America the Apoplectic

Summary

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The Political Scene | The New Yorker

Episode: "America the Apoplectic"
Date: June 16, 2016
Host: Dorothy Wickenden, Executive Editor, The New Yorker
Guest: Ayad Akhtar, Playwright, Novelist, Pulitzer Prize Winner

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Overview

In this episode, Dorothy Wickenden speaks with acclaimed playwright Ayad Akhtar, whose work deeply explores Muslim American identity and the nuances of cultural belonging in post-9/11 America. Triggered by the aftermath of the Orlando mass shooting and a political climate marked by Donald Trump’s proposed ban on Muslim immigration, their conversation moves from Akhtar’s personal and artistic journey to a broader interrogation of race, identity, and the American “we.” They also preview Akhtar’s upcoming play, Junk, broadening the lens to examine American capitalism, debt culture, and the intersections with ethnicity and power.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Impact and Themes of “Disgraced”

[01:15-03:23]

• Disgraced, Akhtar's Pulitzer Prize-winning play, is the most-produced play in the U.S. this year. It centers on Amir, a corporate lawyer navigating his Pakistani and Muslim identity among mostly Jewish colleagues.
• A pivotal dinner party scene “where his secrets come out” marks a turning point; Amir’s inner conflict erupts as he “starts speaking his mind in ways that he probably never should,” leading to the unraveling of his life.
  • Quote: “Basically his life falls apart by the end of that scene.” — Ayad Akhtar [03:11].

2. Personal Experiences of American Muslim Identity

[03:23-04:14]

• Akhtar shares his family’s immigration story: both parents were doctors brought to the U.S. in the late '60s during a “science and technology push" after JFK. He was born in New York but raised in Wisconsin.
• Growing up pre-9/11, Akhtar felt “different, but not out of place,” unlike the more fraught atmosphere now.

3. The Post-Orlando Climate and “Trumpism”

[04:14-06:05]

• Following mass shootings and Trump's suggested Muslim immigration ban, Akhtar describes American Muslims’ “shudder of dread and fear” after attacks.
  • Quote: “Every time there's a terrorist attack...there's a shudder of dread and fear that goes through the community. I may have members of my family don't leave the house for days after one of those attacks.” — Ayad Akhtar [04:42].
• He critiques the absence of nuance: “There really is no place for nuance in our own experience” for Muslim Americans post-9/11 because dual loyalty is suspect; “You’ve got to be a card-carrying member of the American flag in all of its sort of unthinking jingoism.”

4. On Writing, Identity, and Representation

[06:05–07:23]

• Akhtar resists being pigeonholed as a “Muslim writer.” While his characters are treated as individuals, they cannot escape societal labeling.
• He argues for the unique nature of faith and individualism in American life, drawing from Harold Bloom, and how this colors the immigrant and minority experience.
  • Quote: “A man who wishes to define himself…as a secular individual, is not allowed to forget the fact that he is fundamentally Muslim.” — Ayad Akhtar [07:13].

5. Audience Responses and Bafflement

[07:23–08:17]

• African American audiences readily relate to the themes of Disgraced, recognizing the “once a Muslim, always a Muslim” dynamic mirrors the “one drop rule” for Black identity in America.
• Notable reactions include an Iranian woman urging Akhtar to be “an ambassador for the faith” and a white military veteran who saw the work as universal:
  • Quote: “I saw men my whole life struggle with their careers and struggle with their place because they couldn't figure out where their loyalties really lay. And that was the man that I saw in your play.” — Military veteran to Akhtar [08:17].

6. Political Rhetoric: Obama, Trump, and “The American We”

[09:48–11:39]

• President Obama and Hillary Clinton's calls for tolerance are contrasted with Trump's divisive rhetoric.
  • Quote (news clip): “Are we going to start treating all Muslim Americans differently? It won't make us more safe. It will make us less safe.” [09:55].
• Akhtar reflects on the erosion of a coherent American identity (“the ‘we’ is beginning to disintegrate in terms of its coherence”) and underscores the essential link between democracy and education.
  • Quote: “Supplanting it [identity] with an idea is a challenge. It takes education. I often say democracy is meaningless without education.” — Ayad Akhtar [11:19].

7. Race, Leadership, and Reaction

[11:39–12:59]

• The election of Barack Obama, the first Black president, did not fulfill hopes of a post-racial America. Instead, it’s been met with increased divisiveness, manipulated politically by Trump.
  • Quote: “That animus toward the underclass, the racial underclass, has erupted now that you have the very thing that they've been trying to avoid, staring at them on television, telling them how to live their lives. There's a black man in the White House... It makes people apoplectic.” — Ayad Akhtar [12:31].
• Akhtar stresses that denying America's history of racism is to misunderstand its reality.

8. Upcoming Play: “Junk” and American Capitalism

[13:06–14:43]

• Akhtar’s next play, Junk: The Golden Age of Debt, dramatizes how the 1980s redefined debt in American life, transforming it into an asset and fueling both immense wealth and systemic risk.
  • Quote: “Debt was something that figured the original sin of human existence...at some point we as a nation, I think, embrace the notion of debt as something to unlock wealth. And...it has come at a cost.” — Ayad Akhtar [13:25].
• The play features Jewish financiers challenging the WASP establishment, linking economic and ethnic anxieties.

9. Cyclical Crises and the Value of Truth

[14:43–15:35]

• Wickenden asks if Trumpism is a temporary cycle or something deeper. Akhtar expresses concern about societal disregard for truth and the consequences of anti-intellectualism.
  • Quote: “My ignorance is as good as your knowledge, that that's the way that a lot of people think and that's really, in many ways is the sort of aphorism of our time.” — Ayad Akhtar [15:29], referencing Asimov.

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Memorable Moments & Notable Quotes

• “Every time there's a terrorist attack...there's a shudder of dread and fear that goes through the community.” — Ayad Akhtar [04:42]
• “In a post-9/11 world, it's almost impossible to admit to dual loyalty. As a Muslim in this country you've got to be a card-carrying member of the American flag in all its sort of unthinking jingoism.” — Ayad Akhtar [05:18]
• “Supplanting it [identity] with an idea is a challenge. It takes education. I often say democracy is meaningless without education.” — Ayad Akhtar [11:19]
• “That animus toward the underclass, the racial underclass, has erupted now that you have the very thing that they've been trying to avoid... There’s a black man in the White House... It makes people apoplectic.” — Ayad Akhtar [12:31]
• “Debt was something that figured the original sin of human existence...at some point we as a nation...embraced the notion of debt as something to unlock wealth. And...it has come at a cost.” — Ayad Akhtar [13:25]
• “My ignorance is as good as your knowledge.” — Ayad Akhtar, quoting Isaac Asimov [15:29]

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Suggested Timestamps for Key Segments

• 01:15 – Introduction to Akhtar and "Disgraced"
• 03:23 – Akhtar’s Personal Background
• 04:14 – Muslim American Challenges Post-Orlando & Trump
• 06:15 – The Role of Identity in Akhtar’s Works
• 07:23 – Audience Responses, Race, and Representation
• 09:48 – Obama, Trump, and the Political Climate
• 11:39 – Race, Obama, and the Roots of Anger
• 13:06 – Preview of "Junk" and Economic Anxiety
• 14:43 – Is Trumpism Temporary or Enduring?
• 15:35 – Closing Thoughts

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Tone & Language

The conversation is direct, insightful, and nuanced—with Akhtar thoughtfully unpacking complex themes and Wickenden guiding the discussion with empathy and clarity. The tone moves from personal reminiscence to acute cultural critique, with both participants unsparing in their analysis but careful to emphasize the intricacies behind contemporary American anxieties.

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This summary encapsulates the episode’s deep dive into the personal and political dilemmas of American identity, the persistent complexities of race and religion, and the economic undercurrents shaping national life. Ayad Akhtar’s reflections—personal, literary, and philosophical—offer listeners a rich, challenging perspective on what it means to belong, to be seen, and to confront the “apoplectic” moods of modern America.

Transcript

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[Dorothy Wickenden]

This is the political scene, a weekly conversation with New Yorker writers and editors about politics. It's Thursday, June 16th. I'm Dorothy Wickenden, executive editor of the New Yorker. Several years ago, Ayad Akhtar debuted his play Disgraced, which centers on the subject of Muslim American identity. Post 9 11. This year it is the most produced play in the country. Here's a scene from the Lincoln center production.

[Ayad Akhtar]

So what's it like for you? What? Airport security. I mean, you hear stories I wouldn't know. We cut right to the chase.

[Dorothy Wickenden]

He volunteers himself, goes up to the agents and offers himself up. What?

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To be searched?

[Ayad Akhtar]

Look, I figured they're looking at me. It's not because I look like Giselle, you know, why not make it easier for everyone involved? I've never heard of anybody doing that before. Well, on top of people being more and more afraid of people who look like me, we end up being resented.

[Mint Mobile Advertiser]

If those agents are working hard not.

[Dorothy Wickenden]

To discriminate, then here comes this guy.

[Ayad Akhtar]

And just calls him out. Your unmitigated passive aggression. My wife likes the calls. I think maybe she's got a point.

[Dorothy Wickenden]

Ayad won the Pulitzer Prize for disgrace in 2013. He joins me to talk about the Muslim American experience today. Hi, Ayad. Welcome.

[Ayad Akhtar]

Hi, Dorothy. Thanks for having me.

[Dorothy Wickenden]

So in the play, in the course of a single dinner party, Amir, who is a corporate lawyer, reckons with his Pakistani heritage and his American identity, it doesn't go well. Tell us a little bit about the scene we just heard.

[Ayad Akhtar]

That's the third scene of the play, which is the centerpiece of the play. And, you know, Amir has been hiding his Muslim and Pakistani origins from his mostly Jewish bosses at the mergers and acquisitions law firm that he works at. And over the course of the play, that secret, if you will, gradually comes out and the section that you just heard takes place the evening that it really looks certain that things are going south for him at the firm. And there's a colleague over for dinner, and he has way too much to drink and. And he starts speaking his mind in ways that he probably never should. And, yeah, basically his life falls apart by the end of that scene.

[Dorothy Wickenden]

Can you just tell us a tiny bit about your own background? You grew up in Milwaukee. You are the child of Pakistani Americans yourself.

[Ayad Akhtar]

Yeah, my folks are both doctors. They came over on a program after the US Government changed the quotas on immigration from the subcontinent. They came over on a program that gave them visas, apartments, jobs, and plane tickets because they were both doctors. And the United States needed scientists in the sort of science and technology push post JFK. My dad came in 68. My mom came in 69. My dad ended up moving the family out to Wisconsin. I was born in New York. My mom never forgave him for that. Moving her out to the hinterlands. Yeah, I grew up in Wisconsin, and I've written about it in a novel called American Dervish. I didn't feel out of place. I felt different, but I didn't feel, you know, this is pre 9 11, so there wasn't really the same kind of atmosphere that there is now.

[Dorothy Wickenden]

That brings us to where we are today with the mass shootings in Orlando, after which Donald Trump said yet again that he wants to ban Muslims from immigrating to America. So we've talked a lot on this program this year about the xenophobia and racism that are now known by the name Trumpism, at least to his opponents. You've been writing about these themes for your entire career, and I wondered, how do American citizens who happen to be Muslim grapple with the moment we're in.

[Ayad Akhtar]

Right now with Difficulty. Every time there's a terrorist attack, a so called terrorist attack, you know, there's a shudder of dread and fear that goes through the community. I may have members of my family don't leave the house for days after one of those attacks. It's complicated. It's not easy to talk about in sound bites because, you know, in our culture today it appears that there really is no middle ground. Either you are on one side or the other. And so everyone is looking to figure out what your point of view is. So having a nuanced conversation about Islam and the west, about post 9 11, sort of the new global world order, all of those things are difficult to undertake. I think one of the things that I find interesting about Muslim experience or experience of many Muslims post 911 is that there really is no place for nuance in our own experience. We have a long genealogy, a long history of colonial and postcolonial grievances, postcolonial wounds. We come from cultures in many cases, you know, I certainly do in my parents Pakistani culture where there's a long complicated legacy of a relationship to Britain, to the Great Game, to America. In a post 911 world, it's almost impossible to admit to dual loyalty. As a Muslim in this country you've got to be a card carrying member of the American flag in all of its sort of unthinking jingoism.

[Dorothy Wickenden]

You've said my characters aren't Muslim, they are characters. But you also show, as we were just discussing, that they can't escape their identity as Muslims.

[Ayad Akhtar]

That's the case with Disgraced. You know, I wrote another play called the who and the what in which many people have commented there doesn't seem to be any self consciousness about being Muslim or American Dervish. Where the book is in many ways just about my sense of the American experience of faith from the Muslim point of view. You know, I often think, following Bloom, Harold Bloom, that there is something exceptional about the American religion, that there is a sense in which we as Americans see ourselves individually with the uncreated, with God, that there is some individualist tenor to the sacred experience for us as Americans that actually speaks to our obsession with individualism in our national life, that those two things, there's a continuum there. And so American Dervish is an attempt to express that kind of singularity. What you were saying about Disgraced is true, that the subject of Disgraced in many ways is that a man who wishes to define himself in stark opposition to everything that he comes from and wishes to prove his bona Fides, as a secular individual, is not allowed to forget the fact that he is fundamentally Muslim.

[Dorothy Wickenden]

Audiences are disturbed and often baffled by the play. But you said that African Americans tend to immediately understand it. Why do you think that is?

[Ayad Akhtar]

Well, I think picking up on what I just said, once a Muslim, always a Muslim. You know, the whole thing of one drop of black blood makes you black in this country. It was interesting. Susan Booth in Atlanta programmed the play at the alliance in her very, very large theater. And I was perplexed, and I went down to do an event with her, and she said, you know, I read this play and I felt like I wanted to do a play that was about race in America, but that was not the same conversation we always have in this city. And there was a huge African American contingent that came to see the play, and there was very, very vociferous sort of response.

[Dorothy Wickenden]

So, interesting, you mentioned yesterday, too, that you were. Maybe it was the same event in Atlanta, but you had given a talk and you were approached by an Iranian woman who was quite. And then by a white man in his 60s who defended you.

[Ayad Akhtar]

Well, you know, I often get this. That Muslims will come up to me afterwards and say, you know, you gotta be an ambassador for the faith. You gotta do a better job. I wrote American Dervish. I would get letters of, why are you not writing a book that's making people want to be Muslim? You should write a book that makes people want to be Muslim. So with disgrace, she was sort of chiding me a little bit for not doing a better job of explaining Islam to people and why it's a beautiful thing. And, you know, I tried to explain to her that I didn't see that that was my job. And I was not an ad guy or advocate for Islam. Islam doesn't need an ap. It doesn't need somebody. It's a very robust tradition. There was a white guy in his 60s who was standing behind her, and as she left, he came up to me, he said, you know, I gotta tell you, I saw your show on Broadway, and I didn't see anything about Islam. I mean, I know it's there, but that was not what I came away with. You know, I spent my whole life in the military, and I had Latino and black officers above me and Latino and black soldiers below me. And I saw men my whole life struggle with their careers and struggle with their place because they couldn't figure out where their loyalties really lay. And that was the man that I saw in your play.

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[Ayad Akhtar]

But what's happening in America isn't just the cause of global upheaval. It's also a symptom of disruption that's happening everywhere.

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I'm Asma Khalid in Washington, D.C. i'm.

[Ayad Akhtar]

Tristan Redman in London, and this is the Global Story.

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Every weekday, we'll bring you a story from this intersection where the world and America meet.

[Ayad Akhtar]

Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Dorothy Wickenden]

This week, President Obama spoke about the difference between ISIS homegrown terrorists and ordinary Americans.

[Unidentified Speaker (possibly a news clip or commentator)]

The Orlando killer, one of the San Bernardino killers, the Fort Hood killer, they were all U.S. citizens. Are we going to start treating all Muslim Americans differently? It won't make us more safe. It will make us less safe. Fueling ISIL's notion that the west hates Muslims. Making young Muslims in this country and around the world feel like no matter what they do, they're going to be under suspicion and under attack. It makes Muslim Americans feel like their government is betraying them.

[Dorothy Wickenden]

Hillary Clinton said much the same thing. Yet this kind of thing just fires up Trump and his followers. In fact, Trump describes Obama as anti American.

[Ayad Akhtar]

Yeah, I don't know what Trump's idea of America is. I mean, I feel like one of the big dilemmas that we have is that we don't know what we means. You know, as animals, we like to know without thinking about it what we are. So when you have a contiguous ethno racial identity, there really is no need to reflect on the wealth. The we is obvious. It's obvious in terms of what we see and how we speak. And I think that we're entering an era where that we is really not clear, that we is beginning to disintegrate in terms of its coherence. Supplanting it with an idea is a challenge. It takes education. I often say democracy is meaningless without education. So here we are, one of the richest nation in the world, gutting our education and extolling the virtues of democracy, which we can't even seem to understand on a very fundamental level.

[Dorothy Wickenden]

And we have an African American president who has served two terms, who came into office determined to basically present the message that you just made. And yet the country has become increasingly divisive since. And Trump is using that to whip up racial animosity of all kinds.

[Ayad Akhtar]

I said recently in an interview something about there are these pockets of irrationality that open up cyclically in American history, and we're seeing yet another with perhaps greater consequence or perhaps less. We'll see. We don't know. Again, the idea that Obama, that his ascension to the throne, if you will, somehow marks a shift at the level of intuitive recognition of what we are and our identity is not foregone conclusion. It's the coded language of race baiting within politics. That animus toward the underclass, the racial underclass, has erupted now that you have the very thing that they've been trying to avoid, staring at them on television, telling them how to live their lives. There's a black man in the White House. Well, we've been talking about how big government actually really means don't give money to black people. That's what it really means. And now we got a black guy in the Oval Office. It makes people apoplectic. And so to somehow think that we were not that country is to not understand our history.

[Dorothy Wickenden]

Tell us a little bit about your next play, which deals with yet another crisis that's been building over the decades and in some ways is a version of what we're talking about.

[Ayad Akhtar]

Absolutely. I think that our real problems have less to do with identity politics and more to do with the sort of subtle and encompassing way that global power has become united to late capitalist financial systems.

[Dorothy Wickenden]

I should say, by the way, that it's called junk. Yeah, the golden age of debt.

[Ayad Akhtar]

Yes. It's basically a fantasia on the events of the 80s that resulted in a shift in American thinking where we began to think of debt as an asset. You know, debt was never an asset. Debt was something that figured the original sin of human existence. You know, the debt to life, which has to be paid off through the curse of work. And at some point, we as a nation, I think, embrace the notion of debt as something to unlock wealth. And of course, it created an extraordinary amount of wealth. It has come at a cost. And I think there are philosophical nuances to this that are important to our national life. And so, anyway, the play is a. I take a leverage buyout deal that turns into a hostile takeover, and I put the entire deal on stage. The play begins at the beginning of the deal and ends at the end of the deal. So it's a sort of attempt to embody or embed the audience in the process of capital and to watch in real time the consequences on individuals, but also on the economy.

[Dorothy Wickenden]

It's just interesting to me the way you focus on economic themes and ethnic themes and the way they resonate with each other.

[Ayad Akhtar]

Well, and in junk, another major subplot, or not even subplot, is that a group of young Jewish financiers are trying to overthrow or overtake the old blue blood WASP order, which is of course what the history of the 80s in finance really was. So it's the same issue in a.

[Dorothy Wickenden]

Way, going back to what you were saying earlier about the era of Trump. Do you think this is just part of one of these cyclical moments and that we will come out of it and move ahead, or are we seeing something that's deeper and more disturbing?

[Ayad Akhtar]

You know, I think it's been a few generations now that meaning and language have been decoupled, but I think we're seeing a new disrespect or disregard for the truth value of language. And I think that without meaningful education, there really is nothing to stem the tide of this avalanche of ignorance that seems to be engulfing our national consciousness. Asimov wonderfully said about his streak of anti intellectualism in American life that my ignorance is as good as your knowledge, that that's the way that a lot of people think and that's really, in many ways is the sort of aphorism of our time. How do we combat that?

[Dorothy Wickenden]

Okay, thank you so much, Ayad.

[Ayad Akhtar]

Thank you.

[Dorothy Wickenden]

Ayad Akhtar is a playwright, novelist, screenwriter and actor, and the winner of the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for drama. This has been the Political Scene from the New Yorker. You can find more political analysis and commentary on new yorker.com or on the New Yorker Apps available at no extra charge from the App Store and Google Play. And you can subscribe to this and other New Yorker podcasts by searching for the New Yorker in your podcast app. The Political Scene is produced by Alex Barron and Jill Duboff. For newyorker.com I'm Dorothy Wickenden.

[David Remnick]

Right now we are living through some of the most tumultuous political times our country has ever known. I'm David Remnick, and each week on the New Yorker Radio Hour, I'll try to make sense of what's happening alongside politicians and thinkers like Cory Booker, Nancy Pelosi, Liz Cheney, Tim Waltz, Ketanji Brown Jackson, Newt Gingrich, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Charlemagne, the God, and so many more. That's all in the New Yorker Radio Hour. Wherever you listen to podcasts.

[Ayad Akhtar]

From prx.