Speaker 1: Hey, Sacred Scandal listeners. This is Jasmine Romero, host of
Speaker 1: season three, and I'm here to tell you about another
Speaker 1: show that I think you might like. When I'm not
Speaker 1: investigating stories about the salvador In Civil war and the
Speaker 1: murders of priests, I am an editor and one of
Speaker 1: the shows that I work with is called This Is Uncomfortable.
Speaker 1: It's a podcast from Marketplace about life and how money
Speaker 1: messes with it. And each week, our host, Riva Grace
Speaker 1: digs into stories about the unanticipated ways that money shapes
Speaker 1: our choices, our relationships, and even our identities. In this episode,
Speaker 1: which is one of my favorites, she's joined by writer
Speaker 1: Hanif Abdura Kiev, who talks about the moral judgments that
Speaker 1: we're quick to make about people's financial circumstances and his
Speaker 1: notions behind success and legacy and what it means to
Speaker 1: be a good person versus a bad person in a
Speaker 1: deeply unequal world. If you enjoy this episode, you should
Speaker 1: definitely check the podcast out. You can find more episodes
Speaker 1: of This Is Uncomfortable wherever you listen to podcasts. Without
Speaker 1: further ado, Here's Rema and This is Uncomfortable.
Speaker 2: You know there is a real difference between being broke
Speaker 2: and being poor. For me to say I'm broke me
Speaker 2: you know, I had a couple bad days of dinner.
Speaker 2: I don't really got it right now, but I'm working
Speaker 2: on Saturday, and I'm certainly going to make something, you know,
Speaker 2: and to be poor for me when I was like
Speaker 2: unhoused and it was like I genuinely do not know.
Speaker 2: I can maybe get a little bit of a meal today,
Speaker 2: but I don't know if I can get one tomorrow.
Speaker 2: That is a prolonged experience, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3: That's writer Hanif abdra Keep. Around the time he was
Speaker 3: twenty three, he lost his job and got evicted from
Speaker 3: his apartment in Columbus, Ohio. He didn't have anywhere to go,
Speaker 3: so he had to get creative.
Speaker 2: When I was evicted, I had enough money to get
Speaker 2: a storage unit for like three months, and I didn't
Speaker 2: have much, you know, it was only what I could carry, really,
Speaker 2: you know. So I took like a nightstand and I
Speaker 2: dragged a mattress over and a lamp and a box
Speaker 2: of clothes, and that was what I had. That was
Speaker 2: all I had. And of course you're not supposed to
Speaker 2: sleep in the storage unit's I think it's illegal, or
Speaker 2: it's illegal in the sense that it puts the storage
Speaker 2: facility in a position of liability. Is yeah, which is understandable,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean. So I would have to
Speaker 2: wait until they closed, and then I'd have to kind
Speaker 2: of sneak into my unit and I would sleep there.
Speaker 3: Well, I'm curious at that time, did the people in
Speaker 3: your life know or did you keep it a secret?
Speaker 2: I kept it largely a secret. It was easy to
Speaker 2: keep secret, you know, in part because my storage unit
Speaker 2: was right by my old apartment, and so I could
Speaker 2: just still have people drop me off at my apartment
Speaker 2: or whatever, and then I would just walk over.
Speaker 3: Wow, when they were like driving away, you would just wait.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no one really knew. And I still had a
Speaker 2: gym membership and so I could shower every now and
Speaker 2: and you know, it made my life a lot more challenging,
Speaker 2: but it was there. I could hide it. There is
Speaker 2: ways I could hide it and maneuver it. And I
Speaker 2: think when people talk about eviction, what doesn't often get
Speaker 2: talked about is how much it takes to rebuild a
Speaker 2: life after eviction. It takes a lot to rebuild a life.
Speaker 2: It takes a lot to say. I had many things
Speaker 2: and now I have nothing, and I have to find
Speaker 2: a way to crawl back towards having things again. That
Speaker 2: part is hard. That part is a real challenge.
Speaker 3: Welcome to this is uncomfortable. I'm Ri Mares. On today's show,
Speaker 3: a wide ranging conversation with Hannef Updoor Keep. Hanef is
Speaker 3: an award winning poet and author, probably from Columbus, Ohio.
Speaker 3: He's written six books, several of them best sellers, including
Speaker 3: his latest book, There's Always This Year. In twenty twenty one,
Speaker 3: he was named a MacArthur Fellow, which is often called
Speaker 3: the Genius Award. I've spent the last few months reading
Speaker 3: Hanif's work, and so much of it has resonated with me,
Speaker 3: like I found myself underlining nearly every page. He writes
Speaker 3: about things like basketball, music, pop culture, but whatever the topic,
Speaker 3: you'll usually find themes around grief, beauty and love, and
Speaker 3: everything is filtered through the lens of his personal life
Speaker 3: and community. On this week's episode, the first of our
Speaker 3: tenth season, I sit down with Hanef to learn more
Speaker 3: about his life. We chat about the moral judgments were
Speaker 3: quick to make about people's financial circumstances, his philosophies around giving,
Speaker 3: and we both get personal about our relationship with home
Speaker 3: and what it means to invest in it. I took
Speaker 3: a lot away from our conversation, and I hope you
Speaker 3: all do too. So can you tell me about what
Speaker 3: else was going on in your life around the time
Speaker 3: that you got evicted.
Speaker 2: Yes, So I spent a lot of my early twenties
Speaker 2: and I would say mid twenties in and out of
Speaker 2: Franklin County corrections. I was, you know, in legal trouble
Speaker 2: a lot, usually for theft and things associated with theft.
Speaker 2: And you know, that was challenging for me because a
Speaker 2: lot of it was just due to needing resources and
Speaker 2: needing money, and so my twenties were an infinity loop
Speaker 2: of this kind of struggle. You know. My earliest issues
Speaker 2: stemmed from like stealing things from the house, you know,
Speaker 2: and so there was a way where I kind of
Speaker 2: put myself in a position where my family there was
Speaker 2: like excommunication, but it was for their own protection. You know.
Speaker 2: It's kind of like, we just can't have you around it.
Speaker 2: This is how you're going to behaving, you know, which,
Speaker 2: of course now makes all the sense in the world
Speaker 2: to me. But remember being young, even though I knew
Speaker 2: that my behavior was that my behavior was, you know,
Speaker 2: causing this, And remember being young and feeling like deeply wronged.
Speaker 3: You know, yeah, of course, yeah.
Speaker 2: You know, which is ridiculous in hindsight, but you know that's.
Speaker 3: That's well at the time, what was the story you
Speaker 3: told yourself about why you were stealing from your family
Speaker 3: or wherever else?
Speaker 2: I remember just needing and wanting more things in order
Speaker 2: to feel to kind of keep up with my friends,
Speaker 2: you know, because once I got outside of the realm
Speaker 2: of my neighborhood once, you know, once I was eighteen nineteen,
Speaker 2: these kind of things, and I was outside of the
Speaker 2: realm of the people I grew up around. I was
Speaker 2: spending time with a different class of people who had
Speaker 2: different access to different things, and I didn't want to
Speaker 2: feel left out. You know. All these things feel foolish
Speaker 2: now as a forty year old, sure, but as a
Speaker 2: nineteen year old one, and like feeling like you're on
Speaker 2: the outside of something and wanting to find the quickest
Speaker 2: possible way to get on the inside of something that's
Speaker 2: real that you know, in knowing that I couldn't ask
Speaker 2: my father buy me like a three hundred dollars coat
Speaker 2: or whatever, you know, And so that.
Speaker 3: Was you would spend the money on sometimes or on
Speaker 3: like things materialistic stuff.
Speaker 2: Oh it always materialistic. Say it's not like I was saving,
Speaker 2: you know. It was always like materialistic things and just
Speaker 2: wanting to keep up with with the people around me,
Speaker 2: because honestly, I think I felt left out a lot,
Speaker 2: and that accelerated in my twenties when I came up
Speaker 2: on the punk scene and a lot of my friends.
Speaker 2: You know, I lost a lot of friends in my
Speaker 2: early twenties, and you know a lot of them passed away,
Speaker 2: and I felt left out and I just wanted to
Speaker 2: kind of embed myself in a world where I mattered
Speaker 2: to some degree. And I think the mistake that I
Speaker 2: fell into was thinking that or you know, mistake, but
Speaker 2: also there was a reality to it, thinking that access
Speaker 2: to materials was the only way that I could embed
Speaker 2: myself in a place in a world that mattered. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, did it actually lead to any fulfillment? Liked it?
Speaker 1: Not?
Speaker 2: Really?
Speaker 3: You feel the need that you were craving, Yeah, I.
Speaker 2: Think in the immediate short But it also led to
Speaker 2: friendships that were not sustainable. So I still talk to
Speaker 2: those friends now, you know, because when friendships, I think
Speaker 2: are governed by material access, that's just not sustainable. There's
Speaker 2: no emotional connection or attachment. There's no growth or understanding
Speaker 2: around who people are. There's growth and understanding around what
Speaker 2: you have and what you don't have, and so when
Speaker 2: you begin to not have that, you're kind of not
Speaker 2: in that orbit anymore. And so yeah, you know, it's
Speaker 2: it's it's interesting. It's just a flaw of childhood or
Speaker 2: youthful thinking. You know, I was, I was My approach
Speaker 2: was pretty immature at the time, and I think that's
Speaker 2: you know, that's just that's where my head was at.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I relate to that. I feel like
Speaker 3: I did stupid stuff in my early twenties too, And
Speaker 3: it's your it's like all in pursuit of just getting
Speaker 3: what you want without thinking of the consequences or the
Speaker 3: potential fallout. You're just trying to get that immediate gratification.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, when did the shift away from that start happening
Speaker 3: for you? And how did it happen?
Speaker 2: You know, what happens is that you know you're just
Speaker 2: you're not like a better person, You're just a more
Speaker 2: for me at least you know. I think so much
Speaker 2: of the stuff around this book are people reading it
Speaker 2: and thinking you were bad and now you're good or whatever,
Speaker 2: But that's not actually how it works. You become more resourced,
Speaker 2: and it puts me in this position where I do
Speaker 2: have to operate against this notion of a bad kid
Speaker 2: made good kind of story that I think people so
Speaker 2: easily and eagerly want to attach to my life because one,
Speaker 2: that binary fails everyone. But two, I don't know that
Speaker 2: I was bad then. I don't know that I'm good now.
Speaker 2: I think that I have more access to things now.
Speaker 2: I have more access to resources of all across the
Speaker 2: entire spectrums now, and that access allows me to live
Speaker 2: a life that is different than the life I lived
Speaker 2: when I did not have that access. And if I
Speaker 2: did not have that access right now, I don't know
Speaker 2: what you know. I don't know what ends I would
Speaker 2: go to to acquire that access. Here's the very last
Speaker 2: time I was ever arrested. I was arrested for stealing
Speaker 2: deodorant a toothpaste out of a Kroger. Right now, I
Speaker 2: was arrested for stealing Yoda and toothpaste out of a Kroger.
Speaker 2: Because I had a job interview the next day, and
Speaker 2: I didn't have the things I needed to take care
Speaker 2: of myself to you know, and now, that arrest for
Speaker 2: most people would be nothing, but because I had an
Speaker 2: extensive record at that point, it became a thing, right.
Speaker 2: And what I'm saying is that was a theft in
Speaker 2: the pursuit of acquiring necessities that might lead to a
Speaker 2: drastic changing of my life. There is no telling if
Speaker 2: I were unhoused today and I had a potentially life
Speaker 2: changing job interview tomorrow and I didn't have access to
Speaker 2: the things I needed to show up to the interview
Speaker 2: as my best self in terms of presentation, I very
Speaker 2: well may go into a store and attempt to walk
Speaker 2: out with those things again today. So and I don't
Speaker 2: think that makes me a bad person or a good person.
Speaker 2: I think it makes me a person who is invested
Speaker 2: in the best possible survival for myself. And I'm grateful
Speaker 2: to be significantly more resourced now than I was.
Speaker 3: So when did you start to feel more resourced? Like,
Speaker 3: was there a point that you reached where it felt
Speaker 3: like a shift for you? Like I never imagined I
Speaker 3: would make X amount and now I do. And I
Speaker 3: can breathe a little bit easier.
Speaker 2: There was never an amount, I think, But I remember
Speaker 2: signing my first book deal with Random House, and I
Speaker 2: don't I just want I don't even remember what it
Speaker 2: was for, like money wise, but I remember thinking, gosh,
Speaker 2: this is like a different experience, you know, to get
Speaker 2: this much money at once, you know. And it wasn't huge.
Speaker 2: It wasn't like certainly not a million dollar type thing,
Speaker 2: you know, it wasn't anything like that, but I remember
Speaker 2: it was you know, I see it was like two
Speaker 2: hundred thousand or something like that. But I remember I
Speaker 2: signed it and I got fifty thousand. I was signing,
Speaker 2: and I remember thinking, oh wow, this is like all
Speaker 2: in my bank account once. Yeah, you know, like that's
Speaker 2: a lot of money at once in a bank account.
Speaker 2: And of course, you know, for me, I was like,
Speaker 2: all right, well, taxes and you know whatnot whatnot. But
Speaker 2: it was still even with that, it was like, this
Speaker 2: is still a lot of money in my bank acount once.
Speaker 2: And so yeah. But I mean, you know, throughout my career,
Speaker 2: I've won things and that, you know. I remember I
Speaker 2: won the US Artist Grant, which was the first thing
Speaker 2: I won that had a substantial financial gain, which is
Speaker 2: also fifty thousand dollars. And that was another thing where
Speaker 2: I was like, well, this is a lot of money
Speaker 2: I kount once and and with that fifty thousand dollars,
Speaker 2: I gave it all away.
Speaker 3: Except for like five wait, tell me about that. Why
Speaker 3: do you make that decision?
Speaker 2: The USA Artist grant, it's like funded by certain orgs
Speaker 2: in some ways. And so my my grant was funded
Speaker 2: by a Muslim organization and a local mashiait in Ohio
Speaker 2: that I knew, and it spent time in its floor
Speaker 2: had collapsed, and I you know, I'm not very religious
Speaker 2: to be you know, I'm Muslim by I guess identify
Speaker 2: as Muslim, but I don't practice in any substantial way.
Speaker 3: But we have a similar relationship. I also grow up Muslim.
Speaker 2: Yeah you know, I like do Ramadan, I do I
Speaker 2: fast and all that was yeah, but it was like,
Speaker 2: you know, it felt important to me at the time
Speaker 2: to be like, you know, this money came from a
Speaker 2: Muslim organization, I would like to just relocate it and
Speaker 2: get this community's floor taken care of so that people
Speaker 2: can come and pray in here. Like I'm not going
Speaker 2: to go and pray in there probably often at all,
Speaker 2: but like people should. And so I redistributed that money
Speaker 2: I kept like five thousand, Wow, And then I did similar,
Speaker 2: you know, I got.
Speaker 3: Wait, that's pretty remarkable, though, to get that lump sum
Speaker 3: of money and then decide to give most of it away.
Speaker 3: Was there like a trade off that you were making,
Speaker 3: Like if you didn't donate that money, how else would
Speaker 3: you have spent it?
Speaker 2: Do you think I didn't have anything in mind at
Speaker 2: the time, you know? And that was the thing where
Speaker 2: it was like so much of my decision making around
Speaker 2: how I redistribute money and why and to whom and
Speaker 2: all this stuff is just really on some baseline stuff
Speaker 2: where it's like what would I be doing with this
Speaker 2: otherwise when I got The second big thing I got
Speaker 2: was the Landin Foundation fellowship, which I don't remember. I
Speaker 2: think that was one hundred and twenty five thousand, and
Speaker 2: I kind of I kept more of that, but I
Speaker 2: broke up a lot of that and like redistributed it
Speaker 2: large chunks of it to local Columbus organizations that I
Speaker 2: believed in. Be QUICK was one of them, Black Queer
Speaker 2: Intersectional Collective, these organizations that are doing on the groundwork
Speaker 2: that are uplifting people at the margins. To me, that
Speaker 2: is more important than like, you know, I don't really
Speaker 2: need another pair of sneakers, you know what I mean?
Speaker 2: Like at this point, I have more more sneakers, and
Speaker 2: then you know, like I have a literal sneaker room
Speaker 2: in my house. So there's things where it's like I
Speaker 2: have a yeah, And I've found out very early on that,
Speaker 2: especially coming out of a situation where I was on house,
Speaker 2: I just I don't really need a lot. The amount
Speaker 2: that I actually require to survive, even to survive well financially,
Speaker 2: still leaves me with a lot of I towards thinking
Speaker 2: about what my community needs and how I can make
Speaker 2: a more equitable community that I feel proud to love
Speaker 2: and live in, and that everyone has at least the
Speaker 2: opportunity to attempt to feel proud to love and live in.
Speaker 3: I think your philosophy is very common, but I think
Speaker 3: for someone to actually act on it is a different thing.
Speaker 3: Because I understand that you have all of your needs fulfilled,
Speaker 3: but there are plenty of people out there who'd use
Speaker 3: that disposable income to travel to Bali or Japan or whever,
Speaker 3: or you know, buy a second home and just build well,
Speaker 3: but that doesn't seem that doesn't drive you.
Speaker 2: I'd be at the house. I like being at the house.
Speaker 2: I can't. You know. I travel, and I travel substantially
Speaker 2: for work and so and I try to make the
Speaker 2: most of my time when I'm on the road, you know,
Speaker 2: and I don't. I don't have a desire for I
Speaker 2: absolutely do not want to be responsible for a second
Speaker 2: home or a second you know what I mean, Like
Speaker 2: my my single home causes me. And you know, I
Speaker 2: have I live in like a very I live in
Speaker 2: like one of the last historically black neighborhoods in the city,
Speaker 2: and so the houses are just old, they're just ancient. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and I adore my house, but it's like, you know,
Speaker 2: it's a house.
Speaker 3: It's a lot of work.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like nineteen oh two, you know.
Speaker 3: So it's like, yeah, I know, I live in a
Speaker 3: house that's old. It's too much work.
Speaker 2: It's too so much work. So like whenever people are like,
Speaker 2: you should get like a second home, and like.
Speaker 3: Do y'all understand how about retirement?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I you know, I save for retirement.
Speaker 2: I actually recently started saving for retirement after my first MacArthur.
Speaker 3: Year a chunk of money, right that a war where yeah.
Speaker 2: It's and it's like gradual, you get it like through
Speaker 2: five years. But I went to like a financial it's ah, gosh,
Speaker 2: I don't know what the total is, but I know
Speaker 2: that four times a year I get thirty two thousand,
Speaker 2: five hundred dollars. Wow, So for five years. So whatever
Speaker 2: the math on that is, I think it's like.
Speaker 3: Okay, a lot of money.
Speaker 2: Yeah, But I you know, I started saving for retirement,
Speaker 2: and I don't know anything about the investment space, and
Speaker 2: so much of what I hear and understand about investments
Speaker 2: feels like a little gross to me, and so like
Speaker 2: all I really need is retirement, and you know, I
Speaker 2: still save. It's not like I don't want to paint
Speaker 2: it as though I don't spend money for pleasure. Like
Speaker 2: literally people have to understand like I literally own like
Speaker 2: three hundred pairs of sneakers and so you know what
Speaker 2: I mean. Like, but for me it feels important too
Speaker 2: instead of saying like when can I take my next
Speaker 2: vacation or can I invest in crypto or whatever? But
Speaker 2: it's like what are the immediate needs of my community?
Speaker 2: And it's not even entirely selfless, if I can be
Speaker 2: real because I love Columbus and I want to be
Speaker 2: in Columbus for my whole life, right, and so if
Speaker 2: this community is equitable, and if the people who are
Speaker 2: at the margins of this community that I love have
Speaker 2: opportunities to make art and live a little bit more
Speaker 2: free than they are right now and have the ability
Speaker 2: to care for themselves, that makes it a more livable
Speaker 2: city for me too, you know what I mean, Like,
Speaker 2: if I wanted to look at this in a completely
Speaker 2: selfish way, that makes it a more exciting, more thrilling,
Speaker 2: more livable city for me, and a city that also
Speaker 2: inspires me to create more fully. And so in a way, now,
Speaker 2: granted I'm not looking at it like this fully, but
Speaker 2: in a way, I'm just investing in the future of
Speaker 2: a place that I want to be in for a
Speaker 2: long time. I'm just doing it differently than say, the
Speaker 2: powers that be might because the powers that be are like,
Speaker 2: let's build high rise condos that no one can afford. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: And that to me is you know, I have to
Speaker 2: operate against that. If I have the means to operate against.
Speaker 3: That, I see, Well, yeah, that's a big theme in
Speaker 3: your writing and your reflections, just your investment in your hometown.
Speaker 3: And I'm curious to hear you talk a little bit
Speaker 3: more about your decision to stay in Columbus and how
Speaker 3: it connects to how you define success and what it
Speaker 3: means to quote unquote make it. You write in your
Speaker 3: book that oftentimes people equate leaving a hometown leaving where
Speaker 3: you're from as as making it, and you're trying to
Speaker 3: challenge that notion, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I suppose. So. You know, it's funny thesision of
Speaker 2: stay in Columbus is really not spectacular. You know, when
Speaker 2: my marriage ended in twenty sixteen, I could have lived anywhere,
Speaker 2: but I just wanted to come home. I wanted to
Speaker 2: be in the confines and comforts of this place where
Speaker 2: I was. And it's disorienting to go through that magnitude
Speaker 2: of a heartbreak at that velocity in that volume, and
Speaker 2: to come home is a way for me, at least
Speaker 2: to return to myself. And so coming back to Columbus
Speaker 2: is the only thing that made sense, and staying here
Speaker 2: has been the only thing that makes sense. And you know,
Speaker 2: buying my house where I bought my house was very intentional.
Speaker 2: I wanted to live in this neighborhood where black artists
Speaker 2: had created art for a great many years before I
Speaker 2: was even born. You know, the neighborhood I live in
Speaker 2: has a legacy attached to it and a lineage attached
Speaker 2: to it. And so all of these were really distinct
Speaker 2: decisions that I made to build a life that the
Speaker 2: kind of life that I thought I could live in
Speaker 2: for a long time. And to me, that felt like
Speaker 2: making it. To have the ability to do that, Yeah,
Speaker 2: it felt like making it, and to have the ability
Speaker 2: to be settled and comfortable while saying I think I
Speaker 2: am making the right decision here for these specific reasons,
Speaker 2: that felt to me like a form of making it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I appreciate that reflection. I think. For a long time,
Speaker 3: especially in my twenties, the story I fed myself was
Speaker 3: that staying in your hometown will dim you, like your
Speaker 3: home is this vortex that'll sap you of your ambition
Speaker 3: or of any prospect of successful life, whatever that means.
Speaker 3: And I remember feeling that very distinctly in my early twenties.
Speaker 3: I lived in DC in New York for a bit,
Speaker 3: and then afterwards the only job I could find was
Speaker 3: in my home state in North Carolina, and I just
Speaker 3: remember rolling my suitcase into my childhood bedroom, just sobbing,
Speaker 3: feeling like I'd reverted. And it took me a while
Speaker 3: before I started to reframe it, like, no, this is
Speaker 3: an opportunity for me, I mean, not to the degree
Speaker 3: that you are, but to invest in my community and
Speaker 3: my family, to develop a stronger relationship with my little brother,
Speaker 3: And it really did cultivate I think, a deeper love
Speaker 3: and curiosity for a place that informs so much of
Speaker 3: who I am today.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think, like listen, to have a good relationship
Speaker 2: with your hometown is not promised at all, and it
Speaker 2: feels like a privilege to me that I love where
Speaker 2: I'm from and even when I'm enraged by it, as
Speaker 2: I am often, but I think that rage is propelled
Speaker 2: by a kind of affection. And I would like everyone
Speaker 2: to have an opportunity to love this place as I
Speaker 2: love it, even if they end up not loving it
Speaker 2: as I do, I would love them to have the
Speaker 2: opportunity to.
Speaker 3: After the break, Haneph and I talk about community, Gaza
Speaker 3: and Greek. Hanif up de Riki will tell you that
Speaker 3: he never intended to become a writer. He came into
Speaker 3: it in his early twenties. During that tough period in
Speaker 3: his life. He started out journaling and then found his
Speaker 3: way to poetry open mics, then landed a writing gig
Speaker 3: for MTV News. He published his first book in twenty sixteen,
Speaker 3: thinking it would be a one off, but five more followed. Today,
Speaker 3: if you walk around his hometown of Columbus, Ohio, you'll
Speaker 3: find Hanif's face on a huge mural downtown. One writer
Speaker 3: even described him as the mister Rogers of Columbus. The
Speaker 3: city shows up a lot in Hanif's work. It's a
Speaker 3: place with the history of racial inequality and also a
Speaker 3: rich legacy of black art. I asked Tony what it
Speaker 3: was like growing up there.
Speaker 2: I grew up on the east side of Columbus, which
Speaker 2: was very much on the other side of the tracks
Speaker 2: from a wealthy and affluent suburb, and that self imposed
Speaker 2: border made it as though there was a city within
Speaker 2: a city. It was a city that, you know, a
Speaker 2: corner of the city that was often neglected by those
Speaker 2: on the outside of it. But it was I think
Speaker 2: what people don't tend to understand is what then happens
Speaker 2: in that kind of container of neglect. If you will,
Speaker 2: is that the people who remain deeply care for each other.
Speaker 2: And that is you know, the earliest way that I
Speaker 2: understood community was through that neighborhood.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, especially a place that I think you write
Speaker 3: in your book how politicians in the past have characterized
Speaker 3: the East Side of Columbus where you grew up, as
Speaker 3: a war zone. Yes, talk about why it was important
Speaker 3: for you to write about that and the impact like
Speaker 3: those kinds of statements can have on a community.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, because when you name the conditions of war,
Speaker 2: you can define where it happens. And then when you
Speaker 2: define where it happens, you are also defining the kind
Speaker 2: of people who are living among it as you at
Speaker 2: least see it. And what is actually happening is you are,
Speaker 2: in the eyes of the people who do not live there,
Speaker 2: are diminishing a place, the actual value of a place,
Speaker 2: not necessarily material value, but shore material value as well,
Speaker 2: because what you're doing is setting a path for gentrification. Yep,
Speaker 2: you're saying this place is not worthwhile and wouldn't it
Speaker 2: be better if we just made some changes to it?
Speaker 2: And what's also happening is you are diminishing the lived
Speaker 2: reality of the people who live in that place, in
Speaker 2: love in that place. When I was growing up, that
Speaker 2: my neighborhood did not seem uniquely violent to me because
Speaker 2: we took care of each other. But through one way,
Speaker 2: we took care of each other. So we just kept
Speaker 2: the police out, you know, And that operates as a
Speaker 2: threat to the state. That operates as a threat, and
Speaker 2: so then the place becomes a war zone because the
Speaker 2: police cannot govern it. It's also a failure of imagination
Speaker 2: because you don't imagine that the people are governing themselves,
Speaker 2: because you don't imagine that there is an elder on
Speaker 2: a porch somewhere governing the children running through the street,
Speaker 2: and there's an elder two blocks down who's teaching a
Speaker 2: lesson on a porch to some kids who have lost
Speaker 2: their way a bit. That is a type of governance,
Speaker 2: and it is a governance that is rooted in actual care.
Speaker 2: And to extract that from a place where there is
Speaker 2: deep affection and deep care and deep thoughtfulness and say,
Speaker 2: since the state cannot enter here, it is too dangerous,
Speaker 2: and this is where war happens, and this place has
Speaker 2: to be demolished and rebuilt in a different image that
Speaker 2: is treasonous to the realities of affection that really undergird
Speaker 2: people living in communities that are insular and that are
Speaker 2: often neglected until they can be up rooted.
Speaker 3: You know, hearing you talk about this, it's hard for
Speaker 3: me to not hear that and think about Gazam. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and you know, I've shared this with our listeners. I'm
Speaker 3: Palestinian American. My parents grew up in Gaza and immigrant
Speaker 3: to the States when I was born, but most of
Speaker 3: our relatives are still there. And yeah, hearing your reflections,
Speaker 3: it's hard. It's you know, I'm making these connections of
Speaker 3: how I think those in power were quick to cast
Speaker 3: the place as evil or as dangerous, a place devoid
Speaker 3: of any nuanced or texture. And I think to your point,
Speaker 3: when you attach such uncompromising labels to a place, then
Speaker 3: you know, it's like what you said, that becomes how
Speaker 3: you describe the people as well. It justifies violence, and
Speaker 3: those I think who survive become the exception. And it's
Speaker 3: really just on a personal level, like maddening upsetting as
Speaker 3: someone who spent time in Gaza, someone who with people
Speaker 3: I love in Gaza, for it to be perceived in
Speaker 3: such a crude light, you know, we don't hear about
Speaker 3: the joy, about the communion, about their unbelievable generosity, or
Speaker 3: the beauty of their neighborhoods before they collapsed into rubble. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and I just really appreciate, Yeah, I appreciate all of
Speaker 3: your reflections around this, because I feel like a theme
Speaker 3: of your writing has been finding and naming the beauty
Speaker 3: in places like Gaza or Columbus.
Speaker 2: You know, well, one, thank you for sharing that, and
Speaker 2: I'm sorry to hear about your family. And I thanks.
Speaker 2: When I was getting put on to to just the
Speaker 2: Paliestandian resistance movement and life in Palestine and Gaza specifically,
Speaker 2: I got the book A Homey of Mine, and this
Speaker 2: was years and years ago, passed me the book Enemy
Speaker 2: of the Sun, which is I don't know, the other
Speaker 2: book of Palestinian resistance poetry, and I remember loving that
Speaker 2: book because it reframed for me. Yes, it is certainly
Speaker 2: a book of Razil's poetry, for sure, but a lot
Speaker 2: of those poems are also just like look at my
Speaker 2: beautiful neighborhood, Like I will walk you to the edge
Speaker 2: of what my neighborhood looked like once, or how beautiful
Speaker 2: that I get to wake up and make a meal
Speaker 2: with someone I love. It's this kind of very interiority
Speaker 2: of a life, right, this interior life that says things
Speaker 2: were not always as you imagine them, or things are
Speaker 2: not always as you witness them, and therefore we are
Speaker 2: full people. I think one of the many things that's
Speaker 2: devastated me in the past several months is a decimation
Speaker 2: of land that people have cared for, because when you
Speaker 2: love a place, you care for it.
Speaker 3: Something that your work has made me think more deeply
Speaker 3: about is just how these places can live within us,
Speaker 3: even as the scenery or the architecture changes, you know,
Speaker 3: the case of Gaza, despite how many homes and hospitals
Speaker 3: and schools and places of worship have been demolished. I've
Speaker 3: been thinking about how you can't destroy a person's connection
Speaker 3: to a place. And I think I saw you wrote
Speaker 3: somewhere that a place where is the legacy of what
Speaker 3: happened there? Yes, that the people who live there where
Speaker 3: that legacy. And I thought that was really beautiful, that
Speaker 3: the architecture of a place are the people. And I've
Speaker 3: been holding on to that idea. I find it very comforting.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think people survive even when they don't survive,
Speaker 2: you know, like there are ways that people survive in
Speaker 2: a place even when they have been built on top
Speaker 2: of or erased or I think people survive even when
Speaker 2: they don't survive. And I think it is on the
Speaker 2: living in some ways to make sure that people survive
Speaker 2: even when they don't. Yes, in Gaza, but also every
Speaker 2: you know, everywhere that Yeah, I think I think about this.
Speaker 2: I mean the very much, And of course I'm not
Speaker 2: comparing gentrification to any but I'm saying like, there are
Speaker 2: ways that I feel respond in my writing to keep
Speaker 2: alive the people who either have who have died, or
Speaker 2: who have been pushed even further to margins that they
Speaker 2: cannot you know what I mean, that are to the
Speaker 2: point where they've been almost erased. And so, yeah, people
Speaker 2: have to survive even when they don't physically survive in
Speaker 2: a place.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is a bit of a pivot, but somewhat
Speaker 3: connected to what we're talking about. You write a lot
Speaker 3: about the passage of time and our mortality, which are
Speaker 3: things that have especially been on my mind lately, and
Speaker 3: I'm curious how reflecting so deeply, you know, the fact
Speaker 3: that you reflect so deeply on how our time on
Speaker 3: this earth is limited. How that impacts your approach to
Speaker 3: your work.
Speaker 2: Well, it does imbue it with a real urgency. I
Speaker 2: think I love the writer Greg Tate, who I missed dearly.
Speaker 2: He wrote everything like it was his last thing, every review,
Speaker 2: every email, every you know, there was this real understanding
Speaker 2: of whether or not you like it. You are operating
Speaker 2: in a lineage, and so that means that you, as
Speaker 2: a culture worker, artist, writer, whatever, have a responsibility to
Speaker 2: someone beyond yourself, and you have a responsibility that will
Speaker 2: trail behind you ideally when you're gone. And to me,
Speaker 2: that is a great task to live up to. And
Speaker 2: I could not live up to that task if I
Speaker 2: were frivolous or flippant about the passage of time. Instead,
Speaker 2: I have to tell myself that, you know, any day
Speaker 2: could be the last day. Which doesn't mean that I'm
Speaker 2: moping around thinking about death all the time, but it
Speaker 2: does mean that I have a real interest in living
Speaker 2: a life that will allow me to go to the
Speaker 2: grave satisfied knowing that if I step back and look
Speaker 2: at the full body of work of my life, not
Speaker 2: just my artistic work, my actual living. If I have
Speaker 2: risen to the occasion where I loved people the best
Speaker 2: I could, to the best of my ability more often
Speaker 2: than that. Yeah, that is a level of satisfaction I
Speaker 2: can be I can be cool with.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I think it's something that's been on my mind,
Speaker 3: you know, Uh, just experiencing so much grief this last year.
Speaker 3: I think it has shifted a lot within me. And
Speaker 3: I think, you know, anytime you lose people you love,
Speaker 3: it has the potential to shift your perspective on what matters.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's cliche, but it's true. You know, I
Speaker 3: personally just don't feel as hungry as I did before
Speaker 3: to achieve the more conventional markers of success, Like it
Speaker 3: feels more important to me that I'm driven by internal motivators,
Speaker 3: that I act in a way that are inmcordant with
Speaker 3: my values. I read somewhere that you have an ambivalent
Speaker 3: relationship with success. What do you mean by that?
Speaker 2: I mean, I just don't think about it a lot.
Speaker 2: I can't control how well my books do. I can't
Speaker 2: control what jobs come up for me or what jobs
Speaker 2: don't come up for me. I can't control any awards,
Speaker 2: and to get caught up in that would be I
Speaker 2: think somewhat treasonous to my ability to write freely, to
Speaker 2: think freely, to really take risks, to take actual risks
Speaker 2: in my work. You know, I think if I think
Speaker 2: too heavily about success and I become beholden to these
Speaker 2: ideas of success, that I think would diminish my ability
Speaker 2: to connect with people. And so much of my work
Speaker 2: is I think, driven towards connecting with people.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's what's important to you. Absolutely, this has been
Speaker 3: a great conversation. I really appreciate you going to so
Speaker 3: many different.
Speaker 2: Places with me, for sure. Thanks for the time.
Speaker 3: That was Poet and writer Hanifep Dora, Kiev. You should
Speaker 3: check out his latest book, it's called There's Always This Year.
Speaker 3: All Right. That is all for our show this week.
Speaker 3: If you have any thoughts about this episode or just
Speaker 3: want to shoot us a note, you can always email
Speaker 3: me and the team at Uncomfortable at marketplace dot org.
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Speaker 3: There's always great recommendations in there for things to listen
Speaker 3: to or cook or watch. And this week I'm writing
Speaker 3: about what we have in store this season, so be
Speaker 3: sure to check that out. And we have a special
Speaker 3: Defend your Splurge from Haniff on how he budgets a
Speaker 3: nice treat for himself every month. You can sign up
Speaker 3: for the newsletter at marketplace dot org slash Comfort. This
Speaker 3: episode was lead produced by Zoe Sunders and hosted by
Speaker 3: me Rie Machres. We wrote the script together. The episode
Speaker 3: got additional support from producer Alice Wilder. Zoe Sanders is
Speaker 3: our senior producer. Our editor is Jasmine Romero. Sound design
Speaker 3: and audio engineering by Drew Jostad. Bridget Badner is marketplaces
Speaker 3: Director of Podcasts. Caitlin esh is our supervising senior producer.
Speaker 3: Francesca Levy is the executive director of Digital. Neil Scarborough
Speaker 3: is Vice president and general manager of Marketplace. And our
Speaker 3: theme music is by Wonder Lady. All right, we'll catch
Speaker 3: y'all next week.
Speaker 2: Yo, I'd be at the house. I like being at
Speaker 2: the house. I can't you know, You're like nope.