19 people lost their lives in what became one of the results of worst environmental disasters. its effect. stooping, felt along one of the country's largest river basins, locked all local in the dodge. the small co dam was built next to rural communities inhabited for over 3 centuries. these are places with deep roots home to indigenous people, descendants of runaway slaves and fishermen who relied on the river for their livelihoods. others to the dam collapse. took everyone by surprise. the avalanche of money is toxic. waste travels more than 650 kilometers to the atlantic ocean, destroying houses, bridges, and farming lands and pulling everything in its path. now, after nearly a decade of waiting, people are hoping the mining giants responsible for finally bring them just as the government announced to deal with the companies behind the disaster brazil's. by the do you do see an anglo australian, wp supreme court,

just as we as hold basketball, who's just said it was a historic deals here because it showed the country was addressing its environmental disasters holding those responsible and accountable for us. so we're the white glove, very much for the book, but this is definitely a breakthrough. but i fear too much of the money is being directed to federal and state agencies and not enough to to people directly affect it to the he does the river basin is one of brazil's largest, but the fishermen say the disaster and left them in ruins. so could you ok, we want our home back, our way of life was destroyed. that's why we insist on returning to been thrown previous to feel the peace we once had. the settlement was announced just 4 days after the start of a historic trial in london where 260000 individual claimants and 1500 businesses filed suit against wp, which has his headquarters in the u. k. the guy who despite the settlement in

brazil, this trial will continue monica not give all just sierra bmw to hold the gives the brazil human. before we go to some remarkable pictures of floods in the desert, sand humans and palm trees under water and se in morocco, this was the unusual scene and as hard as it how to read the heavy rains, the regions had the heaviest rainfall and decades in recent months bringing back to life one, does it late that had dried up as long as you say rainfall that as it is becoming hotter to predict. the blaming climate change that set somebody elizabeth put on them for this half hour of news, but stay with us. all the elders, 0 upfront is coming up next the a full year of war in gaza. and now it is really troops invading lebanon. are the

us in israel working to reshape the entire region? who do americans trust to handle their economy? immigration, and the wars and ukraine and gaza? a quizzical look at us politics. the bottom line award winning writer and journalist and author ton of has the post is best known for his work fighting systemic racism and any quality inside of the united states. but now he's entered the conversation on israel and palestine. in his new book, the message quotes reflects on portions of brace, identity, colonialism, and the politics of writing in separate trips to senegal, south carolina, and is really not the palace star. so what inside can one of america's most prominent writers offer on this consulate? and why has he entered this conversation now? earlier i went to new york to speak to tallahassee coats and upfront special. the total has it goes,

welcome to upfront. thank you man. so good to meet your brother. this is your 1st non fiction book in 7 years. mm hm. there's a way that it's the perfect move it, but it also a way that so incredibly, a, an opportune moment in the sense that when they live a genocide and gaza. yeah. and you're writing a really intense and, and i was a smart critique of these really occupation when you started writing that as a, did you anticipate that kind of response me now? i mean, i knew it was going to be a lot of blow back. okay. i need to do is just no way the day is when i was over to it wasn't just the occupation in this is i think like way is really high. if, if you, i think this is a hard life, if you go to the people, because you can understand that this occupation apart on the west bank guys are like, they can understand that is unjust. but when you get to the root sort of state like and you start saying, i don't know if there should be as no stays period. like,

i don't know that i believe that a state should set itself up in such a way that one as in the group will have rights that others will not um think about. so they don't in the abstract people say yeah, it's probably right of course. but i think because of the weights, the real weight and the lead, the weight of, of anti semitism and in the history of the west, um, culminating, obviously in, in, in a holocaust, the fact that the holocaust is within the living memory of human history. i think we have a lot, you know, around that, you know, as we should, as we should probably. um, the problem comes in when, how we decide that, you know, that should be paid. but you know, once i saw it and marking me to get back to your question, how's i, you know, my life will never be the same. my, i oh, i'm seeing it. i was like, this is over, you know, some aspect of my life is over. i've done that before i written anything that's the intellectual or political issue for you that was that the emotional,

psychological level. oh, man is a point in the book while i talk about how i had gone to the retreat and you know we hiked up the hill and this is like, this is at the end of like the midpoint of, of my truck. so the 1st half was with the power as the new literary festival, the 2nd half, with mostly with this group breaking the silence. a good idea of that is i know you familiar with. and i got to the top of this hike we took and i sat in this room and i was like, i just had this feeling like you, i'm just walk through a door and you can get back to the other side. you know, and um, i think um, so i knew after that you know what i mean? i know i was right, but i knew, you know, i knew you know what the, what the reaction was going to be only questions. could i do the job that i needed to do? you know what, what, what's, what's key to you for doing that job for executing that job proper. that's a great question. so i mean, what i had seen, but you know, i'm, i'm a historical thinker and so, um, i needed to read

a lot of the historical documents i needed to put in context. what i'm saying they would do it. people who had said things to me about, you know, basic, i'm saying this is what i needed to see them in a more systemized form. i need to re reports. and so like having all of that, you know, like to me is upset like the morality of it is not complex, but obviously the system of it is. and so coming to try to understand it, i want it on the, on a number systemic level that i feel like i could write and make the basic point, you know, which is to me. we are supporting a system of apartheid. and i don't think most americans understand that and why don't they understand it? you know, i thought that that was the essence of what i was trying to do. but it's interesting because while your essay is largely focused on posting and stuff, and you actually start with your visit to jada shim, which is israel's memorial to the victims of the holocaust. as a writer. oh,

why did you start there? felt like a very intentional choice. it was man, i mean, 1st of all, 2 things have the experience. i had there was very real. so all of that emotional and that was probably day 9. i think that's just the, i'd say. and it wasn't like that was the 1st thing i saw. it was like the last thing i saw, you know, um and the most of the experience that i had as i write about was very, very real. and there was something about the fact that i was at that point very clear about what the state was doing. but that i guess it didn't make me feel like i needed to reject the experience which the state calls upon the heritage of the state calls upon to even, you know, do what it does. yeah. that i, that i, that i was still move by boat and i was wondering how do you write about that? yeah. how you reconcile it and how do you write about it in, not such a way. this is on the one hand this on the other hand, that's my how do you fortune into a singular narrative,

right. and as i thought about it, i thought about some of our more nathan dreams as african americans. some of the things that we, you know, wanted and this came from other chapters in the book, obviously, you know, i own dreams of nationalism and how you can have a very, very real history and not even just a victimization, but installation and genocide, pull grounds ethnic cleansing, etc. and how we have this believe that that will necessarily make you wiser, a better person. but how in human beings in general, it doesn't always do that. now i want it to be very clear that i was not writing about a quote unquote jewish era. but a human mistake, you know, at is most perhaps, is most acute or, you know, have, and maybe not even that, but that is made it as, as most relevant, you know, to, to americans. and i thought if you don't take the pain,

you don't take jewish very seriously. so i'll take the holocaust seriously. if you don't take any semitism, since you really won't understand what happened here, you know like it will be too easy to write. this off is just some people doing some bad things, you know, not left in thinking about that man like, okay, so this feels like a version of a history that i'm very familiar with, but accelerated way into the future, right? like times like 10 or something like that, or $100.00 or whatever. so i am here at this point. i've seen a future. what do i have to say to black americans? i would, i had to say to us about how we think about our own legacy. and it's hard for us to imagine this, but i don't take it as a given that we will forever be without political power. i don't know that's true. i don't take it as a given it, we will, i will be out be without economic power. and if we weren't who we be, you know who we be and i think those are questions that are best as like right now

when we don't have you talked about the experience you saw in the mid least being familiar. you, you, you, you could, you could see that in our own histories, african americans here. i think some of the examples might be what you saw in the occupied westbank check point, segregated roads, sterns on palace. any rooms together rainwater compared to the country clubs of that swimming pools or when you see that was this one of those things where you immediately had a visual response. is that that looks like the historical memories that i was that had access to all. i mean, the roads right away or you tell me, i can't go down a road net present can say this person has one license like you've got another one besides and i know the size don't literally say power staying is rarely, but they make it clear aside make it very clear who's supposed to be on that road. yeah. and so, i mean, that was clear like, that was really clear. and then, you know, i saw to point out the differences between, you know, where are used with palestinians lived in an area that was settlements. and in your

mind, a word like settlement count calling just like some, you know, rough pie. and me is, you know, what, i mean the brace when i also were really, it's just love it town, you know, me like us actually, you know what, what it is you know. and um, understanding that quote unquote, a legal settlement settlements. i actually subsidized by israel, like, did not like i had it in my head to somebody. this is a problem. you know, what i mean for the is really state, but you know, when you're subsidizing it, not so much. and so you start seeing that and you're like, oh, really mediately? i mean, i was also calling about it. you know, um because i felt like people talking about the moral justice or injustice. it is in a very, um, in a way that i now feel like they're trying to obscure. you know, um, you know, i've said this before, but there really is nothing that someone could do that would make me say

a segregation apartheid jim crow. ok. but i just, i don't have access to that. i don't, i don't, i don't, i don't, you know, i use it. definitely. example all the time is nothing, anybody's going to say to me that that person did. i'm going to say they deserve the definitely like i'm just not gonna do that. not a diamond is really not. it will be security that we have to have these roads for in order to protect ourselves and palestinians who not only want self determination . but there are narrative is the palestinians don't what the jewish state to exist and they don't what used to exist as such. yeah, i mean the problem is people think when they say that that they therefore sound less like apartheid less like they sell more actually. yeah. right. they sell more . i mean that, that just shows like the lack of understanding of, of the history of those systems and colonialism. safety is always the point. i am not saying it is necessarily saved like, i'm the, i don't deny it. do you know what our policy is? what to do harm and 1000, it'd be so that's not what i'm saying. you know what i mean? what i'm faced with, jim cronum faced with apartheid. you know,

this is nothing you're going to say to me. and unfortunately, unfortunately, the argument of safety is the exact same argument that people who i don't think some of those will to use that are, you actually want to be in league with it, put you in and not worry company was the security argument, or any argument from the pro is rarely perspective more persuasive to you before you travel there to the sense that it was complicated. it was because i think that plays on a basic notion that we have in our head, which the story is a complicated history is complicated like that, that sorta it, it runs, it feels familiar. yeah. um and the system is complicated. this is a, you know, there's a lot of complication there. you know what i mean, but, but the morality of whether this should be happening of it. you know what, i mean the, if you asked me, you know, the basic said this country um be subsidizing

the defense of apartheid, of, of taking people's land, of a less what. that's what the buzzwords away, you know, maybe people don't like that shouldn't be subsidizing a society that defines democracy by says by saying half the people deserve one set of rights and everybody else deserves less. no messages. no. this is no, you know and is nothing that, um, anyone's gonna say it's gonna make me say yes to that. you know, there's a way, both in the book and in your interviews that you tie, the sort of uncomplicated nature of this whole thing. the more our business of it all, to seeing it up close. yes, but you didn't just say you read it, you read deeply, you read a sheet quality, you know, to advocate and edward side, and in his really historians like benny morris. and you tied those 2 things together. a lot of people don't have the opportunity to travel and certainly to

travel to israel, palestine, how possible is it to arrive at the conclusion that this thing doesn't make any sense without actually going there. thank. if we had um a news media with different commitments, it would be possible. i don't like, we didn't have to travel to south africa. i understand. you know, um, but unfortunately we don't, we don't have an i don't i'm, i've been struggling because there are many journalists who i have in my it and who i've looked up to and, and, and, and media organizations that i am myer. and i, and i look up to and i, and i don't think there clarifying things, you know, i don't think there's, there's, there's that role. and again, i do think that they find it very hard. and i, i'm sympathetic to this with the cast people or some cases of literal, dis, literal, like sons and daughters. you know, grandsons and granddaughter of holocaust survivors as perpetrators of so many

victimized, another group of people. and that's just like, like a step we have to get, you know, what i mean by just like in your mind it doesn't ordinarily click it, you know, to wait. other things doing that a good faith interpretation of a behavior though, to some extent is it is not an art. you know, i have to start from there. like i have to say there's a wrong, but yeah, because i have a way of writing even though other people receive it this way is if i was in your shoes, i think this is wrong. but if i went in your shoes, how could i arrive at the same position? somewhat honestly. yeah. and i know that i feel that impulse, it's fine to think that i guess really, i mean like the earliest, probably my earliest moment to true true political cartoons that i can think of was i left my parents house and i went to howard university and i took a black dice with and this is a class that basically gave a survey of other black to ask for literally actually from agent huge of all the way out. right. and you got to the slave trade and you had to confront the fact

that you would not kidnapped like fuel you can. it's would look at as black sold. you. so it wasn't easy. what came in. gotcha. and this was like, heartbreaking, this was like devastating. you know what i mean? like it took like weeks for me to like accept that in my mind because the need narrative of having been stolen. right? is so much easier. you know, you can easily assign villains heroes, etc, but no, no, use ologist. i'm in a site. ok. and so i, i know that they liked these points and i'll start retailing. the don't always look like one plus one or don't was like we want one plus one to look. and i just think it's, it's, it's hard. i think it's very hard for people in 2014, you wrote a, a piece for the atlantic, that is one of the most celebrated pieces of your career. it's called the case for reparations. and it, you discuss the subject of reparations for slavery and racial inequality. you cite german, these payments, the israel after the holocaust, as an example of reparations. in the message you write within days of publishing

the case for reparations. i began to feel the mistake, but it took years for the depth of that mistake. invest my own debt to compound. talk to me about your journey, not just to realizing that you made a mistake, but also of, of sharing that with public. well, i guess i see the 1st thing that happened was the critique came a week, maybe tops. and it wasn't like, uh, a yelling criteria is a real critique. you know what i mean? it was like, you know, are i take this seriously? and i was like, yeah. and i didn't understand that here. like i, i just vaguely understood that. i had not been curious about what this state that had taken german rubber race had actually done. and i knew that i was deeply in conflict with the moral argument that i was making,

which was not merely a payoff argument, but that we are trying to make the world safe from certain things, right? certain systems and you take the money, but you know what, i mean, you, you, you perpetrated another, you know, crime of inhumanity. it's not clear to me, you know, what happened. and so that was a mean media and consistency. i just, i, i knew i had to correct it in writing. i knew that like, i just knew that i had to happen. and, you know, i knew i could not because it got so much attention. you know, as i did something that got the same level of attention and it was, it really was, wasn't until i got over it. i, i really got it. and it was hard. it was like, really, really high. i mean, was emotionally hard and you know, it was emotionally very difficult. and i think one of the things has come out of this and, you know, i'm sure you've had this experience. i know you've had this experience. it's

hard to think of yourself as a black person with a level of privilege. and then you're maybe people from a community that have been completely pushed out of the frame sunset. right? yeah. and they say you thank you. and it was like hard for me to hear that i mean in part because of the case of the case, reparations also just like this is messed up. i'm like, it's messed up that i get to go with cbs and say x, y, z. like that's not right. you know, um i, because i have this feeling that i can point out the basic inconsistencies that are very, very clear that people live live dismay are like really, really not wait, you know, in their bones. and you know that the thanks just remind me, you know, of, of the absence of those voices. so you do make

a comparison of the october 7th, samantha text to net turner's rebellion and 18. 31 right here on the show of norm, single see made a very similar yeah, uh, analysis. and the question always is, how do you render a moral judgment on that turner, in that moment there is someone who would say, you know, killing 55 white men, women and children is morally indefensible, and there's no context that could explain it. then there are others who say, oh yeah, i mean there's contact then there is contacts to explain how they are given a context to explain for instance. yeah, it's really what i could explain it. but what i'm trying to push on know isn't think about the math part of it. yes, yes. because there are people who have been challenged to say, what am i said was indefensible. unexplainable or, or that turn, i understand why those are 2 different things, though. no, what i'm like and explicable where categories explicable, i think it's clickable. i also think it was horrific and i would, and it's taking me

a long time to get here. what like i would say the same about and that turner ultimately. yeah, bottom, all hands on the panels back and they are turning over in the agreements. and the problem is that i could imagine how much of a reckoning it is to get there. but i'm like, i have to be honest with you. once i read the story as the story was, it always bothered me. why a child a baby in his credit. i just, i mean i like this is without any political sophistication. no you, what i mean, i read that it out about it. i know, you know, philosophical, anything what like that is bothering me and, you know, i wonder how much of all morality is hard wired or what. and i don't mean morelli likes one is better than the other, which is what i sent a right. and that always bothered me man, and i understand it, but i get how you can be completely deprived of all right, including your body,

you know, the ability to protect your for and how to load. i can make you feel um but i just, i just can't, i can't, i can't get to it. i can't get to it and i and i, and i, and i, you know, and what i've done and even in october 7 case is i have tried to even put myself, you know, in there and not understand. like i've said this before, like how you feel, how you could feel you have completely circumvented and defined your life. you know what i mean? like, literally kept you in closed. you know, you're, your parents or grandparents aunts. uncles try to fish shot. no shot at it's not i don't understand where the volume is comes from. it's not understand. like you said, think this is common across, you know, move mets right. like i don't think you can find a freedom movement with somebody did something and you weren't kind of like so sure

. i don't know. yeah, i don't know. and for me, i think i, i just, i just, i have limits and a butcher and people, i don't know how practical that is. i don't know what that means in terms of what, you know, what i mean. like probably a lot of people who are in movies like what are you talking about on asi, but as a writer and as somebody who situates themselves in the world, the, you know, moral imagination. that's just not just i, i am not there kind of, i should not be the person leading that revolutionary movement. i probably shouldn't be anywhere near it. you know what i mean? because i'm, you know, as impractical as it is, i'm probably going to be the wisest. i mean, you shouldn't do that, at least that's my best version of myself. you know, um so yeah, so you've written a book, you put it out in the world. it's being received, being consumed, the history will say, you know how, you know, it's ultimately understood. but what do you do next? you know, historically going back to the desk,

you're going back to work and move it over to the next problem. so all those partners have been in the service of like the ration in a certain kind of way. this book is i will call an outlier, but there's a way that you've also entered into this other conversation right on power side, right? when you go back to the desk, do you leave that over there? are you still going to be in involved? but i don't, i never leave any of it over that. oh, you know, i think um, i have a politic or a set of politics that is probably similar to many of my political allies in the movement. but i probably do my best work as some distance. i need to think do not talking about myself. you know what i mean, or you know, what, in a room like 3 other people i need to think through october 7, like in a room with 3 other people. you know by myself. i just don't use that. that is how i, um you know, i just have to write in a crowd sourcing right in the crowd. and so, um, i probably will go back to the desk. i, i do think i like, like, like,

i don't know what, what i will do if this escalates because we are in a particular moment. yes. and it may be that, you know, you don't, you don't have the luxury of doing certain things. you know, when i got back last year, i was like, i'm not gonna say anything about the strip books and come on next year and that's what i'll talk about. don't say anything about it. and then october 7 happened. and then the genocide began and it was like tapped by, but i don't have like, i really don't have the privilege of not saying anything. and i just saw this and i have to tell people what i saw. you know? but i, you know, i didn't want to, i wanted to, you know, just, you know, keep going and keep grinding. so we'll see. we'll see that as it goes. thank you so much for joining us. i'm sorry about that. thank you so much. i

in a crumbling clinic. the last remaining delta in one of america's pores counties, struggles to capture those most in the least able to afford it. so many of the people out here can't pay for care. so that's all to your how long can she keep the doors as i'm have spent on meredith so basically, you can't just walk away. i'm going to sail witness to the doctor on tuesday or on the account for reporting exclusive stories. explosive results, which is 0 investigations ruins left behind in the city, famous for its roman ruins. bell back is 11 and the best of value and its famous waste. 2000 year old roman temples, designated as unesco wells, heritage sites is considered his with

a strong culture. most people have left and those who remain safe have seen nothing like what's taking place. now. strike off to strike off to strike. people here tell us they're living under constant fair. we were born here and we will not leave. fall back is empty. the foreigners know, taurus and the lack of tourist is affecting everyone in the last week alone. this being over $150.00 is reading strikes on 5 big that's way over 80 percent of the population has left, but the seems to be noisy. and these really bombardment the searching has written this was in conflict. but now it must contend with modern bond struck by he's ready for these threatening expansion sites. the

limits to have a dream contained key stuff in your own adventure. now, a counter and the as well carries out back to back as strikes one residential buildings and a southern sub on facebook. the hello, i'm elizabeth for autumn and this is alex as the on line from don't ha, also coming up. the humanitarian crisis is deepening and never known. the u. s. has nearly half a 1000000 people have fled to syria.