On the Kojo Nnamdi Show, YA author Jason Reynolds discusses the goal behind writing Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You with Ibram X. Kendi. “I think it’s always complicated to take such massive ideas and to whittle them into something bite-size without pandering or condescending to children,” Reynolds explains. “I don’t think you have to condescend in order to give them that which is true. It can be sophisticated and nuanced, and still be for them.”
Jason Reynolds on the Language of Discussing Racism with Kids
Illuminated Waterfalls
Recommended Viewing: Sean Lenz and Kristoffer Abildgaard’s long exposure photography series, “Neon Luminance.”
What’s The Rush?
Benjamin Percy makes the case for slowing down, “the best thing [he] ever did for my reading, which might be the best thing [he] ever did for [his] writing.”
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The Arcades Project
If you thought Michel Houellebecq was controversial, let me direct your attention to Kenneth Goldsmith. In this piece, the poet that everyone loves to hate asserts his desire “to take Walter Benjamin off the pedestal and on to the coffee table.” His newest, Capital, is out now.
Tuesday New Release Day: Coetzee; Li; Enriquez; Hoffman; Hogan; Puchner; Shepard
Out this week: The Schooldays of Jesus by J.M. Coetzee; Dear Friend, from My Life I Write to You in Your Life by Yiyun Li; Things We Lost in the Fire by Mariana Enriquez; Running by Cara Hoffman; The Keeper of Lost Things by Ruth Hogan; Last Day On Earth by Eric Puchner; and The World to Come by Jim Shepard. For more on these and other new titles, go read our most recent book preview.
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Pen Pals Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg
Janet Maslin at the New York Times reviews the collection Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg: The Letters: “‘Hasn’t it been awful?’ Kerouac would write to Ginsberg in 1959. ‘We were so swingy? And now young poets are sneering at us?’”
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On The Notebook
“The notebook is where our interior world makes contact with our exterior world; where our instinct for creation is first made material. Our notebooks are our first messy attempts at self-expression, and the ways in which we express ourselves are changing every day.” Sarah Gerard explores the life of the notebook in an essay for Hazlitt. Pair with our own Hannah Gersen‘s look at other methods writers use to keep their ideas straight, from calendars to collages.
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I grew up a poor white child, in the 60s. I was taught to love and respect all people regardless of race. I’ve traveled extensively, have long-lasting friends and dated women of all races. I’m sure there are racists out there. Yet I see a media inciting racism, eager to get attention for financial gain, way ahead of investigation. We’re all being had. Our cities were burned and looted, using George Floyd under false pretense. On a fatal dose of meth, we now know he cried out “I can’t breathe”, in the car, long before the officer put his knee on him. Most of racism was overcome, lawman policies changed a long time ago. We’re being had, by those who seek to gain by reigniting this tired wornout excuse for lack of initiative, personal accountability.