Ep 73: What's in a name? Journalist, academic and ex-TV producer Sheela Banerjee's discusses names and what they signify to society - in her new book, she takes us from the fight against racism in Britain, from Jamaica in the 60s to pre-Revolutionary Russia, each time exploring how a name contains centuries of history and acts as a portal to other worlds. So what IS in a name...? and what do we lose when we change them...
Sep 04, 2023•49 min
Ep72: Whiteness and its making - Dr. Carmen Thompson is a historian and author, and a highly sought out expert on Race and Whiteness in America whose scholarship has been quoted in historic court judgements in the US. She joins me to discuss her new book "The Making of American Whiteness: The Formation of Race in Seventeenth- Century Virginia".
Aug 14, 2023•1 hr 2 min
Ep 71: Whiteness and the whitelash - Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, and author of a new book “American Whitelash”, Wesley Lowery joins Myriam Francois to talk the whitelash, covering racist politics and what the history of white supremacy tells us about our current juncture.
Jul 26, 2023•52 min
Ep70: Whiteness and culture - author, broadcaster and educator Jeffrey Boakye spent 15y in the education sector. He now provides training for schools, universities and businesses on race, identity, masculinity and education. He joins me to talk about re-telling the story of Britain through musical history, how to talk about race better and the impact of enduring perceptions of black masculinity.
Mar 06, 2023•55 min
Ep69: Whiteness and art curation - Samenua Sesher is the Founder and Director of the Museum of Colour, the UK’s foremost arts and heritage digital enterprise.The Museum is focused on the creative journeys of British people of colour and has as its mission to present a continually evolving online repository of once-forgotten wisdom. She joins to talk omitted heritages, the 'slave Bible' and why decentering whiteness is so vital for artists. Please note: These Things Matter: Empire, Exploitation a...
Feb 07, 2023•1 hr 7 min
EP68: Whiteness and 'racial reckoning' - Eve Fairbanks is an award winning writer and the author of a new book “The Inheritors: An Intimate Portrait of South Africa's Racial Reckoning” which explores what happened when a white supremacist state is overturned by the previously dispossessed. She joins me to discuss whiteness in post-apartheid South Africa, naviguating away from the white supremacist order, and racial reckoning. *apologies in advance for some audio issues aka echoing
Jan 19, 2023•1 hr
Ep67: Whiteness and power - Suzanne Alleyne is a self coined 'cultural thinker' and founder of consultancy Alleyne&. Her groundbreaking research project 'Neurology of PowerTM', asks where power resides in the brain and body. She joins me to talk about empathy and privilege, power and the body, and the importance of recognising the physical as well as cultural impact of power on the very structure of our minds.
Dec 21, 2022•55 min
Ep66: The Stories of Whiteness - A third-generation Japanese-American essayist, poet and fiction writer, David Mura has written intimately about his life and the connections between race, culture and history. In this episode, he joins me to about his latest book, 'The Stories Whiteness tells itself', as we examine the embeddedness of white supremacy within American culture and the stories America tells itself to avoid confronting it.
Nov 29, 2022•58 min
Ep 65: Whiteness and maculinity - Yomi Sode is an award-winning Nigerian British writer. He was shortlisted for The Brunel International African Poetry Prize 2021 and his acclaimed one-man show COAT, recently toured nationally to sold-out audiences. His latest book "Manorism" explores the lives of Black British men and boys through poetry. He joins me to talk masculinity, pop culture and having your own lexicon...
Oct 08, 2022•1 hr 8 min
ep 64: Whiteness and the racial code - Nichola Rollock is Professor of Social Policy and Race at King’s College London, a government adviser and a widely read contributor to publications including Guardian, the FT and Vogue. She is now also the author of a new book “The Racial Code: tales of resistance and survival.” She joins me to educational attainment gaps, race in the workplace and naviguating the rules of whiteness.
Sep 19, 2022•1 hr 16 min
Ep 63: Whiteness and white antiracism - In this episode, I'm joined by the authors of a new book which “invites White people to talk about race with one another in ways that are generative, sustaining, and lead to real change.” Starting from the words of James Baldwin and Toni Morrison that ‘racism is a White person problem’ the authors say it’s time for White people to see how it hurts them too—and to start to do something about it. Ali Michael is the co-founder and co-director of the Race Inst...
Aug 11, 2022•53 min
Ep 62: Whiteness and the patriarchy - Award-winning columnist, international public speaker on Arab and Muslim issues and global feminism based in Cairo and New York - feminist icon Mona Eltahawy joins me for this LIVE recording at the Bradford Literary Festival to talk whiteness and feminist resistance, how racism fuelled the US abortion ban and her commitment to F*** the patriarchy, in all its shades. WARNING: Strong Language throughout
Jul 18, 2022•59 min
Ep 61: Whiteness and Africa - Astrid and Chinny were sick of reductive depictions of Africa, where they both have roots - so they decided create ‘It’s a Continent’, a podcast, published as a book in July 2022, which takes each African nation and retells a key moment in the country’s history. In this episode, we explore whiteness and the African continent, why so many people refer to Africa as a 'country', how so much African history is also British history and the African heroines missing from o...
Jul 04, 2022•51 min
Ep 60: Whiteness and words - multiple award winning writer and author of the bestselling book 'Sprache und Sein' ('Speaking and Being' Kübra Gümüşay is founder of several award winning campaigns and organisations - she joins me to talk about how language shapes our world - and its limits, the cages created by words and how to break out of those boxes.
Jun 15, 2022•1 hr 8 min
Ep59: Whiteness and terminology - The language we use and the unease many of us feel in finding the right words speaks, at least in part, to the difficulties in using the categories of meaning we intend to subvert for the act of subversion. To discuss this linguistic minefield, I’m joined by two women who’ve been working on the first ever “Blacktionary”. Maggie Semple OBE is a businesswoman and entrepreneur. She was instrumental in creating the Black British Voices survey and is co-author with c...
May 23, 2022•54 min
Ep58: Whiteness in TV - Zarqa Nawaz is a canadian creator and producer for film and television, published author, public speaker, journalist, and former broadcaster. You might know her from her hit sit com “Little Mosque in the Prairie” which premiered to the highest ratings CBC had in over 20 years, and won multiple awards, or her most recent publication “Jameela Green ruins everything.” She joins me to talk subverting stereotypes on screen, building your own and success on God's time.
May 06, 2022•1 hr
Ep 57: Whiteness and the Royals - Prof Trevor Burnard is Wilberforce Professor of Slavery and Emancipation at the University of Hull and Director of the Wilberforce Institute. The author of several books including 'Jamaica in the Age of Revolution' and The Atlantic World, 1492-1830, he recently curated a special forum in the journal, Slavery and Abolition on Black Lives Matter and Slavery, and is a member of the senior management board of the Modern Slavery Policy and Evidence Centre. He joins m...
Apr 22, 2022•48 min
Ep 56: The history of white people - New York Times bestselling author of “The history of white people” Prof Nell Irvin Painter is a leading American historian and visual artist. She is the author of several books including 'Sojourner Truth, A Life, A Symbol and American Whiteness Since Trump', 2020. She joins me to talk about 'The history of white people’, the complexities of terminology and what history can teach us about the present. [Recorded in 2021]
Apr 11, 2022•50 min
Ep 55: Whiteness and identity - British Egyptian writer Sabrina Mahfouz is an author, editor, fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and TV writer (Netflix and Amazon Studios). Her debut non-fiction book, 'These Bodies of Water: Notes on the British Empire, the Middle East and Where We Meet' (May 2022)explores questions of identity and belonging - she joins me to talk about growing up in the 9/11 shadow, her egyptian roots and representation in TV.
Mar 25, 2022•41 min
Ep54: Whiteness and equality - Professor of Political Science at the London School of Economics, and former Director of the Gender Institute, Prof Anne Phillips' latest book, Unconditional Equals, challenges the very philosophical foundations of Western notions of equality - she joins me to talk about how our framework of equality can undermine the quest for it, rethinking the struggle and whether equality is really a universally held ideal...
Mar 10, 2022•51 min
Ep 53: Whiteness and healing - Amartey Golding is a multifaceted contemporary artist whose work centers on themes of humanity, healing and identity. His new touring Solo Show at the V&A 'Bring Me To Heal' looks to the restorative work undertaken by Rasta (and many other) communities dealing with intergenerational trauma and in a radical shift, applies these same techniques of context, accountability and compassion to the White British experience. He joins me to talk proximity to whiteness, w...
Feb 25, 2022•1 hr 1 min
Ep 52: Whiteness and Black Consciousness - Lewis R. Gordon is an Afro-Jewish philosopher, political thinker, educator, and musician, & Professor and Head of the Department of Philosophy at UCONN-Storrs in the United States. Author of several books, he joins me to talk about Black consciousness, whiteness as narcissism, radical love, and his latest book “Fear of Black Consciousness”.
Feb 11, 2022•59 min
Ep51: Whiteness and the curriculum - Ben Mearhart is a former joint- headteacher and the senior lead for Education Standards at The Black Curriculum, a social enterprise that aims to deliver black British history across the UK by providing a curriculum and free resources for schools to teach students about Black history. He joins me to talk about getting 'comfortable' talking about race, countering white narratives and the challenges in forging a more relevant curriculum for the new gen.
Jan 28, 2022•47 min
Ep50 - Whiteness and air pollution: Rosamund Adoo-Kissi-Debrah is a BreatheLife Ambassador and founder of the Ella Roberta Family Foundation, based in London. Rosamund became a clean air advocate after her 9-year-old daughter, Ella, died in 2013 from a rare and severe form of asthma. Rosamund spent several years campaigning for a second coroner's inquest into Ella's death to determine whether it was linked to air pollution. In a landmark decision in December 2020, the coroner ruled that it was. ...
Jan 14, 2022•51 min
Ep49: Whiteness and colourism - Dr Dionne Taylor is a Senior lecturer at Birmingham City University where she teaches Sociology and Black studies and is the MA Black Studies Course leader. Dionne’s research looks at the lived experiences of young Black British women’s interpretation and engagement with representations of Black womanhood and she was recently in conversation with Little Mix’s Leigh- Anne Pinnock for her BBC documentary “Colourism and Me”. She joins me to discuss the roots of colou...
Dec 31, 2021•51 min
Ep 48: Whiteness in Art - Adelaide Damoah is a British-Ghanaian multidisciplinary artist, who uses investigative practices spanning painting, performance, collage, image transfer and photographic processes, to interrogate colonialism, spirituality and intersectional feminism. Since her debut exhibition ‘Black Brits’ in 2006, she has exhibited in shows nationally and internationally from Lagos to Cannes. She is a founding member of the Black British Female artist (BBFA) Collective and a co-founde...
Dec 17, 2021•1 hr 9 min
Ep 47: Whiteness and refugees - Hameed Amiri fled Aghfanistan as a child, seeking refuge in the UK. As an adult, he has dedicated much of his work to raising awareness around the plight of refugees. He is the author of the recently published autobiographical book “The Boy With Two Hearts”, which is partly a homage to his brother Hussein, but also to the NHS, which provided Hussein with vital treatment. The book was featured on BBC Radio 4's Book of the Week and has since been turned into a play ...
Dec 03, 2021•56 min
Ep 47: Whiteness and Brick Lane - Dr. Fatima Rajina is a Legacy in Action Research Fellow at the Stephen Lawrence Research Centre at De Montfort University. She is a former Research Assistant at the Institute of Criminology, at the University of Cambridge looking at police and counter-terrorism and has taught at SOAS and Kingston University, London. She is a co-founder of the ‘radical’ Bangladeshi campaign group ‘Nijjor Manush’ which is part of the Save Brick Lane Campaign, a coalition opposing ...
Nov 26, 2021•1 hr 24 min
Ep 46: Whiteness and the 'Orient' - An award-winning broadcaster and journalist who anchors the UK's Channel 4 News, Fatima Manji is best known for breaking stories with a global impact. She's also recognised as one of the first UK news anchors to wear a headscarf. She’s the author of the recently released “Hidden Heritage: Rediscovering Britain’s lost love of the Orient” and joins me to talk whiteness in journalism, belonging and Britishness and why she thinks the Kew Gardens mosque needs to be...
Nov 12, 2021•43 min
Ep 45: Whiteness and hip hop – Prof Tricia Rose is often referred to as the world’s foremost academic on Hip hop. Her ground-breaking book on the emergence of hip hop culture, Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America went on to define what is now an entire field of study. She joins me to discuss how whiteness reduces hip hop to entertainment, whether some music just isn’t for ‘white’ ears and that line, between cultural appreciation and cultural appropriation.
Oct 29, 2021•55 min
