Speak Out with Tim Wise
61 episodes - English - Latest episode: about 4 years ago - ★★★★★ - 313 ratingsSpeak Out with Tim Wise is an informative and entertaining podcast aimed at promoting multiracial democracy and justice in dangerous times. The show features the biting, factual, and humorous commentary of its host, alongside dialogue with some of the nation's leading scholars, artists and activists, as well as grassroots community leaders whose voices are often ignored in the dominant media.
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Episodes
Episode 61 - Your Money or Your Life: COVID-19 and the False Choice of the Far-Right
May 07, 2020 00:00 - 58 minutes - 53.2 MBIn this episode, I discuss the anti-lockdown protests and opposition to ongoing quarantining in the face of COVID-19. Rather than focusing on the extremist gun nuts, anti-vaxxers, and conspiracy loons behind some of this activity, I focus on the more reasonable fears of average, everyday folks, simply worried about the economy and their ability to support their families. But as I explain, however reasonable their fears may be, the assumption that we must choose our money/jobs or ou...
Episode 60: Political Organizing with Gratitude & Humility Rather than Guilt and Shame
April 16, 2020 00:00 - 1 hour - 58.3 MBIn this episode, I explore the importance of gratitude and humility, in terms of how we think of our own place and the place of others in the economy (especially in this moment of quarantine), and also as political organizing tools. As we enter the home stretch for the 2020 election, activists in both the Biden camp and Sanders camp have been quick to deploy guilt and shame to motivate those in the opposite camp. For Biden supporters, it's shaming those Bernie die-hards who say the...
Episode 59 - Facts Don't Care About Your Feelings, But Decent People Do: The Dangerous Emotional Detachment of the Right
November 27, 2019 00:00 - 55 minutes - 50.7 MBIn this episode, I examine the right's new favorite mantra -- "facts don't care about your feelings" -- and what it says about modern conservatism's deeply stunted emotional core. Looking at the political, philosophical and psychological underpinnings of this notion, that "reason and logic" are a) conservative, and b) in opposition to feelings and emotion (which are "liberal") I note the absurdity of such arguments, and also their fundamentally dehumanizing and dangerous logic. Fa...
Episode 58: Anti-Semitism, Islamophobia and the Need for Solidarity
November 02, 2019 00:00 - 1 hour - 73.9 MBOn this episode, taped live at the 2019 National Conference on Race and Ethnicity in Higher Education, Tim and his guests discuss the need for solidarity between Jews and Muslims in the face of growing white nationalism, fueled by deep-seated anti-Semitism as well as Islamophobia. As synagogues and mosques around the world come under attack from terrorists intent on sowing hatred, the importance of Jews and Muslims seeing themselves as allies to one another becomes ever more import...
Episode 57 - Affirmative Action, the Model Minority Myth & Right-Wing Divide-and-Conquer
October 14, 2019 00:00 - 1 hour - 80.3 MBIn this episode, taped live at the 2019 National Conference on Race and Ethnicity in Higher Education, Tim and his panelists discuss the way in which Asian Americans have long been viewed by some as a "model minority," and how that framing papers over ongoing racism against all persons of color, incuding Asian folks. Particular attention is given to the way in which this trope has been deployed by reactionary attorneys who brought the recent lawsuit against Harvard for its affirmat...
Episode 56 - When Hate Comes to Campus: Responding to the New White Nationalism in the Age of Trump
July 31, 2019 00:00 - 1 hour - 77.2 MBIn this episode, taped live at the 2019 National Conference on Race and Ethnicity in Higher Education (NCORE), Tim and his panel discuss the rise of overt racist and white nationalist organizing in America, and especially on college campuses. With groups like Identity Europa actively recruiting college students, and with young people especially susceptible to right-wing radicalization via internet-based hate forums, it will be important for colleges—as places of learning and as spa...
Episode 55 - Antifa: Myths and Realities with Daryle Lamont Jenkins
June 25, 2019 00:00 - 1 hour - 63.2 MBIn this episode, Tim speaks with Daryle Lamont Jenkins, founder of One People's Project and a leading figure in the American antifa (anti-fascist) movement. With so much misinformation about antifa in mainstream corporate media, Tim and Daryle take the opportunity to discuss what antifa is and what it isn't; to discuss various tactics of antifa, from releasing the personal information of white supremacists to confronting Nazis in the streets. Do these tactics help or hurt the cause...
Episode 54 - Redemption & Restoration for the Formerly Incarcerated: A Conversation with Bettie Kirkland of Project Return
May 14, 2019 00:00 - 51 minutes - 46.8 MBOn this episode, Tim speaks with Bettie Kirkland of Project Return: a Nashville-based non-profit that has been working for forty years to help formerly incarcerated persons find jobs, and most recently housing, despite the oftentimes substantial barriers they face to both. Tim and Bettie discuss Project Return’s efforts over the years, how their work can help break down persistent stereotypes about the formerly incarcerated, and why a model of redemption and restoration is so much ...
Episode 53 - Dying of Whiteness: A Conversation with Scholar Jonathan Metzl
April 02, 2019 00:00 - 55 minutes - 51.1 MBIn this episode, Tim speaks with Dr. Jonathan Metzl, a professor of sociology and psychiatry at Vanderbilt University, and the author of the new book, Dying of Whiteness: How the Politics of Racial Resentment is Killing America’s Heartland. In his groundbreaking volume, Metzl sets out to explore and answer the question: why do working class and struggling white Americans so often seem to vote against their own interests? Electing politicians who vote against public health care initia...
Episode 52: Palestine/Israel, the Firing of Marc Lamont Hill & the Limits of Open Inquiry
December 04, 2018 00:00 - 52 minutes - 48.2 MBOn this episode, Tim discusses CNN’s firing of contributor Marc Lamont Hill (a former guest on the show), for comments he made in favor of full equality and justice for the Palestinian people. Hill’s words, misinterpreted as a call for violence against Israeli Jews, have demonstrated not only the intellectual dishonesty of some of Israel’s most militant defenders, but also the limits of open inquiry and dialogue around the pressing issue of Middle East peace. In this reflection on ...
Episode 51 - Analyzing the Midterms: What Do They Mean for Progressives, the Democrats & the Fight Against Trumpism?
November 07, 2018 00:00 - 50 minutes - 46.5 MBWell the midterm elections are over and the Democrats have retaken the House of Representatives, though losing ground in the Senate. What do the outcomes of key races mean for the Democratic Party, the battle against Trumpism and the future of the country? In this episode, Tim breaks down the good, the bad and the ugly of the midterms, and discusses what progressive forces need to do (and not do) in the wake of the election.
Episode 50: Donald Trump, the Myth of Meritocracy and Building Solidarity Through Radical Humility
October 23, 2018 00:00 - 59 minutes - 54.2 MBThe recent New York Times expose on the Trump family—and how Donald’s father passed along hundreds of millions of dollars to his son—has once again exposed the way great wealth is often the result not of hard work and talent, but inheritance and intergenerational handouts. Although the focus of the story was on the Trumps, its value goes well beyond piercing the veil of self-dealing and occasional graft at the heart of one family’s empire. The narrative of “rugged individualism” and ...
Episode 49 - Talking About Race in a Time of Turmoil: Dr. David Campt on the White Ally Toolkit for Constructive Dialogue
October 09, 2018 00:00 - 1 hour - 59.5 MBOn today’s episode, I speak with Dr. David Campt, racial dialogue facilitator, educator, and creator of the new White Ally Toolkit Workbook, which aims to provide white folks with the rhetorical and practical tools they need to engage other whites around issues of racial equity. At a time of increasing political and racial division, the importance of white progressives and so-called “woke” folks knowing how to speak to (and with) those whose awareness of race issues is limited—or w...
Episode 48: Educational Inequity is a Feature not a Glitch: Racism and Schooling in America
September 19, 2018 00:00 - 1 hour - 59.2 MBOn this episode — the last before returning to the regular interview format of the program — please enjoy Tim's presentation to the teachers, staff and administrators of the Cahokia Illinois School district on August 31 of this year. In this presentation, he discusses the ways that racial and ecnomic inequities in education, far from indicating failures in the system, actually suggest that inequality is a desired and deliberate outcome of schooling, and has been for many years. Her...
Episode 47: The Psychological Effects of Police Violence, Racism & Inequality in America
September 04, 2018 00:00 - 47 minutes - 43.3 MBThis week’s episode features Tim’s plenary presentation at the 2018 American Psychological Association’s National Conference in San Francisco, this August. In this speech, Wise addresses the way that inequities in the justice system — especially police violence, racial profiling and disproportionate incarceration—impact the psychological health of peoples of color in America, and what those impacts mean for professionals seeking to offer trauma-informed care. He also examines the w...
Episode 46: Facts Matter (No They Don't!) Well, Actually They Do (But it's Complicated)...
August 21, 2018 00:00 - 1 hour - 63.9 MBOn this episode, I explore what it means for progressive political movements that so much recent research suggests “facts don’t matter” when it comes to persuading people on various social issues. Does this mean we ought to ignore research, analysis and data in favor of more emotional and narrative forms of political appeals? Is the research even accurate when it says “facts don’t matter?” How do we know, and what do the answers suggest for organizing strategy or the way we engage ot...
Episode 45 - First Amendment Follies: What the Right Gets Wrong About Free Speech & the College Campus
August 14, 2018 00:00 - 4 minutes - 51.4 MBAs I wind down my summer hiatus from interviewing guests, enjoy this extended commentary on the issue of free speech, and what it means—and doesn’t mean—on campuses and in the nation at large. Lately, amid the decision of various social media companies to ban conspiracy theorist Alex Jones or neo-Nazis from their platforms—and amid pushback against right-wing speakers invited to college campuses—many folks (conservative and liberal) have insisted that these moves amount to violatio...
Episode 44: Why Identity Politics is Necessary (But Whiteness is a Fraud): Race & Class Inequity in America
July 24, 2018 00:00 - 55 minutes - 50.7 MBWhile I take a break from guest interviews for the summer, enjoy these three commentaries: one new and two previously available in my 2017 Patreon archives. In the first (and new) piece, I respond to common critiques of “identity politics,” and explain why those criticisms are wrongheaded on multiple levels. First, they are selective: only condemning a political focus on marginalized groups (people of color, women and LGBTQ folks, for instance) while ignoring the way that a focus o...
Episode 43: It’s Not About Bigotry: Institutional Racism, Gentrification and the Perpetuation of Inequality
July 17, 2018 00:00 - 51 minutes - 47.5 MBWhile I take a break from guest interviews for the summer, enjoy this compilation of two previous (but still highly relevant) commentaries from my 2017 Patreon archives. In the first, I explore the way that racism operates institutionally, even in the absence of deliberate racist and bigoted intent. When we presume that racism requires overt prejudice we often overlook the subtle but destructive ways in which racial inequity is perpetuated in labor markets, education and the justic...
Episode 42: White Nationalism and the Absurdity of Neo-Nazi Rhetoric (A Best of Tim Wise Episode)
July 10, 2018 00:00 - 50 minutes - 45.8 MBWhile I take a break from guest interviews for the summer, enjoy this compilation of two previous (but still highly relevant) commentaries from my 2017 Patreon archives, in which I discuss, dissect and dismantle the logic and argumentation of white nationalists and Neo-Nazis. First, I explore the inherent moral and practical absurdity of white nationalism and white racial identity politics itself, and why organizing for “white interests” is inherently different than when people of ...
Episode 41 Free Speech, Hate Speech & Equal Protection on Campus: Challenges & Obligations in Higher Ed
July 03, 2018 00:00 - 1 hour - 62.9 MBThis episode features the third of three public dialogues held specifically for the show at the National Conference on Race and Ethnicity in Higher Education (NCORE), last month in New Orleans. In this conversation, I’ll speak with educators and advocates, David Pilgrim, Michael Benitez and Loretta Ross – whose bios will be presented in the program itself – about the challenges facing college campuses when it comes to balancing the right to free speech (even for those espousing ide...
Episode 40: Immigration & the Meaning of America: From the Muslim Ban to Family Separation & the Rhetoric of Hatred
June 27, 2018 00:00 - 53 minutes - 49.2 MBOn this special episode, I offer an extended commentary on the extraordinary events of the past two weeks with regard to the issue of immigration policy, including the Administration’s cruel and inhumane policy of family separation at the border, as well as the ban on migration from several Muslim nations, which was just upheld by the Supreme Court. What do these policies and rulings mean in terms of how we see the nation and the very concept of an “American?” What are the real mot...
Episode 39: Movement Building for Justice: Black Self-Determination, White Allyship & Intersectionality
June 19, 2018 00:00 - 1 hour - 71.6 MBToday’s episode features a conversation on social justice movement building between Tim and three of the nation’s most engaging thinkers and activists: Tia Oso, Dayvon Love and Chris Crass. The dialogue took place in front of a live audience at the National Conference on Race and Ethnicity in Higher Education (NCORE) in New Orleans on May 31. Among the topics discussed by the panel: What things get in the way of effective movement building? What are the lessons we can take away fro...
Episode 38 - Psychologies of Oppression: Post-Traumatic Slave Syndrome, the Death of Empathy & the Assimilation Blues
June 05, 2018 00:00 - 1 hour - 70.2 MBThis episode is the first of three programs taped in front of a live audience at the National Conference on Race and Ethnicity in Higher Education (NCORE), held from May 29 to June 2, 2018 in New Orleans. The guests — Joy Degruy, Jacqueline Battalora, and Rahuldeep Gill — explore the ways that people of color are psychologically affected by racialized injustice, from internalizing oppression to feeling intense pressure to assimilate, and the way whites in America are conditioned no...
Episode 37 - Before You Call the Cops: A Conversation w/ Tyler Merritt About Personal Narrative & the Power of Empathy
May 30, 2018 00:00 - 52 minutes - 48.5 MBOn this week’s episode, Tim speaks with Tyler Merritt, whose original video “Before You Call the Cops” recently went viral, provoking conversations across the nation about racism, stereotypes, and the importance of empathy in combatting racial injustice. The video, part of a larger effort he calls the Tyler Merritt Project, seeks to reach hearts and minds through original video content steeped in both humor and personal narrative. Tim and Tyler discuss the importance of personal na...
Episode 36: Equal Opportunity for Dummies: Reclaiming Progressive Principles from Right-Wing Distortion
May 22, 2018 00:00 - 50 minutes - 46.5 MBOn this episode of Speak Out with Tim Wise, I offer an extended analysis of the issue of equal opportunity and its real meaning. Often the right insists that they are the ones who believe in equal opportunity while the left is calling for “equal outcomes” or “equal results,” and that these notions are fundamentally at odds with the reality of individual differences in ability and the requirements of a free society. But this framing is fundamentally dishonest. First, the left does n...
Episode 35: Coffee, Community and Justice: A Conversation with Keba Konte of Red Bay Coffee
May 15, 2018 00:00 - 58 minutes - 53.2 MBOn today’s episode, I speak with Keba Konte, founder of Red Bay Coffee in Oakland CA. On a mission to diversify the look and feel of the specialty coffee business in America, Konte’s business model for Red Bay considers issues of equity and fairness at all points along the supply chain: from where the coffee is grown and how much growers are paid, to how much his own baristas and other employees receive in pay and profit sharing, so they can continue to afford to live in rapidly gent...
Episode 34: Raising White Kids for Racial Justice in a Racially Unjust Society: A Conversation with Dr. Jennifer Harvey
May 08, 2018 00:00 - 1 hour - 58.1 MBOn today’s episode of Speak Out with Tim Wise, Tim speaks with Dr. Jennifer Harvey, Professor of Philosophy and Religion at Drake University, and author of the new book, Raising White Kids: Bringing Up Children in Racially Unjust America (for which he provided the foreword). They’ll discuss the reasons why so many white parents avoid discussions of race with our kids, and the harm this silence ultimately does to our children's understanding of racial dynamics in America. The conv...
Episode 33: Jody David Armour - Examining & Confronting "Negrophobia" in White America and the Legal System
May 01, 2018 00:00 - 1 hour - 56.6 MBOn today's episode of Speak Out with Tim Wise, Tim speaks with Jody David Armour, the Roy P. Crocker Professor of Law at the University of Southern California, and a leading expert on the intersection between race and legal decision making. They’ll discuss the ongoing relevance of a book Armour wrote over 20 years ago, concerning the way that white Americans and the larger legal system have sought to rationalize racism and discriminatory treatment of African Americans, and to normali...
Episode 32: Monifa Bandele - Empowering Black Women and Reducing Racial Disparities in Maternal Health
April 24, 2018 00:00 - 59 minutes - 54.8 MBOn today’s episode, Tim speaks with Monifa Bandele, Vice President and Chief Partnership & Equity Officer for Moms Rising: an organization committed to amplifying women's voices within the national public policy dialogue and media. Tim and Monifa discuss Mom’s Rising’s campaign to address the disturbing maternal health disparities between black and white women in America, including distressing rates of maternal mortality for African American women irrespective of socioeconomic statu...
Episode 31: (LIVE Taping) Victories from Inside Out: Dismantling the Prison-Industrial Complex
April 17, 2018 00:00 - 1 hour - 56.7 MBOn today's episode, Tim sits in conversation with two of the nation’s most inspiring criminal justice and prison reform activists, Taina Vargas-Edmond and Dorsey Nunn, during the first-ever recording of the show in front of a live audience. Vargas-Edmond is the Executive Director and co-Founder of Initiate Justice and Dorsey Nunn is the Executive Director of Legal Services for Prisoners With Children/All of Us or None. In this public dialogue — a fundraiser for their respective gro...
Episode 30: #WeCounterHate - Creating an Innovative Digital Response to Racism on Twitter
April 10, 2018 00:00 - 52 minutes - 47.8 MBOn today’s episode of Speak Out With Tim Wise, Tim speaks with the folks behind the We Counter Hate project: an ingenious and creative new effort to counter hate speech on Twitter. As you’ll hear on the program, the project involves the use of computer technology to identify hate speech, alert those who spread it that it has been deemed hate speech, and then let them know that for every re-tweet of the material, a donation will be made to an organization fighting the very hatred they...
Episode 29: Jasmine Tyler (Human Rights Watch) -Criminal Justice Policy in the Age of Trump
April 03, 2018 00:00 - 1 hour - 56.1 MBOn today’s episode of Speak Out With Tim Wise, Tim speaks with Jasmine Tyler, of Human Rights Watch, about criminal justice policy in the age of Trump and under the watch of Attorney General Jeff Sessions. They’ll explore the administration’s threats to states that have legalized recreational marijuana and their call for the death penalty for drug dealers, and what it could mean to re-invigorate the failed and racially-disparate war on drugs. Tyler and Wise will also examine the on...
Episode 28: Marc Lamont Hill on Youth-Led Justice Movements, Police Violence, and the Racialization of Terror
March 27, 2018 00:00 - 1 hour - 55.4 MBToday’s guest on Speak Out With Tim Wise is Dr. Marc Lamont Hill, one of America’s leading public intellectuals. Hill is a Temple University professor, host of BET News, a regular political contributor for CNN, and the author of the NYT bestseller, Nobody: Casualties of America’s War on the Vulnerable from Ferguson to Flint and Beyond. On this week’s program, Wise and Hill discuss Trumpism, and the inspiring state of youth resistance, both in the U.S. and abroad. Additionally, they...
Episode 27: Bradley Onishi on What Really Motivates White Evangelical Politics (and Why?)
March 20, 2018 00:00 - 56 minutes - 52.1 MBOn today’s episode, Tim speaks with Bradley Onishi, an Assistant Professor of Religion at Skidmore College and author of the forthcoming book, The Sacrality of the Secular, from Columbia University Press. Onishi’s recent writings, in which he discusses his past as an evangelical Christian, frame the conversation as he and Wise explore the way that white evangelism in particular filters virtually all issues of political morality through the lens of abortion. They’ll discuss why this...
Episode 26: Robin DiAngelo/Debby Irving - White Fragility, Obliviousness & White Allyship
March 13, 2018 00:00 - 1 hour - 55.3 MBOn this episode of Speak Out With Tim Wise, Tim speaks with antiracism educators and authors, Robin DiAngelo and Debby Irving. They’ll discuss the ways in which white obliviousness to the reality of racism, and "white fragility" as DiAngelo calls it—which causes such backlash when matters of race and privilege are raised—both complicate efforts to produce racial equity in American institutions. They’ll explore how white fragility manifests, why it’s so toxic for both people of color ...
Episode 25: Rashad Robinson (Color of Change) on Race and Representation in Hollywood
March 06, 2018 00:00 - 55 minutes - 51.1 MBToday on Speak Out With Tim Wise, Tim speaks with Rashad Robinson Executive Director of Color of Change, the nation’s largest online racial justice organization. Driven by over one million members, Color Of Change builds power for Black communities, moving decision makers in corporations and government to create a more human and less hostile world for Black people and all people. In addition to their work around criminal justice reform, Color of Change is currently spearheading the...
Episode 24: Hugh Vasquez on Understanding and Undoing Subconscious Racial Bias
February 28, 2018 00:00 - 56 minutes - 51.4 MBOn this episode Tim speaks with activist and educator Hugh Vasquez of the National Equity Project about the role of subconscious bias in perpetuating racial inequities, and how individuals and institutions can begin to undo the impact of these biases and create policies and practices that minimize the damage they can do. In their discussion Hugh and Tim explore the research from the field of brain science and how that research can (and must) inform our strategies for addressing ra...
Episode 23: Guns, Violence and the Cult of the Firearm in America
February 20, 2018 00:00 - 55 minutes - 50.7 MBOn today’s episode Tim offers an extended personal commentary on the gun crisis in America, following last week’s horrific mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland Florida. With so much attention focused on what the shooting means—about guns and violence in America, about mental health, and about the politics of gun control—it’s important to understand the issues in play, to cut through the arguments against common sense gun regulations made by gun fanatics, ...
Episode 22: Loretta Ross on Race, Reproductive Justice and Movement Building in an Age of Backlash
February 13, 2018 00:00 - 55 minutes - 51 MBOn this week’s episode, Tim speaks with Loretta Ross, one of the nation’s leading scholars and activists in the movement for reproductive justice. She was the co-founder and National Coordinator of the SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective from 2005-2012, a network founded in 1997 by women of color specifically to organize women of color in the reproductive justice movement. Ms. Ross was the Founder and Executive Director of the National Center for Human Rights...
Episode 21: Activist/Author Rinku Sen on Movement Building and Intersectionality in the Age of Trump
February 06, 2018 00:00 - 1 hour - 55.9 MBOn this week’s episode, Tim speaks with activist, author, and leading progressive movement strategist, Rinku Sen. They discuss why it's important for progressives to bridge the work being done by anti-Trump activists (who focus mostly on challenging the Administration’s corruption and authoritarian tendencies) with broader issue-oriented social justice efforts, and why both community organizers and electoral campaigners have lots to learn from one another. Additionally, she and Tim d...
Episode 20: Dr. Chris Emdin - For White Folks Who Teach in the 'Hood (and the Rest of Y'all Too)
January 30, 2018 00:00 - 54 minutes - 49.7 MBThis week on Speak Out with Tim Wise, Tim speaks with Dr. Christopher Emdin, author of the award-winning and best-selling books, "Urban Science Education for the Hip-Hop Generation," and "For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood…and the Rest of Y’all Too: Reality Pedagogy and Urban Education." Emdin, who is a professor of Math, Science and Technology at Teacher’s College (Columbia University), is a leading expert on ways to engage and inspire young students of color in school by conne...
Episode 19: Filmmaker Ramsey Denison - Corruption and Cover Up in the Las Vegas Police Department
January 23, 2018 00:00 - 53 minutes - 49 MBThis week on Speak Out With Tim Wise, Tim speaks with filmmaker Ramsey Denison, whose award-winning documentary, "What Happened In Vegas" exposes the corrupt and brutal workings of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department. While most Americans only came to think about law enforcement in Vegas in the wake of last October’s mass shooting, Denison explains that the LVMPD has a pattern of deeply rooted abuse and misconduct, little of which has ever resulted in officers being held acc...
Episode 18: CNN Contributor Sally Kohn on Trump, Progressive Resistance and Oprah (for President?)
January 16, 2018 00:00 - 52 minutes - 48.5 MBWith many progressives focused on fighting Donald Trump — exposing collusion with Russia, possible money-laundering, and other misdeeds — and others continuing (as before the election) to focus on fighting broader issues of xenophobia, racial inequity in policing and systemic misogyny, there is an important question to ask: what is the proper balance for the left? How much should we focus on Trump or Trumpism, and how much should we emphasize the larger struggles that we were engagin...
Episode 17: Black Conservatism in Transition in an Age of Trump - A Conversation with Charles Badger
January 09, 2018 00:00 - 1 hour - 55.6 MBWhat does it mean to grow up a black Republican, and conservative in America? And especially as the right has increasingly relied upon race-baiting and white racial resentment for votes? On this week’s episode of Speak Out with Tim Wise, Tim speaks to someone who has been there, done that, and has emerged with a newfound political independence and determination to force both major parties to take seriously the concerns of people of color and the poor. Political consultant and writer ...
Episode 16 - Writer/Poet Michael Harriot: On Racism, Whiteness and Honesty in America
January 02, 2018 00:00 - 1 hour - 55.3 MBWords are just letters on a page, or sounds traveling through the air when spoken, except when they’re more than that. For Birmingham-based writer and poet Michael Harriot — whose essays are featured at The Root and whose spoken word performances have lit up audiences across the United States — words are much more. They are tools at the very least, and weapons at the most, for crafting truth in a society built on lies. On this episode, Tim speaks with Michael about some of his rece...
Episode 15 - Singer/Songwriter Will Hoge on Making Country Music With Progressive Politics
December 26, 2017 00:00 - 33 minutes - 55.5 MBConscience or Commerce? Sometimes the choice is a difficult one, especially as a songwriter, and particularly in a mostly country genre, where political music (especially with an unapologetically progressive message) risks turning off some fans, and certainly record labels. Luckily for Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter Will Hoge, being an independent artist has allowed him to make a good living doing what he loves and to speak his mind about the issues of the day when the occasion c...
Episode 14 - Framing the Black Family: Dr. Travis Dixon on Race and Media Misrepresentation in America
December 19, 2017 00:00 - 59 minutes - 54.4 MBAmid competing concerns about “fake news” and media bias — whether coming from conservatives who think the media is slanted left, or progressives who feel the press carries too much water for Trump, Wall Street and the right — one thing is certain: the media continues to present disproportionately negative images of black families, contributing to racial bias and reactionary public policy. On this week’s episode Tim speaks with Dr. Travis Dixon (University of Illinois), a media eff...
Episode 13: Fake News, Post-Truth Politics and the Future of American Democracy
December 12, 2017 00:00 - 58 minutes - 53.7 MBTired of living in a “post-truth” political world where lies become “alternative facts” and social media facilitates the spreading of nonsense faster than ever before? Worried about the way we often find ourselves, and others, in walled-off political and cultural silos, only hearing things that reinforce our pre-existing assumptions? Concerned about the way our brains seem almost wired for irrationality? You’re not alone. And luckily, things are not hopeless! On today's episode, I'l...
Episode 12 - Dr. Robyn Henderson-Espinoza on Public Theology, Intersectional Activism and Social Justice
December 05, 2017 00:00 - 51 minutes - 56.7 MBWhen we think of theology or philosophy or ethics, we often think of mere theory, either received from authorities on high or taught in stale classrooms, without real world, daily applicability to pressing social concerns. But Dr. Robyn Henderson-Espinoza — this week’s guest on Speak Out with Tim Wise — knows that real liberation requires the blending of theory and practice. As a Transqueer Latinx activist (they/their/them pronouns), and public theologian committed to expanding our m...