We Can’t Friend Our Way out of White Supremacy

absurdities of a deeply divided and unequal country. And this week we're talking about the political history of interracial friendships. Come on, man, our story. This is our story, political history, all right. So a little while ago, we each got a book in the mail. Yeah. This book is by

an author, a political scientist named Saladein Ambar. The books titled Stars and Shadows the Politics of Interracial Friendship from Jefferson to Obama, The whole Gamut of Black and White Friendship in the History of the United States, Alpha to the Omega. And you know, we get this book in the mail and the first thing we think about is are we in it? That's right? Yeah, because I mean how could we not be. I mean, who's had an interracial friendship for thirty six years that you know, you

at least weren't sleeping with the other person. I was leafing through it. I was looking through it. And so this book totally intrigued us. We start going to the table of contests and looking what's in it and these pairings of black and white friendships from the last two hundred years. Yeah, it was. It was surprising. I mean, first of all, I didn't even know about some of

these relationships. And then others which I knew about, like Benjamin Bannaker, the famous black mathematician, had a correspondence with Thomas Jefferson. It was like holding Thomas Jefferson's feet to the fire, like, dude, you know, you got to show up for black people. And then the most famous black intellectual W. E. B. Du Boys is celebrating his relationship with the most famous philosopher of the time, a guy

named William James. And I was like, hum, I was a little surprised, And we were also dubious about this book. I mean got to admit, you know that in many of these cases, these people were not especially close friends, and you know, so much of the premise of our show, like here we have the show where we're interracial friends, is that those kind of connections alone are not the thing that are going to bring about structural change in the country. That's right, that's right. So we had soliden

on the show. He goes by Dean because now he's one of our friends as well, and you know, like we had to talk to him about this, and one of the things he points out that like, even when there's not a lot of there there in the friendship, what he's interested in is the politics of it, which is in a way sort of like friendship as symbolism. That's right. Yeah, And because that cuts against the grain in many ways of our show, we're poking fun of that,

you know, like some of our best friends are. He's making kind of a stronger argument that actually, in that symbolism suggests the possibility of something of structural change, of what he calls democratic possibilities. So let's talk to him. Yes, yeah, so let's talk to Dean. Heyy, welcome, welcome, We are so excited, Professor Salah Dean, I'm bar is on. Some of my best friends are then, yes, yes, this is a conversation we have been dying to have about interracial friendships. Yep,

right up our alley. Yes, I appreciate you guys building a podcast around this book, so thank you very much. That was very kind of you. The heart of our podcast is that we built this idea that friendships are important but then not going to get us to the

promised land. I wanted us to start this conversation with you being sort of talking about the inspiration for the book, because I have to say, when I saw the title and I skimmed the cover of the book before I read it, I thought, no, I'm not convinced, Like, what's this guy talking about like interracial friendships and like political projects and something about democracy? So I'm packed that a little bit. You know, what is this book really about? I was a little bit concerned too, to be honest

with you. And you know, the last thing I wanted was to write a book where people thought, well, we could just friend our way out of white supremacy, right, and there we go, hintred we could just you know, just be friends. Why can't we get along? That was

the last thing I was hoping for. If you really look at the two books I wrote Before this, I wrote a book called Malcolm x At for Union, Politics of Global Race Relations, and that book really spoke to sort of my upbringing, my conversion Islam during my teen years, and how that influenced me politically. And I was very much drawn like a lot of people growing up in New York were who were black. Anyway, to Malcolm's teachings,

you dropped some nuggets there. So so grew up in New York, came of age sometime assuming in the late eighties as a teenager when Malcolm was becoming a kind of avatar for black resistance to the world drugs and all that deal. Yeah, this is the era of public enemy. Uh, you know, the power all of that man. And did you have did you have white friends at the time or people who were Latino or Asian? Was was your

crew integrated? Well yes and no. So it's you know, I kind of lived a bit of a double life, you know. I was about to say. The next book I wrote was about Mario Cuomo for New York and because he was because he's really a black dude. Maybe maybe maybe, but you know, Mario and his Italian heritage spoke to my own because my mom's family, you know,

comes from sicily her side. Um. And so you know, the point about Malcolm was, I think I needed to reaffirm, you know, who Malcolm meant to me, what my blackness meant to me. But also moving on to you know, Mario, I had to focus on or I was drawn to focusing on that side of my heritage as well. And then I think this is a kind of this book is in many ways a kind of synthesis, you know, of me dealing with both ends of uh, you know, that sort of psychological backdrop to who I am as

a human being. And so I think I was grappling, frankly with some of my own questions about identity and who I am in the world. In Stars and Shadows, the book that we read, you look at ten different friendships. They're spanning two hundred years of American history, starting with Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Bannaker and going all the way to Obama and Biden. And on the way you've got James Baldwin and Marlon Brando. You've got Angela Davis and

Gloria Steinham. You've got a lot of different relationships in there. And don't forget the ultimate Black and Jewish relationship doctor Martin Luther King Junior and Rabbi Joshua Heschel. Boy, how could I forget on? Man? Yeah? Man? Right? You know, in a lot of ways, the book is also a history of America and a history of race and racism

told through these these relationships. I thought we could pause for a second though, and like actually try to talk a little bit more about what friendship really means in this context, and to talk about like the terms we're using, like what is an interracial friendship? And how are we

talking about it here? Well, you know, I've tried to go back to, you know, the French revolutionary ideal of Herne Tay because I think unlike ordinary you know, daily friendship among ordinary citizens, for Tony Tay had political implications. You know, Benjamin Bannaker had a lot of white friends. All his friends were white. He was a free black man in rural Maryland. He was a farmer, and he was surrounded by whites and they were his friends and he got along, but you know, he was not involved

in a political project with them. And I think what happened with Jefferson and he is that he got involved in a political project. So Dean, what you mean by political project is that Jefferson had written a racist book called Notes on the State of Virginia that essentially said

black people were fundamentally inferior to white people. And here Bannaker is, who's helped build the nation's capital and is now sending Jefferson and almanac, and he's like, dude, if we're inferior, how can I be this incredible scientist and mathematician. That's right. In other words, he wanted to use an attempted friendship, in his case, a connection he was trying to make, you know, signing his letter using the language of my brethren, and you know, your humble, obedient servant,

Jefferson responds back to him. He's using a kind of breakthrough of social relations to make a political statement. And I think these ten case studies are about taking with what one has on a private level. And I think maybe you guys can speak to this better than most. You had your friendship, it was what it was. But now when when it's a podcast becomes part of a public form, man, you know, it involves something a little heavier.

It becomes it's not just you know, two guys getting bagels or hanging out or listening to music or whatever y'all do. Yeah, well, you definitely nailed us on the bagels and the music that is a hangout. Come on man then used to deliver bagels. But let's let's let's talk about this work because you you know, in some ways, i'm you know, it's interesting to about why these relationships

are so difficult in America. And you know, you cite this study during the Obama years that you said, three quarters of white people don't have a black friend, and two thirds of black people don't have a white friend, and that is the state of America. And even even your book's title Stars and Shadows, it comes from Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn. Right, Huck and Jim are on the raft and there it's nighttime and they look up and all they have to navigate by our stars and shadows.

And so you think about Huck and Jim on the raft, about their friendship and they're bond, you could call it if it's not a friendship, but that it exists really only on the raft and the raft of this idea of being, you know, between two shores of not being in America, of being this liminal space, and that's really the only realm in which they can have this connection. Man, that was deep. You see us the word liminal? Man, You know, I han't heard uson's grad school. Man. So

that's I'm here with two professors. I'm trying to like punch above my weight. So yeah, man, of course you're punching outside your way class, but we're gonna give you a chance to catch up with us. Look, we've been in this relationship for thirty five years, and I'm beginning to wonder are we even in an interracial relationship or friendship? What the hell's going on? So when we come back from the break, we're gonna actually nail this thing down.

What is an interracial friendship? Welcome back to some of my best friends are We're talking with saladein Ambar, who goes by Dean. So, Dean, what is an interracial friendship? Let's define this. I think, you know, these interracial friendships carry great possibilities in part because they involve, you know, a kind of spiritual dimension to life, because they involved matters of the heart, you know. And I think that because because of what they overcome, I mean, why would

that be different than another relationship? Well, I think back to your point about we're in America, you know, UM, and and pretty much any multi racial society that has and all of them have been tanked, if not driven by white supremacy these several hundred years now. UM, you know, place a premium on um, you know, following suit with

what is alike rather than what is different. There's a kind of stress and inherent stress, I would say, involved in these kinds of relationships and connections that don't take place in the same way that they do in ordinary friendships, which it can be stress stressful enough, you know, if people are being truly honest with themselves. Well, this is something that I want to just take a moment to discuss a bit further. And that is in your ten case studies. And this is not a criticism so much

as an observation. Man, most of these cats weren't actually friends. Yeah, Like, what would you call it if it's a well, I would call it a relationship, right, because I can think of a thousand different scenarios, particularly in my professional work, where I am connected to someone and that through that connection we make something happen, and it might even be something of some political important to happen, but I wouldn't

necessarily call those folks friends. And I'm curious for you, how important was it that people see these as friendships rather than as connections, relationships somewhat even transactional. It's a great point. I think the key to is the politics of inter racial friendship. So you take two boys and William James at Harvard. You know, these are not people

who are hanging out. They're not getting the bagels and go and you know, going to the jazz spot, right And I think this is to your point, Khalila, you know, the authenticity and depth of the friendships if they were friends at all, it's in ordinary terms, we would not describe the boys and James as friends. But the boys uses that language. He goes out of his way to call James my friend. He you know, extols his relationship and connection with him for many years because in part,

the boys has a political project in mind here. He first of all, he wants to connect himself and black intellect to the greatness that James represented. So that's an important, you know, project of his own right there. He wants to situate himself as a social equal with James, an intellectual equal. With James, but also um by extension in proxy all other black folk in the country. I think that's his political project, and he goes out of his way to talk about James in those terms. James does

not call the boys his friend ever. He has a letter that he just says, some mulatto grad student I have. He writes a letter to his brother. That's right, and so well, y'all, y'all actually read the book. We don't play. We don't know. Some of my best friends are my goodness. Yeah, yeah, I'll not faking it. You're appreciate it. So but I think that's the point though. Okay, can we just talk for a minute about the friendship between the writer James

Baldwin and the actor Marlon Brando. I could have been somebody. I could have been a contender, Yes, Marlon Brando and James Baldwin probably was the most intimate, you know, meaningful relationship on a personal level that you know, most likely lovers, and they were friends with benefits. Absolutely, Yeah, that was a very powerful and real connection and friendship. You know, You're right. Most of these would not be described conventionally

as friendships. These are not always people socially hanging out, but all of them. I think the key is that all of them have some of the parties, or if not, both of them make the effort to use their friendship, however lightly regarded it was, or held by either party, to make some kind of democratic statement. Yeah, I got a question for you, Khalil about that. You know, in a way, that's a definition of not a friendship, like

if there's a use value to it. And it makes me think about like after George Floyd and you know, all the sort of concern that white people had in America, they're thinking about their white privilege. It was really a reckoning and and you know, this sort of permeated much

of the culture. I don't know if that was like, that's not friendship, or maybe is that the moving toward I think that what's interesting about how Dean just explained this is there's something in the performance of the reaching out in the midst of George Floyd that creates the possibility for something more substantial. Hey, you're someone I know.

Can we talk about this as friends might? And so the relationships may be superficial, but it's the invitation for a deeper reflection that I think that Dean, you would say, creates quote unquote democratic possibilities. I think so. Look, stagecraft is important in politics. It's very important in a multiracial democracy. And stagecraft, you mean the appearance of something as a

public good or a positive or a relationship. Even when Lincoln calls out to Douglas in the White House, when the guards in that their third meeting after the second inaugural address, when they're escorting Douglas out of the White House, Lincoln calls out to him, there's my friend Douglas. Now they were not homies. They had two meetings prior to that, two meetings and a letter. That's it. But you know, when Lincoln calls out, there's my friend Douglas. That's for

the white guards. That's for the white attendees at the inaugural ceremony and ball. That's for white America. Look, y'all, when this thing is over, when this war ends, we just can't, you know, have a de facto in name only kind of citizenship for these folks. We have to be their friends and that stagecraft. But we need it,

you know, yeah, yeah, you need it. That story reminds me of this powerful New York leader introducing me to a bunch of very wealthy white people, and in a way that was like Khalil's demand, Like I came to despise the term because this, like this euphemism of like he's a smart, articulate black person as you the man, or he's the man. Also felt like it not only cheapened me as kind of a set piece in a stage production, but also was not for my benefit. It

didn't actually credential me in any way. It just it just said he's okay, Like he's okay in this space. Yeah, if we're talking about a low end project or not even a personal project or something that is connected to self affirmation or being seen as cool, this is hard work. This is you know, um, the tendency to fall over into the cheap and the profane and the silly with respect. It sounds like American popular culture. Yeah, it's right there,

right there. You know. Someone asked me, well, it's like Kanye and Trump, right well exactly. I mean, someone said, well you should do Beyonce and what if Paul Trow. I was like, I don't know if that's the book I'm talking about here, but you know, so when we come back, we're going to talk about two more of these high profile interracial friendships, two of them in which the symbolism, you know it matters in a different kind of way. Yeah, yeah, like breaking the color barrier. Yeah,

welcome back to some of my best friends. Are we are talking about interracial friendships, and we are going to the nineteen fifties for a very special friendship. Who are your favorite people? Well, who are favorite person? I love her as a person as I think she's And that's Ella Fitzgerald. Wow, that's Marilyn Monroe. Given big ups to Ella Fitzgerald. That's the friendship we want to talk about next. Can you tell us about that story of like why

why it appealed to you? Well? What went down is that Marilyn Monroe and Ella Fitzgerald had a kind of casual friendship and connection. You know, it was not a you know, a kind of acquaintance ship, you know, boring on a friendship. And Marilyn Monroe is like every other would be singer patterning herself off of Ella Fitzgerald. Why wouldn't you. She's listening to tons of her music, trying

records and trying to learn, you know, her secrets. So she has profound respect for for Ella, and ultimately she hears that Ella will not be is not being booked by Charlie Morrison, the owner of this mccambo club in Hollywood. And the reason why she's not being booked is not because she's black. It's because she's not sexy enough for Charlie and for the white patrons who attend the Macombo Club. They've had you know, the earth, the kids, and other

black women perform who fit the bill. So the point is that, you know, so much of what transpires in terms of how it's interpreted, is that somehow Marilyn uses her stature to get Ella into the club because she was opposed to racism. Well, Marilyn knew why she wasn't being admitted into the club. It wasn't, again a color barrier. It was a kind of you know, stereotype of women and the kinds of women who should be allowed to perform based on their looks. So you know, Marilyn does

stick her neck out. She does, you know, say hey, you know, if you let Ella into the club, I'm going to use my cache to have and tell all my Hollywood friends to start to the Macombo. And right away this gets a ton of publicity, like it's all in the news, like Marilyn Monroe, and she's the actor, and Fitzgerald is the acted upon like Merl Monroe is kind of this white savior who gets talked about in this way of getting her this gig and crossing the color line. Yes, and you know, it becomes a white

savior story. I mean, I think I include a bunch of headlines and Ella Saved by Maryland. Literally, these are some of the kinds of titles for stories that go on. But it doesn't make Marilyn Monroe any less courageous. And what she did, she did stick her neck out of another other people, other white performers would not have done

that and did not do what she did. So I think, you know, we can't devalue her her politics, which were pretty extraordinary for the time, and often undervalue because of her beauty and her presentation and her esthetic by the same tope, And I think that story is interesting to me because of what it says about us, you know today, right right, yeah, Yeah, that's one of the things that you write about in the story, and that is that

there are children's books being written today published in twenty twenty. You say that highlight this relationship, and of course there's been an explosion of books since George Floyd. This isn't one of the well, a couple of them that I looked at weren't necessarily post Floyd, but they were part of a moment of people searching for some example, some representation,

something symbolic. Yeah, yeah, I mean it really speaks to why these stories are so appealing, even if there's not a lot there, Like this is really about the idea of it more than the substance, and in a way, the substance is not as important as what, like, what we're trying to pull through. It says that we want, you know, to be validated for knowing the story as

much as for the actual story. Right. We don't care if this if we get the story right, we want to you know, frame the story in a certain way that we can be validated. And it's okay to know that, you know, Marilyn didn't save Ella. Her career was pretty off the hook at that point. She was doing great, you know, that's right. Yeah, I was doing just great. They both were, but you know, she didn't get saved. I mean, you know, she's playing plenty of other venues,

and she was doing all right. I was thinking about why Ella Fitzgerald and Marilyn Monroe's story is so alluring for us today and maybe especially for white people, you know, at a time when we're thinking a lot about being fair and anti racist. And one of the things that struck me is that it didn't really like what Marilyn Monroe did. If we want to emulate that it doesn't demand very much of us, then I hadn't thought about it, and quite as stark a term as you just describe.

But it also means that it's so much easier to actually do the kind of work that people like Marylyn did. In this instance of saying, hey, look out for the singer. She's amazing and I'm not coming back until you do, the low hanging fruit almost makes the condemnation of the slow pace of anti racist change even more revealing, Like it in so many of these instances, it didn't even demand much for someone to actually do something meaningful to

create the space of possibility. All right, So let's talk about one more inter racial friendship, perhaps the most consequential of all time. President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden man the most important of all time. Wow, So we want to know give us your take on these guys. Was this a hard chapter to write? I mean, how

were you thinking about putting them into this story? How did you want the reader to come away taking something substantive about Barack Obama's the first black president and Joe Biden as his vice president. You know that moment when Barack Obama puts that Presidential Medal of Freedom around you know, Joe Biden's neck, and Biden, you know, is holding can't hold back the tears. That's a powerful moment, in part because it says, you know, what's possible, and also I

think what's fearful for many white Americans? You know, I don't know who fear the loss of them? You know, rooted in demographic change, The idea that we're going to have a sequence or series of black or multiracial presidents, you know, leaders, etc. Conferring these honors is somewhat problematic

to them. So I think that that was that was one of the critical elements to draw the contrast to what had come before, all right, and so digging into the actual substance of Joe Biden's and Barack Obama's friendship. You know, it starts out kind of rocky. I mean you you cite this moment in the Senate when Barack Obama is listening to Joe Biden like go on and on,

and he's he's talking about how bored he is. And when Biden drops out of the president election in two thousand and eight, he has one of these lines which is like, exactly what you fear, like your white friend or you're just waiting for them to say something offensive. First short of main stream African American who is articulate and bright and clean and my looking guy, man, Joe, I mean you said the first sort of mainstream African

American who is articulate and bright and damn clean. Come on, man, I actually love it. I'm gonna tell you why. Well, this is you know, he's bright and clean, uh and new uh inarticulate, inarticulate. It's the clean that is like he's really I know, I know he's not as using the butters and he's got all the butters. You know, he's looking clean. Biden's language there, I'm not surprised by. I'm not necessarily even hurt by. I understand where it

comes from. And I look at Biden's life in the arc of his political life and personality and who he is in the world, who he's been, And I'm also not struck in a way by it, because I think Biden it just comes from who he is as a what is he close to eighty year old white man now in life? And I'm you know, I'm not excusing it. I'm saying I understand it, and I'm not informed by

it in the same way I would be. But then I hear um other political leaders speak, you know, who are younger, who are you know whose heart is not in the right place. You're also deemed pointing to like the dynamic and a lot of these friendships. And I'm speaking from the white side here, but you know, you're we're friends up to an extent, and you're you're imagining, you're like, oh, he's gonna say something fucked up or you know, you know, that's just who he is. But

apart from that, he's cool. And so what you just said about Biden, of like, I know where he comes from, I know all that stuff. It is exactly the kind of limits on full friendship that we often fear in these in these dynamics. Yes, I mean, damn, it can't just be mister Rogers and John Brown as the only white people in American political history. It'd be a narrow list of folks you could really get with if if

you set the bar where it really should be. Frankly, you know, I take into account the difficulty factor of being a white person living in a white supremacist society, who's told you all these wonderful things about you, etc. I have a degree of difficulty measure that I'm applying to who you are as a human being. In the same way that I think black folks deserve credit for surviving and thriving. You're greating us on a curve what you're saying a little bit, A little bit relatives and

all kind of folk included, Yes, a little bit. Sure. Well. That's the thing that I think is interesting about your discussion of Barack and Joe, because you use the term in this chapter about performance art, and you talk about

how much it mattered. I mean, there's this famous scene of President Obama and Vice President Biden walking or jogging at the White House with both of their jackets off, and you know, they're both looking vigorous and strong, and yet submerged underneath this genuine working relationship that you know, by all accounts over eight years was productive. Is this kind of tortured underbelly of like Joe Biden's own history from anti bussing to the crime Bill to his role

in Anita Hill. And I'm not here to relitigate so much as to say, there's that tension between what you so aptly described as this shared history of loss between the two of them and this genuine relation relationship. And yet at what costs because it seems like all that

other stuff wasn't actually part of their legislative agenda. Right, No, And look, Barack Obama himself, with all of his blackness, is still you know, again to a certain percentage of black political followers, thinkers, you know, problematic in his own way from the standpoint of what he was able to or not able to accomplish in his presidency visa v You know, black folks, teaching our sons to treat women with respect and to realize responsibility does not end at

conception that what makes them a man does not the ability to have a child, but to raise one. You know, every day in this in the United States, there are you know, there's a certain percentage black folks who go to the office every day. Maybe they're supervised, they supervised, you know, white workers who who have to take orders from them, and they you know, and that's its own kind of head all at times for them. And here was Joe Biden, who didn't say boo, you know, to

do anything really to hurt Obama. He never stabbed Obama in the back. He was loyal as the day as long, loyal as a dog, you know, And and black folk looked at that, particularly the older you were and are as an African American in this country, that relationship resonated with you big time because you remember what it was like to go into a workplace and be the only one and then have and maybe be the first of your generation to have leadership roles where where whites were,

you know, um, your subordinates. And to see Biden, you know, act gracefully towards Obama and never throw him under the bus. So I think those things matter to black folk. Hey, before we go, so Khalil and I are an interracial friendship. Do you have any questions for us? You know, as far as a question for you guys, I think, um, when one is maybe a about your own relationship and having begun this podcast, has it changed the way you've

thought about it? Or is it do you even want to be involved in like a kind of or see yourself involved in a political project or is that kind of cheapen what you have? Or is this podcast sort of intentionally, you know, part of an idea of you know, moving the country forward. Yeah, I mean we started out this conversation by saying, you know, the our show is almost premised on this idea that here we are a black guy and a white guy. That's not going to get us to the promised Land. And did you get

us a podcast? And and and as you write, as you write like those are steps that are important. It is not the thing. But you know, we believe in the ideal of a multiracial democracy. How could you not like, how could you not feel like that's something where we have to try to strive for in some way? And you know, so so these kinds of conversations, these kinds of connections are not the fruition, but it's certainly, like, you know, a small way to start moving forward, to

have to at least have dialogue absolutely, Dean. You know, we wanted this podcast to be a post Trump conversation about how did we get there and this notion of individualism and proximity to one another, And we came of age as MTV babies, and we grew up in an

integrated community, largely middle class. I will add, but with all those markings of the possibility of a change country, the country in some ways, by so many measures, is as worse as it was before the Civil Rights era, and in other instances, when we talk about mass incarceration, it's worse than it was in a Civil rights era.

So clearly we wanted to be able to talk about our coming of age story and to talk about this relationship as a window onto all the things we were deliberately not taught in school, that we were not encouraged to think about, and to ultimately reflect on that in a productive way at this moment to say, we got a lot of work to do to understand the actual history and the present of this crazy country we live in. And in that sense, I think your book is, you know,

is an invitation to that history. You Actually, that's what I love about the book, that it's more than just this meditation on the politics of friendship. It's actually set a way of saying, at these particular crossroads, these relationships were fraught, and yet they were symbolically meaningful, and there were opportunities to take that symbolism and make its substantive going forward. Well, we are so grateful to have had you on this show. We certainly count you as one

of our best friends. Thank you so much, Dean for being your conversation with us. Appreciate you. Thank you so much for having me. Really truly has been been a pleasure. Thank you. Yeah, thank you, Dean. Well, that was a great conversation. It was, I mean, I definitely learned a lot. I was surprised at how convincing Solidine was in a lot of ways. So yeah, So I have a question for you. Who are you in the book? Who do

you identify with? Definitely Frederick Douglas. I mean, come on, you know, handsome, articulate, clean, boom boot certain certainly like the commitment Douglas head to speak in truth to power. So that's that's who I most identify with. And all right, you asked me, so I'm asking you. How about you? Marilyn Monroe? Uh oh, really using my sexuality for good. Oh boy, we're in trouble. No wonder that didn't didn't

end sistific races in America. All right, man, all right, I love you, all right, I love you too, man. Some of My Best Friends Are is a production of Pushkin Industries. The show is written and hosted by me Khalil Jibrad Muhammed and my best friend Ben Austin. It's produced by John Assanti and Lucy Sullivan. Our editor is Jasmine Morris, our engineer is Amanda ka Wang, and our

executive producer is Mio Lobell. At Pushkin thanks to Leta Mullad, Julia Barton, Heather Faine, Carly Migliori, John Schnars, Gretta Khne, and Jacob Weisberg. Our theme song, Little Lily, is by fellow chicagoan the brilliant Avery R. Young, from his album Tubman. You definitely want to check out his music at his website Avery R. Young dot com. You can find Pushkin on all social platforms at Pushkin pods, and you can

sign up for our newsletter at pushkin dot fm. To find more Pushkin podcasts, listen on the iHeartRadio app Apple podcasts wherever you like to listen. Hell, you know nobody you like You know nobody. I'm gonta know you would like Al