Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Trymaine Lee joins Shifting Culture to talk about his new book A Thousand Ways to Die and the true cost of violence in America. Known as a griot of Black survival and death, Trymaine has spent decades reporting on the lives and communities most affected by gun violence. But when he suffered a sudden heart attack at just 38, he was forced to reckon with the weight of the trauma he had carried in his body and in his family’s history of generational loss. In this conversation, Trymaine traces the roots of America’s cycles of violence back to slavery, systemic racism, and disinvestment, showing how those forces still shape families and neighborhoods today. He also shares how identity, mentorship, and joy can disrupt the cycle, and why nothing stops a bullet like dignity, opportunity, and love. This episode is heavy, but it’s also filled with hope. Because as Trymaine reminds us, there may be a thousand ways to die, but there are also a thousand ways to live.

Trymaine Lee is a Pulitzer Prize and Emmy award winning journalist and MSNBC contributor. He’s the host of the “Into America” podcast where he covers the intersection of Blackness, power, and politics. A contributing author to the “1619 Project”, he has reported for The New York Times, the Huffington Post, and the New Orleans Times-Picayune. A Thousand Ways to Die is his first book.

Trymaine's Book:

A Thousand Ways to Die

Trymaine's Recommendation:

James

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