Podcast appearances and mentions of robert jones jr

If James Baldwin and Toni Morrison had a literary baby, it would be Robert Jones Jr. He stops by the class to discuss what he learned about love from writing his debut novel, The Prophets. The New York Times Bestselling book shares the romance and love between two enslaved same-gender loving men on a plantation in the American South and a parallel story of Kosii and Elewa, who live and love in a place farther than the past on the African continent.Robert discusses the importance of permitting yourself to love and interrogating the pleasure in bigotry. He also discusses the importance of witnessing, writing, and harnessing our superpowers. The episode celebrates caring and compassionate adults who invest in us, open windows, and expose us to mirrors so that we can explore who we are in this world we didn't ask to be born into. Witness Substack: https://robertjonesjr.substack.com/ Jordan Neelyhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Jordan_Neely Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/teach-the-babies-w-dr-david-j-johns--6173854/support.

Today, we're talking with veteran activist and theologian, the one and only, Lisa Sharon Harper! The conversation covers:-        Lisa's journey finding Jesus outside of Whiteness and White evangelicalism-        The centrality of advocating for political and institutional policy change to our faith in Jesus-        How respecting the image of God in all people is the starting point for following Jesus to shalom-        The unavoidable job we have to speak truth, even when it is costly-        Where Lisa finds her hope and motivation to keep going-        And after that, we reflect on the interview and then talk all things Springfield, Ohio and Haitian immigrants.Mentioned on the episode:-            Lisa's website, lisasharonharper.com/-            Lisa's Instagram and Facebook-            The Freedom Road Podcast-            Lisa's books, Fortune and The Very Good Gospel-            Make a donation to The Haitian Community Support and Help Center in Springfield, Ohio via PayPal at haitianhelpcenterspringfield@gmail.com.Credits-            Follow KTF Press on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads. Subscribe to get our bonus episodes and other benefits at KTFPress.com.-        Follow host Jonathan Walton on Facebook Instagram, and Threads.-        Follow host Sy Hoekstra on Mastodon.-        Our theme song is “Citizens” by Jon Guerra – listen to the whole song on Spotify.-        Our podcast art is by Robyn Burgess – follow her and see her other work on Instagram.-        Editing by Multitude Productions-        Transcripts by Joyce Ambale and Sy Hoekstra.-        Production by Sy Hoekstra and our incredible subscribersTranscript[An acoustic guitar softly plays six notes in a major scale, the first three ascending and the last three descending, with a keyboard pad playing the tonic in the background. Both fade out as Jonathan Walton says “This is a KTF Press podcast.”]Lisa Sharon Harper: I would lose my integrity if I was silent in the face of the breaking of shalom, which I learned in Bosnia and Croatia and Serbia, is built on earth through structures. It doesn't just come because people know Jesus. Two thirds of the people in the Bosnian war knew Jesus. The Croats were Christian and the Serbs were Orthodox Christian, and yet they killed each other. Massacred each other. Unfortunately, knowing Jesus is not enough if you have shaped your understanding of Jesus according to the rules and norms of empire.[The song “Citizens” by Jon Guerra fades in. Lyrics: “I need to know there is justice/ That it will roll in abundance/ And that you're building a city/ Where we arrive as immigrants/ And you call us citizens/ And you welcome us as children home.” The song fades out.]Jonathan Walton: Welcome to Shake the Dust, seeking Jesus, confronting injustice. I'm Jonathan Walton.Sy Hoekstra: And I am Sy Hoekstra. We have a great one for you today. We are talking to veteran organizer and theologian Lisa Sharon Harper, someone who a lot of you probably know and who was pretty big in both of our individual kind of stories and development as people who care about faith and justice when we were younger people, which you will hear about as we talk to her. We are going to be talking to her about the centrality of our voting and policy choices to our witness as Christians, the importance of integrity and respecting the image of God in all people when making difficult decisions about where to spend your resources as an activist, where Lisa gets her hope and motivation and a whole lot more.And then after the interview, hear our reactions to it. And we're also going to be getting into our segment, Which Tab Is Still Open, where we dive a little bit deeper into one of the recommendations from our weekly newsletter that we send out to our subscribers. This week it will be all about Haitian immigrants to America in Springfield, Ohio. You will want to hear that conversation. But before we get started, Jonathan.Jonathan Walton: Please friends, remember to go to KTFPress.com and become a paid subscriber to support this show and get access to everything that we do. We're creating media that centers personal and informed discussions on politics, faith and culture that helps you seek Jesus and confront injustice. We are resisting the idols of the American church by centering and elevating marginalized voices and taking the entirety of Jesus' gospel more seriously than those who narrow it to sin and salvation. The two of us have a lot of experience doing this individually and in community, and we've been friends [laughs] for a good long time. So you can trust it will be honest, sincere, and have some good things to say along the way.If you become a paid subscriber, you'll get access to all of our bonus content, access to our monthly subscriber Zoom chats with me and Sy, and the ability to comment on posts and chat with us. So again, please go to KTFPress.com and become a paid subscriber today.Sy Hoekstra: Our guest today, again, Lisa Sharon Harper, the president and founder of Freedom Road, a groundbreaking consulting group that crafts experiences to bring common understanding and common commitments that lead to common action toward a more just world. Lisa is a public theologian whose writing, speaking, activism and training has sparked and fed the fires of reformation in the church from Ferguson and Charlottesville to South Africa, Brazil, Australia and Ireland. Lisa's book, Fortune: How Race Broke My Family and the World, and How to Repair It All was named one of the best books of 2022 and the book before that, The Very Good Gospel, was named 2016 Book of the Year by The Englewood Review of Books. Lisa is the host of the Freedom Road Podcast, and she also writes for her Substack, The Truth Is…Jonathan Walton: Alright, let's jump into the interview.[The intro piano music from “Citizens” by Jon Guerra plays briefly and then fades out.]Sy Hoekstra: Lisa Sharon Harper, thank you so much for joining us on Shake the Dust.Lisa Sharon Harper: Yay, I'm so excited to be here, and I'm here with a little bit of a Demi Moore rasp to my voice. So I'm hoping it'll be pleasant to the ears for folks who are coming, because I got a little sick, but I'm not like really sick, because I'm on my way, I'm on the rebound.Sy Hoekstra: So you told us you got this at the DNC, is that right?Lisa Sharon Harper: Yes, I literally, literally, that's like what, almost three weeks ago now?Sy Hoekstra: Oh my gosh.Jonathan Walton: You've got a DNC infection. That's what that is.Sy Hoekstra: [laughs].Lisa Sharon Harper: I have a DNC cough. I have a DNC cough, that's funny.Jonathan Walton: [laughs].Sy Hoekstra: So before we jump into our questions, I wanted to take a momentary trip down memory lane, because I have no idea if you remember this or not.Lisa Sharon Harper: Okay.Sy Hoekstra: But in January of 2008, you led a weekend retreat for a college Christian fellowship that Jonathan and I were both in.Lisa Sharon Harper: Yeah, I do remember.Sy Hoekstra: You do remember this? Okay.Lisa Sharon Harper: Absolutely.Jonathan Walton: [laughs].Lisa Sharon Harper: I remember almost every time I've ever spoken anywhere.Sy Hoekstra: Wow, okay.Lisa Sharon Harper: I really do. And I remember that one, and I do remember you guys being there. Oh my gosh, that's so cool.Jonathan Walton: Yes.Lisa Sharon Harper: Okay.Jonathan Walton: Yeah.Lisa Sharon Harper: You remember that. That's amazing.Sy Hoekstra: No, no, no.Jonathan Walton: Oh yeah.Sy Hoekstra: Hang on. Wait a minute [laughter]. We don't just remember it. Because, so you gave this series of talks that ended up being a big part of your book, The Very Good Gospel.Lisa Sharon Harper: Yeah.Sy Hoekstra: And you talked specifically about the difference between genuine and pseudo-community and the need to really address each other's problems that we face, bear each other's burdens, that sort of thing. And you did a session, which I'm sure you've done with other groups, where you split us up into racial groups. So we sat there with White, Black, and Latine, and Asian, and biracial groups, and we had a real discussion about race in a way that the community had absolutely never had before [laughs].Jonathan Walton: Yep.Sy Hoekstra: And it actually, it is the opening scene of Jonathan's book. I don't know if you knew that.Lisa Sharon Harper: Oh my God, I didn't know that.Jonathan Walton: It is.Lisa Sharon Harper: Which one?Jonathan Walton: Twelve Lies.Lisa Sharon Harper: Wow, I didn't know that. Oh my gosh, I missed that. Okay.Sy Hoekstra: So it was a… Jonathan put it before, it was a formative moment for everybody and a transformative moment for some of us [laughter] …Lisa Sharon Harper: Oooooo, Oh my goodness.Jonathan Walton: Yes.Sy Hoekstra: …in that we learned a lot about ourselves and what we thought about race, what other people thought about race. I will tell you that in the five minutes after the session broke up, like ended, it was the first time that my now wife ever said to me, “Hey, you said something racist to me that I didn't like.” [laughs] And then, because of all the conversation we just had, I responded miraculously with the words, “I'm sorry.” [laughter].Lisa Sharon Harper: Oh my God!Sy Hoekstra: And then we went from there.Lisa Sharon Harper: Miraculously [laughs]. That's funny.Sy Hoekstra: So I have lots of friends that we can talk about this session with to this day, and they still remember it as transformative.Jonathan Walton: Yes.Lisa Sharon Harper: Oh my Gosh. Wow.Sy Hoekstra: All of that, just to lead into my first question which is this, a lot of people in 2016 started seeing kind of the things about White evangelicalism that indicated to them that they needed to get out. They needed to escape in some way, because of the bad fruit, the bad political fruit that was manifesting. You saw that bad fruit a long time ago.Lisa Sharon Harper: A whole long time ago.Sy Hoekstra: You were deep in the Republican, pro-life political movement for a little bit, for like, a minute as a young woman.Lisa Sharon Harper: I wouldn't… here's the thing. I wouldn't say I was deep in. What I would say is I was in.Sy Hoekstra: Okay.Lisa Sharon Harper: As in I was in because I was Evangelical, and I identified with itbecause I was Evangelical and because my friends identified with it. So I kind of went along, but I always had this sense I was like standing on the margins looking at it going, “I don't know.”Sy Hoekstra: Yeah.Lisa Sharon Harper: You know what I mean? But I would say literally for like a minute, I was a believer. Maybe for like, a year.Sy Hoekstra: But my question then is, what were the warning signs? And then, separately from what were the warning signs that you needed to get out, who or what were the guiding lights that showed you a better way?Lisa Sharon Harper: My goodness. Wow. Well, I mean, I would say that honestly… Okay, so I had a couple of conversations, and we're talking about 2004 now. So 2004 also, this is right after 2000 where we had the hanging chads in Florida.Sy Hoekstra: Yep.Jonathan Walton: Yep.Lisa Sharon Harper: And we know how important voting is, because literally, I mean, I actually believe to this day that Gore actually won. And it's not just a belief, they actually counted after the fact, and found that he had won hundreds more ballots that were not counted in the actual election, in Florida. And so every single vote counts. Every single vote counts. So then in 2004 and by 2004, I'm the Director of Racial Reconciliation for greater LA in InterVarsity, I had done a summer mission project that wasn't really mission. It was actually more of a, it was a pilgrimage, actually. It was called the pilgrimage for reconciliation. The summer before, I had done the stateside pilgrimage. And then that summer, I led students on a pilgrimage through Bosnia, Croatia and Serbia asking the question, “How is shalom broken? And how is shalom built? How is it made?”And through both of those successive summer experiences, it became so clear to me, policy matters, and it matters with regard to Christian ethics. We can't say we are Christian and be, in other words, Christ-like if we are not concerned with how our neighbor is faring under the policies coming down from our government. We just can't. And as Christians in a democracy, specifically in America, in the US where we have a democracy, we actually have the expectation that as citizens, we will help shape the way that we live together. And our vote is what does that our vote when we vote for particular people, we're not just voting for who we like. We're voting for the policies they will pass or block. We're voting for the way we want to live together in the world.So in 2004 when I come back from Croatia, Bosnia, Serbia, I'm talking with some of my fellow staff workers, and I'm saying to them, “We have to have a conversation with our folks about voting. I mean, this election really matters. It's important. ”Because we had just come through the first few years of the war in Afghanistan and Iraq. Like Iraq had just erupted a couple years before that, Afghanistan the year before that. And we were seeing young men coming back in body bags and this war, which had no plan to end, was sending especially young Black men to die because they were the ones…and I know, because I was in those schools when I was younger, and I alsohad been reading up on this.They're the ones who are recruited by the Marines and the Army and the Navy and the Air Force, especially the army, which is the cannon fodder. They're the ones who are on the front lines. They are recruited by them more than anybody else, at a higher degree than anybody else, a higher percentage ratio. So I was saying we have to have a conversation. And their response to me in 2004 was, “Oh, well, we can't do that, because we can't be political.” I said, “Well, wait, we are political beings. We live in a democracy.” To be a citizen is to help shape the way we live together in the world, and that's all politics is. It's the conversations we have and the decisions that we make about how we are going to live together.And so if we as Christians who have an ethic passed down by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount, and we have the 10 Commandments, which is like the grand ethic of humanity, at least of the Abrahamic tradition. Then, if we don't have something to say about how we should be living together and the decisions we make about that every four years, every two years, even in off year elections, then what are we doing here?Sy Hoekstra: Yeah.Lisa Sharon Harper: Who are we? Like, what is this faith? What is this Christian faith? So that was my first real rub, because I had experienced the pilgrimage to reconciliation. I had seen, I had rolled through. I had walked on the land where the decisions that the polis, the people had made, had killed people. It had led to the death of millions of people. Thousands of people in some case. Hundreds of people in other cases. But when coming back from Bosnia, it was millions. And so I was just very much aware of the reality that for Christians, politics matters because politics is simply the public exercise of our ethics, of our Christian ethic. And if we don't have one, then we're… honest, I just, I think that we are actually turning our backs on Jesus who spent his life telling us how to live.Sy Hoekstra: Yeah.Lisa Sharon Harper: And so that was, for me, literally that conversation with that staff worker was kind of my first, “Aha! I'm in the wrong place.” I needed to learn more about how this public work works. How do systems and structures and policies and laws work? So that's what actually brought me, ended up bringing me a year later, to Columbia University and getting my master's in human rights. And I knew, having had the background in the two pilgrimages and the work that we did on the biblical concept of shalom at the time, which was nascent. I mean, it was for me, it was, I barely, really barely, understood it. I just knew it wasn't what I had been taught. So I started digging into shalom at that time, and then learning about international law and human rights and how that works within the international systems.I came out of that with a much clearer view, and then continued to work for the next 13 years to really get at how our Christian ethics intersect with and can help, and have helped shape public policy. And that has led me to understand very clearly that we are complicit in the evil, and we also, as Christians, other streams of our faith are responsible for the redemption, particularly in America and South Africa and other places in the world.Jonathan Walton: Yeah. So I think I'm placing myself in your story. So I think we intersected in that 2005, 2008 moment. So I've traveled with you.Lisa Sharon Harper: Yeah, we had a good time. It was so much fun.Jonathan Walton: We did. It was very good. So getting to follow, watch, learn, just for me, has been a huge blessing. First with the book, with New York Faith and Justice, reading stuff with Sojourners, grabbing your books, gleaning different wisdom things for… it's something that I've wondered as I'm a little bit younger in the journey, like as you've operated in this world, in the White Evangelical world, and then still White Evangelical adjacent, operating in these faith spaces. And now with the platform that you have, you've had to exercise a lot of wisdom, a lot of patience and deciding to manage where you show up and when, how you use your time, how you manage these relationships and keep relationships along the way. Because you didn't drop people.Lisa Sharon Harper: I have. I have dropped a few [laughter]. I want to make that really clear, there is an appropriate space to literally shake the dust.Sy Hoekstra: Yeah [laughs].Jonathan Walton: I think what I have not seen you do is dehumanize the people in the places that you left.Lisa Sharon Harper: Yeah, thank you. Yeah.Jonathan Walton: And that's hard to do, because most people, particularly my generation, we see the bridge we just walked across, and we throw Molotov cocktails at that thing [laughter].Lisa Sharon Harper: Y'all do. Your generation is like, “I'm out! And you're never gonna breathe again!” Like, “You're going down!” I'm like, “Oh my God…” [laughs].Jonathan Walton: It's quite strong with us [laughs]. And so could you give any pieces of wisdom or things you've learned from God about navigating in that way. Things that we can and folks that are listening can hold on to as things shift, because they will shift and are shifting.Lisa Sharon Harper: They always shift, yeah, because we are not living on a book page. We're living in a world that moves and is fluid, and people change, and all the things. So I think that the best advice that I got, I actually got from Miroslav Volf. Dr. Miroslav Volf, who is a professor at Yale University, and he wrote the book that really kind of got me into, it was my first book that I ever read that was a book of theology, Exclusion&Embrace. And when we went to Croatia, we met with him. We met with him in the city of Zadar on the beach [laughs], literally over lunch. It was just an incredible privilege to sit down with him. And I've had many opportunities to connect with him since, which has been a privilege again, and just a joy.But he said to our group, our little InterVarsity group. And that's not at all to minimize InterVarsity, but we had a real inflated sense of who we were in the world. We thought we were everything, and we thought we were right about everything. And so here we are going through Croatia, which had just experienced a decade and a little bit before, this civil war. And it wasn't really a civil war, it was actually a war of aggression from Serbia into Croatia, and it was horrible. And it turned neighbor against neighbor in the same way that our civil war turned neighbor against neighbor. So literally, these towns, you literally had neighbors killing each other, you just were not safe.So basically, think Rwanda. The same thing that happened in Rwanda, around the same time had happened in Croatia. And so Miroslav is Croatian, and the lines by which things were drawn in Croatia was not race, because everybody was White. So the lines that they drew their hierarchy on was along the lines of religion. It was the Croats, which were mostly Catholic, mostly Christian. Some not Catholic, they might have been Evangelical, but they were Christian. And then you had the Bosniaks, which were Muslim, and the Serbs, which were Orthodox. So that was the hierarchy. And when you had Milošević, who was the president of Yugoslavia, who was trying to keep that Federation together, Yugoslavia was like an amalgamation of what we now understand to be Bosnia, Croatia and Serbia.So he was trying to keep all of that together, and when he then crossed the lines, the boundary between Serbia and Croatia and invaded and just began to kill everybody, and the Serbs then went to his side, and the Croats went over here, and the Bosniaks were caught in the middle, and people just died. And they chose sides and they killed each other. And so we sat down to do lunch with Miroslav Volf, and in that context, interfaith conversation was critical. It was and is, it continues to be. One of the main markers of where you find healing, it's where you find interfaith conversation in Croatia and also Bosnia and Serbia. And so we, in our little Evangelical selves, we're not used to this interfaith thing.We think of that as compromising. We think of that as, “How can you talk to people and gain relationship with and actually sit down and…?” And he was challenging us to study this scripture with other people of other faiths, and study their scriptures. He was like, “Do that.” And so our people were like, “How can you do that and not compromise your faith?” And here's what he said. He said, “It's easy. Respect. It's respect, respecting the image of God in the other, the one who is not like me. That I, when I sit down and I read their scriptures with them, allowing them to tell me what their scriptures mean.” Not sitting in a classroom in my Evangelical church to learn what the Muslim scriptures say, but sitting down with Imams to understand what the Muslim scriptures say and how it's understood within the context of that culture.That's called respect for the image of God. And there's no way, no way for us to knit ourselves together in a society, to live together in the world without respect. That's baseline. That's baseline.Jonathan Walton: As I'm listening, I'm thinking, “Okay, Lisa made choices.” She was like, “We are gonna not just do a trip. We're gonna do a trip in Croatia.” And so as you're going on these trips, as you were having these conversations, you're making choices. There's decisions being made around you, and then you get to the decision making seat. And how that discernment around where to place your energy happens. So something that's at the top of mind for me and many people listening is Palestine.Lisa Sharon Harper: Oh, yeah.Jonathan Walton: So how did you decide at this moment that, “Hey,this is where my energy and time is coming. I'm going to Christ at the Checkpoint. I'm going to talk with Munther. I'm going to be there.”How did that rise to the surface for you?Lisa Sharon Harper: It's funny, because I have, really have been advised, and in the very first days of the conflict, I was advised by some African American leaders, “Don't touch this. Don't do it. You're going to be blacklisted.”Jonathan Walton: I heard the same thing, yeah.Lisa Sharon Harper: “Don't do it. You're gonna find you're not invited to speak anywhere.” Da da da da. Sometimes these decisions are just made to say, “I am going to act in the world as if I don't know what the repercussions are, and I'm just going to do the thing, because my focus is not focused on the repercussions.” I mean, in some ways, in that way, I do think that my constitution is the constitution of a warrior. Warriors go to battle knowing that bullets are flying all around them, and they just choose to go forward anyway. Somebody who cared, and not just cared, but I think there's a moment where you begin to understand it's that moment of no turning back. It's the moment when you stand at the freshly buried graves of 5000 Muslim boys and men who were killed all in one day by bullet fire in Srebrenica.It's the moment that you drive through Bosnia and you see all of the graves everywhere. Everywhere, especially in Sarajevo, which experienced a siege, a multiyear siege by Serbia. And they turned the soccer field, which at one point was the focal point of the Sarajevo Olympic Games, they turned that into a graveyard because they ran out of space for the graves. When you roll through Georgia, and you go to Dahlonega, Georgia, and you go to the Mining Museum, which marks the very first gold rush in America, which was not in California, but was in Dahlonega, Georgia, on Cherokee land, and you hear the repercussions of people's silence and also complicity.When they came and they settled, they made a decision about how we should live together, and it did not include, it included the erasure of Cherokee people and Choctaw people and Chickasaw people, Seminole people, Creek people. And you walk that land, and the land tells you. It's so traumatic that the land still tells the story. The land itself tells the story. The land bears witness. When you stand on that land and the land tells you the story, there's a moment that just happens where there's no turning back and you have to bear witness to the truth, even with bullets flying around you. So with regard to Palestine, having done what now goodness, 20 years of research on this biblical concept called shalom, and written the book, The Very Good Gospel, which really lays it out in a systematic way.I would lose my integrity if I was silent in the face of the breaking of shalom, which I learned in Bosnia and Croatia and Serbia, is built on earth through structures. It doesn't just come because people know Jesus. Two thirds of the people in the Bosnian war knew Jesus. Two thirds. The Croats were Christian and the Serbs were Orthodox Christian, and yet they killed each other. I mean, massacred each other. Unfortunately, knowing Jesus is not enough if you have shaped your understanding of Jesus according to the rules and norms of empire. So we actually need international law. We need the instruments of international law. That's what stopped the war there. And they failed there too, but they also have been an intrinsic part of keeping the peace and also prosecuting Milošević. Solike making sure that some measure of justice on this earth happens, some shadow of it.Sy Hoekstra: Yeah.Lisa Sharon Harper: And what are we told in scripture in Micah 6:8, walk humbly with God. Do justice. Embrace the truth. So I think that when I saw on October 7, the breach of the wall, the breach of the gate and then the massacre at the festival, I grieved. I really grieved. And I was scared, really scared for the nation of Israel, for the people who were there. And I began to ask questions, because I've learned the discipline of not dehumanizing. Because to dehumanize is to break shalom. It's one of the first things that happens in the breaking of shalom and the eradication of it. And so part of what I had to do if I was going to consider Palestinian people human was to ask what has happened to them that would cause them to take such violent and radical action. How did we get here? Is the question.And the narrative that I heard from Israel, from the state of Israel, from the leaders of the state of Israel, which had been marched against by their own people just the week before that, and weeks for like a month or two before that, they were trying to depose the leadership of Israel because they were trying to turn their state into a fascist state. I was watching that as well. Trying to take the power of the judiciary away so that they could increase the power of the Prime Minister. So what does it mean then? What does it mean that this happened? And I was listening to the way that the narrative that Netanyahu was giving and his generals and the narrative they were giving is, “These are monsters. They are terrorists. They are evil. They are intrinsically, they are not human.”And I knew when I saw that, when I heard that, I thought Bosnia. I thought Rwanda, where they called the other cockroaches. I thought South Africa, where they called Black people not human, monsters, who need to be controlled. I thought Native Americans, who were called savages in order to be controlled, in order to have the justification of genocide. I thought of people of African descent who were brought in death ships across the Atlantic to South America and Central America and Mexico and North America in order to be used to build European wealth and they were called non-human. And even according to our own laws, our constitution declared three fifths of a human being.So when I heard Netanyahu and his generals dehumanizing the Palestinians, I knew, that for me was like the first signal, and it happened on the first day. It was the first signal that we are about to witness a genocide. They are preparing us. They are grooming us to participate in genocide. And I, as a theologian, as an ethicist, as a Christian, would lose my credibility if I remained silent and became complicit in that genocide through my silence. Because having studied the genocides that I mentioned earlier and the oppressions that I mentioned earlier, I know that most of those spaces were Christian spaces.Sy Hoekstra: Right.Jonathan Walton: Yeah.Lisa Sharon Harper: And they happened, those genocides and those oppressions were able to happen because Christians were silent.Jonathan Walton: Gathering all that up, I think… I mean, we've had Munther on this podcast, we've talked with him throughout the years. When he said, “The role of Christians is to be prophetic, to speak prophetic truth to power,” something clicked for me in that as you're talking about our witness being compromised, as you are saying, “Hey, let's ask this question, who does this benefit? What is happening?”Lisa Sharon Harper: That's right.Jonathan Walton: The reality that he said, “All of us are Nathan when it comes to empire. We are supposed to be the ones who say this is wrong.” And that resonates with what you said, like how can I have integrity and be silent? Genocide necessitates silence and complicity in that way from people.Lisa Sharon Harper: Yeah. And here's the thing. How are you gonna go to church and sing worship songs to Jesus on Sunday and be silent Monday through Saturday witnessing the slaying of the image of God on earth. You hear what I'm saying?Sy Hoekstra: Yes.Lisa Sharon Harper: Like my understanding of shalom now is not just we do these things in order to be nice and so we live together. It is that shalom is intricately connected with the flourishing of the kingdom of God.Sy Hoekstra: Right.Lisa Sharon Harper: It is the flourishing of the kingdom of God.Sy Hoekstra: Yeah.Lisa Sharon Harper: And the kingdom of God flourishes wherever the image of God flourishes. And the image of God is born by every single human being. And part of what it means to be made in the image of God is that humans who are made in the image of God exercise agency, stewardship of the world. And the most drastic example or practice of warfare against the image of God is war.Jonathan Walton: Yes [laughs]. Absolutely.Lisa Sharon Harper: War annihilates the image of God on earth. It is a declaration of war, not only on Palestinians or Gazans or even Israel or the empire anywhere. It is a declaration of war against God. It is a declaration of war against God.Sy Hoekstra: A phrase that has stuck in my head about you was from one of the endorsements to your last book Fortune. Jemar Tisby described you as a long-distance runner for justice.Jonathan Walton: [laughs] That's awesome.Sy Hoekstra: That always struck me as accurate.Jonathan Walton: That is great.Sy Hoekstra: [laughs] Not a sprinter.Jonathan Walton: No.Sy Hoekstra: Not a sprinter.Lisa Sharon Harper: That was really pretty cool. I was like, “Oh Jemar, thank you.” [laughter]Jonathan Walton: I need that. We just in here. That's great [laughs].Sy Hoekstra: So here's the question then, where does your hope and sustenance, how do you get that? Where does it come from?Lisa Sharon Harper: Honestly, it comes from focusing on the kingdom. Focusing on Jesus. Focusing on doing the kingdom of God. And when you do it you witness it. And when you witness it, you get hope. I mean, I've learned, even in the last year, an actual life lesson for me was hope comes in the doing. Hope comes in the doing. So as we do the kingdom, we gain hope. As we show up for the protests so that we confront the powers that are slaying the image of God on earth, we gain hope. As we speak out against it and form our words in ways that do battle with the thinking that lays the groundwork for ethics of erasure, we gain hope because we're doing it. We see the power.The kingdom of God exists wherever there are people who actually bow to the ethic of God. Who do it. Who do the ethic of God. You can't say you believe in Jesus and not actually do his ethic. You don't believe in him. What do you believe? He never said, “Believe stuff about me.” He said, “Follow me.” He literally never said, “Believe stuff about me.”Sy Hoekstra: Yeah [laughs].Jonathan Walton: Right.Lisa Sharon Harper: He said, “Follow me. Do what I do. ”And that's ethics. That's the question of, how do we live together in the world?? So we do and we gain hope.Jonathan Walton: Amen.Sy Hoekstra: I like that. That reminds me of Romans 5: There'll be glory in our suffering. Suffering produces perseverance, character, and character hope. It's like, it's not an intuitive thing necessarily, if you haven't done it before. But that's great, and that's a really, I like that a lot as a place for us to end [laughs]. To get out there and do it, and you will find the hope as you go.Jonathan Walton: Amen.Sy Hoekstra: Can you tell us where people can find you or work that you would want people to see of yours?Lisa Sharon Harper: Absolutely. Well, hey, first of all, thank you guys so much for having me on, and it's been really a joy to start my day in conversation with you. Y'all can follow what I'm up to at Lisasharonharper.com. I live on Instagram, and so you can [laughter], you can definitely follow on Instagram and Facebook. And Freedom Road Podcast is a place where a lot of people have found the conversation and are tracking with it. And I'm always trying to have guests on that are pushing me and causing me to ask deeper questions. And so I really, I welcome you to join us on Freedom Road.Sy Hoekstra: Yes. I wholeheartedly second that.Lisa Sharon Harper: And of course, the books [laughs].Jonathan Walton: Yes.Sy Hoekstra: And of course, the books.Jonathan Walton: [laughs].Sy Hoekstra: Fortune, Very Good Gospel, all the rest.Lisa Sharon Harper: Yeah, exactly.Sy Hoekstra: Lisa Sharon Harper, thank you so much for joining us. This has been a delight.Jonathan Walton: Thank you so much.Lisa Sharon Harper: Thank you Sy. Thank you, Jonathan.[The intro piano music from “Citizens” by Jon Guerra plays briefly and then fades out.]Sy Hoekstra: Jonathan, that was a fantastic discussion. Tell me what you are thinking about coming out of it?Jonathan Walton: Yeah, I think one, is just it's just really helpful to talk with someone who's been around for a while. I think most of us… I'm 38 years old, but let's just say millennials and younger, we don't consume or receive a lot of long form content.Sy Hoekstra: [laughs].Jonathan Walton: And we don't also engage with people who are willing and able to mentor us through difficult situations. We're getting sound bites from TikTok and Instagram and YouTube, and we don't get the whole of knowledge or experiences. So listening to Lisa talk about, “I grabbed this bit from L.A., I grabbed this bit from Palestine, I grabbed this bit from Croatia, I grabbed this bit.” We cannot microwave transformation. We cannot have instant growth. There is no, let me go through the side door of growing to maturity in my faithfulness and walk with Jesus.Sy Hoekstra: [laughs].Jonathan Walton: There is just doing it. And so when she said, “I find the hope in the doing,” you don't learn that unless you have done stuff. That's a big takeaway. I also appreciated just her take on the genocide in Palestine. And because she was mentored and has talked with Miroslav Volf, she knows what it smells like, because she's done the work in her own history of her own background. If you have not read Fortune, go read the book. The reason Black folks cannot find who we [laughs] come from is because they were enslaved and killed. The reason we cannot find the indigenous and native folks we were related to is because there was genocide. So there's these things.And she goes through that in her book, and to talk about how to wield our stories when we don't have one, or how to wield a story of tragedy to turn it into something transformative, is something I admire, appreciate and hope that I can embody if and when the time comes for myself, when I have collected and grown and have asked similar questions. I'm appreciative of what she had to say. And you know, I know I asked her the question about not burning things down, and so I appreciated that [laughs] answer as well. Like, there's just a lot of wisdom, and I hope that folks listening were able to glean as well.Sy Hoekstra: I totally agree with all that. I think all that was very powerful. And there isn't it… kind of reminds me of when her book we've mentioned a few times, The Very Good Gospel, came out. It came out in 2016, but like I said, when we were talking to her, the stuff that was in that book she had been thinking about for more than a decade at that point. And it was very clear. When I was reading it, I was like, “Oh, this is Lisa's bag—this is what she was talking to us about when we were in college in 2008.”Jonathan Walton: Yeah.Sy Hoekstra: At that camp, but she'd been thinking about it for even longer than that. It was just like, you can tell when something isn't like, “Oh, I had to research this because I was gonna write a book about it, so I had to learn about it.” You know what I mean? You can tell when someone does that versus when someone's been soaking in a subject. It's like marinating in it for 12, 15, years, or whatever it was. She just has a lot of that stuff [laughs]. You know what? I just used the image of marinating and marinating and microwaving are very different things [laughs].Jonathan Walton: Yes, that is true.Sy Hoekstra: One takes a lot longer.Jonathan Walton: Put a steak in a microwave, see if you enjoy it [laughter].Sy Hoekstra: Yeah, so I totally agree with all that. I came out of it thinking a lot about how the things that she said thematically kind of connected to some thoughts that I've had, but also just in terms of historical events. Because I told her this after the interview, when I moved to Switzerland in 2001 I was 13, my family moved over there. It was just at the end of the Yugoslavian Civil War, which was what she was talking about Bosnia and Croatia and Serbia. And Switzerland took in a ton of refugees from that war.Jonathan Walton: Right.Sy Hoekstra: So my neighborhood, there was a big apartment complex. I mean, big for Swiss standards, kind of small honestly for American standards. But there's an apartment complex around the corner from my house that they had put a bunch of Bosnian refugees in. And their school was right down the road, the public school. And so my neighborhood in high school was like the kids playing around in the streets and in the playground or whatever were Bosnian refugees. And the combination of the three countries, Serbian, Croatia and Bosnia, used to be one big thing called Yugoslavia, right.Jonathan Walton: Right.Sy Hoekstra: And the first two syllables of the word Yugoslavia were in Switzerland, a slur for anyone who was from that country. And there was just a ton of bigotry toward them, basically because they displayed poverty [laughter]. Like they were one of the most visible groups of poor people in Zurich. And again, like Lisa said, this wasn't about racism. Everybody's White. But you're talking about like there were ethnic differences and there was class differences. And people dismissed them for their criminality, or for how the young men would get in fights in bars and on the streets or whatever, and all that kind of stuff. And then, you know how a lot of refugees from the Somalian war ended up in Minneapolis and St Paul, just like where a lot of them were placed in the US, and then a lot of them moved into North Dakota.It's like, a lot of… which is where my family's from. I've been there a lot. I hear a lot of people talking about the politics in that region. And you would hear similar stuff about them, except that it was about race. That it was, “Oh, we have crime now because we have Black people and we haven't before.” I mean, obviously Minneapolis, they did, but not really in the parts of North Dakota that my family's from. And so it was this lesson for me about the thing that Lisa was talking about, respect for the image of God in all people and how when you bring people who are somehow differentiable [laughter] from you, somebody who's from another grid, you can call them a different class, a different race, whatever, we will find any excuse to just say, “Oh, these are just bad people,” instead of taking responsibility for them, loving our neighbor, doing any of the stuff that we were commanded to do by Jesus, to the stranger, the foreigner, the immigrant in our midst.We will find whatever dividing lines we can to write people off. It can be race, it can be poverty, it can be, it doesn't matter. It's not what we should actually be saying about poverty or violence, or the fact that people are getting mugged or whatever. What we should be saying is we have a bunch of people who just got here from a war torn society. They were cut off from education and job skills and opportunities and all kinds of other things. And this is, when you just stick them in a society that treats them like garbage, this is what happens every single time, without fail. And so what we need to do is [laughter] be good neighbors.Jonathan Walton: Yes.Sy Hoekstra: Treat people well and forgive when people wrong us and that sort of thing. And we just will find any excuse in the world not to do that. And it's because we are not starting from that place that Miroslav Volf, who I love by the way, said to Lisa, is the place where you have to start everything when it comes to these kinds of conflicts, which is respect for the image of God in other people. The fact that they didn't do that in Yugoslavia led to slaughter en masse, but it still happens when you leave and you put yourself in a different context. There's still that lack of respect, and it's still harming people, even when there's quote- unquote, peace.Jonathan Walton: This opens up another can of worms. But I thought to myself…Sy Hoekstra: Go for it.Jonathan Walton: …it's much easier to say, “I just don't want to help,” than it is to say, “This person's evil,” or, “These people are bad.” Because I think at the core of it, someone says, “Is this your neighbor?” Jesus says, “Is this your neighbor?” And the Jewish leader of the day does not want to help the Samaritan, whatever the reasoning is. Right?Sy Hoekstra: Right.Jonathan Walton: We're trying to justify our innate desire to not help our neighbor. As opposed to just dealing with the reality that many of us, when we see people who are broken and messed up, quote- unquote broken, quote- unquote messed up, quote- unquote on the opposite side of whatever power dynamic or oppressive structure that is set up or has just made, quote- unquote poor choices, some of us, our gut reaction is, I don't want to help them. And if we would just, I think just stop there, be like, “My first inclination is, I'm not interested in helping them.” And paused it there and reflected on why we don't want to do that internally, as opposed to turning towards them and making them the reason. Because they were just sitting there.Sy Hoekstra: Yeah.Jonathan Walton: The person on the street who's experiencing homelessness was just sitting there. The one in 10 students in New York City that is homeless is just sitting there. They're just there. And so if we were able to slow down for a second and say, “Why don't I want this person to live in my neighborhood, in my own stuff? Well, I don't like change. I'm afraid of this being different. I'm uncomfortable with different foods. I'm afraid of my favorite coffee shop or restaurant being taken away. I'm uncomfortable around people of different faiths. I feel weird when I don't hear my language being spoken.” If we were able to turn those reflections inward before we had uncomfortable feelings, turned them into actions, and then justified those actions with theology that has nothing to do with the gospel of Jesus, then I wonder what would be different. But that that slowing down is really hard, because it's easier to feel the feeling, react, and then justify my reaction with a divine mandate.Sy Hoekstra: Or just plug those feelings into stereotypes and all of the existing ways of thinking about people that we provide for each other so that we can avoid doing that very reflection.Jonathan Walton: That's all that I thought about there [laughs]. I'm going to be thinking about that for a while actually. So Sy, which tab is still open for you? We're going to talk about a segment where we dive a little bit deeper into one of the recommendations from our newsletter. And remember, you can get this newsletter for free just by signing up for our mailing list at KTFPress.com. You'll get recommendations on articles, podcasts and other media that both of us have found that will help you in your political education and discipleship. Plus you'll get reflections to keep us grounded, from me and Sy that help keep us grounded every week as we engage in just this challenging work and together in the news about what's happening and all that.You can get everything I'm just talking about at KTFPress.com and more. So go get that free subscription at KTFPress.com. So Sy, want to summarize that main story point for us?Sy Hoekstra: Yeah. I mean, this is interesting, because when I wrote about this, which is the story about Haitian immigrants in Ohio, it was two days after the debate, and the story has only exploded since then, and I think a lot of people kind of probably have the gist of it already. But some completely unfounded rumors based on fourth hand nonsense and some blurry pictures of people that have nothing whatsoever to do with Haitian immigrants started spreading online among right wing conspiracy theorists saying, for some reason, that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio were eating pets.Jonathan Walton: [laughs].Sy Hoekstra: Stealing, kidnapping and eating the resident's pets.Jonathan Walton: Yes.Sy Hoekstra: And the absurdity of this story was immediately apparent to me being someone who married into a Haitian immigrant family, Haitians do not eat cats and dogs [laughs]. It's a ridiculous thing to have to say, but I say it because I understand, maybe you have no, maybe you know nothing whatsoever about Haiti and you think, “Well, I don't know. There are some cultures around the world where they eat animals that we think of as pets or that we don't think of as food or whatever.” And like, okay, fine, that's true. It's not Haiti, though.Jonathan Walton: Right [laughter].Sy Hoekstra: The idea of eating a cat or a dog to a Haitian is as weird to them as it is to us. I promise you, I've had so much Haitian food [laughter]. So basically this rumor spread, Donald Trump mentions that the debates and now there are Proud Boys in Springfield, Ohio, marching around with cat posters and memes. There are people calling in bomb threats to schools and to government buildings, to all other institutions in Springfield. The Haitian population is very afraid of Donald Trump. At this point, we're recording this on Friday, September 20, he has said that he will travel to Springfield, and basically everyone there has said, “Please do not do that. You're only going to stoke more problems.”And every last piece of evidence that has been offered as evidence, which was always pretty weak in the first place, has been debunked at this point. There was one, the Vance campaign just recent, the past couple days, gave a police report to the Washington Post and said, “See, we found it. Here's a woman who actually filed a police report that says that my Haitian neighbors took my cat and ate my cat.” And the Washington Post did what, for some reason Republicans never expect journalists to do, and actually did their job and called up the woman who said, “Oh, yeah, I filed that report, and then I found my cat in my basement, and they were fine.” [laughs]Jonathan Walton: Yes. In her house.Sy Hoekstra: Yeah. And so I don't know, there have been a couple of blips like that where somebody is like, “See, I found evidence,” and then someone was immediately like, “That's not actually evidence.” There have been rumors of other rallies or whatever. It's basically just becoming a focal point and a meme for all of Trump and his supporters, immigration resentment.Jonathan Walton: Right.Sy Hoekstra: There was a story today about people in Alabama being concerned about, some small town in Alabama being concerned about becoming the next Springfield because they had 60 Haitian immigrants in their town of 12,000 people [laughs]. I don't know. It's all just bizarre. The main actual point though, around the actual immigration policy stuff, Gabrielle and a few other people, my wife's name is Gabrielle, and a few other Haitians that I've seen comment on this, keep bringing up the Toni Morrison quote about how racism is a distraction from actual issues.Jonathan Walton: That is literally what I was gonna read.Sy Hoekstra: There you go. Okay [laughs]. So the actual issue here is that there's this community of about 60,000 people in Ohio that has had an influx of about 15,000 Haitian immigrants, and so it's a lot of strain on the schools and housing and stuff like that, which those are real questions. But also, the Haitian immigrants are there because the local economy revitalization efforts led to a bunch of manufacturers coming into Springfield and having more jobs than laborers, and explicitly saying, “We need you to bring in more laborers.” And so they were Haitian immigrants who are legally in the country [laughs], who have social security numbers and temporary protected status at the very least if not green cards or whatever, have been filling these jobs, and not remotely even a majority of these jobs.They're just filling in the extra 10, 15 percent or whatever the workforce that these manufacturers thought they needed. And the story has become, “Haitians are taking our jobs,” which is absolute nonsense.Jonathan Walton: Right.Sy Hoekstra: So those are the main points of the story. Sorry, I talked a while. I have a lot of feelings about this one [laughs].Jonathan Walton: No, I mean…Sy Hoekstra: But Jonathan, what are your thoughts?Jonathan Walton: For a good reason. Let me just say this quote by Toni Morrison, “The function, the very serious function of racism, is distraction. It keeps you from doing your work. It keeps you explaining over and over again your reason for being. Somebody says your head isn't shaped properly, and you have scientists working on the fact that it is. Somebody says you have no art, so you dredge that up. Somebody says you have no kingdoms, so you dredge that up. None of this is necessary. There will always be one more thing.” So along with that Toni Morrison quote, I want to put that side by side with this quote from Robert Jones Jr.'s National Book of the Year, The Prophets.“To survive this place, you had to want to die. That was the way of the world as remade by the Toubab.” Toubab is a Western and Central African word for colonizer, European. “They push people into the mud and then call them filthy. They forbade people from accessing knowledge of the world, and then called them simple. They worked people until their empty hands were twisted and bleeding and can do no more, than they called them lazy. They forced people to eat innards from troughs, and then called them uncivilized. They kidnapped babies and shattered families and then called them incapable of love. They raped and lynched and cut up people into parts and called the pieces savages. They stepped on people's throats with all of their might and asked why the people couldn't breathe.”“And then when people made an attempt to break the foot or cut it off one they screamed, “Chaos,” and claimed that mass murder was the only way to restore order. They praised every daisy and then called every blackberry a stain. They bled the color from God's face, gave it a dangle between its legs, and called it holy. Then when they were done breaking things, they pointed to the sky and called the color of the universe itself a sin, [black]. And then the whole world believed them, even some of Samuel's [or Black] people. Especially some of Samuel's people. This was untoward and made it hard to open your heart to feel a sense of loyalty that wasn't a strategy. It was easier to just seal yourself up and rock yourself to sleep.”That to me, like those two quotes together. So the Son of Baldwin, Robert Jones Jr, great follow on Substack and that quote from Toni Morrison, an iconic Black female writer, wrote Beloved, The Bluest Eye, those two things together, like what racism does to a person. The giving up, the I just, “What can I do?” and the distraction for the people who do have effort, are just two roads that I wish we just didn't have to go down. But most people will spend our energy either resigned because we've spent too much or pushing against the lie as the powers that be continue to carry out genocide, continue to extract limestone from Haiti, continues to extract resources from Haiti, continue to destroy African economies through extraction in the Congo and Benin and all the places.And so my prayer and longing is that the resilience of the Haitian people and the legacy of Toussaint and all of that would be present in the people that are there and the diaspora. And I believe that is true. And I pray for safety for all of the people that still have to live in this, what is fastly becoming a sundown town.Sy Hoekstra: Right.Jonathan Walton: It's a very real thing. And I talked to someone else. Oh, actually [laughs], it was a DM on Instagram that I sent to Brandy, and she agreed that there's a lot of PTSD from when Trump was president, because things like this got said every day.Sy Hoekstra: Yeah.Jonathan Walton: All the time. And downstream of rhetoric are real actions, like lawyers and taxi drivers being mobilized to go to the airport to try and get the, quote- unquote, Muslim banned people now representation and get them to their destinations. You had very real terrible child separation that happened, that children are still separated from their families right now. And so downstream of all this stuff, are real, real concrete actions. And I am praying that… my daughter asked me this morning, Maya, she said, “Do I want Trump to win, or do I want Harris to win?” And I said, “Maya, I hope that Trump does not win.” She goes “Well, if Harris wins, will it be better?”I said, “It depends on who you ask, but I think there will be a better chance for us to move towards something more helpful if Trump does not win.” And then she said she knew some people who are supportive of Trump, and I told her things that her eight year old brain cannot handle.Sy Hoekstra: But wait, what does that mean? [laughs]Jonathan Walton: I just started breaking down why that is because I couldn't help myself.Sy Hoekstra: Oh, why people support him.Jonathan Walton: Why people would support him.Sy Hoekstra: Yeah, okay.Jonathan Walton: And then she quickly pivoted back to Story Pirates, which is a wonderful podcast about professional improvisational actors telling kid stories like Cecily Strong and things like that. It's hilarious. But all that to say, I think this is a prime example of the type of chaos and environment that is created when someone like Trump is president and the cameras are on him at all times. And I hope that is not the reality, because he absolutely does not have any meaningful policy positions besides Project 2025. I don't know if you saw… I'm talking a lot. He was in a town hall in Michigan, and someone asked him what his child care policies were. Like what actionable policy does he have? And he said a word salad and a buffet of dictionaries that you don't know what he was talking about.Sy Hoekstra: [laughs].Jonathan Walton: It was nonsense that somehow ended up with immigration being a problem.Sy Hoekstra: Yeah.Jonathan Walton: And so I think that the worst factions of our country will have a vehicle to live out their worst fantasies about deportations and violence and racism, White supremacy and patriarchy and all those things, if he becomes president. And that's really sad to me, and I think it's a preview of that is what's happening in Springfield right now.Sy Hoekstra: Here's another angle on this. And it fits into everything you just said, but it's just from a different angle, bringing a little bit of Haitian history here. The Haitian Revolution is probably, I can't say that I've read everything to guarantee this, is probably the greatest act of defiance against White supremacy that the world has ever seen. For those who don't know, it happened right after the American Revolution, it was just the enslaved people of the island of Saint-Domingue, which is now Haiti in the Dominican Republic, rising up and overthrowing the French and taking the island for themselves and establishing, like writing the world's second written constitution and establishing basically the world's second democracy.Really the world's first actual democracy [laughs] if you think about how American democracy was restricted to a very small group of people. If you read things that people in colonial governments or slave owners throughout the Western Hemisphere wrote and like when they spoke to each other about their fears over the next decades before slavery is abolished, Haiti is constantly on their minds.Jonathan Walton: Right.Sy Hoekstra: They never stop talking about it. It's actually mentioned in some of the declarations of secession before the Civil War. When the states wrote why they were seceding, it was like, “Because the Union wants Haiti to happen to us.” For the plantation owners to be killed. It was an obsession, and so the colonial powers in Europe, you may have read some of the work that the New York Times did in the New York Times Magazine last year, maybe it was two years ago, about this. But the amount of energy from European powers that went into making sure that Haiti as a country never had access to global markets or the global economy, that they were constantly impoverished.They were still finding ways to extract money from Haiti, even though it was an independent country. The fact that the US colonized Haiti for almost 20 years in the early 20th century, like the ways that we have controlled who is in power in their government from afar. We've propped up some of the most brutal dictators in the history of the world, honestly. We have been punishing and making sure that everybody knows that the defiance of white supremacy that Haiti showed will never be tolerated.Jonathan Walton: Right.Sy Hoekstra: And so it is so easy for Haitians at every stage to become a scapegoat for whatever anxiety we have about the world becoming less White, the world becoming less of like under our control. Haitian immigrants were the reason that we started using Guantanamo Bay as a prison. They were the first people that we ever imprisoned there. We changed our policies, we like… Do you know for a long time, they wouldn't let Haitian people donate blood in America?Jonathan Walton: Yes.Sy Hoekstra: Because we said they'd had HIV. They had dirty blood, is what we said about them for years. Haiti is not at the bottom because of its choice. That's what we're constantly telling ourselves. Pat Robertson went on his show after the earthquake in 2010, and said the reason that these things still happen to Haiti is because they did Voodoo before their revolution, because they're pagans or whatever. We will make up any reason to not just take responsibility. Again, like with the Bosnians, the Somalis, we make up any reason to not just take responsibility for our actions.Jonathan Walton: Right.Sy Hoekstra: And this is just a continuation of that. And I don't know that I have a further point beyond that, other than to say, everything that Trump and Vance and the Proud Boys and all of them are doing in Springfield right now is just a continuation of that. “You're immigrants that we will call illegal, even though you're not right and you are Black. Your whole pride in your culture and your history is about the way that you defied White supremacy, and you're foreign to us, and you are strange. And we will say that you do things like eat cats that you don't do, and we will just believe it, because we don't actually want to know anything about you other than that you are a monster who defies the way that the world should be ordered.”Jonathan Walton: Yep.Sy Hoekstra: I'm trying to stop myself from tearing up right now, and I don't know that I have points beyond this. Do you know what I mean? I'm just angry because this is like people, this is my wife and my daughter. I'm probably just taking time now to do what I should have done earlier in this process, which is just feel all the sadness and the anger. But that is what I feel. The Trump and Vance and the people that are a part of his movement are just horrifying. The fruit of their way of seeing the world is just evil, and I think that's where I'm leaving it for now [laughs].Jonathan Walton: Our battle is not against flesh and blood, but against powers and principalities and spiritual wickedness in high places. And the very thing that Haitian people are called, evil, voodoo all those things, is what White supremacy is.Sy Hoekstra: Yeah.Jonathan Walton: That is evil, and that is wicked, and it has been at work for centuries. And in Jesus name, as Connie Anderson would pray in the work she does with White people around White supremacy and leaving that behind, and she says she just prays that it would be overthrown. That demonic power would be overthrown, and people would be disobedient to that leaning.Sy Hoekstra: Yeah.Jonathan Walton: And I pray the same would be true for many, many people before and after the polls close on November the 5th.Sy Hoekstra: Yeah. So in the newsletter, I put an email address where you could send a PayPal donation to the local Haitian community center. We'll have a link to that in the show notes too. The Haitians on the ground, especially some of the pastors and the churches there, are doing some incredible work to try and keep the peace. I think people have been overlooking that. There was a decent Christianity Today article on kind of what's going on the ground in Ohio, but it really focused on what the local White churches are doing to help [laughs].Jonathan Walton: Right.Sy Hoekstra: And I really need people to focus on the Haitians, like what is actually happening there, and the fact that there are White supremacists marching around the town. And how terrifying that has to be for them, and how the people who are doing the work to keep the peace there are heroic, and they should not have to be. And they deserve all of our support and all our prayers. So I appreciate anything that you can, any intercession that you can do, any money that you can give. Any support that you can be. Any help that you can be just spreading the truth to people who may not be wanting to hear it or who might not be hearing it from their news sources right now,Jonathan Walton: Right.Sy Hoekstra: We're gonna end there, then. Thank you so much for listening. Please remember to go to KTFPress.com and become a paid subscriber and support everything we're doing, the media that we're making here. Get the bonus episodes to this show, come to our monthly Zoom calls to have a chat with me and Jonathan about everything that's going on in the election. Bring us your questions, get access to comments on our posts and more pl

We celebrate 100 years of the activist and writer James Baldwin by revisiting Lois Reitzes' 2018 conversations on “If Beale Street Could Talk.” She spoke with director Barry Jenkins and actor Colman Domingo, who portrays Joseph Rivers in the film. Also, we listened back to Reitzes' conversation with author Robert Jones Jr. about his 2021 novel, “The Prophets.”See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

On the debut episode of The Baldwin 100—a new series examining the life and work of iconic author and Civil Rights activist James Baldwin—we welcome Robert Jones Jr., former creator of the popular “Son of Baldwin” online community and bestselling author of the novel The Prophets. Here, Robert delves into who James Baldwin was and why he matters more than ever. Then Baldwin historian Ed Pavlić talks about what it's like to teach James Baldwin these days, and why his works are just as relevant now as when they were first published.For more information about Robert Jones Jr., check out www.sonofbaldwin.com. This podcast is a production of Penguin Random House Media + Knopf Publishing. It is hosted by Cree Myles, produced by Stephanie Bowen and Shalea Harris, edited by Clayton Gumbert, and executive produced by Trevor Baldwin.For more information and to get the deluxe centenary editions of James Baldwin's works, check out JamesBaldwinBooks.com, JamesBaldwin.info, and All Ways BlackListen to more podcasts from Penguin Random House:THIS IS TASTE, a food culture podcast CRIMINAL TYPES, a podcast featuring your favorite crime fiction authorsMARLON & JAKE READ DEAD PEOPLE, co-hosted by Marlon JamesBOOKS CONNECT US

You can Shawntaye on Instagram at @shawntaye1 Our website www.perksofbeingabooklover.com. Instagram - @perksofbeingabookloverpod FaceBook - Perks of Being a Book Lover. To send us a message, go to our website and click the Contact button.   This week we chat with a Lexington, Kentucky bookstagrammer, Shawntaye, who is such a devoted reader that she makes books part of virtually everything she does, from socializing to volunteering. Amy met Shawntaye in real life before COVID and the Perks has been following her bookish adventures ever since.    Shawntaye talks to us about a panel discussion she lead in which she recommended books that uplift Black women, as well as what she has learned from being a board member of her local library and how the reading events she attends enrich her life. She also shares her very strong (and funny) feelings about why she does not set numerical reading goals each year.  Books Discussed in this Episode: 1- Finna by Nino Cipri 2- What We Found in the Sofa and How it Saved the World by Henry Clark 3- What We Found in the Corn Maze and How It Saved a Dragon by Henry Clark 4- Heidi by Johanna Spyri 5- Forever by Judy Blume 6- Waiting to Exhale by Terry McMillan 7- Nothing to See Here by Kevin Wilson 8- Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy 9- You Should See Me in a Crown by Leah Johnson 10- The House of Eve by Sadeqa Johnson 11- Power: The Rise of Black Women in America by Charity C. Elder 12 - My Beautiful Black Hair by St. Clair Detrick-Jules 13- My Hair is Like the Sun by St. Clair Detrick-Jules 14- Hell of a Book by Jason Mott 15- The Prophets by Robert Jones Jr. 16- Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin 17 -Water by John Boyne (Five Star Read recommended by Book Lover Lynley @bichons_and_books_nz) 18- Enter the Body by Joy McCullough 19- Titus Andronicus by William Shakespeare 20- Dixon, Descending by Karen Outen 21- The Weather Woman by Sally Gardner

You can Shawntaye on Instagram at @shawntaye1 Our website www.perksofbeingabooklover.com. Instagram - @perksofbeingabookloverpod FaceBook - Perks of Being a Book Lover. To send us a message, go to our website and click the Contact button. This week we chat with a Lexington, Kentucky bookstagrammer, Shawntaye, who is such a devoted reader that she makes books part of virtually everything she does, from socializing to volunteering. Amy met Shawntaye in real life before COVID and the Perks has been following her bookish adventures ever since. Shawntaye talks to us about a panel discussion she lead in which she recommended books that uplift Black women, as well as what she has learned from being a board member of her local library and how the reading events she attends enrich her life. She also shares her very strong (and funny) feelings about why she does not set numerical reading goals each year. Books Discussed in this Episode: 1- Finna by Nino Cipri 2- What We Found in the Sofa and How it Saved the World by Henry Clark 3- What We Found in the Corn Maze and How It Saved a Dragon by Henry Clark 4- Heidi by Johanna Spyri 5- Forever by Judy Blume 6- Waiting to Exhale by Terry McMillan 7- Nothing to See Here by Kevin Wilson 8- Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy 9- You Should See Me in a Crown by Leah Johnson 10- The House of Eve by Sadeqa Johnson 11- Power: The Rise of Black Women in America by Charity C. Elder 12 - My Beautiful Black Hair by St. Clair Detrick-Jules 13- My Hair is Like the Sun by St. Clair Detrick-Jules 14- Hell of a Book by Jason Mott 15- The Prophets by Robert Jones Jr. 16- Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin 17 -Water by John Boyne (Five Star Read recommended by Book Lover Lynley @bichons_and_books_nz) 18- Enter the Body by Joy McCullough 19- Titus Andronicus by William Shakespeare 20- Dixon, Descending by Karen Outen 21- The Weather Woman by Sally Gardner

Porque é que nunca se escreveu sobre o amor homossexual entre escravizados nos Estados Unidos? O escritor norte-americano Robert Jones, Jr. foi investigar o amor entre a violência.

Robert Jones, Jr., is the author of The New York Times bestselling novel, "The Prophets." He join Alvin, Bobby, and Vash for an intimate conversation about the book he wanted to read but could find nowhere-- a story of queer Black love among slaves. Live episodes of “He Said, He Said, He Said” - Live stream Fridays, 7 p.m. EST. As always, your presence and participation make the show even better as we will respond to your questions real-time! Find your favorite platform at linktr.ee/hesaidhesaidhesaid --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/hesaidhesaidhesaidlive/message

Letlhogonolo Mokgoroane is a practising advocate and also a part-time in-counsel at the Centre for Applied Legal Studies at the University of the Witwatersrand.    They are also a commissioner for the O'Neill-Lancet Commission on Racism, Structural Discrimination and Global Health   They obtained their LLB from Stellenbosch University. After University, they served articles and later become an associate at Bowman Gilfillan Inc. In July 2016, they served as a law clerk for Justice Mbuyiseli Madlanga at theConstitutional Court of South Africa.   They obtained the Sonke/UCLA Health & Human Rights Fellowship in 2017/2018 and completed a Masters in Law specialising Public Interest Law and Policy and Critical Race Studies (summa cum laude) .   In 2017, they started a literary podcast, The Cheeky Natives, which  primarily focuses on the review, curatorship and archiving of Black literature.  The podcast as seen the likes of Prof Kimberlé Crenshaw, Mona Eltahawy, Dr Tlaleng Mofokeng, Darnell L. Moore, Robert Jones Jr and many more.    They were named one of the top 200 Young South Africans in 2018.    In 2022, they formed part of the judging panel for the AKO CAINE PRIZE FOR AFRICAN WRITING   They have worked on a number of constitutional cases. This includes an amicus intervention at the Constitutional Court, arguing cost orders against victims and survivors of gender-based violence contribute to a culture of silence.  They have also worked on matters  before the Western Cape High Court and the Malawi Constitutional Court dealing with survivors' rights to freedom of expression and the criminalisation of consensual sex between minors respectively. Catch up on Letlhogonolo's podcast Cheeky Natives here: https://open.spotify.com/show/4dv8VfJ5OoSiMIsSnWxDng?si=w750n8XwQuCfytVlVdhn7Q --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tebello-motshwane/message

...drag them down. Robert Jones Jr. returns to Woke AF Daily for a discussion with Danielle about their complicated feelings regarding Juneteenth becoming a federal holiday.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We continue our celebration of Pride Month with best selling author Robert Jones, Jr. Jones sat down with Maiysha Kai to talk about his New York Times best selling novel "The Prophets," which is about a Black Queer enslaved couple navigating their love through the atrocities of slavery. Jones and Maiysha talk about their love for music and why Jones decided to step away from the very popular Twitter page and website "The Son of Baldwin."  Original Air Date: 8/28/22See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Robert Earl Jones, Sr., 72, a native of Jackson, answered the Master's call on Friday, April 21, 2023, while at HCA Florida West Hospital in Pensacola, Fla. Robert was born to the parentage of the late Henry Jones and Elouise Scruggs Jones on Oct. 8, 1950 in Jackson. Following attendance at Harper High School, he was employed as a truck driver until his health failed. Those left to cherish his memories are his children, La Rosia (Mance) McKenzie and Sonya Walker, both of Jackson, Robert Jones Jr. and Delmonte (Danielle) Meggs Sr., both of Mobile, and John Moore of Detroit,...Article Link

Episode 155 Notes and Links to Robert Jones Jr.'s Work       On Episode 155 of The Chills at Will Podcast, Pete welcomes Robert Jones, Jr., and the two mainly discuss, among other things, the festive national Book Awards 2022, his early reading of comic books, his life-changing exposure to James Baldwin's work, his incredible Son of Baldwin platform, a dearth of representation for Black queer people that led him to write the book he wanted to read, the wonderful literary community and its inspiration for his work, and the work of art that is The Prophets, with its myriad standout lines, memorable characters, and structure that makes it a true classic and work of art.    Robert Jones, Jr., is the author of The New York Times bestselling novel, The Prophets, which won the 2022 Publishing Triangle Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction and the 2022 NAIBA Book of the Year Award for Fiction. It was also a finalist for the 2021 National Book Award for Fiction and was named a notable book by The New York Times and one of the best books of 2021 by Time, Entertainment Weekly, USA Today, NPR, The Boston Globe, and The Washington Post, among many others. His writings have been featured in The New York Times, Essence, and The Paris Review, as well as in the critically acclaimed anthologies Four Hundred Souls and The 1619 Project. Subscribe to his newsletter Witness at robertjonesjr.substack.com. Buy The Prophets   Join Witness, Robert Jones, Jr.'s Substack   Robert Jones, Jr.'s Website   July, 2022, from NPR's All Things Considered-“Son of Baldwin — a place for discussions of race, sexuality and gender — retires” 2021 Review of The Prophets from The Guardian-by Holly Williams: "The Prophets by Robert Jones Jr review – outstanding debut"     At about 7:10, Robert describes the incredible experience he had at the recent National Book Awards    At about 8:10, Robert outlines his early reading and writing influences, and the indelible mark left by comic books, libraries, and Wonder Woman   At about 11:30-15:50, Robert's response to Pete's question about representation in what Robert read growing up connects to ideas of connectedness and internalized and external ideas of queerness, acceptance, and inspiration for his own writing    At about 15:50, Robert discusses loneliness versus uniqueness and the ideas of “polic[ing] gender”   At about 18:40, Pete wonders about James Baldwin's impact on Robert-Robert talks about being introduced to Baldwin “rather late” but being swept away by “Here Be Dragons,” among many other of Baldwin's works, and how a quote from James Baldwin's brother in the documentary, The Price of the Ticket  was the catalyst for the Son of Baldwin platform   At about 22:35, Pete talks about how closely Son of Baldwin and James Baldwin have been linked in recent years, including an incorrect attribution of an important quote   At about 25:15, Robert lists and describes some of the countless people to whom he gives credit and love for their inspiration and encouragement, as seen in his book's extensive Acknowledgments    At about 27:50, Pete and Robert sing the praises of Kiese Laymon, and Robert speaks so highly of Kiese tremendous help in getting Robert and his book    At about 30:05, Robert talks about contemporary writers like Deesha Philyaw, Dawnie Walton, Maisy Card, Mateo Askaripour, Jason Mott, and Xochitl Gonzalez whose work thrills and inspires and challenges him, and he shouts out an outstanding upcoming 2023 book from Jamila Minnicks    At about 32:50, Robert gives background on research for The Prophets, the time spent writing it, and the seeds for the books that largely came from his university studies   At about 37:25, Robert responds to Pete wondering what Robert was able to do by making his book fiction and not nonfiction    At about 39:00, Robert and Pete discusses connections between the invasion of African countries by Europeans, and how the forced religiosity connects to an encroaching and new homophobia and white supremacy    At about 41:50, The two discuss Amos from The Prophets and the “conundrum” that he faces with regards to Isaiah and Samuel, as well as Amos' role as preacher and Christian convert, as well as connections to modern preachers   At about 45:25, the two discuss Isaiah and Samuel, the book's protagonists, and their love and their backstories and their shared knowledge of being alone and “loaded onto a wagon like stuff”   At about 47:55, Robert responds to historical ideas of homosexuality sometimes seen as a tool to disrupt Black communities and explains how Paul, the book's slavemaster, sees Isaiah and Samuel's relationship and a “threat to capitalism”   At about 50:40, The two connect the hypocrisy of Paul and his philandering and    At about 51:45, Pete cites the book's unique/Biblical structure and talks about the book's starting with “the ancestors”; he asks Robert about the “you” to whom the ancestors spr   At about 53:10, Robert describes a dream that was hugely influential and transformative for his book   At about 55:00, Robert discusses the ways in which Isaiah and Samuel are unified, and how they are rendered as distinct    At about 58:25, Robert talks about the importance of names for enslaved peoples and for the slave owners, and he talks specifically about Isaiah's original name, its significance, and its importance in his relationship with Amos   At about 1:01:00, Robert and Pete discuss tovo and toubab, Beninese and Wolof words, respectively, and their connections to early African encounters with European invaders   At about 1:02:35, the two discuss the book's parallel storyline that involves Isaiah's familial lineage in Kasongo, a mythical kingdom in Africa; Robert homes in on the vastly-different ideas of gender identity in pre-colonial Africa   At about 1:05:30, Pete wonders about the role of Timothy in the book and Robert expands upon ideas of rapists and rape   At about 1:07:45, Robert discusses sympathy and writing characters who are seemingly 100% detestable, and ideas of oppression and oppressors and their connections with Timothy, Ruth, James, and Paul    At about 1:11:00, Pete focuses on Paul's behavior and his rush to justify his evil behavior through the Bible and Christianity; a scene from the book involving Adam, Paul's son, is highlighted    At about 1:12:35, The two discuss a scene of degradation and Robert highlights it as a scene where a lot is happening behind the scenes/under the surface with the crafty Essie and Maggie    At about 1:14:00, Pete highlights the incredibly-skillful ways in which Robert homes in on individual stories to draw the reader's attention and sympathy/empathy   At about 1:15:20, Robert talks about an exciting upcoming project, a second novel     You can now subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts, and leave me a five-star review. You can also ask for the podcast by name using Alexa, and find the pod on Stitcher, Spotify, and on Amazon Music. Follow me on IG, where I'm @chillsatwillpodcast, or on Twitter, where I'm @chillsatwillpo1. You can watch other episodes on YouTube-watch and subscribe to The Chills at Will Podcast Channel. Please subscribe to both my YouTube Channel and my podcast while you're checking out this episode.  Sign up now for The Chills at Will Podcast Patreon: it can be found at patreon.com/chillsatwillpodcastpeterriehl     Check out the page that describes the benefits of a Patreon membership, including cool swag and bonus episodes. Thanks in advance for supporting my one-man show, my DIY podcast and my extensive reading, research, editing, and promoting to keep this independent podcast pumping out high-quality content! This is a passion project of mine, a DIY operation, and I'd love for your help in promoting what I'm convinced is a unique and spirited look at an often-ignored art form. The intro song for The Chills at Will Podcast is “Wind Down” (Instrumental Version), and the other song played on this episode was “Hoops” (Instrumental)” by Matt Weidauer, and both songs are used through ArchesAudio.com.    Please tune in for Episode 156 with Namrata Poddar. Namrata writes fiction and nonfiction, serves as Interviews Editor for Kweli, and teaches literature and writing at UCLA. Her work has appeared in several publications including Poets & Writers, Literary Hub, Longreads, The Kenyon Review, and The Best Asian Short Stories. Her debut novel, Border Less, was a finalist for Feminist Press's Louise Meriwether Prize.    The episode will air on December 13.

According to the NYT, The Prophets' is an exploration of Black Love and Memory in a Time of Trauma. What an apt description of this powerful debut by Robert Jones Jr. In a novel moving across time and space, we are introduced to Samuel and Isaiah, who are two enslaved young men on a plantation named Empty. Despite a betrayal by another one of the enslaved men, their love burns brightly. Moving back in time, we are introduced to the Kosongo people and meet Kosii and Elewa who are spiritual predecessors to Samuel and Isaiah. There are a multitude of other characters who we meet in this traversing of time and place, Amos, Ruth, Paul and Tim. The Cheeky Natives sat down with Robert Jones Jr to discuss this radical book of queer love that moves in courage and history.

Inspired by Jette's recent blog post, we dive into some of the books we should have read by now—whether it's because they touch on current issues or because they've been on our shelf for ages. Turns out we have a lot of these books, so we made a pact to read at least one book from our list before the end of this year. Listen to find out which ones we chose! Books & Authors Mentioned Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler The Prophets by Robert Jones Jr. James Baldwin – Giovanni's Room, Another Country, The Fire Next Time, The Devil Finds Work 21 Things You May Not Know About the Indian Act by Bob Joseph Rib King by Ladee Hubbard Flaubert's Parrot by Julian Barnes Ghost World by Daniel Clowes Dennis Lehane Blood Meridien by Cormac McCarthy The Stand by Stephen King Dune by Frank Herbert The Southern Reach Trilogy by Jeff Vandermeer How to Write An Autobiographical Novel by Alexander Chee Persuasion by Jane Austen The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis Gone Girl by Gillian Glynn Don't forget to follow us on Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter or email us at hello@anotherbookontheshelf.com. We'd love to hear from you! Sign up for our newsletter and add us to Pinterest!

Maiysha talks with New York Times Best Seller author and Son of Baldwin creator Robert Jones, Jr. about his book "The Prophets." Robert explains how he came up with the concept of a novel about Black queer love during slavery, and how his identity influences his writing and the writers that influenced him.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

FINALLY! We're back! This weeks episode is a review of the beautifully moving and heartbreaking novel, The Prophets by Robert Jones Jr. Follow the Corporate Crush Podcast Instagram account: @corporatecrushedpod --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

This week's guest, Angela Jackson-Brown, is an award-winning novelist, poet, and playwright. She is also a professor at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana who completed her MFA at Spalding University in Louisville where she is also a member of the creative writing graduate faculty. Her most recent novel, When Stars Rain Down, was published in 2021 and is a historical fiction story set in 1930s Georgia, and has been nominated for several awards. Angela also has a new novel coming out in July called The Light Always Breaks set in post WW 2 Washington DC that features political and romantic intrigue between a high powered interacial couple. These are stand alone novels but what is cool is that these books' characters are in the same fictional universe so readers get a chance to reconnect with characters they may have met before. Angela talks to us about how she uses fiction to write about experiences in her life she wished she'd had, why she started writing plays, and the first book she read as a child that made a big impression on her (and this will surprise you). You can find Angela on Instagram at @angelajacksonbrownauthor and at her author website angelajacksonbrown.com Follow us on Facebook at The Perks of Being a Book Lover Instagram - @perksofbeingabookoverpod Website at www.perksofbeingabooklover.com. Books Mentioned in this Episode: 1- When Stars Rain Down by Angela Jackson-Brown 2- The Light Always Breaks by Angela Jackson-Brown 3- The Storyteller: Tales of Life and Music by Dave Grohl 4- Drinking From a Bitter Cup by Angela Jackson-Brown 5- Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell 6- Roots by Alex Haley 7- The Color Purple by Alice Walter 8- The Prophets by Robert Jones Jr. 9- To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee 10- The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place: The Mysterious Howling by Maryrose Wood 11- Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte 12- We Are Not Like Them by Christine Pride and Jo Piazza 13- Girl at War by Sara Nović 14- True Biz by Sara Nović Movies mentioned 1- Child's Play (1988) 2- The Conjuring (2013)

This week's guest, Angela Jackson-Brown, is an award-winning novelist, poet, and playwright. She is also a professor at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana who completed her MFA at Spalding University in Louisville where she is also a member of the creative writing graduate faculty. Her most recent novel, When Stars Rain Down, was published in 2021 and is a historical fiction story set in 1930s Georgia, and has been nominated for several awards. Angela also has a new novel coming out in July called The Light Always Breaks set in post WW 2 Washington DC that features political and romantic intrigue between a high powered interacial couple. These are stand alone novels but what is cool is that these books' characters are in the same fictional universe so readers get a chance to reconnect with characters they may have met before. Angela talks to us about how she uses fiction to write about experiences in her life she wished she'd had, why she started writing plays, and the first book she read as a child that made a big impression on her (and this will surprise you). You can find Angela on Instagram at @angelajacksonbrownauthor and at her author website angelajacksonbrown.com Follow us on Facebook at The Perks of Being a Book Lover Instagram - @perksofbeingabookoverpod Website at www.perksofbeingabooklover.com. Books Mentioned in this Episode: 1- When Stars Rain Down by Angela Jackson-Brown 2- The Light Always Breaks by Angela Jackson-Brown 3- The Storyteller: Tales of Life and Music by Dave Grohl 4- Drinking From a Bitter Cup by Angela Jackson-Brown 5- Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell 6- Roots by Alex Haley 7- The Color Purple by Alice Walter 8- The Prophets by Robert Jones Jr. 9- To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee 10- The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place: The Mysterious Howling by Maryrose Wood 11- Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte 12- We Are Not Like Them by Christine Pride and Jo Piazza 13- Girl at War by Sara Nović 14- True Biz by Sara Nović Movies mentioned 1- Child's Play (1988) 2- The Conjuring (2013)

Join Chris Hyams and Robert Jones Jr., New York Times bestselling author, as they discuss Jones' debut novel, The Prophets.In this conversation, Jones delves into his passion for Black history and literature and why he felt this novel — which took him 13 years to write — needed to send a message of hope to its readers. 

It's June, which means it's Pride month, and to celebrate Gen and Jette dedicate Episode 96 to all things queer lit! We talk about a lot of different books in this one and realized that quite a few of our past episodes feature queer books and writers. Hell yeah! Show Notes Quite a few of our favourite books get mentioned in this episode and you can find the complete (as possible) list below of everything we talked about. If you're in Toronto, be sure to hit up Glad Day Bookshop in the Village. Keep an eye out for Gen's blog post this month — she'll be giving you her Pride reading wish list. Let us know all your favourite queer books! Comment below, DM us, tag us...we want all the recommendations! Books and Authors Mentioned The Prophets by Robert Jones Jr. We Have Always Been Here by Samra Habib In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado Jeannette Winterson – Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, Written on the Body Kacen Callender – Felix Ever After, King and the Dragonflies The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller These Violent Delights by Chloe Gong Heartstopper by Alice Oseman Casey McQuiston – I Kissed Shara Wheeler, One Last Stop, Red White and Royal Blue James Baldwin – Another Country, If Beale Street Could Talk, Giovanni's Room A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo Jedidiah Jenkins – To Shake the Sleeping Self, Like Streams to the Ocean Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas A Lesson in Vengeance by Victoria Lee The Shale Project by Avi Silver & Sienna Tristen Fun Home by Alison Bechdel Tranny by Laura Jane Grace Portrait of a Thief by Grace D. Li You Should See Me in a Crown by Leah Johnson Sadie by Courtney Summers Slave Play by Jeremy O. Harris Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century by Kim Fu Trixie & Katya's Guide to Modern Womanhood David Sedaris Don't forget to follow us on Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter or email us at hello@anotherbookontheshelf.com. We'd love to hear from you! Sign up for our newsletter and add us to Pinterest!

Watch the video version of our interview ($5 a month, as much as an iced coffee): https://www.patreon.com/posts/67419594 For our Pride Month Book Club, we welcome Zak Salih who discusses his debut novel, Let's Get Back to the Party. He discusses how his novel questions the theme of belonging in the gay community. Zak's two protagonists, Oscar and Sebastian may both identify as gay men but their view of gay culture and politics couldn't be anymore different. During this interview, Zak opens up about the importance of intergenerational conversations within the gay community, and his novel features different gay generations that question what it means to be "out" in America. His novel begins with the ecstatic Obergefell v. Hodges Supreme Court ruling (allowing same-sex marriage) and ends with the tragic Pulse Nightclub shooting. He explains that both historical moments happened within one year of each other, and why he wanted his characters to reflect on their gay identities during this one year period. Follow Zak on Instagram, @zakigrams, and Twitter, @ZMSalih1982. Make sure to add Let's Get Back to the Party to your Pride Month reading list: https://bookshop.org/books/let-s-get-back-to-the-party-ab8c1f98-2d75-4f43-b517-5196d1872adc/9781616209575 Or, listen to Michael Crouch and Will Damron's brilliant performance of Let's Get Back to the Party: https://www.audible.com/pd/Lets-Get-Back-to-the-Party-Audiobook/164904027X Happy Pride Month to all of you out there and also to our fabulous LGBTQ+ authors who we've had the privilege of interviewing thus far. If you haven't yet, make sure that you add the following authors to your Pride 2022 reading list and then listen to their podcast episodes! Those we've interviewed include, Nicolas DiDomizio, Dustin Friedman, Stephen Guy-Bray, Aaron Hamburger, Robert Jones Jr., Ursula Klein, Celia Laskey, Gregory Maguire, Brian Moylan, Micah Nemerever, Lev Raphael, Lev AC Rosen, Steven Rowley, Josh Sabarra, and Mario Telo. Follow Ivory Tower Boiler Room on Instagram, @ivorytowerboilerroom, TikTok, @ivorytowerboilerroom, and Twitter, @IvoryBoilerRoom! Email us at ivorytowerboilerroom@gmail.com. We love hearing from you about the podcast and are always interested in interview suggestions. Many thanks to the Ivory Tower Boiler Room podcast team: Andrew Rimby, Executive Director; Mary DiPipi, Chief Contributor; Nicole Arguello, Marketing Assistant; Kimberly Dallas, Editor Rihanna's "Don't Stop the Music" (C) 2007 The Island Def Jam Music Group --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/ivorytowerboilerroom/support

Danielle Moodie talks with friend Robert Jones Jr, author of The Prophets, about whether there is a future for Black and queer Americans in this country. Support Woke AF Daily at Patreon.com/WokeAF to see the full video edition of today's show, and over 100 more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Avec Brahim Naït-Balk, retrouvez “Homomicro le podcast qui se prend aux mots” avec les invités: - Alain GAVAND, Responsable du Pôle Observatoire de L'Autre Cercle, présente la quatrième édition des "Rôles Modèles" avec Annabelle GUIRAUD - Tadzio ALICANTE présente son premier roman : "Le Garçon from LA", paru aux Éditions Ex Æquo avec Étienne BOMPAIS-PAHM   « Le Cercle des Chroniqueurs » présents durant l'émission : - "C'est à Lire" « Les Prophètes » de Robert Jones Jr. (un roman paru aux éditions Grasset) avec Éric GARNIER - Dans "Le Plus de l'Actu", Nicolas Rividi met la lumière sur le « Résultat de l'élection présidentielle »    Réalisation/Montage : Nathan Hillaireau Soutenez-nous sur PayPal !

In dieser Folge mit Anika, Meike und Robin: „Die Propheten“ von Robert Jones Jr., „Afrika, in Ketten“ von Albert Londres und „Meter pro Sekunde“ von Stine Pilgaard. Papierstau Podcast macht den Schampus auf: Christian Kracht hat schon wieder 'nen Literaturpreis gewonnen. Und womit? Mit Recht. Außerdem im Vorgeplänkel: Spaß mit zweifelhaften literaturkritischen Hot Takes!

On this episode: Elizabeth, Jamilah, and Zak expose the mini-monsters that parents accidentally create. They have some very fun—very scary—listener submissions. But honestly, who doesn't need a snack for every car ride? Then Zak interviews comedian, dad, and podcaster Chris Garcia about his new show Finding Raffi. They talk about how Raffi captured kids' ears and hearts, his lasting legacy, and how he's changing parenting philosophies.  Recommendations Zak recommends finding little moments of joy like making a game out of chucking garbage into the can.  Jamilah recommends The Prophets by Robert Jones Jr. Elizabeth recommends the Ologies podcast  And, a bonus recommendation from Zak: His conversation with Rebecca Lavoie on The Best Advice Show podcast about knowing and communicating your weaknesses at work  Resources Finding Raffi by Chris Garcia Join us on Facebook and email us at momanddad@slate.com to ask us new questions, tell us what you thought of today's show, and give us ideas about what we should talk about in future episodes.  Podcast produced by Rosemary Belson and Jasmine Ellis.  Slate Plus members get a bonus segment on MADAF each week, and no ads. Sign up now at slate.com/momanddadplus to listen and support our work. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On this episode: Elizabeth, Jamilah, and Zak expose the mini-monsters that parents accidentally create. They have some very fun—very scary—listener submissions. But honestly, who doesn't need a snack for every car ride? Then Zak interviews comedian, dad, and podcaster Chris Garcia about his new show Finding Raffi. They talk about how Raffi captured kids' ears and hearts, his lasting legacy, and how he's changing parenting philosophies.  Recommendations Zak recommends finding little moments of joy like making a game out of chucking garbage into the can.  Jamilah recommends The Prophets by Robert Jones Jr. Elizabeth recommends the Ologies podcast  And, a bonus recommendation from Zak: His conversation with Rebecca Lavoie on The Best Advice Show podcast about knowing and communicating your weaknesses at work  Resources Finding Raffi by Chris Garcia Join us on Facebook and email us at momanddad@slate.com to ask us new questions, tell us what you thought of today's show, and give us ideas about what we should talk about in future episodes.  Podcast produced by Rosemary Belson and Jasmine Ellis.  Slate Plus members get a bonus segment on MADAF each week, and no ads. Sign up now at slate.com/momanddadplus to listen and support our work. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The debut novel of Robert Jones, Jr., “The Prophets,” is lyrical prose about the dimensionality and interiority of people.

This week, we go down to the Delta with our special guest, the brilliant Robert Jones Jr (author of 2021 National Book Award finalist, The Prophets).  Where to begin with this one. A movie about Medgar Evers where he's dead on screen more than he's alive. A movie where the amazing Myrlie Evers-Williams is relegated to answering phones and supporting the white lawyer. And perhaps the wildest opening montage for a movie we've ever seen.  We discuss the intentional erasure of Medgar Evers, what kind of accent Alec Baldwin was attempting to do, and the real life story behind the trial as well as Medgar and Myrlie's legacies.  Robert is one of the most talented writers around, and you absolutely need to read The Prophets if you haven't yet. Hailed "A singular and stunning debut novel about the forbidden union between two enslaved young men on a Deep South plantation, the refuge they find in each other, and a betrayal that threatens their existence." Follow Robert on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook and if you're in the Oxford, Mississippi area you can catch him live today at 2:30 at the Oxford Conference for the Book. Check out his website for more tour dates! As always, check us out at @white_pod and be sure to rate, review, and subscribe if you'd be so kind. We'd also love to hear from you! Send us movies to watch, caucacity to discuss, and anything else at whitepeoplewontsaveyoupod@gmail.com 

This week's guest, Angela Jackson-Brown, is an award-winning novelist, poet, and playwright. She is also a professor at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana who completed her MFA at Spalding University in Louisville where she is also a member of the creative writing graduate faculty. Her most recent novel, When Stars Rain Down, was published in 2021 and is a historical fiction story set in 1930s Georgia, and has been nominated for several awards. Angela also has a new novel coming out in July called The Light Always Breaks set in post WW 2 Washington DC that features political and romantic intrigue between a high powered interacial couple. These are stand alone novels but what is cool is that these books' characters are in the same fictional universe so readers get a chance to reconnect with characters they may have met before. Angela talks to us about how she uses fiction to write about experiences in her life she wished she'd had, why she started writing plays, and the first book she read as a child that made a big impression on her (and this will surprise you). You can find Angela on Instagram at @angelajacksonbrownauthor and at her author website angelajacksonbrown.com Follow us on Facebook at The Perks of Being a Book Lover Instagram - @perksofbeingabookoverpod Website at www.perksofbeingabooklover.com. Books Mentioned in this Episode: 1- When Stars Rain Down by Angela Jackson-Brown 2- The Light Always Breaks by Angela Jackson-Brown 3- The Storyteller: Tales of Life and Music by Dave Grohl 4- Drinking From a Bitter Cup by Angela Jackson-Brown 5- Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell 6- Roots by Alex Haley 7- The Color Purple by Alice Walter 8- The Prophets by Robert Jones Jr. 9- To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee 10- The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place: The Mysterious Howling by Maryrose Wood 11- Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte 12- We Are Not Like Them by Christine Pride and Jo Piazza 13- Girl at War by Sara Nović 14- True Biz by Sara Nović Movies mentioned 1- Child's Play (1988) 2- The Conjuring (2013)

This week's guest, Angela Jackson-Brown, is an award-winning novelist, poet, and playwright. She is also a professor at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana who completed her MFA at Spalding University in Louisville where she is also a member of the creative writing graduate faculty. Her most recent novel, When Stars Rain Down, was published in 2021 and is a historical fiction story set in 1930s Georgia, and has been nominated for several awards. Angela also has a new novel coming out in July called The Light Always Breaks set in post WW 2 Washington DC that features political and romantic intrigue between a high powered interacial couple. These are stand alone novels but what is cool is that these books' characters are in the same fictional universe so readers get a chance to reconnect with characters they may have met before. Angela talks to us about how she uses fiction to write about experiences in her life she wished she'd had, why she started writing plays, and the first book she read as a child that made a big impression on her (and this will surprise you). You can find Angela on Instagram at @angelajacksonbrownauthor and at her author website angelajacksonbrown.com Follow us on Facebook at The Perks of Being a Book Lover Instagram - @perksofbeingabookoverpod Website at www.perksofbeingabooklover.com. Books Mentioned in this Episode: 1- When Stars Rain Down by Angela Jackson-Brown 2- The Light Always Breaks by Angela Jackson-Brown 3- The Storyteller: Tales of Life and Music by Dave Grohl 4- Drinking From a Bitter Cup by Angela Jackson-Brown 5- Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell 6- Roots by Alex Haley 7- The Color Purple by Alice Walter 8- The Prophets by Robert Jones Jr. 9- To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee 10- The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place: The Mysterious Howling by Maryrose Wood 11- Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte 12- We Are Not Like Them by Christine Pride and Jo Piazza 13- Girl at War by Sara Nović 14- True Biz by Sara Nović Movies mentioned 1- Child's Play (1988) 2- The Conjuring (2013)

We're sharing a preview of the Black & Published podcast hosted by award winning author and Emmy award winning producer Nikesha Elise Williams. Back for season 2, Black & Published brings listeners on the journey of BIPOC writers, poets, playwrights and storytellers of all kinds to discuss what it means to be a writer, dissect the writing process, and demystify the steps between concept and publication. You'll hear stories from traditionally published authors and self-published authors alike from powerhouses like Deesha Philyaw and Robert Jones Jr. to indie greats such as Tamika Newhouse and Enitan Bereola, II. The writers discuss the highs and lows of navigating the publishing industry and how they made a life of language. You can listen to Black & Published at https://link.chtbl.com/chroniclesofnowblackandpublished  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“Tiny resistances were a kind of healing in a weeping place” is just one of the many powerful and lyric aphorisms that ennoble The Prophets, the New York Times best-selling debut novel from Robert Jones, Jr. – a story about the forbidden union between two enslaved young men on a Deep South plantation, the refuge they find in each other and a betrayal that threatens their existence. Robert Jones, Jr. is a writer and thinker, and the creator and curator of the social-justice social media community Son of Baldwin. He has written for numerous publications, including the New York Times, Essence and the Paris Review. Today, in a far reaching conversation, we explore how The Prophets came to life and why he felt it so important to ensure queer Black love was neither denigrated nor ignored within it, his desire to correct the historical record, learning rebellion from his mother and making sure that queer Black people know they are loved, valued and have a purposeful place in the world. About Busy Being Black Busy Being Black is the podcast exploring how we live in the fullness of our queer Black lives. Thank you to our partners: UK Black Pride, BlackOut UK, The Tenth, Schools Out and to you the listeners. Remember this, your support doesn't cost any money: retweets, ratings, reviews and shares all help so please keep the support coming.  Thank you to our funding partner, myGwork – the LGBT+ business community. Thank you to Lazarus Lynch – a queer Black musician and culinary extraordinaire based in New York City – for the triumphant and ancestral Busy Being Black theme music. The Busy Being Black theme music was mixed and mastered by Joshua Pleeter. Busy Being Black's artwork was photographed by queer Black photographer and filmmaker Dwayne Black. Join the conversation on Twitter and Instagram #busybeingblack Busy Being Black listeners have an exclusive discount at Pluto Press. Enter BUSY50 at checkout. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week, I'm in conversation with Robert Jones, Jr., author of The Prophets – his New York Times best-selling debut novel about the forbidden union between two enslaved young men. In this bonus episode, Robert reads an excerpt The Prophets, entitled “New Covenant”. Robert Jones, Jr. is a writer and thinker, and the creator and curator of the social-justice social media community Son of Baldwin. He has written for numerous publications, including the New York Times, Essence and the Paris Review. About Busy Being Black Busy Being Black is the podcast exploring how we live in the fullness of our queer Black lives. Thank you to our partners: UK Black Pride, BlackOut UK, The Tenth, Schools Out and to you the listeners. Remember this, your support doesn't cost any money: retweets, ratings, reviews and shares all help so please keep the support coming.  Thank you to our funding partner, myGwork – the LGBT+ business community. Thank you to Lazarus Lynch – a queer Black musician and culinary extraordinaire based in New York City – for the triumphant and ancestral Busy Being Black theme music. The Busy Being Black theme music was mixed and mastered by Joshua Pleeter. Busy Being Black's artwork was photographed by queer Black photographer and filmmaker Dwayne Black. Join the conversation on Twitter and Instagram #busybeingblack Busy Being Black listeners have an exclusive discount at Pluto Press. Enter BUSY50 at checkout. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Robert Jones Jr. joins Andrew, Mary, and Ceren in The Ivory Tower Boiler Room to discuss his 2021 New York Times bestselling novel, The Prophets. He provides a behind the scenes discussion of how this much talked about Black queer love story came to be. Our discussion dives deep into who Robert turns to for literary inspiration, specifically Harriet Jacobs, Frederick Douglass, James Baldwin, and Toni Morrison. He explains the musicality of his prose, and you'll be surprised with one of the major inspirations. As Robert says, his novel really "needed to sing"! There is much to ponder and reflect on in this episode and be ready for many important book suggestions. As author Marlon James reminds us on the cover of The Prophets, Robert Jones Jr.'s Black queer love story is "Glorious...What the American novel is, should do, and can be." Follow Robert Jones Jr. on Instagram, @thesonofbaldwin and Twitter, @SonofBaldwin. Make sure to follow Robert Jones Jr.'s Son of Baldwin which is a social-justice, social-media community that he created and curates on Facebook, @SonofBaldwin. To purchase The Prophets head here: https://bookshop.org/books/the-prophets-9780593295502/9780593085684 To hear actor Karen Chilton beautifully read The Prophets head to Audible: https://www.audible.com/pd/The-Prophets-Audiobook/0593287002 Listen to our entire unedited interview with Robert Jones Jr., including an extra 40 minutes of discussion! So head on over to our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/ivorytowerboilerroom Follow Ivory Tower Boiler Room on Facebook, @ivorytowerboilerroom, Instagram, @ivorytowerboilerroom, TikTok, @ivorytowerboilerroom, and Twitter, @IvoryBoilerRoom! Email us at ivorytowerboilerroom@gmail.com. We love hearing from you about the podcast and are always interested in interview suggestions. Many thanks to the Ivory Tower Boiler Room podcast team: Andrew Rimby, Executive Director Mary DiPipi, Chief Contributor Ceren Usta, Marketing Director Thanks to Anne Sophie Andersen and Meghan Ames for our theme song, "Loverman." --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/ivorytowerboilerroom/support

In this spoiler-free episode, the hosts talk about the 5 books that disappointed (or enraged) them the most this year. Remember, everyone likes different things! These are just the books that they didn't like this year :) Books mentioned in the episode: The Wife Upstairs by Rachel Hawkins (2021) Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens (2018) The Roanoke Girls Amy Engel (2018) Then She Was Gone by Lisa Jewell (2017) The Woman in the Window by A. J. Finn (2018) Mexican Gothic by Silvia Morena Garcia (2020) The Collective by Alison Gaylin (2021) Glengarry Glen Ross by David Mamet (1983) Bossypants by Tina Fey (2011) The Secret History by Donna Tartt (1992) The Prophets by Robert Jones Jr. (2021)

It's the last episode of Season 2 of The Vulgar Geniuses Podcast, so we bring you the gifts of all gifts! For our finale, we talked to National Book Award Finalist Robert Jones, Jr., author of the New York Times Bestseller

(Listeners be advised, Josh and Andrew talk openly about sex and other steamy topics! Thanks for listening and make sure to explore our hyperlinks.) Josh reveals the behind the scenes of working in Hollywood as a publicist and now as a Hollywood producer. He then discusses his writing process for both Porn Again and Enemies Closer. Josh's discussion about coming out leads Andrew and Josh to openly discuss their approach to consuming pornography and the importance of sexual education. Follow Josh Sabarra on Instagram, @joshsabarra, Twitter, @JoshSabarra, and Facebook, /JoshSabarraAuthor. Head on over to his website where you can purchase his catchy merchandise: http://www.joshsabarra.com/. To purchase Porn Again: A Memoir go here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0990754618/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_fabc_K0HH0ZCJJN6WWXY56 To purchase Enemies Closer go here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0990754618/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_fabc_WC7FT1EQDNJPVB1YZYRW If anyone wants signed or personalized copies, they're available by calling Barnes & Noble at The Grove in LA or through Book Soup in LA. Andrew highly recommends the Audible versions of Josh's books as well (Josh reads Porn Again!) so head on over to: https://www.audible.com/search?searchAuthor=Josh%20Sabarra&submitted=1 To order Robert Jones Jr.'s The Prophets go here: https://bookshop.org/books/the-prophets-9780593295502/9780593085684 Follow Ivory Tower Boiler Room on Twitter, @ivoryboilerroom, and Instagram, @ivorytowerboilerroom! Email us at ivorytowerboilerroom@gmail.com. We love hearing from you about the podcast and are always interested in interview suggestions. Many thanks to the Ivory Tower Boiler Room podcast team: Andrew Rimby, Executive Director Mary DiPipi, Chief Contributor Ceren Usta, Marketing Director Thanks to Anne Sophie Andersen and Meghan Ames for our theme song, "Loverman." --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/ivorytowerboilerroom/support

Not all history is learned - or taught - in school. In today's first interview, Robert Jones Jr. tells NPR's Scott Simon that he wanted to be 'a witness to [those] testimonies that have not made it into the official record.' His novel, The Prophets, is about enslaved Black queer people in America. The second interview is about the seemingly mundane day-to-day that makes up a person's history in Zorrie. Author Laird Hunt told NPR's Scott Simon that just because someone's story seems unremarkable doesn't mean it isn't rich.

Earlier this week, several editors at The New York Times got together (virtually) for a live taping of the podcast to discuss the Book Review's list of the year's 10 Best Books. (If you haven't seen the list yet and don't want spoilers before listening, the choices are revealed one by one on the podcast.)In addition to the 10 Best Books, the editors discuss on this episode some of their favorite works from the year that didn't make the list. Here are those additional books the editors discuss:“The Magician” by Thomas Mann“Klara and the Sun” by Kazuo Ishiguro“Razorblade Tears” by S.A. Cosby“Wayward” by Dana Spiotta“Dirty Work” by Eyal Press“Beautiful World, Where Are You” by Sally Rooney“The Life of the Mind” by Christine Smallwood“Crossroads” by Jonathan Franzen“The Prophets” by Robert Jones Jr.“Our Country Friends” by Gary Shteyngart

Harmony and Maggie do The End of the Year Book Tag created by Ariel Bissett. Are we mood readers or do we plan what we'll read? Do we have a favorite book of the year set in stone? What does our autumn TBR pile look like? All this and more in this week's episode! In This Episode: Honey Girl by Morgan Rogers Children of Virtue and Vengeance by Tomi Adeyemi The Hazel Wood by Melissa Albert Magic for Liars by Sarah Gailey Missing Witches: Recovering True Histories of Feminist Magic by Risa Dickens and Amy Torok Upright Women Wanted by Sarah Gailey Wake Siren by Nina Maclaughlin The Good House by Tananarive Due You Exist Too Much by Zaina Arafat Damnation Spring by Ash Davidson Under the Whispering Door by TJ Klune Noor by Nnedi Okorafor A Mind Spread Out on the Ground by Alicia Elliott Where the Dead Sit Talking by Brandon Hobson After the People Lights Have Gone Off by Stephen Graham Jones The Prophets by Robert Jones Jr. To follow our episode schedule go here. Follow our social media pages on Instagram Facebook Goodreads and Twitter. Or you can email us at RebelGirlsBookClub@gmail.com. Our theme song is by The Gays, and our image is by Mari Talor Renaud-Krutulis. Rebel Girls Book Club is part of the Frolic Podcast Network. You can find more outstanding podcasts to subscribe to at Frolic.media/podcasts! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/rgbc/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/rgbc/support

We explore who your Right People are, how to figure out who your Right People are NOT, and talk about Right Relationship.Mentioned in this episode:Everyman, M. Shelly ConnerRock The Boat, Resmaa MenakemConflict Is Not Abuse, Sarah SchulmanThe Love Songs of WEB Dubois, Honorée Fanonne JeffersThe Prophets, Robert Jones Jr.Homegoing, Yaa GyasiHow We Show Up, Mia BirdsongRelationship Red Flags, Elizabeth M. JohnsonAnnie DukeDuped podcastToi Marie on the "impossibility of removing ourselves from a capitalist system."Bruce Perry The Body Is Not An Apology, Sonya Renee TaylorMusic by ZakharValaha from Pixabay Music by ZakharValaha from Pixabay

We explore who your Right People are, how to figure out who your Right People are NOT, and talk about Right Relationship.Mentioned in this episode:Everyman, M. Shelly ConnerRock The Boat, Resmaa MenakemConflict Is Not Abuse, Sarah SchulmanThe Love Songs of WEB Dubois, Honorée Fanonne JeffersThe Prophets, Robert Jones Jr.Homegoing, Yaa GyasiHow We Show Up, Mia BirdsongRelationship Red Flags, Elizabeth M. JohnsonAnnie DukeDuped podcastToi Marie on the "impossibility of removing ourselves from a capitalist system."Bruce Perry The Body Is Not An Apology, Sonya Renee TaylorMusic by ZakharValaha from Pixabay Music by ZakharValaha from Pixabay

Danté Stewart's book Shoutin' in the Fire: An American Epistle is one of the most stirring and powerfully written that we've encountered on the podcast. This conversation with him is comparable. He's engaging, funny, and erudite all at once, and he has critical things to teach the white church if we'll listen. He's also super well-read, and he wants you to be too. Here are the five authors/books he mentions in the episode:Robert Jones Jr. (The Prophets)Deesha Philyaw (The Secret Lives of Church Ladies)Kiese Laymon (Heavy)Jason Reynolds (Look Both Ways)Jesmyn Ward (Sing, Unburied, Sing)This is one of those interviews that was so rich we had to trim it down significantly for time. If you want to hear the extra content that didn't make it into the episode--including a deep dive into the philosophy of Frantz Fanon, some reflections on the interview from Kyle and Randy, and more--subscribe to our Patreon (link below)!The whisky we tasted in this episode is Glenmorangie Quinta Ruban.Support the show

For the next few weeks, Storybound will honor 2021 National Book Awards finalists who have appeared on this show by re-airing their episodes. This week, Robert Jones Jr. reads from his debut novel "The Prophets", with sound design and music composition from Josh Garrels. Robert Jones, Jr. is a writer from New York City. He received his B.F.A., magna cum laude, in creative writing, and M.F.A. in fiction from Brooklyn College. He is a member of the Phi Beta Kappa honor society. He has written for numerous publications, including The New York Times, Essence, and The Paris Review. He is the creator and curator of the social justice social media community Son of Baldwin, which has over 275,000 members across platforms. "The Prophets," is a finalist for the 2021 National Book Award. Singer/songwriter Josh Garrels has built his career on deeply personal, introspective lyrics and exploratory sounds that range from pastoral indie folk to hip-hop. Emerging in the early 2000s, he is the co-founder of Small Voice Records, on which he issued 2008's Jacaranda. In 2015, he landed on the Billboard 200 with Home. Support Storybound by supporting our sponsors: Norton brings you Michael Lewis' The Premonition: A Pandemic Story, a nonfiction thriller that pits a band of medical visionaries against a wall of ignorance as the COVID-19 pandemic looms. Scribd combines the latest technology with the best human minds to recommend content that you'll love. Go to try.scribd.com/storybound to get 60 days of Scribd for free. Finding You is an inspirational romantic drama full of heart and humor about finding the strength to be true to oneself. Now playing only in theaters. Acorn.tv is the largest commercial free British streaming service with hundreds of exclusive shows from around the world. Try acorn.tv for free for 30 days by going to acorn.tv and using promo code Storybound. Storybound is hosted by Jude Brewer and brought to you by The Podglomerate and Lit Hub Radio. Let us know what you think of the show on Instagram and Twitter @storyboundpod. *** This show is a part of the Podglomerate network, a company that produces, distributes, and monetizes podcasts. We encourage you to visit the website and sign up for our newsletter for more information about our shows, launches, and events. For more information on how The Podglomerate treats data, please see our Privacy Policy.  Since you're listening to Storybound, you might enjoy reading, writing, and storytelling. We'd like to suggest you also try the History of Literature or Book Dreams. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Critically acclaimed author Kiese Laymon and Robert Jones Jr. (The Prophets) discuss and celebrate the newly revised and reissued Long Division, Laymon's 2013 debut novel. Described by the New York Times as “a time-traveling metafictional romp set in Mississippi that probes fame, creativity and the toll of racism,” Long Division upends conventions of narrative time, genre, and the expectations and assumptions mantled on Black characters by what Laymon and Jones identify as a a culture “trying to get us to write ourselves out of existence.” Their brilliant conversation reflects upon and contributes to a watershed moment in literature by Black authors. (Recorded June 7, 2021)

On the season finale of Do The Work, actor, writer, producer and human rights advocate Angelica Ross sits down with Denise for a candid chat surrounding relationships, listening to your body, and loving yourself the most. Angelica opens up about her relationship with cannabis, the ‘perfect storm' of her intersectionality, and the deep healing involved with transitioning. Be sure to check out Angelica's upcoming project www.mypersonalphd.com!  -- About Angelica Ross:  From the board room, to film and TV sets to Capitol Hill, Angelica Ross is a leading figure of success and strength, in the movement for Transgender and racial equality. A series regular on the ninth season of Ryan Murphy's FX hit American Horror Story: 1984, and confirmed to return for the currently untitled season ten, Angelica is blazing a trail, kicking open doors, and building her own table with ample open seats. Angelica's acting breakthrough came in the form of Ryan Murphy's Award Winning FX hit, Pose — which follows NYC's Black and Latino LGBTQ and gender-nonconforming ballroom culture scene, in the 80's and early 90's. Making TV history, the show features the largest transgender cast ever for a scripted series. Vanity Fair raved that “Angelica Ross steals many of her scenes as ‘Candy'” the brashest member of the ‘House of Abundance.' Angelica Ross is the President of Miss Ross, Inc. and founder of TransTech Social Enterprises, a program that helps people lift themselves out of poverty through technical training, digital work creating a social impact, and bringing economic empowerment to marginalized communities.  -- Recommended Reading:    The Prophets by Robert Jones Jr.

Heb jij in de zomervakantie ook lekker veel gelezen en ben je nu weer op zoek naar nieuwe inspiratie? Sasha, Britt en Sophie tippen weer ons Boek van de Maand en andere leestips. Lees de besproken boeken terug op https://www.paagman.nl/podcast 02:31 – 06:20 : Jens Meijen – De lichtjaren 06:20 - 11:08 : Nancy Jooyoun Kim – Het laatste verhaal van Mina Lee 11:08 - 14:45 : Robert Jones Jr. – De profeten 14:45 - 23:15 : Leonieke Baerwaldt – Hier komen wij vandaan (Boek van de maand september)

Additional conversation with Robert Jones Jr. in which we discuss Ma Rainey, Phillis Wheatley, "Kick the Ick," and a few other topics

Wayne Goodman in conversation with and curator of the social justice, social media community Son of Baldwin

Brooklyn-based educator, Cornelius Minor inspires students to believe anything is possible. He also works with teachers, school leaders, and community-based organizations to support equitable literacy reform. We discuss his latest book, We Got This, which explores how the work of creating more equitable school spaces is embedded in our everyday choices—specifically in the choice to really listen to kids. This conversation is packed with actionable advice and motivation to lead change that positively influences others.Resources:kassandcorn.comtwitter.com/MisterMinor  Book Recommendations:Wild Tongues Can't Be Tamed, Saraciea J. FennellThe Prophets, Robert Jones Jr.

In this final episode of the season, we look at stand out reads from 2021 so far, featuring a conversation with Mphuthumi Ntabeni, author of The Wanderers. Jess's favourite picture book of the year so far is The Rock From the Sky by Jon Klassen, while the book that has meant most to Colin this year is The Prophets by Robert Jones Jr, and Luami's stand out read is a spec fic novel, Sorrowland by Rivers Solomon. Hosted by Vasti Calitz. Produced by Andri Burnett.

On this episode of Black & Published, Nikesha is speaking with author Robert Jones, Jr. His debut novel, The Prophets, was published in January by G.P. Putnam Sons, an imprint of Penguin RandomHouse. The Prophets has been hailed for its spellbinding mix of lyricism, rawness, and authenticity, that is immediately reminiscent of the late, great Toni Morrison and James Baldwin. Robert is from New York City and has a BFA in creative writing and a MFA in fiction from Brooklyn College. His work has appeared in The New York Times, Essence, and The Paris Review. He is also the creator of the social-justice, social-media community Son of Baldwin. Episode NotesOn this episode of Black & Published, Nikesha is speaking with author Robert Jones, Jr. His debut novel, The Prophets, was published in January by G.P. Putnam Sons, an imprint of Penguin RandomHouse. The Prophets has been hailed for its spellbinding mix of lyricism, rawness, and authenticity, that is immediately reminiscent of the late, great Toni Morrison and James Baldwin. Robert is from New York City and has a BFA in creative writing and a MFA in fiction from Brooklyn College. His work has appeared in The New York Times, Essence, and The Paris Review. He is also the creator of the social-justice, social-media community Son of Baldwin. During the interview, Robert talks about the first time he ever walked into a Black bookstore, bought a book by a Black author, and saw himself on the page. He also gets candid about the consequences of revolution, the so-called dangers of being a Black writer, and a recent health diagnosis that has him writing against a clock. ***Follow @Nikesha_Elise on Twitter and Instagram and check out her latest novel Beyond Bourbon Street available everywhere books are sold. Don't forget to subscribe to Black & Published on your podcast platform of choice as well as rate and review. If you have thoughts, feedback, or questions about the episode, hit us up at @blkandpublished on Twitter and Instagramusing the hashtag #blackandpublished. 

This month, co-hosts Jennifer and Zakiya discuss the legacy of James Baldwin with Robert Jones, Jr., the author of the New York Times Instant Bestselling novel, The Prophets. Robert received his B.F.A., magna cum laude, in creative writing, and M.F.A. in fiction from Brooklyn College. He is a member of the Phi Beta Kappa honor [...]

Hello everyone, and welcome to a new episode of Naked Conversations! Today's episode will be a review of many important matters happening at the moment. As most of our episodes begin, we will be speaking about what we're currently into:  Ramy on Hulu  Dave Chapelle The prophets, a novel by Robert Jones Jr.   We will also be discussing awkward moments, for instance, how Sage found herself in a teenage theater play and found it offensive for herself and her son, who watched it with her. Finally, we talk about the importance of time, place, and audience and how we sometimes don't enjoy what everyone else finds hilarious. One of the most significant subjects discussed during this episode will be Juneteenth: “Juneteenth commemorates African American freedom and emphasizes education and achievement. It is a day, a week, and in some areas, a month marked with celebrations, guest speakers, picnics, and family gatherings. It is a time for reflection and rejoicing.” We will discuss the importance of this date, its history, and why it is a time to honor and date June 19th. For more information on Juneteenth, visit www.juneteenth.com    Thank you for listening to the show. It is such an honor to have these conversations with you. They are necessary and needed, and we are here to do the work.    For access to ALL the resources mentioned, sign up for the “resource roundup” at sagebhobbs.com/nc-podcast.  The (short & awesome) newsletter will also keep you in the loop on the latest episodes, and other opportunities.    Let's connect: Like what you hear? Please subscribe to Naked Conversations on Apple Podcasts. Or Stitcher. Or Google Play. Or any of the following – Overcast, Blubbry, TuneIn Radio, Player.fm. For (much appreciated) gold stars: Leave a rating + review! Just a few short words will help more folks find the show and be a part of this conversation. Thank you!  Also, please send a DM on Instagram to @sagebhobbs or @ericayhoward to let us know what you love about the show, what topics you'd like to hear covered, or your dream interviewee.

At its core, Robert Jones, Jr.'s debut novel The Prophets is an enduring love story between Samuel and Isaiah--a love that casts its light on every character who crosses their path. And it was his own love for the characters that kept Robert Jones, Jr. working on it for more than a decade. We talk with the author about The Prophets, from inception to completion, how little has changed over the course of history, and how he hopes to honor those who came before him.   This episode is sponsored by Gay Shorts Podcast.

This month, co-hosts Jennifer and Zakiya discuss the legacy of James Baldwin with Robert Jones, Jr., the author of the New York Times Instant Bestselling novel, The Prophets. Robert received his B.F.A., magna cum laude, in creative writing, and M.F.A. in fiction from Brooklyn College. He is a member of the Phi Beta Kappa honor [...]

June is Pride month, and Melissa, Amber, and Shannon have some great LBGTQ-themed recommendations for you. Titles mentioned include: Audre Lorde, Zami, a New Spelling of My Name Torrey Peters, Detransition, Baby Alexis Hall, Rosaline Palmer Takes the Cake (Winner Bakes All #1) Georgia Beers, 96 Hours Abby Stein, Becoming Eve: My Journey from Ultra-Orthodox Rabbi To Transgender Woman Leah Johnson, You Should See Me In a Crown Katherine V. Forrest, Amateur City (Kate Delafield #1) Robert Jones Jr., The Prophets Roan Parrish, Invitation To the Blues (Small Change #2) Jordan L. Hawk, Widdershins (Whyborne & Griffin #1) TJ Klune, The House In the Cerulean Sea Aiden Thomas, Cemetery Boys You can always contact the Book Bistro team by searching @BookBistroPodcast on facebook, or visiting: https://www.facebook.com/BookBistroPodcast/ You can also send an email to: TheBookBistroPodcast@gmail.com For more information on the podcast and the team behind it, please visit: http://anchor.fm/book-bistro

In this episode, Kendra and August discuss The Awakening by Kate Chopin. Books mentioned in the episode: The Prophets by Robert Jones Jr. (2021) The Awakening by Kate Chopin (1899) The Story of an Hour by Kate Chopin (1894) The Storm by Kate Chopin (1892)

(Jun 4, 2021)

This week we have the brilliant and beautiful writer Robert Jones, Jr.—creator of the blog Son of Baldwin, and author of New York Times bestseller The Prophets. Listen to hear Robert discuss the backstory behind his stunning debut novel, how the perception of queerness varies greatly across cultures and why it's so important to continue telling slave narratives.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Welcome to Episode 74 - How Robert Jones Jr WritesRobert Jones Jr is an author and activist. I first read his debut novel, The Prophets, and just absolutely loved it. And so when the opportunity to interview Robert, I jumped at it.This interview is such a good look into the perseverance and focuses it takes to write a novel. Robert is such a generous soul to share his journey and the lessons that he's learned along the way.This interview is touching and heartfelt.I want to say thank you to Robert for his time and for sharing his story with me.And now, without any further ado, here is the interview with Robert Jones Jr.Support the show (http://www.howwriterswrite.com)

Robert Jones Jr. takes an intimate look at homosexual love between two teen-aged slaves on a Mississippi cotton plantation

Intro: Bookshop Rocks! Bookshop is an Amazon-alternative that supports indie bookstores, and we encourage everyone to shop here: Newtonville Books BookshopSpring and All by William Carlos WilliamsAnd Then It’s Spring by Julie Fogliano and Erin E. SteadBooks that Came out During the Pandemic and Are Now in PaperbackSuch a Fun Age by Kiley ReidRun Me to Earth by Paul YoonDeacon King Kong by James McBrideThe Mountains Sing by Nguyen Phan Que MaiMary’s List of Every Book She Reads This Year  In the NewsReading books about social justice is not going to change the world, but it can help us get on the same page. Check out our Black History Month suggestions:Caste by Isabel WilkersonThe Prophets by Robert Jones Jr.Ida B. The Queen: The Extraordinary Life and Legacy of Ida B. Wells by Michelle DusterMighty Justice (Young Readers’ Edition): The Untold Story of Civil Rights Trailblazer Dovey Johnson Roundtree by Katie McCabe, adapted by Jabari AsimFour Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019 ed. by Ibram X. Kendi and Keisha N. Blain In the CommunityMary talks with ten-year old Oola Breen-Ryan about the non-profit program she started by creating book boxes for children in need, called Reading Treasury – Spreading Love and BooksSupport Reading Treasury by purchasing books to donate to the project here.If you’d like to browse Oola’s suggested Reading Treasury titles for personal purchase, click here. Supergood SuggestionsPurchase book boxes for shipping or curbside pickup (after April 24th) including special book boxes for Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Graduation, Summer Reading, and more from our square site: Home | Newtonville Books (square.site)And our Supergood Selections, books chosen monthly that we are extra passionate about: Supergood March Selections | Newtonville Books (square.site)The Committed by Viet Thanh NguyenWorld of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, and Other Astonishments by Aimee NezhukumatathilMystery Book and Goodie Bag Mystery Book and Goodie Bag | Newtonville Books (square.site)   

Jamila Rizvi talks to Rosie Waterland, a best-selling author, award-winning podcast host, screenwriter, comedian and actress.   She became a household name for her satirical recaps of The Bachelor ten years ago, before going on to tour her stand-up comedy around Australia and writing two popular memoirs about her harrowed childhood, all before the age of 31.   Jamila and Rosie discuss her dark comedy sourced from her past, what encouraged her to pursuit her career and Rosie's ultimate end goal.   THE WEEKEND LIST: Watch: Behind Her Eyes (Netflix) Read: The Prophets by Robert Jones Jr. Listen:Butter playlist (Spotify) See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Robert Jones Jr's novel The Prophets is the story of a defiant love story enacted on a slave plantation in the American south. The author speaks to Kate Evans about the books that have shaped it and him, and those works that his writing acts to resist.

In this rather intellectually searching episode, the Spoilers wrestle with Robert Jones' beautiful and challenging debut novel. We try to figure everything out at first, but ultimately settle upon a rather comfortable acceptance of un-knowing and dwelling in the wonder of ambiguity. Arriving at the conclusion that there has not really ever been a novel like this one (EVER!) doesn't take us too awful long -- and once we do get there -- look out. What could have been an hour of complaining becomes a literary love fest. This episode is all epiphanic bliss and profound discovery in real time, folks (perhaps hyperbole, but it felt good).

In this rich and powerful conversation, Robert Jones (creator of Son of Baldwin) launches his highly anticipated novel The Prophets in conversation with his friend and mentor Kiese Laymon. Jones addresses the necessity of depicting physical love in his story of black queer love in the era of slavery, the fierce brilliance of black women including the authors that influenced Jones, thoughts on the publishing process, and the “love and anger” he hopes that readers take from this novel, in a discussion charged with grief, joy, and mutual admiration. (Recorded January 5, 2021)

Welcome to season 2, episode 8! After having spoken with editors, agents, translators, and people who work for cultural and governmental organizations that promote books, I'm excited to be talking to a literary scout today. Scouting is one of the more obscure parts of the international publishing scene. My guest, John Bowers of Sanford J Greenburger Associates, was happy to shed some light on his activities, both pre-covid and during the pandemic. You'll hear that there are quite a few differences between the two... SHOW NOTES John's book recommendations: - Robert Jones Jr., The Prophets (G.P. Putnam's Sons, 2021) - N.K. Jemisin, The Broken Earth Trilogy: The Fifth Season, The Obelisk Gate, The Stone Sky (Orbit, 2015, 2016, 2017) - J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, new unabridged audio edition narrated by Andy Serkis (Recorded Books, 2020) - Ron Chernow, Titan: the Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr. (Vintage, 2nd ed., 2004) About John: Driven by a global outlook and cross-cultural understanding, John has found the perfect place to engage his passions in literary scouting. Previous to his work at Greenburger Associates, John worked in foreign rights and as an agent at the Bent Agency, assisted foreign and film scouts, and also taught middle and high school English and Drama in American international schools in Latin America.

As an BFA student minoring in Africana studies, Robert Jones Jr. read hundreds of pages of canon and asked himself, “Where are all the Black queer people?” As Toni Morrison once said about writing: if there's a book you really want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it. After his MFA, Jones went on to pen his debut novel ‘The Prophets' to critical acclaim. Jones speaks about his creative process, the power of writing, how reading helps to build empathy, and why representational stories matter. For a transcript & to shop this episode, click here.Please make sure to subscribe so you don't miss an episode!To shop books and products mentioned in this episode visit: indigo.ca/podcast 

This week, we speak with the creator of the Son of Baldwin online community, Robert Jones, Jr. He discusses his debut novel The Prophets, which showcases the forbidden union between two enslaved young men on a Deep South plantation; the refuge they find in each other, and a betrayal that threatens their existence. (more…)

This week, we speak with the creator of the Son of Baldwin online community, Robert Jones, Jr. He discusses his debut novel The Prophets, which showcases the forbidden union between two enslaved young men on a Deep South plantation; the refuge they find in each other, and a betrayal that threatens their existence. Photo courtesy […]

The Prophets: Book by Robert Jones Jr. "May this book cast its spell on all of us, restore to us some memory of our most warrior and softest selves." —The New York Times Book Review “A new kind of epic...A grand achievement...While The Prophets' dreamy realism recalls the work of Toni Morrison...its penetrating focus on social dynamics stands out more singularly.” —Entertainment Weekly Website : Https;//gobookmart.com --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/gobookmart-review/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/gobookmart-review/support

Kate and Cassie are joined by Prof of Mediaeval Literature Louise D'Arcens and novelist Petronella McGovern as they discuss Maria Dahvana Headley's new translation of Beowulf, Una Mannion's The Crooked Tree and Robert Jones Jr's The Prophets

The Prophets, Cheeky, and This Close to OkaySubscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQX-nWBQWKL3lnx52f3AuCwSubscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/iliketoread/id1523232250BOOKS MENTIONED:“The Prophets” by Robert Jones Jr.https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/52576333-the-prophets?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=DdGubamlPB&rank=1“Murder and the Movies” by David Thomsonhttps://www.goodreads.com/book/show/51283485-murder-and-the-movies?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=A7NVZbNq59&rank=1“Cheeky: A Head-to-Toe Memoir” by Ariella Elovichttps://www.goodreads.com/book/show/49127585-cheeky?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=rMe0W3K82Z&rank=4“This Close to Okay” by Leesa Cross-Smithhttps://www.goodreads.com/book/show/53916130-this-close-to-okay?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=0ZlMco0tIY&rank=1“White Tears/Brown Scars: How White Feminism Betrays Women of Color” by Ruby Hamadhttps://www.goodreads.com/book/show/53260224-white-tears-brown-scars?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=TLrjHNQr3n&rank=2FOLLOW ME ON INSTAGRAM AND GOODREADS @ILIKETOREADPOD TWITTER: @rpolansky77FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/iliketoreadpodMEDIA MAVEN BLOG: https://rpolansky77.wixsite.com/website

A historical look at black, queer love; a deep dive into the genre of Royal fiction and a crime novel set in the seedy streets of 1980s Sydney.

Appointments for COVID-19 vaccinations through the health department has reached capacity following a surge in demand.Then, we examine the latest effort to impeach and convict President Donald Trump, and how accountability for the insurrection at the Capitol could extend to lawmakers.Plus, in our Book Club, “The Prophets,” by Robert Jones, Jr.Segment 1:Vaccine appointments available through the state's drive-thru vaccine locations are full. The Mississippi Department of Health says recent changes to the state's vaccine rollout have filled all 52 thousand appointments at the state's drive-thru vaccination sites. These changes also created technical difficulties and long wait times for residents hoping to schedule an appointment for themselves or a loved one. Dr. Mark Horne, President of the Mississippi State Medical Association, says the quick changes to vaccine availability caused a surge in demand that was difficult to accommodate.Segment 2:Following a day of debate and voting on Capitol Hill, President Donald Trump became the first President to be impeached multiple times yesterday. Lawmakers voted in a bi-partisan majority on a single article of impeachment - inciting insurrection - following the violent insurrection at the Capitol last week. 10 Republicans crossed the aisle to join Democrats in placing some of the blame at the feet of the President. That group did not include Mississippi's three Republican House delegates.Matt Steffey is a Professor at the Mississippi College School of Law. We spoke to him ahead yesterday's vote on latest effort to impeach and convict President Donald Trump, and how accountability for the insurrection at the Capitol could extend to lawmakers.Segment 3:A debut novel by a black, queer writer is garnering a lot of attention for its story of a loving relationship between two enslaved men on a plantation in Mississippi. The book is being praised for its prose. Author, Robert Jones Jr., is already a well-known and respected writer and tells us about his work that precedes today's Book Club choice, “The Prophets.” See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This week on The Magic Book Club Podcast, we kick off the year with the author of one of the biggest debuts of the season, Robert Jones Jr. Joining Tom all the way from America, the two chat about new book The Prophets, the heart breaking history of slavery, and glimmers of hope and light for America in the coming months. And in true January form, Tom recruits brilliant mind coach Don Macpherson to help us gain control over overthinking and anxiety in the third lockdown for the UK.

It's the last episode of 2020, and we've got a fun one for you! Ryan, Hillary, and Kelso dissect their dauntingly huge To Be Read piles, they gush about Taylor Swift a little bit, and they go off on a tangent about Squishables. It's a grand old time! Enjoy!   Click the link to purchase the book from our store, or click the "Libro.fm" link to get the Audiobook on Libro.fm. Thanks for shopping local! Books Mentioned During This Episode Ryan, https://www.gibsonsbookstore.com/staff/ryan-elizabeth-clark Hench by Natalie Zina Walschots (libro.fm) A Marvellous Light by Freya Marske (November 2, 2021) Pumpkin by Julie Murphy (May 25, 2021) The Last True Poets of the Sea by Julia Drake (libro.fm) Riot Baby by Tochi Onyebuchi (libro.fm) The Scapegracers by Hannah Abigail Clarke Hillary, https://www.gibsonsbookstore.com/staff/hillary Every Vow You Break by Peter Swanson (libro.fm) (March 23, 2021) Master of the Revels by Nicole Galland (libro.fm) (February 23, 2021) The Committed by Viet Thanh Nguyen (March 2, 2021) Wedding Station by David Downing (March 2, 2021) The Prophets by Robert Jones Jr. (libro.fm) (January 5, 2021) Four Hundred Souls by Ibram X. Kendi, Keisha N. Blain (libro.fm) (February 2, 2021) The Historians by Cecilia Ekbäck (libro.fm) (January 12, 2021) The Invention of Miracles by Katie Booth (libro.fm) (April 6, 2021) Kelso, https://www.gibsonsbookstore.com/staff/kelso The Power of Cute by Simon May (libro.fm)  The Robber Bride by Margaret Atwood (libro.fm) Things to Make and Do in the Fourth Dimension by Matt Parker Vandermeer book  Ambergris: City of Saints and Madmen; Shriek: An Afterword; Finch by Jeff Vandermeer Other Books Mentioned In The Woods by Tana French (libro.fm) City of Brass by SA Chakraborty (libro.fm) The Circle by Dave Eggers (libro.fm) Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir (libro.fm) The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune (libro.fm) The Cold Millions by Jess Walter (libro.fm) Deacon King Kong by James McBride (Book Club: March 1, 2021) (libro.fm) Other Links Gibson's Bookstore Website Shop The Laydown Purchase Gift Certificates!  Browse our website by Category! Order some curated bundles! Donate to the bookstore! Check out our Events Calendar! Gibson's Instagram The Laydown Instagram Facebook Twitter Libro.fm (Our Audiobook Platform) Use the code “LAYDOWN” for 3 audiobooks for the price of 1!  Email us at thelaydownpodcast@gmail.com

This week, we speak with the creator of the Son of Baldwin online community, Robert Jones, Jr. He discusses his debut novel The Prophets, which showcases the forbidden union between two enslaved young men on a Deep South plantation; the refuge they find in each other, and a betrayal that threatens their existence. Photo courtesy of Son Of Baldwin Official Twitter.