July 4, 2025 • 27 mins
Add to your reading list with our hosts Angela Rye, Tiffany Cross, and Andrew Gillum. They share some of their favorite fiction and nonfiction, and chat about reading strategies for the aspiring and veteran bookworms.
THE READING LIST
Angela:
Just Permanent Interests by William L. Clay
Critical Race Theory - the key writings that formed the movement
Medical Apartheid by Dr. Harriet Washington
The Life and Times of Ron Brown: A Memoir
Assata: An Autobiography
My Grandmother’s Hands by Resmaa Menakem
Andrew:
Four Hundred Souls edited by Ibram Kendi and Keisha Blain
The Sum of Us by Heather McGhee
The Art of War by Sun Tzu
The Analects of Confucius
The Obstacle is the Way by Ryan Holiday
Tiffany:
How to Say Babylon: A Memoir by Safiya Sinclair
Black AF History by Michael Harriot
The Love Songs of W.E.B. DuBois by Fanonne Jeffers
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
Ghana Must Go by Taiye Selasi
The Devil You Know by Charles Blow
The Color of Money by Mehrsa Baradaran
If you’d like to submit a question, check out our tutorial video: www.instagram.com/reel/C5j_oBXLIg0/
Welcome home y’all!
—---------
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Native Land Pod is brought to you by Reasoned Choice Media.
Thank you to the Native Land Pod team:
Angela Rye as host, executive producer and cofounder of Reasoned Choice Media; Tiffany Cross as host and producer, Andrew Gillum as host and producer, and Lauren Hansen as executive producer; Loren Mychael is our research producer, and Nikolas Harter is our editor and producer. Special thanks to Chris Morrow and Lenard McKelvey, co-founders of Reasoned Choice Media.
Theme music created by Daniel Laurent.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Well come, well come, welcome, well, come, well, come, welcome,
Welcome home everybody. This is Keiviny Cross, Angela, Rye and
A and Gill and this is a mini pod and
we don't know what we're about to talk about.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Yes, that was Angela's suggestion that we wait and figure
out what we're going to talk about. And I was saying,
listen record, yeah, which, well, we've heard you guys in
the audience ask us about what we're reading, what we
like to read, and so I thought this might be
a good opportunity for the co host to share some
of their favorite books and things we would recommend to
(00:35):
you guys. I know I have a lot. I, as
I talked about, have read Charles Blow's book The Devil,
you know, so I would love for folks to read
that we can have a conversation about it. I am
reading The Color of Money, Wealth and Black Banks. I
might have the subtitle wrong, but it's MRSA but Darridon.
I think that's my fair name. I had her on
(00:57):
my show some years ago and started the book and
in bear so did not finish it. And I hate
when folks, when people do that. This is a question
I'll ask you, guys, I might be a bit of
a I don't think it's snobbery. I think it's just
the art of reading. I do not think audio listen.
When people say they listen to the audiobook, I don't
(01:17):
know if that's reading. And I say that because, like
your brain literally processes it differently and for the right
like when you read something, you're comprehended. It's the difference
between listening to a podcast like y'all are doing now,
versus actually reading the words, like your brain literally processes it.
And so you know, and you have friends with kids
and they're like, oh, I did the audiobook, and the
(01:37):
parents are like, no, no, no, you need to read
the book. I think if I had kids, i'd be
one of those parents, like, you have to strengthen that skill.
You have to read. So do you all think that
audio books counts as reading?
Speaker 1 (01:52):
Yeah, if you are an auditory learner, yeah what some
people are. Some people like I need to hear it
out loud. In fact, when I'm actually reading, whether it's
a report or a book or even an article, sometimes
I will say out loud to myself a piece that
(02:12):
is something I want to want to remember, a piece
that I may want to go back to now. I
love I love physical books because I like writing in them.
I got tabs for days. If you wanted to get
me a you know, a gift and you don't know
what I like, she just get me some post its
because they're going to end up in books the flags. Yeah,
(02:37):
all of that. I love it, and mainly because I
even commit you know, certain passages to memory when they're
really you know, that thought provoking and that kind of thing.
But yeah, I think audio books work just as fine.
I tell my kids all the time because my son, Jackson, particularly,
who's a really competitive reader, you know, wants me to
know that he started the day at page twenty three
(02:58):
and he ended at one hundred and twenty. I said,
well that's good, Jackson, but do you remember what you read?
But I would not object to at you know, at
some point when they get introduced to audio books to
them listening as well, we're gonna get the fundamentals of
reading down. We're gonna get the fundamentals of you know, uh,
you know, root words, because it's going to be important
(03:19):
for you at some some point in time. But I
will tell you I have I have I have a
question one, does it make a difference to you listening
versus reading yourself fiction nonfiction, Because I'll say this, for me,
I am I don't read fiction at all. In fact,
(03:40):
my therapist has told me you've got to you have
got to read more fiction. It is where the imagination. Yes,
you know it exists, and I'm so like, no, no, no,
But why would I waste my time on that one?
I know if I read this, this is history, this
is this, this is you know, these are things that
I can put under my under my tool bell. So
(04:01):
I got to still make that adjustment. But I do
wonder whether or not it would be different for me
if I were listening to an audiobook of a fiction
story versus an audio book of a fact story. And
I wonder if it makes a difference to either of you.
Speaker 3 (04:16):
I will say, Lenard actually suggests reading the book and
listening to it at the same time. He was telling
me that it was a good experience, and he did
it with Viola Davis's book. So I did that with
Viola Davis's book, and I agree.
Speaker 4 (04:32):
So I think it depends.
Speaker 3 (04:33):
I definitely am somebody the way my mind moves if
I'm just listening to the audio book and I start
looking at something else or like I'm texting at the
same time, you can forget it.
Speaker 4 (04:43):
I basically have blocked everything out.
Speaker 3 (04:45):
But if I'm concentrating just on that book or closing
my eyes and just listening to that book, it helps.
But I did appreciate the experience of reading and listening
at the same time.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
Plus fiction nonfiction equal leader.
Speaker 4 (04:58):
I'm not I'm not a fiction person.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
I think that there was a time, like growing up,
where I was more of a fiction person. But I
think now there's so much going on. I feel like,
if I'm going to be reading, I wanted to be
historical based, strategy based, political based, economics based, something with
some solutions in there.
Speaker 4 (05:16):
Yes, so I do know.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
The last fiction book that I was really into is
Derek Beale Faces at the Bottom of the Well in
law school, and it was because I could see it
and here we are about to get shipped off the
hill to.
Speaker 4 (05:28):
Marsh right now.
Speaker 3 (05:30):
So I mean I understand it. I asly has a
little tinge of accuracy.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
I go through about a book a week, and I
try to go back and forth. If one week it's fiction,
the next week, I'll try to do nonfiction, but I
really enjoy fiction. Angela. You talked about finding me Viola Davis.
That book was therapy for me. I mean that book,
Viola Davis, just so I couldn't read or listen to that.
I read that, and I can't do audio at the
(05:57):
same time as reading because our are different. And I'll
read something over, like if a paragraph or even a
sentence it's just beautifully constructed, I will read that over
and over and over and over. Tony Morrison said, ones
which I it is a torturous process to write. I
don't believe in ghostwriters either, because not that ghostwriters can't
have good books, but when people say I wrote a book,
(06:19):
I'm like, well, did you write or did you have
a ghostwriter? Because when you are writing Tony Morrison, when
I was fourteen, I was listening to a conversation with
her and Oprah and she was saying that as a writer,
you will take one sentence and structure it in every
possible way to make it the point that you want
(06:40):
to see what works. And I tried to have a
discipline to do that. And it is a torturous process
and so but it's also a beautiful process when you're
all done. So I like the way that fiction doesn't
constrict you to the realms of reality that you know.
It can still you can learn from it. It can
still based in history, but it's beautiful writing that you
(07:01):
know deeply explores. And with fiction, they're more than likely
is not a ghostwriter. With nonfiction sometimes, I think it's
particularly with biographies, people will, you know, hire somebody. I
know a lot of people who are like hired ghostwriters
who offered They're like, hey, I could write this chapter
for you, and I'm like, as if I would never
you know, I want to construct this myself. But this
(07:23):
leaves me I have some sound that I want us
to listen to from a writer that I thought was
so amazing. She since passed away, but I'm sure many
of you have read Octavia Butler. Probably not you, Andrew,
since you or you Angela, I guess since you guys
don't read fiction, but her work it speaks to so
much that's happening right now. And she actually made a
(07:44):
good point I think, around just the process of writing,
but also how she bases it in what's happening in society.
And she was so far ahead of her time, So
take a listen.
Speaker 5 (07:53):
I got the idea for it when I heard someone
answer a political question with a political slogan, and he
didn't seem to realize that he was quoting somebody. He
seemed to have thought that he had a creative thought there,
And I wrote this verse. Beware, all too often we
(08:15):
say what we hear others say, We think what we
are told that we think, we see what we are
permitted to see. Worse, we see what we are told
that we see. Repetition and pride are the keys to this.
(08:39):
To see and to hear even an obvious lie again
and again and again may be to say it almost
by reflex, then to defend it because we have said it,
and at last to embrace it because we've defended it,
(09:00):
and because we cannot admit that we've embraced and defended
an obvious lie. Thus, without thought, without intent, we make
mere echoes of ourselves, and we say what we hear
others say.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
This is a work of fiction, But that beautifully constructed paragraph,
I think speaks to so much of what's happening in
society about how we will regurgitate a lie. And I
don't mean maga Republicans, you know, obviously that happens, but
I even mean amongst ourselves because something existed, or because
you know, we will take We talked about this in parody.
(09:42):
You know, Fox News will run a piece and then
the Shade Room will post it. You know, it's it
is something where it dulls our intellect and it declines
our reasoned thinking. And so I don't know, I think
there are some lessons to learn in But when she
talked about that, I just thought, wow, that's true. I
(10:03):
see that happening a lot from some things that took
place in the Black Church that I, you know, don't
agree with in adulthood. But people, you know, it's it's orthodoxy,
you know, it's culture. These axioms become principal after a while.
And if we just imagine, but what if this is
not the case. What if this man saying this to
(10:25):
me is wrong? What if this leader projecting this to
me is incorrect? What if this leader really wants to
rule and not lead and just to question everything around me?
So fiction, I would say, can invite that kind of Yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
Well that was beautiful. And what I loved about it is,
she said, Miss Butler, the obvious lie, right is obviously
not the truth. So we're not debating whether another is
true or false. We all are looking at the thing
and saying it's not true, and then yeah, we keep listening,
and then we start to repeat, and then the repeating
becomes the you know, our foundation of defense, and we
(11:03):
fight over it. And now we've gotten so deep in
we cannot even acknowledge that we all knew it was
a lie. And I just kept running with it.
Speaker 4 (11:12):
Yeah, what I love.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
So I think, Tiffany, your appreciation is well learned. You're
a writer, and so you love words. You love the
written word, not as you know, maybe not even the
spoken words so much as you love the written Yeah. Sure.
Michael Harriett is one of those people who I have underlined,
double underline circled because he's it feels like, while it
(11:37):
comes off so easy as a person who likes to
see subtexts, I imagine a person who has, as you
described earlier, written a sentence so many different ways that
he wants it to stick. He wants it to land,
and he wants it to land on first impact. I
appreciate you know, the written word as well, obviously more
(12:00):
more more fact than fiction, But I do want to
reprioritize and reorient myself a little bit here, because I
do think there's some truth in this sort of imaginative,
imaginative space where for a lot of my life I've
sort of had to live and deal in what is present,
(12:22):
what I know to be the case, either what has
happened or forecast to occur, And I do think it
robs us a little bit of the what's outside the box,
what's not on the page, what isn't being said? Where
are the possibilities for this to go? And I think writers,
particularly those who are skilled at it, have a beautiful
(12:44):
way of lifting us off of it. So I appreciate
that about good writers, but I appreciate them in equal measure,
I think, both written and spoken.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
What would you recommend to our audience that they pick
up and maybe even to me? Maybe I haven't read some.
Speaker 4 (13:07):
Of the books you have, So this is one.
Speaker 3 (13:10):
I'm using this one because this is a quote from
the Congressional Black Caucus that we say often it was
no permanent friends, permanent enemies, just permanent interests. And this
book is from William Lacey Clay. This is Congressrom Lacy
Clay's father, William Lacy Clay was one of the CBC founders,
and he talks about the journey of Black Americans in
(13:32):
Congress from eighteen seventy to nineteen ninety one. This book
is called Critical Race Theory and it is a collection
of essays. It's a text that I used in law school.
This actually talks about this is It includes Kimberly Crenshaw
(13:52):
as well as many many other scholars. This book is
important because it will actually tell you about what critical
race theory.
Speaker 4 (13:59):
Actually is, and not the donsonce they tell you. So.
Speaker 3 (14:02):
The foreword is by corn O West is edited by
Kimberly Crenshaw, Neil Gatanda, Gary Peller, and Kendall Thomas.
Speaker 4 (14:10):
Medical Apartheid.
Speaker 3 (14:11):
I'm bringing this up because this woman, doctor Harriet Washington,
talks about why black folks don't or why the system,
the healthcare system, the medical system has not proven itself
trustworthy to black people, which is a slight modification.
Speaker 4 (14:27):
On what we normally talk about. Very good text.
Speaker 3 (14:30):
Ron Brown, in addition to Reverend Jesse Jackson, Ron Brown's
picture was on our mantle in the house. My dad
was in a diehard Democrat, but what he loved about
Ron Brown was his way of advocating for black people.
He was the DNC chair and also was the Department
of Commerce Secretary under Bill Clinton. This is his memoir,
(14:51):
Ron Brown, An Uncommon Life. Asada obviously an autobiography, very important.
This is written by Asada Shakur. She is I believe,
the only woman on the FBI's most Wanted list. She
should not be there. Free Asida, all right. And finally,
(15:14):
my good brother, Resma Menechem, has a book called My
Grandmother's Hands.
Speaker 4 (15:18):
It's a New York Times bestseller.
Speaker 3 (15:20):
It helps deepen us into what ancestral trauma looks like,
what it means to regulate and corregulate our nervous systems,
and how to ensure that we heal from racialized trauma
in the body. It's a sematic therapy book that teaches
us different modalities to call upon to heal ourselves and
to heal the communities that.
Speaker 4 (15:40):
We are a part of.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
I did we meet him? Did we have dinner with him? Somewhere?
I remember you talking about this book that you just loved,
and it was maybe it was he?
Speaker 3 (15:49):
Definitely, I definitely have been breaking bread with Resma. Maybe
you were there, Tiff I'm sure, if not there in spirit,
oh yeah, he was.
Speaker 4 (15:58):
There was a panel for me.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
That was years ago. I remember when you said that
for the centennial. Yep, what you got, Andrew oh Man.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
I feel, for one, your book is all the way
at the top, as is my friend Kenisha doctor Kisha
oh Grant. So I didn't get to pull them down saying.
Speaker 4 (16:17):
You can't reach it. I didn't get my chip book
let me grab.
Speaker 1 (16:20):
They're up at the top, but some that were closer
down obviously up there is.
Speaker 4 (16:34):
You know.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
I feel like that was okay, Thank you guys. I
feel like that was my first book and I've turned
into rough draft and they published it because now when
I read it, I'm like, I would it never run
like that? But thank you.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
Hey, you got a book out of friend. All right,
another one coming, so four hundred souls my fellow rattler
Iram Kenny and Keisha Blaine, and I especially especially especially enjoy.
I told you about my tabs and stuff and books,
just just proof that I put tabs in books when
(17:08):
I read them. My favorite essayist contributor, of course, would
be none other than Michael Harriot.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
Harriot Harriot, and I just have let it go.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
But I don't know why, Michael, forgive me. I like
pronouncing it that way, but I'm gonna do it with you. Harriet,
Harriet Harriott, Who is our griot? Can I say?
Speaker 4 (17:31):
Griotture Michael Harriot?
Speaker 1 (17:35):
Okay, there it is, But I love The hero of
this drama is black people. All black people, the free blacks,
the uncloaked Maroons, the black elite, the preachers, the reverends,
the doormen and doctors, the sharecroppers and soldiers. They are
all protagonists in our epic adventure. Spoiler alert, the hero
(17:56):
of this story does not die ever. The hero is
long suffering, but unkillable, bloody, and unbowed. In this story
and in all the subsequent sequels now and forever, this
hero almost never wins. But we still get to be
the heroes of the true American stories simply because we
(18:19):
are undestructible. Try as they might, we will never be
extinguished ever.
Speaker 4 (18:27):
Trying to figure out why you got to read excerpt.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
That's the That's the only one I read because he's
one of my favorite And then of course Heaven McGee
the some of us again evidence I do tab Books
wrote wrote really beautifully and I think accessibly about why black, brown,
working class white folks should be in common cause with
(18:51):
each other. And then this is my political scientist in me,
because I think these are very important for anyone who
is interested in strategy around politics. The Art of war,
of course, sunsu Ah, the well Whi's One Talk Teaching
(19:16):
is also a must read, and the Analects of Confucius,
and I just think these are important philosophical documents. And
in the Art of war, I think it is really
tactical and strategic and it has survived centuries. Uh, and
(19:37):
it's still highly regarded by I think political scientists around strategies,
strategies to win. And then just a just a slight favorite. Uh.
The Obstacle is the Way, I said, I think during
(19:57):
our New Year's show that the only way is through
m hm. You know you try to figure out, like God, Lee,
it's just this too much, you know, I just want
to blink out, numb out, And so The Obstacles the
Way is one of those books that just sort of
helps to encourage you to push through. Well, I have
(20:17):
not I got a lot of favorites.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
I've not read any of the books that you guys reference.
So yeah, but this is great because now yes, exactly
what black a f History, of course, but the other
books I had in all the books, Angela, read your
own book, I've read my own book, but the Asada Chaquur,
I'd really like to read that one. In the conversations
(20:40):
I've had with the elders lately, her name has come
up a lot, so I think I'm gonna put that
next on my list, So thank you, guys. Mine is
How to Say Babylon by Sophia Sinclair. And this was
recommended to me by Van Newkirk, who also recommended that
I write a book. I write my second book. But
(21:00):
it's so beautifully written. I mean, just somebody I didn't know.
And you might think, well, why do I want to
read a memoir of someone I didn't know? But it
was so beautifully written and so captivating. I love it.
Speaker 4 (21:11):
I'm about to order it.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
And who has already talked about Black a f History?
But Michael Harritt Harriet Harry Ots Michael Harriet is such
a gift and his book was so popular it was
on the New York Times bestseller list forever fell off
and then inexplicably just bounced back on there because I
think people were like, oh, I didn't know it was
(21:34):
this dope, But there still have so many yes, and
I have so many highlights of this book. Another one
the Love Songs of W E. B.
Speaker 4 (21:43):
Du Boys.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
This is fiction, but it is beautifully beautifully written and
takes you through generations and time. I have others that
I don't have pictures of, but The Poison What Bible
is probably my all time favorite book by Barbara Kingsolv.
I give that book away and Michael Harriet's book Away
(22:04):
and another book, Ghana Must Go. And I'm embarrassed to
not remember the writer's name. She's a woman. But it's
just an amazing book about three siblings who are Ghanaian
and it goes back and forth with them from Ghana
to America.
Speaker 4 (22:16):
So that's my book.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
So if you guys are looking for something to read,
that's your NLP, this summer reading list or autumn reading
list or whenever you get to your read Yes.
Speaker 3 (22:27):
Exactly, I'm reading something from this now. Okay, this is
from Resma and I think it goes back to I
know this is an evergreen episode, so God only knows,
but this goes back to our episode from today that
we recorded prior. This is about when democracy falls is
I guess the name of the episode something like that.
Speaker 4 (22:46):
It says.
Speaker 3 (22:46):
An African American elder said to me recently. There is
a root to the trauma tree, and what we see
now is the fruit. That tree, which was planted roughly
fifteen centuries ago, now casts a shadow across our entire nation. Today,
many of us still feed each other. It's bitter, poisonous fruit.
None of us ask for this trauma, none of us
(23:07):
deserves it, yet none of us can avoid it. It
is part of our personal and national histories. In many
American bodies, the Civil War, or the American Revolution, or
the Crusades rages on.
Speaker 4 (23:20):
Today. We're head of reckoning. We Americans have an opportunity
and an obligation to recognize the trauma embedded in our bodies,
to accept and metabolize the clean pain of healing, and
to move through and out of our trauma. This will
enable us to mend our hearts and bodies and to
(23:40):
grow up.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
That That is why I like reading, because I would
read that over and over. It's beautiful to hear you
read it. But I don't even know if I could
that was so poetic and literate, and yes, like that's
something that.
Speaker 3 (23:58):
You'll like about this to really and I'm serious, like
I'm not even saying this because of what you just said,
and it didn't occur to me though right now. I
think what you will appreciate about this book in particular
right now because of what you're moving through. And honestly,
I might challenge us all to I'll pick it back up, Andrew,
I would read this with you too.
Speaker 4 (24:16):
There are somatic body based.
Speaker 3 (24:19):
Practices in this book at the end of each chapter
to help you move through the trauma that you carry
in your DNA and the trauma that you are currently
experiencing by just living in this country. And so I
think that it really is a good like I was
going through it in twenty twenty. Yeah, but I think
it's a great thing just to have an embodied practice
(24:41):
to you know, metabolize the history, to feel what you're
feeling from a DNA and ancestral memory standpoint, to feel
what you're experiencing as you carry what feels familiar even
though we haven't lived it before, but like the breath
work of it all, like tapping into your nervous system.
Tapping into your survival instinct, no one want to tap
(25:01):
out of it.
Speaker 4 (25:02):
Humming.
Speaker 3 (25:03):
You know the practices that are like tapping your foot.
Those are all things that our ancestors did, and part
of that was helping them to move through their trauma.
Speaker 2 (25:11):
Yeah, okay, I will read draw A quick excerpt is
because but mind only one sentence. This is from Octavia Butler,
parable of the Sewer, And I didn't mention this book,
but I strongly encourage everyone to read that. It begins
in twenty twenty four, but it was written in the
eighties or maybe the seventies. And this speaks to something
(25:33):
that we've talked about a few times on the podcast
over the weeks and months about immigration and people being
shipped off to offshore torture camps. And it's just one sentence.
The main the protagonist is a young girl and she
has a disorder some might say called hyper empathy, and
it causes her to feel whatever the other person is feeling,
(25:56):
so which is can be a good thing or it
could be a bad thing. If you're having sex with somebody,
you have your orgasm, you feel their orgasm. If someone yes, yes,
good point. If someone unfortunately, if someone is getting raped,
you feel their pleasure, but you feel your own terror
(26:17):
and pain. So the book goes through a lot of
things as she navigates her own hyper empathy. So the
one sentence I would just read is when she says,
if everyone could feel everyone else's.
Speaker 1 (26:30):
Pain, who would torture amen?
Speaker 2 (26:36):
So maybe we can move with a little bit of
empathy and imagine that we could feel everybody else's pain
and home Welcome Home.
Speaker 3 (27:01):
Native Lampod is a production of iHeartRadio and partnership with
reisent Choice Media. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visits iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Well come, well come, welcome, well, come, well, come, welcome,
Welcome home everybody. This is Keiviny Cross, Angela, Rye and
A and Gill and this is a mini pod and
we don't know what we're about to talk about.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Yes, that was Angela's suggestion that we wait and figure
out what we're going to talk about. And I was saying,
listen record, yeah, which, well, we've heard you guys in
the audience ask us about what we're reading, what we
like to read, and so I thought this might be
a good opportunity for the co host to share some
of their favorite books and things we would recommend to
(00:35):
you guys. I know I have a lot. I, as
I talked about, have read Charles Blow's book The Devil,
you know, so I would love for folks to read
that we can have a conversation about it. I am
reading The Color of Money, Wealth and Black Banks. I
might have the subtitle wrong, but it's MRSA but Darridon.
I think that's my fair name. I had her on
(00:57):
my show some years ago and started the book and
in bear so did not finish it. And I hate
when folks, when people do that. This is a question
I'll ask you, guys, I might be a bit of
a I don't think it's snobbery. I think it's just
the art of reading. I do not think audio listen.
When people say they listen to the audiobook, I don't
(01:17):
know if that's reading. And I say that because, like
your brain literally processes it differently and for the right
like when you read something, you're comprehended. It's the difference
between listening to a podcast like y'all are doing now,
versus actually reading the words, like your brain literally processes it.
And so you know, and you have friends with kids
and they're like, oh, I did the audiobook, and the
(01:37):
parents are like, no, no, no, you need to read
the book. I think if I had kids, i'd be
one of those parents, like, you have to strengthen that skill.
You have to read. So do you all think that
audio books counts as reading?
Speaker 1 (01:52):
Yeah, if you are an auditory learner, yeah what some
people are. Some people like I need to hear it
out loud. In fact, when I'm actually reading, whether it's
a report or a book or even an article, sometimes
I will say out loud to myself a piece that
(02:12):
is something I want to want to remember, a piece
that I may want to go back to now. I
love I love physical books because I like writing in them.
I got tabs for days. If you wanted to get
me a you know, a gift and you don't know
what I like, she just get me some post its
because they're going to end up in books the flags. Yeah,
(02:37):
all of that. I love it, and mainly because I
even commit you know, certain passages to memory when they're
really you know, that thought provoking and that kind of thing.
But yeah, I think audio books work just as fine.
I tell my kids all the time because my son, Jackson, particularly,
who's a really competitive reader, you know, wants me to
know that he started the day at page twenty three
(02:58):
and he ended at one hundred and twenty. I said,
well that's good, Jackson, but do you remember what you read?
But I would not object to at you know, at
some point when they get introduced to audio books to
them listening as well, we're gonna get the fundamentals of
reading down. We're gonna get the fundamentals of you know, uh,
you know, root words, because it's going to be important
(03:19):
for you at some some point in time. But I
will tell you I have I have I have a
question one, does it make a difference to you listening
versus reading yourself fiction nonfiction, Because I'll say this, for me,
I am I don't read fiction at all. In fact,
(03:40):
my therapist has told me you've got to you have
got to read more fiction. It is where the imagination. Yes,
you know it exists, and I'm so like, no, no, no,
But why would I waste my time on that one?
I know if I read this, this is history, this
is this, this is you know, these are things that
I can put under my under my tool bell. So
(04:01):
I got to still make that adjustment. But I do
wonder whether or not it would be different for me
if I were listening to an audiobook of a fiction
story versus an audio book of a fact story. And
I wonder if it makes a difference to either of you.
Speaker 3 (04:16):
I will say, Lenard actually suggests reading the book and
listening to it at the same time. He was telling
me that it was a good experience, and he did
it with Viola Davis's book. So I did that with
Viola Davis's book, and I agree.
Speaker 4 (04:32):
So I think it depends.
Speaker 3 (04:33):
I definitely am somebody the way my mind moves if
I'm just listening to the audio book and I start
looking at something else or like I'm texting at the
same time, you can forget it.
Speaker 4 (04:43):
I basically have blocked everything out.
Speaker 3 (04:45):
But if I'm concentrating just on that book or closing
my eyes and just listening to that book, it helps.
But I did appreciate the experience of reading and listening
at the same time.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
Plus fiction nonfiction equal leader.
Speaker 4 (04:58):
I'm not I'm not a fiction person.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
I think that there was a time, like growing up,
where I was more of a fiction person. But I
think now there's so much going on. I feel like,
if I'm going to be reading, I wanted to be
historical based, strategy based, political based, economics based, something with
some solutions in there.
Speaker 4 (05:16):
Yes, so I do know.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
The last fiction book that I was really into is
Derek Beale Faces at the Bottom of the Well in
law school, and it was because I could see it
and here we are about to get shipped off the
hill to.
Speaker 4 (05:28):
Marsh right now.
Speaker 3 (05:30):
So I mean I understand it. I asly has a
little tinge of accuracy.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
I go through about a book a week, and I
try to go back and forth. If one week it's fiction,
the next week, I'll try to do nonfiction, but I
really enjoy fiction. Angela. You talked about finding me Viola Davis.
That book was therapy for me. I mean that book,
Viola Davis, just so I couldn't read or listen to that.
I read that, and I can't do audio at the
(05:57):
same time as reading because our are different. And I'll
read something over, like if a paragraph or even a
sentence it's just beautifully constructed, I will read that over
and over and over and over. Tony Morrison said, ones
which I it is a torturous process to write. I
don't believe in ghostwriters either, because not that ghostwriters can't
have good books, but when people say I wrote a book,
(06:19):
I'm like, well, did you write or did you have
a ghostwriter? Because when you are writing Tony Morrison, when
I was fourteen, I was listening to a conversation with
her and Oprah and she was saying that as a writer,
you will take one sentence and structure it in every
possible way to make it the point that you want
(06:40):
to see what works. And I tried to have a
discipline to do that. And it is a torturous process
and so but it's also a beautiful process when you're
all done. So I like the way that fiction doesn't
constrict you to the realms of reality that you know.
It can still you can learn from it. It can
still based in history, but it's beautiful writing that you
(07:01):
know deeply explores. And with fiction, they're more than likely
is not a ghostwriter. With nonfiction sometimes, I think it's
particularly with biographies, people will, you know, hire somebody. I
know a lot of people who are like hired ghostwriters
who offered They're like, hey, I could write this chapter
for you, and I'm like, as if I would never
you know, I want to construct this myself. But this
(07:23):
leaves me I have some sound that I want us
to listen to from a writer that I thought was
so amazing. She since passed away, but I'm sure many
of you have read Octavia Butler. Probably not you, Andrew,
since you or you Angela, I guess since you guys
don't read fiction, but her work it speaks to so
much that's happening right now. And she actually made a
(07:44):
good point I think, around just the process of writing,
but also how she bases it in what's happening in society.
And she was so far ahead of her time, So
take a listen.
Speaker 5 (07:53):
I got the idea for it when I heard someone
answer a political question with a political slogan, and he
didn't seem to realize that he was quoting somebody. He
seemed to have thought that he had a creative thought there,
And I wrote this verse. Beware, all too often we
(08:15):
say what we hear others say, We think what we
are told that we think, we see what we are
permitted to see. Worse, we see what we are told
that we see. Repetition and pride are the keys to this.
(08:39):
To see and to hear even an obvious lie again
and again and again may be to say it almost
by reflex, then to defend it because we have said it,
and at last to embrace it because we've defended it,
(09:00):
and because we cannot admit that we've embraced and defended
an obvious lie. Thus, without thought, without intent, we make
mere echoes of ourselves, and we say what we hear
others say.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
This is a work of fiction, But that beautifully constructed paragraph,
I think speaks to so much of what's happening in
society about how we will regurgitate a lie. And I
don't mean maga Republicans, you know, obviously that happens, but
I even mean amongst ourselves because something existed, or because
you know, we will take We talked about this in parody.
(09:42):
You know, Fox News will run a piece and then
the Shade Room will post it. You know, it's it
is something where it dulls our intellect and it declines
our reasoned thinking. And so I don't know, I think
there are some lessons to learn in But when she
talked about that, I just thought, wow, that's true. I
(10:03):
see that happening a lot from some things that took
place in the Black Church that I, you know, don't
agree with in adulthood. But people, you know, it's it's orthodoxy,
you know, it's culture. These axioms become principal after a while.
And if we just imagine, but what if this is
not the case. What if this man saying this to
(10:25):
me is wrong? What if this leader projecting this to
me is incorrect? What if this leader really wants to
rule and not lead and just to question everything around me?
So fiction, I would say, can invite that kind of Yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
Well that was beautiful. And what I loved about it is,
she said, Miss Butler, the obvious lie, right is obviously
not the truth. So we're not debating whether another is
true or false. We all are looking at the thing
and saying it's not true, and then yeah, we keep listening,
and then we start to repeat, and then the repeating
becomes the you know, our foundation of defense, and we
(11:03):
fight over it. And now we've gotten so deep in
we cannot even acknowledge that we all knew it was
a lie. And I just kept running with it.
Speaker 4 (11:12):
Yeah, what I love.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
So I think, Tiffany, your appreciation is well learned. You're
a writer, and so you love words. You love the
written word, not as you know, maybe not even the
spoken words so much as you love the written Yeah. Sure.
Michael Harriett is one of those people who I have underlined,
double underline circled because he's it feels like, while it
(11:37):
comes off so easy as a person who likes to
see subtexts, I imagine a person who has, as you
described earlier, written a sentence so many different ways that
he wants it to stick. He wants it to land,
and he wants it to land on first impact. I
appreciate you know, the written word as well, obviously more
(12:00):
more more fact than fiction, But I do want to
reprioritize and reorient myself a little bit here, because I
do think there's some truth in this sort of imaginative,
imaginative space where for a lot of my life I've
sort of had to live and deal in what is present,
(12:22):
what I know to be the case, either what has
happened or forecast to occur, And I do think it
robs us a little bit of the what's outside the box,
what's not on the page, what isn't being said? Where
are the possibilities for this to go? And I think writers,
particularly those who are skilled at it, have a beautiful
(12:44):
way of lifting us off of it. So I appreciate
that about good writers, but I appreciate them in equal measure,
I think, both written and spoken.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
What would you recommend to our audience that they pick
up and maybe even to me? Maybe I haven't read some.
Speaker 4 (13:07):
Of the books you have, So this is one.
Speaker 3 (13:10):
I'm using this one because this is a quote from
the Congressional Black Caucus that we say often it was
no permanent friends, permanent enemies, just permanent interests. And this
book is from William Lacey Clay. This is Congressrom Lacy
Clay's father, William Lacy Clay was one of the CBC founders,
and he talks about the journey of Black Americans in
(13:32):
Congress from eighteen seventy to nineteen ninety one. This book
is called Critical Race Theory and it is a collection
of essays. It's a text that I used in law school.
This actually talks about this is It includes Kimberly Crenshaw
(13:52):
as well as many many other scholars. This book is
important because it will actually tell you about what critical
race theory.
Speaker 4 (13:59):
Actually is, and not the donsonce they tell you. So.
Speaker 3 (14:02):
The foreword is by corn O West is edited by
Kimberly Crenshaw, Neil Gatanda, Gary Peller, and Kendall Thomas.
Speaker 4 (14:10):
Medical Apartheid.
Speaker 3 (14:11):
I'm bringing this up because this woman, doctor Harriet Washington,
talks about why black folks don't or why the system,
the healthcare system, the medical system has not proven itself
trustworthy to black people, which is a slight modification.
Speaker 4 (14:27):
On what we normally talk about. Very good text.
Speaker 3 (14:30):
Ron Brown, in addition to Reverend Jesse Jackson, Ron Brown's
picture was on our mantle in the house. My dad
was in a diehard Democrat, but what he loved about
Ron Brown was his way of advocating for black people.
He was the DNC chair and also was the Department
of Commerce Secretary under Bill Clinton. This is his memoir,
(14:51):
Ron Brown, An Uncommon Life. Asada obviously an autobiography, very important.
This is written by Asada Shakur. She is I believe,
the only woman on the FBI's most Wanted list. She
should not be there. Free Asida, all right. And finally,
(15:14):
my good brother, Resma Menechem, has a book called My
Grandmother's Hands.
Speaker 4 (15:18):
It's a New York Times bestseller.
Speaker 3 (15:20):
It helps deepen us into what ancestral trauma looks like,
what it means to regulate and corregulate our nervous systems,
and how to ensure that we heal from racialized trauma
in the body. It's a sematic therapy book that teaches
us different modalities to call upon to heal ourselves and
to heal the communities that.
Speaker 4 (15:40):
We are a part of.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
I did we meet him? Did we have dinner with him? Somewhere?
I remember you talking about this book that you just loved,
and it was maybe it was he?
Speaker 3 (15:49):
Definitely, I definitely have been breaking bread with Resma. Maybe
you were there, Tiff I'm sure, if not there in spirit,
oh yeah, he was.
Speaker 4 (15:58):
There was a panel for me.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
That was years ago. I remember when you said that
for the centennial. Yep, what you got, Andrew oh Man.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
I feel, for one, your book is all the way
at the top, as is my friend Kenisha doctor Kisha
oh Grant. So I didn't get to pull them down saying.
Speaker 4 (16:17):
You can't reach it. I didn't get my chip book
let me grab.
Speaker 1 (16:20):
They're up at the top, but some that were closer
down obviously up there is.
Speaker 4 (16:34):
You know.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
I feel like that was okay, Thank you guys. I
feel like that was my first book and I've turned
into rough draft and they published it because now when
I read it, I'm like, I would it never run
like that? But thank you.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
Hey, you got a book out of friend. All right,
another one coming, so four hundred souls my fellow rattler
Iram Kenny and Keisha Blaine, and I especially especially especially enjoy.
I told you about my tabs and stuff and books,
just just proof that I put tabs in books when
(17:08):
I read them. My favorite essayist contributor, of course, would
be none other than Michael Harriot.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
Harriot Harriot, and I just have let it go.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
But I don't know why, Michael, forgive me. I like
pronouncing it that way, but I'm gonna do it with you. Harriet,
Harriet Harriott, Who is our griot? Can I say?
Speaker 4 (17:31):
Griotture Michael Harriot?
Speaker 1 (17:35):
Okay, there it is, But I love The hero of
this drama is black people. All black people, the free blacks,
the uncloaked Maroons, the black elite, the preachers, the reverends,
the doormen and doctors, the sharecroppers and soldiers. They are
all protagonists in our epic adventure. Spoiler alert, the hero
(17:56):
of this story does not die ever. The hero is
long suffering, but unkillable, bloody, and unbowed. In this story
and in all the subsequent sequels now and forever, this
hero almost never wins. But we still get to be
the heroes of the true American stories simply because we
(18:19):
are undestructible. Try as they might, we will never be
extinguished ever.
Speaker 4 (18:27):
Trying to figure out why you got to read excerpt.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
That's the That's the only one I read because he's
one of my favorite And then of course Heaven McGee
the some of us again evidence I do tab Books
wrote wrote really beautifully and I think accessibly about why black, brown,
working class white folks should be in common cause with
(18:51):
each other. And then this is my political scientist in me,
because I think these are very important for anyone who
is interested in strategy around politics. The Art of war,
of course, sunsu Ah, the well Whi's One Talk Teaching
(19:16):
is also a must read, and the Analects of Confucius,
and I just think these are important philosophical documents. And
in the Art of war, I think it is really
tactical and strategic and it has survived centuries. Uh, and
(19:37):
it's still highly regarded by I think political scientists around strategies,
strategies to win. And then just a just a slight favorite. Uh.
The Obstacle is the Way, I said, I think during
(19:57):
our New Year's show that the only way is through
m hm. You know you try to figure out, like God, Lee,
it's just this too much, you know, I just want
to blink out, numb out, And so The Obstacles the
Way is one of those books that just sort of
helps to encourage you to push through. Well, I have
(20:17):
not I got a lot of favorites.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
I've not read any of the books that you guys reference.
So yeah, but this is great because now yes, exactly
what black a f History, of course, but the other
books I had in all the books, Angela, read your
own book, I've read my own book, but the Asada Chaquur,
I'd really like to read that one. In the conversations
(20:40):
I've had with the elders lately, her name has come
up a lot, so I think I'm gonna put that
next on my list, So thank you, guys. Mine is
How to Say Babylon by Sophia Sinclair. And this was
recommended to me by Van Newkirk, who also recommended that
I write a book. I write my second book. But
(21:00):
it's so beautifully written. I mean, just somebody I didn't know.
And you might think, well, why do I want to
read a memoir of someone I didn't know? But it
was so beautifully written and so captivating. I love it.
Speaker 4 (21:11):
I'm about to order it.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
And who has already talked about Black a f History?
But Michael Harritt Harriet Harry Ots Michael Harriet is such
a gift and his book was so popular it was
on the New York Times bestseller list forever fell off
and then inexplicably just bounced back on there because I
think people were like, oh, I didn't know it was
(21:34):
this dope, But there still have so many yes, and
I have so many highlights of this book. Another one
the Love Songs of W E. B.
Speaker 4 (21:43):
Du Boys.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
This is fiction, but it is beautifully beautifully written and
takes you through generations and time. I have others that
I don't have pictures of, but The Poison What Bible
is probably my all time favorite book by Barbara Kingsolv.
I give that book away and Michael Harriet's book Away
(22:04):
and another book, Ghana Must Go. And I'm embarrassed to
not remember the writer's name. She's a woman. But it's
just an amazing book about three siblings who are Ghanaian
and it goes back and forth with them from Ghana
to America.
Speaker 4 (22:16):
So that's my book.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
So if you guys are looking for something to read,
that's your NLP, this summer reading list or autumn reading
list or whenever you get to your read Yes.
Speaker 3 (22:27):
Exactly, I'm reading something from this now. Okay, this is
from Resma and I think it goes back to I
know this is an evergreen episode, so God only knows,
but this goes back to our episode from today that
we recorded prior. This is about when democracy falls is
I guess the name of the episode something like that.
Speaker 4 (22:46):
It says.
Speaker 3 (22:46):
An African American elder said to me recently. There is
a root to the trauma tree, and what we see
now is the fruit. That tree, which was planted roughly
fifteen centuries ago, now casts a shadow across our entire nation. Today,
many of us still feed each other. It's bitter, poisonous fruit.
None of us ask for this trauma, none of us
(23:07):
deserves it, yet none of us can avoid it. It
is part of our personal and national histories. In many
American bodies, the Civil War, or the American Revolution, or
the Crusades rages on.
Speaker 4 (23:20):
Today. We're head of reckoning. We Americans have an opportunity
and an obligation to recognize the trauma embedded in our bodies,
to accept and metabolize the clean pain of healing, and
to move through and out of our trauma. This will
enable us to mend our hearts and bodies and to
(23:40):
grow up.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
That That is why I like reading, because I would
read that over and over. It's beautiful to hear you
read it. But I don't even know if I could
that was so poetic and literate, and yes, like that's
something that.
Speaker 3 (23:58):
You'll like about this to really and I'm serious, like
I'm not even saying this because of what you just said,
and it didn't occur to me though right now. I
think what you will appreciate about this book in particular
right now because of what you're moving through. And honestly,
I might challenge us all to I'll pick it back up, Andrew,
I would read this with you too.
Speaker 4 (24:16):
There are somatic body based.
Speaker 3 (24:19):
Practices in this book at the end of each chapter
to help you move through the trauma that you carry
in your DNA and the trauma that you are currently
experiencing by just living in this country. And so I
think that it really is a good like I was
going through it in twenty twenty. Yeah, but I think
it's a great thing just to have an embodied practice
(24:41):
to you know, metabolize the history, to feel what you're
feeling from a DNA and ancestral memory standpoint, to feel
what you're experiencing as you carry what feels familiar even
though we haven't lived it before, but like the breath
work of it all, like tapping into your nervous system.
Tapping into your survival instinct, no one want to tap
(25:01):
out of it.
Speaker 4 (25:02):
Humming.
Speaker 3 (25:03):
You know the practices that are like tapping your foot.
Those are all things that our ancestors did, and part
of that was helping them to move through their trauma.
Speaker 2 (25:11):
Yeah, okay, I will read draw A quick excerpt is
because but mind only one sentence. This is from Octavia Butler,
parable of the Sewer, And I didn't mention this book,
but I strongly encourage everyone to read that. It begins
in twenty twenty four, but it was written in the
eighties or maybe the seventies. And this speaks to something
(25:33):
that we've talked about a few times on the podcast
over the weeks and months about immigration and people being
shipped off to offshore torture camps. And it's just one sentence.
The main the protagonist is a young girl and she
has a disorder some might say called hyper empathy, and
it causes her to feel whatever the other person is feeling,
(25:56):
so which is can be a good thing or it
could be a bad thing. If you're having sex with somebody,
you have your orgasm, you feel their orgasm. If someone yes, yes,
good point. If someone unfortunately, if someone is getting raped,
you feel their pleasure, but you feel your own terror
(26:17):
and pain. So the book goes through a lot of
things as she navigates her own hyper empathy. So the
one sentence I would just read is when she says,
if everyone could feel everyone else's.
Speaker 1 (26:30):
Pain, who would torture amen?
Speaker 2 (26:36):
So maybe we can move with a little bit of
empathy and imagine that we could feel everybody else's pain
and home Welcome Home.
Speaker 3 (27:01):
Native Lampod is a production of iHeartRadio and partnership with
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Hosts And Creators
Tiffany Cross
Andrew Gillum
Angela Rye
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