The winter holidays are sneaking up on us again, and this year, more of you joined us on Race Unwrapped than ever before! To celebrate, and to thank you, we hope you don't mind a regift. We're resharing our holiday music special to bump it to the top of your podcast feed. We hope it brings you joy, and we thank you dee... more
Production was well underway on this season of Race Unwrapped when America experienced what our guest just calls “The Switch.” President Joe Biden dropped out of the race, and suddenly we were witnessing a history-making presidential run by Vice President Kamala Harris. So we reached out to Emerge, a national organizat... more
Back in the day, Jesse Jackson told us to keep hope alive. And when Barack Obama first ran for president, his image became almost synonymous with hope (maybe you still have one of the posters). We’ve spent this season learning about all the obstacles standing between Black people and the ballot box. But hope IS alive. ... more
Four million people won’t be allowed to vote in the upcoming election because of laws in 48 states that restrict your right to vote if you’ve ever been convicted of a felony. Most of the folks affected have already served their sentences. And you can probably guess which race is disproportionately affected by these law... more
So you live in one of the states that require some form of ID to vote. Everyone has one, right? In fact, there are lots of reasons someone might not have a valid ID. And getting one takes time, transportation, specific paperwork, availability during business hours, and of course, money. VoteRiders is a nonprofit organi... more
So far this season we’ve learned a lot about voter suppression tactics and how they weaken our democracy. This episode and next, we’ll meet some folks who are working to reverse the damage and make voting more accessible. Caren Short is the Director of Legal and Research for the League of Women Voters, and she says the... more
The Voting Rights act of 1965 said certain states had to check with the federal government before making any changes to their election laws. Sixteen states were subject to this “preclearance” process — all with an extensive history of racist voting practices. Just under 50 years later, the U.S. Supreme Court changed th... more
The Voting Rights act of 1965 said certain states had to check with the federal government before making any changes to their election laws. Sixteen states were subject to this “preclearance” process — all with an extensive history of racist voting practices. Just under 50 years later, the U.S. Supreme Court changed th... more
Since the 15th Amendment gave Black men the right to vote in 1870, policy makers have thrown obstacles between marginalized voters and the ballot box. The tactics may change, but the erosion of democracy is relentless. Dr. Carol Anderson is a historian, educator and the author of "One Person, No Vote: How Voter Suppres... more
Race affects our world, whether we're thinking about it or not. And this season, we're unwrapping how it influences our democracy. From literacy tests in the Jim Crow era to the voter ID laws of today, so many gears in the American political machine are turning to keep Black folks away from the ballot box. So for the n... more
Hey y’all! Michelle Tyrene Johnson here. You usually hear from me in the summertime, but I’m popping in with “Gifting a Soulful Christmas,” an hour-long exploration of Black holiday music!I spoke to music experts and music lovers to share what makes Black Christmas and holiday music pull a little extra in your soul... more
Black don’t crack, except when it comes to cracking jokes. And Keith McGill does it for a living. McGill is a Louisville native and class clown who took it to a microphone for the first time when he was in his 20s.Since then he has used comedy to talk about a range of tough topics — some tougher than others, dependin... more
On this episode of Race Unwrapped, we meet Pooja Reddy, a comedian and writer whose family immigrated from Hyderabad in southern India to Glasgow, Kentucky. Her humor draws heavily from her childhood experiences — in one bit, she describes herself as “personally victimized by the location of [her] parents’ green card s... more
In the early 1980s, a young Eddie Murphy stepped into the national comedy scene and revitalized a flaccid “Saturday Night Live.” His career since then has been a fascinating reflection of how white American audiences relate to Black comedy. He was the lone Black man in fish-out-of-water movies like “Beverly Hills Cop,”... more
Sometimes people just know their stuff. And in the case of Anne Libera, her stuff is comedy and she knows it well. Libera is a professor of comedy at Columbia University in Chicago, and the director of comedy studies at Second City, and is a performance director there. This episode, we unwrap the anatomy of a comedy ro... more
A Black Baptist minister, a Chinese Buddhist monk and a White Presbyterian walk into a bar… and for more than one reason, they may not all laugh at how the joke ends. This season of Race Unwrapped we’re focused on the tie between race and humor. On this episode, I talk with Dr. Lawrence Edwin Williams about how humor... more
Comedian Richard Pryor didn’t leave much on the cutting room floor when it came to comedy.Not sex, family, religion, or politics. Certainly not race, or being Black in America.Many of today’s comedians can trace their lineage of fearless humor right back to Richard Pryor, and that includes his own progeny. On this ... more
“How come I don’t get to say the word n……”That’s the sound of the forever question in American society about why white people can’t use the n-word. Like mosquito bites in summer that you forget about in January, there is always some public controversy or private party chatter about why THAT word is straight-up off ... more
Riots. Protests. Uprisings. Even insurrections. Each conjures up different images and feelings, doesn’t it?On this episode, I sit down to discuss that very thing with Dr. Ricky Jones from the University of Louisville’s Pan-African Studies department. We talk about how when Black people and Black allies come toget... more
“Karen” has become shorthand for nosy, overstepping and entitled white women over the last few years. Whether it’s calling the police on a Black man birdwatching, Black children selling water or Black travelers entering an Airbnb, white women who assume that unknown Black people in their neighborhoods must be up to no ... more
With the first outbreak of COVID-19 came an alarming increase in ugly language targeted at Asian Americans — from schoolyard bullies, cable news pundits, and even the White House — things like “China virus,” and worse. And those words don’t just hurt the ear but go hand-in-hand with actual harm. According to the Cente... more
Sometimes when you’re paying a compliment, it doesn't sound like one on the receiving end. For example, calling a Black person “articulate” isn’t usually the praise you think it is. Steve Bien-Aimé, assistant professor of journalism at Northern Kentucky University, helps us unwrap how compliments like articulate and we... more
We're back! And this season we're talking about the language of race — how specific words and phrases carry more than their share of weight when we’re talking, and when we think we’re listening. In this first episode, we cover something we're hearing a lot about this week in particular: Juneteenth. Some honor Junetee... more
Attica Scott is the only black female legislator in the red state of Kentucky and she has used the tools of law and peaceful protest to seek justice for the death of Breonna Taylor. Along the way, she's battled and overcome COVID-19, which has disproportionately affected the black community. We talk about getting int... more
As a Black trans woman, Dawn Wilson knows how race and gender is a particularly charged intersection. She talks about how religion, politics, family and societal expectations have impacted her journey and how they affect other trans women. Wilson also shares how love and acceptance have helped her own every room she wa... more