Fresh Air - Best Of: SCOTUS Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson / Novelist Danzy Senna

Episode Date: September 7, 2024

Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson's new memoir, Lovely One, gives us a rare glimpse into her legal mind. And she gets personal about her childhood, marriage and her time as a public defender. Also, we hear from writer Danzy Senna, who writes about the experiences of being biracial in America and the meaning of race itself. Her new novel Colored Television. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Support for this podcast and the following message come from the NPR Wine Club, which has generated over $1.75 million to support NPR programming. Whether buying a few bottles or joining the club, you can learn more at nprwineclub.org slash podcast. Must be 21 or older to purchase. From WHYY in Philadelphia, I'm Tanya Mosley with Fresh Air Weekend. Today, my conversation with Supreme Court Justice Katonji Brown Jackson. She's written a new memoir that gives us a rare glimpse into her legal mind, detailing her life and the experiences that led her to become the first black woman appointed to the United States Supreme Court. Also, writer Danzi Sinha. She writes about the experiences of being biracial in America

and the meaning of race itself. In her new novel, Colored Television, the main character is a Gen Xer and part of the first generation of biracial children born after the Supreme Court's 1967 decision overturning laws that banned interracial marriage. But the time that I was That's coming up on Fresh Air Weekend. currencies. Send, spend, or receive money internationally, and always get the real-time mid-market exchange rate with no hidden fees. Download the Wise app today or visit wise.com. T's and C's apply. From poll numbers to talking points to all the drama, we get it. Election season can be a lot. That's why here at NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast, we're in the business of providing a little release from the squeeze of the political season. Try out any of our shows on the latest in TV, movies, and music to keep you grounded and bring you back to earth. New episodes every week on Pop Culture Happy Hour, only from NPR. You care about what's happening in the world. Let State of the World from NPR keep you informed.

Each day we transport you to a different point on the globe and introduce you to the people living world events. We don't just tell you world news, we take you there and you can make this journey while you're doing the dishes or driving your car. State of the World podcast from NPR. Vital international stories every day. This message comes from Wondery. Kill List is a true story of how one journalist ended up in a race against time to warn those on the list whose lives were in danger. Follow Kill List wherever you get your podcasts. This is Fresh Air Weekend. I'm Tanya Mosley. My guest today is Supreme Court Justice Katonji Brown Jackson. She's written a new memoir that

gives us a rare glimpse into her legal mind, detailing her life and the experiences that led her to becoming the first Black woman appointed to the United States Supreme Court. Nominated by President Biden and confirmed by the Senate in 2022, Jackson spoke more than any other justice during her first year. She's also authored several solo dissents at the heart of the nation's culture wars, in defense of labor unions, affirmative action, the court's approach to abortion-related cases, voting rights, and immigration law. This summer, Justice Jackson gave a blistering dissent to the court's opinion to grant Donald Trump partial immunity from

prosecution, arguing that the majority's decision poses a fundamental threat to American democracy and the rule of law, essentially creating a new power for presidents. Her new memoir is titled Lovely One, which is the meaning of her name, Katanji Onika, an African name that her aunt suggested her parents choose to express her pride and African heritage. Justice Jackson starts off her memoir with a landmark case that has been a guiding light for her, a Supreme Court dissent from 1896, Plessy v. Ferguson,

which upheld racial segregation under the separate-but-equal doctrine. The lone dissenter on the court was Justice John Marshall Harlan, who argued, Our Constitution is colorblind. More than 120 years later, Justice Jackson was sworn in using Harlan's Bible, symbolically connecting her to his legacy of dissent against racial segregation. My conversation with Justice Jackson today is focused on her path to becoming a justice, her rise through the legal

profession ranks as a black woman with an uncommon name, a mother and wife striving to reconcile the demands of a high-profile career, and how her experiences as a public defender and federal judge have informed her role on the Supreme Court. As the court rules dictate, Justice Jackson and I will not be talking about past or present Supreme Court cases, the upcoming presidential election, or any other political matters. And with that, Justice Katonji Brown Jackson, welcome to Fresh Air. Thank you so much. I'm delighted to be here. Well, Justice Jackson, one of the things we can talk about as part of this discussion are your recent written opinions. So I'd like to start there.

In a six to three majority, the Supreme Court ruled earlier this summer that former President Trump may claim immunity from criminal prosecution for some of his official actions. And a few of the reasons that the majority gave for this decision is that without immunity, presidents might be deterred from performing their duties for fear of future prosecution, and that also no former president has ever faced criminal prosecution for acts in our history as a country. And as part of your written dissent, you were vehemently against that. You said basically that you have grave concerns about this. What were your biggest concerns about a president having the potential for immunity?

Well, let me first say that I commend to your listeners my actual opinion. The thing about the Supreme Court that I think is so magnificent is that the justices get to actually explain their votes. We are the one branch of government in which that is the standard. And so I did write a dissent, and I also joined Justice Sotomayor's dissent in describing the reasons that I was mostly concerned about the majority's view. And I guess sort of a bird's eye view of my dissent was the concern that we have a criminal justice system that treats everyone the same in terms of the defenses that can be made and the statements that can be made and the way in which a person has to follow the law and the procedures that apply. And as I explained in the opinion, I was concerned about a ruling that would carve out a special

set of procedures, circumstances for former presidents. Chief Justice Roberts characterized the ruling as relatively narrow. But in your dissent, you say that you don't feel that having different rules for one person is really democratic. Well, I think it's a matter of fundamental principle in our constitutional scheme that no one is above behave in ways that violate standard criminal law and procedure, I guess I was concerned, and I say that I was concerned, that that sets up a circumstance in which the rule of law is not applying consistently. And therefore, some of the foundational principles of our nation, at least in my view, were not being adhered to. As you mentioned, being able to speak and explain your reasoning and to give dissent is a fundamental part of the Supreme Court, and it is what makes it different.

But you've also spoken more than any other justice, and I wanted to know from you, was that intentional, or were these particular cases that were before the court at the start of your time so compelling that it required you to be so vocal right from the start? I think it might have been a confluence of various factors. One is that I had been a judge for quite a while at a lower level of the federal system, one in which I was the only judge in my courtroom and had a lot of autonomy, a lot of control over hearings and could ask as many questions as I wanted and could go as long as I wanted. And I think it was difficult to make the transition to a panel of nine when you're coming from a culture in which you basically run the show. So I think that was part of it.

And I think the court in recent years has taken on a number of cases that really do speak to a lot of core foundational constitutional issues. I clerked for the Supreme Court. I clerked for Justice Breyer in October term 1999. I think one of the differences between the court now and then is that we had comparatively fewer of these kinds of cases. And so I don't know whether it was just the thought that I wanted to make sure that my views were accounted for and my questions were answered in very important cases that the court had taken the first year that I arrived. I want to go back to your confirmation hearings in 2022. In your opening statements, you laid out your commitment to supporting and defending the Constitution, and many interpreted that as words to mean that you were an originalist, meaning that you interpreted the Constitution consistent with its original

meaning. In your book, you clarify that, that you have developed more of a methodology to ensure that you are impartial. Can you say more about that methodology? I don't have a constitutional philosophy as much as a methodology. And it is one that really focuses pretty intently on the role of a court in our constitutional democracy. It's the understanding that the court has certain powers, that its powers are limited, that we are one of three branches, that the other branches have certain spheres of authority that have to be respected. in my lane and not overstep into making policy or becoming a legislator or doing things that are properly in the other branches. I'm also really setting aside my personal views. How do you do that? Well, you know, it's something that you learn in law school. Litigators, I think, will be familiar with the concept of representing a client zealously, regardless of what you think of their particular circumstances. That's what you're hired to do. It's something that I

practiced as a law clerk for all three levels of the federal system. I clerked for a district court judge, a court of appeals judge, and the Supreme Court justice. And as a law clerk, you have to divorce your own view of the case from your obligation to draft an opinion in your justice's voice and to further their position. So you develop an ability to set aside your views and to look only at what the law requires. And I think that's crucial for a judge who is pledged to rule without fear or favor and make a determination that is neutral and just. And so what it means, I think, is that there will be cases, there are times in which I might vote in ways that people would find surprising, given the president who appointed me or what they might think of, you know, my own views of a case or my own views generally. But that's because I'm doing what it is I have a pledge to do and that I believe is my duty,

which is to follow the law. If you're just joining us, my guest is Supreme Court Justice Katonji Brown Jackson. She's written a new memoir about her life and rise to the Supreme Court called Lovely One. We'll continue our conversation after a short break. I'm Tanya Mosley, and this is Fresh Air Weekend. We all hear things differently, and that can be tough when there's so much noise. This election year, we're a space to speak up and to listen. Listen to 1A for the latest on Election 2024, only from NPR. You care about what's happening in the world. Let State of the World from NPR keep you informed.

Each day we transport you to a different point on the globe and introduce you to the people living world events. We don't just tell you world news, we take you there. And you can make this journey while you're doing the dishes We'll be right back. best political reporters come to you on the NPR Politics Podcast to explain the big news coming out of Washington, the campaign trail, and beyond. We don't just want to tell you what happened, we tell you why it matters. Join the NPR Politics Podcast every single afternoon to understand the world through political eyes. You have so much personal experience and professional experience that allows you to see the world in ways that maybe others have not been able to see a full view of the world. Senator Cory Booker brought

this up during the Senate confirmation hearings. He talked for, I think, almost 20 minutes directly at you, talking to you, not only about what was happening in the moment, because during your confirmation hearing, you had senators who were asking you all sorts of questions, like, can you define what is a woman? And are babies racist? And those were highly unusual things to ask a nominee. And on the other side of that, he also talked about how your experience primes you to be the best person to take that role. After he spoke, there were tears in your eyes. What was going through your mind when he was talking to you? Well, that was a pretty special moment in the hearing. And I was exhausted at that point. If I recall correctly, this was toward the end of the second full day of hearings. And each of the senators had had many rounds of questioning. And Senator Booker decided to dedicate his time not to ask me any questions, but to essentially attempt to lift me up through his words.

And so I felt a lot of relief and gratitude in the moment. And I think he said something like, I'm not going to let anybody steal my joy over this moment. And it was just so moving to me. And I found out afterwards to many, many other people who felt uplifted and seen through that exchange. You mentioned how it was just a rigorous process. I mean, you say, I think it was on the second day. I think it was at the end. There was a little bit of a

break. One of your former Harvard classmates, Senator Ted Cruz Cruz asked you several questions, including your sentencing record and child pornography cases, claiming that you had given sentences that were below what prosecutors recommend. And there was all of this talk about that, and that was used. How did you prepare yourself? I'm sure that And so I had a sense of what I might be asked. I mean, I've been a district court judge for a long time. So certainly my record as a judge was going to be probed as a part of the hearing. I think I might have been surprised by the angle of some of the questions or the suggestion that I was doing or had done something untoward with respect to my sentences. I mean, I, you know, was on the Sentencing Commission. I know the guidelines much better than most people. And the way in which sentencing is done is sort of my area of expertise. So I think I was a little

surprised at some of the representations of how the sentencing process works or what I had done in a particular case to suggest that I was sentencing inappropriately. In that speech that Senator Cory Booker gave at your hearings, he referenced former federal judge and civil rights activist Constance Baker Motley. She was the first black woman to argue a case before the Supreme Court. When did you first learn about her? Judge Motley was appointed to the court in the 60s, I believe. And this is the court in the Southern District of New York. And I was born in 1970.

And when I was in late elementary school, early middle school, I came across an article about her. In Essence magazine, no less. In Essence or Ebony, one of the black magazines that my parents subscribed to. And gosh, I mean, it was such an eye-opener for me in part because I learned that we share a birthday, September 14th. We were born on exactly the same day, 49 years apart. And, you know, it was just amazing to see this woman who was a lawyer. And I had at that point wanted or thought I wanted to be a lawyer. My father went back to law school when I was four years old. And we lived on the campus of the University of Miami Law School, which is where he went. And so this notion of studying law and being a lawyer had always been with me. When I was a little girl, I would sit at the kitchen table with my coloring books, and my dad would sit with his

law journals and law books, and we would work together. And he'd ask you questions. And he'd ask me questions. You know, he would tell me what was going on in the books. And it was really a bonding moment for me, but also some of my earliest memories of what I might do in the world is be a lawyer. And so here we had this woman who was a lawyer and who had gone on to be a judge. And the thought of being a judge just kind of planted in my mind. And it was something I guess I'd always wanted to do. And this was also around the time when Justice O'Connor had been appointed to the court, to the Supreme Court. So now we had a woman judge on the Supreme Court. And I just remember those

things being very motivational for me early on. You describe how you went to all white schools, you were considered kind of the brainy black girl, but you were very popular, involved in all the activities, as you mentioned, speech and debate and theater and most likely to succeed. You felt a lot of pride in yourself, but also isolation. And one way that it exhibited itself was nobody ever asked you for a date, Justice. Well, there were a handful of us in the kinds of classes in my kind of high school community, people of color, but it was a predominantly white school. And as you say, I was popular. I was the student body president three years in a row.

So I, you know, had a lot of friends and people who liked me, but no dates, which got to be a little bit of an issue my senior year because as student body president, one of the things you're responsible for is planning the prom. And I wasn't going to go until a friend of mine who was a junior said, you know, who are you going to go to prom with? And I was like, no one. And he was like, well, why don't I take you? Why don't we go together? So I went with him just so I could,

you know, go and not be totally left out of an activity that I was planning. But it was not easy to be a high school student and feeling like, you know, everybody else is dating and people have crushes and not being a part of that part of the culture was a little challenging. I think it's something that many black women, black young women can relate to if they're in all white spaces. Yes. Which makes you meeting your husband such a wonderful story to read in the book because you all met at Harvard. We did. You were a sophomore.

Mm-hmm. read in the book because you all met at Harvard. We did. You were a sophomore. And you tell this funny story, which you have to tell, about him being a twin. Yes. And you didn't know it. So yes, I mean, this is the sort of classic scenario. My husband and I are in a class, and it's ironic because the class was called The Changing Concept of Race in America. It was a historical studies class. And, you know, we've been in this is the fall of my sophomore year. And he's a junior. He's a year ahead of me, which is important because I didn't know him at all because we weren't in the same class.

And I didn't know that he was an identical twin. So I am in this class, and he's cute. He's sitting behind me. He's chatting with me and tapping on my shoulder and doing silly things. And afterwards, we start to develop a friendship, talking about the material. And he would walk me to my next class on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. And then on Tuesday and Thursday, I thought I saw him in our government class. And I would lean down the row and wave and he would roll his eyes like, who is this lady? And I thought, this is kind of weird. Why would this guy be so nice to me on some days and not on the others? And I told my roommates about it and they were like, leave him alone. He's

crazy. You don't want to be with a crazy person. And so on one of the nice days, I said, you know, I'm going to confront him. And so I went up to him and I said, you know, why don't you speak to me in our government class? And he said, I'm not taking a government class. And I said, yes, you are. He's like, nope. And then it dawned on him that I must be talking about his twin brother. Why are twins always like that, though? They kind of make you

have to fish for it. Like, oh, yeah, right. I am a twin. You did see my brother across the way. Exactly. Yeah. I really appreciate

your time on this. This was a wonderful conversation. Thank you so much. I wish you the best in the rest of your tour. I appreciate you and thank you for this interview. Justice Katonji Brown Jackson's new memoir is Lovely One. Terry has our next interview.

I'll let her introduce it. Remember when Donald Trump accused Kamala Harris of suddenly turning black? And he said, so I don't know, is she Indian or is she black? The confusion and suspicion biracial people are confronted with is the theme of the novels and the memoir by my guest, Danzi Sena. She also writes about what it means to be biracial and the meaning of race itself. Her mother, who is white, is from an eminent Boston family. Her father, who is black, grew up in an orphanage in a small Alabama town. Her parents married in 1968, the year the Supreme Court overturned all existing state laws that banned interracial marriage.

She was born in 1970 and grew up during the Black Power Movement. Her new novel, Colored Television, is both heartfelt and satirical. It's about a writer who's devastated when the novel she's been working on for 10 years, a novel about how the meaning of being biracial has changed over generations, is rejected by her publisher. where she teaches, which means not having enough money to get by. Her husband is an artist whose work doesn't sell. They have two children. She's discovering that some of her son's traits that she thought made him unique and interesting may be signs that he's on the autism spectrum. The family lives in LA, which they can't afford, so they've been living in an expensive home of a friend, a screenwriter, while he's working abroad. Some of the tension in her marriage is caused by financial problems, and the only solution she sees is to pitch an idea for a TV series, a TV series with a biracial main character.

That requires covering up some problems in her current life. The book is filled with observations about race, marriage, parenting, teaching, generational differences, and entering the world of prestige television writing. Danzi Sena, welcome to Fresh Air. I love your new novel, and I'd like to start with a reading that I think gives a sense of your writing and a sense of some of the themes of the book. Sure.

Thank you for having me. He used the N-word. Three students walked out and reported him to the administration. So here's that reading where she's reflecting on teaching. The millennials didn't read anything Jane assigned unless she included a trigger warning. The trigger warning was what spurred them on to search the story for the upsetting passage. The Gen Zers, on the other hand, only bothered to read stories that used a lot of white space. They didn't like big, sprawling, old-fashioned novels. Their brains had not evolved for that kind of reading experience. She was reminded of how, when her own kids were toddlers, she'd had to cut their food into small pieces to guard against their choking. She had, in recent years, begun to assign only minimalist autofiction by queer POC authors to her undergraduates, and she had to admit it was

a better classroom experience for all. Teaching had made Jane think a lot about her own Gen X-ness. She'd decided it was the only indisputable identity she had. She checked all the boxes. She'd been a latchkey kid who had moved between the homes of her divorced parents. She'd had the de rigueur Gen X molestation at age 10 and later lost her virginity in semi-consensual sex with a much older man. Like any black Gen Xer, she hadn't had time to worry about microaggressions, what with all the good old-fashioned macroaggressions she'd experienced. White kids throwing rocks at her head. White kids calling her father n***er with impunity. White kids leaving bananas on her family's porch when they moved into the neighborhood. Of course, what made her

most Gen X of all was that she was part of the first baby boom of mulattoes, whose parents were the first generation of legalized interracial marriages. Jane felt she'd been lucky to be raised in the early days of mulatto militancy, before you could check two or more racial boxes on school forms. She'd been raised knowing, in the immortal words of Tupac, that black was the thing to be. She refused to use the cloying phrase that some of her cohort had adopted, the loving generation. Her parents had always, as far as she knew, despised each other. So she was more a part of the hating generation. But in either case, she was deeply, authentically Gen X. So I think our listeners might have noticed you use the word mulatto instead of biracial,

and I'll ask you to explain why. Yeah, I use the word mulatto a lot in my work, and I have sort of rejected the more politically correct term of biracial or multiracial, mainly because it's meaningless and vague, and it could out of some really, out of slavery and these sort of pseudoscientific ideas of race, as problematic as it is, it's the only word that really describes this very specific experience of being black and white and being that mixture in America, which is singular and I think an important distinction from the other mixes. Tell me more about what it means to you that your parents got married in 1968, one year after Loving v. Virginia, the Supreme Court case that overturned all the laws still on the books outlawing interracial marriage. Yeah, I mean, they were part of a whole wave of the first, you know, marriages to come out of this huge political change. And so their marriage was filled with all the symbolism and hope for the future and the sort of integration of American society and the kind of movement beyond these incredibly strict, you know, laws of segregation. And they were both

very politicized. And so what it meant was also that I grew up with, for the first time, maybe as a mixed person with other mixed people around me who were also born out of the exact same moment and the exact same political movement. And so I've never been able to kind of separate the politics of the moment in which I was born in their heads as much as you do if you're born in this first generation. We're listening to Terry Gross' conversation with writer Danzi Sinha. Her new novel is called Color Television. We'll hear more of their conversation after a short break. I'm Tanya Mosley, and this is Fresh Air Weekend. Here at Planet Money, we bring complex economic ideas down to Earth. We find weird, fun,

interesting stories that explain the way money shapes our lives. Inflation, recessions, the price of gas, we've got you. Listen now to the Planet Money podcast from NPR. This message comes from the Kresge Foundation. Established 100 years ago, the Kresge Foundation works to expand equity and opportunity in cities across America. A century of impact, a future of opportunity. More at kresge.org. The Bullseye podcast is, according to one journalist, the, quote, kind of show people listen to in a more perfect world. So make your world more perfect. Every week, Bullseye puts the pop in culture, interviewing brilliant authors, musicians, actors, and novelists to keep you about what Donald Trump recently said at the convention of the National Association of Black Journalists when he was talking about Kamala Harris.

So let's hear the clip. I've known her a long time indirectly, not directly very much, and she was always of Indian heritage, And she was only promoting Indian heritage. I didn't know she was black until a number of years ago when she happened to turn black. And now she wants to be known as black. So I don't know. Is she Indian or is she black? She is always identified as a black. I respect either one.

But she obviously doesn't. Because she was Indian all the way. And then all of a sudden she made a turn and she went, she became a black person. Just to be clear, sir, do you believe that she is a... I think somebody should look into that, too, when you ask a continue in a very hostile, nasty town. As I was reading your book, I kept thinking about what Trump said. And I'm wondering what your reaction was the first time that you heard it. racial chaos or the fact that I don't look the way I identify or that when I come out to people as being black, the reaction is often that in smaller ways. And I had to write about that when

I saw it because I thought he's articulating the relationship of America to mixed race people, and the hostility, the suspicion, and the kind of bewilderment with which we've been faced sort of historically. And, you know, that's something I'm exploring in colored television, as well as in my other work, is this particular space that we hold that has been here from the beginning, where our existence is denied, from the very first time, you know, there's a mixed race child. And it continues throughout the history of mixed people in this country that we are constantly in my novel, Caucasia, I call it, we're like the canary in the coal mine. around questions of race and our relationship to blackness and whiteness, we're the Rorschach test that kind of reveals what the person looking at us thinks. But it doesn't really tell you anything about us. It tells you about Donald Trump in that moment. So in your new novel, after the main character's novel is rejected, she decides she hates the novel. She hates writing novels.

It's bad for her mental health. It takes her away from her family. It takes too much time. But she's also conflicted because when she's writing, it's hard to leave the solitude and the world of her characters and return home to the demands of her children and to her husband's sometimes crankiness. And I'm wondering if you experience that as a writer, if you ever feel like it's taking you away from the rest of life, taking you away from the actual world, and that you're going a little crazy just being confined to the world of your imagination? I absolutely feel that. And it's kind of a joke between some of my friends and I who are all novelists about how much we hate being novelists, but we actually don't fully hate it because we keep doing it. And I've lived in LA for almost 20 years now and have been committed like Jane to this form that is not the industry of the city I'm living in.

So it's added to my alienation from LA as well that I'm going to parties and I tell someone I write novels and they say, oh, have any of them been optioned? And it's almost as if the novel is just the sort of gateway to getting a movie made, but it's not anything in and of itself. Well, I've read my share of novels that seem to be gateways to getting the movie made. Right. No, I know. I think that's become a thing as well. But it's almost as if it doesn't register as important in the city that I live, unless it's had that other form come out of it. And it's just notes for an adaptation. And so living in that space, and also just living at the time in which I started this novel at the height of prestige television, and teaching creative writing, I was really aware of how much my students, but also the other faculty, spent all of our time talking about succession or White Lotus or Insecure. And these were the conversations that everyone was having. And I would sort of try to bring it back to novels. And I was thinking, have we been replaced by this? Is this the novel of our time, this other form, which I love, and I think has such amazing writing in it? But have we kind of evolved to a place where we really need the visual and the actors and the whole, this other form to think about our culture through.

So, you know, I just started to think about these questions when I began this novel. And then there was this sort of thing I always feel in the middle of writing a novel that was like, I don't know if this is good for my mental health to spend days and days inside talking to people who don't exist. And now I have children. And can I balance my life as a novelist, which requires you to be in a kind of dream state, and to be kind of obsessed with the fact that these other two people need me to be in the sort of grunt of everyday living and the sort of really out in the bright light with them, you know, thinking about doctor's appointments and what's for dinner and did they do their homework and

do these things work together and thinking, starting to fantasize that maybe a kind of 10 to 8 television writer's room job or something would be better for me as a person in the world than writing a novel. How close did you come to actually being a part of the TV world? Have you done writing for television or rewriting other people's scripts? I've actually only three times worked developing things and writing a pilot. I wrote a pilot for a show that was based on my work. I wrote an original pilot for a limited series that is still out there being shopped around that's not to do with my work. And I've worked on another adaptation of one of my books. So I've only worked in sort of mini rooms and in collaboration with one other writer. I've

never actually been in a writer's room. And, you know, what I've felt writing scripts is I really like it. It's very interesting and sort of technical feeling compared to writing novels. And I will continue to do it because it's a nice break between books and it kind of can pay for your stove or something, you know, to get a new stove in your kitchen, like there are actual financial benefits to doing it. But I think my soul is in the page and in writing novels and in being in control of the entire universe that I'm writing is really what feeds me on a much deeper level. And so I will never kind of fully abandon the written word. It just feeds me in a whole other

way. But unfortunately, it doesn't literally feed me or my children. Yeah. I want to talk with you a little bit about your childhood. So your mother was kind of from white Boston aristocracy in a way. Tell us a little bit about your mother's family rights lawyer, actually, and very liberal. And one of her great or grandfather or great grandfather was one of the founders of the Atlantic magazine, the Atlantic Monthly. And she had mayors and, you know, goes all the way back to not literally the Mayflower, but a different boat. And also in that history of these sort of learned Bostonians was the history of slavery. And some of the most horrific slave traders in American history were in her family in the Northeast Corridor, the DeWolf family. And her father's middle name was DeWolf. So she has both this sort of wonderful literary history and then also this disturbing history of slavery in her family. But by the time I was born, we didn't have any of the money. We only had some silverware with those initials on them. And so it was kind of this

tarnished, lost aristocracy feeling. My impression is that you found out about the slave trader, members of your family tree, doing research, like from a book. It's not like your family talked to you about it. What was it like for you to learn that? It was, I mean, the details in these books about my mother's family and my family have really horrible details about, you know, this man, this very powerful slave trader cutting off the hands of the slaves who he threw into the water,

who were trying to hold on to the boat. There was terrible details in there, but I didn't experience it personally as shame or that this is my family. I think that I take as a given that these are all of our ancestors. We're all connected to these people. And, you know, the idea that that's something special didn't come into my head. I thought, this is American history that I descend out of. And so my memoir was really kind of taking my family as a microcosm of our country's history, both sides of my family. And you learned a lot about your father while writing a memoir about your childhood and your family.

Your mother is from this eminent Boston family, and your father spent some of his childhood in an orphanage, and his family was very poor. Was that confusing to you growing up, and especially since growing up in spite of your mother's background, your parents didn't have money because they were writers. They lived in a world of artists and bohemians, which was kind of outside of the official class structure of America. The class identity for me was never sort of separated from the racial identity and the sense of being sort of illegible again, because both my parents had so much education and they

published books, but we were getting food stamps. And it was like one more thing about me that didn't actually make sense. And I certainly didn't see represented on television or in films or novels. And I think always some of my impulse to be a writer comes from that feeling that I want to write myself into existence. And I want to write the worlds that I've lived in and the people I've been in the world with into existence because I never see them. And so even, you know, with this novel, wanting to kind of write a family that, you know, is a black family in contemporary America who are highly educated, creative people who have no money, I think writes against some of what I keep seeing replicated in the culture around, you know, black people are either the Jeffersons living

in the housing projects, or they're in a Tyler Perry movie and living in a mansion. And there's something else that's more complicated that I want to write into existence, both about race and class. In your novel, the main character is teaching English literature in college. And she finds that now she's only assigning auto fiction by queer writers of color. And that makes the classroom experience much better. Is that something that you've gravitated toward too? No, that's, I mean, me writing comedy.

Yes. Okay. So where is that coming from? I mean, it's always, you know, that moment when you're giving your students your syllabus and sometimes, you know, you feel like, am I checking all the boxes? But in my case, you know, I think some of the most interesting writing is coming from queer writers of color and writers of color. And it's sort of organic to my syllabus that it would be filled with those voices. It's not a choice based on a box checking. It's sort of who I'm finding exciting and who I'm reading at the time. But it's also got a lot of dead white men. And I teach writers who I don't fully, you know, who have things that are demeaning to someone like me in them, but I think they're brilliant writers. And so I always say I'm greedy, and I will read whoever can teach me something, even if I have to notice things in it that aren't palatable to me. If their writing is really great, I want to read it. The marriage in your novel is kind of unraveling. One of the things that holds the marriage together is they hate a lot of the same things. So I want to run through some of the things they hate, and I want you to tell me if you hate them too, and if so, why.

We'll start with world music festivals. Hate it? Hate it. Because? I've never been to one, but I've just seen footage of them, and it's like my idea of hell to be a muddy sort of throng of hippies dancing together. Is it any music festival or specifically world music festivals that you hate? I think it's a very specific one in like Portland. Okay. Poetry readings. Now, you're a novelist. Your mother's a poet.

Do you hate poetry readings? I grew up having to go to a lot of poetry readings. Now, you're a novelist. Your mother's a poet. Do you hate poetry readings? I grew up having to go to a lot of poetry readings, and it was like experimental poetry readings. And I had no idea what they were talking about. And my sister and brother and I would sit in the back, sort of banging our Barbie dolls together and, you know, just kind of like bored and enraged to have to be there. So that was kind of a joke about my childhood. White feminism. Do you hate white feminism? And if so, what do you hate about it? But when it is taken outside of the context of race analysis and class analysis, I think it becomes just extremely problematic and alienating. And so it hasn't been something that I've sort of ever been able to fully get on board with because of those absences in the history of feminism. Redemptive endings. And I imagine you're talking about novels and movies and TV. What do you not like about redemptive endings? their affinities in terms of art and alienated from sort of mainstream popular culture that

she was saying that they hate redemptive endings like you see in movies. So I'm wondering if the idea of not liking redemptive endings influenced how you decided to end the book, because you have to deal with endings in your fiction. Do you want them to have any trace of redemption? How do you decide how you want it to end? Well, the last book I wrote, New People, had a very maybe disturbing ending, and I left the character in a really precarious place. And with this novel, I wanted something a little more mixed with some of what's been lost and then also what's still there to be found. And so this is probably the most redemptive I was going to get. But I won't say too much about it. But I felt it was important not to completely give up at the end here. Well, Danzi Sena, it's been a pleasure talking

with you. Thank you so much and congratulations on your novel. Thank you so much. Such a pleasure. Danzi Sena speaking with Terry Gross. Her latest novel is called Colored Television. Fresh Air Weekend is produced by Teresa Madden. Fresh Air's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. With Terry Gross, I'm Tanya Moseley. Who's claiming power this election? What's happening in battleground states?

And why do we still have the Electoral College? All this month, the ThruLine podcast is asking big questions about our democracy and going back in time to answer them. Listen now to the ThruLine podcast from NPR. Support for this podcast comes from the Neubauer Family Foundation, supporting WHYY's Fresh Air and its commitment to sharing ideas

and encouraging meaningful conversation.