Race Unwrapped

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 reflection of how white American audiences relate to Black comedy. He was the lone Black man in fish-out-of-water movies like “Beverly Hills Cop,” then pivoted to movies like “Harlem Nights”  and “Coming to America” with...

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. She’s also the director of comedy studies at Second City, and directs performances there.  This episode, we unwrap the anatomy of a comedy routine and how joking about serious topics has changed over time… and she pou...

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 of Race Unwrapped we’re focused on the tie between race and humor. On this episode, I talk with Dr. Lawrence Edwin Williams about how humor connects us as humans, and how it can help us deal with difficult situation...

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. Many of today’s comedians can trace their lineage of fearless humor right back to Richard Pryor, and that includes his own progeny. On this episode of Race Unwrapped, I talk with Rain Pryor, Richard Pryor’s daughter and an...

“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 that you forget about in January, there is always some public controversy or private party chatter about why THAT word is straight-up off limits.  On this episode, I talk with University of Kentucky English and...

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 Jones from the University of Louisville’s Pan-African Studies department.  We talk about how when Black people and Black allies come together to protest injustice, no matter how peaceful the protests, it almost...

“Karen” has become shorthand for nosy, overstepping and entitled white women over the last few years. Whether it’s calling the police on a Black man birdwatching, Black children selling water or Black travelers entering an Airbnb, white women who assume that unknown Black people in their neighborhoods must be up to no good get the nickname.  On this episode, I sit down with Dr. Kendra Calhoun...

With the first outbreak of COVID-19 came an alarming increase in ugly language targeted at Asian Americans — from schoolyard bullies, cable news pundits, and even the White House — things like “China virus,” and worse.  And those words don’t just hurt the ear but go hand-in-hand with actual harm. According to the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism, during the first year of the pandemi...

Sometimes when you’re paying a compliment, it doesn't sound like one on the receiving end. For example, calling a Black person “articulate” isn’t usually the praise you think it is. Steve Bien-Aimé, assistant professor of journalism at Northern Kentucky University, helps us unwrap how compliments like articulate and well-spoken can sometimes sound just a bit shady.

We're back! And this season we're talking about the language of race — how specific words and phrases carry more than their share of weight when we’re talking, and when we think we’re listening.  In this first episode, we cover something we're hearing a lot about this week in particular: Juneteenth. Some honor Juneteenth and others wonder what it is, knowing only that it vaguely has something...

Attica Scott is the only Black woman legislator in the red state of Kentucky and she has used the tools of law and peaceful protest to seek justice for the death of Breonna Taylor. Along the way, she's battled and overcome COVID-19, which has disproportionately affected the black community.  In our last episode of season one, we talk about getting into “good trouble” and how love of family an...

As a Black trans woman, Dawn Wilson knows how race and gender is a particularly charged intersection. She talks about how religion, politics, family and societal expectations have impacted her journey and how they affect other trans women. Wilson also shares how love and acceptance have helped her own every room she walks into.

In the middle of a pandemic, self-care can be hard to come by. Sometimes, it grows right out of the earth. Sarah Nuñez is an educator, activist, and folk healer who founded the Aflorar Herb Collective . We talk about what healing looks like, and the wake up call to justice that all women of color are caught squarely in the middle of in a rapidly shifting America.

It's our very first episode, and our guest is Sadiqa Reynolds, President and CEO of the Louisville Urban League. As a civic leader and force of nature, Reynolds shares insight on Breonna Taylor, the care taking nature of Black women, especially during COVID-19, and the importance and significance of the 2020 Election. We unwrap how all those topics connect to explain why Black women consisten...

Hannah Drake is a slasher. She’s a poet/blogger/author/speaker/spoken word artist. When she sits down with Michelle, they slash right through to the chase and discuss the unique hopes and fears that a Black woman has, living in America. They unwrap how Louisville’s Breonna Taylor case illustrates that a Black woman can’t even be safe in her own home, and how the pandemic illustrates that we're all...