The Takeaway
Anna Deavere Smith: We Must Come Together in This National Moment of Pain
Click on the 'Listen' button above to hear this interview.
“If white folks were to experience black sadness, it would be too overwhelming for them. Very few whites could take serious black sadness and still live the lives that they are living.”
Those are words spoken by actress, professor and playwright Anna Deavere Smith, co-opting the voice of Cornel West in her one-woman play "Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992," a theatrical production she wrote more than a decade ago in the violent aftermath of the Rodney King verdict. It's a play from multiple points of view that shows just how little we can sometimes find in common with another, and this week it feels heartbreakingly familiar.
President Obama is in Dallas today where he has the unfortunate role of addressing the deaths of five police officers in a interfaith memorial service in the city. He will speak to the lives and loss of Officers Thompson, Ahrens, Zamarripa, Smith, and Krol, along with the lives Philando Castile and Alton Sterling, the black men who were killed by police just days before Dallas broke out in violence.
Today, The Takeaway speaks with Anna Deavere Smith about race and America. Smith says coming together is what's most necessary in these moments of pain. Click on the 'Listen' button above to hear our full conversation.
