Real talk about race: W. Kamau Bell and the Elmwood Café
From KALW | Part of the Crosscurrents series | 09:31
In the auditorium of Willard Middle School, about 300 people have gathered, many of them sitting on those rickety school bucket chairs, the ones that make most adults hunch over awkwardly. Sitting on stage in front of a tattered green velvet curtain is an eight member panel; a combination of husbands and wives, comedians and scholars, teachers and students.
This public forum is taking place to talk about an incident that happened to popular local comedian W. Kamau Bell and his wife, Melissa Hudson Bell.
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- Real talk about race: W. Kamau Bell and the ...
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- KALW
In the auditorium of Willard Middle School, about 300 people have gathered, many of them sitting on those rickety school bucket chairs, the ones that make most adults hunch over awkwardly. Sitting on stage in front of a tattered green velvet curtain is an eight member panel; a combination of husbands and wives, comedians and scholars, teachers and students.
This public forum is taking place to talk about an incident that happened to popular local comedian W. Kamau Bell and his wife, Melissa Hudson Bell.
The problem with "sounding white"
From KALW | Part of the Crosscurrents series | 06:19
We are always adjusting the way we sound. It especially depends on the social situation we are in. Linguists call it "code switching," a term originally used for people who would switch between two different languages like Spanish and English. But the term has evolved to embrace the tone, accents, and inflections that we use when talking to people. Many of us do it.
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- The problem with "sounding white"
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- KALW
We are always adjusting the way we sound. It especially depends on the social situation we are in. Linguists call it "code switching," a term originally used for people who would switch between two different languages like Spanish and English. But the term has evolved to embrace the tone, accents, and inflections that we use when talking to people. Many of us do it.
Episode 40: We Know A Subconscious Habit Of Yours (Code Switching)
From KUOW's RadioActive Youth Media | Part of the RadioActive Monthly Podcast series | 14:57
There’s no such thing as a normal you. Do you talk to your boss the same way you talk to your dog? Probably not. This is called code switching.
There’s no such thing as a normal you. Do you talk to your boss the same way you talk to your dog? Probably not. This is called code switching.
Inspired by NPR’s Code Switch , RadioActive hosts Kadian Vanloo and Antonia Dorn share stories about why and how youth code switch:
- Tamil is the mother tongue for both Ananya Shankar and her cousin, RadioActive reporter Kamna Shastri. But when Ananya visits the United States for the first time, Kamna notices her cousin only speaks to her in English.
- RadioActive reporter Riley Guttman lives on Mercer Island where the African-American population is just over one percent. His black friend notices that when he walks in on a group of white friends, the conversation tends to change — and not how you might think.
Speaking of race, affirmative action was under scrutiny at the Supreme Court of the United States this week. It's been illegal in Washington state since 1998, but people still have opinions about it. RadioActive's Yafiet Bezabih asked Seattleites what they think.
Thanks to RadioActive's Ann Kane for coordinating this program.
RadioActive is KUOW's youth radio program, and all the stories here are produced by young people age 16-21. Listen to RadioActive stories , subscribe to the RadioActive podcast and stay in touch on Facebook .
DEAR WHITE PEOPLE -- Justin Simien Interview
From Andrea Chase | Part of the Behind the Scenes series | 11:56
Justin Simien talks satire, social mirrors, and the truth of life.
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- DEAR WHITE PEOPLE -- Justin Simien Interview
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- Andrea Chase
To say that talking with Justin Simien was a master’s class in film and culture theory is understating it. Simien believes that film is the culmination of everything we do as a culture. This is why he invoked Spike Lee, Paddy Chayefsky, George Orwell, and Moliere in our conversation about DEAR WHITE PEOPLE, his bracing look at race relations in these United States. He also spoke eloquently on how the image of the tragic black hero, or the flawless black hero, reflects the culture’s problem with processing a marginal community as just a group of human beings, and why he didn’t want the characters, white and black, in his film to be easily categorized or glibly understood.
We started our conversation on October 17, 2014 with the reason he chose the particular Latin motto that features in the film, and how his own personal sense of the absurd infuses his film.