Okay, move out. In my humble way, I am writing to you about the crisis in Vietnam. I have a son who is now in Vietnam. My husband served in World War II. Our country was at war. But now, this time, it's just something that I don't understand. Why? German Chancellor Adolf Hitler arrives for a conference to be held here with British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain. Opens the door to the dreams of dictatorship. We regard the agreement signed last night and the Anglo-German naval agreement as symbolic of the desire of our two peoples never to go to war with one another again. Peace in our time. To disaster. But even then, this was no new lesson. It had stared us in the face with Mussolini in Ethiopia. Ethiopia's emperor, Haile Selassie, made his protest to the League of Nations. But nothing was done. We'd also seen the Angshlus in Austria, and nothing was done. Then in 1950, this time across the 38th parallel in Korea, but free men had begun to learn the lesson, and something was done. The lesson had been learned, and President Johnson had phrased its meaning well. Aggression unchallenged is aggression unleashed. Why must young Americans, born into a land exultant with hope and with golden promise, toil and suffer and sometimes die in such a remote and distant place? The answer, like the war itself, is not an easy one. But it echoes clearly from the painful lessons of half a century. Three times in my lifetime, in two world wars and in Korea, Americans have gone to far lands to fight for freedom. We have learned at a terrible and a brutal cost that retreat does not bring safety and weakness does not bring peace. And it is this lesson that has brought us to Vietnam. For the background to our involvement in Vietnam, we must go back to a shell cratered place called Dien Bien Phu, supplied only by air, completely surrounded by the opposing Vietnamese. French troops are fighting the last battle of a long war over what had been called French Indochina. It's a strange three-cornered struggle. Non-communist Vietnamese fighting communist Vietnamese, and some of both fighting the French. In 1954, the inevitability of French defeat has become clear. In 1954, reflects the ravages of long and bitter warfare. Now the fighting is over, the French are leaving. The red star flies over Hanoi as the communist forces move in. At a conference in Geneva, an agreement has been reached. It divides Vietnam into north and south, turns over the north to the communists and marks the end of French colonial rule. The agreement also provides the machinery for bringing true peace to Vietnam if the communists act in good faith. This is a bright victory for the communist world and there are smiles. But not on the faces of the more than one million Vietnamese who desert their homes and flee southward rather than live under a communist regime. In 1954, Vietnam is divided at the 17th parallel, as Korea was divided at the 38th. She faces the future with an imaginary line running from border to border, symbolizing a separation which is far from imaginary. In south Vietnam, peace brings a fresh beginning. The people set about building new homes, new hopes. Free elections are held in the south alone when it becomes clear that the communist regime in the north has no intention of permitting genuinely free elections in its half of the country. The reforms redistribute farm lands in the south so that farmers own their fields and reap for themselves the fruit of their toil. With American economic aid, the south begins to prosper in the hopes of the people of a peace. But even as the people of the south build, north Vietnam is creating in their villages political action centers with trained agitators infiltrated from the north, often in the guise of refugees. Communist plan also includes acts of terror and subversion to disrupt the legitimate government. If the south cannot be brought under Hanoi's control by less forceful means, a new phase of the communist plan is ready to go into action. Open guerrilla warfare, furtive and remorseless, aimed at destroying the government and subjugating the people. It is called by Hanoi a war of liberation. It does not seem so to the hundreds of anti-communist leaders, teachers and their wives and children who are visited in the night by Viet Cong persuasion squads is the communist thereafter. South Vietnam, rich in rice and standing at the gateway to the rice-rich nations of Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Burma and East Pakistan. Asian communists have said a grain of rice is worth a drop of blood. There are also natural resources, coal, phosphate, zinc, tin, manganese, the raw materials on which to base industrialization or feed a war machine. Natural rubber. South Vietnam has this too. And the latex processing facilities which make of raw rubber, the vitally important material it is in today's world. This then is another aspect of the South Vietnam, which the North cupboards, a nation moving toward greater industrialization.  At Gettysburg College in 1959, President Eisenhower clearly recognizes the danger. We have learned too that the cost of defending freedom, of defending America must be paid in many forms and in many places. They are assessed in all parts of the world, in Berlin, in Vietnam, in the Middle East. Here at home. Unassisted, Vietnam cannot, at this time, produce and support the military formations essential to it. Military, as well as economic help, is currently needed in Vietnam. By 1960, every area of life in the South has become a combat zone. This is a different kind of war. There are no marching armies or solemn declarations. But this is really war. It is guided by North Vietnam and it is spurred by communist China. Its goal is to conquer the South and to extend the Asiatic dominion of communism. And there are great stakes in the balance. No people see this more clearly than the embattled, hard-pressed Vietnamese. By 1961, they send out an urgent call for help. The answer to that call is prompt in arriving. America promises substantial military and technical aid, machines and equipment to resist aggression and the trained men to teach Vietnamese fighting forces how to put them into effective use. The students are trained to teach. Instructors and advisors willing and able to teach. Find men whose freedom is at stake, eager and quick to learn. At this time, however, the Americans in Vietnam are there only as advisors. There are no United States combat units as such. The advisor's primary job is to train and encourage the South Vietnamese fighting men they have come to respect and admire. This guerrilla warfare is the latest tactic in the global communist plan. Korea showed that the free world would meet and stop conventional invasion. And communists' efforts to dominate newly emerging nations through trade, aid and political subversion had little success. Now a new kind of politically camouflaged invasion must be faced, the so-called People's War of Liberation. As months go by, the communists lose a lot of men. But there are many more in the North who will be sent South to replace them. And others can be kidnapped and forced to serve. Meantime, in addition to training Vietnamese fighting men, American advisor teams are working constantly to help relieve the human suffering of remote villages. Under pressure of growing communist aggression, the flow of American equipment and advisors is increased. It is the only means of meeting the rising tide of infiltration and attack from the North. Especially since aggressive guerrillas with no citizenry to protect can tie up forces ten times their own number. Equipment and mobility are used to full advantage to carry the fight to the enemy, swiftly, wherever his presence becomes known. The Vietnamese soldier is quick to grasp the techniques involved in copter-borne counteraction to guerrilla raids on country villages. And he uses his new knowledge well. Even with superior equipment, however, this is a difficult war to prosecute. There are no front lines here. The war is everywhere against an enemy that has seldom clearly seen. In these scenes of casualty evacuation, the enemy is not far away. Certainly within shouting distance. The enemy is not seen. But American and Vietnamese fighting men bear on their bodies the painful evidence that he is still here. Still determined. Still deadly. Throughout this time, the combat capability of South Vietnam's military forces is growing. American advisors work to bring the level of training and combat readiness of these forces as high as possible. But as North Vietnam continues to send in fresh cadres, there is a growing need in South Vietnam for fighting men. The losses suffered by the South in combat are cruely heavy for a nation whose population is no larger than that of New York State. The fact is, in proportion to population, South Vietnam's losses in combat are 10 times as great as those suffered by the United States in Korea. Greater even than our total losses in World War II. In August of 1964, the communists again enlarge the scope of the conflict. Renewed hostile actions against United States ships on the high seas and the Gulf of Tonkin have today required me to order the military forces of the United States to take action in reply. That reply is being given as I speak to you tonight. Air action is now in execution against certain supporting facilities in North Vietnam which have been used in these hostile operations. Never until now have American men and machines struck directly at Communist North Vietnam. Later in August, Secretary of Defense McNamara sets the record straight. We wish to emphasize we seek no wider war. Our response will depend upon the action of the aggressors, in this case the North Vietnamese. The key to the situation remains the cessation of infiltration from the North into the South. We seek no wider war. But we find ample evidence that there is no relaping on the part of the North. In this one captured shipment of Viet Cong arms, there are a million rounds of small arms ammunition. 3500 rifles, submachine guns. And some 4000 anti-tank and mortar rounds. And there's no doubt about the source. The Chinese markings are unmistakable. Within the aggression so clearly evidenced here, we have sent strength to meet force. But we have also repeatedly sent word that we are willing to talk as Secretary of State Dean Rusk makes plain. Our war aim in South Vietnam is peace. This year we brought the Vietnam problem before the Security Council of the United Nations at the time of the Gulf of Tan Ken Affair. But Hanoi refused an invitation to come to the Security Council to talk about it. The distinguished Secretary General of the United Nations, Utant, considered a peace mission himself to bring about peace. But Hanoi and Peking, I told him not to come. Britain has made many efforts to find a path to a settlement. First by working toward a new conference in Geneva and then by a visit of one of their senior statesmen, Mr. Patrick Gordon Walker. But the effort for a Geneva conference has thus far been blocked. And Mr. Gordon Walker was told that he should stay away from Hanoi and Peking. The Commonwealth attempted to send a Committee of the Commonwealth to various capitals to explore the possibilities of peace. We welcome that initiative, but Hanoi and Peking told him not to come. We made a number of efforts on our own, both publicly and privately. President Johnson and Baltimore, for example, offered unconditional discussion with the government's concerned. But Hanoi and Peking called this offer a hoax. 17 non-aligned nations publicly appealed for a peaceful solution by negotiations without preconditions. We welcome this proposal, but it was rejected by Hanoi and Peking. The distinguished President of India made a constructive suggestion that there be an end of hostilities and an Afro-Asian police force established in Vietnam. To us, this proposal was full of interest and hope. But by Hanoi and Red Shiny, it was rejected as a betrayal. So all of these abrupt and violent rejections of peaceful settlement are just what they appear to be. Clear proof that Hanoi is not yet prepared for discussions, unless it be accepted in advance that South Vietnam be subjected to communist domination. And so the record seems very clear to us. Hanoi is presently resisting the road to peace. Peking, even more so. The declared doctrine and purpose of the Chinese communists remain clear. The domination of all of Southeast Asia. And indeed, if we listen to what they're saying to us, the domination of the great world beyond. The United States will continue to make every effort toward reasonable negotiation and there can be no doubt as to our intention. We do not seek the destruction of any government, nor do we covet eight foot of any territory. But we insist, and we will always insist, that the people of South Vietnam shall have the right of choice, the right to shape their own destiny in free elections in the South or throughout all Vietnam under international supervision. And they shall not have any government imposed upon them by force and terror, so long as we can prevent it. We do not want an expanding struggle with consequences that no one can foresee, nor will we bluster, or bully, or flaunt our power. But we will not surrender. And we will not retreat. The answer to American offers to move from the battlefield to the conference table continues to come in the form of high explosives aimed at American air bases and other troop installations in the South, including the barracks of American servicemen. But in this war against people, the high explosives are not only aimed at men who bear arms. The American embassy in Saigon itself becomes a grim battleground scene as Viet Cong terrorists single it out for a bomb attack. It is all part of the carefully planned and continuing campaign of terror against both American and South Vietnamese civilians. Increasingly now, Americans are functioning directly in the fight for freedom in this far, foreign corner of the earth. The risks are real, just as the stakes for which they are taken are real.  If freedom is to survive in any American hometown, it must be preserved in such places as South Vietnam. And as President Johnson has pointed out, it is up to us. Most of the non-communist nations of Asia cannot by themselves and alone resist the growing might and the grasping ambition of Asian communism. Because this is true, we intend to convince the communists that we cannot be defeated by force of arms or by superior power. I have asked the commanding general, General Westmoreland, what more he needs to meet this mounting aggression? He has told me, and we will meet his needs. Combat units of the United States Marine Corps arrive in Vietnam, joining other Marines already there. It is the first time that Marines in full combat gear have hit the beach in an active combat zone since Korea. Army combat units also arrive, and the message of their presence on Vietnamese soil is plain. Whatever the present or future needs of the fight for freedom in Vietnam, they will be met. So the war goes on. Clearly it is the communists who have made that choice and as always the innocent suffer. For the children of Vietnam and of all Southeast Asia, the future is in the balance. They realize their heritage as free men tomorrow. There are for us today hard realities to be faced. I do not find it easy to send a flower of our youth, our finest young man into battle. I have seen them in a thousand streets of a hundred towns in every state in this union, working and laughing and building and filled with hope and life.  We did not choose to be the guardians at the gate, but there is no one else. Now I would surrender in Vietnam bring peace because we learned from Hitler at Munich that success only feeds the appetite of aggression. Moreover, we are in Vietnam to fulfill one of the most solemn pledges of the American nation. Three presidents, President Eisenhower, President Kennedy and your president president. Over 11 years have committed themselves and have promised to help defend this small and valiant nation. Strengthened by that promise, the people of South Vietnam have fought for many long years. Thousands of them have died. Thousands more have been crippled and scarred by war. And we just cannot now dishonor our word or abandon our commitments or leave those who believed us and who trusted us to the terror and repression and murder that would follow. This then, my fellow Americans, is why we're in Vietnam.


Good evening, everybody. I'm Jack Bower. This is Jane Ganaw from LitQuake. Thank you for coming. This is our event here, No Shadow Without Light. Writers respond to Trump. Thank you so much to the San Francisco Public Library Coret Auditorium for hosting us here tonight.  So I encourage the authors to be as blue as you possibly can. Just kidding. In the words of Margaret Atwood, I believe in the resistance as I believe there can be no shadow unless there is also light. So people were asking us why we decided to do this event. Well, it's pretty obvious if you look at the news every day. And as with the majority of the United States, our organization, LitQuake, was festering over the recent election, the accusations, the grudges, the exaggerations, the lies. And to be honest, in our last board meeting in December, our fabulous board members said we need to do something and we hardly agreed. And this came together with lightning speed and so we're so grateful to everybody. But this week, as we know, there's going to be marches and protests in over 600 cities around the country. So we personally at LitQuake have a message for the president-elect. We know that you like to count numbers and crowds. Thank you very much for uniting America. We do feel very united right now. So in times like this, it is the duty of the creative class to stand tall, report, and hold account. We are very proud to present tonight's diverse and eclectic Bay Area literary voices who speak to our nation's fear, anger, and perhaps even optimism. We're hoping there'll be at least an ounce of optimism. Special thanks to all of the authors participating tonight. I did want to let you know the sad news, which is that the storm has forced cancellation of three of our speakers tonight. Ishmael in Tennessee read as well as Faith Adiel. We're sorry about that, but nature intervened. We do want to thank Luis Herrera, the librarian here. Fabulous man. As well as Michelle and David and everyone else here from the public library. And also to our LitQuake volunteer team tonight. If you see someone wearing a green t-shirt and have a question about LitQuake, ask them. If you feel charitable and inspired after this, there are any number of organizations that could use your help. Not just LitQuake, but you know, Planned Parenthood, ACLU, Friends of the San Francisco Public Library. Please put your pocketbook where your hearts are. We also have some books for sale in the lobby you may have seen as you came in. And before we begin tonight, we want to introduce a special guest. He served as San Francisco Public Library City Librarian since 2005. How many years is that? 12. Is it? Yeah, okay. And under his guidance, the city has opened. Sorry, I was a liberal arts major. Under his guidance, the city opened or renovated 22 branch libraries throughout San Francisco. How about that? In 2012, he was nominated to the National Museum and Library Services Board by someone named President Barack Obama. Please welcome Luis Herrera. Thank you. Thank you so very much, Jane and Jack. First of all, it's 24 branches, not that we're counting instead of 22. And yes, it's been almost 12 years and who's counting? I'm really, really, it's a job of a lifetime. I'm very honored to be your city librarian. So I want to welcome each and every one of you to the San Francisco Public Library. What a remarkable turnout. I'm honored to host this event tonight with such an esteemed group of writers. And it's particularly fitting that the library is hosting this forum to give authors the opportunity to express their rights to free speech and to speak out about their concerns regarding the possible threats to the freedoms and ideals that we hold dear. If I may, I'd like to just take a moment of personal reflection on the election. On November 9th, I awoke to a different world. I know I wasn't the only one that felt the loss, disappointment, and disillusionment in the choice that our voters made, diminishing and devaluing our country's core principles of inclusion, tolerance, and enlightenment by choosing evil over goodness. As a Latino and son of immigrants, I felt like a loose thread had been pulled from the fabric of our nation's tapestry, tattered and discarded. I'm certain my brothers and sisters and other walks of life, people of color, immigrants, the LGBTQ community, and women have their own feelings of despair and sense of betrayal. It was very difficult coming to work that day. We were convening a group of staff to talk about the future of libraries. It was hard to concentrate, much less to envision a future. So instead, we focused on the passion and the value that librarians and libraries play in our democracy. I was encouraged by the unwavering commitment to ensure that libraries are sanctuaries that provide a safe and neutral space for ongoing dialogue on the issues that are facing our nation. I also reached out to all of our staff with an email message to remind them that our libraries are places that support the values of equity and inclusion that mirrors San Francisco's values. The response was amazing and inspiring. We also take seriously the protection of our users' privacy and our role in providing information and community space that is free and accessible to all. These are the basic tenets that we follow and we remain confident that we'll be able to continue these practices no matter who is in the White House. The value of libraries cannot be denied, and in fact, in the shadow we bring the light to our community. So while tonight's program is politically focused to tie in to Friday's inauguration, it also comes at the time when the library is recognizing the importance of diverse books and diverse authors on our shelves. We are spending the entire month celebrating a series of programs we call We Love Diverse Books that brings together authors and showcases people for all ages, especially children that reflect the diversity of our city. And here's a brochure. It's an amazing array of programs throughout our branches and here at the main library that I encourage you to really, really promote and help us advocate for more diversity in our publishing industry. In closing, I want to acknowledge the great work that Litquake and the Friends of the San Francisco Public Library as our partners do in supporting and bringing this kind of programming to all of us. Thank you, Litquake founders, Jane Ganahl and Jack Bullware. We appreciate the work that you've done and continue to do. And Marisa Pella, I know she's in the audience, the executive director of the Friends of the Library. If you want to support democracy, free speech and free expression, I encourage you to support these worthy community institutions. Thank you and welcome to the San Francisco Public Library. Thank you, Luis. And sorry about that, 24. Short changing the librarian is a bad idea. Bad idea. Bad precedent. So we want to introduce to you now your host and emcee for the evening, who is a extremely formidable woman with many hyphens in her qualifications. She's an Iranian American feminist Muslim comedian, cohost of the internationally acclaimed podcast, Good Muslim Bad Muslim. Next month, she debuts her one-hour comedy special on behalf of all Muslims at Oakland's Islamic Cultural Center. And just this morning, she had a personal essay on Terry Gross's Fresh Air, so check that out online. Please welcome Zara Norbach. How are you guys doing this evening? Yeah? Give me joy like it's a weapon. Like a weapon. So I'm a Muslim. When I say weapon, it's got to be a little bit bigger than that. Give me joy like it's a weapon. Let me hear joy. It's just going to take me two minutes. The TED talks are my side religion. Are we into that? Are we into oxytocin? How do you feel about oxytocin? Yes? I got one, yes. Yes.  We've got a lot to do. This is the library, but I am not quiet. Like on my way here, I just, I was like at first hit with this like blustery wind like right and this like terrible weather.  And then I realized me and Mother Earth were both crying. That's where we're all at. I'm also just enjoying that like at the end of every punchline, all of us are just a collective. I am a feminist Muslim Iranian American comedian. Thank you. I say Iranian, people get scared by this. I like to have fun with it.  Excuse me, professor. This plutonium. Can you find that on like the Craigslist? Excuse me, professor. When are we going to make a nuclear bomb? This guy came up to me at a Whole Foods. At a Whole Foods. At a Whole Foods. And he said, what's a Persian? What's an Iranian? What's a Persian? What's an Iranian? What is that? Why do you have two things? I'm just one thing.  And then right after that he was like, what's a spring onion? Can I use a scallion? Is it the same as a spring onion? Can I add green onion? And then he ran for president and he won. And that's how my year's been going. I feel like sometimes I get so saturated by hearing just the word Muslim in the press. First of all I want to say the Republican party owes me residuals. All right? I don't care if they're pennies, I would be a billionaire. I helped a man get elected by my very existence I would like to say. And I believe I am owed royalties. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Sometimes I just want to change the name so I don't hear it anymore. You know what I mean? Like Persians figure this out. During the Iranian hostage crisis somebody would run up to you with a bat. Are you Iranian? Oh no, I'm Persian. I don't know what that is. That sounds very bad. Do you like to dance? Do you like to party? These are my prod issues baby. What's going on? Sometimes I just want to change the name to Baba Ganoush. Because then instead of Islamophobia people would have to say Baba Ganoushophobia. This is an abundance what I have to say. This is another case of Baba Ganoushophobia. Why Baba Ganoushophobia? I don't know. I love eggplant. I don't understand it. I can't get it. Is it because food trucks solve for racism? Right? That's how we lift sanctions. It's like do we like Cubans? Oh my God, Cuban sandwiches? Oh yes, absolutely. Yes, yes, yes. I saw that food truck. Yes. Because we need a Persian food truck. And then we're good. Thank you. Everybody else is like, no, but when I eat global treats, it's because I'm a worldly individual. It's fine, it's fine. It's fine. We all do our part in different ways. I'll tell you a bit about my dad.  He came to my dorm in college.  And that's a lot of what I hear lately from him also. He's just watching the news.   I'm very excited that I am here with so many authors that I admire. I have a couple of pieces that I'm workshopping. I just thought maybe I would read them. And then you guys could just tell me like the triple A's, like what grabbed your attention? What did you appreciate? What actions do I need next? Just workshop a couple of pieces, Muslim in space. I just feel like it would go really well. I like to take advantage of opportunities. I'm married to a white man. I have a white man. Thank you. I'm very happy with my white man. I think every person of color needs to own one white man. So Obama has Joe Biden. Just, hey. Here I am. It's going to be white. Whenever I'm at the bank and my Muslim rage comes in, just bank fees. I'm sorry. That was my Muslim rage. This is my white man.  It's really effective. I feel like white guys are the golden retrievers of the doggie kingdom. You know what I'm talking about? Like I have a mediocre white man. I don't really like exceptional white men. I just, this feels a little bit oppressive. I'm just not into it. I just don't like it. I don't like seeing confidence in a white man. Like I don't appreciate that. I just really appreciate it. Just like bring it down right here. Right? Some of my friends who are women of color are like, I am not dating a white man. I do not want to come home to that. But sometimes I just want to, like fake news is a thing. Why can't I have it at home? I love coming home to my golden retriever. I just want a friend. I just want to be a friend. I just want to be a friend. What's wrong with a C plus? I don't understand. I just want to be a friend. Like everybody who'd never got an A minus totally understands. And everyone else is like, what is wrong with a C plus? You were just talking about TED Talks. Confidence builds on confidence. I don't understand.  So then I would go, I would study. I'd bring home the A.  Why is it not the A plus? So then I would go, I would study. I'd bring home the A plus.  Why do you take such an easy class? It's no winning. So I introduced my white man. He's an infidel. He's an atheist to my dad.  He didn't know what an atheist was. And I realized in Farsi, there's just seven slurs. He who denies God too. And so I was like, well, he doesn't believe in religion so much as he believes in science.  And I was like, oh, how did this just get worse now? And I was like, no, and I was trying to explain it to him. And he's like, what's this atheist?  It's okay, Sarah. It's okay.  We all believe in the God. We surrender to that God. And he says the word Muslim just means one who surrenders to a force greater than himself. I was like, well, he's not spiritual. He doesn't believe in any God, no God. He believes that we have religion due to the lack of a real economic infrastructure. And my dad goes, does he believe in gravity? Gravity is a force greater than himself. He surrenders to that force. He's a Muslim. So welcome to the religion of Islam, everybody. It's a good time to be Muslim. They say there is no such thing as bad PR. So we're going to have fun tonight. All right, are you guys ready for our first reader of the evening? Yes? Our first author is a California-born granddaughter of immigrants documented and undocumented. She served as San Francisco's third poet laureate and has written many books of poetry, fiction, and biography. Her most recent collection is titled, And Then We Became, Here's Debra Major. Please give her a round of applause. My dream is to write funny someday. I was having a chai in the lobby and I broke my glasses. It's been a day. I've got four pieces, three of them by me, little pieces. This first one is Noma, How We Came to Speak. Noma was an African God force who created humans and it didn't work out the first time. So Noma was, you know, okay, I'll do it again. Like the first ones were like out of clay and I said, okay, I'll do it again. And the next ones were like woven and that didn't work out. And so Noma said, the word, I'll do it out of the word. So this is how we come to speak. Before a generation passed, we, children of the third world, knew how to take the gift of language, contort it crimson and sew it to our teeth. How we mangle this tongue that needs unending translation. We require it to be a constantly changing chameleon, a hypnotist, a con man, a cheat. With words we manufacture demons who devour souls and erase memory. Look at how often we honor speech that can make us hate, that can cause us to deny our mothers, our brothers, our self. We have articulated a deadly weapon that subverts knowledge and betrays faith. So how now do we again learn to listen with more than ears? At once try to speak with more than tongue. How now do we put our tongues back in our mouths? Okay, this next one has become a necessary mantra of mine. By Lucille Clifton, and I really do mean that, it's like, get up in the morning, okay? Won't you celebrate with me? Won't you celebrate with me what I have shaped into a kind of life? I had no model, born in Babylon, both non-white and woman. What did I see to be except myself? I made it up. Here on this bridge between starshine and clay, my one hand holding tight, my other hand, come celebrate with me that every day something has tried to kill me and failed. Okay, and this is the part of the piece before the computer froze that I wrote for tonight. The other part of the piece you're not going to hear. It will take more than words to stem this tide, not enough to spit on a blazing fire, not enough to use a teacup to empty water from a seeking craft. True, mothers have been able to raise a car off of their compromised child. True, children have walked miles in snow to save their wounded parent. But this is not a time to plan on miracles. To depend on a messianic savior, to lift us out of this hell we have created through apathy or inattention, through greed or selfishness, through privilege or ignorance, that we not slide further back into voter suppression, that we not slide further back into patriarchy and misogyny, that we not use fear instead of reason when faced with religious bigotry, that we not pretend that racial fear is not a major part of this equation, that we understand it is not chicken little screaming about falling skies. It is to admit that taking America back has more to do with white frustration and terror than with going back to a better time, better before unions, better before OSHA protections, better before the environmental agency saved some wetlands, cleaned some rivers, reduced some smog. This is a time for ordinary people to do ordinary things in concert with conviction, to show up, to stand up, to speak out, to demand that we keep moving forward. And this last piece is called SNAP. I have one of my BC friends that's before children friends. Those of you who have children now, there's very few before children friends you have. And, you know, everybody's getting so depressed, right? And she's like, oh no, it's gonna snap, just like that. She reminds me how when we were teens, we were unique rows and then snap, we were black and proud. Moving forward, claiming victories every day on our streets, in our schools, in our souls. We've always been an elastic people able to snap ourselves time and time again. Cat says she can feel it, smell it in the air, sweet and sour like it was then. Only with more love this time, and in a sharper, even more dangerous edge. Then, like now, things were seething. People were hungry and unjustly imprisoned and miseducated and drugged. But then, as civil rights long pull was bearing fruit, we snapped into a revolutionary force, climbed inside our ancestral court. Snap made our music sing change. Snap made our dances say now. Snap locked arms and spirit. Snap became a dark snap. Moving, snap tied a purpose. Snap, we sharpen in the rhythms again, bringing out the drums. Snap, tightening up even though we've been tossed by storm and cracked in the wind. We're coming back together. Snap. We got to snap.  I thank you. Oh, that was amazing. Yes. One more time please for Debra Major. Our next author is author of the best-selling historical biographies, The First Tycoon, the epic life of Cornelius Vanderbilt and Custer's Trials, a life on the frontier of a new America. He is twice recipient of the Pulitzer Prize, a Guggenheim fellow, and has taught creative nonfiction at Columbia. Please welcome TJ Styles. My glasses are fine, but my printer broke, so I have to improvise. After the poetry comes the prose. I am free to talk to you tonight, and you are free to listen because of freed slaves. Americans often think that our freedoms were bestowed by the founders, springing from their foreheads full-born, that freedom is a circle that was widened or that outsiders are allowed in. And that's not true. The first three words of the First Amendment say, Congress shall make no law. In 1833, Chief Justice John Marshall decided that those words mean exactly those words. States, he said, were free to abridge the Bill of Rights. Our civil liberties are individual rights for all. Needless to say, if you've studied anything about American history, is that those freedoms were most often abridged when it came to African-Americans and the struggle against slavery. Southern states felt free to ban abolitionist writings, abolitionist speeches. The U.S. Postmaster General decided that he would not transmit abolitionist writings through the mail. There are also other civil liberties that were not protected that were infringed by the states. In New England, they maintained state churches with taxpayer money. North Carolina, not until after the Civil War, until not after the Civil War, you had to be a professing Christian and, of course, a man to be able to vote. Now, this changed because of freed slaves. When the Civil War began, everyone expected them to keep working as before because there was an ideology that they were a separate species, actually, and were by nature suited to slavery, and, of course, they were not. And so they rebelled in what the historian Stephen Hahn calls the greatest slave rebellion in history. And before the Emancipation Proclamation, they broke down and destroyed the institution of slavery on the ground. When the war ended, the people who were in charge in the South, even in the federal government, assumed that Southern society would go back to being the way it was, minus the technicality of slavery. And African-Americans proved them wrong. They asserted themselves, they organized schools, they formed political clubs, they had mass meetings, they sent petitions to Congress. And the South responded with state laws that placed them basically back under slavery. They responded with mass violence with the Ku Klux Klan, with police riots in Memphis and Orleans that killed dozens of people. And Congress was forced to react. People in the North who were not racial egalitarians, congressmen who were not racial egalitarians, had to respond to this crisis, this self-assertion and this repression. Now, they saw it in terms of loyalty in the Civil War, that those who had stood by the Union, the true patriots in the South, had all been the former slaves. They were the ones who had stood for this Union, they were the ones who had stood for the Constitution. And they were being oppressed with impunity, murdered and brutalized with impunity by those who had rebelled against the United States. And so even those who were emphatically racist, I should say, in the North decided they had to act. And so there came about a period called Reconstruction, the greatest wave of policymaking by the federal government in our history. That was a brief period in which there were African-American jurors, there were African-American voters, there were African-American justices of the peace and sheriffs and state legislators and congressmen and senators. During this brief period, Congress decided that it had to put these principles that it was putting into effect in the South, into the Constitution, to put it beyond the reach of politics. And so among other things, they passed the 14th Amendment. The 14th Amendment establishes the idea of race-neutral citizenship. If you are born in the United States, if you are naturalized as a citizen, it doesn't matter who your parents were, it doesn't matter what your genes are.  You're entitled to equal protection of the laws. You're entitled to your civil liberties, as well as civil rights. This was, as its principal framer put it on the floor of Congress, simply a proposition to arm the Congress with the power to enforce the Bill of Rights against the states. It was, in fact, the 14th Amendment through what legal historians, excuse me, call the incorporation doctrine, it is why we are all free. It is why we have freedom of speech. It is why we enjoy the civil liberties that so many of us think were given to us by the founders, as by the gods, to the mortals below. In fact, it was a result of a process driven from the ground up by African-Americans. Now, of course, the courts did not enforce these rights immediately. It was not until 1923, when the U.S. Supreme Court heard a case, the ACLU was defending a man named Gitlow, who was a radical socialist, who had called for the overthrow of the U.S. government. And the ACLU said, thanks to the 14th Amendment, this man has freedom of speech, that New York State cannot throw him in jail for calling for the overthrow of the U.S. government. And the Supreme Court agreed. It accepted the incorporation doctrine. And so, as a result of freed slaves, the most oppressed, the most scorned by Americans north and south, because of their self-assertion, they drove a crisis which changed the Constitution. Because of a radical socialist calling for the overthrow of the government, those principles were put into effect. So we have to remember that our rights, our liberties, are not given to us by those who are comfortable. They are not given to us by those who feel no need to test the limits of freedom. They are given to us by the oppressed. They are given to us by those who are pressing sometimes in ways we may not agree with. That's the whole point. They are given to us by the dissenters. And that the idea of America, the idea that we have a country based on an idea, that it is belief in freedom and universal citizenship. We often talk about America as a republic which is based on ideas and not on ethnicity. This was not something that was a fact at the beginning of our republic. It was because of resistance. And so I am a free man today because of freed slaves and because of a radical who wanted to overthrow the U.S. government. The American identity is diversity. The American identity is dissent. And so at moments when you are despairing, when there is a reaction, as there was when the Ku Klux Klan formed the first time, as there was when the Ku Klux Klan formed to keep Catholics and Jews out of the country in the nineteen teens, as it was when the Ku Klux Klan came back in the nineteen fifties and sixties to kill and oppress. As it was at other points in American history when people inserted, no, no, no, you have to look like me to be an American. It's at these moments when we have rallied and we have made progress. And so, no, I don't think things are very bright right now, but I think that there's a chance they could be brighter in the future. Thank you. Wow, thank you. Please one more time for TJ Styles. I'm comfortable saying that Up Next is one of my favorite people on this earth. She is an Oakland writer and co-founder of Vona Voices of Our Nation's Arts and Voices. Her new book of poetry is This House, My Bones. Please join me in welcoming Elmas Abinator. Good evening. That's right. I'd like to thank Jane and Jack for inviting me and the library and the friends of the library and Lit Quake and all of you for coming on this kind of treacherous night. I know it wasn't easy. I also think I'm, it would be honest to say that what JT Styles said tonight won't be showing up in textbooks. Just saying, but thank you for that. That was a beautiful connection. And having just seen the fourteenth, which is Eva DuVernay's documentary on mass incarceration, which I recommend to everybody. It's on Netflix. It's a wonderful, different kind of connection for me. So I'm happy to read tonight a letter. And this letter is the result of a book called Radical Hope. The editor of this book is Carolina de Robertis. And she has asked a number of writers from around the country to write a letter in response to this devastation that gives us some kind of radical hope. People like Juno Diaz and Christina Garcia will be in this book. It's being published by Knopp. It is coming out in the first hundred days of the presidency. So I thought it would be appropriate tonight, since we're so close to that dark day, that I read this letter and everybody took a different approach. Mine's called To the Woman Standing in Line at the Store. You are ahead of me. Without a grocery basket, hugging two acorn squash, four ears of corn, and a can of oatmeal. Like many of us, you are wearing jeans and an open maroon sweater hitched up on the side where your purse is dangling. Your friend is leaning on a red shopping cart, her face close to a bouquet. Some of the flowers are unnaturally colored, a sea turquoise blue daisy, and a mango orange carnation similar to the color of her hair. You are conversing in Spanish, slowly and measured, as if you know I am eavesdropping and need time to adjust to your accent to rekey my ears. I'm not trying to listen to you, but your whisper, while urgent and private, is within earshot. And the words tutora and carcel command my attention. I want to know if you are telling a story about yourself or someone else. Was there a jail? What kind of jail? What kind of torture? As you speak, you don't change expression. I was there ten years, and then they let me go. My mother had my children in Buenos Aires. They didn't know me anymore, so I left and came here. Your body stays still as you describe your trip from Argentina to Oakland after a decade in prison, after giving up your children. Had I been further back in line or somewhere across the store, you would have been just another 40-something woman, just off work from Kaiser or my credit union, picking up something for dinner. And if I had imagined your conversation, it might have been about your hair appointment on Saturday, but I was near a witness to the story of your time in prison where you were tortured, leaving your shoulder frozen in one position.  You might be cleaning someone's bathroom or teaching a singing class, translating court documents or counseling community college students. Not all of you are former prisoners. Some of you are refugees from countries that have collapsed or become too dangerous to live in. Many of you are dreamers, hoping to have nothing and then something to send back. You have walked across borders, fled a civil war, escaped the ruling party or a fanatic religious movement, or maybe you came here for an education and didn't go back. But for me, you are my sit-do. Who during the fading Ottoman Empire in 1916, tucked the last of her jewelry into her waistband, crawled through the shrubbery up and down the mountain sides to trade everything she had for rice, flour, and beans. She fed my mother and her sister at any cost. She traveled with them barefoot along the stony paths, from the mountains to the cities, her belongings in a bundle on her head, to make the two-year journey that ended in Pennsylvania. And a half century later, her granddaughter, my cousin, sat in a fallout shelter while the city burned above her head. Her eyes cat-widened and her hearing dulled to the sounds of street blasts and missile cries. She is a mother in New Jersey conducting training for a software company. She is also a woman standing in line. The graduate student in my writing class who had to endure checkpoints and searches, every day she moved through her town, the woman in my writing group who lived under two dictatorships, the mother of my student who escaped Pol Pot. They all make coffee and peel oranges, fold laundry, and watch TV. The Filipina Lola, once a comfort woman for the Japanese soldiers, cradled her granddaughter in a stuffed chair in Daily City. My friend's sister, with over 50 pieces of shrapnel on her body, is now a master chef and magazine editor. You, women in line at the store, arrive every day. Most of you hold your stories inside while you transform your outside to a new person, taking cues from television. You stuff down the pain of buried children. You're destroyed homes and lost languages. While you fill out forms and registration cards, sign leases and take driving tests. Dear women standing in line at the store, I want to be attentive to you.  I want to hear the endearments you kneel to pour into the ears of your children, along with the instructions and messages. I don't want to unearth your journey out of greed or curiosity, but it's a way to know you and let your story tell me who I might be. I am not courageous enough to put my back to my life, to whom I know what I do and how I live. I cannot imagine less in my life or separate from whom I love. I cannot fathom writing the boats that carried you, waving goodbye to my grandmother, paying the man who forged the papers, baking the minister to sign the visa, sneaking onto the train holding my child, eating food from other people's hands, whispering endless prayers, matching the sound of my footprints. Many of us have not learned how to lose something, but you know, woman standing in line, that acorn squash you hold measures your heartbeat as you move from one world to the next, never betraying the spot where your life tore into. I can see there is a story under your skin, and I take courage from the steadiness of your breathing. I pray that the particles of hopefulness that brought you here will lift into the air and we can inhale them into our systems and they ease our journeys and yours too. Thank you. So powerful the lights went off. And so powerful they came right back on again. Any DJ Khaled fans in the house? They don't want you to have lights when you're on stage. No? No? They don't want you to have water skis. They don't want you to be on... In the absence of faith or delay, we have a little bit of time for me to share with you a quick story. And so as I select it, I would like to do a quick mic check to know how are we with clits, tits, and dicks.  Are we okay with clits, dicks, and tits? On our podcast, Good Muslim, Bad Muslim, I recently came out as bisexual. And it felt important to me to do so in the wake of the Orlando shooting where this wonderful thing happened where the conservative right was asking Muslims all over the country, are you a terrorist or are you a... And Muslims were like, just homophobic, thanks. And I became so frustrated. And so it was important to me to come out, even as a straight passing married woman. And everyone would keep asking me like, well, but really? And this is really... I've never told this story before, and I'm excited to tell it here because I have so many famous authors to workshop it with. And the only way that I was able to know for myself who I am and what I rub off to was you porn. And so I'm just very worried about what Julian Assange is going to do to that site. It's too much. It's going to get worse. So how are we doing? Okay, it is possible for me to dissipate into humiliation. Don't do that to me. We are now in this together. And if this story is horrible and graphic, you did it too.  What's up, Dad? It's a live YouTube stream. Cool. How are we doing? Okay.  She's going to know your body. You're going to know her body.  So she had a big crush on me.  And so I did it by going out with her. And maybe she would give me a thousand orgasms. And then I could tell my ex-boyfriend, I came more than you ever made me with a woman that you wanted. No, her just terrified of me. Okay. It's fine. And like I took off her clothes.  But I also like want your body. Her breasts were better than mine.  Then you're not going to have to fake it. Which like being with a lot of men, we fake it a lot. Ladies, don't leave me alone here. All right. There it is. The only people brave enough. How are we doing? Clits, dits, tits. Dicks. Good. Okay.  And she's like, what do you like? And I was like, no man has ever asked me that. Prepared for that. Bulls. So I said, biting. And all of my friends had promised that when you're with another woman, you don't have to fake it. And so she went down and she bit me on my clit.  And so anyway, that's the one time. Thank you. Up next is the bestselling author of Booneville, writer and producer of the film Pig Hunt and author of the play The Death of Teddy Ball Game, a former minor league prospect. He is a full on giants fanatic. Here's Robert Maylor Anderson. I feel close to compelled to tell my story about when I slept with the hermaphrodite and didn't know. We might be here for different reasons, but clearly I have been amongst them, meaning the politicos and the 1% and the ruling class for a little bit now. And I haven't been able to really make sense of things in general. In fact, during this election cycle, I think I turned to my wife and said, you look, I have a pretty good imagination and I've seen a lot of stuff for someone who's 48 different economic classes, different parts of this country from your rural to city and the amount of sexism that's going on here is just past me. I couldn't get my head around it. And there came another point when I felt the same thing about race. So I kind of tried to go back to basics. I didn't know if this is supposed to be hopeful or what we're supposed to offer up in five minutes or so here. It's an interesting obstacle ball of what to do next. And we can be kind of Pollyanna-ish about it. I have some ideas. There's a lot of really good things that are happening, believe it or not. I mean, we all live in San Francisco. We're all in California. The fact that the brain trust didn't bleed into a Hillary Clinton administration means people like Eric Holder, people who are ready to work for the NRDC, for the ACLU, for the environment.  And we have to implement because these are unbelievably scary times.   I mean, this isn't really a checklist type situation of Russian invasion and how much or the FBI coming out and why. I mean, it's all pretty odd. The other good news is that despite what happens now if a game plan is put together, I think going back, reading through a couple of emails, I just spent five minutes and went back almost a year to see what I was thinking about. And so I'd like to read a couple of those and then leave you with maybe one last sort of linking thought about what may be like progress or what that could look like. So on February 10th, and speaking to Trump, what can you say that this is not our finest moment as a nation? It reminds me of those nativist parties in Europe where outright racists in anti-Semites get skinhead backing in anti-immigrant vote but they don't have the same system. They just get a few seats or a minority voice in parliament or something. This small block could hijack the presidency. February 12th.  The conservatives are splitting their third of the Republican Party with the rest of the candidates by allowing these nutjobs to hijack their tea party. February 18th. Since I brought up gambling and it used to be sports betting for me, indulge my next sports analogy of this primary and general election. Boy, we're still in the primary. Those were the good old days. Regardless of how good you are, it is difficult to sweep a world series. So when Hillary's camp says they were going to sweep the world series, primaries and general election, I'm skeptical. It just doesn't happen often. And when I analyze a team, my gambler self says this is not the team to sweep. They're going to lose at least one game if not more. Now that doesn't mean Hillary won't win the world series but as a spectator over many years, I've seen what happens when a team underestimates its opponents and gets put back on its heels. In fact, I've seen this same Hillary team claim they were going to sweep the world series and in fact lose to another underdog long shot already. An underdog is used to losing and can take their losses and stride and still put forth their best game. A favorite often has problems with losses and doesn't put their best game forward when they encounter setbacks, especially if they didn't prepare for those setbacks. Hillary is again unprepared. I think they've underestimated the youth vote, the black vote, the feminist vote, and most importantly, the blue-collar vote. She's going to lose a few games and even if she wins these games, they're going to be much closer than she thinks. I'd bet on it. I'm still not certain Hillary is electable. She doesn't inspire Dems and she may motivate Republicans to oppose her en masse. I don't see Cruz people switching. I don't see Trump's people swaying and I don't know how many of the Republican establishment will venture over regardless of how crazy Cruz and Trump are because they hate Hillary so much and have had bad blood with the Clinton machine. This is a much, much, much longer conversation, but yes, this is like two weeks later. But yes, it is sad that Americans believe that Trump is a hero instead of a carnival barker snake oil salesman that he is and should be tarred and feathered and run out of town or any decent civil society. Unfortunately, both Republicans and Dems are responsible for this mess caused by faulty public schools, deregulation of the industry, vilifying workers' unions and the corruption within those unions, massive incarceration, Citizens United, dominant drug addiction ranging from oxy-cotton to crank, alcohol and marijuana, over-the-counter and prescribed pills, not to mention the dopamine hits from video games, TV and cell phones, and that loop of constant consumption and advertising, negative food value, depression. You can't suddenly want people to think clearly or analytically from that clusterfuck. May 16th. By the way, Trump is scaring me. He understands the medium of celebrity and TV in middle America on its gut instant gratification, no sense of history fearful, worst level. The Sunday front page New York Times piece was a good example of a hit piece that will only convert the already converted. This was the one where there was a talk about the beauty pageant women. And secretly sway the undecided to the dark side. It's a closed loop. Meanwhile, he feeds the beast. Even President Carter lusted it in his heart. So not too many men are going to blame Trump for groping Miss America contestants, even if it is a clear crime. They'll think, isn't that why the pageant exists? It will be tycoon man's man Trump versus the word of a sachet wearing bimbo who wanted it. As Hillary camp keeps pretending, there are more voters who watch girls on HBO than NASCAR or the Apprentice. Or that she's actually likable and eventually people will come to their senses and vote for the less odious of two candidates. Is that even sensible? Remember Chicholina, Reagan, Schwarzenegger, Clint Eastwood, Jesse Ventura, Al Franken, Eva Perone, who with any such name value and celebrity success has lost. So I guess rushing through that makes you wonder like what is it that we can do this next time, this next easy election cycle. And so just to take a quick minute of a kind of Pollyanna's collection, I would say we're writers and we're smart. We need to control the narrative and take back words. We have to be very, very careful with the words that we use and we have to shift those words that aren't working and are bloated or no longer valuable, that they've inserted. The same kind of thing happens when the Pentagon gives us words like collateral damage. It means women and children. We can't go on talking about these things.  We have to use other terms too to think about things. And this is one of them, like a growth economy. What does that look like in a real world that's connected? What is growth? I mean not to sound too much like a Marxist, but what is the capital? Well, if the capital is the world itself, then anything that rises is going to fall down somewhere else. There is no growth. I mean, physics tell us that, right? So now we have to talk about an active economy. Otherwise what you're seeing is basically growth going up like a circus tent. And it looks really big, but when you get in there, it's only serving the poll. The poll is the only thing going on in that. The rest is just air. And within that tent we need activity, and that's the way we need to count it. So back to that activity is going to have to be us getting together and making human choices and airing on the side of being human. And that's also going to be not airing on the side of convenience and looking at some of the things that we have that we use, not necessarily as services, but the people behind them. Because when we want our Uber cars here faster, or our driverless cars that are about to to unemployed 5 million truckers or more, what is the name of this? This is some kind of profit. This is some kind of growth. It's a very small thing. So not to sound like a complete technophobe, but part of the thing is we need to move away from some of the electronica and some of the ease, and we need to move back into a kind of a human realm. And that's going to be the crux of it. I told a friend of mine who is the head of the Department of Transportation. We were talking about things and I ended up saying, look, there may not be anything better than a damn bus stop. There may not be anything better than a subway station. You have to. It's a very democratic place. You have to meet your neighbor. You have to look at them. You have to interact with them. You have to learn to get along with them. You have your force to care on some level. Whereas if you get in from point A to point B and rush in your back seat of your driverless car, there's just nothing there. And it turns out, too, the same thing happens when every time, you know, all this stuff, we're all from San Francisco. Hopefully this is preaching to the converted. 101.  And I don't mean law and order clean it up. I mean pick that up. I'm a father of four. Pick that up from the environment on down. Wonder where that rapper came from. Look at it. Think about how when Amazon comes here, it's a jet stream with packaging that comes to you and you did not have that conversation with whatever that cashier was that you should have and that other store that you should have walked down there and spent all that time in your community. And that's just on a basic consumption level. But I see that. I see two dear friends here. I used to work in a used bookstore. And the conversation about books, which we should all care about, you just see the buffalo of Amazon's returns. Now, Amazon is saying that they have X amount of jobs and they're expanding in this growth economy. But the truth is, Macy's is closing, like all these other places and retail places are closing, these anchor stores are closing, and everybody feels the hurt of all of that. And the conversation is gone. The flesh and blood conversation is gone and we're losing our communities and we're becoming more fearful and depressed in this sort of loop. So I think next time around we can beat this guy across the board. I mean, seriously. I mean, it should be, you know, Russians and FBI's side. Freedom of speech that's going to come under a complete attack right now. I mean, we're ready for this kind of thing. The other good news that nobody in this room really wants to hear is I think the CIA has had enough.  So, you know, he doesn't have, let us get back into the hopeful realm. He doesn't have a consolidated front. He doesn't have any ideology. No ideology. He's somebody that wants to get richer and bloated and like it's alarming, right?  Trump is horrible as well. But he has no ideology to get anybody much more motivated than instant corporate interests. And his corporate interests actually are not consolidated either. And there's other factions that we can get behind, especially here in California, right? Where we do have renewable energy. We have all kinds of things with the six biggest economy. So this is the other thing I have to say. And I don't know how it's going to work. But you guys are all smarter than I am in this room. Watch the tech sector. They are not our friends. They are not our friends. I have to say. Sorry about that. I know they help put up the library. They put their names on a lot of things. But for the most part, they're not our friends and they're consolidated. They're much more interested in this merger. I forget what they're calling it. I don't want to sound completely out of it. But the merger of AI and humanity? I mean, no.  You should be worried in all kinds of it. Cleaning the bay, getting clean air. That is a really weird thing. And in your own home, fine. In the privacy of your own home. I'm from San Francisco. Do whatever you want. But you can't inflict that on all of us here. So the one thing that we're going to have to think about in California, the sixth biggest economy is how do we tighten our laws and woo the tech sector, the Silicon Valley, to stay here? Because Peter Thiel and other people will go. They will go and the deregulation that they're going to give to the states will create tax loopholes and laws for these corporations to leave. Google, Amazon. These are big companies. Google already tried it in Ireland. They will leave. They will reduce our revenue here in California for blue state causes and they will go into red states. They will be wooed by Texas. They will be wooed by other places. And those are the alarming places that we have to keep that business and that corporation here. So their revenue doesn't go into red states to control women's bodies and to continue with xenophobia and all kinds of climate denying craziness. So we have to be vigilant and we have to be human. So just err on humanity and watch the tech sector and our laws here. When we can get more states' rights let's sew them up for a pathway for immigration for better labor. Labor's been under siege. I know there's corruption within the unions but the only connection that our Berkeley economists that won the Nobel Prize can see between the massive amounts of wealth in this country and elsewhere we just saw that eight people who own as much money is half the goddamn world and that's probably not including some Saudi who's got a bunch of gold bricks and who knows what somewhere, right? That's all stuff that's been accountable for, right? Not just saying. Labor, unions are decreasing and wealth is increasing. So we've got to unionize. And unionize means every day again from neighborhoods to work. Solidarity. Solidarity across everything. So that's what I leave you with. Error on humans.  You took my paper. Andrew, will you repeat after me? Say the law. Yes, I'm sorry. Robert Anderson. Mr. Robert Anderson. Do you know about a guy named Muhammad? Yes. Have you ever heard of a law? Yeah. Perfect. Can you say law? Illaha. Illa-la. You're Muslim now.  This is the 1% talking about labor. You're only going to give me part of it? I thought that, no, I'll give you the other piece. Leave it to a white man to take my content. I'm watching you like the NSA.  All right. How are you guys doing? Yeah? Yeah? Yeah? Our next author was raised in Nigeria and her writing includes essays, academic papers, reviews, and short stories. She has published the book Independence and the upcoming novel Like a Mule Bringing Ice Cream to the Sun. In the literature at San Francisco State University, please welcome Sarah Ladipo-Manieka. Hi, everyone. Thank you all for coming and thank you to Litquake and thank you to the library. I think it's particularly apt that we're having this conversation in the library, which is one of the few remaining public spaces that remains unsegregated socially and economically. And I think that's very important. Thank you. I'm going to read a piece that I wrote last month and I'll entitle it for the purposes of tonight, January's People. On Election Day, I flew out of San Francisco to London. The last time I'd done this was on the eve of Brexit and as with that flight, many passengers were nervously checking mobile devices before takeoff. We were informed that the pilot had decided not to announce election results for fear of a mid-flight eruption. But for those who cared to check, there would be intermittent internet access. One passenger took this as his cue to preemptively declare a winner. And as if further proof were needed of his Trump allegiance, he proceeded to make crude passes at the flight attendant. Hours later, when he let out a celebratory yelp and shared with his fists, we all knew who had won. You're in my country now, a British woman snapped at him as we landed.  I can do what I want. When you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything, I recalled Donald Trump's lines from the infamous Access Hollywood tape. As we disembarked, I scrolled through text messages telling shock, disbelief, and two pleas. One, Sarah, please don't fly on an election day again. And the second, may God have mercy on us. I'd been worried for months that the American election would go the way that it did. And I'd written about it drawing on the Nigerian expression shine your eyes in the hope that we might all see more clearly the inequalities and the ever-growing disconnect between established parties and the electorate. Having grown up in Nigeria and Kenya, I've witnessed how quickly democracies can unravel. I've seen the appeal of a big man promising to make a country great. And I've seen how these men stay in power by muscling the press, intimidating the opposition and rigging elections with or without foreign aid. But the fact that I'd foreseen America's election result didn't reduce my shock upon hearing it. Having arrived in London I lamented the election results with friends, all the while aware, as with Brexit, that we were busy lamenting in gentrified parts of London. The fact that most of us could jet from one city to another immediately marked us as different to many who felt left behind by globalization and their governments. I would later meet two men, both part-time Uber drivers struggling to make ends meet, who believed in Trump's self-proclaimed business smarts and expected him to rule America well. But even their admiration for Trump was not without reservation. All of these things, Brexit and Trump, said one who was Nigerian, are the shakings of end times. They are the fulfillment of the Book of Revelation. May God have mercy on us, I muttered. I'd come to London, en route to Abeukuta, Nigeria, to attend the Ake Arts and Book Festival, where authors and attendees continued to speculate about the reason for Trump's win. Some of us took part in school visits. And when the headmistress of the school that I visited learned that I lived in America, she shook her head in sympathy.  Brexit and Trump's win had not only ushered in political reversals, but these results were reversing the way the rest of the world viewed Britain and America, with people in so-called Third World countries pitting us. Nigeria had its problems, yet Nigerians were offering those of us living in America a place to stay if need be. By the end of November my despair at the prospect of a Trump presidency had deepened. Despair at his twittering and flittering away of what remained of the world's precarious peace. And despair, therefore, all his talk of making America great and we won't even go into the again bit. Social and economic divides would only deepen. An accountant friend of mine recently transferred from Harare Zimbabwe to St. Louis, Missouri said, you know from the movies you picture an America where everyone has it easy and then you get to the place and you see that so many people seem to be struggling. There's no denying that America's failed many of its citizens and that out of desperation people look for saviours. In America, these saviours had emerged as Bernie or Trump with parallels in other parts of the world if not politicians then charismatic religious leaders and I sat next to one such leader when flying out of Lagos I watched as grown men prostrated before him their hands clasping his shiny red shoes calling him daddy. One such admirer informed me that I was blessed beyond measure to be sitting next to this apostle known for his miracles and prophecies and then in the midst of my despair I too was drawn to a saviour figure at the beginning of December I met Pope Francis I had accompanied my husband to a meeting of business leaders in Rome and it was in this context that we were granted an audience with the Pope I listened to the Pope's words to the way he was holding the CEO's accountable and I felt relieved he said in Italian involve in your efforts those whom you seek to help give them voice listen to their stories learn from their experiences and understand their needs see in them a brother and a sister and a son and a daughter a mother and a father and sisters of our day see the human face of those you earnestly seek to help the Pope's humility and his emphasis on human dignity touched me and yet as I dwelt on his words it struck me that what I heard might be similar to what others heard in the lines of Trump's victory speech every single American will have the opportunity and the potential the forgotten men and women of our country will be forgotten no longer as humans we need hope we also need leaders in Pope Francis I saw a man whose life reflects the ideals he espouses and whose integrity and humility are befitting of a leader I returned to America with a little less despair with a flicker of hope knowing that there are some world leaders who walk their talk and whose message is not driven by political expediency or a hunger for power my flight back coincided with another election but this time when I landed Austria's far right presidential candidate had lost and snapped Our final presenter is author of the book and this war called Love both winners of the American Book Award as well as the collection Stray Palms he was a founding member and first director of the Mission Cultural Center and is a professor in Latina Latino Studies at San Francisco State University please welcome the current San Francisco poet laureate Alejandro Morgia Thank you Sada for that very generous introduction but you forgot to mention that I also make really good breakfast burritos and of course I want to thank Litquake San Francisco Public Library I think one of the great libraries in our country and remember that all classical cities always had great libraries so I want to thank Lisa Arara and the Friends of the Library and the Litquake for putting together this event allowing us to come together in a community to celebrate literature and art and poetry while so much of the world is rack with violence and war intolerance and hatred so I want to thank you for being here tonight and because you told your stories about I gotta tell you the story that one time I had an affair with a woman who was a Republican but I didn't know it at the time and now she's a flaming radical and that's the power of poetry and I very much appreciated all of the authors who have read and the very great and brilliant talk by TJ Styles thank you very much for that and I also like very much this quote by Margaret Edward that there is no shadow without light and it's kind of also a riff on the question of physics that Robert brought up because physics tells us that for every action there is an equal but opposite reaction so while this reaction is coming at us later on our reaction physics will push the other way and I think it's important that we keep it in that sort of scientific way it's not that it's going to happen any other way that's what physics tells us will happen so part of our contribution perhaps is to be involved in that counterpoint and let me just say a few things before I read this one poem I was very pleased to see Representative Lewis point out that this man is an illegitimate president but it's not just because he lost the popular vote it's not just because there was incredible voter suppression it's not just because a foreign power intervened in these elections to cook it for him or help him cook it but the real reason he is an illegitimate president is because he hasn't shown us his birth certificate because we had dropped the standards so low right that how do we know he wasn't born in Russia but it also I think raises the question and we will shape it as we go forward somewhat a rhetorical question but also perhaps a philosophical question what is the role of literature what is the role of poetry and like I said we will shape that role as we go forward as we're shaping it tonight but I always like to paraphrase the great Uruguayan writer Eduardo Caliano who says in a paraphrasing to think that society can be changed by poetry is absurd but to think that society can be changed without poetry is equally absurd and so the role the role of poetry is not just prophecy but I think also and to be true to the word Robert Maylor Anderson also mentioned right one of the sort of guiding philosophies of Eduardo Caliano especially in these times that we must be true to the word but also I think part of the power of poetry is to satirize and ridicule the powerful so now before I read this poem I don't want to scare anybody but there is a cheese neighborhood cheese man and our neighborhood cheese man is way better than Twitter and the cheese man that's going around is that when he takes the oath to pay close attention because he will not actually put his hand on the Bible but keep it about 10 centimeters above and so the camera angles will look like he's putting his hand but he won't because if he puts his hand on the good book it will explode in flames so the point of all of this is you will know the devil when you meet him remember when the devil comes for your country he won't be sporting a pointy tail or pitchfork hell no he will appear in a fancy suit and lather an expensive cologne to hide the stink of sulfur and live in a high tower where he will surround himself with gold which at night he will turn into dog shit you will never see him at church or place of worship a shrine and altar because his orange hair would catch fire revealing his horns he will never show his birth certificate because they don't hand those out in the ninth level of hell you will know him by his destruction of God's creation he will pollute the air and poison the water annihilate bees and butterflies unleash tornadoes hurricanes floods and call it a hoax and his followers to prove their loyalty and this comes right out of the Inquisition Handbook must first lick his arsehole and eat maggots in his presence remember this when the devil comes to steal your country if you still have a country and now to make sure the poem gets to its intended recipient I will now perform an imitation of Jimi Hendrix and Lisa's going to hate me for it but that's how it goes thank you thank you all for an incredible evening please join me in giving one more round of applause to our incredible authors, Dvorah Major T.J. Styles Elmas Abinader Robert Maylor Anderson Sarah Ladipo-Magnica Alejandra Muerga I have been your host these are a Norbex I promise myself tonight that despite how scared I am I would get up on stage and I would take every risk that I could think of so thank you for joining say one more word the books are available in the lobby and I will be there with my cunt have a great night thank you


Hey guys, it's MJ and in this video. I want to talk about smart cash Now the reason why I'm talking about smart cash is because they are going to be sponsoring For upcoming videos and these videos are on catastrophe bonds Reinsurance tax systems and for a mock so all kind of stuff that's in the actuarial syllabus But I thought instead of me just regurgitating the work out of the textbook I thought I'd give it a bit of a twist and see how new technologies such as blockchain could interact with it and What a potential future might look like so what I did is I went to this website called smart cash? And I put forward a proposal. I said hey guys, do you want to sponsor my videos? This is what they're gonna be about and I got a 91 percent saying yes And that means that the community has endorsed my videos and they're gonna be paying me a little bit of money Of which some of it I'm gonna send to you guys so the top comments in these videos I'm gonna be sending out smart cash So make sure you watch these videos. You can earn a little bit of a little bit of pocket money So yeah, what is smart cash? What what makes him so special? essentially smart cash is a cryptocurrency and They have this very simple philosophy the philosophy is that it's not just the miners who make up a coin But there's a whole bunch of other parties These are promoters and people who you know spread the word and and do all of the Administrative work and you know just the other type of stuff which Bitcoin we've seen you know Like the Bitcoin Foundation does and they have to set up a little bit of a charity fund to do it Smart cash says we're gonna build that into the algorithm So of every mining reward so much is gonna go to the miners But a lot of it is gonna go to this community Which they call the hive that then gets to vote on how it's used and how the voting works is One coin gives you one vote so if you've got ten coins you've got ten votes and anyone is invited to submit a proposal and Then the community can vote on it and it's quite an interesting coin It's it's quite cool to see how this goes is if this new governance system will work I guess a coin that is fairly similar to would be dash in the sense that it uses Masternodes or they call them smart nodes where you can put up a bunch of smart coin and Actually earn a passive investment from it So I'm gonna put a link in the description below to explain a little bit more about smart cash My friends actually made an educational Course around smart cash, which you guys can also go check out I'll put a link in that and then like I said go and Set up a little smart cash wallet copy that address watch the videos that I'm gonna repeat releasing and Job if it's a good comments. I'm gonna be sending some smart cash your way. So What are you waiting for go ahead and do that and I'll see you in the upcoming videos? Thanks guys. Cheers


The mango season is just getting over. In India, it's a big thing. If you looked at the mango tree in the month of October, November, December, you didn't see any sweetness dripping out of it. Suddenly in January, February, flowers came.   But suddenly in the month of April, May, huge drops of sweetness hanging there in the tree. So, if you did not have prayer knowledge that this is a mango tree, did you think this tree is actually manufacturing this sweetness? But you think suddenly in April, sweetness came? It has been slowly manufacturing this sweetness, and it put it out at a certain season. But it's been on right through the year, isn't it? Mangoes happen only in one season. You notice the sweetness only at a certain time. This does not mean the mango tree was not striving and working to produce that sweetness. You cut any part of the mango tree and taste it, tch, you will not find a slightest tinge of sweetness, believe me. But when the mango comes, how much sweetness? Where is it coming from? It's been working on it. You couldn't see it. Similarly, is it a process? For sure it's a process. But can everybody see the process, identify the process? No. When somebody is evolving on the spiritual path, others thought he's a nutcase. Somebody thought he's waggren, somebody thought he's a vagabond, somebody thought he's something else. But when the sweetness came, everybody who tasted realized that this is a fantastic thing. So, nothing in the universe happens bang, bang, bang. Everything is a process. Can you identify the process? Can you recognize the process is the question. Generally, anybody who carries, generally among human beings, when they're children, any child which carries a certain level of genius within him, which is irrepressible. Everybody has genius within them, but they're repressible. Systems in the society, their own fears, their own anxieties, their own need for security, represses their genius. Every human being has some kind of genius. But over ninety percent of the human beings never find expression to it because they give in to other things. Things become… other things become more important. When you were twelve, fifteen, you thought, I'll do this, I'll do that, I'll go to the moon. But you saw the neighborhood girl and started calling her the moon. Moon disappeared. So, like this, in everybody the possibility is wide open. The thing is, can you sustain the process and allow it to become that possibility? Between possibility and reality, there is a distance. Most people neither have the courage nor the conviction to walk the distance. Largely, spiritual process is a kind of an entertainment. Go to discourse after discourse, discourse after discourse, read more and more books and debate how your Atman, Paramatman, your soul is floating here, there, and about heaven and hell and everything, but do nothing about this. It's largely like entertainment. So, there is a process for sure. The process can be approached consciously or it may be an unconscious process, but you're doing the right things. This is the beauty of this universe. Whether you know or you do not know, knowingly or unknowingly, with discipline or with indiscipline, with love or with hate, if you do the right things, right things will happen to you. That is the beauty of this universe. So Shankara, Adi Shankara said, yogarothova bhogarothova, somehow, either through yoga or bhoga, somehow do it, somehow find the truth of your inner nature because what we are considering as truth is simply this. Whatever works on all levels of life must be the truth, isn't it? Whatever really works on all levels of life must be the truth. Whatever you know in your life, test it right now because you have a mind which can project. Right now, you are striving for a certain level of income or a certain kind of house or a car or something else or something else. Put yourself in different stages of life and see if it still means a lot to you.  This does not mean you must give it up today. It is just that you must keep it in its place, you must not carry it in your heart. There is a difference between using something and being used by something. Most people, most people do not know how to use the things that they buy. The things that they buy are using them up. They're enslaving the human being. Whatever things you want to use, you can use, that's not an issue. But the problem is, you let those things use you. This is not okay. So if you just take care that you are not used by anything, you understand the limited role that everything has in your life, the limited role of your education, the limited role of your career, the limited role of your marriage, the limited role of your relationships, the limited role of your wealth, the limited role of everything that you're doing. If you understand where one thing begins and where it ends, then you don't have to do anything. Spiritual process is on. When the season is right, the flowers will bloom and mangoes will come.


What I wanted to do was be next to you get your love and attention and you're just not I understand I believe your space, but explain to me why you need your space and you want to go up alone Tell me you don't want to be left alone. Tell me But you sitting here looking at me with a straight face not explaining what the heck's going on That makes me mad What's up Marvel Squad welcome back to our channel and welcome to today's video you already know I am breaking Mariah back and it's gonna be insane. Okay. She got me I gotta admit she got me with that drunk prank. Okay.   Hope you guys enjoy this video So before this video starts first of all make sure you subscribe to our channel Welcome to the Marvel Squad. Make sure to give this video a big thumbs up My goal is to make her angry but not like angry enough that she's gonna leave She just left that the video would be over I have to give our pre-video notification shout out and that shout out goes to Alyssa the greatest I saw your comment I think it was one of the first ones in our last video that we posted so shout out to you Thank you for being a part of our channel. All right So now all there is left to do is set up the camera She's gonna be walking through this door and I'm just gonna try to get her from the start to finish So I'm gonna try to sneak the camera around in different spots without of course letting her see because then the prank would just be ruined Make sure you watch this whole video because if it does go as planned then this video actually does turn out good It's gonna get real. She's gonna get real real emotional and I really hope that happens So I will see you when Mariah gets here about like 20 minutes. So I will see you then I just wanted to jump on here before you guys see this video I just want to say thank you for Nova shine for sponsoring this video because I have been looking for Something to white my teeth for the longest time I wanted to buy teeth whitening shirts for my dentist, but they were like hundreds and hundreds of dollars And I didn't want to spend that much because I really they make your teeth sensitive and it is like literally the best teeth Binding I've ever used it doesn't make your teeth sensitive. The gel doesn't taste bad. It's very minty So it's like who doesn't like mint and it's just very convenient Literally all you can do is you could plug it into your iPhone you plug it into your computer or like an outlet And then this is for Android or Samsung literally all you do is it comes with this gel So you put the gel on the bridge of the wall Right here Do not put it down where you bite on because then it's obviously not gonna get on your teeth And then underneath so it gets the bottom teeth all you do is you can leave it on for 10 to 15 minutes So since they are sponsoring this video. They are giving me a discount code for you guys 20% off using my code Mariah C.  They ship really really quick I literally got mine three days if you guys did purchase this with my discount code Make sure to message me on Instagram because don't have Instagram you guys can comment down below on our YouTube channel And let me know if you guys have purchased it So I hope you guys enjoy it just as much as me because I love it so much Nova shine you guys are the best Thank you for letting me be on your guys's team. We'll be guys so much So I will see you in like two seconds Just ripped over something so she's gonna walk through that door in about Five ten minutes.  Okay? It's like will you have your problem today? You have a bad day at work.  Oh, so if you say sorry, hey, what did I do? I just don't you're never you never act like this. Stop get off the phone. This doesn't need to be on Lock the phone up like this. No Pay attention to me. Don't pay attention to that. I do. This is irritating I really come in the door and a long day at work All I wanted to do was be next to you get your love and attention and you're just not I understand Your space will even explain me why you need your space going all blank out on me All I need is explanation If you want to go to the loan tell me you don't want to be left alone Tell me but you sitting here looking at me with a straight face and I explain me what the heck's going on That makes me mad. So speak speak What did I do?  Look at jigsaw's like jigsaw can't be over here.  You say I'm sorry. I'm tired. That's all you have to say to me. You don't see me all day So give me attention Or explain me the future space. You need your space. Let me know I just don't get why you're acting like a child Let me check your phone. See yes. I'm not going to talk to you. Huh? Are you serious or are you?  It's totally brilliant.  Why do you have to be on Instagram? I'm talking to you That just really shows me how much you care about me if you're gonna stay there on Instagram Well, we're trying to handle a situation. I understand We need your alone time for a minute, but don't take it out on me and ignore me and treat me like crap You never do this stuff to me All I wanted is your love and attention and if that's just saying like hey babe We just calm down. I'm going on. What's it? You're staring at me with a straight face not explaining me what's going on Say something Speak to me Now sit up and talk and tell you what's going on I just don't understand.  It's just not okay, and it's upsetting me a lot Bill get off Instagram. It's hard to me I Am so sorry. I look at her face Hashtag team bill is back at Marvel Squad. I got her so much better than her Drunk prank that she got me with and you know that's true. You're not a better prank sure than me What are you doing away from me?  Okay, I am so sorry You obviously know I wanted to be by you that whole time.  I'm over the hump, right? Yeah, I'm back on top let you believe that but it's totally false.  Fine. She's gonna try pranking me. Uh-huh. I'm gonna prank you right back literally what a couple days later not even Yeah, what do you got to say for yourself, babe?  This is my video.  Okay? Can I get a hashtag team bill? I should I know Please because I because I got this I will say it next time you win. I should I team bill I'm not gonna say it next time I win, but I was hoping Guys everyone switch to team bill you're right is that team bill? How can you be a Mariah team if she's team bill? Oh, and I loved it when you brought in the bunny and I'm sure mama squad Whoever makes the best comment or the cutest comment about our bunny his name is jigsaw He's my little sister's bunny, and he's the cutest thing in the world Like he's a white bunny, and I'm gonna let's go show him right now He was literally running around during the video, and I could not stop smiling every single time I looked at him because I just love when he jumps around Wait, let me get this look at this could be our this could be our family since we're not like one of those Family channels we could be a an animal Yeah, oh my god My god, yeah, let me see He's so chill Where's he at what are you gonna do what are you gonna do how can you not be playing with him right now? Just look at him. He's so innocent. What's going on in jigsaw's mind today.  He's getting excited. Look at him. He's getting excited Why are you running away from me dude? Look at him.  All right mama squad. We're gonna end the video right here I hope you loved my prank that I payback that I got to Mariah I think it was so good though. It was so good, and it worked out so well this was the perfect time to do it and I love you so much all right guys We're gonna give our end of the video post the vacation shot out and that shot out goes to Leela Thompson and she said I like your guys a new profile picture. So shout out to you. We appreciate that Shout out to you Lea. Thank you so much. Seeing you. We changed our banner and our profile picture And I think it looks a hundred and thirty six percent better. Oh, yeah way better than what we had before It was dark before now. It's like bright. It's fun. I love bright stuff. I love it Yeah, I love bright stuff, which is why I'm dating you. Yeah, all right stuff and hot stuff Like I said if you want to get a post notification shout out We're gonna be doing more than we usually do next video and I want to see what's the cutest or best or funniest comments You can do and jigsaw the bunny. Yes. So jigsaw is his name. He's a white bunny and so we're going to be going through those Yes, all right, so we will see you in the next video, but until then peace peace guys