As I’ve said before we don’t broadcast regularly on Friday & Saturdays but I wanted to take this time to introduce you folks to a project that I’ve been working on that’s pretty close to my heart. I recently launched a series entitled “On Blackness.” The idea was simply to have the conversation about race that everyone says we should have but then once it starts people stick their fingers in their ears and start screaming “I’M NOT RACST, YOU’RE RACIST, I’M NOT RACIST!”
So in this series I seek out an black academic (or Blackademic as some of us lovingly call them) and we have a one on one conversation. I ask them to define blackness and then the conversation goes from there. I ask them to define it because I realize that understanding what that means is something that some black folks and a lot of non-black folks simply…well…don’t. And then there are those who think they do and it’s completely off.
The project is called On Blackness but it’s a show that can be listened to and enjoyed by everyone. The themes that we talk about actually permeates through out various other cultures and races. And I think hearing a no holds conversation with folks who study and teach this stuff opens eyes on how it’s looked at.
So here are the first 3 eps we’ve done so far. The first one is with MSNBC’s Dr. Melissa Harris-Perry of Tulane. Her commentary was magic.
Subscribe to On Blackness on iTunes | Subscribe to On Blackness On Stitcher| Direct Download | RSS
Next was with Dr. Yaba Blay who started the 1ne Drop project which really challenges what the very definition of black even means.
Direct Download
And our last interview was with Dr. Jelani Cobb, a frequent guest on MHP’s show and he makes a few arguments that surprised some of our audience.
Let us know what you think? Do you have any questions that you’d love to hear answered? We’ll be doing follow ups with our guests and new episodes are being put together already. Weigh in and we’ll bring it to the experts. See ya in the comments.