Unerased | Black Women Speak artwork

Unerased | Black Women Speak

33 episodes - English - Latest episode: almost 2 years ago - ★★★★★ - 10 ratings

Black women speak in a myriad voices, capturing a wide range of experiences, issues and interests. Our podcast Unerased, is like a seat at the kitchen table where intimate, honest and common threads get sewn. Our audio adventures explore topics sometimes top of mind, other times unspoken, but always invoking ideas and opinions for, by and about Black women. Each 30-minute episode connects with causes and change agents – literally giving voice and inviting our company. Mashups, conversations and culture pop engagements leave you wanting for more.

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Episodes

Big Summer Beach Reads

June 22, 2022 11:54 - 37 minutes - 51.5 MB

Summertime and the reading is easy. As work slows and we flock to the beach, lakes, and pools, a great beach read should be right beside sunscreen and a cool drink. Our season finale episode brings together editors, authors, and bookstore lovers to talk about Summer escape, reading lists and the delicious ease of getting lost in characters and stories across all genres.   

Wading in the Weeds

June 08, 2022 13:02 - 18 minutes - 26 MB

Mary J, joint, reefer, jah, pot, herb, weed…No matter what you call it, cannabis is enjoying a make-over, decriminalized coast to coast and legalized in 38 states for medical use. In the recreational space, big profits are also being reaped. But Black folks have paid the heaviest price in the government’s racialized war on drugs that exacted marijuana possession as the entry level for mass incarceration. This episode wades into the weeds with Black women exploring stigma, culture, health and ...

The Expat Experience: No Place Like Home

May 25, 2022 12:40 - 26 minutes - 36.2 MB

Surely, Black people began dreaming beyond the American shoreline soon after their arrival. Centuries later, spurred by racist policies, a need for political and professional affirmation, and an expanded worldview following World War 1, Black people began an exodus to build lives in other countries, with different languages, and new possibilities. In this episode, we center the Black woman expatriate—growing in numbers in recent years—and the experiences that led her elsewhere.

Beating Back The Blues

May 11, 2022 11:23 - 29 minutes - 40.3 MB

The Blues have been memorialized in books, films, and music. But feeling the blues, or depression, has been a taboo topic for centuries. Even as the stigma is lifted in some corners, millions of people worldwide fail to identify the symptoms, suffer in silence, or are unable to find a good, sustainable solution to the problem. In this episode, we explore the blues and introduce three powerful and accomplished women who have battled depression. 

All That Jazz

April 27, 2022 13:46 - 24 minutes - 33.5 MB

Birthed between Bourbon and beignets, jazz is, as Nina Simone once said, Black classical music. An art formed from sporadic instrumentation, bodies moving freely, and soul. It is the mother of pop, Hip Hop, funk, R&B, and more. As we bid farewell to National Jazz Month we celebrate it with the voices of the women who are preserving and shaping the music today. What does it take to archive America’s classical music and who are the unknown women who built it and will carry it forward?

Legacy and Voice: A Tribute to Valerie Boyd

April 13, 2022 15:56 - 35 minutes - 48.9 MB

Valerie Boyd entered life’s stage as an old soul with Zen-like calm and pointed yet quiet grace. Her commitment to raise the voices of Black women pierced through the silence of history, demanding that the world listen closer to us all. She was a researcher, writer, documentarian and the definitive biographical voice on Zora Neale Hurston. In this week’s episode, we pay tribute to her life, her legacy, and her love.

Poised For Power: Midterm Voting Matters

March 23, 2022 11:45 - 30 minutes - 41.2 MB

Many issues that may shape the political and cultural future of the country are on ballots in the 2022 midterm elections in November. This episode of Unerased is dedicated to exploring the issues that will affect Black women. We will also examine the historical significance of the Black female vote and why it is imperative in 2022. Our guests represent thought-leading political education organizations who will offer perspectives on matters that must be kept front-and-center in this year’s el...

Black Women Liberators

March 09, 2022 12:38 - 30 minutes - 41.2 MB

On the heels of Black History Month, this episode recounts both the heroic and tragic circumstances of enslavement: not merely regarding self-determined liberation prior to 1865, but also incidents of debt enslavement that persisted in America’s Deep South well into the 1970s. If none of us are free until all of us are free, the invisible chains of our bondage linger still.

Shades of Colorism

February 23, 2022 12:47 - 30 minutes - 41.2 MB

In this episode, we offer candid conversation about the lingering scourge of colorism among melanated people, both here in the United States and across the globe. This esoteric scale of beauty extends much further into areas of economic and social mobility, self-worth, and community acceptance. Our guests ask you, the audience, to deeply consider how we–as individuals and on the institutional level–must take responsibility for ending this defeatist practice and do the hard work of healing the...

She Wrote The Book

February 09, 2022 12:29 - 30 minutes - 69.8 MB

In this new segment premiere, we provide an inside look at all aspects of the reading and writing communities: established authors, would-be authors, editor/publishers, and book club organizers. If diving into a good book is your personal passion, listen to these women tell you how that bright idea turns into a tangible product, and the hurdles that must be overcome to get it into your hands.

Let's Talk About Sex (Work)

January 26, 2022 14:02 - 30 minutes - 41.8 MB

This episode dives into the stigma, violence, and misinformation surrounding of one of the world’s oldest professions—sex work. Always around, usually out of view, sex work has recently gained the omnipresence of social media and pop culture, spotlighted in the critically acclaimed series Pose. The curtain has been lifted on sexuality and sexual expression, gender identity and gender roles. Related issues of  human rights, economic justice, the human toll and the rights of one to use their bo...

Breast Cancer Vigilance

January 12, 2022 12:49 - 25 minutes - 35.3 MB

Moving beyond the hoopla and pink ribbons of October, we explore the elevated life-threatening stakes for Black women in detecting and fighting breast cancer, through the voices of women at various points of their own personal journeys.

The Best of Unerased

December 22, 2021 13:45 - 49 minutes - 113 MB

Producers of the Unerased podcast got together for end of year reflections, looking back to move forward. Along the way, they pulled out some seminal conversations from the 2021 podcast season. Over a virtual feast of shrimp and grits and audio treasures host/audio producer Carolyn Malachi, coordinating producer Stephanie Renee’ and executive producer/creator Gwen McKinney savored program gems that would make most listeners want to revisit the entire episode. They explored our body, our temp...

The Best of Unerased

December 22, 2021 13:45 - 30 minutes - 70.2 MB

Producers of the Unerased podcast got together for end of year reflections, looking back to move forward. Along the way, they pulled out some seminal conversations from the 2021 podcast season. Over a virtual feast of shrimp and grits and audio treasures host/audio producer Carolyn Malachi, coordinating producer Stephanie Renee’ and executive producer/creator Gwen McKinney savored program gems that would make most listeners want to revisit the entire episode. They explored our body, our temp...

Labor Pains — Unions, Yes!

December 01, 2021 13:01 - 27 minutes - 63.1 MB

The global pandemic national lockdown transformed work as we knew it, creating the “great resignation.” With pains and opportunities, the shifting landscape of the new un-labor force may be a catalyst for jobs with justice.  Rewind a few decades, Black workers — especially women — overrepresented in organized labor, reaped tremendous gains that raised wages, protected jobs and fueled the Black middle class of the 20th Century. Just as Black union membership peaked, private-sector unions wo...

Women Making Media

November 17, 2021 12:41 - 28 minutes - 38.9 MB

This episode embraces the raison d’etre of Unerased | Black Women Speak. No one can tell us what to say, how to say it,  write it, or when we  Scream, Stream, Blog, Record it. We’ve sounded our drums for centuries, before a printing press or radio airwaves existed.  Our words carry depth and breadth, shaping narrative and creating content, stoking the unfolding story of us.  There’s rhythm in our voice, magic in our vision, power in our step. It’s magnified when we share with our sister tr...

Reparations — Beyond Acres and the Mule

October 20, 2021 11:57 - 29 minutes - 67 MB

How can you measure the damage from four centuries of bondage and soul pillage? What is the price tag on the sustained striping of our agency and possibilities from one generation to the next? Blacklisting. Redlining. Whitewashing.  This episode includes storytelling on the human toll, beginning with Callie House, an emancipated washer woman who launched the 20th century reparations movement. We will also hear from advocates with the National African American Reparations Commission which i...

Pennies, Paychecks and Plans — The Economics of Aging

September 08, 2021 21:02 - 29 minutes - 67.4 MB

Episode 16 takes a sober look at how older Black women carry the triple jeopardy of racism, sexism and ageism—especially from our wallets. We tap into our soon-to-be launched Primetime55+ campaign saluting older Black women. They are masterful at what they do—usually overperforming—but often underacknowledged. We are also joined by younger counterparts who plan to embrace the inevitable journey of aging with grace, wisdom and reverence. We close with a debut of a new theme song that embodies...

Reproductive Justice – From Past, Possibilities and Enlightened Policies

August 30, 2021 12:26 - 30 minutes - 41.9 MB

Mississippi civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer once described the hysterectomy without her consent as a Mississippi appendectomy. This fierce freedom fighter could teach a master class in reproductive justice at a time there were no words to even name it. But it was bundled in the intensive battle against racism and stark inequality. Fast forward to the 21st Century. Black maternal death in the U.S. is the highest rate in the developed world – and the toll (three or four times higher tha...

Preconception Health – Our Life Cycle From the Womb to the Tomb

August 04, 2021 16:14 - 30 minutes - 55.7 MB

If maladies like fibroid tumors, preterm birth, or maternal death are the window into our life cycle, preconception health is the house that contains the burdens, opportunities and realities of our health outcomes before, during and prior to birth -- whether we decide to conceive at all. The schemes and blueprint of preconception health, imprinted en utero, carry our life cycle to the grave. We meet health professionals and equity advocates who share insights and tackle the complex labyrinth...

Fibroids the Female Curse. Period.

July 18, 2021 15:52 - 30 minutes - 57.1 MB

We begin with an exploration of fibroid, uterine tumors swirling in more questions than answers. With little information on cures or causes, Black women are plagued with the benign tumors three times more frequently than White women, earlier and with greater severity of symptoms. We kickoff this trilogy with our podcast advocacy partner the White Dress Project in marking July as Fibroid Awareness Month. Two project leaders join us to share their personal journey, confront myths, and propose...

No Place Like Home

April 30, 2021 15:15 - 27 minutes - 63.2 MB

From urban cities to rural landscapes, the United States crisis of the unhoused is yet another pandemic in the age of COVID. It’s estimated that nearly 200,000 people sleep on the streets every night. But countless more are invisible, teetering on the brink of foreclosures or evictions, dwelling in substandard housing or resorting to vehicular shelters. We explore the status quo in an era when unhoused has become a lurking nemesis for too many women and families. While this episode makes pl...

Banking on the Unbanked

April 19, 2021 21:45 - 27 minutes - 63.6 MB

Money, employment, and capital are the gateway to security and generational wealth. Living wages, pay equity and business ownership are critical to economic power for Black women and the Black community. The longstanding reality of Black women as the principal earner for her family has intensified the need to close the widening wealth gap and consider the possibility of real equality. Add to this the sprint to cryptocurrencies and cashless exchanges. Tossed into the unbanked of our economic ...

The Art of Beauty – Owning Our Image

April 12, 2021 14:49 - 27 minutes - 63.2 MB

The mirror reflects only what it sees – strength and power or insecurities that live behind the outward face. But inward there is more to glean. For centuries, external forces have rendered Black women subhuman in the foils of Mammy, Jezebel, tragic mulatto or emasculating beast. External forces notwithstanding, Black women have pushed back and are embracing a revolution, of sorts. Centering self, we have moved the dial to shirk off Eurocentric notions of physical beauty. We are also embraci...

If You're Black Get Back

February 22, 2021 15:34 - 28 minutes - 65.6 MB

The history of Black resistance and survival is often contorted and swept quietly into corners of confusion and internalized racism. This virtual dinner party goes in many directions, brings heat and light along with shared appreciation. Host Carolyn Malachi convened an intergenerational sister circle to reflect on deep-rooted challenges; from anti-Blackness to bootstrap respectability, to mass incarceration to social justice marketing. Our guests also react to words and wisdom of Vivan Nix...

The Power in Our Magic

February 08, 2021 14:41 - 29 minutes - 68.3 MB

The 2010s saw passage of the Affordable Care Act, the second inauguration of the first Black president, marriage equality become a Constitutional right, widespread national protests against police brutality and a swift whitelash with the election of the 45th president. Intersectionality is the meal from which we all eat – the entree, the sides and dessert. This week's dinner party guests listen to the words Susan Taylor, Aishah Shahidah Simmons, Deon Haywood and Adrienne Shropshire. The conv...

Making A Difference

February 03, 2021 14:09 - 27 minutes - 62.5 MB

The 2020 election season is one for the history books. We’ve scored significant firsts, and at the top of the list a Howard University AKA alum, Kamala Harris, wears the title MVP. Black women’s voting power remains an undeniable force in reshaping electoral maps and winning races unattainable just one election cycle earlier. Our dinner party guests – a sister, an aunt, a grandmother – break bread at our kitchen table and react to Glynda Carr and Julianne Malveaux taking a stab at nailing ou...

Navigating the Bars Beyond the Cage

November 11, 2020 01:26 - 28 minutes - 66.5 MB

The threads that weave the human story of mass incarceration of women are complex, often tangled in a legacy of abuse and injustice behind and beyond the prison walls.  The tropes and caricatures are so different from the limitations confronting men.  They follow formerly incarcerated women into the “free world” as they confront intractable barriers to economic and civic engagement that defy the notion of “returning citizens.” This episode, voiced by women with lived experiences inside the c...

Health Care, Self-Care, Who Cares -- for Us?

November 11, 2020 01:21 - 29 minutes - 68.9 MB

From in utero, to cradle, to grave, Black women suffer gross health disparities that are rampant externally, but also live in our bones. Our guests interrogate myths and perceptions about the Black super woman. For generations we’ve been bold and resilient, even as our bodies endure the racist structures that have created a public health crisis. Insights, affirmations and tips defy the obstacles and embrace the opportunities to Black women’s health and self-care. 

She, Her, They, Us

November 11, 2020 00:42 - 29 minutes - 68.8 MB

This episode gives voice to opening up and coming to terms with identities (and non-identities) that paint the rich mosaic of the Black woman’s realities in the long and continued march to democratic inclusion. Unfettered dialogues with trans, queer and hetero Black women give heat and light to the quest for a landing space on common ground that declares Ain’t I A Woman. 

Power Generations

September 03, 2020 15:40 - 30 minutes - 27.9 MB

Going into the Presidential election Black women are generally a united front. But in the cultural sphere, deep gulfs separate Boomers from Millennials. Mores, technology, perceptions and expectations carve a divide and In the middle, GenXers (41 – 55), straddling between the Boomers (56 -76) and Millennials (24-39), seek paths to build upon Black women’s unity and collective power. Our cross-generational conversation will explode myths and embrace common ground that will take us to November...

Tyranny of Multiculturalism

September 03, 2020 15:22 - 29 minutes - 27.8 MB

“Women of Color” or “People of Color” are convenient shorthand that denies the distinct experience, not only of Black folks, but all folks. Multiracial unity should not boil down to a melting pot that includes everyone and no one. Indigenous, Black, Latinx and Asian American thought leaders share the paths and roadblocks to multiracial alliances that embrace, not erase, our unique identities and collective power.  

Likable Enough

August 11, 2020 11:50 - 29 minutes - 27.8 MB

The Likability quotient for women office seekers seems to be more unforgiving than for men. Women even encounter an uphill battle securing votes from other women. Recent election cycles have also illustrated that White women and Black women are very different political animals. Likability aside, can white women make the shift to vote for women candidates in statewide and up-ballot elections? How can we close the racial gender, likability and electability gap?