Podcast Pearls {01}

So I love podcasts, and every once in a while I listen to one that I want to blast from the rooftops for all to hear. Sometimes because it made me guffaw awkwardly around my co-workers in the lab, or because it is a fantastic story or because it made me rethink my worldview. One particular podcast this week applies to the latter.

It's from an NPR station called Code Switch. This is a relatively recent podcast which tackles issues of race and culture in modern society, hosted by people of color who interview other people of color. They don't point fingers, only explain their experiences and issues that white people like me are slow to recognize. They don't make me feel bad for being white, but rather attempt to point out issues I would never think of because I've never be persecuted for the color of my skin. I want to take a minute to express why I appreciate podcasts of this nature.

I grew up in a small town in Eastern Washington. Not the so-green-you-feel-like-you-just-walked-into-Oz'-Emerald-City part, not the desert-goodness-gracious-so-many-wheat-fields part, but the part with 8 swimmable lakes around within a quick drive, the pull over to the side of the road and hike up a mountain to camp out, the part where you lose cell reception 15 minutes out of town part. It was beautiful and rural and often pretty redneck. My hometown is quirky. Its residents have this habit of a.) growing up there and never leaving and b.) growing up there, getting out, and inevitably moving back. It's in the bylines of the city handbook that growing up in Newport makes you a boomerang to end up there. I've gone through all the ebbs and flows of love and hate with this place, and have settled somewhere closer to the "love" side of the spectrum. But growing up in this podunk town gave me a myopic view of the world. I will be the first to admit. We had few people of color, so most of us didn't have a whole lot of interaction with people who looked different than us.  

Fortunately, I have the kind of people in my life who challenge my privileged view of the world. I have people who have taught me to check my privilege. Yeah, I don't care if you're sick of hearing this. but really, we need to check our privilege and be an advocate for other people who breathe the same air we do.

I strive to be well-informed and to form personal opinions using information from a variety of sources. However, I will be the first to admit that I am woefully ignorant when it comes to issues of racism and bigotry. I have lived in rural, white Washington my whole life, and now I live in slightly more POC-populated, but still largely white Utah. I know racism is bad, but I don't always have the acute perception to recognize it. I don't have any personal experience to connect me to what happens in Ferguson. No, I can't judge that because I have not lived there, and I do not understand what it's like. I have not had to go head-to-head with issues of race. Therefore, I am grateful for outlets like NPR's Code Switch podcast to make me aware and teaches me more empathy about people who have vastly different experiences from me. 

One particular episode of Code Switch, called "I Don't Know If I Like This, But I Want It to Win," from last week expressed this inner turmoil that people of color have when a new television show or movie comes out featuring their people. There are so few television shows that have a POC as the main character (not a lacky, not a co-star, but the plot centers around them) that when one finally comes out, you feel this obligation to like it. You want it to succeed so there can be more shows like this, but what if you just don't like it? Whether it's badly written, or it's not your sense of humor, or if you don't feel you can relate to the characters. What if you don't like it, it bombs, and that broadcasting company doesn't let another POC show through for years to come? 

This happened to Jeff Yang, a Korean TV critic who tore apart a show from the 90s called All-American Girl, which was about a Korean-American family. His review was so stinging, the show was cancelled and it took two decades for the network to sponsor another Korean-American show--which ironically, stars Jeff Yang's son. Irony, much? 

I don't know what it's like to watch television and not see any heroines who look like me. I don't know what it's like to feel compelled to relate to a character just because they're the only one who represents my racial identity on the media. I have a wide variety of white women with a lot of varying personalities to choose my role models from. I'm not saying you have to like a black character if you're black, but I can see it would be frustrating if that is the only representation you get. 

I can say I am getting a little bored with it all. I mean, we are a worldwide culture. We hear news of people all across the globe, and we need to get used to the idea that we, white people, don't have a right to rule the world.  I want to see more culture and more people of color in the media. It adds much needed diversity, and will honestly really help eliminate a lot of un-recognized racism. It helps people who may not realize they're racist see POC as people. I know it's getting better, but it's 2016. I should be able to go to a movie and see more than one movie previewed with people of color as the protagonist-- not just an antagonist or sidekick. But I'm not. 

We went to a movie the other day and I noticed all of the previews for upcoming flicks were about white people. The only preview with POC was one about Latinos, and it was primarily about drug wars. I don't know how helpful to the stereotype this is. The only POC in the movie we watched were "sidekicks" to muscular, masculine white men. I'm tired. I'm tired of knowing there is a richer culture out there and not seeing it. I hate having to look for it. And you shouldn't have to, you know? 

If you have a half hour, whether it's on your commute to work, when you're washing dishes, or on your morning run, give it a listen! It's worth your time.