September 8, 2025 • 44 mins
Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Trymaine Lee joins Shifting Culture to talk about his new book A Thousand Ways to Die and the true cost of violence in America. Known as a griot of Black survival and death, Trymaine has spent decades reporting on the lives and communities most affected by gun violence. But when he suffered a sudden heart attack at just 38, he was forced to reckon with the weight of the trauma he had carried in his body and in his family’s history of generational loss. In this conversation, Trymaine traces the roots of America’s cycles of violence back to slavery, systemic racism, and disinvestment, showing how those forces still shape families and neighborhoods today. He also shares how identity, mentorship, and joy can disrupt the cycle, and why nothing stops a bullet like dignity, opportunity, and love. This episode is heavy, but it’s also filled with hope. Because as Trymaine reminds us, there may be a thousand ways to die, but there are also a thousand ways to live.
Trymaine Lee is a Pulitzer Prize and Emmy award winning journalist and MSNBC contributor. He’s the host of the “Into America” podcast where he covers the intersection of Blackness, power, and politics. A contributing author to the “1619 Project”, he has reported for The New York Times, the Huffington Post, and the New Orleans Times-Picayune. A Thousand Ways to Die is his first book.
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Episode Transcript
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Trymaine Lee (00:00):
And this is why the violence hurts so much,
because young people should havethe opportunities to grow up in
communities filled with love andnot violence. Parents shouldn't
worry about burying their kids,right? All the potential that
we're losing because ofviolence, all the economic costs
that we're willing to pay whilean entire industry is getting
rich off the bloodshed, right?
And these guns never disappear,right? But this is about
(00:22):
planting the seeds for thatfruit tree to bear fruit, right,
and bear nutrition andsustenance, emotional,
spiritual, psychic sustenancefor the generation behind us.
Unknown (00:42):
You Hello
Joshua Johnson (00:48):
and welcome to the shifting culture podcast in
which we have conversationsabout the culture we create and
the impact we can make. I'm yourhost. Joshua Johnson, today I
sit down with Pulitzer Prizewinning journalist Tremaine Lee
to talk about the true cost ofviolence on black life in
America. Tremaine has spentyears documenting the lives lost
in communities reshaped bygunfire, poverty and systemic
(01:10):
neglect. He's described himselfas a griot of black survival and
death, a storyteller carryingout not only the weight of
individual tragedies, but thehistory and the structures that
make those tragedies inevitable,that work nearly broke him at 38
Tremaine suffered a sudden heartattack, the kind doctors call a
Widowmaker. It forced him toconfront how much of that
(01:32):
trauma, grief and generationalviolence he'd been carrying in
his own body. Out of thatreckoning came his new book,
1000 ways to die, a sweepinghistory that ties slavery,
systemic racism, disinvestmentand mass incarceration into the
cycles of violence we see today.
But this conversation isn't onlyabout death. It's also about
survival, about Black joy, aboutthe power of family and
(01:55):
mentorship to interrupt thecycle. Here, he reminds us that
we can't just focus downstreamon each violent act. We have to
look upstream at the systems ofpoverty, sickness and neglect
that make violence so pervasive.
This is a heavy conversation,but it's also a hopeful one,
because, as Tremaine says, theremay be 1000 ways to die, but
(02:17):
there are also 1000 ways tolive, and if we choose to invest
in one another, we can plantseeds of resilience and love
that Outlast generations. Sojoin us. Here is my conversation
with Tremaine. Lee Tremaine,welcome to shifting culture.
It's an honor to have you onthanks for joining me. The
pleasure is all mine. Joshua,thank you for having me. Yeah,
(02:39):
you know this heart attack thatyou had at the age of 38 it's a
powerful start to your the storyyou're telling and the aftermath
of the conversation you had withyour daughter, Nola. Take me
into that moment and take me onto the what was happening for
you. What did you realize thatwas put on you, that this heart
attack came about?
Trymaine Lee (03:00):
Yeah, so I was 38 years old when this heart attack
happened to me. I had no warningsigns, no family history for a
few days before that day, when Iwas walking to the subway, I
felt a little pressure in mychest. And the actual day it
happened, I was going down tomeet a colleague for coffee, and
I had to stop myself, and Isaid, If I don't sit down now
(03:20):
I'm gonna pass out. I just feltthis. Something felt really off.
And so I went to the healthclinic at my job, and I go in
there, they take a look at me,you know, they put a little EKG
on my heart, and said, You knowwhat, the left side of your
heart is a little enlarged, but,you know, at some point, go see
a cardiologist. And then shesaid, I'll never forget these
words. I can still hear themtoday. She said, Don't worry,
(03:42):
it's not even like you're gonnadrop dead tonight or tomorrow.
So I go home, my wife iscleaning the bedroom, so I lay
down on the sofa. She wakes meup around three in the morning,
and as I lay down, and maybefive minutes later, I feel like
this volleyball or beach ballexpanding in my chest, the world
is spinning. I'm nauseated, I'msweating, and I don't think I
(04:05):
realized that it was deathcrushing down on me in that
moment, but I definitely feltlike I was trans. I was
something dramatic washappening. I mean, I had never
felt that feeling before, andthen I remember my wife standing
in the doorway looking at me onthe phone, calling 911, and
(04:25):
maybe 15 minutes later, theparamedics arrive, and at that
point it had passed. The worstof that nauseated, washed and
sweat, world spinning feelinghad passed. And the EMTs come in
and they check my bloodpressure. They say, your vitals
look good. Do you want to go tothe hospital? They're asking me.
And in that moment, I didsomething that so many of us do,
(04:46):
and I think as men, especially,my daughter, had camp the next
morning, my wife was supposed totravel the next day for work,
and I didn't want to burdeneveryone with sitting in the
hospital with me all night, notrealizing that I. A heart
attack. And the majority ofpeople who die from a heart
attack die within that firsthour after it happens. And so
all night long, I'm tossing andturning, and then in the
(05:09):
morning, we drop my daughter offat camp, I go into urgent care
and I tell them, I say, Hey,I've had this it's like, go to
the hospital now. Like, get outof here and go to the hospital.
Mind you, we're at around 9am atthis point, six hours later, we
go to the hospital. Anothercouple hours of you're young,
healthy, we're not sure, untilfinally, around five o'clock,
(05:32):
5pm they do a blood test, andthey find a troponin, which is a
compound release when there'sheart damage. They said, I think
you might have had a heartattack, but it still doesn't
even end there. They're like,okay, don't eat anything
tomorrow. Tomorrow, thecardiologist will see you, and
we're gonna get you in the cathlab. By the grace of the grace
of God, my cardiologist, who wasstill my cardiologist today,
(05:55):
said, You know what, let's gethim in here now. So we go into
the cath lab. He's threading thecatheter in my my vein, in my
wrist, and there's a big screenover my shoulder, so I'm laying
down. He's threading the thingthrough my my artery, my one
vein, and he's tooling around,and then he pulls it out and
says, Uh, where's your wife? AndI was like, she's out there.
(06:16):
He's like, You are a very luckyman. He's like, you had a heart
attack. You had a blood clot inyour left anterior descending
artery. That's a widow maker. Weput two stents in your in the
vein to clear it, and in thatmoment, the biggest smile came
across my face, because I almostdied, but I didn't. So I had
this moment of like, thiselation that I survived the next
(06:40):
day, my mother, my brother, mysister, everyone comes up and
we're in the hospital room, andI made a joke to my wife. I
said, you almost became athousandaire, right? Joking that
she would have to collect deathbenefits. And then it was like I
was laughing, and I was like, ohmy goodness, my wife almost had
to collect death death benefitsfor me. And I broke down in
(07:01):
tears, sobbing in my mother'sarms like a baby, because I'm a
journalist who has covered theintersection of race and power
and violence and politics. For avery long time, I felt I
understood death in a certainkind of way, but until death
comes upon you in a certain acertain fashion. It walks upon
(07:23):
you the way it walked up on me.
It changed. It changed a lot forme, including a book I was
writing on violence at the time.
But it changed everything.
Joshua Johnson (07:30):
I mean, you've described yourself as a griot of
black survival and death. Sowhat does that mean, bearing
that mantle and bearing thatburden of being the storyteller
that tells the story of blacksurvival and death.
Trymaine Lee (07:44):
Yeah, no, that's a weight that for me, I've always
felt like it was my North Starand my mission. I'm here to
shine light in dark spaces. I'mhere to humanize community. I'm
here to amplify and live voicesthat are often overlooked, and
when it comes to reporting onBlack Death and survival, I can
(08:04):
remember as a very youngreporter on the streets of
Philadelphia and New Orleans,and I used to have in my desk in
my office, I'd have, like, thepolice scanner over my shoulder,
so I would hear certain codes,and I would run out to the
scene, and certain codes meant,you know, death or violence or
shooting, and I would get out tothe crime scene, and I would
find a young black man oftenthat looked just like me, like
(08:27):
when I'm not at work and I'm instreet clothes. We're wearing
the same sneakers, we're wearingthe same jeans, and it was
almost like a Groundhog's Dayexperience of experience people
that look just like it's likedying 1000 deaths over and over
again, but it also there werethese moments, these tender
moments of capturing the lastmoments of people's lives or
(08:48):
their memories of their family,even in that grief, being able
to again, I hate that. I have tohumanize people, but humanizing
black people, especiallydelivering that humanity for
them. And so it's a burden tobear. But also, until my heart
attack, I didn't fullyunderstand how I was carrying
and packing all of those momentsinside of me until it manifested
(09:10):
physically. So that violencethat I was capturing, and all
that death and survival and nearmisses came down on me in a way
that changed me, in a way, inthe way I thought about this.
Because after my heart attack,my daughter, who was six years
old at the time, was asking me,Daddy, what happened? How did it
happen? And I tried to explainto her, like the artery
situation and some soft plaquebroke off in a clot, but the
(09:34):
reality to be honest about whatwas bearing down on my heart was
all that black death that I wascovering as a reporter, but also
a long family history of gunviolence that has shaped us in
some pretty profound anddramatic ways that I had still
been relatively arms length withsome of these stories, until I
had to reckon with how I almostdied early.
Joshua Johnson (09:55):
For you as a journalist, I mean, you're
putting this on over and over.
Over and over again. But as youlay bare in your book, this is
happening to the black communityall the time, that the cost of
violence and gun violence inAmerica is weighing on people
over and over and over again,and it's crushing a community.
(10:15):
And one of the things that yousaid you wrote this book to lay
bare the cycles of violence, gunviolence in America, and the
seeming birthright violence ofblack people in America. I want
to just go into some of thathistory. Where did it start to
continue? When did it starts?
(10:36):
Because to me, I'd love to stopthese cycles of violence like I
want this finished. I want itdone, but we need to know where
it came from and what we'redealing with. What's the
history? So where did it start?
Where did it come from? Why dowe have these cycles of
violence?
Trymaine Lee (10:52):
Yeah, so it's a dynamic, complicated issue
that's also kind of simple atits very root. A lot of this is
born from anti blackness, andwhen we go back to the very
beginning, and this is one ofthe parts of the book that I had
to end up shrinking a littlebit, just because I could have
spent the whole, the whole 272pages speaking of the history of
how this country is bound to theour original sin of slavery. But
(11:16):
what many people don'tunderstand, because we've all
been taught in the same systemthat enslaved Africans were some
natural byproduct of wars thatwere happening on the continent
of Africa, and as labor needsgrew, that Europeans just
happened to take advantage ofthat, saying, Hey, you have all
these extra people. You know,here we here we are. But in
reality, the role of the gun wascentral. And as I mentioned, you
(11:40):
can't untether the trade ofhumans without engaging the
trade in guns. As gun technologywas rising across Europe,
regional powers were plyingAfrican leaders with guns to
foment more war, to create moreenslaved people. So these two
things were bound together. Theyweren't just a natural
byproduct. Slavery was not justsome natural byproduct of
(12:03):
surplus prisoners. It was thegun that was central to that.
And so as black people are beingpushed out of Mother Africa,
dragged out of Mother Africa,with the muzzle a gun at their
backs, here we are arriving inthe western world to a system
that, you know, it seemsromantic now, there were
plantations, and there were somegood ones and bad ones. We're
talking about concentrationcamps. We're talking about
(12:24):
national human traffickingrings. We're talking about the
rape and violence and pillage,as bad as we understand it to
be, magnify that by 20, 3040,and so even as we're arriving
and to maintain the system ofslavery, the violence was
central right, where white menwere required by law, in some
(12:45):
places to be armed in order topatrol the plantations. And they
call them slave patrols, theearlier, the earliest precursors
to the police department. And sothe dehumanization that we
experienced, and mind you, wethink in a spiritual sense, and
we think in a psychic sense,we're all bound to this. We're
all bound to this. It's not justthe rape victim that experiences
(13:06):
the pangs of rape. It's therapist forever bound to that.
And so this entire system heldtogether by great violence,
requiring the dehumanization ofpeople and the great
exploitation of not just thepeople, but also the land,
right? So again, this is allcapitalism is also bound, bound
within this. And it would alsotake the gun. And this is
(13:27):
whereas this is the dynamicswe're talking about here to free
enslaved people. A war andrebellion were fought for this.
But then, once again, duringReconstruction, after
emancipation, where there wasthis moment where we were
building a new nation of notjust a new black nation, but
American nation, where we upheldsome of the promises that were
laid out in the foundationaldocuments that was all stripped
(13:49):
away. And again, once again, wesaw as federal troops left the
south right and they let thesouth return back to its former
hierarchy and white society andwhite supremacists worked to
push black people as far backinto slavery as they could
despite those Reconstructionamendments that gave us
birthright citizenship and theright to black men the right to
(14:10):
vote, here we are once againwith the gun reshaping American
society, and so we go on fromthere, the migration black folks
fleeing the Violence of theSouth to arrive in the north
with the hope of opportunitiesand jobs, and there was some of
that, but it was also adifferent kind of white
supremacist primacy going on, adifferent kind of racism where
(14:32):
there wasn't the reliance onblack labor the way we saw in
the south, but black folks werepushed into slum conditions and
with red lines drawn aroundcommunities where they couldn't
get insurance to live outelsewhere, couldn't buy or sell
homes elsewhere. There weredeeds of covenants where home
sellers and home buyers agreedto never sell to a black person,
create and mind you, as you'reseeing millions of black people
(14:54):
flooding from the south over afew decades, here you are in the
north, in what will become theslum and get. Conditions and a
policing built around thatright. And so in these places
where there is disinvestment andthere is there is some
opportunity, but there's a broadlack of access to quality health
care and education and all thethings that continue, we see gun
violence permeating right. Andin a response to the civil
(15:17):
rights movement, one of the youknow, biggest responses that we
don't talk about is the moderngun rights movement, Brown
versus Board of Education. 1954after that moment, you see folks
tying the gun industry and gunownership to protection of
freedom and whiteness and so andwe start to get into the modern
space we are now. And so itbegins with the initial trade.
(15:39):
It begins with the slavery. Itbegins in the maintenance of
this system, and now we havethese Super Lethal tools in the
hands of folks who are alreadyscrapping for for hunger and
survival.
Joshua Johnson (15:51):
We're going to get into some some of these
things what we see in moderntoday. But I want to know how
did your family story intersectswith this, and how did it become
personal for you within yourfamily, and you're carrying the
weight of both the macro ofwhat's happening there, but also
in the micro and the personal inyour family.
Trymaine Lee (16:11):
So I want to, you know, jump forward and then jump
back a little bit. So when I,when I had my heart attack, I
was writing a book about thetrue cost of gun violence in
this country. So I thought tomyself, You know what? People
don't seem to care much aboutthe young man or woman who was
shot wherever, because there'ssome sort of innate criminality,
or any kind of mythology wecould paint around these folks,
and some folks were involved,whatever. But I said, You know
(16:32):
what? It's a little cynical, butmaybe they'll care that every
time a kid is paralyzed, we, theAmerican public, are paying
that. They don't often haveprivate insurance, right? Public
insurance, we're paying.
Insurance were paying for that.
There are all these costs ofbusinesses leaving communities
that are violent, homeownersdeciding to take their money and
tax dollars away fromcommunities that they deem
violent, let alone the cost of,you know, investigations and the
(16:55):
court hearings and incarceratingpeople. So writing a book called
Million Dollar bullets, right?
The heart attack happens. Mydaughter asked me these
questions, and I'm grapplingwith how I arrived at this
moment. And I started to thinkabout a bullet and a blood clot
or different things, but bothhave this ability to shake and
shatter a life. And so not onlydid I have to reckon with what
(17:17):
I've been carrying, the storiesthat I've been telling and not
fully addressing the trauma thatI the secondhand trauma that I
was getting from seeing thebodies, dealing with the
grieving families and beingyoung. So I'm trying to hang out
and I'm drinking and I'm I'mpouring myself more into work.
I'm doing everything but fullyacknowledging the weight that I
was carrying. And then I thinkabout my family's experiences
(17:39):
and how growing up, I alwaysknew that my grandfather was
murdered in 1976 big family. Mymother is one of eight children
that my grandparents had, andbig, beautiful family with a
big, gaping wound in it that hasnever healed, right? So I always
knew about that and how itshaped the way we were raised,
where my mother did not let usplay with toy guns. She didn't
(18:01):
like balloons popping. We werealways kind of it was always
there, the idea that life can betaken in an instant, violently.
But then in my research andtalking to family, the very
first time my family experiencedgun violence was in Jim Crow
Georgia in 1922 my greatgrandparents were tenant farmers
in Dodge County, Georgia. Mygrandmother was just a baby. Her
(18:26):
older brother was 12 years old,named Cornelius, and one day he
was sent off to run errands onhorseback, and he ended up being
shot and killed in a neighboringtown, which was a sundown town.
I always, and I'm, I'm a, youknow, history buff. I'm into
this to understand where we arenow. So I'm into this stuff. I
always thought, for some reason,that sundown towns were kind of
(18:47):
colloquial, like you just knewthey were. There were some bad
folks over there who do not wantblack people there. This place
of Fitzgerald in Ben HillCounty, Georgia, codified it in
the vote. They had all the localwhite laborers come together and
they posted signs. I foundnewspaper articles talking about
how this town posted signssaying tonight is seven o'clock
in town square, all the whitefolks of the town, white men of
(19:10):
this town, come in a vote toexpel the negroes, and they
voted to do just that. He getsshot and killed there. My family
soon thereafter joins the greatmigration, and they first go to
Philadelphia and then southJersey, where I end up being
raised. And in 1951 another ofmy grandmother's brothers was
shot and killed, this time by astate trooper and reading the
(19:31):
headlines from the newspaper,it's very reminiscent of the
Michael Browns of the world,right troopers, gun kills youth.
They end up in some struggleover a gun after he was stopped
at the car lot where he workedafter hours to think then that
my great grandparents had lostone son in the rural south, and
(19:53):
now they are in New Jerseydecades later with a specter of
violent. Still on their heels,they lose a second son, and in
talking to my uncles and aunts,who are still they were five and
six years old when thishappened, they're young. They
were young. They talk about howstoic my great grandfather was,
and the church that theyattended was packed with people
(20:15):
to pray, and for the first timein that church, my uncle said he
saw his grandfather weeping, andthey were praying that Jesus
would respond right, praying toGod. A few weeks after that,
this officer was killed in amotorcycle accident. Then after
that, in 1976 My grandfather wasmurdered. My grandparents had an
(20:37):
apartment in Camden, New Jersey,and they rented it out to they
were wanting it out to a guy.
The guy leaves a deposit.
Disappears for several weeks. Hecomes back, want his money back.
And my grandfather is like, youknow, I'll see you in court.
It's not refundable. That mancame back and shot and killed my
grandfather over $160 in 96decades later, my stepbrother
(20:58):
was shot and killed in Camden, agirl shot in the back of the
head, so on and on. My familyhas carried this psychic burden
and how it reshapes the way youraise children. It's not a
stolen innocence, but thereality of just how fragile life
can be on the edge of a bullet,whether it's a white supremacist
in Jim Crow Georgia, whetherit's a state trooper in the
north, whether it's communityviolence, a girl shooting and
(21:21):
killing my stepbrother time andagain, and it's also in telling
this story, two things keptcoming back. One that I exist. I
owe my life to an act ofviolence, because my grandmother
met my grandfather in New Jerseyafter they joined the migration.
And I think about thegrandmother that I knew to her
end years, she would say, I'mblessed by the best, right? She
(21:46):
was a Jesus, loving church,loving woman, sweet as cotton
candy, lovely woman. But Ididn't realize then, as a boy,
as a little boy, that she had tobury two brothers and a husband.
I can I still to this day, andwe've never had a conversation
my grandmother, she was just,she I just, it's hard for me to
even get my arms around theburden and grief that she
(22:10):
carried silently for all thoseyears.
Joshua Johnson (22:15):
Wow, wow. That brings me back all the way into
your acknowledgements at the endof your book, and you're talking
about your mother and yourmother, your mother speaking
identity over you, that you aresomebody that you have worth,
that you actually are not justsomebody that's pushed aside.
What does that do tocommunities, to combat some of
(22:35):
this fear and violence andrealizing the burden that that
would take on a community to saythat we're not safe, that there
is not a place that we could go,that we live in fear, but to
have somebody speak identityinto you and living that out.
How does that help? Yeah,society combat this violence.
Trymaine Lee (22:57):
That means everything. As we know, you can
have good seeds in imperfectsoil, and it makes it tough. And
if you're not careful, as ablack person in America, if you
listen to media, and I'm part ofit, if you listen to some
history, if you listen topoliticians, if you look around
(23:18):
some of our communities the waysome of us are living, the
abundance. Abundant lack and theneed and the fight at every turn
to be seen as full humans andfull citizens. If you're not
careful, you can pull thatwithin. You can internalize that
and think there's somethingwrong with you, and there ain't
nothing wrong with us, but thesystem and the machines around
(23:41):
us. And so when you breathe andtalk life and power and agency
over a child, for me, when mymother would get down on me
every single morning and say Iam and I say somebody, I walked
out the door as I'm somebody.
And to this day, any room I walkinto, I know I'm somebody, and
it's not because of the awards,is because of the love of my
(24:02):
family and love of community.
And so I move a littledifferently, right? I'm an
example of my people. I'm amongthe best of us, and we could all
move in that in that space,because there are systems around
us and trap doors set for us,including a gun industry that
plays on the fear of us, becausethat's what this is. You need to
arm yourself, because at somepoint somebody might be breaking
(24:25):
in. It looks like me, somebodymight be coming for your
daughter, and they're makingmoney off of that. So certainly
there is, there's an esteemissue amongst some of us, and so
put in certain positions, you'rescraping to survive, right? It
doesn't matter, right? You'rescraping survive. But I think so
this won't solve for everything,because, again, the machine is
that as it is. But I think whenwe feel empowered and we know
(24:48):
who we are, we cannot allowespecially white supremacists.
Everybody who is a racistdoesn't believe they're white
supremacists, even some of thatfriends and allies are white
supremacists. Right? Theybelieve there's something
inherently off with us, and I'mhere to say, ain't nothing wrong
with us. And so the power ofsaying I am somebody and I am
(25:09):
worthy, right? And I will moveaccordingly, and I'll make sure
I try my best to be the bestexample for myself and my
community, because I love myselfand my people, again, that
doesn't solve because the issuewith gun violence, and the way
we're impacted isn't because wehate ourselves, right? Sometimes
there is some self loathing thatwe got from America, right? We
were taught that some of us, butI think, I think it helps,
(25:31):
because then we can startactively working to untether
ourselves and untangle ourselvesfrom some of this madness.
Joshua Johnson (25:37):
A lot of times, people go, Okay, there's this is
one act of violence. We got totry to solve this issue
downstream to this one act ofviolence. But as you you look at
communities, you're seeingpoverty, hunger, sickness, toxic
environments, gun violence,mapping onto these same
neighborhoods that it isactually a part of it, a system
(25:58):
that's holding people into aplace where they're receiving
violence on multiple levels andmultiple things. What do we do?
And how do we move upstream andnot just try to solve these
little issues, but actually,like, what are the toxic things
that are really feeding thesystem that if maybe we could
(26:21):
get to those toxic things, maybethe dignity and respect and love
for all people might show up.
Trymaine Lee (26:29):
I think, as much as we are shocked by the
violence we see in this countryand we abhor the violence that
gun violence in particularinflicts on us every single day,
we have to see the systemic harmthat comes long before a bullet
is ever fired, also as aberrantviolence, right and destructive
violence, when you havecommunities where the only thing
(26:52):
they're training young people todo is turn down bed sheets if
you're in New Orleans orMemphis, or if your role in this
society is to fill a prison cellso that these poor white and
black guards can guard you likeoverseers. You're playing this
role in the cog when you see thelack of access to quality water
(27:12):
and food, which is one of thebiggest obscenities in this
country, that we have hungrychildren, it's an embarrassment
and a shame, right, that we haveschools who are relying on tax
on tax dollars to fund them, butpeople have been in generations
of renting because they can'town home because of their story.
They've never been able toaccumulate any wealth because we
(27:33):
were blocked from accumulatingwealth. Right until we address
those things, we're always goingto see this violence. Because
guess what, when you havecommunities where they are
healthy and there are goodpaychecks, and there are
parents, two parents there, whoare able to feed and pour into
their children without thestress and worry that they're
going to lose their life orlimb, those people aren't
getting shot and they're notshooting and so I think we have
(27:55):
to take seriously this notionthat there is violence inflicted
upon people that do great thegreat harm. But also, I think we
need to all we need to see thatwe're all connected to this.
We're all connected to this,that fear that you have in the
suburbs of some encroaching, youknow, mob, yeah, because you see
those hungry people over there,you see how you know, you see
how you know how precarioustheir lives are. And so I think
(28:19):
we need to take the violenceseriously, but also that we're
all connected in this. And if,if we all could thrive, we
shouldn't. We have this deficitbase. We have an as we should
have an asset based culture andsociety where we see the value
inherently in people, and thatwe all benefit from that. But as
of right now, because of the wayour society has been shaped, and
I say, in no small part, due tothe commodification of people
(28:40):
and resources, right? That wesee ourselves in this fight
alone, and if my family is doingdoing well, or my community or
my people, we all need to growtogether. I think we'd have a
healthier, happier community ora society.
Joshua Johnson (28:51):
If I'm looking at the big picture, it feels
very daunting, like I feeloverwhelmed, like nothing's
going to change. But if I lookat my at my community, if I look
at my neighbors and look at thepeople around me, there are some
things that we can do in our owncommunities, to to help in this
space. What What are steps to toto organize, to get together, to
(29:17):
say this community is going tobe a community of care and
belonging love for all of us.
We're going to combat thisviolence and all the violence,
the violence of poverty, theviolence of sickness, the
violence of these toxic systems.
What can we do on a micro levelin our communities to help build
(29:38):
this grassroots movement thatwill see some change.
Trymaine Lee (29:42):
I think the first thing is to get rid of this idea
that it has to be scaled. Ithink sometimes when we look at
the enormity of the issue andthe enormity of the hunger and
the enormity of the violence, itgets so big that it does feel
like a mountain that we couldnever traverse. But I think on
the micro community level, I. Ama big fan of mentorship, so I'm
(30:02):
a member of had been a member ofBig Brothers Big Sisters, and I
work closely with them. I wasjust inducted into the Big
Brothers Big Sisters Hall ofFame, which is one of the
greatest honors of my lifeoutside of journalism. How can
we take a young person and pourall of our knowledge and
resources and consistency andcare into in your community, and
this goes beyond race, it's raceand class, but specifically
(30:25):
young black boys and girls needand I think they benefit when
they're someone who looks justlike them, who's pouring into
them and loves them. But I don'tthink love has a color, right?
So I think we should be pouringinto young people in your
communities. Is it throughscouting? Is it through the
school? Is it through the BigBrothers, Big Sisters program?
Is there an opportunity tocreate in your small business an
(30:46):
internship or fellowship?
Because if we get young peopleearly on right, and they have
something that they want to holdon to, something to strive for,
something to lose, but they alsolook around and see that people
do love me and care about me,because we don't get that often,
right? We don't get that in ourcommunities, especially. Think
about young guys, especiallyyoung men today, and you see a
group of teenagers with thehoodies on, and again, I'm from
(31:08):
the 90s, we had fades. Theirhair is it's a lot of hair, and
it's the hood, it's like, and welump them into this, this group,
and it seems scary. Those boysneed love, right? And we're
losing so much potential becauseI've spent time talking
something, you'll be amazed atsome of them, right? It's like
this is and we're losing them,because no one is showing We're
all scared of them. The churchis scared of them. The business
(31:30):
are scared of them. Sometimestheir parents are scared that.
Sometimes the neighbors arescared of them. But if we can
get them young enough to showthat, that they are loved. And
so I think that's as micro asyou can get. But it doesn't take
a whole the whole you don't justsave the whole city. You know
what saving one young persondoes? That's a family line.
That's children who are gonna beraised the same way. That's
children who are gonna be loved.
(31:53):
Hopefully there's a goodpaycheck somewhere around the
corner for them so they can feedand go go on a vacation, take
the kids fishing, go to Martha'sVineyard, do whatever, but we
have to start, like with yourneighbor or your neighbor's
neighbor. You have to start in
Joshua Johnson (32:05):
the community.
And what you're talking about isyou're talking about a
generational mindset, ratherthan just a a right now mindset
that if we Yeah, one, if onechild comes up, grows up, you
see generations after that thatwill actually start to flourish,
and you're going to see somesome growth that we often don't
think multiple generations ofwhat's happening over and over.
(32:28):
And I think
Trymaine Lee (32:30):
when you when you see huge, especially like you
see it all over the world, but Ithink about like in the Middle
East, an olive tree that hasbeen there for 800 years, and
people have been eating off thatolive tree, right? Or some
citrus in California somewhere.
When you plant that seed, youmight not be around when it
finally bears fruit, right? Youmight not be around, but you
(32:51):
plant that seed anyway for thegenerations to feed all that
after you. And so that's thethat's the mentality
Joshua Johnson (32:59):
you've also talked about, how your job isn't
just to tell stories of death,but also of black joy and
resistance. So what does Blackjoy look like in the face of so
much violence today?
Trymaine Lee (33:11):
I think there, and this is can be a nebulous term,
but when you see black peoplewho are truly free and that
they're not many of us who aretruly free, but when you're free
to be yourself and chase yourgoals, and I love when it's
manifested in again, I like tofish. So I love some country
stuff. I love when I see blackfolks out here camping and
hiking, fishing. I love to see ageneration of young people who
(33:34):
are traveling together andthey're enjoying the world. I
think those of us who came upcertainly before, you know, I
was born in 1978 so I'm like inthe 80s and 90s. There were so
many precarious times. The waron the end of the Vietnam War is
rolling into this in theripples, and then the drug wars
and the war on poverty, and thenwe were dealing with it felt
(33:55):
like you couldn't move right tosee young people harnessing
their dreams in that way, andmoving through the world, how
you move through the world, notletting anything stop you, to
where you're going to eat, whereyou're going to go travel, what
you're going to do out in thewoods. I love that. And because
there's a, there's a, you know,a nation building spirit within
us, where even when times weretough, because again, we're we
(34:18):
see this with this currentadministration, a dialing back
of progress, a dialing back ofacknowledging history, a dialing
back on freedoms of all kinds ofpeople. And we're no strangers
to that. And so in some ways,that black joy comes from when
we were coming out of thoseviolent 1920s right? And the
bloody summer, the red summer,the red summer, when we're going
(34:41):
through the Civil RightsMovement, we were still creating
music and memories and cultureand artistry and politicians
trying to be voices for that. Wewere still doing that black
newspapers were popping up,telling stories, not just of the
progress, but also that MissJohnson had a dinner party,
right? Like, how do we. Embodythe fullness. And so there are
many moments like that when Ijust I love, especially with
(35:04):
with young folks today. I loveto see them unafraid to be
themselves
Joshua Johnson (35:08):
growing up. I know that's you know, some
things were kind of important toyou, that you got opportunities
for schooling. You gotopportunities. You were able to
be in the scouts. You're able toplay basketball, football.
You're being in thesecommunities and teams with
mentors and people pouring intoyou. How did that start to shape
(35:31):
the way that you start to thinkand view and see the world and
see black life in America?
Trymaine Lee (35:36):
Yeah. Well, first of all, you read the book. I
could tell you read the book. Soevery everybody doesn't always
read a book. So thank you. Ireally, really, honestly
appreciate that in 1990 inseventh grade, I had the
privilege and opportunity to goto the Milton Hershey School.
And for those who you knowaren't familiar, the Milton
Hershey School was founded in1909 by Milton and Katherine
(35:57):
Hershey, the chocolate magnates.
They couldn't have children oftheir own. So they started a
school for poor white orphans,okay, poor white orphans in
Dauphin County, Hershey,Pennsylvania. It was clear they
started with like a handful ofboys. Over the years, things
changed and evolved, and theystarted admitting people of
color and girls. It's therichest school in the country
with an $18 billion endowment,but you have to be poor to get
(36:19):
into it, right? You have to beneeding to get to get into it.
And so by the time I got toseventh grade, I'd already been,
like, gifted, talented programs,and I was always already
writing, and I was already kindof on my way and playing sports.
But I was in a household with astepfather who was battling with
addiction. He ended up beingincarcerated. There was just a
lot going on. My mother, who Ito this day, is like my favorite
(36:39):
person, like, I love my motheris the kindest, warmest, most
loving person in the world. Dideverything she could, and in
trying to do that, she got meenrolled in the Military School,
which changed everything for me.
Going to that school, I had allthis potential, but things were
still kind of in flux. You know,any there were any number of
directions in my life could havegone after that, but going to
(37:01):
the mount Hershey School, beingable to be in the scouting
program, they had free clothing,everything. Everything was
completely free. It took theburden off my mother, but also I
was around a bunch of folks, noteveryone, but a bunch of people
who truly did care about me,coaches and teachers who saw
something in me and nurture thatI can remember early on being
(37:23):
part of the model airplane club.
I'm like, I'm out here, and wewere, we've spent our study hall
building these huge remotecontrol airplanes, and we'd be
in there to a mixed group ofkids in there. We're diffuse a
lot. And we're like, puttingthis, it was a and we all flew.
When I flew it, it's like, whereI would have never when I was a
kid, my mother had to work, Iwould come home by myself. From
the time I was probably insecond grade, which is hard to
(37:44):
imagine, because my daughter's13, and she can't go out the
door by herself, right? Butsecond third grade, I was
walking to school by myself. Iwas coming home as a latchkey
kid. Food would be on the oven.
I'll be by myself for hours domy homework, right? I would so
we so there was no time forsports and all this other stuff,
but to be at the Milton HersheySchool that freedom we talked
(38:05):
about. So I'm arriving therefeeling good about myself, and
now I have the resources andopportunities, and now there are
a bunch of adults. So my familypoured a bunch of love into me.
Now I'm around other adults whoare pouring consistency and
academics, and it was just Iremember my my English teacher,
coach. He was my coach, too.
Coach Bueller. I write a, youknow, poetry for class, and he
had me come into the other classand read it like that kind of
(38:26):
confidence. Oh, man, immense.
Everything to this day, I owe adebt of gratitude to the Milton
Hershey School and and I knowwhat those kids are going
through, coming fromcommunities. And it's also half
black, well, half white, Ishould say, half white, have
black, Hispanic, Asian. So it'sthis mixed group of kids coming
from all over Pennsylvania, NewYork, New Jersey and the
(38:47):
country. And the work that theydo is just amazing. So I owe
such a debt to that school
Joshua Johnson (38:53):
that's beautiful. You know, Tremaine,
this book, 1000 ways to die, Ithink, is just incredibly
written. It's a important bookthat I hope a lot of people
read, and we actually then takein the enormity and the cost of
what this is after reading thisbook, and there's I mean for me,
either I could becomeimmobilized because it's too
(39:15):
much, it's too much to bear, orI could actually just galvanize
within my community and say,Hey, enough is enough. Like
we're done with this. We'regoing to stop these cycles of
violence. And so I really dohope that people just stay in
their community, stop thesecycles of violence pour into all
people in their communities. Soit's a great book. So if you
(39:38):
just talk to your readers andthe people who pick this up.
What hope do you have for thisbook? What do you want this book
to do for the world?
Trymaine Lee (39:45):
I think certainly this book is heavy. We're
grappling with the, you know,the serious nature of violence
in this in this country and inthe community, right, and in
historic violence. But it's alsoabout great love, and this is
why the violence hurts so. Much,because young people should have
the opportunities to grow up incommunities filled with love and
not violence. Parents shouldn'tworry about burying their kids,
(40:08):
right? All the potential thatwe're losing because of
violence, all the economic coststhat we're willing to pay while
an entire industry is gettingrich off the bloodshed, right?
And these guns never disappear,right? But this is about
planting the seeds for thatfruit tree to bear fruit right
and bear nutrition andsustenance, emotional,
(40:29):
spiritual, psychic sustenancefor the generation behind us.
And so I think as heavy as thebook is, it's 1000 ways to die.
There are also 1000 ways tolive, right, and to pour into
each other and love ourneighbors, right? And nothing
stops a bullet, like a paycheckand love, right, and
opportunity. And so I just, Ihope that's what folks take
(40:50):
away. I think sometimes, youknow, this isn't a book that's
prescriptive, so I don't haveall the answers, but I want to
name a thing. I'll put a name ontrauma, a name on the violence,
right? Put a name on it. Shine alight in that dark spot, so
people know what it is thatthere's nothing inherently wrong
with that young man. There isnothing wrong with that young
man. This experience is whatshapes how he moves through this
(41:10):
world. And so we can startdisrupt that and show some love.
I hope that's what our readerstake away.
Joshua Johnson (41:15):
I hope so too.
Two really quick questions atthe end here. One, if you go
back to your 21 year old self,what advice would you
Trymaine Lee (41:22):
give? Oh, man, keep going. Keep going. You got
this. There's, you know, therethey're going to be some
stumbling bucks. It's like Ijoke with my mother. We say all
the time. You know, life of mehave been no crystal stairs. So
at 21 looking at Hey, man, lifeain't, life ain't no crystal
stairs, man, but you stick withit, and you got this.
Joshua Johnson (41:39):
That's great.
Anything you've been reading orwatching lately, you could
recommend the
Trymaine Lee (41:44):
one, the one book that I read about a month ago is
called James by PercivalEverett. It won a Pulitzer Prize
this year. It's a retelling ofthe story of Huck Finn, right
Mark Twain's Huck Finn, whereyou had N word James in the
original book here, put somerespect on his name. His name is
James. And it gives thisinteriority of a black man in
that time. And you go throughsome of the same adventures. But
(42:06):
it's the agency that we neveragency and respect that we never
gave N word Jim. His name isJames. So I love that book. So
I've been telling everybody,
Joshua Johnson (42:14):
read that book.
It's so good. It's so good. Ilove it. Great. Recommendation.
1000 ways to die is out anywherebooks are sold. So you could go
out and get that Tremaine Isthere anywhere you'd like to
point people to how could theyconnect with what you're doing?
Trymaine Lee (42:27):
The one thing I would go to tremainely.com I'll
have my tour dates. Everything'sup there. I would go to
bookshop.org support local, youknow, bookstores, black owned
bookstores, or just localbookstores, small, small mom and
pop shops. They need us. Sosupport them, and that's it.
Thank you all very much. Ireally appreciate
Joshua Johnson (42:43):
it. All right.
Tremaine, thank you so much forthis conversation. It was
illuminating. It was also heavy,knowing the systems that
actually produce so muchviolence in our country in a
myriad of ways, but also thereis some hope that we could
continue to move forward andbreak these cycles of violence.
So thank you so much. It was afantastic conversation.
Trymaine Lee (43:04):
Joshua, thank you for having me. Appreciate it.
Unknown (43:20):
You.
And this is why the violence hurts so much,
because young people should havethe opportunities to grow up in
communities filled with love andnot violence. Parents shouldn't
worry about burying their kids,right? All the potential that
we're losing because ofviolence, all the economic costs
that we're willing to pay whilean entire industry is getting
rich off the bloodshed, right?
And these guns never disappear,right? But this is about
(00:22):
planting the seeds for thatfruit tree to bear fruit, right,
and bear nutrition andsustenance, emotional,
spiritual, psychic sustenancefor the generation behind us.
Unknown (00:42):
You Hello
Joshua Johnson (00:48):
and welcome to the shifting culture podcast in
which we have conversationsabout the culture we create and
the impact we can make. I'm yourhost. Joshua Johnson, today I
sit down with Pulitzer Prizewinning journalist Tremaine Lee
to talk about the true cost ofviolence on black life in
America. Tremaine has spentyears documenting the lives lost
in communities reshaped bygunfire, poverty and systemic
(01:10):
neglect. He's described himselfas a griot of black survival and
death, a storyteller carryingout not only the weight of
individual tragedies, but thehistory and the structures that
make those tragedies inevitable,that work nearly broke him at 38
Tremaine suffered a sudden heartattack, the kind doctors call a
Widowmaker. It forced him toconfront how much of that
(01:32):
trauma, grief and generationalviolence he'd been carrying in
his own body. Out of thatreckoning came his new book,
1000 ways to die, a sweepinghistory that ties slavery,
systemic racism, disinvestmentand mass incarceration into the
cycles of violence we see today.
But this conversation isn't onlyabout death. It's also about
survival, about Black joy, aboutthe power of family and
(01:55):
mentorship to interrupt thecycle. Here, he reminds us that
we can't just focus downstreamon each violent act. We have to
look upstream at the systems ofpoverty, sickness and neglect
that make violence so pervasive.
This is a heavy conversation,but it's also a hopeful one,
because, as Tremaine says, theremay be 1000 ways to die, but
(02:17):
there are also 1000 ways tolive, and if we choose to invest
in one another, we can plantseeds of resilience and love
that Outlast generations. Sojoin us. Here is my conversation
with Tremaine. Lee Tremaine,welcome to shifting culture.
It's an honor to have you onthanks for joining me. The
pleasure is all mine. Joshua,thank you for having me. Yeah,
(02:39):
you know this heart attack thatyou had at the age of 38 it's a
powerful start to your the storyyou're telling and the aftermath
of the conversation you had withyour daughter, Nola. Take me
into that moment and take me onto the what was happening for
you. What did you realize thatwas put on you, that this heart
attack came about?
Trymaine Lee (03:00):
Yeah, so I was 38 years old when this heart attack
happened to me. I had no warningsigns, no family history for a
few days before that day, when Iwas walking to the subway, I
felt a little pressure in mychest. And the actual day it
happened, I was going down tomeet a colleague for coffee, and
I had to stop myself, and Isaid, If I don't sit down now
(03:20):
I'm gonna pass out. I just feltthis. Something felt really off.
And so I went to the healthclinic at my job, and I go in
there, they take a look at me,you know, they put a little EKG
on my heart, and said, You knowwhat, the left side of your
heart is a little enlarged, but,you know, at some point, go see
a cardiologist. And then shesaid, I'll never forget these
words. I can still hear themtoday. She said, Don't worry,
(03:42):
it's not even like you're gonnadrop dead tonight or tomorrow.
So I go home, my wife iscleaning the bedroom, so I lay
down on the sofa. She wakes meup around three in the morning,
and as I lay down, and maybefive minutes later, I feel like
this volleyball or beach ballexpanding in my chest, the world
is spinning. I'm nauseated, I'msweating, and I don't think I
(04:05):
realized that it was deathcrushing down on me in that
moment, but I definitely feltlike I was trans. I was
something dramatic washappening. I mean, I had never
felt that feeling before, andthen I remember my wife standing
in the doorway looking at me onthe phone, calling 911, and
(04:25):
maybe 15 minutes later, theparamedics arrive, and at that
point it had passed. The worstof that nauseated, washed and
sweat, world spinning feelinghad passed. And the EMTs come in
and they check my bloodpressure. They say, your vitals
look good. Do you want to go tothe hospital? They're asking me.
And in that moment, I didsomething that so many of us do,
(04:46):
and I think as men, especially,my daughter, had camp the next
morning, my wife was supposed totravel the next day for work,
and I didn't want to burdeneveryone with sitting in the
hospital with me all night, notrealizing that I. A heart
attack. And the majority ofpeople who die from a heart
attack die within that firsthour after it happens. And so
all night long, I'm tossing andturning, and then in the
(05:09):
morning, we drop my daughter offat camp, I go into urgent care
and I tell them, I say, Hey,I've had this it's like, go to
the hospital now. Like, get outof here and go to the hospital.
Mind you, we're at around 9am atthis point, six hours later, we
go to the hospital. Anothercouple hours of you're young,
healthy, we're not sure, untilfinally, around five o'clock,
(05:32):
5pm they do a blood test, andthey find a troponin, which is a
compound release when there'sheart damage. They said, I think
you might have had a heartattack, but it still doesn't
even end there. They're like,okay, don't eat anything
tomorrow. Tomorrow, thecardiologist will see you, and
we're gonna get you in the cathlab. By the grace of the grace
of God, my cardiologist, who wasstill my cardiologist today,
(05:55):
said, You know what, let's gethim in here now. So we go into
the cath lab. He's threading thecatheter in my my vein, in my
wrist, and there's a big screenover my shoulder, so I'm laying
down. He's threading the thingthrough my my artery, my one
vein, and he's tooling around,and then he pulls it out and
says, Uh, where's your wife? AndI was like, she's out there.
(06:16):
He's like, You are a very luckyman. He's like, you had a heart
attack. You had a blood clot inyour left anterior descending
artery. That's a widow maker. Weput two stents in your in the
vein to clear it, and in thatmoment, the biggest smile came
across my face, because I almostdied, but I didn't. So I had
this moment of like, thiselation that I survived the next
(06:40):
day, my mother, my brother, mysister, everyone comes up and
we're in the hospital room, andI made a joke to my wife. I
said, you almost became athousandaire, right? Joking that
she would have to collect deathbenefits. And then it was like I
was laughing, and I was like, ohmy goodness, my wife almost had
to collect death death benefitsfor me. And I broke down in
(07:01):
tears, sobbing in my mother'sarms like a baby, because I'm a
journalist who has covered theintersection of race and power
and violence and politics. For avery long time, I felt I
understood death in a certainkind of way, but until death
comes upon you in a certain acertain fashion. It walks upon
(07:23):
you the way it walked up on me.
It changed. It changed a lot forme, including a book I was
writing on violence at the time.
But it changed everything.
Joshua Johnson (07:30):
I mean, you've described yourself as a griot of
black survival and death. Sowhat does that mean, bearing
that mantle and bearing thatburden of being the storyteller
that tells the story of blacksurvival and death.
Trymaine Lee (07:44):
Yeah, no, that's a weight that for me, I've always
felt like it was my North Starand my mission. I'm here to
shine light in dark spaces. I'mhere to humanize community. I'm
here to amplify and live voicesthat are often overlooked, and
when it comes to reporting onBlack Death and survival, I can
(08:04):
remember as a very youngreporter on the streets of
Philadelphia and New Orleans,and I used to have in my desk in
my office, I'd have, like, thepolice scanner over my shoulder,
so I would hear certain codes,and I would run out to the
scene, and certain codes meant,you know, death or violence or
shooting, and I would get out tothe crime scene, and I would
find a young black man oftenthat looked just like me, like
(08:27):
when I'm not at work and I'm instreet clothes. We're wearing
the same sneakers, we're wearingthe same jeans, and it was
almost like a Groundhog's Dayexperience of experience people
that look just like it's likedying 1000 deaths over and over
again, but it also there werethese moments, these tender
moments of capturing the lastmoments of people's lives or
(08:48):
their memories of their family,even in that grief, being able
to again, I hate that. I have tohumanize people, but humanizing
black people, especiallydelivering that humanity for
them. And so it's a burden tobear. But also, until my heart
attack, I didn't fullyunderstand how I was carrying
and packing all of those momentsinside of me until it manifested
(09:10):
physically. So that violencethat I was capturing, and all
that death and survival and nearmisses came down on me in a way
that changed me, in a way, inthe way I thought about this.
Because after my heart attack,my daughter, who was six years
old at the time, was asking me,Daddy, what happened? How did it
happen? And I tried to explainto her, like the artery
situation and some soft plaquebroke off in a clot, but the
(09:34):
reality to be honest about whatwas bearing down on my heart was
all that black death that I wascovering as a reporter, but also
a long family history of gunviolence that has shaped us in
some pretty profound anddramatic ways that I had still
been relatively arms length withsome of these stories, until I
had to reckon with how I almostdied early.
Joshua Johnson (09:55):
For you as a journalist, I mean, you're
putting this on over and over.
Over and over again. But as youlay bare in your book, this is
happening to the black communityall the time, that the cost of
violence and gun violence inAmerica is weighing on people
over and over and over again,and it's crushing a community.
(10:15):
And one of the things that yousaid you wrote this book to lay
bare the cycles of violence, gunviolence in America, and the
seeming birthright violence ofblack people in America. I want
to just go into some of thathistory. Where did it start to
continue? When did it starts?
(10:36):
Because to me, I'd love to stopthese cycles of violence like I
want this finished. I want itdone, but we need to know where
it came from and what we'redealing with. What's the
history? So where did it start?
Where did it come from? Why dowe have these cycles of
violence?
Trymaine Lee (10:52):
Yeah, so it's a dynamic, complicated issue
that's also kind of simple atits very root. A lot of this is
born from anti blackness, andwhen we go back to the very
beginning, and this is one ofthe parts of the book that I had
to end up shrinking a littlebit, just because I could have
spent the whole, the whole 272pages speaking of the history of
how this country is bound to theour original sin of slavery. But
(11:16):
what many people don'tunderstand, because we've all
been taught in the same systemthat enslaved Africans were some
natural byproduct of wars thatwere happening on the continent
of Africa, and as labor needsgrew, that Europeans just
happened to take advantage ofthat, saying, Hey, you have all
these extra people. You know,here we here we are. But in
reality, the role of the gun wascentral. And as I mentioned, you
(11:40):
can't untether the trade ofhumans without engaging the
trade in guns. As gun technologywas rising across Europe,
regional powers were plyingAfrican leaders with guns to
foment more war, to create moreenslaved people. So these two
things were bound together. Theyweren't just a natural
byproduct. Slavery was not justsome natural byproduct of
(12:03):
surplus prisoners. It was thegun that was central to that.
And so as black people are beingpushed out of Mother Africa,
dragged out of Mother Africa,with the muzzle a gun at their
backs, here we are arriving inthe western world to a system
that, you know, it seemsromantic now, there were
plantations, and there were somegood ones and bad ones. We're
talking about concentrationcamps. We're talking about
(12:24):
national human traffickingrings. We're talking about the
rape and violence and pillage,as bad as we understand it to
be, magnify that by 20, 3040,and so even as we're arriving
and to maintain the system ofslavery, the violence was
central right, where white menwere required by law, in some
(12:45):
places to be armed in order topatrol the plantations. And they
call them slave patrols, theearlier, the earliest precursors
to the police department. And sothe dehumanization that we
experienced, and mind you, wethink in a spiritual sense, and
we think in a psychic sense,we're all bound to this. We're
all bound to this. It's not justthe rape victim that experiences
(13:06):
the pangs of rape. It's therapist forever bound to that.
And so this entire system heldtogether by great violence,
requiring the dehumanization ofpeople and the great
exploitation of not just thepeople, but also the land,
right? So again, this is allcapitalism is also bound, bound
within this. And it would alsotake the gun. And this is
(13:27):
whereas this is the dynamicswe're talking about here to free
enslaved people. A war andrebellion were fought for this.
But then, once again, duringReconstruction, after
emancipation, where there wasthis moment where we were
building a new nation of notjust a new black nation, but
American nation, where we upheldsome of the promises that were
laid out in the foundationaldocuments that was all stripped
(13:49):
away. And again, once again, wesaw as federal troops left the
south right and they let thesouth return back to its former
hierarchy and white society andwhite supremacists worked to
push black people as far backinto slavery as they could
despite those Reconstructionamendments that gave us
birthright citizenship and theright to black men the right to
(14:10):
vote, here we are once againwith the gun reshaping American
society, and so we go on fromthere, the migration black folks
fleeing the Violence of theSouth to arrive in the north
with the hope of opportunitiesand jobs, and there was some of
that, but it was also adifferent kind of white
supremacist primacy going on, adifferent kind of racism where
(14:32):
there wasn't the reliance onblack labor the way we saw in
the south, but black folks werepushed into slum conditions and
with red lines drawn aroundcommunities where they couldn't
get insurance to live outelsewhere, couldn't buy or sell
homes elsewhere. There weredeeds of covenants where home
sellers and home buyers agreedto never sell to a black person,
create and mind you, as you'reseeing millions of black people
(14:54):
flooding from the south over afew decades, here you are in the
north, in what will become theslum and get. Conditions and a
policing built around thatright. And so in these places
where there is disinvestment andthere is there is some
opportunity, but there's a broadlack of access to quality health
care and education and all thethings that continue, we see gun
violence permeating right. Andin a response to the civil
(15:17):
rights movement, one of the youknow, biggest responses that we
don't talk about is the moderngun rights movement, Brown
versus Board of Education. 1954after that moment, you see folks
tying the gun industry and gunownership to protection of
freedom and whiteness and so andwe start to get into the modern
space we are now. And so itbegins with the initial trade.
(15:39):
It begins with the slavery. Itbegins in the maintenance of
this system, and now we havethese Super Lethal tools in the
hands of folks who are alreadyscrapping for for hunger and
survival.
Joshua Johnson (15:51):
We're going to get into some some of these
things what we see in moderntoday. But I want to know how
did your family story intersectswith this, and how did it become
personal for you within yourfamily, and you're carrying the
weight of both the macro ofwhat's happening there, but also
in the micro and the personal inyour family.
Trymaine Lee (16:11):
So I want to, you know, jump forward and then jump
back a little bit. So when I,when I had my heart attack, I
was writing a book about thetrue cost of gun violence in
this country. So I thought tomyself, You know what? People
don't seem to care much aboutthe young man or woman who was
shot wherever, because there'ssome sort of innate criminality,
or any kind of mythology wecould paint around these folks,
and some folks were involved,whatever. But I said, You know
(16:32):
what? It's a little cynical, butmaybe they'll care that every
time a kid is paralyzed, we, theAmerican public, are paying
that. They don't often haveprivate insurance, right? Public
insurance, we're paying.
Insurance were paying for that.
There are all these costs ofbusinesses leaving communities
that are violent, homeownersdeciding to take their money and
tax dollars away fromcommunities that they deem
violent, let alone the cost of,you know, investigations and the
(16:55):
court hearings and incarceratingpeople. So writing a book called
Million Dollar bullets, right?
The heart attack happens. Mydaughter asked me these
questions, and I'm grapplingwith how I arrived at this
moment. And I started to thinkabout a bullet and a blood clot
or different things, but bothhave this ability to shake and
shatter a life. And so not onlydid I have to reckon with what
(17:17):
I've been carrying, the storiesthat I've been telling and not
fully addressing the trauma thatI the secondhand trauma that I
was getting from seeing thebodies, dealing with the
grieving families and beingyoung. So I'm trying to hang out
and I'm drinking and I'm I'mpouring myself more into work.
I'm doing everything but fullyacknowledging the weight that I
was carrying. And then I thinkabout my family's experiences
(17:39):
and how growing up, I alwaysknew that my grandfather was
murdered in 1976 big family. Mymother is one of eight children
that my grandparents had, andbig, beautiful family with a
big, gaping wound in it that hasnever healed, right? So I always
knew about that and how itshaped the way we were raised,
where my mother did not let usplay with toy guns. She didn't
(18:01):
like balloons popping. We werealways kind of it was always
there, the idea that life can betaken in an instant, violently.
But then in my research andtalking to family, the very
first time my family experiencedgun violence was in Jim Crow
Georgia in 1922 my greatgrandparents were tenant farmers
in Dodge County, Georgia. Mygrandmother was just a baby. Her
(18:26):
older brother was 12 years old,named Cornelius, and one day he
was sent off to run errands onhorseback, and he ended up being
shot and killed in a neighboringtown, which was a sundown town.
I always, and I'm, I'm a, youknow, history buff. I'm into
this to understand where we arenow. So I'm into this stuff. I
always thought, for some reason,that sundown towns were kind of
(18:47):
colloquial, like you just knewthey were. There were some bad
folks over there who do not wantblack people there. This place
of Fitzgerald in Ben HillCounty, Georgia, codified it in
the vote. They had all the localwhite laborers come together and
they posted signs. I foundnewspaper articles talking about
how this town posted signssaying tonight is seven o'clock
in town square, all the whitefolks of the town, white men of
(19:10):
this town, come in a vote toexpel the negroes, and they
voted to do just that. He getsshot and killed there. My family
soon thereafter joins the greatmigration, and they first go to
Philadelphia and then southJersey, where I end up being
raised. And in 1951 another ofmy grandmother's brothers was
shot and killed, this time by astate trooper and reading the
(19:31):
headlines from the newspaper,it's very reminiscent of the
Michael Browns of the world,right troopers, gun kills youth.
They end up in some struggleover a gun after he was stopped
at the car lot where he workedafter hours to think then that
my great grandparents had lostone son in the rural south, and
(19:53):
now they are in New Jerseydecades later with a specter of
violent. Still on their heels,they lose a second son, and in
talking to my uncles and aunts,who are still they were five and
six years old when thishappened, they're young. They
were young. They talk about howstoic my great grandfather was,
and the church that theyattended was packed with people
(20:15):
to pray, and for the first timein that church, my uncle said he
saw his grandfather weeping, andthey were praying that Jesus
would respond right, praying toGod. A few weeks after that,
this officer was killed in amotorcycle accident. Then after
that, in 1976 My grandfather wasmurdered. My grandparents had an
(20:37):
apartment in Camden, New Jersey,and they rented it out to they
were wanting it out to a guy.
The guy leaves a deposit.
Disappears for several weeks. Hecomes back, want his money back.
And my grandfather is like, youknow, I'll see you in court.
It's not refundable. That mancame back and shot and killed my
grandfather over $160 in 96decades later, my stepbrother
(20:58):
was shot and killed in Camden, agirl shot in the back of the
head, so on and on. My familyhas carried this psychic burden
and how it reshapes the way youraise children. It's not a
stolen innocence, but thereality of just how fragile life
can be on the edge of a bullet,whether it's a white supremacist
in Jim Crow Georgia, whetherit's a state trooper in the
north, whether it's communityviolence, a girl shooting and
(21:21):
killing my stepbrother time andagain, and it's also in telling
this story, two things keptcoming back. One that I exist. I
owe my life to an act ofviolence, because my grandmother
met my grandfather in New Jerseyafter they joined the migration.
And I think about thegrandmother that I knew to her
end years, she would say, I'mblessed by the best, right? She
(21:46):
was a Jesus, loving church,loving woman, sweet as cotton
candy, lovely woman. But Ididn't realize then, as a boy,
as a little boy, that she had tobury two brothers and a husband.
I can I still to this day, andwe've never had a conversation
my grandmother, she was just,she I just, it's hard for me to
even get my arms around theburden and grief that she
(22:10):
carried silently for all thoseyears.
Joshua Johnson (22:15):
Wow, wow. That brings me back all the way into
your acknowledgements at the endof your book, and you're talking
about your mother and yourmother, your mother speaking
identity over you, that you aresomebody that you have worth,
that you actually are not justsomebody that's pushed aside.
What does that do tocommunities, to combat some of
(22:35):
this fear and violence andrealizing the burden that that
would take on a community to saythat we're not safe, that there
is not a place that we could go,that we live in fear, but to
have somebody speak identityinto you and living that out.
How does that help? Yeah,society combat this violence.
Trymaine Lee (22:57):
That means everything. As we know, you can
have good seeds in imperfectsoil, and it makes it tough. And
if you're not careful, as ablack person in America, if you
listen to media, and I'm part ofit, if you listen to some
history, if you listen topoliticians, if you look around
(23:18):
some of our communities the waysome of us are living, the
abundance. Abundant lack and theneed and the fight at every turn
to be seen as full humans andfull citizens. If you're not
careful, you can pull thatwithin. You can internalize that
and think there's somethingwrong with you, and there ain't
nothing wrong with us, but thesystem and the machines around
(23:41):
us. And so when you breathe andtalk life and power and agency
over a child, for me, when mymother would get down on me
every single morning and say Iam and I say somebody, I walked
out the door as I'm somebody.
And to this day, any room I walkinto, I know I'm somebody, and
it's not because of the awards,is because of the love of my
(24:02):
family and love of community.
And so I move a littledifferently, right? I'm an
example of my people. I'm amongthe best of us, and we could all
move in that in that space,because there are systems around
us and trap doors set for us,including a gun industry that
plays on the fear of us, becausethat's what this is. You need to
arm yourself, because at somepoint somebody might be breaking
(24:25):
in. It looks like me, somebodymight be coming for your
daughter, and they're makingmoney off of that. So certainly
there is, there's an esteemissue amongst some of us, and so
put in certain positions, you'rescraping to survive, right? It
doesn't matter, right? You'rescraping survive. But I think so
this won't solve for everything,because, again, the machine is
that as it is. But I think whenwe feel empowered and we know
(24:48):
who we are, we cannot allowespecially white supremacists.
Everybody who is a racistdoesn't believe they're white
supremacists, even some of thatfriends and allies are white
supremacists. Right? Theybelieve there's something
inherently off with us, and I'mhere to say, ain't nothing wrong
with us. And so the power ofsaying I am somebody and I am
(25:09):
worthy, right? And I will moveaccordingly, and I'll make sure
I try my best to be the bestexample for myself and my
community, because I love myselfand my people, again, that
doesn't solve because the issuewith gun violence, and the way
we're impacted isn't because wehate ourselves, right? Sometimes
there is some self loathing thatwe got from America, right? We
were taught that some of us, butI think, I think it helps,
(25:31):
because then we can startactively working to untether
ourselves and untangle ourselvesfrom some of this madness.
Joshua Johnson (25:37):
A lot of times, people go, Okay, there's this is
one act of violence. We got totry to solve this issue
downstream to this one act ofviolence. But as you you look at
communities, you're seeingpoverty, hunger, sickness, toxic
environments, gun violence,mapping onto these same
neighborhoods that it isactually a part of it, a system
(25:58):
that's holding people into aplace where they're receiving
violence on multiple levels andmultiple things. What do we do?
And how do we move upstream andnot just try to solve these
little issues, but actually,like, what are the toxic things
that are really feeding thesystem that if maybe we could
(26:21):
get to those toxic things, maybethe dignity and respect and love
for all people might show up.
Trymaine Lee (26:29):
I think, as much as we are shocked by the
violence we see in this countryand we abhor the violence that
gun violence in particularinflicts on us every single day,
we have to see the systemic harmthat comes long before a bullet
is ever fired, also as aberrantviolence, right and destructive
violence, when you havecommunities where the only thing
(26:52):
they're training young people todo is turn down bed sheets if
you're in New Orleans orMemphis, or if your role in this
society is to fill a prison cellso that these poor white and
black guards can guard you likeoverseers. You're playing this
role in the cog when you see thelack of access to quality water
(27:12):
and food, which is one of thebiggest obscenities in this
country, that we have hungrychildren, it's an embarrassment
and a shame, right, that we haveschools who are relying on tax
on tax dollars to fund them, butpeople have been in generations
of renting because they can'town home because of their story.
They've never been able toaccumulate any wealth because we
(27:33):
were blocked from accumulatingwealth. Right until we address
those things, we're always goingto see this violence. Because
guess what, when you havecommunities where they are
healthy and there are goodpaychecks, and there are
parents, two parents there, whoare able to feed and pour into
their children without thestress and worry that they're
going to lose their life orlimb, those people aren't
getting shot and they're notshooting and so I think we have
(27:55):
to take seriously this notionthat there is violence inflicted
upon people that do great thegreat harm. But also, I think we
need to all we need to see thatwe're all connected to this.
We're all connected to this,that fear that you have in the
suburbs of some encroaching, youknow, mob, yeah, because you see
those hungry people over there,you see how you know, you see
how you know how precarioustheir lives are. And so I think
(28:19):
we need to take the violenceseriously, but also that we're
all connected in this. And if,if we all could thrive, we
shouldn't. We have this deficitbase. We have an as we should
have an asset based culture andsociety where we see the value
inherently in people, and thatwe all benefit from that. But as
of right now, because of the wayour society has been shaped, and
I say, in no small part, due tothe commodification of people
(28:40):
and resources, right? That wesee ourselves in this fight
alone, and if my family is doingdoing well, or my community or
my people, we all need to growtogether. I think we'd have a
healthier, happier community ora society.
Joshua Johnson (28:51):
If I'm looking at the big picture, it feels
very daunting, like I feeloverwhelmed, like nothing's
going to change. But if I lookat my at my community, if I look
at my neighbors and look at thepeople around me, there are some
things that we can do in our owncommunities, to to help in this
space. What What are steps to toto organize, to get together, to
(29:17):
say this community is going tobe a community of care and
belonging love for all of us.
We're going to combat thisviolence and all the violence,
the violence of poverty, theviolence of sickness, the
violence of these toxic systems.
What can we do on a micro levelin our communities to help build
(29:38):
this grassroots movement thatwill see some change.
Trymaine Lee (29:42):
I think the first thing is to get rid of this idea
that it has to be scaled. Ithink sometimes when we look at
the enormity of the issue andthe enormity of the hunger and
the enormity of the violence, itgets so big that it does feel
like a mountain that we couldnever traverse. But I think on
the micro community level, I. Ama big fan of mentorship, so I'm
(30:02):
a member of had been a member ofBig Brothers Big Sisters, and I
work closely with them. I wasjust inducted into the Big
Brothers Big Sisters Hall ofFame, which is one of the
greatest honors of my lifeoutside of journalism. How can
we take a young person and pourall of our knowledge and
resources and consistency andcare into in your community, and
this goes beyond race, it's raceand class, but specifically
(30:25):
young black boys and girls needand I think they benefit when
they're someone who looks justlike them, who's pouring into
them and loves them. But I don'tthink love has a color, right?
So I think we should be pouringinto young people in your
communities. Is it throughscouting? Is it through the
school? Is it through the BigBrothers, Big Sisters program?
Is there an opportunity tocreate in your small business an
(30:46):
internship or fellowship?
Because if we get young peopleearly on right, and they have
something that they want to holdon to, something to strive for,
something to lose, but they alsolook around and see that people
do love me and care about me,because we don't get that often,
right? We don't get that in ourcommunities, especially. Think
about young guys, especiallyyoung men today, and you see a
group of teenagers with thehoodies on, and again, I'm from
(31:08):
the 90s, we had fades. Theirhair is it's a lot of hair, and
it's the hood, it's like, and welump them into this, this group,
and it seems scary. Those boysneed love, right? And we're
losing so much potential becauseI've spent time talking
something, you'll be amazed atsome of them, right? It's like
this is and we're losing them,because no one is showing We're
all scared of them. The churchis scared of them. The business
(31:30):
are scared of them. Sometimestheir parents are scared that.
Sometimes the neighbors arescared of them. But if we can
get them young enough to showthat, that they are loved. And
so I think that's as micro asyou can get. But it doesn't take
a whole the whole you don't justsave the whole city. You know
what saving one young persondoes? That's a family line.
That's children who are gonna beraised the same way. That's
children who are gonna be loved.
(31:53):
Hopefully there's a goodpaycheck somewhere around the
corner for them so they can feedand go go on a vacation, take
the kids fishing, go to Martha'sVineyard, do whatever, but we
have to start, like with yourneighbor or your neighbor's
neighbor. You have to start in
Joshua Johnson (32:05):
the community.
And what you're talking about isyou're talking about a
generational mindset, ratherthan just a a right now mindset
that if we Yeah, one, if onechild comes up, grows up, you
see generations after that thatwill actually start to flourish,
and you're going to see somesome growth that we often don't
think multiple generations ofwhat's happening over and over.
(32:28):
And I think
Trymaine Lee (32:30):
when you when you see huge, especially like you
see it all over the world, but Ithink about like in the Middle
East, an olive tree that hasbeen there for 800 years, and
people have been eating off thatolive tree, right? Or some
citrus in California somewhere.
When you plant that seed, youmight not be around when it
finally bears fruit, right? Youmight not be around, but you
(32:51):
plant that seed anyway for thegenerations to feed all that
after you. And so that's thethat's the mentality
Joshua Johnson (32:59):
you've also talked about, how your job isn't
just to tell stories of death,but also of black joy and
resistance. So what does Blackjoy look like in the face of so
much violence today?
Trymaine Lee (33:11):
I think there, and this is can be a nebulous term,
but when you see black peoplewho are truly free and that
they're not many of us who aretruly free, but when you're free
to be yourself and chase yourgoals, and I love when it's
manifested in again, I like tofish. So I love some country
stuff. I love when I see blackfolks out here camping and
hiking, fishing. I love to see ageneration of young people who
(33:34):
are traveling together andthey're enjoying the world. I
think those of us who came upcertainly before, you know, I
was born in 1978 so I'm like inthe 80s and 90s. There were so
many precarious times. The waron the end of the Vietnam War is
rolling into this in theripples, and then the drug wars
and the war on poverty, and thenwe were dealing with it felt
(33:55):
like you couldn't move right tosee young people harnessing
their dreams in that way, andmoving through the world, how
you move through the world, notletting anything stop you, to
where you're going to eat, whereyou're going to go travel, what
you're going to do out in thewoods. I love that. And because
there's a, there's a, you know,a nation building spirit within
us, where even when times weretough, because again, we're we
(34:18):
see this with this currentadministration, a dialing back
of progress, a dialing back ofacknowledging history, a dialing
back on freedoms of all kinds ofpeople. And we're no strangers
to that. And so in some ways,that black joy comes from when
we were coming out of thoseviolent 1920s right? And the
bloody summer, the red summer,the red summer, when we're going
(34:41):
through the Civil RightsMovement, we were still creating
music and memories and cultureand artistry and politicians
trying to be voices for that. Wewere still doing that black
newspapers were popping up,telling stories, not just of the
progress, but also that MissJohnson had a dinner party,
right? Like, how do we. Embodythe fullness. And so there are
many moments like that when Ijust I love, especially with
(35:04):
with young folks today. I loveto see them unafraid to be
themselves
Joshua Johnson (35:08):
growing up. I know that's you know, some
things were kind of important toyou, that you got opportunities
for schooling. You gotopportunities. You were able to
be in the scouts. You're able toplay basketball, football.
You're being in thesecommunities and teams with
mentors and people pouring intoyou. How did that start to shape
(35:31):
the way that you start to thinkand view and see the world and
see black life in America?
Trymaine Lee (35:36):
Yeah. Well, first of all, you read the book. I
could tell you read the book. Soevery everybody doesn't always
read a book. So thank you. Ireally, really, honestly
appreciate that in 1990 inseventh grade, I had the
privilege and opportunity to goto the Milton Hershey School.
And for those who you knowaren't familiar, the Milton
Hershey School was founded in1909 by Milton and Katherine
(35:57):
Hershey, the chocolate magnates.
They couldn't have children oftheir own. So they started a
school for poor white orphans,okay, poor white orphans in
Dauphin County, Hershey,Pennsylvania. It was clear they
started with like a handful ofboys. Over the years, things
changed and evolved, and theystarted admitting people of
color and girls. It's therichest school in the country
with an $18 billion endowment,but you have to be poor to get
(36:19):
into it, right? You have to beneeding to get to get into it.
And so by the time I got toseventh grade, I'd already been,
like, gifted, talented programs,and I was always already
writing, and I was already kindof on my way and playing sports.
But I was in a household with astepfather who was battling with
addiction. He ended up beingincarcerated. There was just a
lot going on. My mother, who Ito this day, is like my favorite
(36:39):
person, like, I love my motheris the kindest, warmest, most
loving person in the world. Dideverything she could, and in
trying to do that, she got meenrolled in the Military School,
which changed everything for me.
Going to that school, I had allthis potential, but things were
still kind of in flux. You know,any there were any number of
directions in my life could havegone after that, but going to
(37:01):
the mount Hershey School, beingable to be in the scouting
program, they had free clothing,everything. Everything was
completely free. It took theburden off my mother, but also I
was around a bunch of folks, noteveryone, but a bunch of people
who truly did care about me,coaches and teachers who saw
something in me and nurture thatI can remember early on being
(37:23):
part of the model airplane club.
I'm like, I'm out here, and wewere, we've spent our study hall
building these huge remotecontrol airplanes, and we'd be
in there to a mixed group ofkids in there. We're diffuse a
lot. And we're like, puttingthis, it was a and we all flew.
When I flew it, it's like, whereI would have never when I was a
kid, my mother had to work, Iwould come home by myself. From
the time I was probably insecond grade, which is hard to
(37:44):
imagine, because my daughter's13, and she can't go out the
door by herself, right? Butsecond third grade, I was
walking to school by myself. Iwas coming home as a latchkey
kid. Food would be on the oven.
I'll be by myself for hours domy homework, right? I would so
we so there was no time forsports and all this other stuff,
but to be at the Milton HersheySchool that freedom we talked
(38:05):
about. So I'm arriving therefeeling good about myself, and
now I have the resources andopportunities, and now there are
a bunch of adults. So my familypoured a bunch of love into me.
Now I'm around other adults whoare pouring consistency and
academics, and it was just Iremember my my English teacher,
coach. He was my coach, too.
Coach Bueller. I write a, youknow, poetry for class, and he
had me come into the other classand read it like that kind of
(38:26):
confidence. Oh, man, immense.
Everything to this day, I owe adebt of gratitude to the Milton
Hershey School and and I knowwhat those kids are going
through, coming fromcommunities. And it's also half
black, well, half white, Ishould say, half white, have
black, Hispanic, Asian. So it'sthis mixed group of kids coming
from all over Pennsylvania, NewYork, New Jersey and the
(38:47):
country. And the work that theydo is just amazing. So I owe
such a debt to that school
Joshua Johnson (38:53):
that's beautiful. You know, Tremaine,
this book, 1000 ways to die, Ithink, is just incredibly
written. It's a important bookthat I hope a lot of people
read, and we actually then takein the enormity and the cost of
what this is after reading thisbook, and there's I mean for me,
either I could becomeimmobilized because it's too
(39:15):
much, it's too much to bear, orI could actually just galvanize
within my community and say,Hey, enough is enough. Like
we're done with this. We'regoing to stop these cycles of
violence. And so I really dohope that people just stay in
their community, stop thesecycles of violence pour into all
people in their communities. Soit's a great book. So if you
(39:38):
just talk to your readers andthe people who pick this up.
What hope do you have for thisbook? What do you want this book
to do for the world?
Trymaine Lee (39:45):
I think certainly this book is heavy. We're
grappling with the, you know,the serious nature of violence
in this in this country and inthe community, right, and in
historic violence. But it's alsoabout great love, and this is
why the violence hurts so. Much,because young people should have
the opportunities to grow up incommunities filled with love and
not violence. Parents shouldn'tworry about burying their kids,
(40:08):
right? All the potential thatwe're losing because of
violence, all the economic coststhat we're willing to pay while
an entire industry is gettingrich off the bloodshed, right?
And these guns never disappear,right? But this is about
planting the seeds for thatfruit tree to bear fruit right
and bear nutrition andsustenance, emotional,
(40:29):
spiritual, psychic sustenancefor the generation behind us.
And so I think as heavy as thebook is, it's 1000 ways to die.
There are also 1000 ways tolive, right, and to pour into
each other and love ourneighbors, right? And nothing
stops a bullet, like a paycheckand love, right, and
opportunity. And so I just, Ihope that's what folks take
(40:50):
away. I think sometimes, youknow, this isn't a book that's
prescriptive, so I don't haveall the answers, but I want to
name a thing. I'll put a name ontrauma, a name on the violence,
right? Put a name on it. Shine alight in that dark spot, so
people know what it is thatthere's nothing inherently wrong
with that young man. There isnothing wrong with that young
man. This experience is whatshapes how he moves through this
(41:10):
world. And so we can startdisrupt that and show some love.
I hope that's what our readerstake away.
Joshua Johnson (41:15):
I hope so too.
Two really quick questions atthe end here. One, if you go
back to your 21 year old self,what advice would you
Trymaine Lee (41:22):
give? Oh, man, keep going. Keep going. You got
this. There's, you know, therethey're going to be some
stumbling bucks. It's like Ijoke with my mother. We say all
the time. You know, life of mehave been no crystal stairs. So
at 21 looking at Hey, man, lifeain't, life ain't no crystal
stairs, man, but you stick withit, and you got this.
Joshua Johnson (41:39):
That's great.
Anything you've been reading orwatching lately, you could
recommend the
Trymaine Lee (41:44):
one, the one book that I read about a month ago is
called James by PercivalEverett. It won a Pulitzer Prize
this year. It's a retelling ofthe story of Huck Finn, right
Mark Twain's Huck Finn, whereyou had N word James in the
original book here, put somerespect on his name. His name is
James. And it gives thisinteriority of a black man in
that time. And you go throughsome of the same adventures. But
(42:06):
it's the agency that we neveragency and respect that we never
gave N word Jim. His name isJames. So I love that book. So
I've been telling everybody,
Joshua Johnson (42:14):
read that book.
It's so good. It's so good. Ilove it. Great. Recommendation.
1000 ways to die is out anywherebooks are sold. So you could go
out and get that Tremaine Isthere anywhere you'd like to
point people to how could theyconnect with what you're doing?
Trymaine Lee (42:27):
The one thing I would go to tremainely.com I'll
have my tour dates. Everything'sup there. I would go to
bookshop.org support local, youknow, bookstores, black owned
bookstores, or just localbookstores, small, small mom and
pop shops. They need us. Sosupport them, and that's it.
Thank you all very much. Ireally appreciate
Joshua Johnson (42:43):
it. All right.
Tremaine, thank you so much forthis conversation. It was
illuminating. It was also heavy,knowing the systems that
actually produce so muchviolence in our country in a
myriad of ways, but also thereis some hope that we could
continue to move forward andbreak these cycles of violence.
So thank you so much. It was afantastic conversation.
Trymaine Lee (43:04):
Joshua, thank you for having me. Appreciate it.
Unknown (43:20):
You.
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