Jason Reynolds: On Being with Krista Tippett

@ASoulAFire @JaniceOCG National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature of the Library of Congress @JasonReynolds83 has wide-ranging chat w/@kristatippett @OnBeing.  Join Thursdays, 8 pm ET, from 1/13/22, “If America Fails?:  The Coming Tyranny.”

How do we help children cope with the racism, hatred and a rapidly changing environment in which we live?  Jason Reynolds has some ideas on this and more in this gently piercing exchange with Krista Tippett. — LMO

Here’s a snippet:

“…So you take something like freedom. What could be a synonym for freedom? And I made up the word breathlaughter, because there’s something about the idea, for me, that — when I think of breath, I think of life, but I also think of, it doesn’t stop. So if you exhale, what comes out of your mouth spreads and spreads and spreads. It goes and goes and goes and goes. And that’s something to think about. It’s something to think about, what happens when we breathe out or breathe in. It’s also interesting to think about that we’re breathing in, and then breathing out, which means it’s a constant recycling of energy. What an amazing thing to think about, just constant recycling of energy.

“And so what if laughter could also be recycled in that way? What if it could just go? That is freedom, to me, if it could just go and go and go and go and go — if it could be the ripple in the water. To me, that feels free. Now, physically free, that’s a different conversation. But that feels like freedom to me, so yeah.”

— Jason Reynolds

“Jason Reynolds is the National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature of the Library of Congress — and a magnificent source of wisdom for human society as a whole.  He’s driven by compassion and the clear-eyed honesty that the young both possess and demand of the rest of us.  Ibram X. Kendi chose him to write the YA companion to Stamped from the Beginning.  In his person, Jason Reynolds both embodies and inspires innate human powers of fortitude and imagination.  Hear him on ‘breathlaughter’; the libraries in all of our heads; and a stunning working definition of anti-racism:  ‘simply the muscle that says humans are human… I love you, because you remind me more of myself than not.’

“Jason Reynolds was appointed National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature by the Library of Congress in January, 2020.  His body of writing about what it is to be a Black young person growing up in the U.S. has been received as a godsend by teachers and librarians — including the award-winning Ghost, Long Way Down, and Look Both Ways.  His most recent work of nonfiction, together with Ibram X. Kendi, is Stamped:  Racism, Antiracism, and You.

“This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode ‘Jason Reynolds — Imagination and Fortitude’ Find the transcript for that show at onbeing.org.  This show originally aired on June 25, 2020.  — On Being with Krista Tippett

Find the transcript here.

LISTEN TO | “[Unedited] Jason Reynolds with Krista Tippett” | On Being with Krista Tippett | 7/1/2021