- [Announcer] Funding for
Overhead with Evan Smith
is provided in part
by Hillco Partners,
a Texas Government
Affairs Consultancy,
and by Claire and Carl Stuart.
- I'm Evan Smith.
She's a veteran
journalist, commentator,
and social media phenom
who hosts the Crooked Media
Podcast With Friends Like These.
She's Ana Marie Cox,
this is Overheard.
(electronic music)
(applause)
- [Evan Voiceover]
Let's be honest.
Is this about the
ability to learn,
or is this about the experience
of not having been
taught properly?
How have you avoided
what has befallen
other nations in Africa.
- And you could say that
he made his own bed,
but you caused him
to sleep in it.
- [Evan Voiceover] You saw
a problem and, over time,
took it on.
(audience laughter)
- Let's start with the sizzle
before we get to the steak.
Are you gonna run for president?
I think I just got an
F from you actually.
(audience laughter)
(applause)
- [Evan] Ana, hi.
- [Ana] Hello, Evan.
- [Evan] Always better
when I'm with you.
- Aww, thank you!
- Aww.
- [Ana] I love
being with you, too!
- Good to see you.
So I wanna ask you a question
that I probably should have
asked you 15 years ago.
What's the secret to
interviewing somebody?
I probably could have used--
(Ana laughing)
I probably could have used
this advice a long time ago,
but you've become incredibly
good at it on your podcast
and in the two years that
you did the back page
of the New York Times
Sunday Magazine.
I thought you had figured out
the secret to doing this right,
so share the secret with us.
- It's listening.
- That's it?
- I think so.
That's what my 20 years in
journalism has taught me.
- Right.
- If I had anything
to add to that,
it's something that kind of
goes along with listening,
and maybe it's more
important, actually.
Maybe this is the real
secret, which is curiosity.
To be genuinely
curious about someone.
- Regardless of the subject,
regardless of the person,
because not every interview,
we can't all interview
DJ Khaled every week.
I mean, the fact is, there
are individual people
who probably, by virtue
of their personality
or celebrity or accomplishments,
you think, "Oh, I'm psyched!
"I get to interview
that person!"
I woke up today and thought--
(Ana laughs)
"Ana! This is gonna
be a good day!"
But some days you know
it's more of a job.
- I've been blessed to be able
to shape the job a little bit
at the Times and
with the podcast
that my bar is, generally,
I have to be curious
about something
about this person.
- And you make the decision,
generally speaking,
- Yeah.
- About who you see.
- Yeah.
- You're not working
for somebody else;
you're working for you.
- Finally, right!
- Finally, right.
- I've actually been
working for myself
for a long time I guess.
- But in this respect,
you're setting the table
every week or every
interview in terms of who,
you can say yes or no.
- Right, and also,
I would point out
that DJ Khaled was one of
my most amazing interviews
that I've ever had because
he was so surprising.
- I know how much you enjoyed
that on, which is why--
- And so genuine,
and also I was genuinely
curious about him.
I'm old and didn't know much
about what the kids listen to,
so I kind of went
into that interview,
knowing he was a DJ (laughs).
It's in his name. (laughs)
- Helpful branding, right.
- Right, and knowing
he was on social media
but not knowing a
whole lot about him,
so I was genuinely curious.
And what was amazing
about that interview was
he was also genuinely
curious about me.
It was like this weird
thing where he was like,
why do I want to know this--
- I don't get that much,
by the way.
(audience laughts)
- Right, right, right, no,
but I think it speaks to him
as an interesting person.
- Sure, but he's
unusual in that respect.
- Yes.
- Because if someone
has a record to promote
or a book to promote
or a movie to promote,
they're on that script, right?
- Right, but he was genuinely
there for this interview,
which I think just
speaks, again,
to his kind of
unique star quality.
- I love the fact that you
wanted to interview him
because, in some respects,
the best job of the interviewer
is to put himself or herself
into the place of the
member of the audience.
- Right.
- Right?
You're there as
a proxy for them.
- That's another good
thing to remember,
but I will point
out that DJ Khaled,
one of the reasons he's a
little bit of an exception,
is because he was
genuinely famous.
Without doing the New
York Times back page,
is gonna be fine.
- He didn't need the New
York Times, right, yeah.
- But for the most part,
my editors there and I,
and on the podcast, I steer
away from the super famous
because I'm not usually
very curious about them.
- Well, the fact is we
know a lot about them
because they're super famous,
or maybe they're super famous
because we know a lot
about them or something.
- For whatever reason, I just
don't have a lot of curiosity.
I mean, there are
some famous people
whom I'm still
pretty curious about.
I would probably never turn
down an interview with Obama,
for instance.
- Yes.
(Ana and members of
audience laughing)
I can confirm, it
was interesting, yes.
- Yes, and also he plays his
cards so close to the vest.
- Right, if you think you're
in control of an interview
with Obama, you are nuts.
- Right.
(audience laughs)
And also, there's always
something to know about him.
He has some much he
hasn't said, right?
- [Evan] Correct, correct.
- That's what's
fascinating about him.
But for the most part,
the people I wanna talk to
are people that have
come across my radar
for whatever reason that have,
a lot of them, what
prompts my interest is,
they've experienced a
change in their lives,
a transformation in
their lives of some kind,
a conversion, an arc, a story.
And I wanna know how they
got from there to here.
- Right, process, not substance.
- Right.
- Yeah, I actually
think that's the--
- Well, that gets
you the substance.
- Well, of course it is.
- Yeah.
- Process is substance--
- Right.
- for purposes of this
discussion, but I love that
because you're not simply
looking at the thing
that's right here
and is obvious,
but you're saying,
"What's over here?"
And, again, some
people you interview
are willing to play that
game and some are not.
Sometimes you're playing tennis,
but sometimes you're
playing handball.
- Yes, and I can also
tell you, probably,
I could probably rattle
off some of the people
that were like
that, but I won't.
- I'll give you one
if you give me one.
We've both been doing
this a long time.
You name your handball
interview, I'll name mine.
- OK, just because I
think she's gonna be fine,
but it was really
difficult to interview
the head librarian of Congress
who's this wonderful woman.
- That was like the last person
I thought you were gonna say.
(audience laughs)
- But this is what was
interesting about her is
she's the first
African-American,
I think she might
be the first woman
who's the librarian of Congress.
- [Evan] Period?
- Period, first
African-American, period.
And she sticks to my mind
because she wanted to do
so well in that interview,
but she was just telling me
about the Library of Congress.
(laughing)
- And you couldn't get
her off of that, right?
- Right, and I wanted
to know her story,
but she seemed so, she was like,
and, I mean, I could name
a famous person, too,
but she sticks in my mind
because we were
both trying so hard.
We were trying to make
that interview work.
And she, fortunately,
was kind of interesting
just because of who she was.
- I love the fact that,
that's the one you mentioned!
'Cause there have to
be celebrities who,
it turned out,
didn't give a crap
about being interviewed.
- Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, sure.
- Right?
They just showed up, and they
were like, "Yeah, whatever,"
and they're looking
at their watch.
- She sticks in my mind
'cause it's one of the hardest
'cause there was no bad
feelings whatsoever,
and we were both trying so hard.
If someone wants to play along,
- Right.
- It's hard to have it go badly,
so that's the one
that sticks with me
because I feel like I
wanna fix that problem.
- But isn't it partly the
case that some of these folks,
celebrities in big quotes
'cause now the definition
of celebrity has morphed
over time, right?
People who you think should
be celebrities aren't,
and people who shouldn't be
celebrities absolutely are.
Part of the time it's them,
and part of the time
they've been trained.
- [Ana] Right.
- Right, it's not
the personality
is the resistant aspect to it.
It's just that they've
been told, "Don't do this.
"Stay on the leash."
And I think our job is
to get them to stray.
Our job is to get
them off the leash.
- Right, and I guess, hmm.
I'm trying to think of why.
I feel like I picked this
woman out of obscurity
to tell her, to say
she's a bad interview.
But, again, I'm thinking
about because that's the one
that I feel like I should have
been able to do something.
- Could have fixed it.
- Could have fixed it.
- Well, you know, we all
wanna fix everything, right?
That's it, that's
it, human nature.
- Yeah, but whereas
with some of these,
often I get to say,
"Well, it was them."
- Right.
- It was the celebrity that
didn't cooperate over there,
over-trained or whatever.
- Right.
- I mean, name most of the
celebrities I've interviewed,
the reason DJ
Khaled sticks out is
because he was so
genuinely there.
You know who else was
great is Allison Janney.
- You know, her personality
seems to suggest
that she'd be a
blast to talk to.
- And Rashida Jones also.
- Rashida Jones?
- There were people--
- You talked to Rashida
Jones about porn.
- Yeah!
- I remember that interview.
- Yeah, and we actually had
some stuff we couldn't use.
- Well.
(Ana and audience laughing)
The second half of my sentence
inevitably goes there,
I mean, now, come on!
- I don't think she would,
it was on the record!
It was just couldn't be
published in the New York Times.
- 'Cause the New York Times
is still the New York Times.
That's how that goes.
- Right, exactly.
- Do you have a white
whale as an interviewer?
Is there somebody you've not
been able to catch up to yet?
- Besides Obama,
um, Stephen King.
- He would be kind of weird
and interesting, wouldn't he?
- Yeah, well, he's in recovery,
which not a lot of
people know, I guess.
He's public about it,
but it's just not part of
the first thing you think of
when you think of Stephen King.
And I am also--
- As someone in recovery,
would you want to talk to
him necessarily about that?
Or absolutely you would want
to talk to him about that?
- Oh, I definitely
would come up.
- Yeah.
- 'Cause I'm interested,
so being in recovery
is like a lot of other
kind of semi-marginal identities
where you always have
your antennae up.
Like you're from Texas, right?
- Right, you're always--
- You're always,
who's from Texas.
- Right.
- So it's always something
that I'm paying attention to
in his interviews
and in his books.
I'm a huge fan, just a huge
fan of his writing as well,
and so I'm always very curious
about how he treats it.
He's one of the few authors
that I feel incorporates
some of the themes from
recovery really smoothly.
It's just like when it comes up,
it's just a part of the book.
- Can we all see it?
'Cause this is news to me.
I'm a Stephen King
reader and fan,
and I don't know that
my antennae was up.
- Right, I'm not sure if you
would see it as recovery,
which is maybe
part of the point,
but for instance...
- But it's thematic.
- Yeah, but like The Shining,
which he wrote when he was
still drinking and using,
is about alcoholism.
I mean, it is the
trope of the novel.
- I don't care what it's
about, it's so great.
- Oh, it's so great!
- Right, and it holds up.
- Right, but the thing is,
it's about how this guy
can't escape his demons.
- Correct.
- Right, he goes,
and actually there's stuff
in the big book of AA
that talks about going to Alaska
to try and hide from the bottle.
And so an Eskimo turns
up with some whiskey,
and that's like, I wonder
sometimes if he almost, if he,
well, he wasn't sober then,
so he wouldn't have been
able to get it from there.
- But you can see.
- But you can see
this, and then I also,
The Shining was one of
the first books I read
after I got sober, re-read it.
It was still frightening
in all the ways
that you would
think it would be,
but I remember the scene
where Jack walks in
to the Overlooks Bar
and it's all dusty,
and the chairs are up and
the tarps over everything.
Then he walks up to the bar,
and all of a sudden the bottles
appear glittering behind,
and it gives me chills even now.
- Yeah, oh god, that whole bar
thing. (dramatically exhales)
- But just the idea, like
you've done everything you can
to get away from this demon.
- [Evan] Can't, but you can't.
- It's right there.
- It's right there.
I wanna come back
to recovery and you
and your story in a
strange way to talk
about how that has changed
you professionally.
But I wanna talk
about the podcast
because talking about your
awesome interview skills,
back page of the New York Times,
and now particularly
the podcast.
With Friends Like These has
just posted, as we sit here,
the last episode of season one.
There will be a season two.
- Yes.
- This is part of an
empire of podcasts,
the Crooked Media podcasts,
Pod Save American, et cetera,
these former Obama
folks who have created,
I guess an empire,
there's nothing else,
I don't know what else
to say about them.
- A fiefdom.
- It's a fiefdom.
But you have been an
essential element of this,
and I wonder whether
the form or the format
feels to you like journalism.
Does it feel to you like the
work you were doing before?
What's the same about it?
What's different about it?
- I think of journalism as being
a thing you produce
and not a job title.
- Yep, that's right.
- Are we producing journalism?
I think so.
- Right, yeah.
It's the delivery mechanism
that's the difference.
- Right.
- But it works, and the fact is,
it didn't exist before,
when you started out.
That was the platform
available to you.
This platform now is available,
along with many others.
And that's one of
the nice things about
the work that we do.
There's many places
for us to do it.
- Right, I absolutely
love podcasting.
If I had known this was a
thing you could do before...
- [Evan] Right, DIY.
- Would have picked this, maybe.
I mean, it still existed.
I remember hearing
the word podcast
for the first time
sometime in the early 2000s
and thinking it
was a stupid name.
And I still kind of do
'cause it comes from iPod.
That's--
- That's the pod portion
of podcast, yes.
- That's the pod portion of it.
It was Apple trying to invent
a thing, and at first it--
- At the same time, though,
look what's happened.
You've joined, as
we said, a fiefdom,
- Yeah.
- Where they've
put the word pod.
- I know, isn't that crazy?
- Pod Save America, right?
- Yeah.
- I actually, you should
do Pod Bless Texas.
(audience laughs)
Don't you think?
- Pod Bless Texas?
I would be, I would, yes!
I mean, I like the
whole, I mean, I--
- Just put Pod in front of
everything, and it's better.
It's like salt, right?
- Yeah, I love it, I
think it's hilarious.
I would be happy to be,
Podsy the Pixels is one of the
ones we thought about, too,
like a video game
themed podcast.
- Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- And then if we wanted
to do one about faith,
it would just be like
pod you, like pod,
I don't know!
- It creates all kinds
of possibilities, yeah.
By necessity, by definition,
if you do a podcast,
and you are one of the
voices on the podcast,
aren't you a character
in every podcast
in a way that you
aren't necessarily
when you're doing
traditional reporting
or writing that's in print?
I don't think of the authorial
voice as such a feature
on the print side of this work,
but there's no way to avoid
it when you're right there.
- I think we're just
more aware of it.
- And I'm listening to you.
- We're just more aware of
it, it's always a part of it.
You know this as well as I do.
If you actually
work in journalism,
the voice of an author
you realize is a creation
and a character, right?
- Yeah.
- I remember, I just
saw Lawrence Wright
as a picture of him
up on your wall.
He's one of my favorite
authors, and it's his voice!
Which you may not think of as--
- It's sober and steady and
authoritative and credible,
and he probably doesn't think,
"I get up every day to
tend to that brand,"
- [Ana] Right.
- But it's there, it's organic.
- Right, but the point of a
lot of traditional journalism
is to have that voice be
invisible, but it's still there.
And you can tell
when it goes wrong.
- Right, and for a
long time, there was,
in our profession, Ana,
institutions told individuals,
you can't have a voice.
- What they meant was that you
need a really specific voice
that's almost invisible.
- Well, or you have
to somehow lean
into the institutional voice.
- Right.
- I think of, this is my,
when I talk about
social media people,
I say that, once upon a time,
only institutions had brands.
Individuals could
not have brands
distinct from the institution.
You had to subordinate
your individual brand
to the institution brand.
Today, individual brands
are the rocket boosters
that power institutional brands.
- Definitely.
- Not only is it acceptable,
it's a requirement that
everybody who comes to work
in an organization
that produces content,
you've got to have
an individual brand.
And that individual voice,
then, becomes so important.
And I come back to yours.
I know what I think
your voice is.
What do you think your voice is?
Is it a deliberate
decision on your part,
to craft the personae
that's on this podcast?
- It's not as deliberate
as, say, Wonkette was.
Wonkette was a character.
- Right, so for the
benefit of people
who are younger than--
- Right, yeah.
- 14 or whatever
who don't remember,
(Ana laughing)
Wonkette was, you were
OG political blog.
- [Ana] Right.
- You were, back in the day,
before everybody got in this
business where everybody
realized they could just
have their own thing,
you had your own thing.
- Right, and Wonkette
was, I used to say it was,
well, at the time, I actually
said it was drunk me,
which, mostly true
because I was drunk a lot.
- Hilarious!
(both laugh)
- Yeah, I know, I made so
many jokes about drinking
back when I was drinking.
I still make jokes
about drinking,
but they're just true now.
- But it was a very
insightful non-traditionally--
- Right.
- Crafted and created,
- Right.
- But very insightful
blog on the culture
of politics and Washington.
- And it was just kind of like
foul-mouthed and irreverent,
which is me, also, not drinking.
I'm still that today.
- Yeah.
- We'll get back to
the recovery part,
but I think what's interesting
about With Friend Like These
is that I'm more genuinely me.
I don't need a
character anymore.
- [Evan] Right, the
character is you.
- The character is me.
- Yep.
- And I feel like, I do feel
like it's a conversation
and not an interview.
- Yep.
- And that my presence
is a gift to...
that sounds so crazy, but I
don't mean like I'm a gift.
I just mean, to reveal some
of yourself is something
that a person can
offer an audience.
- Well, you've hit on something
that dovetails
back to your saying
that listening is the
most important element
of being an interviewer.
- Right.
- The best interviews, I
think, are conversations.
They're not interrogations.
- Right.
- Right, they're not
facilitated monologues.
- Right.
- They're conversations.
- And also, I think
that being present,
being truly present
for an interview,
the giving of yourself
encourages the other person
to give too, right?
- Right, that's true.
- To be vulnerable
encourages vulnerability,
and to be genuinely curious
encourages vulnerability.
But one of the ways that you
show genuine curiosity is
to lay your cards on the table,
to be like, this is
what I think I know.
- [Evan] Right.
- Can you tell me more?
- Yep.
- And I think that that
is, when that happens,
I'm not thinking about being
present as a character.
I'm thinking just--
- Right.
- What is this conversation
doing right now?
Oh, my god, I feel something
that is different in me
because of the things
that I've heard.
I feel like the best episodes
of With Friends Like These
have been episodes
where I have had to...
The theme of the show is
uncomfortable conversations.
One of the compliments
I get from listeners is
that I don't often
feel uncomfortable,
it doesn't feel
uncomfortable to them.
- To them.
- To them, and that's true.
I have some comfort with
discomfort, if that makes sense.
- Well, also, it certainly
seems like, in sometimes,
it feels uncomfortable to you.
- But that's when I
know it's really good.
- That's when it's working?
- That's when it's working.
- So here's the
comparison again.
I'm gonna make a comparison,
and I'm gonna use
Alec Baldwin again
because I think Alec Baldwin,
who has a longtime podcast
that originates out of WNYC
in New York called
Here's the Thing.
And it's an interview program,
and he's actually pretty good.
- Oh, yeah, yeah,
yeah, I think so.
- As far as it goes,
but he does not show
vulnerability or discomfort.
- Nooo!
- He shows only certainty.
- Yeah.
- He absolutely knows as much
as the people he interviews,
and that's part of his brand
is that he knows everything.
He is basically Jack
Donaghy from, right?
- Yeah, oh god, it's so hard
to tell the difference, yeah.
- Whereas Marc Maron--
- Right.
- Who has been doing the
podcast almost as long,
is all vulnerability.
- You know, all three
of us are in recovery.
- Well, see, there you go.
(Ana and audience laughing)
I didn't understand,
there's the theme!
But Marc Maron is
all discomfort,
and Marc Maron does not show up
knowing as much
as everybody else.
Or the person he interviews.
He only knows as
much as we know.
- [Ana] Right.
- And that curiosity, which
you said was the other
essential part of being
an interviewer is there
mostly because he
legitimately does not know.
- Right.
- And he's there on a quest,
which I think is great.
- Yeah, it's funny,
I try to figure it as
from a middle ground with that
'cause the Marc
Maron thing, he is,
I find it, I mean,
it's endearing, right?
It's what helps make his
show is that he's like,
"Yep, I don't know, I
don't know you very well."
Or "I only know what
I know about you."
- Which, by the way, is not
the same as not preparing.
- Right.
- Right.
- But I try to hit kind
of a middle ground.
- Yeah.
- His is a little bit
of a shtick, right?
- Yeah, sure, everyone has--
- Everyone is a little--
- Speaking of preparation,
do you prepare?
Are you a big preparer?
- I always feel like I should.
- I'm like I'm a Boy Scout.
I always read the book.
I'm always worried about
not showing up prepared.
- Well, the thing is,
the nice thing about
being genuinely curious,
- Yeah.
- Is it doesn't feel
like preparation.
- Right, it doesn't
feel like work.
- It doesn't feel like work.
- Right, I hear you.
- I mean, I'm having someone
on because I read the book.
I'm having someone on
because I want to talk
about the book that they wrote.
- [Evan] Right.
- It doesn't feel like
I'm being overly-prepared.
If I feel like I
need to be prepared,
that's probably a bad sign.
- Yeah.
- I should already
know what I wanna ask
because I should already be
curious about this person.
At the Times, because if we
worked on a long lead time,
and because there
was a certain need
to have a certain level of
celebrity every once in awhile,
sometimes that could
feel like work.
That could feel like, I'm
having to cram for this.
For the show, generally,
I only have people on
who I'm already familiar
with their stuff
because that's why
I wanna have 'em on.
- Right, and being able to
make that choice ensures
that you're gonna
pick the kinda people
who make it feel not
like work for you.
- Right.
- So we have five minutes left.
I wanna talk about recovery,
but more broadly, I
wanna talk about you,
and the degree to which
you have made yourself
a character for
all of us to see.
- Right.
- Over time, you
have talked openly
and written openly, and
I think very movingly,
about your struggles
with addiction.
- Mm-hmm.
- You have talked
about a struggle
that I think a lot
more people have
than talk about it publicly,
and that's struggles
with mental illness.
- [Ana] Mm-hmm.
- You've also talked about,
late in life, embracing faith.
- Mm-hmm.
- And what's been
interesting about the last,
I wanna go back to the
first one and second,
but what's interesting
about the last one,
I always find, is because you
are politically progressive,
and you are a person who
openly acknowledges her faith,
people think somehow
that's inconsistent.
As if somehow being a person
of faith disqualifies you
from having views to the
left of Reagan, right?
- Yes, people of faith
often think that.
Other Christians--
- But isn't that interesting
that somehow the assumption
is God's a Republican.
You can't possibly have faith.
- Right, well, I think that's
a relatively recent thing,
in terms of history.
- Yeah, but it is a thing!
- It is a thing.
- It is!
- But in the history
of Christianity,
which goes back
further than Reagan.
- [Evan] Right.
(audience laughing)
- My belief is that,
I'm more of on the
Jesus Freak side
of interpretation of
Christianity, right?
He was a cool, radical dude.
- So this is like
Jesus Christ Superstar.
- A little bit.
- Yeah.
- I mean, he was--
- Dancing hippies.
- Kind of.
- Yeah.
- I mean, I feel
like he had a message
of radical equality
and radical grace
and of lifting up people who
cannot lift up themselves,
of putting yourself in
the servant's position
all of the time.
I feel like contemporary
conservative Christianity
is not much of a servant's role.
It doesn't have a lot of--
- Right.
- It's a lot of
asking questions first
and then deciding whether
or not you're gonna use.
- So has this changed your
journalism or changed your work?
Because I realize that
recovery, being in recovery,
it seems to me, must
give you a window
on those you talk to.
It creates in you,
inherently I assume, empathy
for the plight of other people.
- It does, and I feel
like it... (sighs)
What I feel like my faith does
for me as a journalist is,
it often commands
me to put myself
in that servant's
position even if I resist
certain superficial
things about the person
that I'm talking to or the
person I'm curious about.
I need to assume
that that person is,
not deserving of grace,
but that person has grace.
That person can be
redeemed, that that person--
- Well, it helps you
be a good listener
even to people you
don't agree with.
- Right, exactly!
- Right, and even to people
you don't wanna hear from.
- And that there's
something bigger than them
that I need to pay attention to.
There's something
bigger than whatever
the thing is we're
talking about.
That doesn't mean
I don't disagree.
That doesn't mean
I don't push back.
That doesn't mean
that I can't think
that some of their
policy positions
or the things that they say
are really, really offensive.
But it keeps me listening.
- And it also allow you
probably to view them
through the lens of decency
because the indecency and
the instability of the world
is itself a thing that
we've been grappling with.
- Right.
- And I wonder if it makes you
more capable of being civil
to people you wouldn't
otherwise be civil to.
- I think if you, you've
known me for a long time.
I think that one of the things
that's changed about me,
maybe, I've always been,
I think, pretty decent,
but I haven't always
been civil. (laughs)
And I think I do, I
am better at assuming,
I'm better at not
assuming bad motives.
- Right.
- I'm better at thinking
that this person has
been injured in some way.
- Yep.
- And, again, that doesn't
make what they're saying OK.
- Yep.
- It doesn't mean that I
need to agree with them.
- And it doesn't
necessarily take the edge
out of how you view the world.
- Right.
- Because one of the
things that is consistent,
again, knowing you as long
as I do, from then to now,
is that you have a very sharp
edge that can be deployed
in service to the
things you believe in
when you choose to deploy it.
And that's not been
dulled by any of this.
- No I don't think so.
It some ways, it
has been sharpened
because when I feel like
I finally land on a place
of what I feel is
right, I'm pretty sure,
I mean, then it
needs to be done.
- [Evan] You're there, right.
- So that last show
of the season with
Christian Picciolini,
he said something that
I feel like is the theme
of how my faith has changed
me, which is that knowledge
that everyone's going
through something.
Everyone has been
through something
to get them to the
place that they are.
- Yep.
- And I probably
don't know what it is,
and I can't know how
much they've been hurt.
And it, again, doesn't make
what they're saying right.
It doesn't make it OK.
It doesn't mean they're not
racist if they're racist.
But there's been an
injury to that person.
- Something preceded this.
- Something preceded this.
I don't believe that people
come into the world evil.
I don't believe people
come into the world
wanting harm for others.
- [Evan] It's learned behavior.
- I really, really believe that,
and it is also something
my faith teaches me.
We're all fallen, but
we fell from somewhere.
And I think it's given
me a generosity of spirit
that I think I've
always aspired to,
but now I have kind of a way
of putting that
generosity into action.
And that's what I mean
by gift, by the way.
When I say my
presence is a gift,
I'm trying to put myself--
- [Evan] Right.
- at the service of the
person that I'm listening to.
Like, what can I
do for this person?
- Well, I'm gonna take it
the other way and just say
that your presence here
has been a gift to me.
We are at the end.
I'm happy to see you
in such a good place,
and I'm always happy
for your success.
Ana Marie Cox,
thank you very much.
(audience applauds)
We'd love to have you
join us in the studio.
Visit our website at
KLRU.org/Overheard
to find invitations
to interviews,
Q & As with our
audience and guests,
and an archive of past episodes.
- In the podcast, one of
the most amazing things
about it is, that not everyone
I talk to is already a friend
but generally, by the
time we're done, we are.
- [Evan] Friend-ish, right.
- Friend-ish.
And I do feel like, again,
the most memorable ones
are the ones where it's
uncomfortable for me
but also if the other
person gives something, too.
- [Announcer] Funding for
Overheard with Evan Smith
is provided in part
by Hillco Partners,
a Texas Government
Affairs consultancy,
and by Claire and Carl Stuart.
(electronic musical notes)