intro
Theme includes sample of Run for You by Buke & Gase. Check them out! Intro background music is a song by Múm. Dan ponders the usefulness of all his pondering.
melanin
In an excerpt from The Naked Scientists Podcast, Chris Smith interviews Nina Jablonski, author of Skin: A Natural History.
racist babies
Paul Bloom, author of Just Babies, explains how bias begins.
“i’m not from mars!”
Comedian Dwayne Kennedy has a frank and funny conversation about a subject he’s pretty tired of talking about. Check out his hilarious album!
beverly daniel tatum
Former Spelman College president and author of Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria, Beverly Daniel Tatum, gives Dan a primer on race and gently tries to get him out of the clouds.
history
I could devote the all 20 episodes to the ways black people have been screwed over after slavery was ended. Here’s just a small sampling. Ta-Nehisi Coates, author of Between The World and Me (excerpted throughout the show) talks redlining and contract selling. Daria Roithmyr, author of Reproducing Racism, explains how the damage of racist policy persists even after the policies are ended.
movies
People of color have been left out of our entertainment to a great degree, and when they’ve been included, it’s sometimes worse. Dylan Marron and his Every SIngle Word project are featured. Dan looks at the white savior trope.
swords to spatulas
Gene Smith, 94 year-old WW2 vet and former chef talks about fighting racism in the South and the North and abroad, and all he’s achieved despite it.
not one thing
Seeing others in a singular way confuses everybody.
switch
Imagining race switched is a great way to uncover disparities.
affirmative action
Affirmative action can seem unfair… if you don’t take context into account.
language
We need better messaging. Van Jones, author of Beyond The Messy Truth urges us to think differently about the other side.
sneetches
Dan always thought the Dr. Seuss story offered a way past racism, but most folks are skeptical.
blue eyes
Jane Elliott was a teacher in all-white town when Martin Luther King was assassinated. She came up with a controversial way to teach her students about racism. 50 years later, she’s still doing the exercise, now with grown-ups as well.
myth of race
Robert Sussman, author of The Myth of Race tells about the history of this lie. (Clips are from Steven Soderbergh’s amazing series, The Knick.)
culture
If you jump to culture to explain all the problems black people face, you’ll be missing a lot.
the police
Cops have a long bad history when it comes to people of color.
i fit the description
An abridged reading of Steve Locke‘s account of being detained by the police. Please check out his GoFundMe Page. Professor Locke is an artist, and recognizing and supporting that would be a great way to stand against what happened to him.
plaque
Dan comes clean about some of his own racism. Then Jay Smooth explains why you don’t need to be scared to admit yours.
thanks
Production assistance from Bryan Lotz and Girlie Salgueiro. Thanks to Jovan Gamble, Bob and Marcy Brower, Michelle Tyrene Johnson, Shawn Harris, and all the other kind people who gave their time behind the scenes to further my education. Congrats to Chris Bush for winning this ep’s song suggestion contest!
note
Several clips from Adam Carolla are included in this episode. I think when it comes to race, he’s wrong in ways a lot of people are wrong, and therefore worth thinking about. I’m not trying to make a villain out of him though. I think he’s smart and talented, and I don’t think he’s a hateful person (he just made a documentary called Uppity about a pioneering black race car driver). I think people like Adam should be engaged, not shunned.
discuss!
Written, performed, and edited by Daniel Kaufman. (Except where noted.)
additional resources
If you want to continue thinking about race, and I hope you do, here are some excellent places to go:
books
A History of White People by Nell Irvin Painter
Racecraft by Karen and Barbara Fields
So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo
Toxic Inequality by Robert Shapiro
We Were Eight Years In Power by Ta-Nehisi Coates
podcasts
Our National Conversation About Conversations About Race
Code Switch
Still Processing
This American Life: House Rules
tweeters
Jamelle Bouie
Amber Ruffin
Justin Simien
5’7″ Black Male
articles
The Case for Reparations
Ta-Nehisi Coates and Jonathan Chait Culture Debate (and a great epilogue)
creative commons songs
Cylinder Nine and Air Hockey Saloon by Chris Zabriskie (Intro/Data Points)
Photograph: by and of Lejon Stewart
Site/Podcast © 2018 Daniel Kaufman. All rights reserved.
Brief music and film audio excerpts are included under the Fair Use Doctrine for educational purposes only. All copyrights retained by their respective owners. See the bibliography for more details.
