The Suburban Women Problem - Season 2, Episode 8
Amanda Weinstein: Hi, everyone. Thanks for listening. I'm Amanda Weinstein.
Rachel Vindman: I’m Rachel Vindman.
Jasmine Clark: I’m Jasmine Clark
Amanda: And you're listening to The Suburban Women Problem.
Rachel: Before we get started today, I just want to acknowledge that it's been a rough few weeks for all of us, whether it's the news out of Ukraine, that's keeping you up at night (if you're me, that's what's happening), the continued attacks on trans kids and their families, or even what's going on in your local community… the news has been bleak. I just want to name that and let you know that if you're feeling a little overwhelmed by the news and the state of the world, you are not alone.
Later on, I’ll be speaking to my friend, Brad Meltzer, whose series of biographies for young readers has been consistently targeted by book banners. And before we get to Brad, Jen Cousins will join us to discuss how she's actively fighting book bans and has pushed back against Florida's Don't Say Gay bill on behalf of her non-binary child.
But before we get into that, let's all take a deep breath and check in. Ladies, how are we doing?
Jasmine: It’s been a week. It has definitely been a week. So I will say at the legislature here in Georgia, it has been absolute insanity. We basically voted on all of the bills that are like the most horrible bills. So we've got bills banning trans children from playing in certain sports. We got bills that are banning certain things from being taught in schools. It's literally like every single thing that you can think of, like all the bad stuff, they decided to do it all on a Friday. And I was just like, who does this to the weekend? Like, this is horrible!
Rachel: Do you remember like the Trump, what, like the Friday Night Massacre? Actually Alex was fired on a Friday, Alex and Eugene, I mean, it was like a joke, but it was also actually a thing. And I think they're like, oh yeah, this is a good idea. Let's go ahead.
Jasmine: Yeah. This election coming up is so important. Midterm elections are ones that a lot of people feel comfortable with sitting out. And this is not one of those ones where we can sit out because you know, this election season has been horrible. I mean, they had a gun day. Like they literally had a day where they voted on a bunch of gun bills and things like permitless carry, like things that no one is asking for even Republicans are like, “yeah, no, I don't think we should have permitless carry.” And they're still passing these bills.
Amanda: We had that in Ohio, too.
Jasmine: I saw that. I think it's just kind of sweeping across the nation as one of the, if you want to get elected by Republicans, you have to go all out on like making sure that every single person has a gun, like everywhere all the time.
Amand: Yeah now I think you get like a sticker. Like I passed a gun bill.
Jasmine: Yeah, like a voting stickers.
Rachel: So I, I had a little bit of an issue with one of your representatives from Georgia.
Jasmine: Oh my God.
Rachel: She tweeted about my husband. "This clown wants to drag Americans into a war with Russia, with his big tough tweets and his zoom interviews on CNN. Go ahead and go fight yourself, since you're from Ukraine. You are clueless about Americans being fed up and sending our sons and daughters to die in foreign lands.”
You know, my husband did move here, he was born in Ukraine, he came here as a refugee. He served 21 years, 6 months and 10 days active duty in uniform. He continues to serve out of uniform. I may have helped him draft his tweet response, just saying.
Amanda: Did, did Marjorie Taylor Greene serve in the military? I don't recall.
Rachel: I don't believe she did. And you know, Alex's response might have been something about “you only serve as Putin’s useful idiot.” And now my, from my Twitter account, my comment was very simple. It was “bitch, please.” And then Alex had a more elegant response.
But I am just going to say that she actually wants a war to be fought. She wants a civil war to be fought here. She's okay with everyone carrying guns and no one know who's carrying guns and no restrictions on carrying guns. That's the war that she wants.
This is absolutely ridiculous. And you are right, Jasmine. This midterm matters and we've got to wake people up now. The fight starts now, not in October, November, when people want to start getting engaged, it starts now. We raise money now. We get organized now because all this crap that they're trying to— I'm censoring myself and saying “crap”— all this crap that they are trying to pass now is a way to make it so that they can try to out-win us and, and, and make our votes not count. That's why. Get engaged, plug in and let's fight. Just like the Ukrainians are fighting for freedom and democracy and independence, that's what we're fighting for here in the United States. Take inspiration from them. And let's do it. Let's make it matter.
Amanda: Oh, well said. And I think it's important, we need to fight, but then we need to elevate a better path forward.
Jasmine: Right.
Amanda: So we need to say, this is the wrong path for us. And here is the better path forward. So it got a little irritated after the state of the union, when everyone wanted to talk about Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert, and they're like outbursts that were like, you know, their little tantrums, but meanwhile, we have for the first time… Madam Vice President Kamala Harris and Madam Speaker Nancy Pelosi, right? Sitting there in all of their class, right, right behind the president. And it totally overshadowed all of that.
And so I got really frustrated, like this is really amazing that we have these two women here. And not only that, it overshadowed like all of the stuff that the President was saying in the State of the Union, which I think was the intent.
Jasmine: That's all it, that's all they do. That's like, that's literally how they get votes. They are not going to get votes on policy. They're not going to get votes on being logical. They're not going to get votes on common sense. They get votes on being ridiculous. And commanding attention by doing stupid things. I mean, they're basically taking a note out of Trump's playbook when it comes to, oh, I am going to be, you know say and do things that will make everyone look over there.
Amanda: Yeah. He talked about like pre-K child tax credits, Pell Grants, affordable healthcare, bridges, broadband. Let's talk about some of those policies. Let's have the real discussion. And that's why they have the outbursts, because they're not a party of policies. They're a party of outbursts.
Rachel: It’s so hard. I know we talk about conversations on this podcast. I know we talk about the importance of having conversations and having a safe place and allowing people to change their mind. I'm having a hard time with that lately with that. And we have, you know, Alex has been on TV a lot. He's been talking a lot and there’s so so much hate. And I know you guys have been through this too, and you understand.
Jasmine: Yeah, for sure.
Rachel: But it's, it's really hard to be like, “okay, I'm going to extend a hand.” Just today, I’ve gotten a lot of messages on Instagram. I don't know why, I don't even have a public profile on Instagram. But I mean, someone said that we should be hung. It's also, it's actually “hanged.”
Jasmine: I love how you're like, even though you're threatening me, I'm going to educate you on the proper grammar on how to threaten me.
Rachel: I’m going to give you some, yeah. But it is hard to want to engage and you know, sometimes I'm like, Hmm, I don't want to engage, I don't want to have conversations. I just want to beat you. I just want to beat you really, really bad.
Jasmine: Yeah.
Rachel: I’m not sure if that's the right attitude. I dunno. What do you think? Do you guys, do you feel that way?
Jasmine: All the time. I think for me, I’m… sometimes I get in this mode of like, “I know the diplomatic thing to do is to try to have a conversation.” But I've had so many fruitless conversations, so many conversations where I've left that conversation more frustrated when I got into the conversation. But some days I'm like, “I don't want to talk to you.”
And I have to be careful because, you know, it's campaign time. So I'll just say there are times where I'm feeling… less diplomatic than others.
Rachel: Why should you, when no one else does? I mean, that's something that's really hard. Do you struggle with that?
Jasmine: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Like, I definitely have these moments where I'm like, you know, there's a part of me that wishes I could just like really say how I feel on social media, there is a part of me that says, I really wish I could tweet what I really wanted to tweet, but I can’t. And I have to hold back.
Amanda: I have to say, like, you are very measured. I noticed you are measured. And my husband Casey is measured. And I don't have to be as measured, Rachel I don't think you have to be as measured. And I like that. I like that space.
But it's hard. Like I'm an economist. I like to argue. So I actually, like, it's more fun to disagree with people than it is to agree with people! Like, I think it's kind of fun. Like I've actually like out-trolled one of my trolls where he was like, “okay, I give up, I can't do this anymore.” And I was like, “yeah!” And I was like, so excited and Casey was like, “I don't think that's something to be proud of.”
Rachel: Hahaha.
Amanda: And I was like, oh, all right. But I get frustrated because sometimes they go straight to just the name-calling. And like, no, I really want to have a good fight here. And all, you're just doing his name calling. Like, this is not a fight now.
Rachel: Yeah, I mean, I think like 99 percent of it is his name calling. I was called a dumb broad today. I was called Miss Piggy. I was called a dumb B-word. I mean, these just, these are just the things that I was called today. Not like “I think you're wrong and this is how, I'd like to tell you why.” Never. I mean, it's just, it's just never happened. It's not the way people want to engage.
So it's hard if no one's engaging you in that way to have a meaningful conversation back. I mean, I think these are more of the conversations that we have with our neighbors, with our friends. It's really impossible to have them online on social media.
Amanda: That’s true.
Rachel: But it is like important to be like, there's a person behind this, you know? It's still very important to have those conversations with the people in our community, in real life.
Amanda: So on that note, joining us today is the definition of the right’s suburban women problem. She's the mom of a non-binary child. She lives in Florida and she also started an organization against book bans called the Florida Freedom to Read Project. Hi Jen, thanks for joining us.
Jen Cousins: Hi, thank you.
Amanda: You are doing such amazing work down in Florida, it’s hard to know where to begin, but let's start with the Don't Say Gay bill, which sadly just officially passed. You have a non-binary child. So what does a bill like that mean for your family?
Jen: Um it's not great. You know, for us it's okay because we're a very accepting family and my child, you know, never had anything to worry about. The problem is kids that don't come from supportive families. You know, school is a safe place for the kids to be for, you know, the bulk of their day. And— God, sorry, it’s just, it's been a day here. It's really, it's just a complete all out assault on any kids who are LGBTQ+. There's no reason behind any of this.
You know, we already, they're trying to frame it that it's a sex education bill that you can't teach it to these lower grades. Well, that already exists in the state. We already have that rule. So it's, it's incredibly dangerous to all kids in the state of Florida. And you know, I was watching the Senate debate right before I got on with you guys and, you know, the GOP told on themselves about, you know, they're doing this to quiet LGBTQ voices.
And you know, they had a chance last week when I was up in Tallahassee, one of their own Republican senators, Brandis, put forth an amendment that changed it from being “sexual orientation and gender identity” to just the verbiage was “sexuality” instead. So you can’t talk about sexuality. And all the Republicans voted the amendment down. That would have been an easy, easy, easy fix to the entire problem, right? Like just change the wording like that and it's no longer an assault on LGBTQ families. They voted it down. So once again, they told them themselves, they told you what this bill is specifically targeted to.
And I don't know if any of you watched it, but I mean, Senator Shevrin Jones, you know, he broke down in tears because he didn't come out until later in life, until he was about 30. And his dad is a pastor down in south Florida and people stopped going to his dad's church just because he came out. And he's standing on the floor of the Senate, you weeping and sobbing and as soon as he was done speaking, they came to a vote on his amendment to try and make it a little bit less harsh and they all voted no for it. It's 100% a political assault on anybody who is not cis and hetero.
Jasmine: I can't even imagine having to watch these things, you know, and listen to people attack children like your children, or your child and your child's friends. And, and so you, you said that you actually made a trip to Tallahassee to testify. So can you just talk a little bit about what it was like to actually go to a hearing and testify on behalf of your child and, and children that don't fit into the heteronormative bubble?
Jen: Sure. So two weeks ago actually was the first trip up, I went with my co-founder of Florida Freedom to Read Project. We went up and it just happened the day that we were there, that the House was hearing, was voting on Don't Say Gay on the floor. So we watched that and you know, it's one thing when you're used to listening to these Republicans on the news, or, you know, you're reading the stories about, you know, how they're trying to justify all these hateful bills that they have. But when you're there in person, you know, it hits a lot deeper.
Rachel: Are they true believers?
Jen: They do.
Rachel: They really believe this is the right thing. They're not doing this to pander to voters?
Jen: They, oh, well it's both, right? So last week we went back up when the Senate ruled, it was the last committee stop for Don’t Say Gay. And so many people traveled up that they didn't even get to half of the people that signed up to testify. We didn't even get to testify. Every single person who was able to testify that day, I think out of the 40 plus people that did testify, there were four who testified for the bill. Everybody else was against.
And the ones that testified for the bill, one of them is a woman in north Florida who is suing the school district because her child is transgender and she's big mad about it. She thinks the school made her kid that way.
Rachel: My gosh.
Jen: Supposedly she has her kid in conversion therapy, she’s taken the doors off of the kid's bedroom, taken away their communication devices. And this is like a, a teen, a young teen. Three other people that testified for the bill pulled that “God made Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve” kind of nonsense.
Everybody else who was testifying was against the bill. And there was a suicide prevention counselor who spoke and said, in the amount of time that we're sitting here in this hearing, 45 LGBTQ+ youth are going to die by suicide because of things like this. They heard that and just right over their heads. Half of the Republicans on that committee weren't even sitting on the floor to listen to the testimony. They went into a side conference room, like they just didn't want to be bothered with it.
And the worst part for me that day was after they shut down public testimony. We left the room, went out into the hallway and it was just a sea of kids who had come up on the buses with Equality Florida that morning, crying. This one kid, probably 14, reminded me so much of my own child. And they were on the phone, sobbing and choking and crying to their mom because they didn't get a chance to talk. And I went to stand next to them to comfort them. And they said, “I didn't sleep all night. I got up at 4:00 AM to get the bus up here. All I wanted to do is come up and make a difference. And I didn't even get a chance to speak.” And you know, that just like ripped my heart right out.
And I mean, you know, if any of those Republicans had come out into the hallway during that and seen all the upset and the people that the kids who they're actually hurting with all this, they wouldn't have cared. You know, they watch our senator break down in tears on the floor today and didn't faze them at all.
So it definitely is pandering it's because DeSantis has presidential ambitions, right. So they want to be on his team so that when he gets to DC, they take them along or he takes them along with him.
Rachel: You know, Jen, I can't even talk about or read the sentence Don't Say Gay without like kind of losing my mind. And I don't live in Florida and it doesn't affect anyone in my family. I cannot believe it. In fact, I told, I was telling my husband about it cause he was, he's been kind of focusing on other things, and he was like, “what are you talking about?” And I was like, “no, that's it.” And he was like, “seriously??” He didn't even believe me. Because it's so preposterous.
I mean, my heart just goes out to you and your child and every one affected. And I really hope that the kids will lead us out of this place, but there's so much misunderstanding and just such a lack of will to understand and be empathetic.
I'm just so sorry. That's, that's all I can offer you. Um, which is not much, but I mean, I, I just want you to know your fight is inspiring.
So can I ask, like, when you talk to your neighbors or talk to people in your town, what do they say? Do they justify this or are they against it?
Jen: I don't personally know anyone who justifies it and, you know, Orlando is a very Blue safe space, which is good.
Rachel: Yes.
Jen: You know, and even, you know, my nonbinary child, they're in middle school and they're, they've been listening to their teachers talk on the side about it for, you know, two months now. And the teachers are terrified of it too. Those teachers could be criminally prosecuted. You know, all they want to do is make a safe space for kids. You know, these teachers love their kids and the legislature doesn't want them to be able to get away with it.
And even, I don't know if you all follow or how closely you follow the insanity that's happening down here. But last night DeSantis’s spokesperson—
Rachel: Oh she has me blocked on Twitter so I can't see what she says.
Jen: Oh, I'm so sad that I'm not blocked yet! But last night she went so far as to claim that a ll of us who are against the bill are groomers.
Amanda: Yeah. That is a serious offense. And we did have something similar here in Hudson, where our mayor who is now resigned, basically said that about our teachers, that our teachers were essentially grooming children. And I know Jen that you have also, in addition to working against Don't Say Gay, you’ve also been standing up against book bans. Could you tell us more about the Florida Freedom to Read Project?
Jen: Yeah, for sure. So I'm back at the end of October, we'd been going to our school board meetings, my friends and I, since August when school was starting back because you know, in Florida, you don't do masks. COVID isn't real. That meeting went the wrong way fast, just because— so the first person in line to speak for that meeting was one of our local Proud Boys. Uh, maybe 15 minutes before they were going to let us into the building, one of our local Moms for Liberty waltzes up to the Proud Boy at the front of the line and she hands him the book Gender Queer. And I was like, “oh God, it's going to go down now.”
So they had a little conversation about it and there are two pages where the author is talking about an experience they had when they were an adult— an adult, they were in their twenties when this happened— he's reading this out of context. The board starts freaking out. Our board chair completely went about it the wrong way. She started screaming and yelling, “I didn't know this book was in our schools and I hope it's removed immediately!” And so she went and she removed them.
And our problem with that was that she did not follow the school board policy. Obviously we didn't think the book should be removed anyway, because then we all went and read it, cried our eyes out, and I was like, “this is one of the most beautiful things ever.” But she went and removed them and that's against policy. And, you know, we put the pressure on them for two months saying “you can't do this.” And they openly admitted in public and in meetings, like, “yeah, we didn't follow our policy, but we'll do it next time. Ha ha ha.” Which they didn't, because we then discovered that they were shadow-banning the book All Boys Aren’t Blue.
So that's the long story short of how Florida Freedom to Read Project came to fruition. My partner and I were like, “no, we're not going to put up with this. We're not going to put up with this. This is unconstitutional.” And you know, it's just like, Don't Say Gay, it's seeking to marginalize because every single book that this woman has a problem with is by LGBTQ plus and BIPOC authors. They don't even try and hide themselves. We sat in the district literacy review meeting today for Born a Crime because this lady complained about Born a Crime. I don't know if you all read it, but it's about Trevor Noah growing up in apartheid South Africa. It's been on the bestseller list, it's a required reading in some schools.
Rachel: It’s excellent by the way.
Jen: Right? Like such a good book. I tell everybody to read it. But we went to the review committee today and the people that come here were like, “why are we even here? This is ridiculous. It's a waste of resources. Like clearly this book should not be removed from shelves.”
Amanda: They’re, I mean, they're making up problems. So these are not people fixing problems anyone has. They’re making them up. But they don't understand, cause I'm assuming they don't have non-binary children like, like you do—
Jen: Right. The night that the whole thing happened with Gender Queer, I came home, I ordered the book, I read it, cried my eyes out because I've been an ally since I was like 15. Right. I've been going to pride parades forever. A lot of my close friends in life have always been lesbian, gay, bi, or trans. But none of them ever presented to me before as non-binary. So when I actually read Gender Queer, it helped me understand my child’s whole situation more. You know what I mean? Like it gave me better insight into how they feel about certain things that I never got before.
I read the book. I gave it to them to read, they read it in like an hour and were like, “oh my God, I loved it.” Like it gave them so much comfort to know that they're not the only one. And this is normal. And it's like, this is why you're scared of this. Or this is why you feel uncomfortable with that. You know? So yeah, I came home and I told them, I was like, they're going to ban Gender Queer. And they were like, “ughhh, of course they are.”
And you know, they've actually, they've been brave enough to go on and do interviews with me. We did an interview about it on our local NPR station after all this went down. They did another one with one of our local news, TV news stations when our Department of Education decided to take away all of the links that lead to LGBTQ+ bullying from the Department of Education websites.
Jasmine: It’s insanity. I mean, it really, truly is insane. Like, how do you sit there, look people in the face and say that you care about children, but then you do things that directly harm children?
Rachel: Thank you so much for joining us today. You’re an inspiration. I know it's very difficult, but the work that you're doing is so so important and I hope that people can follow you and cheer you on, everyone should cheer you on. Where can people find you online?
Jen: Thank you so much. Um, so on Twitter, we are @FLFreedomRead and on Facebook, we are Florida Freedom to Read Project.
Rachel: Okay. We'll have that in the show notes. And now we're going to take a quick break and when we come back, we'll have my interview with another normal Floridian and my good friend, Brad Meltzer.
BREAK
Rachel: Our guest today is the best-selling author of fiction, non-fiction, comic books and children's books. His series of biographies for young readers, Ordinary People Change the World, includes books about Abraham Lincoln, Sonya Sotomayor, and Rosa Parks. Brad Meltzer, thank you so much for joining me on The Suburban Women Problem.
Brad Meltzer: I have been waiting to come today! You know that.
Rachel: I should tell you that Brad and I are friends outside of podcast world, and he is exactly the person that you think he is and probably more. And this is just a huge thrill of mine. But before I knew Brad personally, we had his books, all his books, for our daughter. It was like our Hanukkah tradition for Ellie to get some of the Ordinary People Change the World books. So tell us a little bit about what made you decide to write these books. It was in 2014, right?
Brad: It was. And, and as you had Ellie, I had Laila and I had Jonas and I had Theo, I had my kids. And I was writing thrillers all these years, murdering people day by day, and you know, I think that goes along with being a parent right? And you're like, let's do children's books. That's a perfect segue.
But the truth was, I had kids and I was tired of the garbage that my kids were being fed online. I was tired of them looking at reality TV show stars and thinking that that's someone to emulate. I was tired of them looking at millionaires, overpaid athletes, and thinking that's a hero. And I said, I can give them so many better heroes to look up to. And I told my daughter at the time, I'm like, I got Amelia Earhart. Here's Amelia Earhart, Lila. Look, she flew over the Atlantic Ocean. Isn't she amazing?
And she said to me, “big deal, dad, everyone flies across the Atlantic Ocean today.” She was not impressed at all. And I told her this true story that when Amelia was seven years old she built a homemade roller coaster in her backyard. And she took a wooden crate and she put roller skating wheels in the bottom and she shoved it to the roof of her tool shed, came flying down, pieces of wood—crashes to the ground, leaps through the air, crashes to the ground, gets up. And I was like, that's incredible. And my daughter's listening to that and says, “tell me that one again.”
And I knew that that was the key to the books is not just telling people stories about history, but showing them when they were kids too. And then all these kids that read that realize these aren't the stories of famous people. This is what we're all capable of on our very best days.
And so we started with I am Amelia Earhart. We did I am Abraham Lincoln, I am Rosa Parks and I am Albert Einstein. My son loves sports. Here, forget everyone else, here’s Jackie Robinson.
And this is kind of telling, and I can say it here, is when the 2016 election happened and Hillary and Donald Trump were arguing every day on TV, two of our books started selling more than any others and they were I am Martin Luther King, Jr. And I am George Washington. And it wasn't a Democrat or Republican thing, it was a parents and grandparents on both sides were tired of turning on the TV and seeing politicians when what they wanted to show their kids were leaders. And I love the fact that people now use our books to fight back against that kind of cynicism.
Rachel: It has started so many conversations at our family at our dinner table. We like to read them at the dinner table. It's enabled us to introduce some topics that would have been really difficult for us to introduce at, at younger ages. When I think, you know, they're kind of heavier topics, but when you start talking about someone as a child and start talking about their life there, it makes it a lot more accessible.
We've been talking about book bans on the podcast and in our country, and unfortunately your books I am Rosa Parks and I am Martin Luther King, Jr. were part of that. Obviously we can see why those books were singled out, I mean, it's pretty obvious, but what have you heard in the way of excuses about why your books have been banned?
Brad: This was in the Central York school district. And just for background, there were 200 books that the diversity committee said were going to be used to teach kind of on issues of racism. And this was a list that had Malala’s book on it, it had Hidden Figures, an adaptation of Hidden Figures, it had Sesame Street's book about racism. When, you know, when you're banning Ernie and Bert, you're doing it wrong.
And, and what happened was they took our books on, I am Rosa Parks and I am Dr. King and stupidly picked the wrong heroes to ban. Everyone was up in arms. There was a universal outrage, Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, we're all aghast. And when those three agree, you know you went too far.
It, it sent me on this path. I started looking back through history and I found, you know, I was like, what's the first book that got banned in America? Like the one that, and again, not on on just a singular community level, but on a national level. And it was Harriet Beecher Stowe, as many historians say, Uncle Tom's Cabin.
And I tell you that to explain this to your answer. Back then, Confederates did not like its pro-abolitionist arguments. They really hated that it encouraged people to debate and condemn slavery. The book terrified them, threatening their way of life.
And Rachel, that's why our Rosa Parks book got banned. That's why our Dr. King book got banned. Because it threatened their way of life. Every book ban is motivated by fear and a need for power and control. And that is simply it. They’ll never say it out loud, but that's always what it's about. Critical race theory and all these things that are happening, those are boogeymen. Those are ways to make you scared.
And if you say to people, you know, you see this word they always use, which is “indoctrination.” They're going to “indoctrinate” our children. And that's the same word that they used when they targeted Jews and when they targeted Blacks and when they targeted the gay community. And if you say to people “you want them indoctrinating your children?” everyone goes, “no, no who wants that?” But if you say to the average American, I don't care if they’re Democrat or Republican, if you say to them, “listen, would you like them to discuss race in a way that maybe makes us a little bit more sensitive to each other so we can get along?” 90% of people will go, “oh yeah. I would like that.”
The thing is, is they’re right now finding that, that wedge issue of fear and that wedge issue of “they're taking away your children, they're making them hate themselves for being white.” You know, buzzwords are that we see over and over. But the thing is, they work. They work and we're only going to see it more as the midterms approach.
Rachel: I mean, the, how do you think the best way to push back is, is it, I mean, in particular books about race American history, do you think. Showing them what they're doing or trying to enlighten people, or what would you say?
Brad: I think you follow the lessons of Dr. King and Rosa Parks. I think the only way to deal with this as you fight back. When our books were banned, the first thing I did is I went on Twitter, I went on my Instagram account, and I said to everyone, “I want you to buy every book on this ban list.” I teamed up with local activists and librarians and little free libraries and people around the country donated over 5,000 books. Enough for every student in the district.
At the end of the day, that’s one thing you do. Is every time I see a book that's banned, I buy it. I buy it immediately. When they banned New Kid by Jerry Craft, I was like, I bought a copy. My son had Maus when they banned it, I'm like, “great, another copy.”
And I think the other thing you do, and it's the same thing that happened back in the Reagan times. It was a quote I found by the, he was the head of the general council, think of the national association of secondary school principals. And he said, they asked him as a principal of all the principals, “what what do you do when you have all these book bans?" And his quote was, this is back in the eighties in Reagan, his quote was “as a remedy for such bad decisions, vote them out of office.” That's what you have to do.
I mean, I personally, my fight back is I start publishing books about exactly that issue. We just put out our newest books in the kids' book series, which are I am Muhammad Ali and I am Malala. They were books that I saw Muslims being targeted, I said, okay, I'm going to write books about Muslims then. And I'm going to show you two Muslims that fought back and taught kids how to protest. And that's what I'm doing. I'm basically teaching an army of young kids out there with the Ordinary People Change The World series. I'm arming them with values of kindness and perseverance and just never give up attitude. I'm going to build this little army of do gooders. You know, they're in houses everywhere.
Rachel: And I love that. That’s how we fight back. One of the things about the books that, that I really like, and just a lot of the, actually the books that are banned, is the conversation starters of them. Like Maus. It doesn't tell you exactly what to think. When you tell a biography, I love biographies myself. When you tell the story of someone, it allows them to come alive and people can take away what they want and they can synthesize those ideas, which I think is an important way to way to teach in general.
But I do find a lot of the books that are banned are more about ideas and more about— like Uncle Tom's cabin—what is it going to engender? And that's where the fear comes from.
Brad: I think with race, I'll be the first to say— it is a hard issue to talk about. It is, it is loaded. It is, it is truly, especially at the core of, of American history and America, you know, our best and worst sides are brought up in these conversations. But my God do we do a disservice to our children if we don't discuss race.
You remember when your kids were really little, the first time they fall, or the first time another kid pushes them, I wanted to murder that child that pushed my kid. But you see your child get up again or you see your child defend themselves, and I always say to my own kids, I'm like, “you learn far more from your failures than from your successes.”
And, and, and again, if you're afraid of that, you have to stop and say, well, “Why are you afraid of an idea?” The reason why all these book banners will always lose at the end, they will always, we will always win, is because throughout history, if you're on the side of banning art, you're going to lose. And you know why? Because fear-mongering has no chance against the most powerful thing in the universe: an idea. That's what books are. They're compilations of ideas and nothing can stop an idea.
Rachel: I know both you and your wife, Corey, know Judge Katanji Brown-Jackson from different areas and times in your life. Can you tell us a little bit more about how you know her and what you know about her?
Brad: Oh, it's so funny. You know I, obviously I live in Miami, I grew up here as a young debater in high school. And when we were in debate, you never knew the kids that were on the other teams. You always knew who was on your team and you knew, like, one or two or maybe at the most three kids who, you know, were just the best of the best. And you knew like, oh, if you're in round against so-and-so, you're all going against Rachel, you're going to get your butt kicked today.
And we all knew Katanji. Just her name. We just knew that she was the best. And my wife ended up going to college with her. And obviously I know her since back then, she is and always has been the embodiment of excellence. She was excellent in high school. She was excellent in college. She was excellent in law school and excellent in DC. It is not because of how she looks or what her skin color is. She is just and always was the best.
And I love the fact that here we are full circle. All these years later, I remember going to the Court, I was one of the few novelists ever allowed to speak on the actual Court. Um, they let me, they invited like thriller writers who wrote about the Supreme Court there and Justice Breyer was there and I got to meet him. And to watch his own clerk now be nominated for his seat after all those years, it is just one of the most amazing things to watch.
Rachel: Okay. So now your newest book is for adults is a novel called The Lightning Rod. Like a lot of your other novels, it involves a huge amount of research, this time involving some top secret military warehouses. So what is it like, writing a book about government programs that prepare for the end of the world during a time that, um, kinda feels like the end of the world?
Brad: The crazy part is, so I've always, you know, I've done the secret tunnels below the White House, I've done the hidden labyrinth below the Capitol, and I found out five years ago that the US Government, as you mentioned, has a dozen secret warehouses hidden all around the country to deal with bio-terrorist attacks. One of these dozen warehouses is kind of equidistant, so that in four hours, whether it's anthrax, whether it's smallpox, whether it's botulism, whether it's ebola or of course now COVID, they can get a push package out and make sure we're safe.
And I'm like, “you're telling me the government, for decades, has secret warehouses hidden right in front of our faces in some of these big cities and we don't know what's in them. I’ve got to go inside them! I want to know what's there! Or at least I want to know what's in them.” And I, and I, and so here I am, I research, it was under the CDC. I go to, I fly to Atlanta. I get into the CDC, I had unprecedented access and then COVID hit. And obviously you couldn't get any of that today, but what you see when you read the end of The Lightning Rod, right? What you see at the end, in that final scene in that warehouse? I didn't make up what's in that warehouse. It’s there.
Even the hero of the book, Nola… I remember I was in a government facility that was filled with paintings, military paintings, and I was like, “why does the US Army have all this art? It doesn't even make sense.” And this is true since WWI. The U S government, the Army, has had a painter on staff who paints disasters as they happen, whether it's storming the beaches of Normandy, Vietnam, 9/11. They're always there painting.
I said to them, “you're telling me everyone else is racing in with guns blazing, and you've got some guy racing in there with paint brushes in their pockets? I’m like, that's the craziest guy in the world. I want to meet him! I want to meet him." And they said to me, “You mean her. You want to meet her.” And it was a woman. And that's where my main character Nola was created in that moment.
When you're writing a book like this, about these secrets and about these disasters and about the end of the world and you suddenly start feeling like, “wait a minute, we need these warehouses.” Um, I remember when I was going through it, my wife is like, “are you changing that scene right now?” I'm like, “I feel like I'm writing reality as I'm writing this.” Of course it's all fiction and it's all a thriller, but obviously it felt so real.
Rachel: We have to do, speaking of lightning, our rapid fire questions, are you ready?
Brad: Oh I’ve been looking forward to this part!
Rachel: Okay. What's the weirdest thing you've learned in your novel research?
Brad: Uh… how the CIA used to hide secret messages back and forth. And I asked them, I'm like, “obviously we all have Signal and we all have, you know, WhatsApp and everyone can break encryption… how do you hide anything?” And they said to me, “here's what you do.” You and me, Rachel, I get a Hotmail account. I write a letter to Rachel. I don't hit send on that email. I Save Draft. Then I give you the login to my Hotmail, and then you log in and you delete what I wrote. You hit Save Draft. Now we haven't sent a single thing to each other, but we were communicating. That was a great idea that I used in a couple of books ago until General Patraeus cheated on his wife using that technique! Which was in my book!
Rachel: Right! I saw that, I was like, oh my God, I've read it in your books before! I was like, did he get that from Brad?
Brad: So they, they gave me a new one and that's in the new book, it’s in The Lightning Rod. I won't tell you what it was, but it's a good one.
Rachel: Okay. All right. What's something about being a bestselling author that might surprise us?
Brad: How many people recognize me in an airport. That's, what's weird. Also the fact that my daughter says to me regularly, “why does anyone want you to sign their books?” I'm like, “come on. You know, what feeds you, right?”
Rachel: Haha. So I know you're famous for your comic books. If you were a comic book superhero, what would your superpower be? Uh, we have, this is our daily argument at our table. Okay. So if you're a real nerd, you just say invulnerability, because it's the best superpower and no one can beat you. So we just take that off the table. And so I always want to fly. I always pick flying. My son is always like, “but you'll get shot.” I'm like, “maybe, but I'll be flying.”
Rachel: Of all the people you've met throughout your career, who made you most star struck? And you know a lot of famous people so I can't wait to hear that.
Brad: It’s always the president. Uh, when you meet a president, you have a story for life. Your time slows down and every detail. I remember going, I got a fan letter from President Clinton and one from President Bush Senior saying they, they liked the novels and President Bush asked for a copy and invited me to Houston to come and spend some time.
And I remember he, he spent the first five minutes of our visit there trying to convince my wife that he invented the phrase “you da man.” And Corey was like, “you know, President Bush invented the phrase “you da man!” I'm like, “no, he didn't, he's lying to you!” We were doing like a literacy event that Democrats and Republicans go to and he was raising money for literacy. I'm like, “he's, he's totally pulling your leg!”
Forgetting getting presidents, cause it's almost unfair… I’m on the Warner Brothers lot and I see this guy and for some reason I'm like, “oh my buddy's here.” I go to hug him until I realize… in the moment that my synapses is fire and my arms are about to raise to hug him… this is Brad Pitt. And you don't know this man at all. And I, I was literally like, this is not my friend. That's just the biggest movie star on the planet. So that was my, I was truly just dumbfounded.
Rachel: So if you ran for president, what would your rally song be?
Brad: Oh, I always think about my rally song. The obvious ones are Born To Run, cause it's just so good, but it's almost been done. I always love the Rolling Stones, You Can't Always Get What You Want, but my, my rally song would definitely, definitely be Eminem’s Lose Yourself. I mean, you put that song on, like for the, even on the Superbowl, and I can do 1000 pull-ups. Like I can do— whatever I need to lift, I can lift with that song.
Rachel: So besides your series, of course, what's a great book about American history that we can read to our children?
Brad: You know what I love, I love James Swanson's Manhunt. They did a kid's book version of it, and it's like part thriller, but it's all real history. It's meticulously researched, he's as crazy as I am about research. And it's all about Abraham Lincoln's murder of all things and the chase and the manhunt for his killers. But along the way, you, of course, inevitably learn about the man himself. And I think that that's one of my favorites.
When I think of kids books, I feel like I always give my kids adult books. I'm like, that's how you learn. Like, like you were saying before, like give them the hard stuff. They'll figure it out. They'll grow from it.
Rachel: Well that is the end of our rapid fire questions. Can you tell us where people can find more about your work and find you online? You can find me at bradmeltzer.com. I'm @BradMeltzer on Twitter and Facebook and Instagram and everywhere else in between, even LinkedIn.
I just want to say, I love that you're telling people to read The Lightning Rod, I love you for it. It's our new book, it's out now. And I love that they're going to go read, you know, I am Mohammad Ali and I am Malala and all the other things we were supposed to plug, but I need to say and leave you with, I love what you are doing here. And I know that you have, as the book bans came on, everyone kind of has that performative ally ship of like, “I hate book bans, I'm going to hit the like button.” And that's not how we stop book bans, hitting the like button. Or even just hitting, you know, taking my tweet and saying, "I'm going to retweet that.” As much as I appreciate every person who does of course.
But I love that you're encouraging people to show the power of an ordinary person because there's no such thing as an ordinary person. And that's why we put it on the books, right. At the end of I am Rosa Parks, it’s, “I am an ordinary person, but I'm proof that there's no such thing as an ordinary person.” And I love that you are showing people on every podcast, you can take action. You can go buy that banned book. You can say “I've had enough.” You can vote them out of office. And when you do that, I firmly believe that that's how you change the world.
Rachel: Thank you so much, Brad. I love you. Thanks for coming to The Suburban Women Problem.
Brad: Love you. Love you.
BREAK
Amanda: Welcome back everyone. Rachel, it was so fun to hear your interview with Brad Meltzer. So I was totally fan-girling out. So not a lot of people know, but our youngest daughter, Mimi, that's her nickname, I was actually reading Brad Meltzer’s book on Amelia Earhart, and as I was reading it, I was like, “oh, Amelia would be a great name that would go with the nickname Mimi.” Because our oldest daughter had decided this thing in my belly was going to be named Mimi, no matter what. So we reading his book on Amelia Earhart, and that's when we decided her name would be Amelia because of Brad Meltzer’s book.
Rachel: Aww! I'm going to text him as soon as we finish recording, I'm going to text him cause he is going to love that story. He is such a genuine and kind person. And he and his wife do amazing work. Their youngest is a couple years older than Ellie and you know, they're always good for some real parenting stories. And I love anyone who is like honest about parenting, because it's hard.
Jasmine: I love that. So before we go, we like to leave you with something good that happened to us or something positive that we saw in the news this week. So Rachel, let's start with you. What's your Toast to Joy this week?
Rachel: Well, as I said, at the beginning of the show, it's been, you know, continues to be pretty heavy news, I guess, would be a good word to use. And we're still very involved in helping people in Ukraine and following the story there. It's just turned into a humanitarian and refugee crisis. And as the Russians indiscriminately bomb civilian areas and civilian populations, I am inspired again, as I said last week, by the heroism and just bravery of the Ukrainian people.
And this weekend, this past weekend, I just really honored that we were able, Alex and I were able, to help raise a lot of money for an organization that is providing medical care to civilian populations. It was great that people have answered the call and stepped up and told the Ukrainians “we’re fighting with you and do you matter. And we really want to help you.” So that is my Toast to Joy.
Amanda: I love that. It reminds me of that Mr. Rogers quote again.
Rachel: Yeah, “look for the helpers.”
Amanda: Yeah, absolutely. Oh, but more than that, what he was really saying is “be the helper.” Right? And I think that's what you're doing is you're not looking for the helper, you are looking for “what can I do to be the helper?” Which is awesome.
Jasmine: Absolutely. I think it's really important.
Rachel: So, Jasmine, what is your Toast to Joy this week?
Jasmine: Um, my Toast to Joy is actually something a lot…it's pretty simple, but it's like a big deal to me. Um, so I have been working on exercising more and so I have started like doing a step challenge with some friends and I walked so many miles last week, I'm feeling good. Like, I like feel good in the mornings and I can sleep really well at night. Like I get really sleepy at like 10:00 PM. Like immediately, I’m like, “it is bedtime!” Because I've been like doing all this walking and stuff.
I have shoes in my car at the Capitol and after we adjourn for the day, I go to my car and I take off my heels and I put on my walking shoes and I go walking downtown. And so it’s like, I'm that person now! But it's, I like it.
Amanda: I’m inspired! I've been working out… less. Um, not my intention, but now I'm feeling inspired! And I'm like I gotta like get my butt in gear. That's awesome. Uh, all right. So my Toast to Joy today is, so I'm a Girl Scout troop leader, and I recently took my troop to go visit our Polymer Center. And what we've been doing lately is doing a lot of different like tours of different places, so they can be introduced to just a whole lot of different things.
But what is not lost on me is this is like people coming in on the weekend usually to give us a tour of a water treatment plant at or a Polymer Center. And it really means a lot that all the people in the community, people are willing to help my girls out and expose them to different things. And I appreciate the volunteers who are volunteering their time. So for everyone out there, who's volunteering their time. My Toast to Joy is for you and the girls really appreciate it.
Jasmine: What’s a polymer center. I’m, I'm curious, like I know that what a polymer is, but what is a polymer center?
Amanda: Oh, I did not really know what a polymer was, but I did learn! So lots of molecules is basically what I got out of it. So our Polymer Center is relationship between the University of Akron and Goodyear, where they study plastics, how to make, you know, more sustainable plastics, how to make different kinds of plastics and different kinds of rubbers, and it's all of that. And it's actually number one in the world! So it was really cool that they came in and then I was like, “okay. I don't think econ could be that exciting.”
Jasmine: You can make anything exciting! You just gotta make it colorful and use pretty pictures.
Rachel: I agree.
Amanda: Challenge accepted. Yeah. All right. so thanks so much to everyone for joining us today. If you enjoyed today’s episode, please give us a rating and review and we'll see you again next week on another episode of The Suburban Women Problem.