Reposted by John Coons/Teo
There is a moment at the very very end of Abdul El-Sayed's podcast with Ezra Klein (book recommendation section) where he talks about the idea of "speaking truth to pain" and this will be staying with me for an extremely long time. www.nytimes.com/2026/09/25/o...
![screenshot of a three-paragraph excerpt from the quote-skeeted article, with the final sentences of the third paragraph highlighted in grey, from "and now" onwards. excerpt reads as follows:
When he appeared before the state Senate that day to testify against the new redistricting plans, he was joined by three other veteran Black politicians. Although Fields, a 63-year-old lawyer, has a reputation as an even-keeled consensus builder, he grew emotional as he spoke.
“To me, it is personal,” he told the Senate committee. “Since Reconstruction, Louisiana has elected four African Americans to Congress. And you’re looking at all of them. Four.” Even though nearly a third of Louisiana’s population is Black.
“You said something very profound,” state Sen. Gary Carter Jr., an African American Democrat from New Orleans, told Fields. “From the 1870s all the way through [the] present, just you four gentlemen—that’s it. And now this body wants to reduce that. ‘We want to cut it. That’s too many.’ How do we not be outraged?”](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:kjklbsuepdppuppsfluytydl/bafkreicc3jzq4std3st5bqszp7m2ng6ajhderlvk52o6zyru4rs2i6xgbe)
