Host Michelle Tyrene Johnson tackles different ways to unwrap and unpack race and identity.
Latest episodes
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43 min
Juneteenth Special: Black Women and Political Power
Juneteenth is the perfect time to talk about community, resilience, and strategic organizing. Join host Michelle Tyrene Johnson and A'Shanti Gholar, leader of Emerge, for a convers…
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58 min
Gifting a Soulful Christmas (The Encore!)
The winter holidays are sneaking up on us again, and this year, more of you joined us on Race Unwrapped than ever before! To celebrate, and to thank you, we hope you don't mind a r…
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25 min
Race and Democracy: ‘You already have what it takes to run for office’
Production was well underway on this season of Race Unwrapped when America experienced what our guest just calls “The Switch.” President Joe Biden dropped out of the race, and sudd…
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35 min
Race and Democracy: ‘Unless we have hope, then we can't have these conversations’
Back in the day, Jesse Jackson told us to keep hope alive. And when Barack Obama first ran for president, his image became almost synonymous with hope (maybe you still have one of…
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24 min
Race and Democracy: ‘They've completed their sentence and they're still disenfranchised from voting’
Four million people won’t be allowed to vote in the upcoming election because of laws in 48 states that restrict your right to vote if you’ve ever been convicted of a felony. Most…
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30 min
Race and Democracy: ‘If we really care about representation, then we should be for eliminating obstacles’
So you live in one of the states that require some form of ID to vote. Everyone has one, right? In fact, there are lots of reasons someone might not have a valid ID. And getting on…
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28 min
Race and Democracy: ‘If your vote wasn't so powerful, nobody would be trying to suppress it’
So far this season we’ve learned a lot about voter suppression tactics and how they weaken our democracy. This episode and next, we’ll meet some folks who are working to reverse th…
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29 min
Race and Democracy: ‘Democracy should not be a partisan issue’
The Voting Rights act of 1965 said certain states had to check with the federal government before making any changes to their election laws. Sixteen states were subject to this “pr…
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23 min
Race and Democracy: ‘Democracy should not be a partisan issue’
The Voting Rights act of 1965 said certain states had to check with the federal government before making any changes to their election laws. Sixteen states were subject to this “pr…
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34 min
Race and Democracy: 'How do we stop these Black folk from voting?'
Since the 15th Amendment gave Black men the right to vote in 1870, policy makers have thrown obstacles between marginalized voters and the ballot box. The tactics may change, but t…
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2 min
Coming soon... We're unwrapping race and democracy
Race affects our world, whether we're thinking about it or not. And this season, we're unwrapping how it influences our democracy. From literacy tests in the Jim Crow era to the vo…
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57 min
Gifting a Soulful Christmas
Hey y’all! Michelle Tyrene Johnson here. You usually hear from me in the summertime, but I’m popping in with “Gifting a Soulful Christmas,” an hour-long exploration of Black holida…
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47 min
A Black gay comedian walks into a comedy club…
Black don’t crack, except when it comes to cracking jokes. And Keith McGill does it for a living. McGill is a Louisville native and class clown who took it to a microphone for the…
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27 min
When the voice in your head is an old white man named Everett
On this episode of Race Unwrapped, we meet Pooja Reddy, a comedian and writer whose family immigrated from Hyderabad in southern India to Glasgow, Kentucky. Her humor draws heavily…
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47 min
NPR’s Eric Deggans unwraps the curious and careful career of Eddie Murphy
In the early 1980s, a young Eddie Murphy stepped into the national comedy scene and revitalized a flaccid “Saturday Night Live.” His career since then has been a fascinating reflec…
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35 min
Are you laughing with me or at me? Second City’s Anne Libera unwraps the ethics of comedy
Sometimes people just know their stuff. And in the case of Anne Libera, her stuff is comedy and she knows it well. Libera is a professor of comedy at Columbia University in Chicago…
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32 min
How could you joke about THAT?!
A Black Baptist minister, a Chinese Buddhist monk and a White Presbyterian walk into a bar… and for more than one reason, they may not all laugh at how the joke ends. This season o…
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32 min
How Rain Pryor uses humor to explore race (and what she learned from her dad, Richard)
Comedian Richard Pryor didn’t leave much on the cutting room floor when it came to comedy. Not sex, family, religion, or politics. Certainly not race, or being Black in America. Ma…
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27 min
Who gets to use all the letters of the n-word
“How come I don’t get to say the word n……”That’s the sound of the forever question in American society about why white people can’t use the n-word. Like mosquito bites in summer th…
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26 min
When to protest the use of the word riot
Riots. Protests. Uprisings. Even insurrections. Each conjures up different images and feelings, doesn’t it?On this episode, I sit down to discuss that very thing with Dr. Ricky Jon…