Dallas and Houston both reporting slowdowns at airports as unpaid TSA workers call in sick. Now a call for airport screeners to go on strike. We’ll explore. Also, what’s worse than a partial government shutdown? Ask someone living in the UK right now. Why an impasse over Brexit could leave a mark here in Texas and what happens next. Also the discovery of three new species of salamanders in Texas, what it means for Texans of the human variety. Those stories and more today on the Texas Standard:
racism
KUT Weekend – February 23, 2018
This time, a three-part series on maternal deaths in Texas and how to reduce them.
Texas Standard: December 5, 2017
Lawmakers thought they’d fixed the voter ID question in Texas. Today, the state defends the new law in federal court, we’ll have the latest. Also, when hurricane Harvey made landfall, Rockport took it on the chin. As people talk about rebuilding in other parts of Texas, the question for Rockport is far more stark: can it survive? With its tax base disappearing, the mayor’s literally counting the days until coffers hit zero. Plus: four juvenile justice groups call for the state to close its youth lockups. The response from the top? You might be surprised. And a surprising study on racism south of the border. Those stories and a whole lot more today on the Texas Standard:
Texas Standard: July 5, 2017
North Korea has launched a rocket that can reach the United States. It’s a game changer, says a top Texas expert on national security, we’ll have the latest. Also, if you’re a retired teacher living in Texas, stay healthy, because the other option is about to get a whole lot more expensive. Troubling holes in a statewide safety net. And the comments that rocked college station: 5 years after an A&M professors remarks about race and violence, the dust is far from settled. We’ll hear the what and why. And a Grammy winning troubadour on leaving Texas in the rear view mirror and the close ties that bind him to home. You might second the emotion…all those stories and a whole lot more today on the Texas Standard:
Dr. Harold Young (Ep. 17, 2017)
In Black America producer and host John L. Hanson, Jr. speaks with Dr. Harold Young, assistant professor in the department of Political Science at Austin Peay University and author of Incoming Fire From All Directions: Microaggressions Faced By Students and Faculty of Color.
Steven Thrasher (Ep. 5)
Steven Thrasher is a writer for the guardian and a PhD student in American Studies at New York University. In this conversation with University of Texas Sociology Professor Ben Carrington, Thrasher discusses his first encounter with Stuart Hall’s work.
The interview provides insight into Hall’s intellectual reach. Thrasher shares how his engagement with Hall comes from a journalistic perspective. Having first read the British intellectual in his American Studies classes, Thrasher discloses feeling initially confused about why a British scholar would be relevant to American Studies. However, he found Policing the Crisis to be especially important for his thinking about covering the aftermath of Michael Brown’s shooting and the ongoing Black Lives Matter movement.
The conversation includes a discussion of how being a public intellectual is not limited to the academy, but also how Hall created a space in which black people can take up the space of public intellectual. Likewise, Thrasher and Carrington comment on the importance of popular media as a “gatekeeper of intellectual space” and Twitter is posited as a useful platform for making intellectual interventions in the public sphere.
-Anima Adjepong
Gary Younge (Ep. 2)
In his interview with Gary Younge, editor at large for The Guardian, UT Austin Professor Ben Carrington begins with a reflection on Younge’s article following Stuart Hall’s passing entitled, “Stuart Hall: A Class Warrior and a Class Act.” Younge praises Hall for not being interested in sounding clever or performing academic stardom.
This is particularly notable because, according to Younge, it is common for academic stars in the current era to say things that are catchy, “like dangling baubles that make people sit up and think you’re clever.” On the contrary, Hall had a “soft and nurturing presence” and wanted to be useful rather than dominating.
This was evidenced in the way that Hall would “almost appear without a trace when he came into a room.” Younge first became aware of Stuart Hall when he was 7 or 8 through Hall’s position at the Open University, but then became more familiar with his work reading Marxism Today, especially “New Times.”
In addition to the relevance of his ideas, Younge reflects on how meaningful it was to see a black man as an intellectual who could say what he had to say but also keep his integrity intact. For Younge, it was significant that Hall did not appear embittered or insecure, that he “seemed happy in his skin” and that “he didn’t have to put someone else down in order to build himself up.”
Younge remembers his last communication with Hall, which was an exchange over Younge’s “Ethical World Cup.” Commenting on the loss of Hall, Younge states that while “there was never a time where we didn’t need him… arguably we need him now more than ever, though I guess that was always true.”
-Maggie Tate
The Peasantry: Blain Snipstal (Ep. 13)
Raj Patel, Tom Philpott and Rebecca McInroy talk with peasant farmer Blain Snipstal about the history of agriculture and racism in America, power, food sovereignty, La Via Campesina, land, and much more.
Texas Standard: February 17, 2016
The fallout continues over what’s being called a racist incident on the Texas A&M campus. A Texas Senator calling the college students involved: gang members. Also, private prisons in Texas now could be licensed as a type of child care facility. We’ll unpack the details. Plus does an uptick in sales at brick and mortar bookstores indicate a turnaround in the trend toward e-books? And we’ll introduce you to a Texas author whose profile is about to rise. And we’ll hear why East Texas is the only place he’s interested in calling home. That and more… on today’s Texas Standard:
A Tribute to Alex Haley (Ep. 09, 2016)
In Black America presents a 1988 interview with the late Alex Haley, the acclaimed writer best known as the author of “Roots: The Saga of an American Family,” and “The Autobiography of Malcolm X.”
Pancakes: Toni-Tipton Martin (Ep. 2)
In this episode of Views and Brews we’ll tour over 100 years of southern cooking with Toni-Tipton Martin author of The Jemima Code: Two Centuries of African American Cookbooks! Join KUT’s Rebecca McInroy, along with food writers and hosts of KUT’s newest podcast The Secret Ingredient, Tom Philpott and Raj Patel, as we explore the rich social, political, and economic history of the south, through food.
V&B – Jemima Code/The Secret Ingredient Launch
In this episode of Views and Brews we’ll tour over 100 years of southern cooking with Toni-Tipton Martin author of The Jemima Code: Two Centuries of African American Cookbooks! Join KUT’s Rebecca McInroy, along with food writers and hosts of KUT’s newest podcast The Secret Ingredient, Tom Philpott and Raj Patel, as we explore the rich social, political, and economic history of the south, through food.
V&B: Race in America
In this episode of Views & Brews, KUT’s Rebecca McInroy talks with UT Professors Bob Jensen, Eric Tang, Rich Reddick, and Ixchel Rosal about the climate of racial tension in America following the shooting in Charleston, South Carolina.
Strange Fruit (4.19.15)
“Strange Fruit” is a song, made famous by Billie Holiday, who would often sing it to close her shows when she would perform, discouraging applause from the audience when she sang it. Holiday had a difficult time recording the song, but upon the urging of her friends at Commodore Records, she recorded it for the first time on April 20th, 1939. She was harassed by the FBI and other authorities for singing it, but refused to stop.
Originally written as a poem in 1937 by Abel Meeropol, to protest against American racism and the lynching of African Americans in the south just after the turn of the century, it remains a stark reminder of America’s scars of slavery, bigotry, discrimination, and hatred.
Holiday’s legacy is directly connected to “Strange Fruit”, and Nina Simone said of the song, that it was about the ugliest song she had ever heard, and would later marvel. “Ugly in the sense that it is violent and tears at the guts of what white people have done to my people in this country.”
In this edition of Liner Notes, Rabbi and jazz historian Neil Blumofe, talks about what the lamentation of “Strange Fruit” can teach us today, about injustice, humanity, protest, and peace.
Race In America
Race in America
This month’s episode recognizes Black History Month by bringing together several scholars for a discussion of race in contemporary America. As we look back on 2014, we celebrate the achievements of African-Americans, but we also find racial inequality and abuses of power and privilege that continue to endanger and oppress non-white Americans. We must also ask ourselves: Where are we, as a nation, in our ongoing debates regarding race? Among other inquiries, host Rebecca McInroy asks these In Perspective discussants which conversations about race are most productive to pursue.
The Discussion
Cherise Smith is a professor of art history and Director of the John L. Warfield Center for African and African American Studies at The University of Texas at Austin. Smith reminds us that while the effects of racial discrimination are very real, race is also a social construction that gets piled onto other issues of power and identity, including gender, class, and education.
Rich Reddick is a professor of educational administration and Faculty Director for Campus Diversity Initiatives at UT Austin. Reddick argues that we need to have more general conversations about race, rather than rely on reactionary discussions, in order to help us work through and understand ongoing institutional racism.
Eric Tang is a professor of African and African diaspora studies and Asian American studies at UT Austin. For Tang, race is a set of practices, which assign values and power to certain bodies based on individual daily life, as well as policy. He brings to our attention the significance of race in how Austin has changed over time.
Regina Lawrence is a professor of journalism at UT Austin and author of The Politics of Force: Media and the Construction of Police Brutality. For Lawrence, conversations about race begin with a shared language and a greater sense of empathy—something she finds lacking in discussions driven by social media where earnest conversation can be foreclosed by a culture of shaming.
What’s your perspective?
Race is a sensitive issue in this country to say the least. It is a complicated social construction that keeps us divided through institutionalized means, via the daily reproduction of social conventions, and via the easy reliance on harmful stereotypes. While we engage in this discussion during Black History Month, it is clear that race impacts all our lives regardless of how we might identify and regardless of how others categorize us. When we understand race in relation to power and privilege, we begin to see how it plays out in our daily experiences. How does race impact your daily life.