The Gray Area with Sean Illing16 Touko 2017

Bryan Stevenson on why the opposite of poverty isn’t wealth, but justice

Bryan Stevenson is the founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative. He and his staff have won reversals, relief, or release for more than 115 wrongly convicted prisoners on death row. He’s the author of the power book Just Mercy, and a winner of a MacArthur “Genius” grant. There are only a few people I’d say this about, but he’s a genuine American hero.This conversation begins with one of Stevenson’s most provocative arguments. “The opposite of poverty isn’t wealth,” he says. “It’s justice.” In this podcast, he explains what he means.We also talk at length about his argument — an argument I am now fully convinced by — that the question is not whether a criminal deserves to die but whether the state deserves to kill. We talk about America’s history, our justice system, our prejudices. We talk about what it’s like to be a black man in the South, driving down highways named for Robert E. Lee and attending high schools named for Jefferson Davis. We talk about the value of shame, and the way we honor it in the justice system even as we dismiss it in our national dialogue.The nature of writing these podcast descriptions is that they lend themselves to hype. I want you to listen, and I use this space to try to persuade you to listen. But that backfires a bit when it gets to a conversation like this one, which left me more changed than perhaps any of the discussions that came before it. This is worth listening to.Books:“The Brothers Karamazov," by Fyodor Dostoyevsky"Gilead," by Marilynne Robinson“Anna Karenina," by Leo Tolstoy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Yuval Harari, author of “Sapiens,” on AI, religion, and 60-day meditation retreats

Yuval Noah Harari’s first book, “Sapiens,” was an international sensation. The Israeli historian’s mind-bending tour through the trump of Homo sapiens is a favorite of, among others, Bill Gates, Mark ...

28 Helmi 20171h 10min

Elizabeth Drew covered Watergate. Here's what she thinks of Trump.

Elizabeth Drew is the author of Washington Journal, one of my favorite books about Watergate. Drew covered the story as a reporter for the New Yorker, and the book emerges from the real-time, journali...

21 Helmi 20171h 12min

Avik Roy on why conservatives need to embrace diversity

Avik Roy advised Mitt Romney’s 2012 campaign on health care, ran the policy shop on Rick Perry’s 2016 campaign, and then worked for Marco Rubio after Perry dropped out. So Roy’s Republican credentials...

14 Helmi 20171h 32min

Kara Swisher gives a master class on reporting and interviewing

Before I launched this podcast, I asked Kara Swisher to coffee. Swisher founded the technology news site Recode, hosts the excellent Recode Decode podcast, and runs a legendary conference series. She ...

7 Helmi 20171h 38min

David Miliband explains the global refugee crisis

Donald Trump's executive order temporarily banning Muslim refugees from Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen, and indefinitely banning them from Syria, doesn't come in a vacuum. The world is c...

2 Helmi 201750min

Jennifer Lawless on why you — yes, you — should run for office

There are 500,000 elected positions in the United States. I'll say that again: 500,000. And that's no accident. "Our political system is built on the premise that running for office is something that ...

31 Tammi 20171h 4min

JD Vance: the reluctant interpreter of Trumpism

J.D. Vance's Hillbilly Elegy has been adopted as the book that explains Trumpism. It's the book that both Senator Mitch McConnell and Senator Rob Portman recommended as their favorite of 2016. It's a ...

24 Tammi 20171h 43min

Keith Ellison: The Democratic National Committee has become the Democratic Presidential Committee, and that needs to end

Congressman Keith Ellison is the frontrunner to lead the Democratic National Committee in the Trump era. Ellison has a fascinating backstory: he's the first Muslim elected to the US Congress, and he w...

17 Tammi 20171h 4min