Jason Reynolds — On Hopelessness, the Virtue of Stamina, and Showing Grace to Ourselves

Summary

Podcast Summary:

On Being with Krista Tippett
Episode: Jason Reynolds — On Hopelessness, the Virtue of Stamina, and Showing Grace to Ourselves
Date: March 19, 2026

---

Episode Overview

This conversation, recorded at the 2025 Aspen Ideas Festival, features Krista Tippett in conversation with Jason Reynolds—bestselling author, champion of young people, and MacArthur fellow—centering on the nature of hope in turbulent times. Reynolds generously unpacks his philosophy on “muscular hope,” the necessity of stamina, the function of grace (to ourselves and others), and the complicated dance between fear, curiosity, and imagination.

Through personal stories and lived wisdom, Reynolds offers both practical and poetic insights into navigating exhaustion, polarization, and the longing for social healing. The episode is rich in storytelling, re-centering hope and imagination as both human and hard-won.

---

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Muscular Hope, Stamina, and Grace

• The Challenge of Reality-Based Hope ([03:38]–[10:15])
  • Hope as a Potent, Easily-Diluted Word: Reynolds warns, “Hope is a word that...if we’re not careful, becomes milk toast, becomes pedestrian. Potentially the most potent word in the English language. Potentially the most overused word...” ([03:41], Reynolds)
  • Young People as Future-Bearers: He centers his hope in young people—"the arbiters of the future"—but cautions that investing hope in others requires shifting from idealism to grace, since youth will inevitably display their humanity.
  • Stamina Over Limitless Hope: Using a running metaphor, Reynolds proposes it isn’t that we run out of hope, but rather stamina: “It isn’t that we run out of hope. It’s that sometimes it’s hard to hold on to a particular level of stamina in the midst of trying to remain hopeful in trying times like today...” ([05:17], Reynolds)
  • Grace in Communal Context: When hope (stamina) falters, we must grant ourselves “grace to pause and catch our breath, believing communities we’ve built will carry us until we recover.”
  • Human Hopelessness: “Moments of hopelessness...are human. We all should allow ourselves enough grace to take a moment to catch our breath..." ([07:44], Reynolds)

2. Encountering Difference and the Practice of Grace

• Bar Conversation with “Larry” ([10:41]–[17:10])
  • Engagement Instead of Dismissal: Reynolds recounts meeting Larry, a man in a bar quick to decry “victimhood” and lack of gratitude in America. Rather than disengage, Reynolds leans in, asking Larry to consider trauma and gratitude can coexist. This surfaces the power of honest, human dialogue.
  • Notable Quote: "But if I extend a little bit of grace based on the fact that you and I both are at this bar...I'm curious what comes of this conversation now." ([12:33], Reynolds)
  • Hope in the Ordinary: The respectful outcome of the interaction leads Reynolds to admit, “That gives me hope. Hope isn’t a Kumbaya for me. It doesn’t mean that someday we all gonna feel the same about the same things. Who would wanna live in that world?" ([14:56], Reynolds)

3. Media, Fear, and the Reality of Encounter

• Contrasts Between Media Narratives and Everyday Reality ([17:34]–[20:11])
  • Fearmongering vs. Lived Experience: Reynolds notes, “On every day in my everyday life—I’ve been in some real, I mean, I go to NASCAR every other week...there are very few times I’ve ever felt disrespected. Now, there have been tough conversations..."
  • Clarifying Uncomfortable vs. Unsafe: He distinguishes, "We also have to recalibrate what is uncomfortable and what is unsafe." ([20:12], Reynolds)
  • Story from Rural Illinois: After Trump’s election, Reynolds visits a small town despite fears (both his and his mother’s). He emphasizes understanding root causes of people’s choices, even when those choices clash ethically, and highlights extending grace while still expecting accountability. ([20:12]–[26:31])

4. Curiosity, Imagination, and Hope

• Fear as Inverse of Hope and Coexisting Emotions ([27:32]–[32:15])

  • Fear Won’t Be Eliminated: Reynolds and Tippett muse on fear, with Jason riffing: "It keeps us safe... I don’t think we should ever extinguish it... Partly what we’re talking about is just getting conscious.” ([32:09–32:19], Reynolds and Tippett)
  • Information as an Antidote: He explains how information doesn’t eliminate fear but “solidifies the hope.”
  • Curiosity Required: “It’s so much easier to just assume...but knowing more arms us differently, where perhaps we can carry both things [fear and hope].” ([29:45–30:05], Reynolds)

• Practices for Processing Emotions and Encounters

  • 90-Second Rule for Processing Trauma: “Emotional trauma is processed through the brain in 90 seconds... What prolongs it is rumination.” ([33:09–33:35], Reynolds)
  • Breaking the Cycle of “Hair Trigger” Defensiveness: He advocates for allowing initial emotional responses to move through us before we let “the baggage of all that” shape our reactions. ([34:00–35:12], Reynolds)

• Imagination, Language, Joy, and Wholeness ([46:51]–[49:33])

  • Language as Cornerstone for Culture and Change: “If you can name a thing, then it becomes real.” ([47:21], Reynolds)
  • Curiosity and Foolishness as Fuel for Imagination: “Our imaginations are usually shot by the time you’re in the ninth grade...Curiosity is the thing that sort of fuels your imagination. Also, foolishness. I think foolishness is actually underrated...” ([47:54–48:28], Reynolds)
  • Imagination as Essential to Hope: “If you can imagine something different than this, you can never ever be caged. It is an impossibility to be caged if your imagination is functioning.” ([49:16], Reynolds)

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Grace and Communal Hope:
  “I deserve to give myself the same amount of grace in the moments in which I need it.” ([09:47], Reynolds)

• On Disagreement and Discourse:
  “We can disagree without harm. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with disagreement, unless that disagreement has to do with my right to live.” ([15:00], Reynolds)

• On Prejudice, Encounter, and Learning:
  “We still owe it to ourselves, by the way, to challenge our own prejudices, to extend a little bit of grace. Them babies ain’t do nothing to me. They don’t deserve my bias. They don’t deserve my prejudice in the same way that my babies don’t deserve yours.” ([25:41], Reynolds)

• On Storytelling and Human Experience:
  “People are people’s biggest influences...Human beings are amazing. The human experiment and experience is amazing in all of its vastness...We just don’t celebrate it enough or we close ourselves off.” ([42:39–44:07], Reynolds)

• On Imagination and Freedom:
  “If you can imagine a world different than this, then you can never be, ever be caged.” ([49:28], Reynolds)

---

Timestamps for Key Segments

| Timestamp | Segment / Theme | | ------------- | -----------------------------------------------------------------| | 03:38–10:15 | Reality-based hope, stamina, and the necessity of grace | | 10:41–17:10 | “Larry at the bar” — Extending grace to strangers | | 17:34–20:12 | Media narratives vs. real life, calibrating discomfort/safety | | 20:12–26:31 | Story from rural Illinois, complicating our own arguments | | 27:32–32:15 | Fear, awareness, and “muscular” hope | | 33:09–35:12 | Neurobiology of emotion, processing trauma and response | | 41:37–44:07 | Openness to stories, critique of limited diversity at Aspen | | 46:51–49:33 | Imagination, language, and hope as acts of creation |

---

Tone and Takeaways

The atmosphere is warm, candid, reflective, and at times gently humorous. Reynolds often turns personal anecdotes into teachable moments, while Tippett offers both affirmation and meaningful follow-up, encouraging the depth of Reynolds’ insights.

Reynolds champions a hope that is “muscular": not naïve or sustaining on its own, but built on stamina, communal support, and radical, sometimes foolish, curiosity. He urges listeners to grant grace—both to others and themselves—especially through exhaustion or moments of hopelessness. Imagination, like hope, is portrayed as a crucial human muscle in the hard work of remaining open, whole, and alive to change.

---

For listeners seeking grounding and orientation in restless times, this episode offers luminous, practical wisdom for reimagining what sustains us: hope, curiosity, storytelling, and the courage to encounter one another anew.

Transcript

[A]

I was longing for a deep dive on the muscular hope that Jason Reynolds embodies. After I interviewed him at a Georgetown event last year, I got my chance at the 2025 Aspen Ideas Festival. This is going to be a short introduction because I want to get you quickly to soak up Jason's perspective that is so urgent for the world we've walked into now. On giving ourselves grace to be hope, the virtue of stamina, and the hope that stays strong in him from his life in relationship with the very young in our midst, our future incarnate, as well as his encounters with the occasional stranger in a bar. I'm Krista Tippett and this is on being. As our event began, our Aspen host introduced Jason as a best selling author, champion of young people, and yes, a MacArthur genius. But also that what sets Jason apart is not only his extraordinary talent, but his wisdom. And that's where we set forth. It's true. Jason, I think of you as kind of exhibit A, that you don't have to be old to be wise.

[B]

Well, I'm not young either, so there is.

[A]

Wait, you are.

[B]

I'm middle aged.

[A]

He's 41 people.

[B]

That's middle aged.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

I don't know if y' all know much about black folk. That's middle aged. There you go. Okay.

[A]

We were just talking about the evolution of aging.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

I'll talk to you in 10 years to see how you do.

[B]

That's true. That's true.

[A]

So, so happy to be here. So happy to be here with Jason. I first met Jason by Zoom in 2020. It was, I don't know, maybe June, I think.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

The world was upside down, inside out. And we were speaking, you know, I was used to. Well, we were in our homes. And it was a beautiful conversation which we called imagination and fortitude. And I think we might summon those words again tonight.

[B]

Sounds good.

[A]

And then recently, like at the end of last year, we did an event at Georgetown called on being young in America. And it was the two of us. And then somebody in her 20s, a Georgetown student. And I did consider that a cross generational experience.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

And I started out by asking you, how is your heart? And you talked about being both encouraged and exhausted and that holding those two things required a lot of effort on your part. And even that is then exhausting. And I think it seems to me also that a feature of our time and just about everybody I know across just about every dividing line that we have, feels exhausted and overwhelmed. And also that living in a state of overwhelm which is also a fear response, is kind of an enemy of hope. So I also think that maybe everybody having wine with this conversation will help lubricate it. And you told me that since knowing that we were going to be here tonight, you were just really thinking about what are your feelings about hope. So tell me what you came up with.

[B]

Yeah, I. You know, whenever you're going to sit with Krista, it would behoove one to be a bit more intentional about the way that they use language. Right. I think that hope is a word that is a valuable, valuable word that if we're not careful, becomes milk toast, becomes pedestrian, Potentially the most potent word in the English language. Potentially the most overused word in the English language. And so I decided, knowing that I would be here and having this conversation, I was like, let me really take a moment to think about this. Let me be intentional and really think about how I really feel about hope in this moment. So for me, at this particular juncture, if it is true, certain definitions say that hope is sort of a future desire, a desire for something in the future. The future could be within the month, within the minute, right? But the desire for a future thing, I would then have to think about who I believe to be the purveyors of the future, the arbiters of the future. Now, all of you, those of you who know who I am and what I've done, know who I think the arbiters are. Right. Earlier today, I sat on this very stage and talked about all these young people who were doing all this amazing work in Massachusetts. It's amazing. I was a part of the Aspen Challenge. So the first thing I would say is that, like, well, I do still feel it because I believe in the arbiters of the future, which in my world are young people. But if I'm going to feel it based on my respect and expectation of young people, then that would mean that my hope would. That there would have to be grace baked in. Right? Because what happens is we're like, yeah, it's young people. And then young people act like young people. And then we say, it probably ain't young people, when the truth is we have to extend a bit of grace in order for hope to actually take shape, right? If the arbiters and the purveyors are going to live to do their jobs, we, as far as I can see in this room as adults, are going to have, like, grace is going to have to be baked in to the hope. The other thing I was thinking about, though, along with that is, thinking about your ideas around muscular hope. I also thought about, like, is it hope that's lacking or is it stamina? And so I started to think about, like, hope as a. As a muscular function, which then led me to, like, my life as an athlete. And I started to think about, like, what it was like to consider hope within the context of stamina. Because the truth of the matter is, is that it isn't that we run out of hope. It's that sometimes it's hard to hold on to a particular level of stamina in the midst of trying to remain hopeful in trying times like today, which led me down a different rabbit hole. Right? So. So. And then that rabbit hole led me down the rabbit hole of, like, I'm not so sure that we should be so afraid of the ideas around hopelessness. And just hear me out, okay? If stamina and grace are two of the tenets of hope in my own life, and if I were to think about my life as an athlete, let's say I'm running track, and let's say my stamina is what it is when the stamina runs out, which in that context would mean when my breath runs out. When I run out of breath and energy, I then am allowed to stop and pause and catch my breath. And while doing so, I rely on my team and their stamina, which is probably better than mine, given the time in which we started the race, to carry me on. Like, my teammates didn't have a responsibility to carry their teammate who was out of breath. But I do deserve and get a moment to be out of breath when I need to take when I'm out of stamina. The idea of hopelessness as a perennial issue I actually think is a bit disingenuous and unfair. But moments of hopelessness, I actually think are human. And I think we all should allow ourselves enough grace to take a moment to catch our breath, believing that the communities that we've built, which we should be building, will be there to sort of carry us with their hope until they're out of breath, and then it will be our turn to take the baton and to do the same thing. And so, as I've been sussing it all, that's kind of where I am. I'm like, all right, I recognize that it's going to be these kids who are going to take us to the next level if we're doing our jobs. That is going to require a muscular hope. But that which is muscular does not mean that it is always strong. It means it has Strength, but it doesn't mean that it is always strong. Right? And there will be moments where I will have to take a beat and I'm going to be sad and I'm going to feel hopeless. And I deserve the opportunity to feel that. Knowing that there are people around me strategically put there, people who love me, who will carry me on until I can catch my breath and continue on with a hopeful life, right? That feels more human to me than the idea that I'm supposed to just be a beacon of hope all the time. I don't have it in me. I'd like to believe I do. But I'm a person and life is hard beyond politics. Life is hard. And I deserve that amount of grace. The grace I give these kids as they learn to live, as they learn to be human, as they learn to be whole, as they grow into adults, as they learn, as they activate their egos, as they learn humility, all the things that we need them to be in order for us to continue on with the world in which we live in a better version of it. I also deserve the same amount of grace. I deserve to give myself the same amount of grace in the moments in which I need it.

[A]

I love that. I mean, you're talking about hope. That is reality based, right? That's not an ideal. And so recently I've been thinking about, in terms of companions to hope, what makes hope possible. And this idea of giving grace to others, to yourself as something that makes hope possible, is beautiful.

[B]

I had like a wild conversation last night.

[A]

Uh huh.

[B]

With a man at the bar.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

You know how that goes. He sat next to me and he said, what are you here to talk about? And I said, hope. And then he offered me, unsolicited, he offered me his opinion. His name was Larry. If Larry's in here, I'm gonna make sure everybody know. Cause I ain't scared of you. Larry, he not in here. But Larry said, as far as I'm concerned, everybody's too concerned with victimhood and not enough gratitude in this country. And in this moment, I have the opportunity to extend grace. And I also have the right to bow out of the conversation. But I ain't never been a runner. It's just not my way. I say, well, Larry, let's. I'd like, I'd like to talk about it. Let's see. Okay, tell us, let's see where we all are. Let's see. I don't know where I am in Aspen. I ain't never been to Aspen before. See what's going on. I'm not sure what this has to do with hope, Larry, but here we are. Larry said, yeah, man. Everybody just complaining. They don't understand the gratitude they need to have for this country. I said, fair enough. I said, larry, can I ask you a couple questions? I said, yeah. I said, larry, let me ask you something. If. Let's say we're talking about children, children growing up in a household, their parents are going through a nasty divorce, and it's ugly. It's causing extraordinary trauma on that child's life. And let's say the child grows up, and when the child is now ready to talk about the trauma that has been inflicted by that child's parents, your response to the child is, you should be happy to have had a roof over your head, never taking accountability or trying to atone for the trauma in which that child has experienced. Do you think the child has a right to then, like, can we hold both of those things simultaneously? It's not that the child isn't grateful. It's that the child is weighed down by a particular trauma that you refuse used to atone for. Is that okay? What do you think about that? That makes sense. Okay. Well, also, any child. America is the land of the free, a free place. Freedom looks different depending upon who you are, where you are, how you are, how much money you have. We all know this. We can pretend like we don't, but we do. Freedom varies based on your demographic and your experiences in this particular country, the way in which you were born, a crapshoot. We all know this is to be true. And if you don't, I hate to be the person to break it to you. Right? And if that is true for those of us who have more freedom, if you have a child who you've given freedom to, the likelihood of that child growing up and being grateful is slim. It's different because the child feels entitled in a different way, because freedom is all the child is known. Do you agree with that, Larry? He said, I agree with that too. Right now. There was more that I could have done, but I decided to pull the conversation there because in my mind, I'm thinking to myself, well, Larry's not a bad guy. Larry's just never been. There's never been any pushback. There's never been any discourse. And so Larry gets to say anything. And everybody around Larry says, I agree, but if I could extend a little bit of grace to engage in a human interaction without judgment. I was curious to hear what he. I'm gonna go back to my room. Regardless, Larry, you and me may never speak. I'm never gonna see you again. But I'm curious. What happens if I extend more grace than. Like, I don't owe Larry nothing. But if I extend a little grace based on the fact that you and I both are at this bar. We are both human beings, and we happen to also be Americans. I wonder what comes of this conversation now. The truth is, Larry could have got up and walked away and been like, that kid knows nothing. Or he could have got up and walked away, and when he got around his friends, he could have been like, you know, there is a. It's complicated. There's a bigger conversation that we can have around. Around hope, around victimhood, which is a very complicated word to use, by the way.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And around and around gratitude. Right. And I think this is what Grace has the opportunity to do. And the truth is, me and Larry's conversation did leave me hopeful.

[A]

Why?

[B]

Because it let me know that America is still a place, though it's so uncomfortable for so many of us. And for good reason, by the way, where we can disagree without harm. I don't think there's anything wrong with this disagreement, unless the disagreement has to do with my right to live. You don't have to believe in the things that I believe in. We can believe in different gods, different ways of life, different parenting and family dynamics. We can believe in all the things except for my right to liberty. Once we cross that line, then this is a different conversation. But Larry didn't do that. That's not what Larry was doing. Larry just simply said, look, here's the way I've been thinking about this. There seems to be a lot of people crying and not a lot of people praising how important it is and how amazing it is to live in this country. That's all he said to me. Larry didn't disrespect me. Right. And it doesn't mean that Larry didn't trigger things in me. But Larry didn't disrespect me. That's the truth. And I want to be honest about that. Despite my natural inclination to find fault in that man. I don't. The truth of the matter is he engaged in the discourse, and he didn't run from it, and neither did I. And we got to sit there over a bowl of French fries and a couple glasses of wine and have a mature, responsible, respectful conversation. And we both walked away from it feeling okay. And also hearing the other person. So, like, there's nothing wrong with that. That gives me Hope. Hope isn't a Kumbaya for me. Right. It doesn't mean that someday we all gonna feel the same about the same things. Who would wanna live in that world? I don't wanna live in America if all of us feel the same way about everything. Like, the point is that we're all different and that we should have differences. And that's what makes it interesting to be a human being. Right. So I don't think hope needs to be a melding of everything but me and Larry having a discourse and then could walk away from that discourse without that. That person is hateful, is hopeful for me. And some might say the bar is then set low. But to me, that is a very high bar in the country as it stands today.

[A]

Well, it is. And that story right now in this time in our life together feels really hopeful. And then I kind of stop myself because I actually think that kind of thing may be happening all the time in bars and on park benches. It's not the story that comes at us that makes us hopeless.

[B]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[A]

Like you would think. You would almost think that that's not possible.

[B]

But that is the. See, but this is. So at some point we're gonna have to figure out who the real culprit is. Like I. Sometimes you gotta turn your TV off. Young people got this terminology, right. Touch grass, which means go outside, even though they don't go outside. So it's not really young people, it's really my generation. Like, go outside. Right. I think my experiences. And look, my experiences are only my experiences. Right. Everywhere I go, I'm invited. Right. So to be clear, this is coming from a privileged experience. That being said, the news would have you. I put it in a different pocket for the four black people in a room. The Internet would have us believe that we hate each other. Gender wars, all of us see it. Right. Diaspora wars. Right. For the four of us in here who know what I'm talking about. Right? Right. There's all this weird. In real life, that's not actually a thing. On the Internet, though, it's like, man, yeah, we are in trouble. Right. And I wonder sometimes the damage that media does. We need journalists, we need free press. We need all those things. I think we always have to be a little bit concerned. If your news got commercial, somebody's paying for it on either side. Biases are real. If your news has commercials, someone is paying for the news. Right. Therefore there are biases on each side which should be acknowledged. I think we're all intelligent enough. This is an ideas conference. We're all intelligent enough to sort of see that and to know how that functions. And I think what happens is that they perpetuate a particular kind of fear mongering that keeps us at odds and is used for all sorts of political ploy. I mean, look, this is a tricky, tricky thing. But on every day in my everyday life and I've been in some real, I mean, I go to NASCAR every other week, I travel for nascar. Imagine it, I show up, you know, as myself and you know, and I have really interesting conversations with people and there are very few times where I've ever felt disrespected. Now, there have been tough conversations, right? I think we also have to recalibrate what is uncomfortable and what is unsafe. I never feel, I feel uncomfortable sometimes, right? It's like, I mean, this is a really strange conversation and you and I are never going to see eye to eye.

[A]

That is a really interesting question to ask yourself.

[B]

Yeah, am I uncomfortable or do I feel unsafe? If you are a woman, this is a different conversation, to be fair. Right. But as me, for me in my life, I don't ever feel unsafe. I do, there are moments of discomfort, but I rarely feel unsafe. And I have really complicated conversations with strangers that usually end in it being like, well, you know, I could actually. That's interesting. Or I'll think about that. And me being like, I'm definitely probably not going to think about that. But I feel you, you have a right to feel it. You have a right to feel that way. Well, I'm probably not going to. I'm not with you. You know what I mean? And that's really what it is. And so I think, and so I think when I look at the news and we're at like really at odds with each other. Prime example. And I'll kick it back to you. Prime example. The first time Trump was elected, the next day I had to fly to a small town called Olney, Illinois. Now, in the moment, I'm thinking to myself, this is a bad idea, I should cancel the trip. My mother is freaking out. My mother is at the time a 73 year old woman from South Carolina, rural South Carolina. She had a very different upbringing. She has taken every lick one could take as it pertains to race in America. She's like, jason, this is a bad idea. I don't like it. I'm concerned. I don't want you to go. And I'm like, well, they invited me. And she's like, that was before, sort of the mobilization of what seems to be a radical right, right? But I go, I picked it from the airport from a man who was the wealthiest man in the town. He owned a used car dealership. We drive two hours from o' Hare from Chicago into a very small town with one stoplight, one school, one church and a Walmart, which is where everybody worked. And on the way, he looks at me and he says, I know what you're thinking, because I'm probably visibly shaken because I know what you're thinking. And I said, what you think I'm thinking? He said, you think we are racists and homophobes and Islamophobes and xenophobes and sexists and misogynists. And I was like, yeah, I don't know how you did that, but you hit it on the head, right? And then he said, he said, some of that is true. Some of us are. We're where we're going to go. Some of us are. He said, but a lot of us in this little teeny town with a lopsided budget of Illinois, where Chicago gets all the budget and we get the crumbs. We don't even have paved roads where we're all growing our food. And if the crops don't grow, then we gotta hope the insurance adjusters come out. And if they don't, then we starve for the season, right? We're talking about one school, one church, and everybody got to try to get a job at the Walmart. And if they can't get a job at the Walmart, then they do not have a job. We're going there. That's where we're going to, or I'm going to take you. And he came here and he told us he would feed us. Whether it's true or not. Our desperation called for us to make a decision that for some of us was even against our ethic. Now, I come from a all black working class neighborhood. There are people in my family, friends of mine, who have done terrible things, things against their ethics to feed their families. People who have robbed people, held up liquor stores and done all kinds of other things to keep a roof over their children's heads and keep their babies clothed. So when he's telling me the story, I'm thinking to myself, but I can relate. I do know what that is. I do. I do. From a human level, right? If I could just, if I could complicate my own argument, which is everybody's biggest fear, by the way, especially those of us coastal folk. If I could Just complicate my own argument a little bit and listen to what he has to say. I don't have to agree, nor do I have to relinquish him or extinguish the necessity for his accountability. You still gotta be held accountable for the decisions that you made. But I can hear you, and I actually can kind of see how that could happen for the lot of you who are down bad. Then I got to the town and we pull up to a pizzeria, the only place to eat in town. He said, this is the only restaurant we got, so we gonna have to eat pizza. Someone who's lactose intolerant. This is complicated, right? So I go in and I'm like, brother, you gonna have to get me, like, can they make me something without cheese on it? And, like, I can eat a veggie with just no cheese. He's like, that's very strange because this is Illinois. And I'm like, please, just do me a favor. The Midwest is like, what do you mean? And when I get in there, there's a table full of kids having a birthday party. They all got on fatigue camouflage, sticks and leaves. Now, for the black people in the room, we know this is a secret. I shouldn't be telling these secrets, but sticks and leaves camouflage is, for us, a symbol of racism. For those of you who don't know what sticks and leaves camouflage is, it's the camouflage of sticks and leaves, right? It has sticks and leaves on. You know what I'm talking about? Anybody? Okay, so for us, because of whatever we are like, got on sticks and leaves, right? So I walk in, everybody got on sticks and leaves. And I'm like, oh, man, this is wild. Little kid looks over me and says, yo, what you doing in here? And I could feel my back tighten up. And I'm like, oh, man, I'm just trying to eat this non cheese pizza and get out of town. And I'm like, what you mean? I'm here for, you know, I'm just trying to get at some pizza. And he's like, I'm just saying, like, yo, why would Jason Reynolds be in our small town having pizza? Like, we have to grace Grace. We have to challenge our own prejudices. Even when we have a right to be prejudiced. Even when we have a right to try to figure out ways to protect ourselves. Because everything in us has said that this is a dangerous situation. We still owe it to ourselves, by the way, to challenge our own prejudices, to extend a little bit of grace. Them babies ain't do nothing to me. They don't deserve my bias. They don't deserve my prejudice in the same way that my babies don't deserve yours. Right. And it taught me more than I could have ever imagined. So Larry gets off because of that.

[A]

So, you know what I'm thinking as I'm listening to this is I suspect and believe. I mean, you are extraordinarily wise and extraordinarily curious. But I think that an effect of this time of rupture is that more of this kind of curiosity, of wondering, of asking questions, of these mundane, ordinary encounters that wouldn't have happened, that are, like, transformative. I think there's more of that. And so just to take this to a whole different level, if you think about fear as this place so many of us are living out of on every side. Fear is the most powerful thing in a human body, except perhaps love.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

And fear focuses us fiercely on looking for danger, looking for what's bad, looking for who's the enemy. And so, you know, to kind of circle it back to hope. And this is all about hope and bringing it down to earth. It actually is a muscle. It actually takes effort to look for grace, to look for this kind of meeting and learning as also the story of our time that I really believe is happening all over the place. And actually, like in this room, everybody who has just heard this story has been a little bit transformed.

[B]

I wonder if. So like the way we talk about it. You even said this in your intro that usually if there is fear, that it's the antithesis of love. Right. And I don't know. I don't know. I want to wrestle with this a bit because I don't know, I think that human beings are full of complex emotions. And I think in all the other parts of our lives that don't have to deal with human beings, fear and love get to coexist. Yeah.

[A]

So I said fear is an inverse of hope.

[B]

An inverse of hope. Yes, yes, yes, yes.

[A]

But I think fear shuts us down for all kinds of things.

[B]

Fear definitely shuts us down, but not always, because I also think a lot of us carry it. I mean, anytime I get on an airplane, it's with me and I'm on it and I'm hoping.

[A]

Yeah, right, right.

[B]

Like, I'm like both of those things are coexisting.

[A]

That may be the wishful thinking kind of fear of hope.

[B]

I disagree because, see, I would agree if I'd never spoken to a pilot. And when you speak to a pilot and they explain to you what turbulence is. The information doesn't do away with the fear, but it does solidify the hope, right? So it's like, all right, I know that, like, for me, as a person who has anxiety, clinically, that if I'm going to fly, I have to sit in the window. The reason why? Because the pilot told me one time, when you feel the bumps, look out the window, you realize we're not falling from the sky, right? Doesn't mean you're not afraid. It just means you understand enough to manage the fear up against the hope that we land. Now, imagine with human beings now with Larry, or with this man. And only it isn't that I wasn't afraid. It's that I was open enough to learn and to get information about who he was and where he was from. It didn't do away with the fear because when the little boy said, what you doing here? I was definitely afraid. And he was 12, right? I was definitely afraid. But I was able to manage that fear with the hope that I'd gained from information. And so my fear these days is that there aren't enough of us trying to find information. So what happened? It's so much easier to just assume. It's so much easier for groupthink to happen. And we're like, who bad? They bad. They bad, right? Like, let me know who's bad. So I could be on the right side, right? Or it's easier to say the right thing on a social platform so that I get a reinforcement through likes and affirmations and retweets, whether or not it's actually real, right? And like, the way life works or not, it gives me enough of a dopamine hit to help me believe that my biases are worth standing on. And therefore I get to lock them down and dig my heels in. And my fear gets to grow and my hope gets to lessen, as long as the argument sort of stays on the side in which I need the argument to stay on for that. So, because the truth of the matter is we love to be afraid. It makes us feel so much more comfortable because as long as we're afraid than if anything were to happen to us, I could blame it on a fear I had instead of extending myself to say, let me put myself in an uncomfortable situation to see if you are actually any different from me human being. Because the truth of the matter is you're probably not on a grant on average. Now, those of us who are black and women and trans and gay should be concerned only because the country has shown us that perhaps your life isn't valued but on a day to day basis with the people in which we interact with. The truth of the matter is most of them are trying to get to work just like you. And I think that. But knowing more arms us differently, where we maybe perhaps can carry both things. I don't know if it extinguishes the fear because I don't know if it's smart to extinguish the fear.

[A]

Yeah, well, it keeps us safe.

[B]

It keeps us safe.

[A]

Yeah. I don't think we ever extinguish it.

[B]

I don't think we should.

[A]

Partly what we're talking about is just getting conscious. Getting aware.

[B]

Exactly.

[A]

Awareness of what's. Of all of that.

[B]

What do you think is keeping us from it?

[A]

Getting conscious, getting aware?

[B]

Yeah,

[A]

it's. Well, partly that this. I think that this fear response first of all is very reasonable. There are a lot of really good reasons to be fearful right now.

[B]

There are lots of reasons to be fearful, right.

[A]

So to honor that and then our body's default is to go there. And it goes there without our permission, goes there without asking us if that's how we want to feel. It sets off a cascade of responses inside our bodies. And I think we've all been living for the last five years with the effects of stress unfolding in our bodies. You know what's going on. So it just takes effort, right? It's a practice to do this ordinary thing of getting curious.

[B]

Yeah, I agree. You know, it's interesting. I been doing all this work around, I've been studying like neurology. I've been trying to figure out, like, I'm just curious about like how the brain is functioning.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Emotional trauma is processed through the brain in 90 seconds. 90 seconds. Because the body is trying to protect itself. And so what it does is it processes it out. 90 seconds. Something bad happens to you, somebody calls you a name, somebody. It's a slur. It's whatever it is, any sort of moment of trauma, the brain processes out in 90 seconds as it's trying to save your life. 90 seconds. What prolongs it is rumination, the other part of the brain, right?

[A]

Becoming aware.

[B]

Awareness. Exactly right.

[A]

You holding on to, but we gotta activate it. That's the thing we do.

[B]

And all I could think about nowadays having known this, right? I'm like, yo, so Larry, right? Think of Larry.

[A]

I really hope he's in that room.

[B]

He not here, he live in Aspen. He's like, I'm not a part of the Congress. I live here for six months out of the year. And Larry's like. He says what he says to me, and I can feel the bite immediately. I can feel it. I don't want to pretend like I didn't feel the thing. That is like, oh, Larry about to be on that. Larry about to. Wow. Larry about to be wild, right? So I feel it. And for me, it's like, what if I were to give it over in 90 seconds? What if I were to let the brain do what it does? I don't know, Larry. What if I would have judged Larry only as Larry and not as every other white man who has said this to me? Like, what if. Like just, what if I. And that's hard, right? And we have a. It's okay for us for that to be hard, right? But that's a hard thing to trick the body. But in my mind, I'm like, you know what. What if. What if I could, like, allow myself to just view Larry as Larry and let it process out 92nd and then listen to what Larry might have to say to me without the baggage of all of that.

[A]

What did you talk about a minute ago earlier on that we have to let ourselves take breaths, be exhausted. I think, like, sometimes taking a breath or three is a companion to hope and to curiosity, to being able to be curious and to be perhaps surprised.

[B]

I think you want to hear. Okay, this is good.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

As you can see, we didn't have a plan tonight, by the way. We just kind of.

[A]

I have notes which I haven't looked at.

[B]

So, like, anybody in here know who Uncle Nearest is? Okay, for those of you who don't know Uncle Nearest, Uncle Nearest was. Was the black man who was formerly enslaved who invented the recipe for Jack Daniels for the whiskey, right? Now, when the narrative comes out about Uncle Nearest, The way we all heard it was like, Uncle Nearest didn't get credit for all the work he'd done to develop and distill this whiskey that made arguably the biggest whiskey brand on the planet, right? Jack Daniels. And that's not true. And the reason why it doesn't even matter whether it's true or not is because of the ruminations, is because of the lack of awareness or the fear of opening oneself up to a particular curiosity to hear the rest of certain stories, Right? The truth of the matter is, is that the family that he was credited and paid and support it, right? But when the story came out, because his story had been hidden for so long that what it did to us was say, it's another one of them stories where we do this amazing thing and we don't get credit for it. And. Right. It's like it's hidden figures all over again. Or it's right, or it's George Washington carver all over again. We can go on and on and on and on. And some of you are looking at me like, what are you talking about? There's a whole lot of we're not going to do it tonight. But there's a lot of these stories that have been swept under the rug about things that people have, black folk, trans folk, gay folk, whatever, have done that they don't get credit for. Right? But the truth of the matter is that he was credited, that he was treated fairly for what he'd done, that he was paid for what he'd done. It's just that the story had never gotten out, right? And I think about that story all the time, because when I heard it, somebody asked me, like, you heard uncle nerds. I say, man, they did us dirty, man. Like, we made Jack Daniels. They need ain't pay us. They ain't credit my man name, right? And the truth is, is that, like, it's that thing. Yeah, right. There's a hair trigger to our defense mechanisms, and it comes from a place of trauma and a place of, like, history and a place of all these things. And all I am trying to articulate is that I'm not quite sure as we continue to move through the trajectory of this world, this country, our history, our futures, I'm not quite sure that the hair trigger, though necessary sometimes to protect our physical bodies, I'm not quite sure they will allow us to get to a place of wholeness in the way that we oftentimes think they will. And that's hard to say as a person who has those triggers, but that is, I think, the true value of hope is that one day I might actually be able to hear you differently Because I have figured out ways to put this where it needs to be without me shutting you down to hear who you might be. In the same way, I would hope that you could hear me differently. Right? And I think that is where I hope to get to. I don't know if the country is ready for it yet. And another part of me is, like, the country is dying for it.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You know, I work. You know, I work with storycorps and all of that. We do, like, one small step, right? Which is this sort of like, what happens if we put two people in a room and we say talk about everything, but Politics. And what happens? Is everybody talking about the same thing. Will your children go to school? Are they safe? You got food. What is the cost of eggs? Right? Right. It all boils down to very similar things. Before we get into sort of like religion and who gets to own a gun, you know, I went to Minnesota, had a conversation around guns. That changed my life, too. I'm very. I am all. I'm one of them, right? City boy artists. You can. You. You can kind of guess sort of where I am and how I. How I am. Till I got to Minnesota. I got a driver. And the driver said, hey, I know you from the East Coast. You a city boy. So I'm gonna go ahead and lay some things down for you. Are you willing to hear me out? And I said, you know what, sir? You driving me around. I'm willing to hear you out. I kind of don't have a choice. And he says, all right. Rule number one, don't come over here talking about guns. He said, people in Minnesota have. They use their guns to eat their food. You can't take no food out. Nobody mouth. Right over there in Minnesota. Right in Minnesota, we shooting our food. Please don't come over here with your politics, talking about guns. I'm like, oof. Okay. Second thing he said was also, don't step on nobody's land without permission. Because if you know anything about the history of Minnesota, and if you don't, you should look it up. There's a reason why he says this. Don't step on nobody's land without permission. He said, rule number three. If you want to know why you shouldn't step on anybody's land without permission, refer back to rule number one. And that was it. And there was nothing about this conversation or in the people I met in Minnesota that made me feel like I was unwanted or unwelcome. I was invited there.

[A]

Yeah, but you're making choices about how to react.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

And also, Jason, I don't think taxi drivers have those kind of conversations with all of us in the room. Like, you're transmitting something. What are you transmitting? How do you. Like. Like, what do you do when you sit down that encourages. That, makes people feel comfortable?

[B]

I make sure everybody knows, sir, I ain't never been here. I'm at a point in my life where I just don't have enough time to pretend. So if I show up in Minnesota, first of all, they already know. If I get off the plane and I walk to your car, it ain't hard to tell that I don't live here, right? And the man says, where you from? I'm from D.C. i'm open to the conversation. Like, I'm open to the conversation. I'm game, right? When I have the energy, I'm game. I don't wanna have to teach you nothing, but I'm open. I'm open for some discourse. I'm open for. Plus, I'm a storyteller for a living. I wanna go home and be like, yo, y' all wouldn't believe what happened.

[A]

But see, maybe that's what you transmit, is that you are interested in the stories. And the stories, when they really get round and deep, always defy all these stereotypes. They do, right? They do and they break. They disrupt the simplistic narratives we have of each other. They always will do that.

[B]

They do. Look, people are people's biggest influences. I truly believe this. All of us, right? Which is also for the record, while I had the microphone for the record. It's the reason why I have a problem that Aspen isn't more diverse, that your festival isn't more diverse, because these are the conversations. These are the idea conversations that we should be having. This is what you take back to your communities and have discourse about. But we can't do that because we not here. There's not enough mixing and diversity here, right? But I do believe that people are people's biggest influence. All people. As much as I love myself, my culture, my family, my friends. Look, my people, I love it. I'm talking about. I love, love, love, love the history, love the present, love the future. Couldn't nobody tell me nothing. I can't wait for February, March, April, May and June. Juneteenth just passed. I'm very excited. I love all of it. That being said, I'm probably most influenced, literally, as far as my work, by Shakespeare. Can't nobody tell me nothing about Faulkner, right? That's a reality. Right? And I'm not ashamed. That doesn't make me feel small. It makes me feel big. Human beings are amazing. The human experiment and experience is amazing in all of its vastness and all of its. We just don't celebrate it enough or we close ourselves off.

[A]

And I think just that is a. As a way to move through the world is going to make a lot more visible if you're looking.

[B]

I hope so. I mean, but that would require other people to feel the same. The difference is, is that when you walk in a room, I'm not threatened when I walk in a room, right? So it would require some work for everybody. I Can't. It don't matter if I feel this way. It don't matter, right. It doesn't mean that my life is any less in danger. It just means that I don't think about my life as one that is dangerous. Does not mean that my life isn't in danger when I step into a space where people don't look like me or who feel like they know what people who look like me are like. So it requires all of us being a bit more open minded, a bit more open hearted and open eared, a little slower to judge. Right, let's hear it out. I'm usually Larry, right? I'm the Larry at every bar. And everyone's like, oh boy, we sit next to a Larry. Yeah, who knows what he, he probably getting ready to do this, this, this, this and this. And the reality of the matter is I write books for children. Harmless, not harmless, but for the most part harmless.

[A]

So the time has completely run away from us.

[B]

I know, sorry.

[A]

And we didn't get questions and I think we can have some conversation in the room after this end. I want to ask you. So you know this idea that hope is a leap of imagination with real world consequences and that actually nothing, I think you and I have talked about this before, that the human imagination is so undervalued in its force and its force in history. And I think it's, you know, nothing new has ever entered the world without someone having an idea that most people probably didn't, you know, thinking something new that most people probably didn't get at first and that later no one can imagine the world without like that is just, it's the way of anything that is invented, anything that is created. It's how the world moves forward. And so I think like, you know, it might sound soft to say that there's nothing more important that we could bring to this moment than imagination, but I think that's true. And I know that you are so committed to imagination and what dies in a human being and in a child or in a human being when they leave childhood and leave imagination behind. So make the link between imagination and hope as we close.

[B]

I think that there is direct connections between first and foremost. I think there's a direct correlation between language that try to track out the way it goes. I think it's language first, right. Anthropologically. Right. Every anthropologist in the world will tell you that language is the cornerstone of culture. No language, no culture. Change language change culture. Language is stolen. Culture is stolen. Right. That's how that works. Right. Like Language is a cornerstone of culture. If you can name a thing, then it becomes real.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

God only exists in the way in which the spiritual traditions exist because there's a name for it. Right.

[A]

And naming in most of the traditions brings things into being.

[B]

Brings things into being. Right. So I think first there has to be an acknowledgement of the value of language. Because even if you can imagine a thing, if you cannot name it, it is very hard for it to come into fruition. The other thing, though, is that there needs to be a curiosity. I think that our imaginations are usually shot by the time you're in the ninth grade. You talk to a second grader and you ask them what their favorite. Like if they could have any food in the world. They'll give you the most outlandish dish that does not exist. You ask an 8th grader and they'll say, pizza. A few years, boom, done, gone. Imagination right out of here. Zapped. Right. And so curiosity, I think, is the thing that sort of fuels your imagination. Also foolishness. I think foolishness is actually underrated. And when I say foolishness, I mean like silliness, levity.

[A]

You've also been writing about joy, and I didn't even get to that.

[B]

I know.

[A]

Is this connected? Is this connected?

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Like, we have joy as a human birthright.

[B]

Be childlike. Everybody's so serious, we can't joke or laugh no more. And everything is, you know, that which is unfunny is just as funny. Right. Depending upon your point of view and where you come from. Right. And so I think that there's, like, foolishness unnecessary because only a fool would be curious about what's happening over. Only a fool would want to know what Larry talking about. Right. And so I think there's foolishness and there's curiosity. And I think those things fuel what we call imagination. And I think through imagination, you know, we can find our hope because we can imagine a world farther or better or different than the one in which we live. But if you can't imagine a world different than this, then that's it. It, we're doomed. You, unfortunately, are imprisoned. But if you can imagine something different than this, then you can never be, ever be caged. It is an impossibility to be caged if your imagination is functioning.

[A]

I'm so happy to introduce all of you who had not met Jason Reynolds before to him. And thank you.

[B]

I wish we had more time.

[A]

I know we have another hour to talk.

[B]

Thank you all very, very much.

[A]

Jason Reynolds is a New York Times bestselling author of over 20 books for children and young adults. From 2020 to 2022, he served as National Ambassador for Young People's Literature. Among many honors he has received received the Newbery Prince and Coretta Scott King awards and in 2024 was named a MacArthur fellow. He's on the faculty at Lesley University for the Writing for Young People MFA program. Special thanks this week to Tricia Johnson, Matt Windholtz, Eva Hartman, and Emily Talko. Our funding partners include the Hearthland foundation helping to build a more just, equitable and connected America. One creative act at a time. The Fetzer Institute Supporting a movement of organizations that are applying spiritual solutions to society's toughest problems. Find [e-mail] Kaliapea foundation dedicated to cultivating the connections between ecology, culture, and spirituality. Supporting initiatives and organizations that uphold sacred relationships with the living earth. Learn [e-mail] and the Osprey Foundation A catalyst for empowered, healthy and fulfilled lives. On Being is an independent production of the On Being project, based in Minnesota and New York City.

[B]

Sam.