Trade negotiations between the u.s. And China Japan's benchmark Nikkei lost 2 tenths of a percent in morning trading while the in morning trading while the major markets in China gained some ground despite some ongoing unrest in Hong Kong Meanwhile Hong Kong leader Carrie Lamb says some $600.00 protesters have left the campus of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University at a news conference Lamb said they include about $200.00 who are under 18 years old and about 100 remain holed up there the campus has been blockaded by police for the past few days of protests in Hong Kong now in their 5th month with universities the latest battleground Meanwhile the White House is trying to put to rest speculation about President Trump's visit to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center the trip to Walter Reed on Saturday was unscheduled and it raised questions about his health in a statement issued tonight the president's doctors said President Trump has not had any chest pain nor was he evaluated or treated for any urgent or acute issues and from Washington you're listening to n.p.r. News. White House is trying to put to rest speculation about President Trump's visit to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center a trip to Walter Reed on Saturday was unscheduled and raise questions about his health in a statement issued earlier tonight the president's doctors said Trump has not had any chest pain nor was he evaluated or treated for any urgent or acute issues Hong Kong Leader Kerry Lamb says some 600 protesters have left the campus of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University at a news conference Lam said they include about 200 who are under 18 years old and about 100 students remain holed up there at the campus has been blockaded by police for the past few days the protests in Hong Kong now in their 5th month with universities the latest battleground the number of international college students in the u.s. Has set an all time high but the growth in students from abroad is slowing Kirchherr a peasant from member station w. G.b.h. In Boston has details the increase is driven by visa programs that allow international students to stay in the u.s. To train after completing their academic programs that's according to new data out today from the Institute of International Education after a decade of rapid growth the number of 1st time students is the climbing slightly causing some college leaders to worry about losing tuition dollars specifically at public schools competing for a shrinking pool of students in this country for the 10th consecutive year the largest source of international students in the u.s. China and more than half of all students from abroad are studying science technology engineering and map for n.p.r. News I'm Kirk in Boston and I'm Joel Snyder in Washington support for n.p.r. Comes from n.p.r. Stations other contributors include the pajama gram company creators of matching holiday pajamas for the whole family including dogs and cats with Charlie Brown Star Wars and Grange games in its fleece and flannel available at pajama gram dot com. From One World Trade Center in Manhattan this is the New Yorker radio our local production of w n y c studios and the New Yorker. Welcome to The New Yorker Radio Hour I'm David Remnick public hearings on impeachment started last week and so we're going to hear a little later from Thomas Mallon about how they compared to the famous hearings on the actions of President Nixon Mallon is the author of Watergate a novel but let's start in the world of entertainment in 2017 lean a way that made t.v. History she was the 1st black woman to win an Emmy for comedy screenwriting that was for her work on Netflix is master of none and the episode she wrote was based on her own experience coming out to her mother waits debut as a film screenwriter is with the new movie queen and slim and well it's not drawn directly from her own life the film turns on an experience that's all too common for people of color a bad run in with a police officer Jelani Cobb a staff writer at The New Yorker recently sat down to talk with lean away and fair warning they do mention a couple of key plot points in the course of their conversation you know you won the Emmy in 2017 and you know you've been ubiquitous since then you know you have. The film that's just about to come out Queen slim you have the you have twenty's of the film you were telling me that you just you know wrote seemingly like I mean it sounds like you wrote it like in the middle of running to pick up your dry cleaning it's like all the major knock out was ripped here oh well I'm waiting for them to get my laundry. And just show time series the one of your characters Emmett who's played by Jake about him or is really into sneakers Yeah and I know you're a major sneaker yourself so do you write a part of yourself into your character I cannot you know. Yes I'm the vessel but because I am some of me is going to get in there you know I do try to let the characters speak through me but it's also therapy for me it's also a place for me to work out my stuff my favorite artist are the ones that you can see them and their work you see that you know what that person is trauma is just accuse popping up especially those of us by its early word like you see the things he was struggling with. Me said that I was like But 1st person I thought about actually was Spike Lee you know you see his stuff you know like Jungle Fever to me is I think one of his most underrated movies because it is obviously something that he is grappling with you know I'm of you can make that movie now no no you can't make insulin and some of the themes I think that were like the conversation within a particular place from when it 1st come 1st came out you can't do it white people black white or why you lose it so I've read that you are watching t.v. At an early age and that you refer to it as your 3rd parent or your other parent and so you know just how much t.v. Were you watching and what shows in particular where you really connected to home and. A lot of time from the television I think that's not abnormal for kids raised by single parents you know. Very black. In the sense that there's an old fashioned this of caring about our children present. Trying to give us the things the material things that we need and also being in a position without. Our father so your father passed away when you were young when I was 14 suddenly. Well you live in my grandmother's house on the Southside of Chicago living in a home and sort of like this almost. Protective little neighborhood but I spent a lot of time alone watching television and I would watch old television because I thought my grandmother wanted to watch she will watch good times and all of the family and I'll watch that stuff with r. And then I will watch the show different world live in single Martin Fresh Prince of Bel-Air if and I also discovered Mary Tyler Moore Show maad Rhoda I would love a classic killer Yeah and that's the thing I watch current television but I was also fascinated by old television things like that I would really listen to and learn and pay attention to pay very close attention to so in essence I've been studying this and story and character since I was a very young person and then decided to really like the craft and so I went to Columbia College in Chicago which happen to be my own back yard and I wasn't quite ready to leave Chicago just yet before before you leave that the class you a little bit about the television part sure at what point did you kind of transition from you know observing laughing at it you know thinking this is fun to watching it the way a writer watches those shows the mechanics of it the timing and pulling it apart like we do you know when you made that transition I think high school high school was when I started to discover like the commentary special features on D.V.D.'s because I wanted to I watched the episodes a 1000000 times but I wanted to dissect them all and to understand them all and to know why they were written the way they were written so let's talk about the soon to be released film Queen and slim you would push the idea at a party but James for a career Yeah how they report a party at the party and he introduces himself like he just I have no idea for a movie that out that I can't write and I was I was I did I mean it's like yeah black man black woman on a 1st date and I'm going great it's not horrible but the way that he's driving her home and on the way home and. Police officer things escalate pretty quickly and they kill him self defense and decide to get in the car and go. I thought. That's interesting and just like stuck with me and he probably thought I was never hear from me again but I know it was information he had a title you had a outline I was like I don't need any of that I was like I just want to take this idea and like run with it my writing resume wasn't as long as it is now so I'll even though if you knew it could have been a complete disaster it could have been like not what he wanted to develop but the way I get down is that I'm a one man band when I'm writing but then I have a whole community of people an artist that I show it to and get feedback from and a lot of the writers on the shot these are wild like I'm really grateful. To cap because I care who because initially it was going to start with the queen watching her client be executed 1000 as you know the 1st image. She's going to apologize to the family for not being able to do enough and I'm going to say their son and Kathy was like you know I think you need that just on the day I don't like but then people wonder Stan like why she's so like in such a state and Kathy was like so well like that's what I remember like hearing myself explain like why that would be difficult and then I was like all the reasons like yeah that's exactly why I should start this way and let the audience sort of like it's like I'm going to spill her like an onion the film does in fact open on this day you know we're a diner you see these 2 dark complex and African-American people with this light just almost dancing on their skin I. Only I will go home and have a glass of wine by myself but I didn't feel like you know. That and I. Have any friends or family who you know. He turned to tend. Yeah. I like to picture. You have this sad look on your face at both sides. What exactly do you want to know about these 2 people in that scene. You know I think what's presented you know what do you know about a person who sit down 1st day with them but they produced a present you know what you choose to assume you know and all the assumptions you make and there's something about each other. And also an algorithm of all of us in a way you know one religious one is not want to close their family one isn't. One wants to leave a mark on the world was it just exists and it there are all of us the character queen who's played by Jodi Turner Smith who's a comparative newcomer and she's paired with the new clue who is like everything at this point. And it's interesting though that they don't use their names is that kind of why I chose not to yeah yeah. That was the thing I deliberately chose to do that. Because. And I wondered thinking I was writing I was like Can I like get away with all the trials who happened but I didn't want to reveal their names until they were killed because I don't know Trayvon Martin's name I don't know Emmett Till's name I don't know Aragon his name I don't know Mike Brown's name I don't know Sandra glans name unless they were killed that's how I came to know their names so that was a thing that I purposefully wanted to do was to say you often don't know black people's names must please kill us well this is the impulse we compare the film to Bobby and Clyde which seems off to me but in a recent interview you said that it's more like a heterosexual Thelma and Louise how does the story change when there are 2 black people on the run in America it changes in every way. And we become. Political and instantly becomes important instantly becomes revolutionary because of literally the color of their skin and. I think what's so. I think was so palpable about it is who they kill and it's about what I feel the police yes exactly and what do the police represent to us. They represent Jim Crow They represent you know just an injustice they represent death to us a lot of us and. For them to kill that in a complicated way it's not intentional they didn't go out to say oh we're going to go kill a cop tonight you know they were just existing in the world and trying to find joy and while doing that they get pulled over and that joy is interrupted and. Writing those those 2 scenes is probably the most difficult thing I've ever done and I rewrote those scenes so many times and there's so many different variations of those scenes. There was a point is that she killed the cop and he killed and they all did strangle I mean it was a 1000000 different versions of it and then I finally landed on what people see so it really kind of plays with these different things where no one is innocent no one is guilty everyone is just trying to survive I think that's what sparked something in me about the idea we flip the narrative we flip it and and then it's then to me it becomes then it becomes a love story then it's about these 2 people being forced to get to know each other they have no choice but then but it's also about I used you know Micromax a sort of a reference point for her among the King as a reference point for him and then. But in the film I think they sort of swapped places. So I wondered about this because you know the story parallels obviously a lot of what we've seen in the news recently the night that I saw the film. Was the same day that the vertically come down in the both I'm Jean shooting this is when a police officer Geiger shot him and his own home she was sentenced but it was very light and then not long after that we saw the death of 28 year old Tatyana Jefferson of the African-American woman was killed in her home by a white police officer also in Texas. Was it ever a fear that this subject matter in the film which strike too close to home for viewers No no I had no idea. This many more black bodies would have dropped by the time we got close to opening. I do not want that kind of publicity for the show I do not. Because I am like every other black person I'm traumatized every time these stories come out every time these stories hit our falls are Instagram feed our Twitter our t.v. We a piece of us dies because we know that we could be next. And. I think that's really where this story was born out of you know me feeling like a 2nd class citizen. Even though people may feel as if I sit in a place of privilege. I think people I was stand like. The way things were different just a few years ago and where I didn't feel like I had a voice I didn't feel like I had a person to turn to to help Me and My Space as a early new show creator trying to have a trying to say or agency and so that's why when I say I will write something just on my own that's the thing no one can take from me I just wanted to write something about us. Fortunately if I'm right about us how can I you know or the fact that we're being hunted. I mean African-American say black people. I want to sponsor the film for those who haven't seen it but I have to ask you about one scene where the men or slim convinces the woman Queen to stop at a bar for a quick dance and they're clearly in a lot of trouble this point and you know one of the most striking things about the scene is that despite all this trouble that's hanging over them slim doesn't really care you know he wants to take her out essential to a date while they are fugitives and it's a moment there he orders a drink and the bartender is an older black woman and she says. Thank you. For having the same. Kind of recurring theme you know betrayal and trust throughout and can you talk a little bit about that scene and what you were thinking about as you created it oh yeah I wanted to there to be a sense of community you know and the fell sense of unity a sense. They are heroes in some people's eyes had asked myself How would those 2 people be received they walked into a predominately black establishment after being seen on tape. How they'd be received. We create the heroes in which we need. And. People needed them they needed them to mean something more than what they were and there's also that sort of bit of an underground railroad feel you know you can this is a safe spot you know this is a safe haven you can come hang here for a little bit but also because I'm not a simple writer I know that there's also people maybe of a certain generation that would necessarily celebrate that so it was other African-Americans were very critical of them absolutely absolutely and so I made sure that all those voices were heard in a way that felt honest and grounded and true you know one of the 1st things that struck me was the way in which the incident with the police officer is almost like the officer is almost like a patient 0 an outbreak where his actions cause every single other person we meet throughout the course that film to really confront the question of what they stand for and because it's on video everyone sees it and they're interpreted it through their own limb Absolutely and I wonder if that was what you were wanting to do the kind of put all these people in front of these screens on their phone or on their computers or whatever and then say here's this thing you know tell me how you interpret this tell me what this is all right well I think that's what we do every day you know when we look at our strain you know I see the latest viral video or watch the news how we take in the news is we interpret it and I'll but we bring our stuff to it and and that's why everybody has different opinions about things but ultimately I believe every little choice thing we do affects our lives and you know that date is a choice. It's a choice that she makes and she doesn't want to be alone that night. I told her just saying at times I really like that that idea is that he's the the patient 0 but it's also you know it's 3 people grappling with America's history really in a moment so one last thing yeah you talk about your relationship with television from your childhood and the way that that evolved you know from you observing the shows and enjoying the shows to you studying them and dissecting them taking them apart and you had this dream of participating in this world in some way . That everything that you would have hoped to be. Is More is more and is less. That's the thing and what was it's more and that is almost like trying to describe some of what having a child is like. You can talk all day but until you have your own. You all know how great it is but also how devastating it can be. This great thing from a writer and this bike program I was always kind of learn how to be a star and I said getting your own t.v. Show is like being beaten to death with your own dream. And it's true. That's what it is. You can't want to be the heavyweight champ of the world not take some licks . Get it sometimes smarter buy back which I will. Thank you thank you. The writer actor and producer. She talked with. A staff writer at The New Yorker wrote the film directed by me. And it comes out later this. Hour. The New Yorker Radio Hour is supported by Progressive insurance providing tools designed to help customers consider options from multiple insurers comparisons available at progressive dot com or 1800 progressive Now that's progressive. I'm Stephen Dubner on the next Freakonomics Radio a very free canonical conversation about u.s. Foreign policy if you get it wrong you could do real weak dumb things like send an army to Iraq in 2003 we had a National Se