Why Is This Happening? The Chris Hayes Podcast

Lawrence Bartley was just 17-years-old when he was charged and sentenced to 27 years to life following a movie theater shoot-out. Gunfire erupted after the group that he was with exchanged insults with another crew of moviegoers. According to the prosecutor, Lawrence’s bullet was the one that hit and killed an innocent 15-year-old boy. Filled with remorse and guilt, Lawrence used his time in prison to reckon with his past, while also finding his place in a rapidly changing society. His incarceration experience ultimately led him to create “News Inside,” a Pulitzer Prize-winning Marshall Project criminal-justice-focused magazine that’s distributed in prisons around the U.S. He joins to discuss how his experience led him to create the publication, changes to the prison system and life as a (now free) suburban dad.

Oscar-winning filmmaker Alex Gibney has more than 100 credits as a producer, director and writer. Throughout his storied career, he’s been the driving force behind titles like “Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room” and “Dirty Money,” a Netflix docuseries about corruption. Most recently, he ventured outside of the visual realm to direct Meltdown, a new series on Audible, about how we ended up with this version of America. The prolific director joined to talk about that, his creative process, why it’s so important to give young filmmakers a chance, how production has evolved and more.

Representative Ilhan Omar was just eight years old when her life turned upside down. After an armed compound attack, her family fled Mogadishu, and ultimately ended up in a refugee camp in Kenya. It was there that she experienced the reality that hundreds of millions of refugees worldwide endure. After an intense vetting and interview process, her family was eventually granted asylum in the U.S. and emigrated to Arlington, Virginia. In 2016, she was elected as a Minnesota House Representative, making her the highest-elected Somali-American public official in the United States and the first Somali-American State legislator. She joins to discuss her new book, “This Is What America Looks Like: My Journey from Refugee to Congresswoman,” how she got into politics, her response to accusations of anti-Semitism and what’s needed to ensure more productivity and less combativeness among members of Congress.

The Hart-Celler Immigration Act of 1965 lifted a century of restrictions against Asian immigration to the United States. And while not necessarily appreciated at the time, it inaugurated a sea change in American society, setting the nation on the course towards multicultural democracy. Asian Americans now represent the fastest growing demographic group in the country, and yet the category itself feels insufficient for the sheer scope of experiences, backgrounds and cultures it encompasses. What exactly does it mean to be Asian American at this moment? What does it mean for an America whose central axis of political conflict seems to hover over the color line? New York Times opinion writer Jay Caspian Kang probes these questions in his new book, “The Loneliest Americans.” The podcaster and son of Korean immigrants joins to talk about assimilation amidst a wave anti-Asian violence, increasing wealth gaps, limited representation and the need for more solidarity in pursuit of upward mobility.

TV weathermen often show up as among the most trusted members of the media and almost no one on earth is as good at it or as well-known as Al Roker. Born to a working-class family in Queens, Roker found his way into TV and then meteorology and has become one of the more prominent voices in the country on the totalizing effects of climate change. In addition to being on the Today Show, he’s also the author of more than ten books, including his latest one, “You Look So Much Better in Person,” and has a new limited series podcast out called "Cooking Up a Storm", out now wherever you get your podcasts. He joins to talk about that, shares what goes into producing forecasts, discusses why climate change is an “existential threat” to our world, and more. And in a first for our podcast, we asked what you wanted to know. Join as Al also answers questions from WITHpod listeners Keith, Rebecca, and Donna.

39-year-old India Walton found herself thrust into the national spotlight when she defeated four-term incumbent Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown in the June primary. It was an unusual win: Walton had never held elected office, and Brown isn’t letting go of his seat without a fight. Following the stunning upset, the current mayor launched a write-in campaign, and many of the state Democratic establishment have refused to endorse Walton, who describes herself as a democratic socialist. Recently, New York State Democratic Leader Jay Jacobs even compared her to KKK Leader David Duke, a characterization that he has since apologized for using. Walton has now received the endorsement of New York's Democratic senators and she joins to discuss her journey from registered nurse and local activist to politician, why she feels the work of policing is “fundamentally wrong,” and proposed changes to Buffalo under her administration.

Life has been anything but easy for 20-year-old Dasani Coates. Named after the bottled water that signaled Brooklyn’s gentrification, her story has been featured in five front pages of the New York Times. Together with her siblings, Dasani has had to persevere in an environment riddled with stark inequality, hunger, violence, drug addiction and homelessness. She’s not alone. There’s nearly 1.38 million homeless schoolchildren in the United States. About one in 12 live in New York City. We often focus on the stories of children who “make it out” of tumultuous environments. But what about the ones who don’t? New York Times Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Andrea Elliot spent nearly a decade following Dasani and her family. Andrea joins to talk about her expanded coverage of the Coates’ family story, which is told in her new book, “Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival & Hope In An American City.”

Since 2017, a high-tech form of colonization has been rapidly growing in Xinjiang, China. As many as 1.5 million Muslim Uyghurs have vanished into high-security camps and factories. The Chinese regime describes these sites as “vocational education and training centers” that are utilized to counter terrorism. But what actually goes on inside of these internment camps? That’s the subject of Darren Byler’s new book, “In The Camps: China’s High-Tech Penal Colony.” In it, Byler draws on a decade of research on the region. He joins to discuss his findings and the role of various forms of technology including facial recognition, smartphones and apps like WeChat, in government surveillance.

Time for a fun one, America's favorite fighting Frenchman. You may have seen streets, parks, and subway stations that include the name Lafayette, but may not know much about the man other than the show-stopping performance of Daveed Diggs, who played Lafayette in Hamilton. The actual Marquis de Lafayette was born in France to immense wealth and privilege, allowing him to mingle in the most elite circles of the time. He shipped off to the US colonies to find his fortune and endeared himself to George Washington, fought for US independence and then returned to France to play a crucial role in *their* revolution as well. Mike Duncan, a fish monger turned wildly popular history podcaster, wrote about Lafayette’s story in his new book, “Hero of Two Worlds: The Marquis de Lafayette in the Age of Revolution.” He joins to discuss Lafayette's fascinating life, his research and life in Paris during Covid and whether the US is on the precipice of revolution and democratic decline.

Note: Some listeners may find the sensitive content discussed in this episode disturbing. Who is complicit in some of society’s dirtiest work? If you grill a steak, someone somewhere had to butcher the cow under brutal working conditions. Our twenty year war on terror has been fought much the same way, with a relatively small group of our fellow Americans doing difficult, morally fraught work that allows huge majorities of Americans to live in blissful ignorance. In “Dirty Work: Essential Jobs and the Hidden Toll of Inequality in America,” Eyal Press explores the nature of our implicit social contract around dirty work: Who does the work itself and what story does it allow society to tell about itself?