Table Of ContentBUFORD HIGHWAY, IN SUBURBAN
ATLANTA, HAS LONG BEEN A PLACE WHERE
IMMIGRANT ENTREPRENEURS COULD
START BUSINESSES AND
GET AHEAD. THEN THE PANDEMIC HIT.
BY MATTHEW SHAER
W H E N
T H E
V I R U S
C A M E
F O R
T H E
A M E R I C A N
D R E A M
November 8, 2020
November 8, 2020
11 Screenland Snowed Under By Sam Anderson / 15 Talk Greta Thunberg By David Marchese / 18 The Ethicist A False Negative By Kwame Anthony Appiah /
20 Studies Show After You By Kim Tingley / 22 Eat The Lutèce Onion Tart By Gabrielle Hamilton
24 Hard Times
By Hanif Abdurraqib / The patient, sorrowful
optimism of the American folk masters Gillian
Welch and David Rawlings.
30 When the Virus Came for
the American Dream
By Matthew Shaer / Buford Highway, in suburban
Atlanta, has long been a place where immigrant
entrepreneurs could start businesses and get
ahead. Then the pandemic hit.
38 Why Societies Fall Apart
By Ben Ehrenreich / Unchecked disease, economic
ruin and climate crises have led to the ends of
civilizations before. What can we learn from the
study of collapse?
Copyright © 2020 The New York Times
6 Contributors / 8 The Thread / 14 Poem / 18 Judge John Hodgman / 48, 49, 50 Puzzles / 49 Puzzle Answers
Photograph by Kristine Potter for The New York Times
Behind the Cover Kathy Ryan, director of photography: ‘‘Th is week’s cover story, by Matthew Shaer, focuses on how the coronavirus pandemic has aff ected
the American dream, particularly in the state of Georgia. Buford Highway, shown on the cover, is home to many immigrant-owned restaurants and businesses
that are now strugg ling to make ends meet.’’ Photograph by Nicole Craine for Th e New York Times.
4
The folk musician Gillian Welch at her home in Nashville. Page 24.
6
11.8.20
The magazine publishes the
results of a study conducted
online in March 2020 by The
New York Times’s research-and-
analytics department, refl ecting
the opinions of 2,250 subscribers
who chose to participate.
Dear Reader:
Is Aromatherapy
Real?
Contributors
Kenji Aoki is a Japanese photographer based
in New York and specializing in still life from
a geometric and analytical perspective. He is
a regular contributor to the magazine.
Ben Ehrenreich is the author most recently of
‘‘Desert Notebooks: A Road Map for the End of
Time.’’ His 2013 article in the magazine about the
West Bank became the basis of his book ‘‘The
Way to the Spring: Life and Death in Palestine.’’
Kristine Potter is an artist based in Nashville
whose work often explores masculine archetypes
as well as the American landscape. She was
a 2018 Guggenheim fellow and the winner of
the Grand Prix Images Vevey, 2019/2020.
Matthew Shaer is a writer at large for the
magazine and a recent Emerson fellow at New
America. He previously wrote a feature about
how cities make money by fining the poor.
Hanif Abdurraqib is a poet, an essayist and
a cultural critic from Columbus, Ohio. His
forthcoming book is ‘‘A Little Devil in America,’’
to be published next March. For this issue,
he writes about the musicians Gillian Welch and
David Rawlings. ‘‘I was very interested in
thinking through closeness and collaboration
in a time when many people are distant
from each other,’’ Abdurraqib says. ‘‘I found it
particularly fascinating that these seasoned
artists would return to old songs — their own
and the songs of others — in an attempt
to regain their footing after a tornado partly
destroyed the safe haven of their recording
studio right as the pandemic descended on
their lives.’’
‘‘Why Societies Fall Apart,’’
Page 38
‘‘Why Societies Fall Apart,’’
Page 38
‘‘Hard Times,’’
Page 24
‘‘When the Virus Came
for the American Dream,’’
Page 30
‘‘Hard Times,’’
Page 24
Kenji Aoki
Ben Ehrenreich
Kristine Potter
Matthew Shaer
Hanif Abdurraqib
Editor in Chief
JAKE SILVERSTEIN
Deputy Editors
JESSICA LUSTIG,
BILL WASIK
Managing Editor
ERIKA SOMMER
Creative Director
GAIL BICHLER
Director of Photography
KATHY RYAN
Art Director
BEN GRANDGENETT
Features Editor
ILENA SILVERMAN
Politics Editor
CHARLES HOMANS
Culture Editor
SASHA WEISS
Digital Director
BLAKE WILSON
Story Editors
NITSUH ABEBE,
SHEILA GLASER,
CLAIRE GUTIERREZ,
LUKE MITCHELL,
DEAN ROBINSON,
WILLY STALEY
Assistant Managing Editor
JEANNIE CHOI
Associate Editors
IVA DIXIT,
KYLE LIGMAN
Poetry Editor
NAOMI SHIHAB NYE
Staff Writers
SAM ANDERSON,
EMILY BAZELON,
RONEN BERGMAN,
TAFFY BRODESSER-AKNER,
C. J. CHIVERS,
PAMELA COLLOFF,
NICHOLAS CONFESSORE,
SUSAN DOMINUS,
MAUREEN DOWD,
NIKOLE HANNAH-JONES,
JAZMINE HUGHES,
JENEEN INTERLANDI,
MARK LEIBOVICH,
JONATHAN MAHLER,
DAVID MARCHESE,
WESLEY MORRIS,
JENNA WORTHAM
Digital Art Director
KATE LARUE
Designers
CLAUDIA RUBÍN,
RACHEL WILLEY
Deputy Director of Photography
JESSICA DIMSON
Senior Photo Editor
AMY KELLNER
Photo Editor
KRISTEN GEISLER
Contributing Photo Editor
DAVID CARTHAS
Copy Chief
ROB HOERBURGER
Copy Editors
HARVEY DICKSON,
DANIEL FROMSON,
MARGARET PREBULA,
ANDREW WILLETT
Head of Research
NANDI RODRIGO
Research Editors
RILEY BLANTON,
ALEX CARP,
CYNTHIA COTTS,
JAMIE FISHER,
LU FONG,
TIM HODLER,
ROBERT LIGUORI,
LIA MILLER,
STEVEN STERN,
MARK VAN DE WALLE,
BILL VOURVOULIAS
Production Chief
ANICK PLEVEN
Production Editors
PATTY RUSH,
HILARY SHANAHAN
Managing Director,
MARILYN McCAULEY
Specialty Printing
Manager, Magazine Layout
THOMAS GILLESPIE
Editorial Assistant
ALEXANDER SAMAHA
NYT FOR KIDS
Editorial Director
CAITLIN ROPER
Art Director
DEB BISHOP
Editor
AMBER WILLIAMS
Staff Editor
MOLLY BENNET
Associate Editor
LOVIA GYARKYE
Designer
NAJEEBAH AL-GHADBAN
Social Editor
ALEXA DÍAZ
Did not
answer
45%
No, plain air
for me
2%
53%
Yes, crank up
the lavender
8
11.8.20
Illustrations by Giacomo Gambineri
Cover typography by Nikita Iziev
The Thread
Readers respond to the 10.25.20 issue.
RE: THE FED-UP CHEF
Sheila Marikar profi led the chef
Gagg an Anand.
Fun article on a very eccentric guy. But
something I notice with Indian-Amer-
icans writing about India: Probably
because of their background, they get a
lot wrong. There’s always been fi ne din-
ing in India, but it’s always been reserved
for the traditional equivalent of folks who
could aff ord the $400 price tag. Yes, the
average Indian in New York may be used
to the $9 buff et, but I would argue that’s
not what the well-off in Bombay were
used to, even in the ’60s.
There have been culinary and restau-
rant schools in India since at least the late
’50s (my mum went to one). The fact that
most of this was unknown to Western din-
ers, or even to the low-budget backpack-
ers who’ve passed through the country,
doesn’t mean they didn’t exist.
Chris Mendes, N.J.
Lots of respect for the talent and deter-
mination this man possesses. But I really
wish he wouldn’t use a woman who got
up and left after his ‘‘You can’t go to the
bathroom’’ monologue as an amusing
anecdote. I guess it’s meant to lift him —
the genius — up, while disparaging the
person who somehow doesn’t appreci-
ate it. But what he really did was exclude
someone based on bodily functions. He
was being extremely ableist, and he put
someone in an embarrassing position in
front of her tablemates. I know scores
of women who plan their day according
to where the accessible toilets are. Not
everyone was born with — or got to keep
— a perfect healthy body. Is that a reason
they must make themselves. I have seen
unspeakable cruelty, gut-wrenching sad-
ness and inspiring acts of courage (by wit-
nesses who testify against killers). I don’t
know the best response to violence, but I
know we can do better.
Steve, Bethesda, Md.
This is such a powerful essay. For the last
fi ve years, I have been part of a recipro-
cal-education class of men who are on
death row, and I consider these men my
colleagues and friends. Knowing them,
I know that they are not their crimes —
their crimes and their histories are more
complex than any court proceeding or
ready narrative about incarceration can
describe. And yet, if anyone did to my
daughter or my friends or family some
of the things my death-row friends did,
I’m confi dent I would not be able to hold
space for their humanity and fl aws and
off er forgiveness — much like the author
cannot hold space for forgiveness of
his mother’s rapist. I don’t think this
is a contradiction though: This is why
we have systems of justice and do not
merely exert vigilante ‘‘justice.’’ And these
systems clearly need serious and com-
passionate reform if they are to support
victims or perpetrators.
Elizabeth, Ohio
CORRECTION
A picture caption in an article on Oct. 18
about free speech and online disinformation
referred incorrectly to the pictured protest
in Skokie, Ill. It was against a proposed
Nazi march; it was not a counterprotest. A
neo-Nazi group successfully petitioned to
hold a march in Skokie, but held it elsewhere.
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