I'm Kywright and this is the United States of anxiety, a show about the unfinished business

of our history and its grip on our future. We have students coming into the buildings. What would have happened on September 10th now happens on September 21st.

One of my customers told me yesterday, you're more important than a lawyer right now.

No one needs a lawyer. Everyone needs to come in a grocery store.

Let us not forget for a moment that thousands of those workers have made the ultimate

sacrifice in serving their fellow Americans. We have been at the forefront of the pandemic as essential workers while we were

caring for others.

Who was caring for us.

This was the sound.

This was the sound of New York City in this school, clapping in pots and pans,

banging in celebration of what we've come to call essential workers,

a sonic release from the unsettling quiet

of a city totally shut down.

By summer, the sound of our lives became protest and rage.

And now as a judge boy say his name

and say his day his day.

And now as summer winds down, there's an odd sense of normalcy, at least here in New York.

But we're wondering, will we go back?

Back to that old, creepy, quiet of a shutdown city.

Back to the nightly celebration of those who once again might have to risk their lives so society doesn't

totally collapse. If so we'll be facing some really hard choices about all of

that essential labor.

...