Podcast Roundup January Edition

I've been shoveling a lot in recent days, so there are a few episodes I've been rage shoveling to listed below. See if you can figure out which ones they are.

Code Switch has been killing it recently. I don't always put Code Switch at the top of my to-listen list because it's exhausting to be constantly interrogating my privilege, but I always suck it when I think about how exhausting it must be to be a person of color who constantly interacts with people who don't interrogate their privilege. So I binged a bunch of episodes and I learned a lot.

First, "Dog Show!" is an episode in which Kat Chow asks the question of whether or not her dog is a racist. And basically what I learned is that if I think my cat hates all men, it's because I hate all men and change my behavior around them (men) and she (the cat) doesn't like that. Examining dogs and their reactions to people actually tells us more about people than it does about dogs. And the whole thing was interesting.  If you like dogs and you like to think about race, this is the show for you.

Also "Code Switch Goes to College" tells the story of how one college instructor used Code Switch as the basis for an entire syllabus at her college, but as soon as a black student was arrested on campus, the kumbaya, everyone gets a say, no opinion is wrong atmosphere of the classroom was radically changed.  It's something that really resonated with me, as a person who teaches about race at a mostly white school where unintentionally terrible racist incidents happen with some regularity. It was interesting from a pedagogical perspective (it's great that this class was taught by a black woman, but what if it was me, a white woman, teaching it?) as well as a current events perspective.

And then there was "Intrigue at the Census Bureau," which I actually did move to the top of my queue immediately because I am teaching a class THIS WEEK about the census. This one covers the controversy surrounding the citizenship question (should this question be added to the census? if it is, it will definitely decrease the response rate? who will that help? who will it hurt?), as well as funding the census, what impact the government shutdown is having on the census, and what's going on with the racial categories on the census (you will be relieved to hear that "Negro" is going away).  If you're a census junky, this is your fix.

The Documentary podcast is a diverse podcast that covers a lot of topics all over the globe. I pick and choose which ones I listen to based on my own interests, but lately that interest has been piqued.  The episode "India's Battle with Online Porn"  was an interesting look at what men in India think about pornography. Is it setting relationships up to fail? Is it to blame for a rise in violence, particularly sexual violence, against women? Is it different in India than it is in other places? What is the role of social media? I try hard to be sex-positive, but I just struggle with the idea of pornography as a source of empowerment to women and this podcast didn't help me with those struggles.

The episode "Childish Gambino: This is 2018" was super fascinating to me. I have used the Childish Gambino video for the song "This is America" in my race and politics class, but this podcast was a look at how the song and video have been re-imagined in various countries around the world, from Nigeria to Iraq to New York City in a fight against gentrification. I was impressed by the powerful nature of the art to transcend culture and place. It also had an interesting breakdown of the Childish Gambino video that I thought was fascinating, even as someone who has talked this video to death. 

The Indicator is an offshoot of the Planet Money podcast that releases short episodes every day. I rarely listen because I'm already a month behind in my podcast listening and I do not have time for a daily podcast. But Planet Money put an Indicator episode in my feed called "The Measure of a Tragedy" that talks about the explosive inflation in Venezuela and how an economist has developed a measure to explain to the whole world exactly how bad that inflation is. Nine hundred calories is how much a typical Venezuelan worker would be able to buy with his wages for one day. It's not enough to feed one person, let alone a family. Before I listened to this podcast, I didn't even know there was a crisis in Venezuela, let alone a crisis this large.

It has been a long time since I threw in on This American Life. I used to be obsessed with the show and would recommend it to everyone. And then they started doing international reporting and shows about famous people, and I gradually stopped downloading all their episodes. I eventually unsubscribed, even.  But then my brother-in-law said they'd had a series of good episodes and while I don't know if I'd agree totally with that statement, I truly thought the episode called "The Room of Requirement" (the Harry Potter reference alone was a great hooked) had some very memorable, tear-jerking moments. 

The theme of the episode is that libraries are essentially giant rooms of requirement and that libraries do great things. And then it gives stories of these great things. There's a library that is on the border between Canada and US where people whose families lives in places where the travel ban from the US prevents them from visiting their families can go and meet.  I sniffled at the thought of how much it must mean to these families and what a great service the librarians are doing to create a community where it's safe for these meetings to happen. And there's a story about a woman who realized as an adult that, for a brief time in her childhood, she was homeless and her parents would take her to the library every day. And there was a librarian there who was kind to her.  And the producers had this grown woman meet this librarian. At this point, there were literal tears streaming down my face. This is a return to form for TAL and I hope they continue more stories of regular Americans living life in a country that doesn't always make it easy.

I've written about You're the Expert before because I love this show. Chris Duffy hosts a quiz show in which comedians asks scientists about their work in a game show-style setting. It is heartwarming, funny, and I usually learn a lot. There was a recent episode with a woman, Dr. Jennifer Lopez, who works on the International Space Station and I just thought Lopez was really in the spirit of the thing and she made me much more curious about the ISS.  If you're interested in what scientists do day to day, this podcast is for you.