Hi, this is against everyone with Connor Abeeb.

Friends, Assad Hader, the political theorist and philosopher, who was on episode 26,

which I've reproduced here as episode 314, died suddenly in December of last year.

Assad was someone I had always planned on being friends with, but I had never made enough effort to really make that friendship happen.

He was brilliant, funny, warm, and so open to talking in whatever direction the conversation wanted to go.

Assad and I connected in 2018 over our similar childhoods growing up in Pennsylvania, and we did it at that time

when all sorts of ideas, new ideas or newly articulated ideas about race, class, culture,

politics, were starting to break through into mainstream consciousness. In fact, I had

worried that some of the touch points of our conversation, the first Trump

administration, for example, and Rachel Dullesal, the former academic who presented

herself as black, even though she had white parents, would feel outdated.

But listening back, I found a discussion that was more relevant than ever, which I've edited

slightly just to forefront Assad's voice over mine.

I wish I'd talked with Assad again.

In this recapitulation and exacerbation of the themes and opportunities from almost eight years ago

that we talked about, I'm sure he would have had all sorts of new and interesting things to say,

and so would I. It would have been great to talk. I know his imagination would have had something to

offer, some pointing to a path that would

lead us away from the total and deep antagonisms that we're using as bludgeon against each

other right now, because Assad was seeking something beyond punishment.

In a paper about sexuality and rebellion, which he sent to me, which so far as I know

remains unpublished, he wrote, on the internet, the only response that can be imagined to

...