You're listening to serious inquiries only. Oh, Hello and welcome to Serious Inquiries only. this is episode 247.

I'm Thomas Smith and I'm by myself today.

A quick note, Jamie is not here and I just wanted to say stuff that she's already mentioned

and if you follow her on social media I'm sure you've seen so I don't think I'm speaking

out of turn or anything.

Jamie is a single mother and not only that a widowed single mother at a time of a pandemic

with school-age children.

I don't know how she even does it at all. I don't know how she's been able to do any of these episodes. I can't imagine how difficult that must be.

So things are probably going to be a bit slower for Jamie. She's going to try to pick her spots when maybe she can do the

show but I'm absolutely putting no pressure on her because I can only

imagine. I mean it's tough for all of us of course but geez it must be even harder with with all those

things going on so that's what's going on with Jamie she's you know absolutely

welcome anytime she feels up to it and we'll all be very excited to have her back.

But for now just wanted to do a solo show here and I wanted to reflect a bit on a couple books that I've read. I read White Fragility

actually a while back when it first came out I think and then I just recently

read how to be an anti-racist, which you heard if you listen to Alex Jules, that episode, a few episodes back, you heard him recommend that.

I had already read Stamp from the beginning by Ibrahim Kendi, but I hadn't yet checked this one out and I absolutely

wanted to based on Alex's recommendation and it did not disappoint. It was great book so I want to talk about that I kind of

wanted to reflect a bit on race and as a white person trying to grapple with these issues

and I want to say from the outset that you know

if you're a black listener and you're thinking I don't want to hear another white guy railing on about race

that's a okay if you want to split you know just kind of kind of skip this one I guess

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