grand experiment. Yeah, let's ruin everyone's Fourth of July. Let's not. Let us enlighten the world from your perspective. Why Lafayette? What is so valuable about him? And how did a child, he was a child. He was 19. A child. Yeah. When he came to basically defend America. Yeah. Why did he do that? One reason the British had killed his dad in a war. So he had a grudge. There seems to be a theme throughout history. He wanted to get away from his in-laws. And he believed in enlightenment, ideals of freedom and liberty. So did Lafayette then have to convince the King of France, why don't we get involved in this, which could expose it into a global war? Right. I mean, he was in on it. There were some ministers who were working for the King of France, you know, Prime Minister Virgin. He was on our side. Sure, Virgin was tremendous. Yeah. Yeah. Well, as you know, I think of you as my Virgin. I was going to say, you think of me as your Prime Minister Virgin. Yeah. Who ultimately ended up getting the King killed. I mean, well, because he spent all his money helping us. And then they went bankrupt and the peasants are like, I'm hungry. You know, the founding fathers, they had a problem with taxation without representation in general. Yes. But they were pretty open-minded about the French King taxing the French people. Yes. You know. Without representation. Yeah. That is an irony that I never picked up on, but you're absolutely. Somebody should write a book about it. I hope they do soon. Thank you. Very soon. Yeah. So Lafayette comes here. He wants, he wants glory without Lafayette in truth. We have to be honest here. Without Lafayette, there is no United States of America. We don't defeat the British. Well, I mean, he's pretty important. He's thinking, I'm going to go help these, these, these people who believe in liberty. And, you know, some of them wanted to stay in Great Britain. And some of them wanted to fire George Washington. Right. You know, we were always a bunch of bickerers. And so you're not surprised by the, the, the tenor in the country right now. You're not surprised by the arguments we're having in the country right now. And this has really been a part of our DNA since the get go. Yes, for sure. And I think it's our strength as well as our weakness. The Continental Congress, one guy said, we should have a fast day, you know, to, they don't eat to humble themselves before they're God. And Jefferson, Jefferson was like, that seems a little religious. And then, and then John Adams stands up and he's like, Jefferson, I thought you were a man of piety and virtue. And now this, you know, and so, and right at the moment, Adams was like, oh, Jefferson is my friend. Maybe I offended him at that moment. Jefferson, he got up out of his chair and he went over and he just sat next to his friend, John Adams. So like we can fight and we can disagree, but we can still sit next to each other. I'll tell you something. Lafayette in the somewhat United States. That is a beautiful message to end this on. One of my favorite offers of all time. Lafayette in the somewhat United States. It's on the bookshelves in October. So well. At AJ Bell, we believe investing is for everyone. And when we say everyone, we mean your dad, Dan, Danielle, Dean, Dave, Dale, Del, Del's delivery driver, Denise, Denise's dentist, Dinesh and Devon's strongest man, Donathan. Donathan. Donathan, that can't be right. Donathan. Well, whatever your name is, if you're a real person, investing is for you too. AJ Bell, feel good investing. The value of your investments can go up or down. I guess tonight is critically acclaimed best-selling author. His new book is called The Message. Please welcome back to the program, Donna Hausset Coates. Hello. Hello. My friend, you are grappling. This is a book of grappling. It is. It's reparations, the purpose of art, the purpose of writing, your role, your responsibility, the Israel Palestine. I can see you want to go back to just writing comic books again for five years. This is what was in you that you thought I need to take on these big questions, including what is this for? What is writing for? I have, for a long time, had in the back of my head that we do not have a complete understanding of politics. That is to say, we think of politics as what happens inside of a voting booth. You go in and you choose, you know, pull a lever for whatever. Right. But there's a whole entire architecture that happens outside of that voting booth that defines what goes on inside of it, what issues are appropriate, frankly, who is human and who is not. And that is the work of stories, movies, television shows, writing, all of that. And being a writer, and this coming out of me talking to my students at Howard University at the time, I really, really wanted to address that. So often I get the question, why should I write? Your students will say that? No, in general, but by the time they get to me, they usually, my students are like there. But a lot of other times when I'm out in the world, what is writing going to do? What is it actually going to change? And what I wanted people to understand is writing actually shapes the world around you entirely. Right. See, I would have said basic cable, but okay, write it. But somebody has the right to scribble, right? That's exactly right. Exactly. Is that, do you grapple with that as a burden or a call to arms? What is for you, how do you wear it? Oh, it's exciting. It's exciting. Yeah, it gets me up in the morning. Right. I feel like it pumps my blood. Like I can't wait. You know what I mean? Like there are people who, I got a friend who's an ER doc, right? And I was texting this morning about everything that was going on. Right. And he disappeared. He said, sorry, this guy just got shot. I'm sorry. And I said to him, how beautiful is it to have work that actually matters? Like y'all, they're saving people's lives. And I'm not an ER doctor, but it is a blessing to feel like what I write actually matters in the world. Right. You know what I mean? It gives me meaning and purpose. And I kind of wanted to convey that, you know, to all the young writers, you know, who hopefully be the inspiration. Yes. Yes, the beautiful thing. Your friend, was it work when the guy got shot? He was, yes. He was. Because for a second I was like, wait, he was at work, right? Yeah, he was. He was at work. It wasn't like you were talking or he was like, no, no, no, no. He was at work. Yeah. All right. That's very good. Do you get frustrated, and this is something that I think about sometimes, that the world is so hard to be in. You know, you would prefer to see that the arc of the moral universe bends towards justice in the work of writing is trying to help facilitate that, that it is that that that arc of moral justice is so resilient against bending, that it's so hard to matter in that form. I get sad. Right. And a lot of moments in here where I was really sad. Right. You know? But at the same time, like I said, it fills me with purpose. I don't know if I would have had that purpose I talked about just a few minutes ago, you know, without that great difficulty. Honestly, it feels great to know that if I actually try really, really hard at the thing, if I actually work really, really hard to write the best book I possibly can, you know, that I could be here talking to you. Oh, you could have written a shi book and been on here. Listen, if that's the case, I can tell you that you didn't have to do that. You didn't have to work nearly as hard. But it is. It's a beautifully felt book. I want to ask you, there's a certain aspect of your career that has really tried to reconcile not with things in the present, but their vestiges, the structures of racial politics, slavery, economic injustices, where it might not be the active virus, but it's these vestiges of it that still, you know, leech into the groundwater and make it toxic and polluted. This book felt a little different in that you were also going into the present and bringing those lessons with you. And I thought that was a really moving part of the book. Yeah, that's true. And I guess I'm going to be the one to broach this, but it was obviously most active when I was in Jerusalem, when I was in Haifa, when I was on the West Bank. I mean, it was the history, but the history was active. And that was tough. I'm used to going to some slave plantation and saying, well, yeah, this did happen 150 years ago, but here's how you can still feel the impact. And you go, no, no, it's right now. It's right now. And it comes on the heels of, so in the book, you take a trip to Senegal. I do, yes. Is that in relation to your trip to Israel and the West Bank in that same timeframe? Or was that split up? It was about, it was, so I think I went in, this would have been like September of 2022 to Senegal, then May of 23 to the West Bank and to Israel. And really enough, they are in conversation with each other. I can't say I intended that. Right. Well, that's why I was curious. Because there is a music there between the two. Yeah, yeah. No, there is. I mean, Senegal is very much about me, frankly, investigating the very stories that gave me my name and gave me my identity and trying to work through that. And frankly, not completely working through it by the time I got over there. And then I take this trip with this wonderful organization, a Palestine Festival of Literature. And I get over there, you know, for five days and I spent another five days with these ex-IDF guys, you know what I mean, who had had their own political evolution. And this is very weird to say, but as much sympathy as I had for the Palestinians, watching Zionism in the world, even feeling like this is wrong, what I'm saying is wrong, I was like, my God, I know how you get here. I know how you get, I know how it happens. And I don't mean like I approve of it, but I mean like, I see, I see how it happens. I totally see how it happens. Is how you see how it happens, because you talk about Yad Bashem and going there and being moved, is the idea, because you have a line in the book that I think is one of the most powerful, which is, and I want to make sure that I get it right, which is, your oppression will not save you. Which is, and you write about that in relation to the black experience in America, but also about the Jewish experience in the Holocaust, as well as in Israel. And what did you mean by that? I think we would like to think that you go through, you know, a horrific experience, be it the Middle Pass, Jim Crow here, be it the Holocaust, or the centuries before that, of pogroms, oppression, etc. And somehow you will be morally improved by coming out of that. You might be. You might be. But it's just as likely that you will conclude that in fact the world is a cold, hard place, and it's a zero-sum game, you know what I mean? And what matters is who has the guns and who doesn't. Right. You know, I stand opposed to that, just on principle period, you know what I mean? But I get how people take that lesson. Right. You know what I mean? And I think it's disconfinning for us to feel, because we feel sympathy for people, you know what I mean? Of course. I'm walking through Yad Vashem and I'm feeling it on a very, very deep level, only to come back here and realize I was, you know, about a mile away from a massacre of a Palestinian village. That's hard to take. Hey, it's, listen, I was, I'm raised in obviously cultural Jewish tradition. And I imagine, you know, if you were to feel like people in the name of your people did some things that you found objectionable, it hits you different. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, no, it does. It does, it does. And it's not a complete parallel, but that's why in that chapter I wanted to talk a little bit about Liberia, for instance, you know what I mean? Right. And just the idea. I get it, the appeal of, hey, we're going to have a state of our own. We're going to get away from these people that did, you know, X, Y, and Z for us. We will have safety there. And yet then you find yourself enacting, you know, systems that if not are the same or similar, at least, you know, morally deeply problematic. Right. And having to justify them through either threat or the situation or you don't understand. Yeah. And what I'm, what I'm wondering is, is that the story in a condensed form of all of us is, does, does for society to progress, does there also have to be a, also have to be exploitation? Do you grapple with this idea that when we think about anything, whether it's the American story or the Israeli story or any of those, it's stories of empire, whether it was the Ottoman empire or the Caliphate, it's groups of people living under the grace of a leader who controls their lives. And can we progress outside of that? Is there, is there, do you think about, is there another way to do this? Has there been another way to do this? Yeah. If we shine that light on any country that, that, that grew through, won't there be a story of exploitation and mistreatment that we find, maybe not as horrific, but, but we find it. Yeah. I think though we have to guard against the temptation to accept that history is necessary to limit to who we are as human beings. Just because I mean, you know, that that's been, you know, that it's been that way that it necessarily has to be that way. I will, for instance, highlight, you know, the underlying role of nationalism and the belief that a nation state is the way to secure and safeguard a minority. That is a very recent development as a belief system, actually. Right. You know, that is not eternal. That's not. Prior to that, wouldn't it have been tribalism or wouldn't it have been something? It would have been a king. A collection of, right. It would have been a pope. It would have been, you know, my allegiances, you know, X, Y and Z. But what I'm saying is it is not innate in us to say I am of this ethnicity. We should all have a state together. And perhaps more importantly, we should deny rights to people who are not of that ethnicity. Right. We don't have to be that way. We don't have to be that way. A band from your looks to God's ears. I always wondered, you know, there was that. I can't remember the experiment, but it was they assigned a class where people with brown hair got privileges. Yeah. And all of a sudden the people with blonde hair were like, right. And they got sad. And then the people with brown hair started to kind of abuse the people with blonde hair. And there's a part of me that thinks, boy, we could solve religious differences. And somehow we would go back to killing each other over something else equally as arbitrary. And that I'm wondering how you get that that zero sum game element that you witnessed up front out of it. Because I'd like to believe it's not malevolence, but ignorance and fear. I think it's a lot of fear. And frankly, I think it's a lot of anger. Right. I think, and obviously for obvious reasons, you would know this is bad enemy, but I sense that a lot of it is the humiliation of the Holocaust. I think that is, you know, very, very much present. Right. And not feeling like I will never be in that position again. Sure. You know. Well, never. I mean, never again. Right. I think that the thing that so many Jewish people and not everybody, look, it's not a monolith either. Jewish religion, Jewish culture is certainly not a monolith. And there's many different opinions. I think if we start from a baseline of I would like a safe and secure Israel and a safe and secure Palestine. And that's my starting point to any argument. And then we're just talking strategy. Yeah. But I think the idea of never again, you don't, you try to internalize it, not just as a self-defense kind of dictum. Right. You hope to think of that as never again for anyone. Right. Right. And that's the part that feels the worst. Yeah. When you look at it in that way. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm curious how you feel, you know, so in Africa, you know, I'm curious about what you think about this idea of diaspora. Yeah. When people are in diasporas and it carries this weight of you are lost. Mm-hmm. You are not in a place where you can, you know, I don't think Italian people who live in America think of themselves as, I'm in a diaspora. Right. They think of themselves as like, oh, take a tour. Maybe when I'm old, you know what I mean? But Jewish people, black people, there's this feeling of somehow we're not safe. Yeah. And I feel like that's a dangerous, that's a dangerous thing to think. But does it, does it not come from being degraded and being made to feel like you are outside of the place that maybe you would like to call home? Call home. This is great. That's interesting. Book, The Pity of It All. It's about Jews in Germany through Holocaust. Oh, God, are you going to make me read something else? No, no, no, it's going to be quick. I promise to be quick about this. I'm still just getting through breaking bad. I can't even. But it's all of these, you know, Jews who, all these German Jews who want to be German, right? Like they really, really want to believe in Germany. Right. And they get the Holocaust. Right. You know what I mean? I think that has to assault your sense of, you know, the idea that you can somehow be safe out of. And then how much then does humiliation play a part in all of it, including kind of what has been what we would consider the modern age version of exploitation and colonialism? Like what, I mean, even when we think about the regions that you were, that you went into, were kind of a post-World War I mandate that was drawn, you know, Lebanese, Syrian, Palestine mandate. The French are going to take this. The English are going to take that. I mean, it's, you know, pawns on a board that people are moving around. And does that humiliate a region to the point where if we don't address that, we can't get through it? Yeah, I think so. I think so. I mean, I will say that one of the hard things about that, and getting a little too psychological about this is, I spent 10 days there. Oh, so you know it all? Exactly. Right, right, right, right. One of the tough things was, I have to tell you, the perspective of Palestinians and the extent to which their perspective has been pushed so far out of the frame was incredible. I felt like I was seeing a new world. Right. You know what I mean? And that's like shameful for me to admit. I'm not bragging about that. You know, it's not because that world wasn't there, that world doesn't, you know, hasn't been trying to present itself. But I mean, I just wonder how many of these conversations would be improved. If our media organizations made a concerted effort, whenever they talk about this topic to ask, do we have anybody Palestinian that we've invited? We should allow it on the Democratic Convention. Yeah, I mean, I've started. I think access to different stories has always been a difficulty for America in general because of that sort of salvo-cystic world view. You know, we tend to be slightly narcissistic when it comes to the vision of it. And it's such a necessary thing. I wonder if it really improves it. I mean, here's something that I grapple with. I've known about it forever. I have friends who have Palestinian families who've suffered through it. I have friends in Israel who suffer through it. And it sometimes feels as though the only people that benefit are the powers that be. And all these good people are so left behind by this weird power structure that we left in place there. Yeah. And I don't. But you bring up an interesting point, which is a path forward of reconciling humiliation. And I don't know what is the mechanism of that? Is there one? And is it that sort of, you know, you think about South Africa and truth and reconciliation, but is there a mechanism to heal that for people? Or is it purely self-determination? And that's, you know, I don't know. Well, that's all the time we have. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. But it is, I wonder, because you bring up such an interesting, it is such a powerful river of emotion. Yeah. And when you say it, I can almost not cry talking about it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because it's so deeply gets at the heart of our humanity. Like people just want to be seen and just want to be... No, and it's powerful. I could feel it. I could really feel it. One thing I would suggest is, and we have actually had this struggle with this as African-Americans, and I'll tell you this from the black perspective, there is great, not always spoken shame in the black community over the kind of physical traumas we've endured. You have to understand, man, every single one of us, every single African-American is a child of sexual violence. All of us. All of us. There is not a single pure African-American who came through a sleep. There is an amount of humiliation in that. There is an amount of humiliation in watching, and I've written about this, films from the 60s and watching these kids and these children get beaten by the cops. There is humiliation in watching today. You know what I mean? George Floyd, a knee on his neck. And I do think a significant part of it is understanding, particularly with the past, these people didn't want to be enslaved. These people didn't want to get beat, and it's not true that these people did nothing. It's not true that these people just willingly went to it. There was a slogan out for a while that a lot of us shouted down, we are not our ancestors. As if to say we somehow are more resilient and resistant. We're not going to be punked and chumped. Yes we would have. If we had been them, the same thing would have happened. We're no better. We're no braver. There is such an analog with that, with the Jewish community. And you hear it a lot about, the first thing Hitler did is he disarmed the Jews. The Jews were not like gun-toting motherf***ers. If you were taking our violins, maybe that would have been something like, oh, they disarmed the Jews. And that's how Hitler was able to get the Jews to do that. And you're like, oh, you know who had guns and didn't do too well with Hitler? France. Right, right, right, right, right. But you're right, there's that sense of like, how could you let your people? How could you allow that to happen? And it does skew their perspectives. And I can already see your next book. Where you fix it all. It's really, it's an amazing piece of art. And the main thing is, and listen man, like let's not kid ourselves, once you delve into Israel Palestine, you're going to take a ton of sh**. I don't know where it's, it'll come from everywhere. And I hope you don't wear it personally, but you've done the most important thing. Can I just say one quick thing? Yes, please. It will not measure up to the burdens of what I saw. Palestinians on the West Bank, Barry. It's not your fault. That's an excellent point. The only point I was going to make is, through your discomfort, albeit not the same discomfort, you've done the most important thing, which is try to advance and delve into an understanding of a complexity that we haven't figured out in 10,000 years. And so I applaud that. And your writing, as always, is so beautiful and moving. So thank you so much for being here. Thank you so much. The message. I'm going to ask your coach to take a quick break. I really am. That's the story. This has been a Comedy Central podcast.