Books can teach you to love yourself. If you let them.

That's what fiction reminds us of. It reminds us how to love. It reminds us how to feel. It reminds us how how to fight. Right? It reminds us of our evolution. In one book, everybody can change. And 300 pages every character that you've met has become a new character by the end. And so what might you do in 30 days? Let alone 30 years. This is incredible. You get a snapshot of your potential every time you read a novel. Hello, hello. I'm Brittany Loose and you're listening to it's been a minute from NPR. A show about what's going on in culture and why it doesn't happen by accident. This week, we're talking with Jason Reynolds, MacArthur Genius Grant Recipient, and National Book Award-winning author of the beloved young adult books Look Both Ways, Stunt Boy in the Meantime, and Soundtrack. We're discussing the importance of Brotherhood, the inspiration behind his characters, and why boys and men should read more fiction. Jason, welcome to it's been a minute. Thank you, Brittany. It's good to see you. Okay, so you once wrote a novel for Marvel about Miles Morales aka Spider-Man. And you once chatted with Tana Hossie Coates about his run on the Black Panther comics. So I want to get your thoughts on this. David Johnson as a new Black Panther, playing the child's son. What do you think? What do you think about it? I think I think I trust Ryan Kugler. So whatever decision that Ryan Kugler is making, I'm Ryan. I'm Ryan with Ryan. It doesn't really matter if I have any. You know, it's like for me, look, there's a lot of, there's a lot of like noise around like, you know, Black Brits playing these characters. There's noise. Although the characters are Wakandan, which is a made-up country. Which is a made-up country, right? Yeah. Exactly. And I think that there are moments in our lives where we should, especially as somebody who works in literature where I have an editor. And the editor isn't necessarily my captain, but they are my partner. And you know, certain things that the editor can see that I can't see, right? Maybe because I'm too close to the project, maybe, because I'm too emotional about the thing I'm working on. And the goal is to make the best thing. And sometimes you got to trust the captain. And that's where I'm at with it. I like that trust the captain. I've got more philosophical than I was anticipating to get to the meat of what we're really going to talk about today. We're going to talk about a few things, but among them is like young readers. How did you know you wanted to write for young people? I didn't know. I didn't know. You know, I wish I had some story. It was like, every since I was a kid, I wanted to write for kids. And it's like, nah, my story is actually that I started, you know, and because I started, you know, my voice skewed, you know. And so my first deal at 21, they categorized as young adult. And when you're 21, when you're 21, you feel so much older in your mind than like 14. Yes. Right. But to a 40-year-old, you might as well say, now that I'm 38, I'm like, wow, 21 and 14. For me, we're a lot closer together. Exactly. Now I'm like, I'm like, 21 might as well be 14, right? At 42. Exactly. At 42. So you know, when they categorized the book as young adult, I was actually insulted. And I felt, yes, I thought they were trying to belittle the thing that I made. And that's mainly because I had absolutely no point of your perspective about this particular landscape. I hadn't read any children's books. I hadn't read any young adult. I didn't know that was even a thing. I just knew we were going into the children's department. And I felt away until we did our first library visit. And I got to talk to kids about the things that we made. And it was in that conversation that I realized that I loved it here. That's something clicked. And it was like, oh, this is actually, this makes me feel way more useful and more purposeful than anything else I'd ever done before that. And that was sort of how it all began. You talk about like, I mean, the library was that you did. And you've done so many things that you visit schools, libraries, you know, attention, like correctional facilities, all places to see kids. I wonder, like, what was it about even that first visit? Or even just in general, like, what's unique about the way that young people respond to your writing? I think that they don't have, especially the age range in which I primarily work. Like a lot of my work is sort of in this like nine to 13 sort of space. I mean, there's this stuff for older kids, there's stuff for younger kids, but that like nine to 13 pocket that that six seventh eighth grade sort of pocket. I find that they, they're, they're half baked. And I don't mean that in a way that we typically use that phrase. I'm not saying that they're, I'm not saying that they're, that they're, quote, sort of lesser formed thing. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that they're in a weird mushy space where, where they were there, they're still, they got one foot and like little kid land and then one foot in big kid land. Yeah. And because of that, they're willing to still give you a hug, but could ask, but could ask really complicated questions. That's a good point. They don't have, they don't have the, the, the self-consciousness that stops them from asking those questions, but they have the self-awareness that pushes those questions forward. And that's the beauty of like that weird little sweet spot. And, um, and I think that's really what it was. Those kids were asking me things and leaning forward. And yet I look in their faces and I still just see a baby. And yet they're like, but, but explain to me why I, why it's wrong that I have two moms. Right. And it's like, well, it's not wrong. It's like exactly. So they, like they want to have, I was in New York when we had this visit, obviously. Right. And so, and so, you know, the, the conversations were, we're so fruitful and so alive and so energetic and so joyous because that is the age in which you can get all those things where you get to high school and teenagers starting to shut down. Mm-hmm. I wonder, I mean, like, it's so interesting that you started off not pitching to like a YA audience. Um, but that is a lot of your audience now, right? The young readers. And because you have aged, right? No, Shay, but you've aged. We all think hopefully that's, listen, that's the hope, right? Um, and you're still writing for a young audience. You're pretty much always trying to bridge some sort of generational gap between you and your intended reader. I think a lot of people listening to or watching this conversation are also wondering how to bridge the gap between themselves and some of the young people in their lives. How do you approach thinking about that with your writing? I think the biggest mistake that so many of us are making when it comes to trying to figure out how to build the bridge is to remember who we were when we first learned to build bridges. Bridge building, when I think about bridge building, I think about who I was as a child playing with my toys. I think about what it meant, right? We think about bridge building in terms of like relationship. Yeah. Yeah. I think about bridge building in terms of like, in terms of like the actual act of making something come to life by putting this next to this and this next to this and this next to this, whether it be how I bridge the gap from this side of the couch to this side of the couch, how I bridge the gap from this toy to this toy. How do I get this thing to get across this room? And I think about what that required and what it required was as a child and what it required was the sense of wonder, sense of creativity and curiosity and an interesting and strange stick to itiveness because I because I really believe that there was a way to connect this thing to this thing. Right? This the exact same methodology has to take place when it comes to how do I bridge the gap between a child and my big aged self, right? It it needs to be a sense of wonder and curiosity, some imagination and the true belief that the bridge is possible to be built. It's a possibility that I could do it, right? And and and that's all it really like if you have those things and you're almost you're almost there. It's so easy to kind of like move past that awe really quickly. The older that we get, I feel like I find myself doing it more and like I find myself engaging in awe. Almost deliberately a lot more now in the past, I don't know, two to three years than I did when I was like 30 or 25. You can only kind of access it if you're not feeling self conscious. And I think to your point, like when the world does seem like a bit cool and exciting place, like most fervently is when you are those ages, like you said, when you are 13, 14, 15, like you know, when you are 10, when you get to ride on a big kid roller coaster for the first time, it's like, oh my god, I didn't know life could be so good. But yeah, it's maybe you do have to kind of like decide to not feel self conscious about allowing yourself to feel awed about something. Yeah, I think I think isn't it a wonderful, look, I had this incredible moment one time with Omar Epps. And there's a and there's a reason I'm dropping his name because I mainly because I want to make sure that he's honored and in the discussion that we had and the very short discussion we had was in LA at a hotel, he's sitting there. And my homeboy I was with. I went to a meeting, came back, my homeboy was like, bro, oh my abs sitting over there. And I'm like, oh, did you say something to him? He like, no, no, I could never. I can't do that, man. Like we grown men. I can't. I can't go with it. And I was like, what's your name? This man is literally like woven into the genetics of our youth. He's buying. He literally is a part of who we are. as grown men because of us watching him as a teenager in so many of these classic films, right? For us especially, I'm going over there. And so we're walking by and like, I catch your eyes, he catches eyes and then I'll just start hitting that direction and I'm like, look man, we don't wanna like, I get it, you don't, you're busy. I'm not interested in interrupting you. I just wanted to come over and say thank you so much. My man was feeling a little strange about it and you know, I just wanna say, I appreciate it. I appreciate what you did for us. And he looked up and he said thank you brother. I wonder why it's so hard for us to do this. It shouldn't be so hard for us to like, why would this be weird? Why should this be strange? And in that moment I reminded myself that so much of the joy in my life has to do with me being a fan. I wanna be a fan, not just of people, but of everything. I'm a fan of nature. I'm a fan of art. I'm a fan of architecture. I'm a fan of children. I'm a fan of elders, right? I'm a fan and I think that is what keeps my light burner. Hmm, I love that, I love that. It does, it takes you back to that sort of primal feeling of feeling delight, excitement. The so associated with childhood and is something that we all can access. I really appreciate that. Don't go anywhere. We have to sort of rejigger and re-calibrate what actually is important. Is it literature or is it literacy? We've got more coming up after the break. Sticking on being in sort of the mindset of being a younger person right now, the protagonists of your books are often young men. These boys aren't loving, funny, intelligent and kind, but also like, you know, all people from time to time, they could be shortsighted, immature, or quick to judge. I mean, in other words, they are like fully realized human beings. I wonder, like, how much is that on your mind as you are writing these days, or even going out and speaking to people? It's on my mind all the time. I think it's at the forefront of everything that I'm doing and have been doing for 20 years is thinking about how do we, how do we discuss boyhood in a way that feels healthy? How do we combat some of the unhealthy media that's coming their ways, but ultimately my goal, just like as you describe the characters in these books, ultimately my goal is to remind young boys that they're human. The way I see my life is that, I wish I could call her name, she wrote that. She's the chef who wrote the book as a sort of fat. - So fat as a semi-nose rock ball and acidity. - I love that acidity, right? And that these four elements are, like if you have these four elements in a dish, it is a balanced in the whole dish, right? That is how I feel about the boys, I write about in myself, right? That there should be some laughter and there should be some crying and there should be some courage and there should be some fear, right? In every single sort of, like every day of my life, those four elements exist in me every day, right, people like you cry every day, every day, there is a moment where I have to drop a tear or two. And the next moment it might be me dying laugh and that, something else, right? It might be me dealing with my insecurity about the new book that I've written and I'm texting my editor, like are you sure it's good? Are you sure it's ready, you know? And at the same time, beating my chest like I did that, right? Like all of those things, all of those things existed my life on daily basis and I think those same things should be allowed to exist in every human's life that alone, every young man, that it's okay for you to feel a little insecure, it's okay for you to be a little nervous and a little afraid, that's your body trying to save you from something. Now, you have to think this out, whether or not the thing it's trying to save you from is actually a threat. And once you sort that, then you use your courage to push you forward. To me, every child, every child deserves an opportunity to have all of those elements on their plates. Mmm, that's so interesting. I mean, I haven't heard that put that way before, if that's really thoughtful. The idea that all of these different feelings and experiences are a part of a grander experience. Like, they all feed into what it means to be human. And so, I mean, I think a lot of, honestly, what, and we've talked about a lot of managed to do your stuff on this show before. A lot of what's at the core of a lot of that is fear. I'm glad you touched on that, because I think a lot of what's at the core of that is fear. Fear of being left out, fear of being rejected, fear of being unloved, fear of not measuring up. I think that everybody of all ages feels that way, whether it's like, you know, trying to jump into, oh my gosh, the game of the pickup sport, I've only done that once in my life. And it was literally one of the most fear-inducing experiences of my life. I'm like the young people that do that, they are our strongest soldiers, or to ask somebody out or to send a text to like a new possible friend. Like all of those things do feel scary, but they can also lead you to all these other experiences that you mentioned, like being able to, be moved to tears by how much you care for someone or being able to laugh with people that you really like. - Yeah, man, we could taster-fies, right? It's like, it's like we-- - Don't, don't I know it, yeah. - Yeah, like we could taster-fies and sometimes there's no catastrophe there to catastrophize about. Right, there's nothing there. There's no there there. But you deserve the opportunity to take a moment to do that. You deserve that, and I think, young men, you know, we go through all the culturally, you know, the gender wars and the culture wars and all this weird stuff that we're all giving away, that the internet is trying to convince me it's real that I still don't quite bite down on 'cause I live in a real world and I live a real life. I talk to human beings and these aren't the conversations that we're having, but I often think about like, we all are supposed to change and evolve. I hear conversations some time, I'm over here, there's a blue light, man, man got to get back to being a strong silent type. I'm not so sure that silence is strong. I'm not so sure that that's strength, right? To me, that sounds a lot more like fear. To me, that sounds a lot more like the feeling that they're unsafe. To me, that sounds like a lack of vocabulary and literacy and therefore not being unable to name said emotion. And I think we've miscontextualized the strong silent types of our lives. My granddad, he was a strong silent type. I love him the death, but my mother would say he was a complicated man that could have probably used a few extra words. - Hmm. - Right, he could have used a few extra words, but he didn't have them. Nor did he feel like he had the space to find them. - Definitely, be healthy for our grown men too. I'll tell you that. I'm sure it would definitely be healthy for all of us. - For everybody, exactly. (laughs) - I wonder, I mean, one aspect of your books that I have always enjoyed are the friendships. I like how much space is given to the characters, especially the young men, to learn to become good friends. Why are loving friendships so key to your storytelling? - The greatest thing that ever happened to me was my friends. You know, I believe that friendship is, and I've said this many times and I will say it until the day I die that I believe that friendship is the most underrated relationship and yet the most valuable in our lives. I think it is more valuable than our parental relationships. I even think it is more value than our romantic ones. I think our friends, because our friends have no obligation to us. - Yeah. - Our friends are there by choice, by connection. And in my own life, my friends were the ones who helped me believe in me when I no longer did. My friends knew me, sometimes better than I knew me. And so in any dark moment, my friends, I still the ones who were like, hey, you know, you're good, right? You know you got this, you know, you can do this, right? My friends were the ones that I could turn to and say, I'm afraid, knowing that they wouldn't judge me or laugh at me, but would create a force field around me for me to be that. - It's not an event, yeah. - I want young men, especially young boys, and I want everybody to have a good friend, but I think for young boys, I think we go so long thinking that our friends are the people who are supposed to fight with us. Like if I get into it, you post a video to have my back and it's like, and it's like, yeah, that's a part of it. But the other part of it is like, can you look to that same soldier, that same warrior standing next to you and say, hey bro, I don't really want to fight. Can you do that? Can you look to him and say, hey bro, I'm a little nervous about this one. I think we should go this way. And will he say, all right, we out, right? - Yeah, yeah. - And will y'all get back around the rest of the fellas? How will he tell the story? Will he tell it, will he tell it with confidence in saying, like, yo, we made a different choice? Or will he say, yo, so and so was a sucker? Right, like that's a, you know, we think about snitching. You know, I can hear, I can hear my comment section now. Right, we talk about snitching. And my question around snitching, 'cause I've been in a juvenile, in a penal system with these kids, I've been around kids who are in detention centers for doing their homeboys numbers and being like, look, I ain't even do it, but I ain't gonna snitch. So I'm gonna go ahead and take the numbers. And like, look, the rules are the rules. [BLANK_AUDIO] That's not what I'm debating but what I am questioning though is like Ain't no friend in my life going to let me go down for something they did Hmm ain't no brother of mine Going to say I did something and instead of me holding myself accountable I'd be a coward to let my man go down because I know he is courageous enough to not say something To me you ain't no friend To me you a sucker you a sucker and I'm your scapegoat We glorify it like that's cool that ain't brotherhood It's interesting. Well you are discussing is I'm glad you use the word brotherhood Because there's like tension there right friendship is voluntary whereas like a lot of family relationships Depending on obviously how you grow up and stuff like that. They're involuntary. You are in each other's lives because of circumstance The same goes for so many other areas of life right to have a Depth of feeling for another person that is not bound by any Obligation that is not bound by whether or not you pay the bills have children wash the dishes Um or any of the stuff bound by a child. It's not bound by any of those things is bound by love and commitment and the other thing is is that like when you have true love like true friend love in your life And you do feel that that love that trust the support that acceptance that commitment It actually in my experience it really Changes in empowers how you're able to show up in the rest of your life But I noticed when I was becoming like growing closer with this friend It was like we spent a lot of time talking and sharing and being open and I was like oh Well, what I'm doing is I'm growing closer to loving this friend and that's how I want to feel If I don't know if I'm in a romantic relationship with somebody I want to feel that we are growing in openness and love and friendship with each other And I feel very fortunate that I really enjoy a deep friendship with my husband now it teaches you how to love though It teaches you how to love it. It made me more cognizant of how I'm loving other people in a way that I Don't think that we give friendship enough credit for how much it nourishes us and it sustains us and also Teachers is how to be people exactly. It's the best. I mean they they hold up mirrors right and they teach you intimacy Like there's a there's an intimacy to the way friendships work and you know, we're secret keepers and all of these things that are sort of between Uh, you know that I between these friendships of ours. I think um For me at least in my life that they're they're a huge part of what makes life worth living for me Hmm, I agree. I agree um Something that we've talked a lot about on the show Something I imagine that you think a lot about um and the people are talking a lot about our America's literature rates How much people are reading? Reading proficiency and literary skills are on the decline for kids and adults But also even people who are proficient readers and have the ability to read confidently Um, they are just not reading as many books as they used to again that goes for kids and adults How can we nourish and encourage that uh among ourselves and also the young people we love This is a tricky one and I but I do think about this all the time And my answer, you know, I have a I think about this a few ways number one I think we have to ask ourselves a question about how much we value the book and if And if that is the conversation we should be having or should we be asking ourselves how much we value reading Which is a different conversation right because skill right reading is a skill and it doesn't always require a novel Right, it's like that that is the packaging in which we always use is like the conduit to reading but I'm not quite sure That that's smart. I'm not quite sure that that's healthy especially as we as a culture has changed so much right and so for me I do I want the novel to be what the novel was yes, do I want the novel to be you know a linchpin of Culture right where we can go to the novels of our time and get a good glimpse of who we were as As a country let alone as a world right. Yeah. Yes. I want that at the same time Do I think it is also important that we have short stories Do I think yet because they they've always been very important as a matter of fact I would argue that the folk tales that have helped to build these cultures were short stories Right, I would argue I would argue that yeah, right like I would you see what I would I would argue that even the way the Odyssey was exerted In when it was taught to us was exerted by scenes To talk about what was going on Because the way that it's written is you can get a whole scene and really have a whole story within that scene You may not have all the context, but you get a whole story there So I think we should value the short story. Do I think we should value poetry? Yes Very much so because it's the shortest of the storytelling mediums and I think and I think and yet I would argue The most sophisticated, but do I think that a kick had been a fit from reading Mary Oliver? Yes Absolutely, I think I think that Mary Oliver Which is so sort of like beautiful and to the point and like the words aren't all over the place Let me you can pick it up and immediately feel it you can pick it up and immediately feel it Come on. I think kids should memorize wild geese why not Right and and and I think there's a way for us to connect what Mary Oliver is doing or what you know Any other poet is doing to the songs that our kids are listening to Right figuring out the building the bridges right so I think all of this work has to be done I don't think that it's like we're losing them to we're losing them to everything I think no we have to sort of rejigger Every calibrate what actually is important. Is it literature or is it literacy now for me? It's literacy Right it's literacy. I think that as long as our babies can read then that means they can think Right they they can read with the more language they have the more ability that they'll have and to hear their own minds to critically think and Susp through their ideas and if in their feelings and emotions let alone expressing said feelings and emotions because they can put name to them right That means more to me than whether or not a kid has read the Odyssey to be honest with you Don't go anywhere I'm so tired of people quoting me for 48 laws of power whatever it is and so tired and like it's like bro We're not going to what while you trying to strategize about how to get over I'm trying to figure out how to get you to love yourself. We've got more coming up after the break It makes me think back to when I was a teenager and But life journal was the thing and it was very much like you know, but like if you think back on it. It's like We were sitting around reading walls of text that we were writing about However we were feeling Some movie we watched how boring school was but we would go home after school and write paragraphs Like type out paragraphs about our thoughts of feelings and then read each other's paragraphs about their thoughts of feelings And then comment on it. I think I think look young Britney loose Who's writing on live journal. I think my argument I think my argument is the way that we talk about it now is as as if there can't be a young Britney lose today Doing the same thing or whatever that platform might be for then or maybe there's no platform, but maybe it's sub stack Right like and so and so I think sometimes our question and like the stats are the stats, but I mean even Statistics are interesting right because statistics also have to do with the person who is creating the narrative around the numbers So like it's not always like because people will say like numbers don't lie numbers don't lie right and it's like It's like well, it depends upon the interpreter of said data Right when I was coming in the industry they said we're not gonna publish books by about about black boys because black boys don't read That's one way to read the numbers The way I read those numbers is we should probably publish books about black boys so that yeah, there you go right So I think that so I'm I'm even careful with all the statistical talk not that I think it doesn't matter But I think it's just a part of the story right and then we have Like there's also the eye test right there's also the fact that I think that books have never been cooler But then they far right now books have never been cool. We're talking about we're talking about fashion brands making Ads used like same with who's showing models reading or your bags into yes until little do your bags You know that your bags and like all this stuff right we got they got Somebody's they got book clubs and all this stuff and look if you think that they're doing that because they can't make money You're a fool In their mind in their mind they're thinking this is cool and is going to make us money Which lets me know culturally there is something happening When it comes to the movement of Literature the movement of reading I actually think that in the next five to ten years It's going to be the coolest thing in the world to walk around with a book Specifically within this downward trend in reading men are reading less than women And men are specifically reading less affixion than women are and you write fiction And so I know you care about fiction and so I wonder What is the importance of men and boys reading Fiction and what do we lose when they don't? First let me say I think that men have always read less fiction I think when I think of I wish I could I don't know the numbers but I wish I knew the numbers around what this was looked like 30 years ago or 40 years ago, 'cause all the men in my life read the newspaper. I never saw the men in my life reading novels. - I don't think I ever saw my father read fiction. - Right. - I never saw it read fiction. - It's not a thing, right? So when I think about the narrative, it's like, this isn't like a new phenomenon. Now, that being said, I think there's much to gain from the novel. I think what the novel does is it very simply reminds us of the complexity of our humanity. I think what fiction does is it humanizes everything. It humanizes our world, it humanizes our lives. I think it taps into our emotional centers while also still triggering our intellectual capacities and our intellectual sort of databases back here. I think it pushes us to think about what language can do, how language can create a hammer in the gut, right? Like that's a wild thing to consider, right? How you could read something and it creates a hammer in the gut, how language could create a metronome in the head that now you can actually feel the rhythm to your life. That's an incredible thing to consider that you do not get in nonfiction, right? That you can, everybody knows the Toni Morrison. We all know and love Toni Morrison. But when you talk about the lines that people pull out, right? Like, oh, what's the, her most, she gathered me, right? This, this, if you look at that line and if we, and if we still were doing scantian, right? If we still were scanning lines and scanning language to see where the accents are and then we could better understand why this is working, but it's directly connected to some sort of like rhythm sensor. The way the words sound, let alone what the words are, right? And imagine if we all knew that and could live our lives, like walking around knowing that I am walking on a metronome, that I have sort of these things working inside me, like that's what fiction reminds us of, it reminds us how to love, it reminds us how to feel, it reminds us how to fight, right? It reminds us of our evolution in one book, everybody can change. And so what might you do in 30 days, let alone 30 years? This is incredible. You get a snapshot of your potential. Every time you read a novel, that I think is with the beauties and I wish more men tapped into it, right? I wish more men said, I'm so tired of people quoting me before the eight laws of power, whatever it is. I'm so tired of that. It's like, bro, we're not going to war. Why are you trying to strategize about how to get over? I'm trying to figure out how to get you to love yourself. And what in these books are going to teach you that? You say you want to win a war, a war that I'm not always sure to be fighting, who are you fighting other than you? When you're going to determine that part, when you're going to realize all these women around you, love you. When you're going to figure out that your children love you, when you're going to fail and revivate that everybody's out to get you, novels, fiction is what shows us all of that. - I also too, I think about the scale of fiction. Very often puts you in, not just another person's shoes or in their mind, but it puts you in their heart. And, I mean, I read, was it, "Pachinco" by Manjin Lee? - Yeah, "Mastapiece." - I can't even start. I literally will start crying if I start talking about the books. - A masterpiece. - A masterpiece. I got to end the book and I literally was like, just sitting in silence in the middle of the night because I was just like, well, since I've been living in post-war Korea with my family for the past five days that I've been reading this book, I felt like these people were my kin. I felt like they were my blood. And I felt like we had gone in this journey together. I feel like fiction puts me back in touch with just how much I don't know, but also just how much about being a person is like a shared experience. - Exactly. - And it's, you don't get the opportunity to do that so regularly and so closely, I feel like. - It's just remind us of exactly, like you say, what you don't know, but it's also a reminder of what you inherently know, right? What we all inherently know as human beings, because there's never been anything in the book that I've read where I haven't been able to connect, where I haven't been able to find. Even if the details of the plot are so far away from what my realities are, I know what it is to have a mother. I know what it is to lose my father. I know what it is to have brotherhood that's strained and siblinghood that's strained. I know what it is to feel the weight of family pressure. - Hmm. - I know what it, right? Like, I know heartbreak. - Yeah. - These are things that we can find in books about Korea or Vietnam or Senegal or New York City. Like these, it doesn't matter if you know the details. The human experience and the human condition is something that we all inherently know. - I got one last question I asked you. We ask it sometimes at the top of some interviews. - What is the most unhinged thing that you sincerely believe? - Oof, that's a good one. What's the most unhinged thing that I sincerely believe? - There are no wrong answers. - That I, and I believe it 'cause my mama told me that's when I was a kid. So it's in me because it was talking to me. - Okay. - That my mother and I have spent many, many, many lives together and this is our last. And apparently in these lives according to my mother, we serve different purposes in each other's lives. We've been, you know, we've held different roles from parental to siblinghood, to fandom, to, you know, marital to all these different sort of configurations of our relationship. And according to her, apparently this is our final cycle. And I have to say, Brittany, it feels like the culmination of something. My mother's now 80 years old and I've been caring for her for some time now. And I can't pretend like it doesn't feel like, like we're nearing a finish line that has been, you know, very far away for a very long time. Like there's like a, there's a swelling to this moment. It doesn't feel scary or any of that, it feels like all the instruments are about to play. - Wow. - You know, and I think that one I think would have to be it. - That's a beautiful answer. You have stunned me. - Jason, as usual, you said it all. You said it all, you said it all. I am so grateful that I have had you on this show. I am so sorry, it took me so long to have you on but I appreciate you being so jealous with your time. And thank you so much. I really enjoyed this. Thank you, thank you. - It's good to see, you know, I'm doing everything you don't. So I'm just happy. I'm a fan of you too. You also win that list, you know what I mean? - That was author Jason Reynolds. And to all of you watching, thank you so much for hanging out with us. Make sure to come back to this feed every Tuesday for a fresh video episode.