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Thursday, September 30, 2021
A study finds no signs of trouble in getting flu and Covid shots at the same time.
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New top story from Time: Protecting Homes From Wildfire With Aluminum Foil? A Tested Technology Gains Steam
The photo made a splash on social media: General Sherman, the majestic 2,000-year-old Californian sequoia tree with a 36-foot circumference, its craggy trunk shining with silvery aluminum foil wrapped all around it to protect from potential wildfires. Like a baked potato in the oven, commenters said.
California-based Firezat, which is currently the only company in the U.S. that sells this aluminum wrap to public and private entities at scale, has sold thousands of square feet of the material for the express purpose of structural protection against wildfires—including the piece lovingly wrapped around General Sherman. Firezat’s sales increased 30% each of the last two years as fires become increasingly prominent threats to large swathes of both public and private land, with higher temperature, higher wind speeds and longer fire seasons straining firefighting capabilities, says Firezat CEO and founder Daniel Hirning. Five years ago, about 95% of the company’s business was in sales to forest service and Bureau of Land Management customers to protect things like historic buildings; that has expanded to include private homeowners. Hirning says about “several thousand” homes would be able to deploy Firezat by now, based on cumulative sales. Now, other businesses in the space are beginning to see the potential, too. But the buy-in for aluminum wraps, which block 96% of radiant heat, is just in the nascent stages, suggests Hirning. “You think all this coverage and all this advertising exposure [would increase sales even more], but it kind of has the opposite effect,” he says. “There’s an apathy. I think people just get overwhelmed.”
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The aluminum wrap is an alternative to other go-to fireproofing methods, including fire-resistant gels and foams and water-saturation systems, that homeowners and forest service workers can use to protect structures. Priced at $680 per 1000-square-foot roll, Firezat’s option is a decently cost-effective investment in preventing a total disaster; an average single story home will require about three to four rolls of the stuff, Hirning says, and can be put up in about five or six hours. (It can also be stored and reused annually, and the average time to install the protection should decrease with practice.) A video on the website shows a foil-wrapped log cabin consumed in flames, only to emerge on the other side unscathed, surrounded by trees that look like blackened toothpicks. It’s an impressive case study.
Read More: The World Has Been On Fire for the Past Month. Here’s What It Looks Like
But the effort of wrapping up a house with Firezat ultimately lies with the end user. That’s where the start-up FireGuard hopes to play a role. Founded by civil and hydraulic engineer Shahriar Eftekharzadeh as a subsidiary of SEITec Inc., a science-based company that provides solutions for climate-change-based challenges, FireGuard is mostly a conceptual business right now. Eftekharzadeh’s vision is twofold: for preexisting buildings, his patent-pending “aluminized fiberglass fabric” would descend like protective curtains from a house’s eaves, enveloping the structure within about ten minutes. For new construction, it could be installed as a layer in exterior walls. Both options minimize the need for manual labor—and prioritize time—in the face of imminent fire. “You would know your house is equipped with a fire fighting system, the same as you’d have sprinklers for internal fires,” he says.
For his own cabin in the California woods, Eftekharzadeh has put in place the descending-curtain prototype; luckily, he’s never needed to use it. But it’s the only current example of the brand’s product in action. FireGuard launched a year ago, and has yet to become a priority in marketing; Eftekharzadeh’s primary projects include stormwater-recapture programs and compressed-air energy storage. Still, he sees it as a potentially game-changing option for homeowners—and firefighters. “The other thing we have in mind is that if you make a registry of houses that have this system, then that will really ease the burden on firefighters,” he says.
At other companies that sell aluminum-based radiant barriers commonly used for home insulation, like Texas-based Attic Foil and Innovative Insulation, it’s hard to gauge if the wildfire applications of aluminum wrapping technology have made much of a dent in sales so far, although Attic Foil CEO Ed Fritz did note a recent increase in sales to Californians in particular. But representatives from both confirmed that their materials could be useful in the face of fire—and at Innovative Insulation, their metalized cloth “Temptrol” fabric has even already been used in fire suits.
Read More: The Fight For Earth
As with any consumer product, none of these are 100% effective, says Seth Martin, assistant fire chief and fire marshal for the city of Ketchum, ID. Martin, a longtime firefighter, has plenty of experience wrapping things like forest service lookouts and even campground port-a-potties. It’s labor intensive, he cautions, and needs to be done with precision. “It takes a lot of time and manpower to actually wrap up a structure to the point where you’re fairly confident that it won’t burn,” he says. It can be extremely effective at deflecting heat and keeping embers at bay. But it’s not his go-to suggestion. “The better alternatives are taking mitigation measures ahead of time, and following the defensible space guidelines,” he says. Those include keeping the area around the house clear of potential fire fuel, and landscaping with an eye on fire safety. And those methods are free. “Prepare your house far ahead. Not days, but months, years. You have to start taking steps now to protect your home, before fire threatens,” he says.
As climate change escalates, drought worsens and public resources remain limited, however, sales for Firezat and other startups in the climate damage prevention space keep going up.
New top story from Time: Beck Bennett On Leaving Saturday Night Live And His 5 Favorite Sketches
When Beck Bennett walked out onto the Saturday Night Live stage in May in a Vin Diesel skull cap, he knew it might be his last time there as a cast member. Bennett was there to anchor the season’s last skit: a spoof of Diesel’s recent AMC commercial, in which he listed an increasingly outlandish list of reasons to go to the movies in a husky growl (“The music … the heavy doors … the pre-show video where you’re on a rollercoaster”). As Bennett delivered his lines to raucous laughter, he saw his wife sitting in the front row and SNL creator Lorne Michaels grinning next to the cue cards—a moment that he says felt prescient.
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“It really felt like the universe was telling me, ‘This is in fact time for you to leave. You’re not gonna do better than this,’” Bennett tells TIME in a phone interview on Wednesday.
Earlier this week, SNL announced that Bennett would not be a part of the cast of its 47th season, which begins on Saturday. Bennett, who was on the show for eight seasons, is now living in Los Angeles, where he says he plans to stay full time to focus on new projects and be near his wife and friends. “It’s been eight years of basically long distance with my wife, and if we are going to start a family at any point, I think we have to start that at some point soon,” he says.
In his near-decade on SNL, Bennett became an integral member of the ensemble, a glue guy tasked with playing straight men and raging idiots alike. His characters have ranged from Vladimir Putin to Mitch McConnell to the Salt Bae; last season, he had the most screentime out of anyone in the cast, according to Vulture. Ahead of the show’s 47th season, Bennett spoke with TIME about some of his favorite SNL sketches and characters, and reminisced about how they came together. These are excerpts from the conversation.
Office Boss
A staple of Bennett’s early tenure on the show was his “Office Boss” character, a high-powered CEO with the body of a baby. He shared scenes with Louis C.K., Drake and Cameron Diaz, flailing his arms, spitting up on himself, and sitting in giant booster chairs.
Bennett: Right before my SNL showcase in L.A., I was on a plane, and there was a guy with a baby in his lap sitting next to me. The baby kept putting his headphone cord into his mouth, unplugging it and throwing it on the ground, then getting upset and crying that he didn’t have it anymore. I was like, ‘Oh, man, it would be fun to create like a fully functioning person like that.’
I must have watched a couple baby videos early on when I was developing the character. Really, it came down to the act of grabbing something, shaking it, getting overwhelmed by the shaking, shoving it in my mouth, throwing it away and finding it again. After that, I would watch baby videos for how they react to eating a lemon, or somebody shaking keys, or how they put their feet in their mouths.
With Cameron Diaz, I think we did a spit-kiss type thing that was absolutely disgusting—and she was fully game. And the giant chair was actually fun. I was like, ‘This is great. Why don’t people do this?’
Brothers
“Brothers” is one of the many SNL sketches that Bennett shared with Kyle Mooney. The pair went to the University of Southern California together and were in the same sketch group, Good Neighbor; both were hired on SNL at the same time.
Bennett: From the moment we left our childhood homes, Kyle and I have been doing sketch comedy together. It kind of clicked right away—we always wrote together and had fun performing. For “Brothers,” we did a version of those characters in college in our sketch comedy group at USC. We were these brothers who were just wrestling, and their parents finally interrupt them and tell them that they’re getting divorced. It was not as well written as the one we ended up doing.
It’s rare for a sketch to do well at the table and during blocking, and there’s nothing that gets in the way. Especially because in this one, there are so many physical things that could have gone wrong. We’re getting sprayed, going through walls, breaking plates. It felt like a classic SNL sketch, like Chris Farley or Molly Shannon breaking things, falling through things—the things I watched and wanted to do on SNL if I ever got there.
But you learn that it’s really hard to do that because of the cue cards, the camera blocking. There’s so many restrictions to doing live sketch comedy on stage like that. So that experience was kind of a dream. The other people in the scene were having trouble not breaking, and it was so fun to do. It was like my best performing experience at the show, also because I got to do it with Kyle.
Take Me Back
In this pre-taped sketch, Bennett spoofs the climactic scene of a rom-com with Ego Nwodim.
Bennett: Manchildren, idiots: it’s what I love to do. I think it’s something about my instrument: My voice, my looks—it’s just what comes out, the idiot. It’s an extension of who I am, and is also what I saw around me growing up and wanted to make fun of. People who are confidently dumb are just really funny to me.
And being at SNL, I think writers are able to see something in you that you may not even fully see, and help bring that out of you. Over time, it was like, “Oh, people are writing me in this way.” And on SNL, where it’s very competitive and difficult to find your niche, you kind of go towards what works.
I also think some of the parts I play can be more nuanced on film as opposed to live: some of the angry idiots, or the out of control people freaking out, can be captured in a more disarming and funny way on film. When I got to SNL, I realized some of the things I found funny or wanted to write were maybe a little too not fun—a little too intense and scary.
In my second to last year, I did this sketch with Idris Elba where I was a competitive actor who was jealous of him. It was really big and over the top, and it did well enough to get on the show. But I look back at a similar one I did in my first year that never made it to air: it was like, much smaller and darker and intense and not fun. Film sketches can make some of those characters succeed a little bit more than in person.
Jules Who Sees Things A Little Differently
Bennett appeared several times on Weekend Update as the pig-headed contrarian Jules.
Bennett: There are some people out there in the world that Jules is based on. This is definitely an L.A. guy, although he definitely exists in New York, too. I think you see a lot of it on social media: someone on the internet thinking they have something to say, and trying to put a twist on it, but they actually aren’t saying anything at all. I sat down in Colin Jost’s office one night, like many nights, and would tell him stuff, and usually nothing would come of it. But he was always very good about finding something funny in what I’d pitched him, compile a bunch of stuff, and turn it into something a little different.
AMC Theatres Commercial
Bennett: It’s so fun to mimic Vin Diesel because he takes himself so seriously. He’s so tough, such a guy and has an incredible voice. It’s fun to step in those shoes: “I’m so cool, masculine, badass, anything I say is amazing.” I love playing confident characters, and those are often awful people. I’m not saying Vin Diesel is—but confidence is a very fun thing to play.
That sketch was written by Steven Castillo and Dan Bulla. It was something they came up with three in the morning on Wednesday, so I didn’t find out about it until right before the table read. That’s what happens a lot: it’s not an impression that you’re working on for weeks. It’s something that people hand you right before the table read.
That was one of my favorite things to perform on SNL, and it was the last thing I was in. That sketch should not have gone as well as it did, and almost should not have gotten onto air: the worry is that a long, rambling list would get old and the audience would stop laughing after a minute. But they found ways to keep it creative and interesting.
One of the reasons it was so fun is because I was the front of the audience; it was really fun and comfortable. And as soon as it ended, the band started playing the good night music, and I knew that was likely going to be my last sketch and show.
I just felt happy, relieved, grateful. With the ‘goodbye sketches,’ I don’t think it happens that often, and I’m not really one to want that. There are so many people that have been there so long and you never know who’s leaving. So it was nice to have what almost felt like a goodbye sketch.
New top story from Time: Congressional Democrats’ Infighting Is Jeopardizing a Historic Expansion of Housing Access
As Democrats spar over a sweeping bipartisan infrastructure bill and an even bigger budget reconciliation package that includes funding for everything from universal pre-k to free community college, the fate of a historic investment in America’s housing policy hangs in the balance.
Earlier this month, the House Financial Services Committee advanced $322 billion in federal spending recommendations on housing investments, including $75 billion in new funds for Housing Choice Vouchers. If that passed, it would mark the most significant investment in housing aid since the Housing Choice Voucher program, the nation’s largest source of rental assistance, was created in 1974. It would result in roughly 750,000 more federal vouchers that low-income Americans can use to underwrite the cost of affordable rental units, and eventually help roughly 1.7 million more people increasing the number of Americans served by roughly one-third, according to a new analysis by the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP).
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“This would be the biggest thing that policymakers have done in decades to reduce homeless and to help low-income people in this country afford housing,” says Will Fischer, senior director for housing policy and research at CBPP. “There’s not many programs out there where there’s a stronger evidence base showing that they work.”
Rep. Maxine Waters, chair of the House Financial Services Committee, which provides recommendations to Congress on housing policy, calls the proposed outlay “unprecedented.” “It has gotten to the point where it is very difficult for ordinary citizens working everyday to be able to have what it takes to get a decent rental unit,” she says, adding that this funding would help address the problem.
But it’s unclear if Democrats will pass a reconciliation bill at all—and if they do, whether it will include significant funding for affordable housing assistance.
Read more: How Landlords Discriminate Against Housing Voucher Holders
Senate Democrats could, in theory, pass the bill without any Republican support due to a legislative loophole allowing them to advance budgetary issues with a simple majority. But garnering support from all 50 Democratic Senators depends in large part on the votes of the two most moderate Senate Democrats, Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, both of whom have said that the $3.5 trillion spending framework is too high. Politico reported on Thursday that Manchin told Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer this summer he wouldn’t support a reconciliation bill exceeding $1.5 trillion—news that could mean that Democrats have to shave roughly $2 trillion in spending from the existing package.
Some progressive Democrats have said they will withhold their votes for the $550 billion bipartisan infrastructure package until Manchin and Sinema publicly promise to back a subsequent reconciliation package with a sufficient price tag. It’s not yet clear what they define as sufficient.
Neither is it clear how much of the $322 billion in housing investments might remain in a slimmed-down bill. Waters, a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, thinks most Democratic lawmakers see federal spending on housing as a priority. “I’ve convinced my caucus that we need to pay attention to housing,” she says.
But she stopped short of saying that she would recommend voting against the final bipartisan infrastructure bill if she didn’t get assurance her housing measures would be included in the reconciliation one. “I don’t work that way…I don’t threaten, and I don’t try to leverage,” she tells TIME, adding, “We don’t know what’s going to happen in reconciliation. We don’t know what the cuts are going to be.”
The current Housing Choice Voucher program provides 2.3 million households with vouchers that can be used to offset the rent on affordable, private market units. But many more Americans are in need: only one in four people who qualify for federal housing assistance currently receive it, according to the CBPP.
Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, a Missouri Democrat and Chair of the Subcommittee on Housing, Community Development, and Insurance says he plans to fight for the level of funding that his committee recommended earlier this summer. As a former public housing beneficiary, he says, he cares “passionately about making sure that Americans live in decent conditions and will fight for every penny as the process continues.”
Chasing New Revenue, FIFA Is Considering Major Move to U.S.
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Edward Keating, Times Photographer at Ground Zero, Dies at 65
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Ethiopia Plans to Expel U.N. Officials Leading Aid Response in Tigray
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Review: In ‘Never Let Go,’ a Solo Performer’s Heart Goes On
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An Artist’s Portraits, Stitched Together on the Subway
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This Is Why Your Toaster Will Break
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What Students Are Saying About Teaching Race in Schools, Reviving Extinct Animals and Live Sports
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Charges of Abuse and Toxic Workplaces Shake Women’s Soccer
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Hundreds are quarantining in one of N.J.’s biggest school districts.
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New top story from Time: The Problem With Jon Stewart Could Be Great, If It Ever Catches Up to the Present
There’s a telling moment in an early episode of The Problem With Jon Stewart. During a lively discussion on contemporary authoritarianism, Francisco Marquez, a Venezuelan activist and former political prisoner, mentions an event from the host’s Daily Show days. “I remember your march,” he says, referring to Stewart and Stephen Colbert’s jokey Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear, held on the National Mall in 2010. “I think it was against insanity or something along those lines.” In the perfect sarcastic deadpan that is his trademark, Stewart cracks: “Yeah, we won.”
It’s a throwaway exchange, but one that captures Jon Stewart’s uncertain place in the culture, six years after leaving a role in which he helped launch so many still-thriving comedy careers and reshape late-night talk shows and political satire for the 21st century. At this point, the pleas for common sense and critical thinking—from politicians, the media and the public at large—that he issued nightly from his Comedy Central desk would sound hopelessly naive. Also: who is the audience for his funny, scathing rants these days? Conservatives who didn’t exactly welcome his tough love in the George W. Bush era have now shifted even further to the right. And today’s version of the young, liberal audience Stewart teased for being stoners might not be quite so enthusiastic at the prospect of a straight, white guy in his 50s yelling at them about injustice.
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So it’s something of a relief that the initially uneven but potential-packed The Problem, which premiered Sept. 30 on Apple TV+ and will release new episodes every other Thursday, is not trying to be another Daily Show (which has established a considerably less shouty, more bemused tone under Trevor Noah). Episodes are twice as long, looser in structure and, though there are plenty of jokes, more earnest in their efforts to provide information and analysis.
Like Daily Show alum John Oliver’s acclaimed HBO series Last Week Tonight, The Problem addresses a single issue in each installment. While the premiere focuses on veterans who suffered grave illnesses following exposure to burn pits in the Middle East, an additional episode sent for review takes on the slippery concept of freedom. And like Bill Maher without the smug, trollish tone, Stewart opens with a monologue before moderating a panel discussion. What’s refreshing is that, instead of celebrities, pundits or authors with books to promote, the show enlists relevant experts and people who have firsthand experience to contribute. In the burn-pit episode, that means conversations with ailing veterans who’ve unsuccessfully sought help from a VA that claims it’s still investigating why so many vets who slept next to mounds of burning, toxic trash went on to receive life-threatening diagnoses. Along with Marquez, the discussion of authoritarianism and freedom includes the dissident Egyptian comedian (and Stewart pal) Bassem Youssef and the heroic Filipino-American journalist Maria Ressa, who joined virtually because her ongoing “cyber libel” case prohibits her from leaving the Philippines.
These panels might sound dutiful on paper. In fact, the participants are so knowledgeable and articulate, and Stewart so determined not to dumb down their messages, that these might turn out to be the most consistently engaging segments of the show. “The new propaganda is a behavior modification system,” says Ressa, in explaining how oppressive regimes can manipulate social media. “A lie told a million times becomes a fact.” Stewart could be a pretty indifferent interviewer when forced to make small talk with celebs on The Daily Show (a fact he actually alludes to in The Problem), but he brings the full force of his curiosity and frustration to these conversations, and it’s clear that he’s in his element.
After just two episodes, it’s hard to get a sense of how mutable The Problem’s format will be. As is, the places where commercials would be in a linear TV show are filled with quick, forgettable sketches of and mostly dull behind-the-scenes segments that show Stewart talking through each episode with his staff. (Considering that The Daily Show faced high-profile criticism for its “woman problem” as far back as 2010, the latter clips might also serve as subtle ways of highlighting how many women and other non-white-guys Stewart has hired this time around, and how well he gets along with those staffers.) While the panel consumes the back two-thirds of “Freedom,” the burn pit episode ends with a satisfyingly, if also somewhat performatively, confrontational one-on-one interview in which Stewart pushes VA secretary Denis McDonough to simply state what kind of proof the government will need in order to start paying vets’ claims.
The show’s success will ultimately depend on its specificity and timeliness. Despite its broad title, “War,” the burn-pit episode works because it tackles a particular, relatively manageable issue that will be new to many viewers. And instead of just screeching to the choir, so to speak, as he did on The Daily Show, Stewart channels his outrage into an interview with the person who has more power than anyone else to solve the problem in question.
“Freedom” is kind of a mess, though, at least until it gets to the panel portion. In his monologue, Stewart uses the partisan split over masks and vaccines to frame his hand-wringing about how competing ideas of what it means to be free are tearing apart the U.S. It’s an apt metaphor, but also one that’s been reiterated to a pulp over the course of this 18-month pandemic. This time last year, it might’ve felt cathartic to watch Stewart respond to a montage of people declaring that they won’t get the vaccine with the exclamation “What the f-ck?!” Now? It makes you want to ask where he’s been all this time. A mock game called “What’s More Hitler?” that spoofs anti-vaxxers’ propensity to compare public health rules to totalitarianism falls completely flat.
Stewart is a polarizing figure, and one whose cranky, sarcastic grandstanding worked much better with his original, Gen X audience than it does today. But, at its best, The Problem isn’t just about self-righteous yelling; like many of Stewart’s post-Daily Show projects, it’s about using his fame to effect change, or at least raise the level of mainstream political discourse. It has a long way to go to achieve that objective. More episodes like “War” and fewer like “Freedom” would be a good start.
With Big, Bold Art, Sarah Cain Redefines Seriousness in Painting
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Supreme Court to Hear Ted Cruz’s Campaign Finance Challenge
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Hundreds are quarantining in one of N.J.’s biggest school districts.
By BY ASHLEY WONG from NYT New York https://ift.tt/3uru4sc
The Senate passes a short-term spending bill to keep the government open. It heads to the House next.
By BY EMILY COCHRANE from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/3kUNNgE
Wednesday, September 29, 2021
New top story from Time: Why Joe Biden Isn’t Strong-Arming the Senate Democrats Holding Up His Agenda
Senators have spent hours on the custard-colored couches of Joe Biden’s Oval Office over the past several days. Dozens of chocolate chip cookies have been passed out. Irish poetry has been quoted. In one White House meeting on Sept. 22, a small group of progressive lawmakers perched on cushions where small note cards saved their spots and outlined why they should fully fund Biden’s priorities on community college, expanding Medicare, and providing workers with more child care and family leave in a $3.5 trillion budget bill. Then Biden slipped up, referring to himself as if he were still in the Senate. “Wait, wait,” he said, flashing a lopsided grin, “I’ve got this job now.”
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During the more than three decades that Biden was the long-winded Senator from Delaware with incandescent teeth, he bristled at being brought into the Oval Office and being told what to do by Presidents, aides say. Biden has kept those memories top of mind as he faces down two holdouts from his own party—Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema and West Virginia’s Joe Manchin—on landing his signature spending proposal. Biden has held back on dictating orders, White House aides say. Instead he’s listened, and detailed his case for why the big spending bill is good for the country.
But with trillions of dollars at stake and time running out to reach a deal, that approach has irked some progressives in the House, who want him to more forcefully use his clout to get everyone in line. “I continue to call on the President to exert the full weight of his presidency both to abolish this filibuster and to lean on Manchin and Sinema to do right by the American people,” Rep. Ayanna Pressley, a Democrat from Massachusetts, said on WBUR’s radio show On Point Wednesday. (Pressley has repeatedly called for an end to the Senate relying on a 60 vote threshold, which overcomes a filibuster, to pass legislation.)
Biden cancelled a scheduled Air Force One flight to Chicago on Wednesday to stay in Washington to help push his proposals through the House and the Senate. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is preparing to move forward with a planned House vote Thursday on a $550 billion bipartisan infrastructure bill, if progressives in the House can be assured the larger funding package that invests in the country’s social safety net will pass the Senate. Both Manchin and Sinema visited the White House for additional meetings with Biden on Sept. 28, with Manchin pushing to shave down the cost of the larger bill and Sinema objecting to the size of the tax increase on corporations.
Despite the looming deadlines, Biden has relied heavily on Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to wrangle the votes rather than try to strong-arm demands from his position at the White House. “He still sees himself as a legislator, therefore he’s in our shoes very often, and I think that’s helpful,” says Rep. Mark Pocan, a progressive Democrat from Wisconsin, who was in the Oval Office last week when Biden had to remind himself he was President and not a Senator. Pocan says he told Biden that the major investments in families and health care shouldn’t be cut in the reconciliation bill. “We’ve got to keep these priorities that people are going to really feel to make sure that you know we’re doing our jobs,” Pocan recalls telling Biden. He says Biden agreed.
Aides in the White House grasp just how much is at stake for Biden. He’s faced a cascade of withering setbacks in recent months, with the chaotic Afghanistan withdrawal, an influx of Haitian migrants on the southern border, confusing public comments on COVID-19 vaccine booster shots, and his Administration’s frustration at the number of American adults who still aren’t vaccinated. His poll numbers have sagged. With the potential that Democrats could lose control of one or both chambers of Congress next year, the window is closing for Biden to pass the transformational initiatives he campaigned on. White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said on Sept. 28 that this is “clearly a pivotal moment” and a “sensitive time” in the negotiations with Senators. When Biden was in the Senate for 36 years, “He didn’t want any President to tell him what to do,” Psaki said. “He’s not going to tell anyone what to do.”
But as the deal to pass both bills threatens to fall apart, Biden’s strategy to not press too hard has left some wishing for stronger leadership from the Oval Office. “It’s a little bit chaotic,“ says a person familiar with the discussions among Democrats in the Senate. Biden could be doing more to quarterback the process, the person says: “Nobody has a 100 percent full understanding of this moment.”
Pelosi told fellow Democrats in a caucus meeting late on Sept. 28 that her leadership team is still waiting to hear the final top-line number for the so-called “soft” infrastructure spending bill. Biden has proposed $3.5 trillion in spending, to be paid for by changes to tax enforcement and increased taxes on corporations and the wealthy. But Sinema and Manchin have said they aren’t comfortable with that number, and Biden is trying to get them to an agreement on a final figure—even if his methods aren’t as forceful as some progressives would like. “We’re still waiting for the number,” Pelosi told Democrats in the House during the evening caucus meeting, according to a person familiar with the discussion. “The President is working on that piece.”
-With additional reporting by Alana Abramson and Molly Ball/Washington
My Fellow Americans, Let’s Be Better Tourists
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Stephanie Grisham, the Latest White House Memoirist, Offers Apologies and Payback
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Newly Published, From the AIDS Crisis to Anthony Bourdain
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Emerging from a conservatorship can be difficult, and usually requires a psychological evaluation.
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New top story from Time: R. Kelly Has Finally Been Silenced. Let’s Keep It That Way
In the summer of 2017, at a neighborhood Atlanta coffee house, the #MuteRKelly movement was born. There, I met Oronike Odeleye, the woman who would later become my partner-in-mute. She, too, was heartsick over the mountain of disturbing allegations against R. Kelly (now evidence for his conviction) from the recent BuzzFeed article surrounding his predatory behavior in an Atlanta-area house.
The rumors of his despicable conduct toward young, impressionable Black and brown girls, boys and young women had circulated for decades. Activists, journalists, survivors and community members had tried repeatedly to call attention to them, but he had faced no legal consequences (he was acquitted in 2008 on charges of child pornography) and he remained popular.
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I had been done with R. Kelly for a while. I recall demanding that R Kelly’s music never be allowed in my home, that my then teen son (he’s now 30) not be allowed to sing “I Believe I Can Fly.” I remember tossing a CD out of a speeding car when the driver thought it would be funny to play “Trapped in the Closet.” As a graduate student at Temple University, I once got off the train, approached a man selling VHS tapes on a Philadelphia street corner who had a homemade sign that read “XXX R. Kelly” and swiped those tapes to the ground.
But that summer I knew individual acts of resistance were not enough. I was especially done with the community of enablers who believed that the sexual degradation of Black girls was entertainment. That this treatment had become fodder for comedy, most notably on The Dave Chappelle Show and The Boondocks, was appalling.
Enough was enough. This was the moment. Oronike and I lived in Atlanta. R. Kelly was scheduled to perform in Atlanta. And we could not just accept that. Together with the help of some of our unsung heroes, we launched #MuteRKelly, a campaign to end his career.
Read More: Lifetime’s Surviving R. Kelly Should Terrify R. Kelly
What started as a modest effort to cancel his Atlanta concert (the show went on and thousands of people attended despite our protests) morphed into an international campaign involving grassroots activists, elected officials, prominent entertainers, journalists, organizations like #MeToo, TIME’S UP and the Women’s March, and more than 15 global chapters of #MuteRKelly.
#MuteRKelly was intentional: We wanted a financial boycott of Robert Sylvester Kelly. We wanted radio stations, concert venues and streaming platforms to divest of him. We wanted people to stop claiming they could separate the man from the music. We wanted to provide a global platform for survivors, activists and those who have been silenced for decades to feel seen and heard. We wanted accountability. We wanted to change the narrative for Black women and girls, to tell them that they are credible victims of sexual violence, that Black girls are to be believed, and protected, and supported.
Read More: Here’s What Went Through Gayle King’s Mind When Her R. Kelly Interview Took a Frightening Turn
On Sept. 27, after more than 20 years of allegations, R. Kelly was convicted of racketeering and sex trafficking. Those of us who have fought for justice for so long understand that our work is not over. We also recognize that it was a culture of adultification, misogynoir and rape culture in the entertainment industry, and in the Black community, that enabled his predatory behavior. But we can take a moment now to acknowledge that the truth finally prevailed.
We wanted his legacy to forever have an asterisk. He is no longer “The King of R&B.” He is a convicted sexual predator who can sing.
And finally he has been muted.
New top story from Time: The Major Supreme Court Cases to Watch This Fall
The nine justices of the U.S. Supreme Court will return to the bench to hear oral arguments on Oct. 4, kicking off what could be one of the most monumental terms in years.
After an unusually busy summer—in which they handed down major rulings on immigration and the federal eviction ban—the justices will hear several historic cases this fall, including ones that could have significant consequences for abortion access and gun rights.
This will be the first full term with the court’s 6-3 conservative supermajority, after Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation on Oct. 26, 2020. Court watchers are following closely for signals of how far to the right the Supreme Court will rule on hot-button issues, and how often some of the Republican-appointed justices will side with the liberals. Russ Feingold, the president of the progressive American Constitution Society and a former Democratic Senator from Wisconsin, argues that the way the court rules on key issues raised this term could determine whether efforts to do “something dramatic” to reform the high court gains momentum in Congress and the American public. President Joe Biden launched a commission in April to study possible Supreme Court reforms—including adding justices or term limits, which some progressives advocated for—but the commission has yet to publish any recommendations.
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“It’s a hugely important term,” says David Cole, the national legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union, “with some of the most contentious issues in American life today squarely before the court.”
Here are the major cases to watch this fall in the upcoming Supreme Court term.
Abortion access
On Dec. 1, the Supreme Court will hear its most significant abortion case in years, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which could determine whether the Supreme Court will go against decades of precedent and overturn 1973’s Roe vs. Wade, which established the Constitutional right to end a pregnancy before a fetus can survive outside the womb.
The case centers on a Mississippi law that bans abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy—before viability—except in instances of medical emergencies or fetal abnormalities. In its merits brief, the state of Mississippi explicitly asks the Supreme Court to overturn its rulings in Roe and 1992’s Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey, which established that laws cannot place an “undue burden” on a person’s ability to seek an abortion. The 5th Circuit struck down the Mississippi law in 2019, and the Supreme Court announced in May that it will hear the case on the question at the heart of Roe: whether all bans on abortions before viability violate the Constitution.
The court considered a different abortion restriction just weeks ago, when it refused to block the enforcement of Texas’ anti-abortion law on Sept. 1, which bans abortions as early as six weeks into a pregnancy. The five justices in the majority stressed that their decision was a narrow procedural one and they were not ruling on the legality of the ban itself. Texas’ abortion ban could still be challenged on its merits and eventually wind its way back up to the Supreme Court.
Dobbs and the Texas case could prove pivotal turning points in the decades-long battle over abortion access in the United States. Zack Smith, a legal fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation, says the Department of Justice wrote in an amicus brief in support of affirming Roe that the court needs to address the questions raised in the case head on. “They basically told the court… ‘Look, you either need to reaffirm Roe v Wade… or overrule it,” Smith says. “There is no middle ground here.”
Read more: Texas’ Abortion Law Could Worsen the State’s Maternal Mortality Rate
Gun rights
Another prominent case this term is New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. Bruen, which challenges a New York state law that requires anyone who wants a concealed carry permit to first prove to the licensing authority that they have good reason for carrying the weapon, which can include self-defense. The case was filed by two New York men with the backing of a gun rights group after their applications were rejected because a licensing officer determined they had not adequately proven they needed to carry the weapons.
Read more: The Supreme Court Is Taking Up a Case That Could Impact Gun Rights For Millions
The case, which will be argued on Nov. 3, could be the most high-stakes Second Amendment case the court has heard in over a decade, since it ruled in 2008’s District of Columbia v. Heller that the Constitution grants private citizens a right to keep a firearm in their own home for “traditionally lawful purposes,” including self-defense. The court now must decide whether private citizens have the right to carry that firearm outside of their home, as well.
Separation of church and state
On Dec. 8, the court will hear Carson v. Makin, a case that could have an enormous impact on whether religious institutions can benefit from state funding. Carson deals with a state-backed tuition program in Maine, which grants tuition assistance to families in areas without public high schools so they can instead send their kids to private school. Two families, the Carsons and Nelsons, sued the state in 2018 after they were denied tuition-assistance because they planned to use it to pay for Christian private schools that would use the funding for religious instruction.
The case comes on the back of 2020’s Espinoza v. Montana Dept. of Revenue, in which the court ruled 5-4 that tax credit-funded scholarships meant to help students attend private schools cannot exclude religious institutions simply because they are religious. In 2020, the 1st Circuit sided with Maine, ruling that while Espinoza made it so religious schools can’t be excluded solely because of their denomination, they can be excluded from receiving tax-payer funding if that funding would go towards teaching religion. The Supreme Court will now evaluate that ruling and determine whether the law violates the religious freedom clauses or equal protection clause of the Constitution.
State secrets
The court will hear two cases this term dealing with the federal government’s right to invoke its state secrets privilege, which allows the government to refuse to release information in litigation if doing so poses a risk to national security.
On Oct. 6, the court will hear United States v. Zubaydah, the first case it’s heard dealing with Guantanamo Bay detainees in over a decade. The case was brought by Zayn al-Abidin Muhammad Husayn, also known as Abu Zubaydah, who has been detained in Guantamo Bay since 2006 and wants to subpoena CIA contractors in a criminal investigation. Prior to his detention in the U.S. military prison, Zubaydah was held in several CIA “black sites” in foreign countries and subjected to what the CIA referred to as “enhanced interrogation”—tactics that a years-long Senate investigation later deemed constituted torture. Among other tactics, Zubaydah was waterboarded 83 times in one month and confined to a coffin-sized box for over 11 days, per a Senate report.
In 2017 Zubaydah attempted to subpoena two CIA contractors who he argues knew about his detention and treatment in the early 2000s for a criminal investigation in Poland, where he was held in 2002 and 2003. But the federal government stepped in and told the district court to kill the subpoenas, citing “state secrets” privileges. The district court agreed, but upon appeal the 9th Circuit sent the case back down, directing the lower court to look again at whether state secrets could actually be invoked in this instance. The Supreme Court will now evaluate whether the 9th Circuit was wrong.
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Then on Nov. 8, the court will hear Federal Bureau of Investigation v. Fazaga, which also deals with questions of when the government can withhold information. The suit was first brought in 2011 by Imam Yassir Fazaga and two Muslim congregants at a California mosque that the FBI had an informant infiltrate in the mid-2000s. Fazaga and the congregants have sued the FBI with the help of the Council on American-Islamic Relations and the ACLU, who allege that the FBI targeted them based on their religious identity. The FBI argues that aspects of the investigation are state secrets and the case cannot be litigated without risking national security.
The Supreme Court will not address question of whether the FBI violated Fazaga’s constitutional rights, but rather if the case can be litigated at all, examining the question of whether a section of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) displaces the FBI’s states secret privileges and allows the case to move forward.
Death penalty
Several high profile cases involving capital punishment will come before the court this term. On Oct. 13, the court will hear the case of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who was sentenced to death in 2015 for his part in the 2013 Boston marathon bombing, which killed three people and injured hundreds. In 2020, the 1st Circuit converted his death sentence to life without parole, citing constitutional violations during his trial, and the Supreme Court will now determine whether the death sentence should be reimposed.
The case will undoubtedly draw attention because of Tsarnaev’s infamous crime, but his case also raises broader questions about procedure in capital trials. The 1st Circuit ruled that Tsarnaev’s jurors should have been asked more extensive questions about their media exposure to the bombing, and that he should have been allowed to introduce evidence that his older brother—who was involved in the bombing but killed by law enforcement—was also allegedly involved in a triple homicide years earlier. The court’s answers to these questions could impact how high profile capital trials are handled going forward, particularly in jury selection.
Read more: What Happens to the Federal Death Penalty in a Biden Administration?
On Nov. 1, the court will hear the case Shinn v. Ramirez, a procedurally complicated case that could have important implications for how federal courts approach the right to counsel. Two death row prisoners in Arizona, David Ramirez and Barry Jones, have filed for habeas relief in federal court, arguing that they had ineffective counsel during their original trials, and should not be executed. This point was never raised by their attorneys at the state post-conviction level, and the prisoners now argue it should be allowed to be raised in federal court.
In 2012’s Martinez v. Ryan, the Supreme Court ruled that prisoners whose attorneys made a mistake and didn’t raise ineffective trial counsel claims at the state post-conviction level could instead pursue those claims in federal habeas review. But although Martinez allows Ramirez and Jones to raise their claims, this case hinges on whether or not they can present evidence to support them. 1996’s Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA) limited prisoners from presenting new evidence in federal court if it was not already brought up in state court. But citing Martinez, the 9th Circuit ruled in 2019 that Ramirez and Jones could present evidence supporting their claims of ineffective trial counsel, because their state-appointed post-conviction attorneys had mistakenly failed to do so. The Supreme Court will now determine whether the 9th Circuit was correct, and whether AEDPA applies in instances where state-appointed post-conviction lawyers failed to produce evidence.
Also on Nov. 1, the court will hear the case of Ramirez v. Collier, which was taken up by the Supreme Court on Sept. 8 after it agreed to stay the execution of John Ramirez scheduled for later that night. Ramirez asked that his Baptist pastor be allowed to “lay hands” on him and pray out loud while he is being executed by the state of Texas. Texas rejected the request, and Ramirez filed suit in federal court in August on religious freedom grounds. The district court and the appeals court declined to halt his execution, but the Supreme Court agreed to do so until it could evaluate his claims.
The case originally came before the court on its “shadow docket,” a term referring to decisions issued outside of its regular oral argument schedule and often used for emergency motions. “It’s somewhat unusual to have a case shifted over from the shadow docket,” says Smith of the Heritage Foundation. “I think the fact that the court did this shows that they are taking religious liberty claims, in all contexts, incredibly seriously.”
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New top story from Time: Rethinking What it Means to Recover from Addiction
When I kicked cocaine and heroin in 1988, I was told that there was only one way to get better: abstain forever from psychoactive substances including alcohol—and practice the 12 steps made famous by Alcoholics Anonymous. The only alternative, counselors and group members said, was “jails, institutions or death.”
My addiction was so extreme that by the end, I was injecting dozens of times a day. So I grabbed the lifeline I was thrown and attended the traditional 12-step rehab program recommended by the hospital where I underwent withdrawal.
But once I began to study the scientific data on addiction, I learned that these claims were not accurate. In fact, research shows that most people who meet full diagnostic criteria for having an addiction to alcohol or other drugs recover without any treatment or self-help groups—and many do so not by quitting entirely, but by moderating their use so that it no longer interferes with their productivity or relationships.
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There is no “one true way” to end addiction—and the idea that “one size fits all” can be harmful and even deadly in some cases. Until we recognize this and celebrate the variety of recovery experiences, September’s National Recovery Month and similar efforts to promote healing will fail to reach millions of people who could benefit. During an overdose crisis that killed more than 90,000 people in 2020 alone, a better understanding of how people really do overcome addiction is essential.
Unfortunately, rehab hasn’t improved much since I attended in the late 20th century. At least two-thirds of American addiction treatment programs still focus on teaching the 12 steps and promoting lifelong abstinence and meeting attendance as the only way to recover. (The steps themselves include admitting powerlessness over the problem, finding a higher power, making amends for wrongs done, trying to improve “character defects” and prayer—a moral program unlike anything else in medicine.)
Moreover, despite the fact that the only treatment that is proven to cut the death rate from opioid addiction by 50% or more is long-term use of either methadone or buprenorphine, only about one-third of residential programs even permit these effective medicines, and around half of outpatient facilities use them, typically short-term.
Worse: when they do allow medication, most treatment centers also push people with opioid use disorder to attend the 12-step program, Narcotics Anonymous. That creates what can be deadly pressure to stop the meds. The group’s official literature says that people on methadone or buprenorphine are not “clean” and have only substituted one addiction for another.
I have been contacted by more than one family who lost a loved one to overdose because their relative had rejected or prematurely ended medication based on this view. If we don’t start to view recovery more inclusively, we are denying hope and healing to those who benefit from approaches other than the steps.
So, what does a more accurate and expansive view of recovery look like? To me, one of the most helpful definitions was devised by a group known as the Chicago Recovery Alliance (CRA), which founded the Windy City’s first needle exchange. CRA was also the first organization in the world to widely distribute the overdose reversal drug naloxone—and train drug users to save each other’s lives by using it. Naloxone (also known as Narcan) is a pure antidote to opioids: it restores the drive to breathe in overdose victims but must be given rapidly to be effective. (If used in error, it is safe: it won’t hurt people with other medical problems and typically works even if opioids have been combined with other drugs.)
CRA’s approach is called harm reduction, and it defines recovery as making “any positive change.” This means that anything from starting to use clean needles to becoming completely abstinent counts. From this perspective, if someone quits smoking crack, gets a job and reconciles with her family, she counts as being in recovery—even if she stills smokes marijuana daily.
Or, if someone goes from drinking a bottle of Scotch a day to having a daily glass of wine—or from drinking daily to binging only on weekends—these too are positive changes, not just “active addiction.” Here, recovery is a process, not an event. It’s difficult to learn any new skill without trial and error, and this includes developing coping skills to manage or end drug use. For most people, even with behaviors short of addiction, big changes take time.
This broad definition obviously includes people who take addiction medications. Doing so is a positive change because it dramatically reduces the risk of death, even for those who continue to take other substances.
Moreover, those who do quit nonmedical use and stabilize on an appropriate dose of these meds can drive, connect with others and work as well as anyone else. They are not intoxicated or numb—just like people taking other psychiatric drugs as prescribed.
While patients on methadone or buprenorphine remain physically dependent on medication to avoid withdrawal, they no longer meet criteria for addiction. According to psychiatry’s diagnostic manual and the National Institute on Drug Abuse, addiction must include compulsive behavior despite negative outcomes—it’s not simply needing something to function.
Of course, for people steeped in traditional abstinence-oriented recovery, CRA’s “any positive change” definition can be challenging. In the 12-step world, members who have maintained continuous abstinence for many years are revered—the longer their time away from alcohol and other drugs, the higher their status tends to be. The lure of such social acclaim helps some avoid relapse. Granting the status of “recovering” to those who have not quit entirely seems unfair from this perspective.
However, it could save lives. In 12-step programs, people who break continuous abstinence—even for just one day after 20 years—are seen as returning to square one, and their “sober time” and its associated status is completely erased. Research shows that having such a binary view of recovery can actually make relapses more dangerous. That’s because people figure that, since they’ve blown it already, their small slip might as well be a massive spree.
Since most people do relapse at least once, moving away from the idea that only continuous abstinence matters—not quality of life, not the ability to maintain relationships and contribute to society—would likely be healthier for everyone.
But there’s another way to reconcile conflicting views of recovery, which preserves traditional ideas for those who prefer them. That is, simply define it for yourself and let others do likewise. If you’ve heard someone identify themselves by saying, “I’m a person in long-term recovery and for me, that means abstinence,” you’ve seen this idea in practice.
My own perspective has changed over time. From 1988 through 2001, I was continuously abstinent from drugs other than caffeine, including alcohol. Since then, I have used alcohol and cannabis responsibly, without difficulty. However, I have no illusions that I could moderate either cocaine or heroin use—so I continue to avoid these drugs and count myself among the recovering.
Now, though, I suspect that my recovery probably started before my abstinence—when I was taught to use bleach to clean my needles in 1986 and began to fight to get HIV prevention information and equipment to other injectors. That positive change likely helped prepare me for further transformation, including seeking rehab. It almost certainly helped me avoid AIDS.
What really matters is not whether someone recovers via medication or moderation or 12-step programs or anything else. It’s that, like me, most people do get better. And even more of us can if we recognize and support many roads to recovery.
New top story from Time: Donald Trump Still Leads The Republicans—And That’s Bad for Almost Everybody
This article is part of the The DC Brief, TIME’s politics newsletter. Sign up here to get stories like this sent to your inbox every weekday.
Donald Trump is out of office. That doesn’t mean he’s out of power.
In the last week, the former President has once again shown just how he plans to maintain control of the Republican Party’s brand. He has refused to accept the Republican-led audit of 2020 election results in Arizona that he is, in fact, still the race’s loser. He continues to push for election reviews in Georgia, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin—and seems to be on track to get them. Trump has been hammering his supporters in Congress to gum up a quartet of high-profile pieces of President Joe Biden’s agenda and keeps sprinkling his endorsements in races around the country, trying to exact revenge on corners of his party he has deemed insufficiently loyal.
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Trump has remade the Republican brand into one of chaos and obstruction, despite holding no official place in the party hierarchy. His contempt for norms continues and, especially among House Republicans, that is in itself a new norm. It’s tough to imagine a pre-Trump moment where such rancor was celebrated. In 2009, when Rep. Joe Wilson shouted “You lie!” at then-President Barack Obama, he issued an apology almost immediately for his outburst. Now, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s heckling of fellow members on the steps of the Capitol about abortion and their faith is met with deafening silence from the GOP. (Party leaders, however, have already stripped her of committee assignments for peddling conspiracy theories.)
Trump may have fled Washington even before Joe Biden took the oath but his influence never left, especially among Republicans who sincerely believe that Trump’s mix of bravado and trouble-making is a winning cocktail for victory in next year’s midterms and the 2024 race that, if Trump is to be believed, could feature his return to the ballot. In fact, CNN polling shows GOP voters prefer Trump to be the leader of the Republican Party by a 2-to-1 margin, even if those same voters say it’s a coin-toss whether he’d actually help them retake the White House as the nominee. Trump is still drawing crowds across the country, and some $82 million in cash in the first half of the year moved into Trump-affiliated accounts at a network of political committees.
It’s easy to dismiss the shift in what it means to be a Republican these days as something that only matters inside the Beltway; something for cable news pundits to fret about. After all, the share of Americans who actually identifies as a member of the Republican Party hovers around 30% year over year. (Democrats come in around that same level. The biggest voting bloc in America is unaffiliated voters, and has been for decades.)
The problem is that for many voters, supporting Trump goes hand in hand with rejecting some of the nation’s basic guiding principles. In communities across this country, yard signs still are promoting Trump’s re-election last year. Many Republicans still believe he is the legitimately elected President of the United States: two-thirds of GOP voters said in a poll released last month that Trump was the winner of the election, a number that has remained consistent since November despite overwhelming evidence otherwise. It’s tough for rank-and-file Republican lawmakers to ignore that reality, even if meaningful election fraud is fiction.
Which brings us to this disturbing finding, released this week from the Pew Research Center. In a massive survey of more than 10,000 people, Pew found only 57% of Republicans believe those who heeded Trump’s advice to march on the Capitol and “fight like hell” on Jan. 6 deserve prosecution for the failed insurrection. That’s still a majority, sure, but it’s down from the 78% who said the same in March. And among Republicans who think the mob that stormed the Capitol and sent lawmakers into hiding deserve to face consequences, the intensity has dropped off, with the 50% of Republicans who in March said it was “very important” to prosecute the offenders falling to 27%.
In other words, Trump and his allies have been working tirelessly to normalize the Jan. 6 attacks and, at least among Republicans, it’s working. Their near-universal refusal to cooperate with Congress’ Jan. 6 investigation has delegitimized it, and the work more broadly to discredit a free and fair election continues to prove a threat to America’s democracy. To borrow an observation from a former Arizona Attorney General, an ex-Republican who was John McCain’s chief of staff, Trump’s efforts to undermine American democracy may be succeeding where Russia’s failed. And that’s something that all Americans across the political spectrum should watch with worry.
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New top story from Time: Poet Tracy K. Smith on Finding Joy During an Unbearable Year
For nearly three decades, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Tracy K. Smith has used her craft as a way to frankly ask the questions that have intrigued her the most about our world. Her poems, which delight in humanity’s sprawling yet thrilling range of emotions—love and grief, desire and rage, joy and hope—often find the political within the personal, beckoning readers to engage with their own curiosities about the narratives they’ve been told about racism, power and justice.
Smith’s inquisitive wonder is on full display in Such Color: New and Selected Poems, releasing on Oct. 5. The book, which pulls from four earlier works in addition to 18 new poems, comes in the wake of both the pandemic and a national reckoning with structural inequality, a time ripe for both reflection and emotion—two elements that added to the urgency Smith felt as she wrote.
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“Poetry can reveal to us what we know, and what we need to know in the moment,” the former poet laureate told TIME. “And that’s the relationship to the art form that I’ve found myself in, in this past time, this recent time.”
Smith’s body of work has never shied away from uncomfortable truths, making her a prescient voice for this moment. Her searing 2018 volume, Wade in the Water, explored the long and violent history of slavery, and more broadly, racism in America. But within the sweeping overview of Smith’s body of work and her new poems in Such Color, it’s apparent that an inquiry for truth isn’t the only thing Smith desires. Her poems are marked by an insouciant sense of hope, something she sees as a necessity in these times.
Ahead of Such Color’s release, Smith spoke to TIME about her writing process, finding joy, and why poetry is a necessity.
Has it been hard for you at all in the past year, where there has been such an enormity of emotions to express how you feel as a poet?
I think it was one of the most difficult, unbearable years that I can remember, to be really honest. Much of it had to do with the public sphere that we are a part of. But I think some of the tensions and anxieties, particularly around questions of racial justice, got into the inner sphere in ways that were a bit surprising to me. Talking about what needs to change in small contexts like the workplace—it was exhausting. But I felt a sense of hope. I felt that I could clearly see there were people in my community that I felt capable of helping and advocating for. Doing that work involved going to battle in some cases, and feeling, in other cases, like a target for some of the resistance and backlash. So yeah, it was a hard year. I’m grateful that my family made it through with health and safety. But the poems that I wrote over the last year bear witness to the extreme trauma that comes with a realization like that.
So during this time, what was the role that poetry played in your life? Did it shift from what it has been for you in the past?
I think that it definitely shifted. I’m always sitting down to write because there is a question or a sense of unrest that itches. And I felt that way, but I didn’t feel what I have often felt, which is an intellectual distance between myself and that question. Maybe over the last four or five years, or six years, now, the distance has gotten a lot smaller.
I have always felt as a poet that when I’m writing, I’m listening. And I often think, ‘Oh, I’m listening for the unconscious mind to begin to do its work more loudly.’ But this year, I started meditating. I felt and feel that I’ve been able to engage in what feels more like a dialogue with something that is not myself. In many cases, to me, it felt like a sense of lineage or ancestry. The poems that I was writing were an extension of that dialogue, and were about saying, ‘Okay, I know, you’ve been through something like this—help me. How do I keep going? What do I need to know? What do I need to remember? What do I need to see and hear differently than I have in the past?’ And that’s very different for me. To be honest, that feels closer to prayer than any creative practice that I’ve engaged in, in the past.
You’ve written a great deal about grief and whether or not we realize it, I think we’re all very much collectively grieving right now. How do you think that poetry and even just writing around grief can help us make sense of that?
Grief is many, many things, right? Part of it is deeply personal and part of it is collective and moving between those different realms is important in healing or moving through grief. It’s important in finding different vocabularies for naming what has been lost. That seems important now.
I know that my sense of community has shifted over the last year. There are friendships that have been so sustaining and conversations that have run through this entire time that have given me hope, insight and different kinds of strategies for keeping going. I hope we can begin to do that in larger communal spaces. What would it feel like if we could get to a place as a nation, where we could recognize that all of us, no matter who we are, are grieving pieces of the very same thing? That might be really radically important.
Your poetry has always dealt with a lot of uncomfortable truths about America’s history and our past and very present issues with racism and injustice. Why do you think that we need poetry or art that engages with these issues?
I think one reason is we need to engage with it, you know, we, as a culture, have gotten so good at ignoring it, imagining that it’s been resolved, and that if there is a problem, it’s very far from where we are; in general, that’s a fallacy that we need to deal with. We fool ourselves when we imagine that history has this reach of it, or the uses of it are finite. A lot of my writing this year has alerted me to the fact that I wish to write from a way that is centered in conscious allegiance to Blackness. I’m speaking to that community. And I’m also hoping that what I say can be useful, or even chastening, to people who are outside of that community of Blackness.
In your section of new poems, the riot section, I felt a deep sense of urgency. How did the reckoning with structural racism in the wake of last summer shape your new work in Such Color?
I mean, it is an urgent situation that we’re looking at. And, you know, the crisis of racial injustice was just one of many crises that kind of flared into plain view over the last year. We see that the health crisis is amplified by questions of racial inequity, we see parallels between the way that our human presence on the planet and the devastating effects of that reveal a sense of overarching dominion and disregard that is not so far away from the disregard that causes certain populations to overlook the needs and rights of another. It feels urgent to me and I don’t even feel like we’re in the wake of this uprising. I think we’re in the throes of it and have been for a long time. And we will be for a long time unless we start to feel the urgency of it in new ways, and figure out how to act.
Your poetry doesn’t flinch when telling the truth about violence and trauma and grief. But there’s always this inherent sense of hope and joy. Why is it important to you to maintain that in your poetry?
Lately, it feels like, is a future even possible? That’s the question, but all of those things—joy, humor, and the hope that a future might be possible—have long existed to sustain communities of people who are imperiled in some way. Not as an escape, but as a way of saying, you and your body and your story, matter. That you are vital, necessary, and you are loved in some way. And that’s a way of keeping going. I think about the way that humor works in African American culture, and in art and history and everyday life, I think it operates in a similar way. It’s hard out there. It’s hard, even inside of one’s own life. But being able to muster those bright feelings of joy, hope, humor, momentary mirth—it’s galvanizing. And it allows you to say, this problem, as large as it is, is not larger than me and what I belong to. If I can see something in a way that allows me to chuckle, then it means that I have an insight that’s vital and that’s grounding. I have access to a perspective that puts me in a position of authority and rightness. That’s so important when you feel like your rights are being contested.
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