Hey listeners, you're about to listen to the second episode of our three-part live show series

just in time for Pride Month. This episode, however, is at the intersection of a few

identities here at Vibe Check because it's coming out literally the day before Juneteenth.

This episode embodies both our blackness and our coeriness all at the same time because our special guest is the one, the only Donez Smith, who, as you may know,

is our recent poet finalist for the Pulitzer Award.

Denez is an old friend of myself and Syed. I've worked with Dunez for Award. Denez is an old friend of myself and Said.

I've worked with Duna's for years.

Dunez is a brilliant, brilliant, brilliant, brilliant person.

And I cannot wait for you here this conversation about their work

and how it ties to this idea of Afro-pessimism.

Sam and I really thought this was an important conversation to reflect on

due to the state of the world in which we live, in which we're considering, you know, what are we all fighting for?

Is it even achievable? And what does a future of equity even look like since really all of us have been stuck under the heel of white supremacy for so long?

And we were born into it and now we're expected to defeat it, which seems like a really,

really tall order. So this episode is for those feelings if you're having them. If you're feeling

really overwhelmed by the world and the structural issues that we're all facing, we have a conversation

grounded in the reality of that, but filled with a lot of hope and joy and pleasure. Danes is

such a wonderful author and activist of pleasure and in reminding us that even in the fight, we must take time to love ourselves. So I hope you enjoy this conversation. Again, this is from the LA Times Festival Books live on stage. It even rains at some point, but it's all great. And reminder, it was quite a feat for me to sit on that stage to do this episode because, as I always say, sugar melts.

So I don't like rain.

However, I did not melt that day.

So we hope you enjoyed this episode.

Hi, everyone.

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