Strange Fruit

When we talk about racism and sexism, we often talk about women and people of color. But what does it mean to be an informed, empathetic, white man? That's the question posed by a series of workshops in San Francisco called "Stepping Up." Unlike many diversity and inclusion programs, this one is specifically designed for white men, and lead by white men. During the sessions, students can ask questions anonymously through an app, to lessen the fear of asking or saying something racist or sexist. Paul Mann founded Stepping Up, and he joins us this week to talk abut why it's important for white guys to take responsibility for teaching each other about racism and sexism (not to rely on women and people of color to do the educating), and some of the backlash he's gotten so far.

She's featured on Beyoncé's "Formation" and in Drake's song "Nice for What." You've heard her voice and most definitely heard her influence. But there's a good chance you don't know what Big Freedia looks like. Popular (and mainstream) artists like Bey and Drake are quick to use Big Freedia on their songs, but never feature the Queen of Bounce in their videos.  "You know, my voice be on a lot of different stuff and people want to use bounce music as a part of their music, but when it comes to the proper recognition of me being in the video, that's something that we're steady working towards to make it happen," Freedia said in an interview with Fader in April. Myles Johnson (Janelle Monáe recently called him "one of the greatest writers of this generation," no big deal) recently wrote about it in an essay called "The Ghost of Big Freedia." He joins us this week to talk about the erasure of Big Freedia and the history of pop music taking from more marginalized artists without proper credit.

It's almost Derby Week, and there's already a lot going on in Louisville! So this week, we're doing an all-Juicy-Fruit news round-up. We cover Shania Twain putting her cowgirl boot in her mouth with fans, the Philadelphia Police Chief's misunderstanding of coffee shop culture, why girls' and women's clothes don't have pockets, and more.

During WWII, while a large swath of the male population was fighting overseas, women at home went to work. The feminist narrative might say this was the beginning of women's escape from domestic drudgery -- a first glimpse of what it might be like to be financially independent and self-supporting. Who does this narrative leave out? Black women, for whom staying at home to focus on childcare and household management wasn't necessarily an option even before the war. Instead, many black women did that same type of work, in white households instead of their own. Through the 1900s, a majority of domestic workers in the U.S. were black women. Their wages were low and they had little recourse if they encountered harassment on the job (Rosa Parks survived an attempted rape while working as a housekeeper). Scholar and activist Ashley Nkadi joins us this week to talk about the history of black domestic workers in the U.S. And in Juicy Fruit, we tackle Taylor Swift's gentrification of a cookout classic.

Backpage.com, a classified ad service similar to Craigslist, was seized by the U.S. Department of Justice last week, and abruptly wiped off of the internet.   Attorney General Jeff Sessions called the site, "the dominant marketplace for illicit commercial sex, a place where sex traffickers frequently advertised children and adults alike." Backpage was targeted by SESTA, the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act, which was recently passed by the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. Craigslist recently removed their personal ads too, for fear of being targeted by a similar bill.  Supporters say this legislation will protect children and other victims of human trafficking; the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children says around 74 percent of the reports they've gotten about child sex trafficking were based on postings from Backpage. Opponents say the act constitutes censorship and could pose a threat to sex workers. Sex workers have said that services like Backpage and Craigslist allowed them to more carefully screen clients, and that the new law will lead to more street-based soliciting, which poses more danger. Most of these conversations have been framed through a heterocentric lens, focused on cisgender women and girls as potential victims. But lots of queer, and especially transgender people rely on sex work as their primary means of income and survival — and online ads are a big part of finding, screening and maintaining clientele.  This week, trans activist and writer Londyn De Richelieu joins us this week to explain SESTA, how it works and how it's affecting consenting sex workers.

If you rely on public transportation in Louisville, it might limit not only how long it takes you to get where you're going, but also where you're able to work, and live. A story by WFPL's Amina Elahi looks into how bus routes affect the lives of those who commute on them.  Amina joins us this week to play some excerpts from her radio piece, and tell us more about what she learned in reporting it. You can read her story here: http://nextlouisville.wfpl.org/2018/04/03/the-next-louisville-when-bus-routes-determine-job-prospects/ We also talk about the Roseanne reboot, and a fruitcake suggests a new brand of ice cream to replace Jai's old favorite, which was tragically discontinued.

"A house is a gay street gang,” Dorian Corey explains in our favorite movie, "Paris is Burning." "Now, where street gangs get their rewards from street fights, a gay house street-fights at a ball." The House of Corey founder was speaking in metaphor, but as it turns out, there really are gay street gangs. And criminology professor Vanessa Panfill interviewed over 50 of them for her book, "The Gang's All Queer." Her book focuses on how they formed their gay identity, how (and whether) they came out, and what factors lead them to join or form a street gang. Panfill joins us on this week's show to share what she learned about this part of the gay community, and how they negotiate their lives as gay men in gangs.

Dr. Kimya Dennis is a sociologist and criminologist who does a lot of community outreach about mental health. And when she does presentations for African-American and non-white Hispanic communities, she says she gets some push back when it comes to talking about suicide prevention. Dennis says in those groups, which are often overlooked by the mental health community, suicide is often seen as a white people problem. "In the African-American community, there’s a tendency to label suicide and mental health conditions as 'crazy' or evidence that you aren’t praying enough," she writes. Ideas about strength an masculinity may also come into play. "African-American boys and men are even more likely to be labeled 'weak' and 'not a real man' when in need of help." Dennis says that can prevent them from seeking mental health care when they need it. So can the stereotype of the "strong black woman." "Strong black woman has different definitions depending on who is reading that," she says. "For those of us in black communities who are critical of this, it means pressure to be strong. It means pressure to risk your own self-care and health for the sake of saving everybody else." Dr. Dennis tells us more about all this -- and problems she sees in how suicide date is collected in the first place -- on this week's show. And we also speak with Wesleyan psychology professor Dr. Clara Wilkins about her recent essay, "The Dangerous Belief That White People Are Under Attack."

Chicago dominatrix Mistress Velvet didn't intentionally build her practice around dominating white men. But she was living in a predominantly white part of North Carolina at the time, and most of the people who could afford to hire her, fit that demographic. "It just happened to be that a lot of my clients were white men," she says, "and they were just really awful." One client said he appreciated that she was so well educated. "I've had black mistresses in the past," he told her, "but they were often ghetto." At the same time, she said he seemed to be struggling with a lot of white guilt. She figured he needed some education himself -- and he happened to be paying her to tell him what to do. So she ordered him to read an essay by Patricia Hill Collins on the importance of black feminist theory. "It just gave me so much life," she says. "He was on his knees, at my feet, reading an essay to me, and I'm like snapping the whole time -- at least internally. You know, I have to keep up my persona of being very cold." She decided she wanted to be doing more of that kind of work, and now Mistress Velvet specializes in dominating white men and teaching them black feminist theory. Depending on the client, she says the assignments can be used as a treat or a punishment. Mistress Velvet joins us to talk about her work, mainstream perceptions of BDSM, and how race and racism plays into intimate power dynamics. We also have a conversation this week with poet, teacher, and self-described "queer black troublemaker" Alexis Pauline Gumbs. Her newest book, "M Archive," is told from the point of view of a future researcher, looking back on the antiblackness of late capitalism. The publisher describes it as "a series of poetic artifacts that speculatively documents the persistence of Black life following a worldwide cataclysm."

It's not unusual to see homoeroticism in hypermasculine spaces - like the locker room, the wrestling ring, or the military barracks. But what about the barbershop? It's a social and community hub and where black masculinity is centered. But you''ll also encounter homophobia there, and for many queer black men, it doesn't feel like a safe space. So where does that leave LGBTQ black men who need that sense of community (or just a haircut)? We talk about the black barbershop - good and bad - on this week's show. Our guest is Da'Shaun Harrison, who recently tackled the subject in an essay for the Black Youth Project. Plus, actor Lee Doud joins us to talk about anti-Asian bias in the gay community, particularly when it comes to dating and desire.

Louisville photographer Sowande Malone joins us this week, because he doesn't just take pictures - he's also a huge comic book fan. Together we unpack all things "Black Panther," including how gender and sexuality play out in the movie. And since it's the movie that launched a thousand think pieces, we talk about those too - even the ones we don't agree with.

The 45th Dr. Joseph H. McMillan National Black Family Conference is happening in Louisville later this month, and this year's theme is "Elevating the Health and Safety of the Black Family and Community." Sybrina Fulton, Trayvon Martin's mother, will deliver a keynote speech at the conference, and she joins us on this week's show to talk about her advocacy work, and her son's legacy. We also check in with Monique Judge from The Root, about an article she recently published about homophobia and what she called "toxic black masculinity." And in a shocking Valentine's Day revelation, we learn that Jai still pokes people on Facebook.

What is after Earth for women? That's the question science fiction author Author Olivia A. Cole has in mind for her latest project, "Kindred: Making Space in Space." And unlike much of her previous work, this isn't a book. It's an art exhibition featuring poetry, short fiction, visual art, and even music and dance, all created by Kentucky women from ages 10-21. Cole joins us on this week's show to talk about the women writers who have inspired her, and how she hopes to encourage other girls and women to carry the science and speculative fiction mantle into the future. We also reclaim some time this week to talk with Clarkisha Kent about an article she wrote for The Root, "Top 10 Moments Black People Won in 2017." And our favorite fellow word nerd Grant Barrett catches us up on the American Dialect Society's Words of the Year for 2017, from covfefe to caucasity.

This week we talk to author and poet Kyla Jenee Lacey, whose essay, "Why I'm Open to Dating Bisexual Men," was published last month on The Root. At first glance, it might seen biphobic that we even need a headline like that, but it's apparently still A Thing. Or as Lacey says, "It’s 2018, in the year of our lord and savior Robyn Rihanna Fenty, and people are still 7-year-olds when it comes to sexual fluidity." Lacey calls it the "one-drop rule" approach to sexual fluidity, and here's how she describes it: "If a man has sex with one man and 100 women, we will still erroneously view him as gay and not bisexual, or sexually fluid, or even just a heterosexual man who experimented with a man and came to the conclusion that he didn’t like men. Women, on the other hand can have a whole bachelor’s, master’s and doctorate phase of having had sex with women and then turn around and reclaim their heterosexuality." As you might imagine, there's a lot to unpack here, including ideas of masculinity, whether a man who has sex with men is less masculine in the eyes of straight women, and even what counts and doesn't count as "real" sex. Lacy joins us on this week's show to help us make sense of it all, and to talk about the very robust response her essay provoked online. We also get a visit this week from Sasha Renee, Louisville's premier femme-C (femme MC, for the uninitiated). She has a new single out called, "My City." She stops by the studio this week to chat about her work, her life, and how she negotiated coming out, as an already-active solo artist in the hip-hop world.

It happens, to some extent, every single day. People of color are exposed to racism in many ways -- from watching footage of police shootings, to experiencing racism in our own communities. Psychologists call it "racial trauma," and it can change the way our brains and bodies relate to, and process, the world around us. Psychologist Dr. Carlton Green joins us on this week's show to tell us more about racial trauma, how to cope with it. and how mental health professionals are learning to treat it.