Do you need a revival? On the longest night of the year, join us to celebrate Yalda, a poetic Persian tradition. Then, a conversation about those we’ve lost with jazz and gospel artist Gregory Porter. Here’s the translation of the Hafez poem read by Armen Davoudian at the end of our show: Ghazal 43 (Hafez) The orchard charms our hearts, and chatter when our dearest friends appear – is sweet; God bless the time of roses! To drink our wine among the roses here – is sweet! Our souls’ scent sweetens...
Dec 20, 2021•50 min•Transcript available on Metacast Three men — White, Black, and Asian — discuss the nuances of identity that divide this country. A bonus episode, introducing a new podcast we love: “Some of My Best Friends Are…” Our host Kai Wright talks with Khalil Gibran Muhammed about the new show. And we share an episode in which Khalil and Ben Austen, two best friends who grew up together on the South Side of Chicago in '80s, talk with New York Times journalist and author Jay Caspian Kang about his new memoir, The Loneliest Americans, and ...
Dec 16, 2021•50 min•Transcript available on Metacast A.O. Scott, co-chief film critic of the New York Times, helps us review the year in culture. What can we learn about our struggling effort to live together from this year’s art? T hen, a conversation with WQXR’s Terrance McKnight about the life and legacy of famed contralto, Marian Anderson. The List Here’s a crowd-sourced list of 2021’s defining art gathered from listeners and our guest. If you have a suggestion tweet us at #USofAnxiety. Film Inside Passing The Closer Television Squid Game Musi...
Dec 13, 2021•50 min•Transcript available on Metacast Another year of The Supreme Court of the United States is coming to a close. But can we still trust our nine appointed justices to be the final arbiters of the law? . Co-hosts of the Boom! Lawyered podcast, Jessica Mason Pieklo and Imani Gandy, join Kai Wright to answer those questions and more from our listeners about Dobbs v. Jackson and the impact of abortion rights on the U.S. Plus, results from our audience experiment to see how platforms on the Internet shape the content we consume. Compan...
Dec 06, 2021•51 min•Ep 150•Transcript available on Metacast Anti-racist work snuck into the mainstream last year. But ever since, it’s received a huge backlash. Why, and what did right-wing media have to gain? This week, Kai revisits two conversations: First, with Dr. Ibram X. Kendi, author of five best-selling books including How to Be an Antiracist , about what anti-racism really means. Then, Dr. Nicole Hemmer, author of Messengers of the Right: Conservative Media and the Transformation of American Politics , explains how right wing media serves -- and...
Nov 29, 2021•52 min•Transcript available on Metacast History shows that our country’s actually been divided from the start. If secession is in our DNA, what’s keeping us together? Should we just break up already? Kai talks with author Richard Kreitner about his book, “ Break It Up : Secession, Division, and the Secret History of America’s Imperfect Union.” Plus, a look at how the Internet and the “Filter Bubble” contribute to our isolation today. Stick around for an exercise you can do when the divide gets real at the Thanksgiving table. Companion...
Nov 22, 2021•51 min•Transcript available on Metacast Who’s breaking them, and why? Coming off of COP26, we talk to journalists Elizabeth Kolbert and David Wallace-Wells about the real cost of the climate crisis and who is paying the price. Learn about climate reparations, hear answers to listener questions, and discover what’s left for us to try to move forward as a global society. Plus, revisit the h istory of the 1992 Earth Summit that we discuss in the episode: https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/anxiety/episodes/united-states-of-anxiety-seaso...
Nov 15, 2021•50 min•Transcript available on Metacast Broadcast journalist Ray Suarez was 59 when he lost a dream job that took decades to reach. What he did next reveals a harsh reality of class blindness and the consequences of job insecurity in the U.S. His experience inspired a new podcast that “gives voice to people who have lost jobs, lost their homes, and sometimes lost the narrative thread of their lives.” He joins host Kai Wright to preview his story and helps take calls from our listeners. Listen to Going for Broke With Ray Suarez , a new...
Nov 08, 2021•50 min•Transcript available on Metacast This Halloween, we reveal the holiday’s often untold history and why connecting to the dead is important to so many people, from Ireland, to Mexico, to NYC. What about this time of year lowers the veil between the living and the dead, and what does this universal desire to connect with those who’ve passed teach us about ourselves? Plus, make sure to listen to the end for a conversation with award-winning psychic medium Betsy LeFae , host of the podcast Trust Yourself. She leads Kai through a gui...
Nov 01, 2021•1 hr•Transcript available on Metacast In just two weeks, New Yorkers could elect Eric Adams, making him the city’s second-ever Black mayor. What does his rise through civil service tell us about the ways race and power have evolved in the nation’s largest city? Hear from Errol Louis, one of New York's longest-serving political journalists, about how Adams's story is part of a much broader history of Black politics -- a story that began in a Brooklyn church, some 50 years ago. Companion listening for this episode : 'Community' Is a V...
Oct 25, 2021•51 min•Transcript available on Metacast Jon Gruden, a star coach in the NFL, recently resigned from the Las Vegas Raiders. A sexual harassment investigation within a separate part of the league surfaced old emails in which Gruden used homophobic, racist, and misogynistic language. Scandals like these – driven by men in positions of power – have plagued the sport and the league for decades. But what does this mean for fans who just want to enjoy the game? When a sport is a crucial part of a person’s community and culture, should bigotr...
Oct 18, 2021•43 min•Transcript available on Metacast Is racism a permanent fixture of society? Host Kai Wright is joined by Jelani Cobb, staff writer for The New Yorker, to unravel the history of Derrick Bell’s quest to answer that question and how it led to our present debate over critical race theory. Companion listening for this episode : The Method to Tucker Carlson’s Madness (5/3/2021) History suggests we shouldn’t laugh off what’s happening in right wing media right now. Plus, profiting off of racism is a business model as old as the news. “...
Oct 11, 2021•52 min•Ep 63•Transcript available on Metacast Displaced Haitians are still seeking safe harbor. But the U.S. long ago abandoned the ideal that all migrants should at least be allowed to tell their stories. Host Kai Wright is joined by globally recognized immigrant rights advocate and professor at Columbia Law School, Elora Mukherjee, to break down asylum. When refugees arrive, how do we respond, and how are we all implicated in that choice? Companion listening for this episode : Wash. Rinse. Repeat. Haiti and International Aid (8/23/2021) H...
Oct 04, 2021•50 min•Transcript available on Metacast The fall season is here. A season of new shows on television , art in museums, and musicals on Broadway. Can the creative work that’s been made during the pandemic, and that’s going to be made now, help us move forward together? Host Kai Wright takes calls from listeners with bestselling author and senior culture editor at ESPN's The Undefeated, Morgan Jerkins. Then, we revisit a conversation with Ashley C. Ford about a piece of art that we’re still thinking about, the HBO series Lovecraft Count...
Sep 27, 2021•51 min•Ep 61•Transcript available on Metacast New science finds we’ve got less than a decade to avoid climate catastrophe. Activist and author Bill McKibben says the only solutions that can beat that deadline are collective. Host Kai Wright invites listeners to ask McKibben their own climate questions, on the heels of a United Nations report that declared the damage from carbon and methane emissions at our current rate will be irreversible by 2030. What can we do that will make enough change, quickly enough? Companion listening for this epi...
Sep 20, 2021•49 min•Transcript available on Metacast How did September 11, 2001, and its aftermath, affect the way anyone perceived as Muslim, and those around them, fit inside the American experiment? Host Kai Wright is joined by award winning journalist Aymann Ismail, who talks about his post-9/11 childhood in northern New Jersey -- and what he learned about his identity as an adult. Then, a conversation about diversity, healing, and growth, with Irene Sankoff and David Hein, the co-creators of the Tony Award-winning show Come From Away. A filme...
Sep 13, 2021•51 min•Transcript available on Metacast One man’s ongoing effort to get justice for the abuse he endured at a U.S. prison in Iraq. At the start of the Iraq War in 2003, Salah Hasan Nusaif al-Ejaili was working as a journalist when the U.S. military detained him inside Abu Ghraib, a prison that would become notorious for American abuses committed in the wake of the September 11th terrorist attacks. Only a handful of people were ever held responsible—all of them military personnel. But the private contractors who oversaw interrogations ...
Sep 10, 2021•37 min•Transcript available on Metacast The “Great Resignation” appears to be a real thing. But why? We ask workers what they really want. Plus, 45 questions to help us understand each other, and ourselves. Recent research shows that for a lot of us, our relationship with work has evolved greatly through this ongoing pandemic. In our Labor Day episode, journalist Sarah Jaffe, author of the book Work Won’t Love You Back, returns to the show to explore what’s changing, and why. Plus, we hear from listeners about what they want -- and do...
Sep 07, 2021•50 min•Transcript available on Metacast Hundred year old school buildings. Sputtering HVAC systems. Covid revealed a legacy of racism that’s built into the physical infrastructure of education. A lack of investment in school buildings determines who can safely go back and who can't. But if we all pay taxes, why is our public school system full of inequality and inequity? Kai speaks with reporters Bracey Harris and Meredith Kolodner, who break down the Hechinger Report’s shocking findings on the safety of school buildings across the co...
Aug 30, 2021•48 min•Transcript available on Metacast Why do we equate macho bullying with competent leadership? The cautionary tale of Andrew Cuomo. From sexual harassment to intimating deemed rivals, the list of accusations against New York Governor Andrew Cuomo have crescendoed into a long awaited resignation. But what kind of leader do we value? What makes a competent leader -- and why are we so often looking for a new hero? Kai explores these questions with Zephyr Teachout, Associate Law Professor at Fordham Law School, who challenged Cuomo in...
Aug 25, 2021•25 min•Transcript available on Metacast Haiti’s recent tragedies revive a conversation about disaster, aid, and how people recover. Then, a discussion about perspective on the 30th anniversary of the Crown Heights riots. After a 7.2 magnitude earthquake rocked Haiti’s southwestern region, many of us were left wondering -- what does it mean to best support Haiti through disaster? And if the global community has donated so much humanitarian aid to prevent devastation, why does it keep happening? Is Haiti cursed? Guest host Nadege Green ...
Aug 23, 2021•51 min•Transcript available on Metacast Originally Aired: 11/23/2020 “Reverse racism” has haunted the fight for job equity for generations. How’d this bizarre idea become such a bugbear? One Supreme Court case, 50 years ago helps explain. This week, our reporter Marianne McCune tells the story of that case -- and its aftermath -- to help explain why the American workplace is still so segregated. It’s the story of an affirmative action program at an aluminum plant on the banks of the Mississippi River. Marianne introduces us to a Black...
Aug 16, 2021•52 min•Transcript available on Metacast If sports are a metaphor for life, what are they telling us about our society right now? Dave Zirin, sports editor for The Nation, and author of ten books on the politics of sports, joins Kai to talk about the “Pandemic Games,” the peril of chasing perfection, and just how much has changed since the 2020 summer of activism in big league sports. Plus, the hard conversation so many of us are avoiding: Executive producer Veralyn Williams gets advice from WNYC’s health and science editor Nsikan Akpa...
Aug 09, 2021•51 min•Transcript available on Metacast Remembering the life of Bob Moses, and his mission to build a more equitable America from the bottom up. From teaching in New York City to registering Black voters in the 1960’s Mississippi, Moses was a measured man who believed leadership was about listening, not talking. Rutgers University Professor of African American Studies Charles M. Payne joins us to recap Moses' life’s work -- and his big ideas, from Freedom Summer to a radical education initiative that’s still used in schools today. Com...
Aug 02, 2021•51 min•Transcript available on Metacast Today’s viral videos of police abuse have a long political lineage. But what if one of the oldest tools of copwatching is now taken away? Ron Wilkins takes us back to 1966, in the wake of the Watts uprising, in which he joined an early cop watch program -- one that would inspire the likes of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense. Then, reporter Jenny Casas introduces us to journalists and activists who have been using police scanners for decades to peek inside the infamously closed world of p...
Jul 26, 2021•51 min•Transcript available on Metacast 2021 began with an insurrection, and it’s remained quietly intense ever since. We open the phones for a six-month check in on the political culture of the Biden era. Kai is joined by Christina Greer , Associate Professor of Political Science at Fordham University, to unpack all that has — and hasn’t — happened this year. Did the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol really fail? What does the victory of Eric Adams in New York City say about the state of Black politics -- and the Democratic Party? And why...
Jul 19, 2021•48 min•Transcript available on Metacast Birth, August 1965. Death, July 2021. So now what for multiracial democracy? Mark Joseph Stern , who covers the Supreme Court for Slate, explains how the Roberts Court has rewritten the Voting Rights Act to render it a dead letter law. We explore what, if anything, can be done to revive it. And Kai talks with Vann Newkirk II , a senior editor at The Atlantic, about a recent essay in which he tracks the legacy and impact of the Voting Rights Act alongside his family’s history in Mississippi. Infl...
Jul 12, 2021•51 min•Transcript available on Metacast Eddie Glaude and Imani Perry consider the question through the work of James Baldwin and Richard Wright. Plus: How our country could enter a period of “post-traumatic growth.” The two professors of African-American Studies at Princeton talk with each other about the impact of James Baldwin and Richard Wright’s work — on their own intellectuality and creativity, and that of the Black American zeitgeist at large and the harrowing relevance of their work as it echoes into the issues of today. Later...
Jul 05, 2021•51 min•Transcript available on Metacast More than 100 anti-Trans bills have been introduced across 30 states since January. We find out what’s happening — both in the courts and in society — and what still needs to be done. Executive Producer Veralyn Williams guest-hosts this week and is joined by journalist and media-maker Imara Jones of TransLash to discuss her work to elevate Trans stories and the inner workings of what she calls in her new podcast, The Anti Trans Hate Machine . Also, Veralyn and Imara breakdown why there is a lack...
Jun 28, 2021•52 min•Ep 46•Transcript available on Metacast New York City faces a consequential election. We look at the history of our local election laws. Plus, the mastermind behind new voting restrictions nationally. Senior Reporter Arun Venugopal guest hosts and sits down with WNYC’s City Hall and Politics Reporter Brigid Bergin to discuss her reporting about voter turnout across New York City, the new ranked-choice voting system and how the history of the city’s political machines continue to impact the lives of New Yorkers today. Then, Ari Berman ...
Jun 21, 2021•50 min•Transcript available on Metacast 
