On being is brought to you by the John Templeton Foundation,

harnessing the power of the sciences to explore the deepest and most perplexing questions facing humankind.

Learn about the winner of this year's Templeton prize, Dr. Jane Goodall,

whose discoveries changed our understanding of humanity's role in an interconnected world at Templeton.org.

We all know that the best writers for children and young adults speak profoundly to people of every age.

I first became aware of and interviewed Jason Reynolds,

the National Ambassador for Young People's Literature of the Library of Congress in 2020.

I have come to see him as a magnificent presence and source of wisdom for present human society as a whole.

He's as driven by compassion as he is committed to the clear-eyed honesty that the young both possess and demand of the rest of us.

His body of books about what it is to be a black boy, a black young person growing up in the U.S.

have been received as a godsend by teachers and librarians.

And in his person, he lifts up innate human powers of fortitude and imagination.

He offers gifts of wisdom and practice, like breath laughter and the libraries in our heads.

And a stunning working definition of what anti-racism actually means.

Anti-racism is simply the muscle that says that humans are human.

That's it. It's the one that says, I love you because you are you, period.

And if we can figure out how to do that and it feels so simple.

And this is why racism has been like the greatest hoax ever played on humans.

It's the greatest hoax ever, right?

Because that element of I love you because you are you should be the most human thing we know.

It should be a natural thing to say, look, I love you because you remind me more of myself than not.

I'm Christa Tippett and this is on being.

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