Amanda Seales’ Small Doses and other podcasts explore the Black Lives Matter movement
Aux Features Podcasts
Opinions While Black
“15 Minutes”
If there was ever a time for African Americans to get drunk and complain about why we still have to remind folk that Black Lives Matter, it’s right now. Actually, the hosts of this weekly podcast have already been doing that for a couple years now. On each episode, Black Nerd Problems writer Oz Longworth Jr. and Damien Randle (from the Houston hip-hop group K-Otix) imbibe while riffing on the news, pop culture, and, of course, what’s happening with Black folk. And since this ep was recorded a couple of weeks ago, when the country started to become a battleground of protesters and cops following the murder of George Floyd, Oz and D. Randle gladly let it rip for a couple of hours. Along with being fed up, they also trash Jay-Z for his delayed response to the unrest, go off on Lil Wayne and Shameik Moore for their weak takes, tell the NFL to fuck off for taking the same stand that got Colin Kaepernick chased out of the league, and try to figure out why the hell Diddy included Amy Schumer in his online “emergency family meeting.” As they say on Opinions While Black, pour up. [Craig D. Lindsey]
Polar Opposites
Performative Activism & George Floyd #BlackLivesMatter
The revolution is here, and thank god Polar Opposites knows that laughter is a necessary ingredient of liberation. Normally host Justin is joined by a guest, someone to contrast his millennial Nigerian vibes, but this time he goes it alone, examining the current moment and how he finds it reflected (or not) in pop culture. The airwaves are currently full of voices weighing in on the American Spring, but this podcast stands out: Justin has a gift for asking hard questions, then reveling in the funny shit he finds in the darkness. If you don’t know what performative activism looks like, or you’re wondering why and how Blackout Tuesday was misinterpreted on Instagram, you’ve got a friend to help you out. And if you’re bummed that some of your favorite Black entertainers remain silent even as their product capitalizes on the movement, Justin has tea to spill on that. Polar Opposites is here to make sure you’re not laughing at the audacity alone. [Morgan McNaught]
Small Doses With Amanda Seales
Uprising: A Small Doses Forum (Part 1)
On Small Doses, comedian Amanda Seales (Insecure) talks about whatever the hell she feels like, which usually includes railing against racism, the patriarchy, and just plain corny shit in general. In this episode, Seales invites listeners onto the show to discuss various aspects of the uprising that has spread throughout the country in the wake of George Floyd’s murder. One listener voices her concern about voting and the perceived indifference amongst younger people who might not see voting as a real force for change. While Seales agrees that voting is important, she also understands that simply telling people to vote is not the cure for America’s ills. There’s also a discussion of disagreements within the Black community over the protests: Seales feels that property damage is incidental to human life but recognizes that Black Americans are not a monolith on this or any other subject. Most of all, it’s important to have these discussions and disagreements without trying to silence each other, because silencing has always been the tool of the oppressor. [Anthony D Herrera]
Throughline
American Police
NPR’s Throughline examines a given topic throughout history, from its origins to how it exists today. But in this episode on the American police system, the first thing emphasized is that there isn’t as much history here as one might expect. The system as we know it is only a few hundred years old, and it arose as a mechanism to enforce slavery and control the enslaved; the hosts explain how America’s system of law enforcement has remained shockingly stagnant across centuries of progress. Throughline examines history to explain how we got to where we are, and this week’s topic lends itself particularly well to the premise. Brutality isn’t a new issue within police ranks; it is the origin of those ranks, the root of their existence. And the serious concerns raised by modern protests have spanned the decades as well. [Wil Williams]
Looking for ways to advocate for Black lives? Check out this list of resources by our sister site Lifehacker for ways to get involved.
4 Comments
Let no aspect of your life be untouched by people screaming about how you personally are the cause of systematic racism and should feel awful.
Never liked her low-key noble opinion.
The fuck? Is Jussie Emmett Till in her scenario but reversed? What a strange opinion.
Professional police forces weren’t around when the country was founded, but when they were it was more in northern cities. As William Stuntz pointed out in “The Collapse of American Criminal Justice”, the north had a more formalized criminal justice system, whereas the south and west had less of what we’d call “state capacity” and relied on more informal means like lynch mobs. This means that by the time the Supreme Court got to rule on cases like the Scotsboro boys, that actually meant the system had improved (victims of lynching can’t be freed on appeal). Throughline claim that the first police force was in London, but in fact the word “police” was borrowed from French, because Louis XIV had established such a force in the 17th century.
The Klan (in its original form) is even less analogous to a formal police force, because they were insurrectionists against the Reconstruction governments in those places, until they were put down. The second and most popular (as in, outside the south, despite how that NPR episode might characterize it) Klan was unlike the original Klan or actual police. As Fryer and Levitt put it “Rather than a terrorist organization, the 1920s Klan is best described as a social organization built through a wildly successful pyramid scheme fueled by an army of highly-incentivized sales agents selling hatred, religious intolerance, and fraternity in a time and place where there was tremendous demand”.I was hoping Khalil would push back on the parallel made between early northern police and slave patrols, but he didn’t. It had already been pointed out that these police were often immigrants themselves, so they weren’t separate from their subjects like slave patrols (who couldn’t very well “infiltrate” them as undercover police would do). Their job wasn’t to catch people going around without passes. They were corrupt, but that’s not the accusation against slave patrols. Similarly, the host tries to spin the discussion about the early 20th century race riots to being about the police, when the rioters are mostly civilians and the police aren’t playing that big of a role. I was also disappointed that they left out the need for taxes which incentivized the end of Prohibition during the Depression. They stop talking about actual crime after Prohibition, instead merely discussing the idea of crime. But you just can’t understand the history of policing in America without some understanding of actual crime (which has varied GREATLY over time). And he says that everything is the same even after reforms, but he presents no numbers, unlike Fryer.