Drawing on the history of Freedom Summer, the African American Policy Forum launched its Critical Race Theory Summer School in 2020 as a response to the state-sanctioned murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and countless Black lives that spurred the subsequent summer of racial reckoning. Next week (7/18-22), in the face of a rapidly advancing assault on racial justice, we convene for another edition of Summer School under the theme: “Teaching Truth to Power”. The program will take place over ...
Jul 15, 2022•48 min
In this episode, Kimberlé is joined by W. Kamau Bell, director of the four-part documentary series We Need to Talk About Cosby. Together, the two use an intersectional lens to explore Bill Cosby's descent from his seemingly immovable status as "America's Dad.” Unpacking the complex interactions of race and gender that enabled Cosby's alleged sexual violence, this conversation brings a new dimension to the exploration of the mogul's tarnished legacy and the subsequent range of responses from the ...
May 12, 2022•54 min
In this episode, Kimberlé is joined by thought leaders Jelani Cobb, Sherrilyn Ifill, and Cornel West, who share their perspectives on the threats to Black history and realization of Black freedom. The conversation is anchored in the question, "Was 2022 the last Black History Month?” and makes explicit why we must to fight to ensure it was not. Revisiting the crucial insights they raised as part of the MasterClass series, “Black History, Black Freedom, and Black Love,” each guest discusses what l...
Apr 07, 2022•1 hr 4 min
In this episode, Kimberlé is joined by Bob the Drag Queen for a conversation full of critique and celebration of all things drag. Having once existed at the margins of legality and social acceptability, drag has now moved into the mainstream with the popular success of shows like RuPaul’s Drag Race, Dragula and We’re Here. Even with this moment in the limelight, drag’s inherent subversiveness, fearlessness and resilience shine through, posing fundamental questions like: What is gender and how it...
Mar 02, 2022•45 min
In this episode, Kimberlé is joined by an all-star panel to examine not merely the details of the shocking January 6th insurrection, but also the key undercurrents of racial resentment and right-wing authoritarianism that fed into the attempted coup. Together, the panelists unpack how the Trump administration’s shocking effort to subvert democracy was made possible by the longstanding dogmas of permanent minority rule that supplied its strategy and tactics. Furthermore, one year out from the ter...
Jan 13, 2022•1 hr 17 min
For the last year, we have been surrounded by debates on Critical Race Theory spurred by the Right's organized, widespread campaign to stifle anti-racist education. For all of this debate, though, we hardly ever get to hear from the teachers, administrators, and students who are the subjects of these vicious attacks, and who are risking it all in defense of educational integrity and truth-telling. On today’s episode, Kimberlé presents a conversation from the African American Policy Forum's Under...
Nov 15, 2021•1 hr 12 min
Thirty years ago this week, Anita Hill sat across an all-male, all-white Senate Judiciary Committee to testify that her boss, Supreme Court Justice nominee Clarence Thomas, had sexually harassed her. A historic moment that brought visibility to the issue of sexual harassment, Anita's bravery during the 1991 confirmation hearing set the stage for countless others to better understand and speak out against their own experiences of gender-based violence. Decades later, questions of how gender-based...
Oct 15, 2021•55 min
Over the last year, the Right has ignited a widespread disinformation campaign around Critical Race Theory -- and mainstream media is fueling the fire. Mentions of CRT in the news grew exponentially this past year, with journalists often framing the conversation around education censorship as an equal debate between supporters and opponents of anti-equality legislation. And despite CRT’s well-documented history of emerging in 1989 with a clear and fixed definition, the media have decided to play...
Sep 21, 2021•43 min
Over the past year, Critical Race Theory has been increasingly misrepresented by the Right in an organized, widespread effort to stifle racial justice and gender equity, and weaken our multiracial democracy. In response to these attacks, AAPF held a 5-day Critical Race Theory Summer School in mid-August to educate participants about the origins, principles, and insights of Critical Race Theory, and to chart a path forward. On this episode, we bring you a conversation that took place on the first...
Sep 02, 2021•1 hr 19 min
When we think about the history of Black athletic resistance, we don't tend to think of Black women athletes like Wyomia Tyus, Rose Robinson, or Wilma Rudolph, who have all taken great risks to speak out against racial injustice. On this episode, Kimbelé is joined by Layshia Clarendon and Sydney Colson of the WNBA, Demario Davis of the New Orleans Saints, and civil rights icon Dr. Harry Edwards to celebrate the achievements of today’s Black women athletes, reflect on the history of athletic acti...
May 26, 2021•58 min
On today’s episode, Kimberlé and a group of leading champions for equitable healthcare take us behind the “white coat” of medical racism, and explore its disproportionate impact on Black women and girls. Guests share their own stories being mistreated and ignored as patients, and reflect on the struggles they’ve endured as Black woman doctors working in a medical system with roots in eugenics and racialized violence. The conversation analyzes the lessons learned from the tragic case of Dr. Susan...
May 14, 2021•1 hr 6 min
The murder of 15-year-old Latasha Harlins by Soon Ja Du, a convenience store owner in 1991 became one of the flashpoints for the LA uprisings the following year. Yet while Latasha’s killing happened just 13 days after the Rodney King beating, her story garnered little lasting attention. On this episode of Intersectionality Matters, Kimberlé sits down with Sophia Nahli Allison, director of the Oscar-nominated documentary short “A Love Song for Natasha” (available on Netflix), to discuss the film,...
Apr 27, 2021•41 min
With Bryan Stevenson, Viet Thanh Nguyen, Ruha Benjamin, and David Blight In the second half of a two-part episode on the stories that shape our understanding of America, Kimberlé Crenshaw and special guests explore the ways that film and other technologies have reproduced and popularized these dominant stories. The episode examines Hollywood’s role in writing and rewriting history, and asks how we can begin writing new stories that tell the full story of us. With: RUHA BENJAMIN- Professor of Ame...
Apr 16, 2021•45 min
In part one of a special two-part episode that asks, “What’s the story of America, and how can it be told differently?” Kimberlé Crenshaw sits down with a panel of esteemed thinkers and storytellers to examine the origins, implications and failings of America’s grand narratives. The conversation delves into the stories that drove the January 6th attack on the Capitol, and those that informed liberal responses to it. How did the stories that shape our understanding of America get established in t...
Mar 20, 2021•43 min
In this post-inauguration roundtable, Kimberlé and her guests grapple with the events of the past month, and contemplate the crossroads that the country now finds itself in. As we prepare for four years of Democratic leadership, how must we organize ourselves in order to fight for a more just future, rather than merely a return to the past? And what becomes possible when we embrace a political agenda that centers intersectionality as a means for achieving that future? With: BARBARA ARNWINE - Pre...
Jan 30, 2021•1 hr 12 min
In this episode, Kimberlé is joined by a panel of veteran UTB guests to unpack the learnings from a year of pandemic, political revolution, and purported racial reckoning. and to help envision a path forward as our nation reels in the aftermath of a white supremacist insurrection. As the panelists contextualize the events of January 6th through a critical race theory lens, they discuss how a national history of appeasing white supremacist interests and denial of racial terror have laid the groun...
Jan 20, 2021•1 hr 9 min
In this episode, Kimberlé is joined by a panel of scholars and civil rights leaders to explore the impact of the Trump administration’s “Equity Gag Order,” and the president’s crusade against racial justice and gender equity. The conversation includes insights from leaders of the National Fair Housing Alliance and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund about how the Equity Gag Order’s list of “prohibited concepts” has impaired their work, as well as a discussion of the importance of narrative and storytel...
Dec 11, 2020•1 hr 15 min
After perhaps the most important election of our lifetimes, the real work begins. On this episode, Kimberlé sits down with a brilliant group of political thinkers and leaders to analyze the 2020 election and the challenges that remain. The discussion includes insights as to how local organizers turned Georgia blue for the first time in a generation, what strategies progressives might employ to keep pressure on President-elect Biden, and why in 2020, President Trump appears to have made electoral...
Nov 24, 2020•1 hr 15 min
In this “barbershop edition” of Intersectionality Matters, which was recorded live on October 28th, Kimberlé is joined by a panel of activists, scholars, and writers to discuss, patriarchy, misogynoir, and why a small but meaningful minority of Black men, including prominent celebrities like 50 Cent and Ice Cube, are choosing to support President Trump this election. Led by AAPF Co-Founder Luke Charles Harris, this roundtable conversation explores what genuine self-love looks like for Black men,...
Oct 30, 2020•1 hr 8 min
On this Black Girl Roundtable, Kimberlé is joined by Rep. Barbara Lee, Alicia Garza, Kirsten West Savali, and Barbara Arnwine for a dynamic conversation about the Vice Presidential debate, vote suppression, Trump's increased popularity with men of color, and the gentrification of the Democratic Party. With: BARBARA ARNWINE - President and Founder, Transformative Justice Coalition ALICIA GARZA - Co-Founder, Black Lives Matter; Principal, Black Futures Lab REP BARBARA LEE - U.S. Representative for...
Oct 20, 2020•1 hr 6 min
In this episode, Kimberlé speaks with six leading scholars about the legacy of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the Court’s largely undersung role in the battle for our democracy, and the profound consequences of the Left’s failure to prioritize the courts over the last several decades. With: DEVON CARBADO - Professor of Law, UCLA; Author, Acting White? Rethinking Race in “Post-Racial” America ERWIN CHEMERINSKY - Dean, UC Berkeley School of Law; Author, We the People: A Progressive Rea...
Oct 09, 2020•1 hr 8 min
On this episode, Kimberlé Crenshaw is joined by Dina Wright Joseph, director of AAPF’s Young Scholars Program, a leadership pilot program designed to develop a new generation of intersectional researchers and to build community. Featuring the voices of 12 Black women from universities around the country, this episode explores the profound impact that COVID-19 has had on young Black women and their communities, and AAPF’s efforts to build a virtual community to address it. Featuring Dina Wright J...
Sep 11, 2020•51 min
On this episode, six leading politicians, cultural critics, and political activists come together to discuss politics, Kamala Harris' historic vice presidential candidacy, and the intersection of racism and sexism in the 2020 election. With: BARBARA ARNWINE - President and Founder, Transformative Justice Coalition DONNA BRAZILE - Veteran Democratic political strategist STATE'S ATTY. KIM FOXX - State's Attorney for Cook County, Illinois REP. MAXINE WATERS - U.S. Representative for California's 43...
Aug 29, 2020•1 hr 18 min
On this episode, Kimberlé Crenshaw is joined by the revolutionary and genre-defying writers N.K Jemisin and Saidiya Hartman, whose work demands a radical reimagination of our present by archiving and writing the violence of the past into imaginations of a limitless future. By inserting Black women into narrative spaces that they have largely been written out of, these women illustrate first hand how we can resist narrative erasure and become the authors of our own stories. With: SAIDIYA HARTMAN ...
Aug 16, 2020•1 hr 9 min
On this installment of Under the Blacklight, Kimberlé Crenshaw sits down with Rep. Ayanna Pressley, Rep. Barbara Lee, and State’s Attorney Kim Foxx to discuss their experiences at the intersection of grassroots activism and electoral politics. Together, they speak about the mothers who raised them, the work they're doing to combat the twin pandemics of COVID and racial inequity, and the dynamic tensions that lie between their progressive values and the political institutions they've chosen to wo...
Jul 28, 2020•1 hr 15 min
As the vicious spike in COVID’s case count rocks the nation, this installment of “Under the Blacklight” focuses on the off-staging of race after weeks of protests about racial injustice. We ask: What has become of the supposed reckoning with white supremacy since George Floyd’s death? After weeks of uncovering the legacies of racism, are we at the bottom of a Sisyphusian hill again in insisting that race is as newsworthy in the disproportionate deaths of African Americans to COVID as it has been...
Jul 12, 2020•1 hr 6 min
On this installment of "Under the Blacklight," the mothers and sisters of the #SayHerName Movement -- Fran Garrett, Rhanda Dormeus, Maria Moore, Sharon Cooper, Gina Best, and Sharon Wilkerson -- join Kimberlé Crenshaw for a very special episode. Through telling the stories of their loved ones, the women weave together the experiences that bring them together in a sisterhood of both sorrow and strength. Support the #SayHerName Campaign: aapf.org/supportshn Support Say Her Name: The Lives That Sho...
Jun 26, 2020•1 hr 1 min
On September 5, 2015, India Kager and Angelo Perry drove to Virginia Beach to introduce their 4-month-old baby Roman, to Angelo’s family. Unbeknownst to them, Virginia Beach police were tailing their car and while India, Angelo, and Roman were parked at 7/11, a SWAT team threw a flash bang grenade and opened fire on their car. 4 officers fired over 51 rifle rounds into India’s car, while baby Roman sat in the back seat, killing Angelo and India within seconds. Virginia Beach police Chief Jim Cer...
Jun 16, 2020•45 min
Alicia Garza, Robin D.G. Kelley, Devon Carbado, Maria Moore, and special guest AG Keith Ellison join Kimberlé Crenshaw for an emergency episode of “Under the Blacklight”, the 10th in the series, to address this historic moment of social and political mobilization ignited by George Floyd's death at the hands of Minneapolis police just two weeks ago. Hosted by Kimberlé Crenshaw (@sandylocks) Produced by Julia Sharpe-Levine Edited by Julia Sharpe-Levine and Sarah Ventre Additional support provided ...
Jun 10, 2020•1 hr 11 min
Kiese Laymon, Viet Thanh Nguyen, and Arundhati Roy join Kimberlé Crenshaw for the 9th installment of "Under the Blacklight." Together, they mine the complexities of narrative construction amid disaster, and shine the blacklight on the stories and counter-stories that shape the future and make meaning of the past. Hosted by Kimberlé Crenshaw (@sandylocks) Produced and Edited by Julia Sharpe-Levine Additional support provided by Awoye Timpo, Emmett O’Malley, Michael Kramer, Gregory Bernstein Alann...
May 26, 2020•1 hr 8 min
