The journalist talks with Al Letson about parenting, code switching, and writing while mad.
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I grew up on Mister Rogers, so I know the value of a good neighbor. Over the course of my life, the people I've lived with and near have kept me company when I was feeling lonely, given me a literal leg up when I needed to swap the batteries in my smoke detector, and helped me move when it was time for me to go. (Right now, I'm hoping my current neighbors don't hate me too much for having the "Hadestown" soundtrack on repeat!) 

But sometimes your neighbors really go the extra mile, and that's exactly what Al Letson did for us as the guest host of today's new episode. Normally, Al hosts the podcast Reveal, produced out of the Center for Investigative Reporting in California, and his office is right next to Anna's. When we asked him if he'd be willing to host an episode of this show during her maternity leave, we were so excited he said yes—and that the person he wanted to talk to was New York Times staff writer Nikole Hannah-Jones. Her reporting on education and inequality, if you don't know it already, is really worth spending some time with. I've learned a lot from her, and I loved learning more about her in this conversation with Al

It makes me extra glad he's our neighbor!


—Producer Anabel Bacon and the Death, Sex & Money team
This Week on Death, Sex & Money

Journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones spends time in some pretty elite spaces—she's a staff writer at The New York Times Magazine, the recipient of a MacArthur genius grant, and a force to be reckoned with on Twitter. But as she tells Al Letson (host of Reveal) in this week's new episode, she's careful not to forget her roots in Waterloo, Iowa, and the people there who raised her. "The benefit of being a working-class black girl who has spent a lot of time around more affluent white people is you do quickly learn they're actually not really smarter than you," she says. "They just have had advantages of things and opportunities that you haven't had." This week, hear them discuss reporting on inequality from a place of anger, what happened when Nikole tried therapy last year, and why being "super sensitive" isn't the same thing as being scared. Look for their conversation in your feeds this morning.

Your Responses: Whose Infidelity Is Worse?
For the last few weeks, we've been talking about so-called "financial infidelity" here in the newsletter. And we're hearing from you that your relationships with money and with your spouses can be complicated—and that they become even more gnarly when you put them together:
"I have never thought of myself as a cheater until I read the description of financial infidelity and...I'm totally guilty. I hide some of my spending habits from my husband by using a credit card he doesn't have access to, which I also use for a lot of family purchases so it's easy to hide. It's nothing 'serious,' per seI work from home and eat out a lot more than I want him to know. But I guilt trip him whenever HE eats lunch out at work; I'm a cheater and a hypocrite.

Adding to the complexity of this realization is our history with infidelity. Almost three years ago my husband had an 'internet' affair (i.e. naked photo swap) when I was pregnant, and I found out about it when our baby was two months old. In the grand scheme of cheating it was maybe a 3 out of 10, he atoned, and we've done a lot of work to rebuild what is a very loving and solid relationship. But at the time it gutted me and I still think about it.

Now I find myself having to examine my own behaviors in comparison to his. Whose infidelity is more egregious? (His seems worse but was a specific and limited instance; I've been doing mine for years.) Do I owe him a confession? (I found out about his by accident.) Do I need to similarly atone? (I want to say NO, but is it really up to me to make that decision?)

For the record, I'm writing this from a cafe where I just finished a breakfast panini and a mocha. Sigh."

 
—Elizabeth, 37, CA

Listen to This: Audio We Love

For This Is Love's new season, they're reporting all their stories from Italy (this is a great production hack that we will definitely be pitching our boss at a later date). And we love their first episode about Piobbico, a tiny Italian town where "everyone wants to be ugly." Home to the Ugly Club (motto: "ugliness is a virtue, beauty is slavery"), Piobbico residents pride themselves on embracing alternative standards of beauty and building community around them. 

Howard Stern's complicated career is getting the Fresh Air treatment this week. In a two-part interview, the second of which is airing today, Stern sits down with Terry Gross to talk about being raised by his severely depressed mother, how going to therapy as an adult changed his interviewing style, and how he looks back on the lewd ways he would talk about women in the heyday of the Howard Stern Show. "That always really troubled me," Gross says. "I know you cringe about a lot of things when you look back at your early career—do you cringe about that?"
Next on Death, Sex & Money
When Daily Show host Trevor Noah was growing up in apartheid South Africa, he stood out as the child of a black mother and a white father.  Next week, he talks with sociologist and writer Dr. Tressie McMillan Cottom about how being famous is now making him feel like an outsider, and why he thinks it would be harder to elect a woman than another black man for president in 2020.
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