ep 44: Whiteness is a dangerous idea - Robert P. Baird is a freelance writer and editor, who has held editorial positions at The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Esquire, and Harper’s Magazine, and has a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. His recent Guardian Long Read titled: “The invention of whiteness: the long history of a dangerous idea” delves into the history and more recent understandings of whiteness and how the term's growing usage hasn't always yielded the results many white liberals h...
Oct 22, 2021•52 min
*TRIGGER WARNING: Some of the language in this episode may be upsetting to some listeners. Ep 43: Whiteness and the police – Paul Wilson was one of the UK’s longest serving and most senior black police officers. From helping establish the Black Police Association, heavily influencing the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry, discussing critical issues with a Home Secretary, a Prime Minister, and an American President, Paul has been at the heart of British policing at a time of intense scrutiny over its comm...
Oct 15, 2021•1 hr 4 min
Ep 42: Whiteness and schools - Do our schools teach whiteness? What exactly should be taught in "Black History Month"? And does our educational system have a white supremacy problem...? To discuss this and more is a man who bridges the academic and activist world. Dr Ornette D. Clennon is a Professor at the Federal University of Amazon (UFAM) whose research focuses on themes of decolonial community and liberation psychology. His most recent book explores the 'invisible' impact whiteness has on t...
Oct 08, 2021•1 hr 8 min
Ep 41: Whiteness and fashion - What's the relationship between fast fashion and colonialism? What happens to my old clothes? And who is really paying the price for my fashion fix? Aja Barber is an American writer, personal stylist and style consultant whose recently published first book “Consumed: colonialism, climate change and consumerism” is an expose of the industry she was long a part of, and a rallying call to us all to change the ways in which we consume.
Oct 01, 2021•53 min
ep40: Whiteness and belonging - Born in Nairobi, raised in London and Norway, writer and presenter Nazneen Khan joins me to explore identity, belonging and why she decided to tell a new, different version of the history of London - the subject of her recent book - to pay homage to the many who despite making up the capital's life and soul, are so often erased from its story.
Sep 24, 2021•47 min
Ep 39: Whiteness and healthcare – What is the colonial legacy in healthcare? How does modern medicine replicate historically forged patterns of domination? And why are we all so “inflamed”? Rupa Marya is an Associate Professor of Medicine at UCSF and faculty director of the Do No Harm Coalition, an organization of over 450 health workers committed to structural change to address health problems. Welcome Dr Marya! And Raj Patel is a New York Times bestselling author, film-maker and academic. He i...
Sep 17, 2021•47 min
Ep 38: Whiteness and mental health - Guilaine Kinouani is a French critical psychologist, feminist, therapist, equality consultant and award-nominated writer of the blog, RaceReflections.co.uk Her recent book “Living while black – The essential guide to overcoming racial trauma” draws on her over 15y of experience in psychotherapy and as an anti-racist educator in laying out therapeutic advice on how to understand and counter anti-black racism. It's been described as a "powerful wake up call" (P...
Sep 10, 2021•54 min
Ep 37: A terrible secret - Alison Croggon is an award-winning novelist, poet, theatre writer, critic and editor living in Melbourne, Australia. Her latest book "Monsters" is a memoir exploring the impact of whiteness within a family when the uncovering of a colonialist heritage evokes anger and denial within an already fraught relationship. It's been described by the Guardian as "an unsparing cultural and self-reckoning". She joins me to talk white guilt, the legacy of empire and confronting one...
Aug 13, 2021•41 min
Ep 36: Whiteness and psychiatry - Dr. Aruna Khilanani is a forensic psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, whose speech at Yale university, "The Psychopathic Problem of the White Mind", gained global attention after this quote was made public and sensationalised: "I had fantasies of unloading a revolver into the head of any white person that got in my way, burying their body and wiping my bloody hands as I walked away, relatively guiltless with a bounce in my step". She joins me to discuss the fallout,...
Aug 06, 2021•59 min
Ep 35: Whiteness and sport - Prof Ben Carrington is widely regarded as one the world’s leading scholars on the sociology of race and culture, with a focus on popular culture and sport. He joins me to discuss reactions to England's Euro final defeat, sports as a space to re-imagine identity, and who sets the standard for womanhood when it comes to elite athletes?
Jul 30, 2021•1 hr 21 min
Ep 34: Climate Change is racist - Jeremy Williams is one of the UK’s leading environmental voices, a writer, activist and author of “Climate Change is Racist: Race, Privilege and the Struggle for Climate Justice”. He joins me to talk about climate change and white privilege, polluter elites, the link between the climate crisis and colonialism and slavery and what we can all learn about being a 'good ancestor'.
Jul 23, 2021•46 min
Ep 33: Brown baby - In his latest book, writer and author Nikesh Shukla has shared his story of raising mixed ethnicity daughters in modern Britain - he joins me to talk about whiteness and parenting, 'authentic' asian characters in books, and the limits of representation politics.
Jul 16, 2021•45 min
Ep 32: Nice Racism - Her book ‘White Fragility’ kicked off heated debates on how we think about white responses to racism and sparked an international conversation on whiteness. Now she's back with a new book, already causing a stir, entitled “Nice racism”. For this episode, we welcome back anti-racism scholar, educator and NYT bestselling author, Dr Robin di-Angelo to talk about what she wants to add to the whiteness conversation .
Jul 09, 2021•51 min
Episode 31: Whiteness and identity politics - How should our identity shape our politics? What is the space for class in conversation on race? And does our ‘rights-based framework’ confuse emancipation and victimhood? Author of “Mistaken Identity” founding editor of Viewpoint Magazine Asad Haider weighs in.
Jun 18, 2021•48 min
Ep 30: Whiteness and Muslim women – Award-winning poet and writer Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan knows a thing or two about disrupting boundaries – we talk radical politics, whiteness and Islam and the securitisation of Muslims. Is secularity a facet of whiteness? Why is the media so obsessed with Muslim women skateboarding? And is there still hope for the decolonising movement?
Jun 11, 2021•52 min
Ep 29: Whiteness and teenage diaries - Tez Ilyas is one of the most celebrated stars in British comedy, you’ll have seen him Live at The Apollo , on the BBC’s Mock the Week or possibly on the hit BBC3 series Man Like Mobeen - comedian extraordinaire, talk show host and now author, of a wonderful new book titled “The secret diary of a British Muslim – aged 13 ¾” - so why do we need to hear the teenage thoughts of a British Pakistani Muslim from Blackburn? Tez tells all.
May 21, 2021•55 min
Ep 28: Whiteness and family - Georgina Lawton is a columnist, host, and the author of “Raceless”, a powerful memoir of growing up in a family with a deep secret which would lead to what she describes as “an erasure of her racial identity.” We discuss whiteness in the family, the pitfalls of ‘colour blind’ parenting, and how her own family secret mirrors the many secrets the UK isn’t quite ready to confront.
Apr 30, 2021•45 min
Ep 27: Whiteness and migrants – The UK depends on migrants for many of our key services, from food to transport, and of course the National Health Service. And yet, immigration is often rated as Britain’s ‘most important issue’ with almost half of Brits favouring less of it, a serious cleavage point since Brexit. Dr Suzanne Hall is Associate Professor in Sociology at the LSE and an interdisciplinary urban scholar. Her work connects the asymmetries of global migration and urban marginalisation, e...
Apr 26, 2021•53 min
Ep 26: Whiteness and LGBTQ+ communities. Dr Kevin Nadal is a professor of psychology, queer activist and one of the leading researchers on the impact of micro aggressions. He has published over 100 works in the fields of psychology and education and is the author of several books including Filipino American Psychology: A Handbook of Theory, Research, and Clinical Practice as well as “Queering Law and Order”. Dr Nadal joins me to discuss white normativity in sexuality, micro aggressions and the r...
Apr 16, 2021•1 hr 1 min
Ep 25: Whiteness and coalition - Emma Dabiri is an Irish-Nigerian activist, broadcaster and academic - Her latest book “What white people can do next: from allyship to coalition” has been described as “as though it’s written by the love child of James Connolly and Audre Lorde”- she joins me to discuss anti-racism vs liberation, the invention of whiteness and why the revolution won’t be instagram-lived.
Apr 08, 2021•46 min
Ep 24: Whiteness and anti-Asian hate - Christine Liwag Dixon is a Filipino American writer and musician, and the Content Director of Samahan, an online multimedia platform dedicated to connecting Filipinos across the globe. She’s a columnist at the Filipino Star News and the author of a poetry collection, titled “From These Islands I Rise.” She joins me to discuss rising anti-Asian racism, the hyper-sexualisation of East and South-East Asian women and whiteness in the family.
Apr 02, 2021•1 hr 1 min
Ep 23: Whiteness and how to talk about it - Eugene Ellis is the founder and director of the Black, African and Asian Therapy Network, the UK's largest independent organisation working therapeutically with Black, Africa, Caribbean and South Asian people. In this episode, we discuss his new book “The race conversation: an essential guide to creating life changing dialogue”, the challenges in talking about race and how to find your voice.
Mar 26, 2021•1 hr 12 min
Episode 22: Whiteness and motherhood - Prof Elizabeth McRae is an American historian and the author of award winning book “Mothers of Massive Resistance: White Women and the Politics of White Supremacy” which explores - among other things – how motherhood has been wielded in the service of white supremacy. In this episode, we examine gender and racism - what role have women played in upholding racial segregation in America, are white liberals 'exempt' from racism, and can motherly care act as a ...
Mar 19, 2021•1 hr 7 min
Ep 21: Whiteness and culture wars – Prof Barnor Hesse is Associate Professor of African American Studies, Political Science, and Sociology at Northwestern University (USA) and a man who has found himself at the centre of the “culture wars” after a list of 8 white identities he’d devised became headline news, leading to a campaign of intimidation and hate, which has included threats against his life. So what are the 'culture wars' really about, why are they so virulent, and what can we learn from...
Mar 11, 2021•1 hr
Ep 20: Whiteness and denial - Dr Gauthier Marchais is a French Research Fellow at the Institute of Development Studies, at the University of Sussex, where he works on social transformation in contexts of violent conflict. He is the author of ‘Le Deni Blanc: Penser autrement la question raciale’ aka White Denial: How to think differently about the question of race, published in January 2021 in French and soon to be published in English under the title “Leaving the White House”.
Mar 01, 2021•59 min
Ep 19: Whiteness and UK BLM - Dr Adam Elliott-Cooper is an organiser with UK BLM and a researcher in Applied Sociology at the University of Greenwich, whose research focuses on policing and anti-racism. In this episode, we explore the relationship between Britishness and whiteness, UK BLM and the campaign to defund the police.
Feb 19, 2021•1 hr 2 min
Episode 18: Whiteness and publishing – Sudanese-Australian writer and award-winning social advocate, Yassmin Abdel-Magied is the author of 3 books, including her latest "Listen Layla" (2021). She was one of the 2020 LinkedIn Changemakers, and is a globally sought-after advisor on issues of social justice, focused on the intersections of race, gender and faith. In this episode, we unpick the whiteness Yassmin has encountered in the world of publishing, whether fiction authors should write from th...
Feb 03, 2021•1 hr 5 min
Episode 17: Whiteness and feminism – Ruby Hamad’s first book tackles the power of white tears – how have white women wielded their innocence against women of colour and how has that ‘innocence’ been used to buttress white supremacy? The Washington Post described it as “a stunning and thorough look at White womanhood that should be required reading for anyone.” WHITE TEARS/BROWN SCARS traces the role that White Womanhood and feminism have played in the development of Western power structures and ...
Jan 29, 2021•1 hr 12 min
ep16: Whiteness and the Decolonise Britain movement - Dr Foluke Ifejola Adebisi is a Senior Lecturer at the Law School, University of Bristol where her scholarship focuses on decolonial thought in legal education. In recognition of her work, in October 2018, Foluke was included in the Bristol BAME Powerlist 2018 - A list of Bristol's 100 most inspiring people from BAME backgrounds. She is also the founder of Forever Africa Conference and Events (FACE), a Pan-African interdisciplinary conference ...
Jan 22, 2021•55 min
ep15: Whiteness and France - Internationally acclaimed French journalist, writer, and award-winning filmmaker Rokhaya Diallo is a pioneer in French media. The author of multiple books including "Racism : a guide" (2011), À Nous la France (France is ours/2012), and How to Speak to Kids About Laïcité, her most recent books "France: Either You Love it or You Shut it" is a response to her experiences in the media over her career. In this episode, she joins Dr Myriam Francois to unpick the relationsh...
Jan 05, 2021•1 hr
