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As the year ends, we want to share where this podcast began and replay our first episode.
What does the public shaming of Palestinian immigrant Majdi Wadi — and the boycott of his Minneapolis business — say about who we are becoming?
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The abortion debate is top of mind as we enter 2022, with a pending supreme court decision that could radically change the legality and availability of abortion in this country. So, we thought we’d revisit my conversation with writer Caitlin Flanagan.
The most honest thing I’ve ever read about abortion is by Caitlin Flanagan. It’s called “The Dishonesty of the Abortion Debate: Why We Need to Face the Best Argument From the Other Side.” You can read it here.
Read all of Caitlin’s work for the Atlantic here.
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Over the next few days we are going to be replaying some listener favorites from the last year, starting with what was without a doubt our most provocative and popular episode: a re-examination of the Central Park Karen.
Amy Cooper was not the internet’s first “Karen” — the pejorative used for a demanding, entitled white woman. But as the Central Park dog walker who went viral for calling the police on a black birdwatcher last year, she quickly became the paragon of the archetype.
Within 24 hours, Amy Cooper had been doxxed, fired from her job, and surrendered her dog. She wound up fleeing the country. She hasn’t spoken publicly since last summer. Until now.
In a wide-ranging interview with Kmele Foster, friend of Honestly and co-host of The Fifth Column, we revisit the story of what happened in the park that day. We show what the media intentionally left out of the story. And we examine the cost of mob justice.
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Abigail Shrier, the author of the bestselling book “Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters,” was recently invited to speak at Princeton. But this being a college campus in 2021, you can imagine what happened next. The event was moved off campus. It was limited to 35 people. And the police had to be called in because of threats.
But despite the limited audience, Shrier’s message that night was loud and clear: don’t buckle in the face of the mobs. Don’t become a sock puppet to your institution or employer or social circle. Tell the truth. Speak your mind. Reclaim your freedom.
It’s a speech that deserves to be heard by as many people–especially young people–as possible. So today, we share it with all of you.
https://bariweiss.substack.com/p/abigail-shrier-on-freedom-in-an-age
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Just when we think we have Kim Kardashian pinned she adds another hyphen. She’s a reality star, until she owns Instagram. She’s an influencer, until she becomes a business mogul. She’s the sexual icon of a generation, but also a mother of four. And now, this week, she’s one step closer to being a lawyer.
Somewhere between 2007, when “Keeping Up with the Kardashians” first premiered and now, she mastered media in a way that has transformed it forever. She was in digital while we were still in analog. So: what’s it like to be the first one living in the metaverse?
We ask that–plus: Trump, Kanye, cancel culture, cultural appropriation, beauty, TikTok, and her favorite cast member on SNL–and much more on today’s episode.
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In 2019, Jussie Smollett’s hate crime allegations captured the nation. The actor and singer claimed that two men beat him, poured bleach over his head, and tied a noose around his neck—all while shouting homophobic and racial slurs.
Many pointed to his story as proof that our country, even in liberal cities like Chicago, is still plagued by the most evil forms of racism. But a few weeks later, we got news that his story was a complete lie. And today, a jury found him guilty of just that.
Why did he do it? On today’s episode, political scientist Wilfred Reilly, author of “Hate Crime Hoaxes,” explains why people like Jussie Smollett are willing to risk everything to gain the status of a victim.
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Eccentric economist and brilliant thinker Tyler Cowen answers our questions about the confusing state of the economy. We talk about: inflation, the stock market, “The Great Resignation”, billionaires, income inequality, crypto, Texas vs San Francisco, the metaverse, good food, working remotely, what states like Virginia swinging back toward the right might mean for national politics and more.
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Desmond Shum knows well the cost of doing business in China. Born to a humble family that was marginalized during the Cultural Revolution, he became a wildly successful entrepreneur, along with his ex-wife Whitney, to the tune of billions of dollars. But just as quickly as the Chinese Communist Party elite helped enrich the couple, it tore them down.
In 2017, Whitney disappeared, not to be seen or heard from for four years. She reemerged only on the eve of Desmond’s new book, Red Roulette. If this sounds familiar, it’s because the CCP routinely disappears people who fall out of the Party’s favor. Most recently, tennis champion Peng Shuai vanished after accusing a high-ranking official of sexual assault.
Today, Desmond Shum talks about how all of this happens, as well as his personal experiences during China’s economic boom, how companies like Blackrock both support and fall for CCP propaganda and more.
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If your family is anything like mine, Thanksgiving is an opportunity to take a break from work, to bask in one others’ presence, and to fight savagely over the hottest political issues of the day.
And nothing is more contentious than Covid: mask policies; vaccine mandates; whether kids should be confined to the backyard; and, most urgently, whether we can safely--and finally--call time on the pandemic.
To answer those questions and more, I called up Marty Makary, a professor at Johns Hopkins School of Public Health of nearly 20 years and a member of the National Academy of Medicine. Dr. Makary has published over 250 scientific articles and is the author, most recently, of “The Price We Pay: What Broke American Health Care and How to Fix It.” He offers a no-nonsense approach to the two pandemics he sees plaguing the country; the coronavirus and the “pandemic of lunacy.”
Veteran Honestly listeners will notice that this episode may sound a bit different. We’re piloting a new format, which we’re calling “Quick Question.” So email your burning ones-- even if they’re not quick--to tips@honestlypod.com. Please include “QQ” in the subject line.
Happy Thanksgiving!
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Here is what I thought was true about Kyle Rittenhouse in the last days of August 2020: The 17-year-old was a racist vigilante. I thought he drove across state lines, to Kenosha, Wisc., with an illegally acquired semi-automatic rifle to a town to which he had no connection. I thought he went there because he knew there were Black Lives Matter protests and he wanted to start a fight. And I thought that by the end of the evening of August 25, 2020 he had done just that: killing two peaceful protestors and injuring a third.
It turns out, I was mostly wrong. And if you relied on the mainstream media when it came to Kyle Rittenhouse, you would have been too. Today, a conversation with Jesse Singal, one of the independent journalists who got this story right, and about why so many got it so wrong.
Follow Jesse’s work at jessesingal.substack.com
Read my full column on the Rittenhouse trial: https://bariweiss.substack.com/p/the-medias-verdict-on-kyle-rittenhouse
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