Thank you for watching wherever you are and really thrilled with engagement level weve had with all of you. Well be doing a lot of fun stuff, and pretty compelling conversations in the fall. I would say would probably not be doing any inperson events since 2021 which is a bit of a bummer obama but we want to be safe and smart with what we are doing. We will keep bringing you guys interesting conversations with authors, so we have everything from a wonderful event coming up in october, a conversation you wont want to miss. Everything from that to a conversation with matthew mcconaughey. If thats not a wideranging list of events, its going to be quite a fall so stay tuned. You can follow all our defense on magic city books. Com. I will go through the whole list here. Tonight im so thrilled to have a conversation with mychal denzel smith in the book that seems like it was written for the moment were living in, although books are written quite a bit before the published in print it and Everything Else but sometimes we have these kind of prescient times in a world that are tapped into whats going on. A special us here in tulsa and everything that happened in our community, 2021 would be such an important year for our community as well. Stakes is high. We had an event a few years ago with a wonderful memoir, heavy, which is one of my favorite books the past several years. A powerful book. Im kind of ripping off a blurb is that about the book that understands the pandemic for the pandemic actually happen because it gets americas response. Mychal kind of understands america in a way that he was able to presage the world were living in at this very moment, this weird 2020 space we are in. I think youre going to enjoy this conversation and thank you for writing the book. Its kind of a mayor for us to see who we are and what we are doing right now. Weve had the great pleasure of doing these conversations. Ive got in a few a lot of wonderful people but im so thrilled to end off to another wonderful writer who can be in conversation. So tonight are very special guest moderator is kali fajardoanstine who has written an awardwinning book that i i would encourage all of you to get. We will be posting links, sabrina corina. One of the american book award. It was a finalist for the National Book award. A finalist for the story Pretty Amazing list of accomplishments but more than it its a killer book of stories that you will not soon forget and i think i hope im not spoiling this body feared theres his novel and when 21 so really excited about that. So kali and mike will be in conversation. If questions during the chat please put those in the q a and we will get to those throughout the conversation. I know you guys have tickets and you have a copy of stakes is high but if you would like more copies for your friends, relatives, if youd like to read more than once, whatever the reason is, we will be posting links here and also have kali procures well to get a copy of sabrina corina. Without further do i will turn over to kali and say thank you to both of you for joining us. We appreciate you giving us the time. Mychal, its great to see you virtually like this. Im so excited. I have so much to ask you tonight. When i was going to the book i was like seriously reading the way a used week when i was a teenager, he feel like you have secret treasure trove of information and i was like printing off quotes from you and i ran out of ink. I was like doing so much, like wow. To begin the book is a triumph. Its a glorious and amateur able to pull in from the current moment from history and you all these wideranging topics that you gives it together because theyre part of the american story. These issues range from gentrification, poverty, the history of modern policing, the me too movement and is very essential ideas of the american ethos and how we as a nation, particular those in power, want us to see ourselves of 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 a story of america that you are trying to tell with stakes is high . Yeah, thank you first of all to jeff and magic city books and you, kali, for to spin this and everyone who is watching us and tune in and about the book already tickets fantastic. So the book came together this was a book i intended to write after my first one. I published the sum of 2016 and was very happy with it and id achieve my goal. Published the book and i was basically all that i wanted for my life. And then i turned 30 that year and he turned 32 days before the election of 2016. And there was this sort of existential crises of turning 30 that i wasnt planning on because no, turning threestep that big a deal. People make too much of it is just a number, just in age and then my waist size went, goodbye when it and im like oh no, this is to become something is happening to me. But i say that because like i didnt have a plan for after 30. Suddenly im in this position which like im having to think about what doing what i like to look like as like 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. Now, i have to start thinking long term and start for the future. But in two days after i turned 30 election of donald trump and his like maybe there wont be a future. Maybe we are at the end. But sitting in between those two feelings of saying like i want now to plan for my own personal future, but the world seems to be at this impasse in which like we could go toward extinction in a relatively short time when we could actually work on the problems that we have. And so this book was trying to find the place in which we could build the next world. The intervention that i was trying to make or what i was feeling was theres a narrative that we tell ourselves as americans about america and about being americans that prevent us from seeing our problems in any way, this collection collective action towards ratification to start on a different book. I scrap that when an start on this one and had at first like 13 different essays i was going to write and the were different subject matter. I thought that was way to go about it. In the writing process everything sort of collapsed around certain broad themes. I was writing this, but its related to this thing over and over ways to combine these things and they all sort of collapsed in this anything also at the same time i was thinking about, which is so present in the book, about new york city where i live and had come with all of these ideas with the idea, like i was going to be like all the millions of people who come to new york, im going to find my community, find my success confide can find everym looking for. Not realizing even as a critic of america and the American Dream that i was doing exactly the same thing i was criticizing people for doing, and its lie new york city was just a microcosm of this broader idea that theres just more possibility here, 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 where donald trump and his family were able to become this rich family by virtue of being slumlords. It holds all that possibility that 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 was 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 in the idealism of it, in that we think that our critiques need to be couched in certain ideas about american patriotism, about wanting the best for the country. But that makes us devote to certain symbols and things that keep us attach to an idea that america in and of itself possesses this type of spirit that is able to overcome everything. And so yes, thats the sort outside to tell about america and trying to capture about this moment, how the book comes together. Its me wanting more for all of us to be able to say that the story that we have committed ourselves to is the one thats 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. Its also fascinating, and while you were talking you and i share something really strange in common, and as my birthday is november 9 and i turned 30 the day before the day after the election, and the book opens, stakes is high opens with that fateful night and i think talking about like what is the american story and one of the things that was really challenging for many americans, especially those who consider themselves liberal and progressive was the fact our country elect donald trump to the presidency on that night. And i walked by the hotel would had this big party in denver. Were supposed to go celebrate this historic win of the first woman president. That did not happen. Can you talk about that night and the significance and why you chose to open the book with this night . Yeah. In part it just was, its the defining moments, right, of our most recent history. I think it was inescapable. Like, when i says working on another book, i was working on something that was completely divorced from the ideas that are exploring in this book. It was supposed to be like sites of black masculinity, where those ideas get for him and us when you look at Basketball Court and prison and all of this stuff. Thats what i was going to start. One if it was, one of the sites is the barbershop and i was 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 it was about the conversation that was happening. I knew i couldnt escape it and thats what me made me switch over to writing this book. Its so pivotal because, like i think that psyche of those people you are describing, people who feel themselves to be liberals, progressives, people who are on the right side of history, the psyche was broken and in that sense it was something that was unfathomable about this. I cant say that i was completely like i dont want to begin that i was in a position in which id like no, of course donald trump will win. I wanted to be that Something Else was possible. I was like no, we had the first black president , first woman president. That seems like a natural progression but what so many of us didnt take into account and what i was trying to get through that night because i was on democracy now doing the election coverage, and trying to come to terms with the fact donald trump was going to win while we were on their. This evening, of course this happens. If we look at American History we know that every moment of progress, no matter how, like how many school, have nine, like whatever it is, theres always a backlash, always insurance. The powers, the ideologies that a been inscribed in the founding always find a way to reassert themselves. And so we went through eight years of the first black president , and theres so methinks we can talk about with regards to that presidency. I critiqued in the entire time i lived through it and i critique obama as a public speaker, political figure and all those things. For all the limitations of the first black presidency it did represent something that for many was forward progress, was saying theres new possibility available to people. That for a large section of the country, especially aggrieved white men who believed america was their birthright come when a signal was they were losing. They were losing something. They were losing hold of their identity, losing hold of their power. They fought back, and donald trump is that last gas. Gas gets the barcode look, im on the ropes and i got to try out one last thing and they throw the haymaker and hope for the best. Sorry everybody for the sports analogy but thats what it was. And they landed. They landed the punch. We are all paying the price for it. It was going to examine america as it is and who we say we are and who we say we want to be, break down that construction of who 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 around it and my own shortcomings of our not being able to see it. Yeah. The night, the grief still ripples out today. It will keep going. You talked about white men and this sort of last reach for power, which brings me to the section of the book of justice. In this section you talk a lot about modern policing. I think a lot of americans are starting to learn the history of modern policing and how did we get this system and what does reform look like and what does abolishing the police look like. I would love to you talk about, like where is the history of this coming from and a 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 theyre doing there is they are looking for a cheap alternative to the army to be able to suppress uprising in their colony of ireland. I wish people are fighting for their independence and england doesnt want to let go of control. They are using up lots of resources with the army in trying to figure out new ways of been suppressing the folks, controlling the population. Of the about the idea modern police force essentially, like when we say modern police force, because you can look and see like different forms of policing throughout history. Look at Medieval Times in europe and say the nights are pleased essentially. They work obeah of them monarchy and they collect the taxes and they enact violence the people who do not live up to the laws have been set forth by the monarch and all that stuff. But modern police force which is one that is checked, one that is publicly funded, one that is armed, one that is part patrolling neighborhoods come all that. That starts in london and that gets copied in the u. S. Post independence in the 1800s when the looking for, like looking for in northern cities ways of doing exactly what theyre doing in england, which is to suppress labor uprising essentially. You have workers that are saying these robber barons are taking my wages or theyre paying me low wages for the work im doing, putting me in unsafe conditions. I dont like it and then theyre going to strike. What do the cap was robber barons do but form Police Forces to be able to suppress those uprisings, and then those get, those become part of municipalities. In then you also have to recognize the language policing as a format a rise in the south in southern cities in southern plantations as a means of catching runaway slaves. Thats what the job is. Thats the history of like how we establish policing in the u. S. I point to it because i just want you to understand that it hasnt moved far from that. Like the job of the police in those days is to reinforce secondclass citizenship. It is to say who is now become what is value. It is to protect the property of the land owners of capitalist and it is, some of the property is people. Some of the property is enslaved people. And it is to reinforce racial hierarchy. It does the same thing and now, it also polices gender identity. Police determine what counts as a crime when the respond to Domestic Violence calls which so often its this man beating on this woman. They take the side of this man whos been beating on this woman in part because they are enforcing that get this form of violence is legitimate and it is something the state needs to get involved with. It reinforces gender identity in that so many the bodies are placed on the street, lots of trans women who are doing survival sex work were then arrested for doing that and then thrown into jail. Theyre doing that work. They are always reinforcing the very ideas that are at the core of who americans view as as a citizen from who american use as legitimate and worthy of rights. And understanding that then, if we understand police that way, which i dont think we do in the popular imagination, so much is shaped by our tv shows and films in which they are heroes, police are doing daring, heroic acts can swooping in and saving the day from all the terrible bad guys in the world that are hell bent on destruction. Like, theres american imagination that everything is allout chaos. But what police are being called in to do is just to 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 sir if we were in a position in which everyones needs were met. Know what was a social pariah on the basis of race, gender, sexual identity, last. Like what would happen if there wasnt so much ownership of private property and there was more Public Ownership . What would happen if everyone access to education and health care and clean water . I think about that so often, just the fact that people who dont have clean water. It boggles my mind that its a result, it is being policed. These are people who deserve this and these are people who dont. But in a just society, a 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 that they can see because what theyve been socialized that danger is always knocking on my door. Danger is always out there. The people who are other are always out there. The people that are when he wasnt president yet, you know, he said mexico is sending criminals, sending rapists. People think its the police in whatever form they may take in this instance, ice. The police will protect you. The people with guns that are armed with the authority of the state kill with impunity, are going to protect you from this imagined other that is coming to hurt you. But if thats what youre afraid of, the solution is never going to be police because all that the police can do is arrest those people and so the in jail, or they can kill those people. You have a society thats always going to be producing those people, right, like you are always going to be producing those kinds of people, always going to be sewing those divisions and always going to be putting people in situations of desperation that they need to act in ways that we can come in order for their survival. So if police are necessary in