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Just a reminder that Big M. Little Mood with Daniel M. Lavery happens twice a week.

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Sign up now to listen at slate.com slash mood. Hello and welcome back to Big Mood, Little Mood.

I am your host, Daniel M. Lavery, and with me in the studio this week is Austin Channing Brown,

a writer, speaker and media producer on racial justice.

She's the author of The New York Times bestseller, I'm Still Here, Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness.

Next year, she'll release a young reader's version of

her book. She's also the founder and CEO of herself media. Austin, welcome to the show.

Thanks so much for having me. I am so pleased. I almost said welcome back, although the last time that

you were here, it was, you know, under the old egos of deep prudence. So in many ways, this is brand new for both of us.

It is. I'm so excited. Are you enjoying it? I am. And of course, in other ways, it's very familiar because

you are a beloved. And at this point, I think I can safely say longstanding, maybe not yet

old, but longstanding friend of both the show and myself. So I'm so pleased to have you here.

Thanks so much for having me. I am especially excited. We were talking about this briefly before we started recording.

The sort of questions progress through the natural stages of a life.

Yeah, it feels sort of neat. And the middle one, I think rightly, right?

Because the middle is often where the most juice is.

It is an incredibly complicated, like, friendship question with a lot of lead-up and, like,

names and specific wrongs and slights.

And I think sometimes that's my favorite letter, even though I often talk about like,

hey, let's keep it to under a minute, try to like minimize the number of details.

...