Bonus Episode: Toni Morrison’s “Goodness” with Saeed Jones

Written By Megan Caballero

In today's special bonus episode, we’re offering some counterprogramming to the inauguration with a discussion of Toni Morrison’s lecture, “Goodness: Altruism and the Literary Imagination.” Saeed Jones joins us to explore Morrison’s thoughts on how goodness sustains itself in the face of evil and what it means to lean into our own goodness as we move into 2025 and beyond.

The Stacks Book Club pick for January is The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley. We will discuss the book on January 29th with J Wortham returning as our guest.

 
 

Everything we talk about on today’s episode can be found below in the show notes and on Bookshop.org and Amazon.

To support The Stacks and find out more from this week’s sponsors, click here.

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TRANSCRIPT
*Due to the nature of podcast advertising, these timestamps are not 100% accurate and will vary.

Saeed Jones 0:00

She's become the well that I go to when, when my soul is dehydrated, I guess. And you know, certainly whether we're thinking of climate catastrophe, and of course, this, this inauguration and all that it augers, yeah, you have to go back to the Well,

Traci Thomas 0:21

welcome to the stacks podcast about books and the people who read them. Today, we're doing something a little different on an extra special bonus episode of the stacks, I'm joined by poet and author Saeed Jones, who's been a guest on the show before, and he's back today to talk to me about a lecture given by Toni Morrison and 2012 about goodness and the literary imagination. Today we talk about goodness, evil, and what we hope to do and be in the face of so much devastation that is going on in California, the United States and around the world. We're calling this episode a little bit of counter programming to put up against the inauguration. So wherever you are, wherever you're listening to this, thank you for tuning in, and I hope that you have a great rest of your day. All right, it's time for my conversation with Saeed Jones.

all right, everybody, welcome to the stacks. It's Monday. It's a bonus episode that I am so excited to bring to you. I'm joined today by my friend, friend of the podcast, poet, author, all around just like outstanding human Saeed Jones said, welcome back to the stacks. Oh, my

Saeed Jones 1:44

love it's so good to be back. Hi.

Traci Thomas 1:47

I'm so happy to see you. Okay, so let me tell folks what we're doing today. A few months maybe like in December, said, text me bitching about some person who has because we do that and say he was mad about some person. And we started texting back and forth, like, off of this original wrongdoing. And we sort of, like, we're just talking, and I was saying this and he was saying that, and then I was like, you know, you should do this for me. He's like, You don't ask me to do stuff. Enough for you. What should I be asking for? And we go on and on. And eventually said, like, you know, we should have a conversation on inauguration day as a form of counter programming. And I was like, this is a great idea. Why did I think of this? Are we in a fight? Because I'm not as smart as you. And said was like, there's this great essay that Toni Morrison it was, it was a lecture that she gave that's now an essay in a book about goodness and the literary imagination. And we should talk about that, because that would be great counter programming. And I said, this is a brilliant idea. And then I said, See, shit talking actually is generative for people like us. So I want all of you to know that the shit talking and the hating it can lead to really good ideas. And we're here today to talk about goodness and the literary in the literary landscape, but also in the world. We're recording this on January 14. I am in LA, as many of you know it is days after the start of both the Palisades and eaten fires here I am living in a world that feels both terrible and also somewhat good based on what I've seen. And so I think we're going to talk about all of these things and provide a space for all of us to think about goodness in the face of whatever is happening in Washington, DC today, at the inauguration. So that is sort of our plan. We're staying loose, you know, we've got notes, but we also just sort of want to talk and gab as friends about all of these things,

Saeed Jones 3:53

absolutely, dare I say, talk ourselves through it. Because, yes, that's right, yeah. I mean, this is, you know, one I was, I'm here in Bennington Vermont, teaching creative writing at the Bennington writing seminars. And I brought several books up here with me, one of which is, you know, this collection of essays and the lecture around Morrison and goodness and the literary imagination. And I just, I said to my friend. You love this. This morning, I was like, you know, I think Morrison is my pastor at this point, I I collect all of her books, all the books she edited, you know, now I'm into, like, collecting, you know, essays, anthologies and letters. I'm collecting books by people who were friends with her, because she's just become, and I have many of these, but she's become the well that I go to when, when my soul is dehydrated. And you know, certainly whether we're thinking of climate catastrophe. And of course. Course, this, this inauguration and all that. It augers, yeah, you have to go back to the well and yeah. So you're right. I would be, I frankly, would be reading this book today anyway. But of course, I'm glad to talk about it with you. Yeah.

Traci Thomas 5:19

So for folks who are at home and like, well, I want to read this book. I just want to tell you what the book we're referring to is. And there is a a online, I think the New York Times published the actual essay of goodness and the literary imagination, which I will link to in the show notes. But the book is called Toni Morrison goodness and the literary imagination, with essays on Morrison's moral and religious vision, and it's edited by David Carrasco, Stephanie Paul sell and Mara Willard, and it's from Virginia University Press. So for folks who are looking to read the full book, it starts with an introduction. It has this essay that we're going to discuss, and then it has multiple essays from different academics about goodness and Toni Morrison's work. And then it ends with an interview between David Carrasco and Toni Morrison about goodness. So that sort of rundown of the book. We're not doing the whole book. We're just kind of talking about, yeah, we're not, we're not doing the whole book, people, but if you want to do the whole book, it is available for you to do. Okay, I just want to start in, like the most basic place. What is your relationship currently to good and evil?

Saeed Jones 6:29

My relationship to I'll say my relationship to good is something that I've really been trying to deepen. I think good as I'm really trying to tap into, it is often quiet. That's something that she kind of acknowledges, like, does good brag about itself? Does it announce itself? I think it is quiet, often intimate. It's either a private decision. Or, like a small circle, you know, it's an act from person to person that that may not be communicated between those two people, right? Or or like a small group of people taking care of each other, I am increasingly interested in the good that is known, that has an integrity. It's not vague, but it's not broadcast. And because I think, I think social media and technology have really kind of hijacked a lot of our values, but, and I guess the other thing I would just say is in the last few years in particular, and just reaching this point in my life, I'm 39 now, a lot of terms that I used to find keep or saccharine, I'm really re establishing an appreciation for like Good, like hope, like love. And, you know, I think I kind of used to roll my eyes, and now I'm one interrogating why I felt that way, what happened, and faith, you know, that's another word, devotion. Why did I have such a response? And then now I'm trying to establish a relationship, and then evil is, I just, I just think it is far more common. I think it's just everywhere. I just, it's just evil is everywhere. It wears many faces, and it is quite a depth, ironically, in wrapping itself in language that I think many of us, especially those of us who think of ourselves as smart people, are easily seduced by,

Traci Thomas 8:49

yeah, I mean, for me, I think what's I think like saying seduced by, so, right? Because I I love a performance, I love a show. And I think that evil to your point is, is that, like, I love reading books about bad people, people who do horrible things, like to me, that is my bread and butter, as far as, like, my literary imagination, right? And I too, roll my eyes the word, the word that really just makes me want to, like, crawl under something is nice. Nice is the one I can get down with good I love hope I am at sometimes an optimist, though I am extremely pessimistic as well. But nice is the one that I it's going to take a lot of therapy to get to a place where I feel good about the word nice, but I think that's also because there's so many connotations of nice that really are like nice, nasty and not full performance.

Saeed Jones 9:48

Nice actually isn't good or polite actually isn't good when you get That's right. So I think

Traci Thomas 9:55

that's right, but I mean in this essay, i. Toni Morrison talks about how goodness is treated in literature and and how it's changed over time, and how before, before World War One, a lot of books were concerned with this, not necessarily a happy ending, but like a good ending where goodness prevails. And that after World War One, when there was sort of a collective realization that good, even if, quote, unquote good wins right, the Allies win, so much evil was done on all sides that that became the thing that was interesting to unpack. And I found that really fascinating for two reasons. One, because I really don't like a lot of books that are pre, pre World War. One, I realized, like, that's just not stuff that I like to read. But two, because it made me think about this moment in our current society, and I'm just like wondering if we will have events that will shift us back to an interest in goodness and away from evil like or do these literary trends change? And I don't, I mean, I don't know. Yeah,

Saeed Jones 11:19

I think I remember as a student of literature, even in high school, but certainly in college, when you start doing the survey courses where you're really beginning to get a sense of trends and artistic movements modern literature, which begins with World War One. I mean, because it just the word that I always think of, is shadow. I mean, it absolutely shattered people's worldview, yeah, and there really was no going back from that. And then it's really striking, because, of course, you have artists who were coming into their artistic practice World War One happens, and then they were only, like many of them were only middle aged when World War Two comes along. So, yeah, so to me, it's both this sense of what does a hero even look like in this new, shattered, not even landscape, but world. And I think that's a huge part of it. It was like the whole world, you know, this, this, now that we're talking about like, you know, climate catastrophe is a global sense. It's not about a country or a community that feels significant the scale and then that it happens again with World War Two. And yeah, I, as I was thinking about that, I was like, oh, yeah, those were the books. I remember my posture as a student changed. I because it felt and, you know, 911 happened when I was a sophomore in high school, so that felt analogous. Now, though I'm like, what would we can't pinpoint, and I actually think it would be really simplistic to say, oh, it's the 2016 election. I actually don't feel like the election was the turning point. I felt like it was Act Two of something. But I don't know where it is, where it's I don't know if it's 911 I don't know if it was the war on terror. I don't know if it was the war in Iraq. You know, it's instead, like, instead of this, being able to point to this one event that changed everything, it's like an era of constant shatter like, instead of, like the big glass panes, everything's like little bitty shards, yeah, in comparison, and where does good live in that world view, you know,

Traci Thomas 13:32

right? And I think, like, for us, 911 becomes this, like, huge global event because of the way that America looms in in the world, not necessarily because it was felt directly like World War One or World War Two by so many places. It was more like in the shadow of America having this event everyone else must suffer and change because, like we say, so, because this happened to us, and so you will all if we are going to suffer, so are you. And I think that's really different than sort of how World War One and World War Two were felt by so many people across the world, and also different than how global warming is felt right across the world, like that, like we sort of inserted our pain onto others and said, like, well, if we're gonna have this, like, you're all gonna check the water at the airport, yeah, and maybe,

Saeed Jones 14:29

okay, this is actually helpful, because, you know, I grew up in Texas, so you know, George W Bush was my Governor before he was my president, then he becomes president, and then 911 happens. And, yeah, you're right, because the isolation, and it's like, you know, American isolationism and also American exceptionalism have everything to do with this perception of good and the warranty. So it's right. We've been attacked, but we are the good guys. Like, I do feel, you know, and this is a very millennial reading, I have to say. But, but it's true for both of us. Like that was a cultural moment where it was like, We are the good guys, which is why, you know, for example, the Dixie Chicks at the time were the chicks speaking out against the war on terror. Was like, violently pushed back on because it was like, How dare you. Because I think the response to 911 was, what is the image of good it's like the TV show 24 where you have the guy torturing people. It is the cow. It's like the the America was like, we're gonna be one big cowboy and we're gonna shoot him up. You know, we our backstory is 911 This, this. We didn't ask for it. We didn't deserve it. That's the rhetoric. How dare you. And now you You're right, you're all gonna suffer. And that became the American conception of good for at least a decade, just wreaking havoc. Yeah,

Traci Thomas 15:50

yeah. And I think, like, what's interesting to me about this book is, before, when you suggested this, I sort of didn't realize that it was going to be about or this essay was going to be about goodness and the literary imagination. I thought it was going to be about goodness more broadly in the world. And I don't know if for you, if you feel this way, but like, I think of goodness and evil differently on the page versus I, versus how I think about it in life. Like I think about goodness and evil on the page as like, representative of other things as well. Whereas in life, I think that I understand the complexity is more of like you can be both good and evil. You can behave in both good and evil ways, and that someone who is good in one moment could be evil in another, or could be seen as evil to some groups and not to others in a way that, like in a book, in a story, it's often simplified to make it more clear to the audience, who is who and what is what. Like I'm thinking about like you're saying 24 like this is the good guy, you know, quote, unquote, and and these other people are the bad people. These brown terrorists are the bad guys. And that, to me, feels like very literary in the sense of like this is, this is good versus evil, whereas in real life, you know, we, I mean, some of us understand that, like he's a bad guy too, that like everybody's a bad guy. And I don't know if you think about these things differently?

Saeed Jones 17:22

Yeah, I mean, one, I have a line in the lecture that I want to point to that feels relevant. But when the last thing you said is, I do feel like a very post 911 really up into just a few years ago, posture that I felt dominated contemporary literature and a lot of film and entertainment elsewhere was, everybody's a bad guy like that became that, really, that became the the, like, a mature outlook on the world was, and it was like, weird that That was the, I was, like, that's the convention.

Traci Thomas 18:02

It's like, sort of defeatist, right? It's like, well, no point in trying to be good because everybody's bad. Or, like, there's no use in leaning into, like, wanting to be better because it's right. There's no point everyone makes me at the end, yeah,

Saeed Jones 18:17

it makes me think. And again, it's very, you know, very different tone, but it's very much a part of this, oh, dare I say it, milieu, but Avenue Q, everybody's a little bit racist. Thing is the posture from both of that everyone's a little bit racist. Or everyone fucks them well, everyone fucks up some time. Or everyone's bad. It's not and thus we, thus, we really have to work to reach for goodness, though we really have to work to be anti racist. The posture was, well, everyone's kind of like this, so chill out. Don't be so sick about it. But, but the other thing that I would say a point that is very helpful to your distinction between how evil kind of manifests in our daily lives and then how it tends to show up in art is, this is from page 16. She says, grief, melancholy, missed chances for personal happiness often seem to be contemporary literature's concept of evil. And that feels true to me. You know, there we see. And I will say, quite frankly, let's take Alice Munro. She was evil. I feel knowing what we know now, but also so much of her work, the themes, for example, were about these like, like, regret. You know, regret takes up much more intellectual, artistic real estate and the conception of her canon, then goodness, then satisfaction, and yeah, like, and when I was like, Oh, wow, yeah, that's true. You know, it's in everyday life. You know, we don't really, I mean, usually have villains in our personal life. Maybe. Politically, right, but I

Traci Thomas 20:01

have some personal villains. I don't want to be a liar, okay,

Saeed Jones 20:11

so lucky, you know? But, like, generally speaking, I was like, Oh, that's really interesting. It's, you know, these themes, these these dark feelings that that tend to get more real estate and and I will say to push back a little bit, you know, grief, melancholy, you know, and even with evil, you know, something else we see in a lot of films with all of these reboots is like reconsideration of villains. I'm thinking of wicked, I'm thinking of Cruella, you know, wasn't like there was a new line Joker, or something. The Joker, I'm thinking the Lion King movie where, like, Scar is recenter, you know, I think the impulse has been, if we focus on evil and make evil the main character, Ursula, we can understand evil better and interrogated in ourselves. I think that's the logic, but I don't think that really pans out. I think we kind of end up with everyone's a little bit evil, or we become evil eventually, which is kind of like the Batman thing, like you're either live long enough and you become a villain anyway. Yeah, yeah.

Traci Thomas 21:20

Well, what do you think sustains goodness in the face of the popularity of evil? Like, if everyone's a little bit bad and evil, and like, we're all gonna be bad guys one day. What? What is the, not the point of goodness, but like, how does goodness stay goodness like goodness is still going toe to toe with evil every day, like we're seeing it. How? Why?

Saeed Jones 21:49

I mean, I'll go back to Morrison here, and this is at the conclusion, what sustains goodness is us talking about it, US depicting it, and and communicating. And again, this is very and part of this is, like, artistic because, you know, I think if you do a good deed, I'm not telling you to, like, go brag to your neighbor about it. Go post. Go post on social media that you donated to a wildfire Relief Fund. No, just, just do it. Just do it and show other people the resources. You know what I mean. It's not about you, but in terms of as artists, she talks about how she feels, it's really important. And what did she say on page 18, I have become more and more invested in making sure acts of goodness, however casual or deliberate or misapplied. And then we can talk about the Amish community that she mentions, blessed produce language. She says she's like, when, when goodness happens in our art. She says, like, for novels, I wanted to impact the plot so that it's not just like a one off that we that it's centered. And then later, she says, allowing goodness its own speech, right? Like letting goodness talk in the way that we always let evil, kind of old monolog, allowing goodness its own speech does not annihilate evil, but it does allow me to signify my own understanding of goodness, the acquisition of self knowledge, which in the end is, I think, Where Morrison lands in terms of, like, what's the function of a novel within a system of power? This is what I you know, I was just teaching a course this past semester on like, how the memoir functions within systems of power. I think, for for her, the function of the novel is to show how a character learned something that they did not understand at the beginning, and that that learning is a movement toward good, and it may not be a happy ending. She points to The Bluest Eye as an example. It's tragic for Pecola, but Claudia, the book's narrator, learns something vital and that there's still value in that. So, yeah, I think it's as an artist, as a teacher. It's writing about goodness, understanding that goodness is as interesting as grief or or brutality, and then trying to find ways to describe or even bestow language upon those acts of goodness in the work so that the reader has something to take away.

Traci Thomas 24:28

Yeah, and I also think goodness, and I'm thinking about life right now, right? I obviously cannot think about goodness without thinking about what's going on here in LA, with the fires. And I'm thinking of goodness as like something that is generative, right? That the reason that goodness is sustains, lasts, continues, is sought after, is because there is something generative about it, in a way that evil just can never be. Evil can grow. Evil can excite. It can. Insight. It can do. It can move. It can be, you know, infectious, but it does not create new. It does not create newness. It does not it does not bring new life, new ideas. It does not inspire in the same ways, and it is almost always responsive. I feel like evil only exists because of goodness, and I guess maybe goodness only exists because of evil, but there's something that like goodness is progress, almost like it moves the story forward. In the interview, I believe at the end, she talks about about slavery and what black people were able to create out of having been enslaved and all of that evilness, how how the music and the ways they interpreted faith and the sounds and the art and the communities that sustained each other, and all of that goodness that created something, that generated something, and I do think that that's also so important to your point of like making new language, finding new ways for characters to learn that goodness, when you feel it, it is so Much more overwhelming, yes, than evil, even if you you know, even when you feel evil, there's something like goodness is bigger than right, like in those moments,

Saeed Jones 26:28

that is it. I'm so glad you pointed to and obviously Morrison thought so much about the legacy of enslavement, because I think sometimes I see people with the wrong takeaway. I mean, I was telling with a friend the other day in 2015 2016 I did a book event. I interviewed Colson Whitehead about the Underground Railroad at the Boston Book Festival, and Traci literally the first question at the Q and A after we've been talking about so nervous for 45 minutes. The first question came from an older white man, and he said, Yeah, but weren't there some good things about slavery? And I just remember the whole room just like, turned on that man, you know, because it's the wrong takeaway. The point is not to go see there's a silver lining to even something as awful as 400 years of enslavement. The point is, look at goodness as strength, though we try to act like goodness is weak, frail, naive, childlike, it is actually the most mature, the most wise and the most enduring, and even a system and a history as violent and pervasive as slavery is not as strong as goodness. That's the lesson. Yeah, yeah.

Traci Thomas 27:54

Let's take a quick break and we're going to talk about the three sort of pillars of goodness that Morrison brings to us. Okay, we're back from our break, and I want to just talk about how she in that so in that essay, she sort of lays out these three pillars of goodness for her that she's exploring. She also says, like, I don't know anything about goodness, like I'm trying to figure this out.

Saeed Jones 28:23

And the only thing more confusing to her that, and I love it, because I was like, if Morrison is confused, and I'm much more comfortable because I'm confused all the time. She was like, altruism. She was like, What does

Traci Thomas 28:34

I love? Because do you have a negative connotation to altruism in your mind? Because

Saeed Jones 28:38

I love you. I don't love it, but I don't know why

Traci Thomas 28:43

I feel that way. I feel like it's used as an insult,

Saeed Jones 28:46

I think, because, okay, so I don't so you and I both have a response to nice, because how the word nice usually functions in our culture is euphemistic for, like, docile, I think even obedient, in deference to power structures. Altruism, I think, is I find difficult, because it doesn't it's not even a virtue. It's like something above a virtue in that I'm like, I don't even know if it's literally possible for a human being to be altruistic, and I don't mean that in a cynical way, it just says it's like godly. It's not a it doesn't strike me as an especially human characteristic, because it's somewhere like five notches above good. Like in is it home, like the women who take care of Cece, like that character, like, like they're they're taking care of her, and they're helping this woman heal who has been really disrespectful about them, you know, for most of her life. But they're doing it because, as Morrison points out, they don't want to die. And God asked them, What have you done? You know what? I mean, they want to have something. To show for themselves. And I just think, you know what? And hopefully you don't, they don't go around bragging like we did this good deal. You know, they know they're doing it for a spiritual reason. And I think that is great and very noble. It is not altruistic however, you know, I just, I feel like if, if good were defined as altruism, we would all give up.

Traci Thomas 30:22

Sure, sure. Yeah. Okay. So here's what she says. Here are her three arguments, sort of that that are different interpretations of pillar goodness. Yeah, her three pillars. So one is altruism is not an instinctive act of selflessness, but a taught and learned one, altruism, that's number one. Number two is altruism. Might actually be narcissism, ego enhancement, even a mental disorder made manifest in a desperate desire to think well of oneself, to erase or diminish self loathing. And then so number three, she's talking about some scholarship around DNA, and it says seeking evidence of an embedded gene automatically firing to enable the sacrifice of oneself for the benefit of others, a kind of brother or sister to Darwin's survival of the fittest. And here she uses examples of like an animal that might sacrifice themself so that the other animals in the colony can survive or get away, or whatever that looks like. So that's sort of how the third one manifests. Is this something that is inherent in us, you either have a good gene, or you do not, or that we all have a good gene that sort of triggers goodness when needed, or altruism when needed. I also like

Saeed Jones 31:35

that earlier on, she, and I think this is true, you know, with often with names, but she does some, like word work with altruism, because she sees an alter, like alter, the other like, as in to do good does involves like someone else. But also you hear alter, there's a holiness in it. And then also, of course, I can't, you know, altruism, I can't hear altruism without hearing true that there's some sense of authenticity, truthfulness to it as well, has always struck me. But yeah, it's, it's a difficult word and a difficult concept when you really think about it.

Traci Thomas 32:17

Yeah. I mean, she starts this whole lecture with the school shooting a schoolhouse shooting an Amish country where a man goes to an Amish schoolhouse tells all the adults and the boys to leave, leaving the young girls, and he shoots them. He murders them. And after this event, he's also killed the shooter after this event the Amish community, they embrace his widow and their family. They raise money for them, and they also circle the wagons and say, We're not going to do interviews. We're not going to talk about this. We are going to care for our own and for the family of of the quote, unquote, you know, evil person in this situation, and that sort of sparks Toni Morrison's interest, or that's how she sets up her interest in goodness and evil in this book. And I'm wondering what you what you make of that story, because I, I gotta be honest, I don't know that. I feel like what they did is, is any more good, like, by, by not. I don't know. I don't know that it's inherently good to not talk about, to not talk about it, or to like not let this be a thing. I think I don't, I don't know. I struggle. I struggled sort of with her framing of this because she talks about, like, you know, these people didn't judge the Amish killer, and I just don't know that. I think that judging someone is necessarily evil, like, I don't know that I follow her logic on some of this obviously, like, I do think it's very nice and good that the people took care of the widow of of the shooter, because I don't necessarily think it's her fault or the family's fault, right? Like, I'm not suggesting that, but I do, I do think of sort of reading this response as good. I don't know maybe that, like the goodness is not harm free in some ways, like that, it doesn't come at a cost to the Amish people. And I'm thinking also of like, after the shooting at the AME Church in Charleston, when the black people who were victims, and the family of the victims came out and said, like, we forgive him and we embrace Yes. And I'm like, Well, okay, that is, maybe that is goodness. But to me, it doesn't come without that. That doesn't mean that it is free of harm for other people. And I don't, and I don't know what to make of any of that. Yeah,

Saeed Jones 34:52

i Ooh. I'm so glad you said this. It is a true moral dilemma, which I feel like is wise. Uses it to open it. Yes, it's incredible. Like Morrison doesn't get enough credit as a philosopher, but this is what talking about. And I was always so intimidated by philosophy classes because I just felt like it was like white men talking about white men. And so I love that we're getting this from Morrison. One in terms of where I can go with her, is it sets up this phrase she uses when describing it, which is the shock

Traci Thomas 35:30

of forgiveness, yes, which

Saeed Jones 35:33

is incredible. And I think certainly, if you have ever, I mean, certainly not the scale of this murderous person. But you know, if you've ever messed up and had a moment where someone just like immediately warmly forgives you, it can be shocking, and I just hadn't seen that established in language, which is, again, like she's she's translating good into language. And I was like, Oh, I know exactly what she means when you're like I don't even know if I deserve to be forgiven. Do you know what I mean or forgiven yet? So that was valuable. That said, okay, so many thoughts. One, it's significant to me that this killer killed girls. Yes, intentionally had, I guess the adult women as well, but certainly the adult men, and notably the boys, believe the space he killed girls. This was an act of femicide, a specific misogynist hate crime. I don't know a lot about Amish culture,

Traci Thomas 36:41

and this shooter was not Amish, so he was from outside of the community.

Saeed Jones 36:47

Okay, yeah, so I don't know a lot about Amish culture, one way or another, I have to be honest. So I'm not going to make assumptions about their gender politics, but I will say more broadly, we live in a world that takes disrespect and violence against women, femmes, queer people, less seriously. So I will say that, because it does feel significant, I don't know if a group of boys had been killed, it had been the same reaction, but I'm going to say, as a reader in 2020, will now five, I can't ignore that. But secondly, I guess I would say, and certainly, as someone who has worked in media for a long time and has come to a very complicated feeling about how media covers, for example, acts of violence. We don't know about the conversations they had within their community. All we know is that they said, we're not talking to y'all. We're going to take care of this widow, and that's it, that's all, that's all y'all are gonna get for us, you know? So for all we know. I mean, I would like to, I hope, I hope. I mean, because there are mothers and fathers who lost their daughters, you know what? I mean, like, who lost their children. So I would very much hope that what they were saying is the way we are going to handle this tragedy, and also, it's a tragedy that was brought upon us by an that's the other thing. Maybe the point three, it's so complicated, is this tragedy was brought upon us by an outsider. So why would we litigate it with outsiders? We don't trust any of you. Yeah, but it is. It's a really, I mean, I see, I absolutely understand why it's and, of course, it also makes me think of, and I don't know if you've gone to this in your Morrison series yet for the stacks, but it makes me think of the plot of paradise in which, yeah, in which women and girls Who are in a religious space are all murdered so, you know? And it's interesting, because I don't think paradise comes up in this lecture, but she would have written it all,

Traci Thomas 39:10

no, but the pastor or something. There's a lot of pastoring, right? Maybe it's in the interview. Maybe it's in the interview, yeah,

Saeed Jones 39:20

yeah. It's not centered in the lecture as much as maybe you and I would prefer. And I think that is a reasonable pushback. Absolutely.

Traci Thomas 39:27

Yeah, so, so, speaking of your point about gendered ideas around goodness, one of the things that in the interview, it's on page 234, that is said is that she's talking about writing about the male characters and Song of Solomon, and she's talking about, like, some of their nicknames, and how, like, her dad had a friend, and they all called him Jim the devil, not just Jim, but, like, Jim the devil, full name, all one word, Jim the devil, and how that there was maybe, like a warning. By naming him that for others like to know, like, That's Jim the devil. Like, you know that that guy, you over, right? Yeah. And then he says, Carrasco, when he's talking to her, he he says, you know, this is these. These names are kind of socialization, a way of teaching and knowing the villains in one's slave history and its aftermath, like who made Jim into the devil, and by calling him that, it took some of the danger out of him and put some humor in his name. And she said, you know, men are very good to each other. Women are good to both women and men. The men will take a bullet for each other, but not for a woman like me and I found that really interesting. She goes on to talk about the ways that soldiers and soldier narratives are all about the men on the battlefield who loved each other so much and would take a bullet for each other, and how they have nightmares over the loss of their of their loved, their beloved soldier friends, and that it's like this intimate, intimate male on male relationship. Obviously, now women can serve in the military, but I think she's really talking about sort of the canonical texts and stories. Well,

Saeed Jones 41:13

okay, we're talking about inauguration. But also listen, Pete headset is today going through a confirmation to run the military, and he believes women should be taken out of the military. So it's so it's striking that, you know, even in in 2025 Yeah, we're in flux, that there is a desire to among many, certainly not all. It would be devastating for the middle and like, Are you crazy, like the military recruitment is struggling as is. So you know, even as someone who is against the military state, I just think, practically speaking, they need all the recruits they can get. But it is striking that there is a desire to a fully homosocial that's what it's called, though they get really uncomfortable with it, a fully homosocial vision of the military, yeah, I mean, and it also feels connected more broadly. What you're saying, like men being good to men, women being good to everyone. I'd say this is also like, you know, and I always wanted Morrison to go further in terms of her understanding of queerness, yes, yes. Because I think queer people, you know, there's that sense of community and goodness as well. We it's not everybody as I tell people, I'm like, there are queer people and there are gay people. You know, Peter till is gay. He is not enacting a queer politic, but, but that being said, Yeah. And even, for example, evil is lonely. Good, I don't feel, is usually lonely. Because even in like, let's say literature like you have a good character who is on their own, they are not lonely because they're like, I'm aligned with my faith, I'm aligned with my morals, with my ancestors, with the person I'm sacrificing myself for. You know what I mean? It's not like, Oh, poor me. They're like, No, I don't need y'all. I would rather, I would rather be good than have this facile crowd around me. You know what I mean? And then I think that's significant, how

Traci Thomas 43:22

well as we wrap this up, I want to, I want to read this one thing she talks about, about evil, because it feels this is also in the interview. It feels so spot on for what will the images we'll probably see today on inauguration day. She This is like the first page of the interview. And she says, I always thought the Nazis gained followers because of their uniforms. And he says, uniforms? She says, yes, the high boots, those pants, during the period in Germany, many people were very poor. It was a lower middle class country, and people were wearing the clothes from World War One, but the Nazis had this design, and those uniforms were fabulous. People are still playing off the fashion of those caps and those high, shiny leather boots that people felt they had to respect. Almost worship the Nazis because of that, that's the nature of evil. It's theatrical, and people admire theatrical violence and try to get on the best side, the winning side, in part because it has a handsome costume. It has panache. And that to me, both times that I read this interview stuck out in thinking about it, in relationship to the incoming administration and the esthetic.

Saeed Jones 44:36

And significantly, you know, esthetic and television understanding of the screen, right? Because, you know, as I mentioned, Pete headset, and it blows my mind. But, you know, he comes from Fox News. He was a fox. He was like a seed list,

Traci Thomas 44:54

right? I didn't even know his name. I was like him.

Saeed Jones 44:58

He was not from the eight. Mean, but nonetheless, he understands the screen. And that's obviously, you know, something for Trump himself and many people you know in that world. And so even if they are not stylish or cool, you know, and I would, I would group Elon Musk, it's not that, it's like panache, but it is an understanding of, I guess we would say, showmanship that we're seeing now. And that makes sense, like, if we're, you know, like, yeah, and I like that she contextualizes. Like, think about how threadbare the average German would be after World War One, and then, and then, you know that this, the sartorial style, functioned in a different way. We're not in that era anymore. So it's not about sartorial style. It is about the screen. It is about the optics of the screen, whether it's your phone, your TV, and, um, hate to see it, you know, but yeah, but we have to acknowledge that it has power we do.

Traci Thomas 46:01

I think that the esthetic, the like Maga esthetic, is, is about sartorial choices. They're just different ones. It's not about showing that we have our shit together and we're tidy and we're tight and we're organized and we have new clothes and shiny black boots, because that is not the the country to which they're talking to, but I think it's, I think it's about showing like we're, we're everyday people like you. We dress schlumpy. Our clothes don't fit. We wear a trucker hat like we are, just every day, regular, degular. You can be part of this, and we can change the world with just this hat, right? I mean, I saw the movie The Apprentice, which I really liked. And in it, I've been wanting to see that it's so good. Sebastian Stan is so good. But in it, there's a scene where Trump gets a suit with Roy Cohn, and it's really expensive, and it's really nice suit, and it fits him so well. And Roy Cohn is like, you look so good. And as I was watching it, I turned to my husband and I said, How come his suits don't fit him good now, right? Like he used to dress better, but the schlumpy suits and the loose fitting and the tie and the whole the too long tie, it's a choice, and it is a choice that was made after learning the right way to dress like the way that rich people dress. So there, I think there's a performance of class like Elon Musk could be put together. He's got enough money to have 9000 stylists each making a million dollars a day, and yet he does it right. And so I do think there's something about trying to use your clothes. It's, I'm not saying this person is Maga, but it's similar to what like Taylor Swift does. She doesn't have a stylist. She's the everyday girl, and she dresses weird, like it's not put together, it's not tight, it's not clean.

Saeed Jones 47:52

Oh, wow, Traci, I'm going, I know we're wrapping up, but I'm gonna be thinking about this for some time now, because I really, I really hadn't understood it, but, but to your point, if it is an intention, it's kind of savvy, because there are a lot of traps that I think people who are like liberals, leftist, progressive, or whatever, you know, just people who are against Maga folks. There are a lot of traps and making fun of the way people dress because they're not as dressed up or sleek is a class track that's really interesting.

Traci Thomas 48:29

Well, just think about, think about the ways they always criticize Nancy Pelosi or Kamala Harris. Is her suit is so expensive, her outfit was so expensive when they are put together in a certain way. I do think there's something about the clothes and the performance of the clothes that is similar to what Toni Morrison's talking about with the Nazis, but it is specific for our time and our place. And you know this like quote, unquote economic anxiety, which you know is, is a way to talk about racism and classism, all these other things, but that's sort of the catch phrase. If you dress like you're economically anxious, right? Like then you two and are part of this.

Saeed Jones 49:14

And you know, I've really come around on economic anxiety, because people are anxious. They are worried. And, yeah, so to mock economic anxiety or to mock the way they're dressed, a lot of people are like, Well, I am struggling to pay my bills, and that person is dressed just like me. So what's going on here, you know? And you're like, Oh yeah, wow, wow, that's what I mean. I mean evil is not to be under and I think, and I love that she says, like just, you know, to to give goodness, language does not annihilate evil, she says. And I think it's I always talk about, you know, especially like after the election, like on, on my podcast with Sam. And Zach Stafford vibe check. I was like, you know, we have to do risk assessment. It is really important that people understand when they are in danger and how you know what to look for, and like what you just said about like this. I'm like, Whoa. That is really helpful information, because, you know, that's the balance, and that's why good and evil live in balance. It is really important to think deeply and vulnerably about both. The problem, as Morrison notes, is that at least in literature, we just spend so much time developing and investing in the character development as I'm here, you know, doing workshops the character development of evil as a theme, or as characters or an antagonist rather than good and and so that's the Miss balance. But you really have to do both. You really have to do both. Okay,

Traci Thomas 51:01

we're gonna wrap up. I want to ask you, this is, like a big question, and who knows,

Saeed Jones 51:06

we're a good person.

Traci Thomas 51:11

This isn't therapy. I said it was a big question. The question is, I guess, how are you thinking about goodness as we enter this new administration, as we look at these wildfires, as we think about climate change, as we think about Gaza, as we think about, you know, all of the harms being done. What, what is, what about goodness? Are you thinking about or working to toward, or how are you approaching it? And I know that's a really big one, and that's a hard one, but I do want to leave people with just some ways that they that they could be thinking about goodness in their own life, and how they can be doing good deeds or being good people.

Saeed Jones 52:03

Absolutely, I look as we know, I have been thinking about this a lot, actually. Listen, I am a teacher. I have a large following and platform. It doesn't, it doesn't do me any service to be naive about that, frankly. And so to a certain extent, I am always kind of communicating resources. I realize that I have a platform and I can use it or as I come that's why I'm like, let me go talk to Traci, because you and I can have a conversation about goodness, and it can reach a lot of people, right? So I'm always, I don't know, I think that's important. Like if you, if you have that gift, I I'm not, I'm not gonna step away from it. Tony K bomber wrote once on a back of a postcard, do not leave the arena to the fools. So I'm not gonna leave the arena to the fools. That being said, How am I thinking about goodness? Now, you know, outside of my kind of public persona. My Public Self is my goodness is offline. I don't think this will always be the case, but I feel that evil has won for now the Battle of online spaces, and so that's why I say like, even as like social media influencer, I'm not leaving these arenas to the fools, because I have this platform, and I don't think my absence is going to make things better, at least right now, but in my personal life, yeah, I think we need to do I want to do more good offline, in part to protect the good. I want to have quiet, secret, underground networks and communication that cannot be co opted and studied or surveilled by evil actors that are clearly doing that. And when I say that, I'm talking about people like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg and Donald Trump, I think we need to be wary of showing our work in public, because they're a part of the public too, and we see that they are obsessed with them. We live in their head, written free as we share, yeah, just

Traci Thomas 54:11

I want to ask you kind of a follow up in your work as a writer, does this essay just thinking about goodness as we move forward in time. Does that change how you are thinking about how you're telling stories on the page? Are you more invested in goodness? And it may be also, as a teacher, like encouraging your students to lean into goodness in their work, to not be so seduced by the evil. Oh,

Saeed Jones 54:39

I'm always oh my gosh, I'm obsessed, because I just think, you know, I can teach you craft and the craft of writing and developing arguments and bringing stories to life, but I'm always trying to talk about the moral, morals and politics. And as I tell my students, let's use our powers for good, is what I say to all of them. And, yeah, I think for me, this conversation and Morrison's lecture and essay, it's just kind of reified some work I've already been doing, particularly with the memoir I'm working on, which is about me as much as is about some of my literary ancestors, like Langston Hughes, he was a good guy, and I'm already this, it's already a theme I'm been writing for months, months, but, yeah, it's like investing page space, words, you know, word count, in trying to understand the integrity of his goodness. Because, you know, he was up against so much, including family members who were just like, really mean and frankly, anti black, like self hating. And he really resisted it in a very quiet, joyful, persistent way. And so making sense of how he did that, how he protected his good, yeah, that's something I'm into.

Traci Thomas 56:00

I have been thinking about goodness, obviously, this week, especially, and feeling torn between being a public person who lives in LA, who has a platform, who wants to be an example of like, what we can and should be doing, and also getting resources out, and also feeling torn about, like not wanting to make myself to anyone the face of this, of this fire, of this tragedy. Because, you know, I my family, was so lucky. We didn't, we didn't lose our home. We're all safe. You know, I just live here and not super close to either of the places right, like 20 minute drive in either direction, but, but also wanting to feel like the work that I'm doing is is helping in some way, and feeling desperate to like do something good for some other people who who are needing it more than I am and and struggling between wanting to show people like, this is what you can do. This is what I'm doing. This is like, here's an example. Because so often I think people want to help, they want to do right, but they don't know what to do, and they and even when you tell them, like, this is what we need, we need money, people still feel like, well, like, Can I send or like, can I you know, so really trying to like show people, but also, like, you're saying, wanting to keep a lot of this private. I shared publicly that someone who works with me on my team, she lost her home. Another woman that I work with also lost her home, and I've shared that information publicly because those are my people, and I want to make sure that people are taking care of them, and I've sort of adopted them as like, these are the gofundmes that I'm really behind like this is because these are my people, but also doing a ton of stuff offline with them and for them that I do not plan to share publicly at all. And that includes some things that the stacks pack, which is our Patreon community has done for one of one of these women, because she is a member of the stacks pack that I never posted about, I never talk about, and I think trying to find the balance of and I think this is for everybody. Even if you don't feel that you have a big platform on the internet, you do probably have a large community in your life that you're connected to many people. And it might not feel large to you, but it probably is, and you're probably very important to a lot of people. Would be, my guess is, like finding a way to to be both public and private with your goodness, finding ways, like you're saying, to share resources, but also to be sort of underground, networking, doing things. And I think that's hard sometimes, because sometimes it's really easy just to publicly be like, click here, do this, and to feel like you've done enough. But in this last week, I've really realized that that it is not it is not enough to share resources, unless that is all you can do, right? Like some people, you know, maybe you're not able to go outside in LA because the air quality is is not safe for you and all, and you don't have funds to donate, or whatever that looks like. And what you can do is that, and that's what you should do. But I think if you can do more whatever the situation is, whether it's, you know, protesting some of these anti trans bills and and and legislation, whether it's, you know, supporting people in Gaza, yes, yes, exactly like we have to be good. We have to do what we can when we can, because you never know if one day you're going to be a person who needs the support. And so my approach is like to act in good faith, in the hopes that I it's not altruistic, in the hopes that I earn enough credit that if I need it, people will Cash me out, right? Like that. People will support me because I've done, you know, done the work and some sort of, like, fake karma, which, you know, that's what motivates me.

Saeed Jones 59:52

A striking image out of the these wildfires that I've actually been thinking about is it feels like a perfect metaphor, the wink. Change direction. That's right, someone else's strategy can become, your peril, like that, and that feels significant. But also, I think, you know, I'm glad you're we're talking about this, because I don't think good, goodness usually feels good in the moment. I think it feels like a reckoning. I really liked, like, all of the nuances you're thinking through, you know, I I'm suspicious, and this is like, like, we keep going back to Nice. Nice feels like an easy pat on the back. Goodness. Good is, like a it's work, it's a reckoning, it's thoughtful, it's being thoughtful and and you're on to the next good act. And I think you Yeah, and I just think that is worthy. And, you know, I don't think there's going to be an applause round, you know what I mean? I just think it's just going to be like we made it to the next sunset, and that, yeah, that is good, you know?

Traci Thomas 1:00:56

And one, I just want to say this one more thing, I also think, to your point, goodness also feels inadequate. I think, I think if you ever feel like you've done it and you are getting that pat on the back, you probably there's probably still work to do, right? And like, I can again, speak, just from this week, so many people messaging me and being like, thank you so much for everything you're doing. You're doing so great. You must be so tired. And I'm like, Yeah, sure. But like, there's so much we need to be doing, and like, that feeling of like it's not enough, it's never going to be enough. There's nothing that I could do alone, that would, that would fix any of this, and that goodness not only almost feels inadequate, but also that it feels that it is something that happens in community. Yes,

Saeed Jones 1:01:39

right? No one, no, none of us can do it all alone. You

Traci Thomas 1:01:43

cannot do it alone. You can only do be good in community. And I think that's to the point of like the the Amish people that start the essay like they did. They made a choice as a community. They circled the wagons together. They said, We are going to do this. This is who we are going to be. What they did in private. We'll never know, but what we do know is they said together, we are, this is who we are. And I think knowing that goodness relies on community is is hopeful and it is healing, because we know that if we stick with each other, you know, as the saying goes, we're all we got. And I think that that feels sort of nice in some ways, it feels a little sad. In some ways, we've made it to Nice. Well,

Saeed Jones 1:02:24

yeah, that is that this, it's funny. It's like humble, joyful inadequacy. That is, to me, perhaps why goodness is generative, because we know seeking. Yeah, I think of Rachel Kanza, she said, at one point in some piece of writing, out of the work comes the work. And that's kind of right. And I think about that all the time, all the time, and I think that is it, like, out of the good comes the good, like, like, understanding that something that you know, there are a lot of immigration activists or, like you write, LGBTQ plus IA activists in California right now, who are literally all of their energy is having to go into piecing together their home, finding shelter tonight. So no, they can't be calling their congress people or doing other things that you know, so that it's helpful. Out of the work comes the work, and it's just it is, as long as I'm not satisfied with my goodness, I'm still alive, because it means I have more good to do. You know, it's not a defeatist inadequacy, it is actually an optimistic inadequacy, and so I love that you. You brought that together. Oh, Traci, I just this

Traci Thomas 1:03:39

was great. I adore you. I adore you. Everyone at home. We hope so much that this is helpful or was at least a little bit of an escape or a break from whatever you're feeling and going through today, wherever you are. And I think, you know, we should continue thinking and talking about these things publicly, privately and in any ways, and said, I love you so much, and thank you so much for talking shit to me so we could do this out of the evil comes the goodness.

Saeed Jones 1:04:09

What did Nikki Giovanni say? I'm so hip, even my errors are correct. Look at us

Traci Thomas 1:04:16

everyone else. We will see you in the stacks.

all right, y'all that does it for us today. Thank you so much for listening and a huge heartfelt thank you to Saeed Jones for being my guest on this extra special bonus episode. Don't forget the stacks book club pick for January is the ministry of time by Kaliane Bradley, and we will be joined by J Wortham on Wednesday, January 29 to discuss the novel. If you love this podcast, if you want inside access to it, head to patreon.com/the stacks and join the stacks Pack and check out my substack at tracithomas.substack.com. Make sure you're subscribed to the stacks wherever you listen to your podcasts, and if you're listening through Apple podcasts or Spotify, please, please, please leave us a rating and a review for more from the stacks. Follow us on social media @thestackspod on Instagram, threads and Tiktok, and @thestackspod_ on Twitter, and you can check out our website at thestackspodcast.com. This episode of the stacks was edited by Christian Dueñas, with production assistance from Megan Caballero. Our graphic designer is Robin McCreight, and our theme music is from Tagirijus. The Stacks is created and produced by me, Traci Thomas.

Megan Caballero
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Ep. 354 No One Is Begging You to Create with Kaliane Bradley