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 d