First Name Basis Podcast

If you've been around a while, you've heard me say it hundreds of times: Race is a social construct. Race was created and has always been manipulated to make sure that the people in the dominant culture — in the U.S., that means people who are white, middle class, Christian, male and cisgender — can maintain power.  History is full of examples of this, but we don't need to only look to the past to...

Politicians need experience to do their job.  This may fall under the "unpopular opinion" category to some people, but it's something I feel strongly about and have been thinking about for a while.  You wouldn't want someone who played a surgeon on TV — but didn't actually go to medical school — to perform surgery on you. So why would you want someone with no experience or training in politics to...

When the team here at First Name Basis was doing the research for our recent episode "Alcatraz: An Untold Story of Indigenous Resistance," we came across the story of the Tammany Society — and we knew right away that story was too wild not to share! The Tammany Society — also known as the Tammany Hall or the Columbian Order — was organized in the late 1780s right alongside the founding of the Unit...

One of the biggest messages we're trying to get across with First Name Basis is that learning a person's story and getting to know them as an individual is the best way to create understanding and foster anti-racist, inclusive communities. Heck, it's such an important concept that it's our name! Getting on a first name basis with people has so much power, and it's one of the things that made me wa...

Can you believe that Halloween is just around the corner? I know some of you super-prepared parents out there are already getting costumes put together for your kiddos, and you may be wondering about cultural appropriation as you're looking through the shelves and online at all the costume options. I get asked all the time about how to avoid cultural appropriation with Halloween costumes, so this...

Alcatraz. What comes to your mind when you hear the name of that little island off the coast of San Francisco? For me, I heard "Alcatraz" and I pictured that guy who says, "Say hello to my little friend." I know, I know, wrong coast. I couldn't have been more off base. But all I really knew is that it used to be a high-security prison and I imagined Scarface going there.  Well, did you know that A...

My dear friends, we have been on this anti-racism journey together for 3 years, and it's AMAZING to think about the growth we've gone through together.  Over the course of more than 100 episodes, we've gone from talking about the basic building blocks to more in-depth conversations. And just like we as adults have worked to build up our own understanding of anti-racism, we need to do that for our...

I've heard from so many parents who have been listening to the First Name Basis Podcast and other anti-racist educators, have tried to implement the suggestions they learn as they try to teach their children … only to feel like it's all completely backfired. Perhaps you've been there, where you've talked to your kiddos about racism only to hear them express even MORE biases to you that they've pic...

The fact that there is a need for student loan forgiveness really paints a picture of just how complicated education funding has become. So how did we get to this point, and why is the already huge cost of attending college continuing to increase?  To answer this, I interviewed my dad, Ken Clarke, who spent more than 35 years working as a financial aid professional. When he retired, he was the dea...

It's been a few weeks since the White House announced a plan for student loan forgiveness, and in that time, you've likely seen all sorts of articles and social media posts pushing back against it. Watching these arguments unfold has been frustrating, and it can be hard to know what to say. To help all of us know how to respond, I interviewed my dad, Ken Clarke, who spent more than 35 years workin...

Immigration is about so much more than debates, laws and policies — it's about people. Every person who has interacted with the immigration system has their own story that goes far beyond their status, and if we really want to make productive and lasting changes to policy, we need to start by focusing on the individual people and their unique experiences. Ana Wacker knows this from experience. Ana...

Anti-racism is meant to be done in community. It makes sense, right? This work is SO important and we need to be sharing it with others in order for change to actually happen. But we also need support in it — especially during the times when it feel like that change is coming at a snail's pace. In this episode, we're talking more about why community is important and how we can go about creating a...

You know what would really help us all out? If we realized that historical figures are more than the heroes/villains that we often reduce them to.  Although past presidents and leaders had important titles with huge amounts of power, it's critical that all of us, including our children, understand that they were people . People who were complicated. People who did good things and bad things (somet...

Social media feels like a double-edged sword: It can be a great way to keep in touch with family and friends and learn new things, but it can also be a place where debates run heated, long and seem unproductive. So how do you navigate knowing when and how to speak up when you see people post things that are racist, discriminatory and untruthful? We're answering that in this week's episode, which i...

"Carbon credit" is a trendy term you might have heard being used by businesses, government officials and the news media, but what exactly is it? We're answering that in this week's episode, which is the first in our Summer School series! Summer School is a brand-new series where I'm sharing quick tips and tidbits for you to be thinking about this summer when it comes to anti-racism. Some of the ti...

We want our children to embrace anti-racist education both at school and at home, but what does that actually look like?  We're talking about anti-racism in the classroom for the second week in a row because it's such an important topic to be thinking about right NOW. It might be a little early to be in full-on "back-to-school mode," but it's not too early to be contacting school administrators an...

Classrooms should be places of growth, discovery and change, and as parents and caregivers we need to support teachers in fostering a positive environment for students. And Patrick Harris II is a teacher who knows first-hand how important that is. Patrick is one of my teaching idols, and he recently released a book about being a teacher titled "The First Five: A Love Letter to Teachers," where he...

You probably learned in school all about the story of Francis Scott Key watching the "rockets red glare" and "bombs bursting in air" as a prisoner on a British warship and turning the experience into "The Star Spangled Banner." But, in reality, there is a lot more to this story than you learned about in history class — and a lot of what you did learn in school was false.  In this replay of one of...

We're packing our boxes and leaving the dry Arizona heat for the suburbs of Washington, D.C.! This move has been in the works for two years now, and I can't believe it's finally happening! Carter and I have put a lot of thought into this move and where we want to raise our kiddos, and in this episode we're answering all of your questions about why we're moving. Press play to hear our story! Junete...

As a Black bi-racial person, learning about slavery growing up was so hard for me for so many reasons — it was traumatizing and heartbreaking to think about the conditions my ancestors lived through, it felt like a burden to be the only Black person in my class and having everyone look to me, and there were so many things that just didn't make sense to me about it, but asking those questions was t...

I've always thought Mildred and Richard Loving's last name was kismet.   Mildred was a Black woman and Richard was a white man who loved each other, and just wanted to keep on loving each other.  On June 12, 1967, Richard and Mildred Loving won their landmark civil rights case against the state of Virginia. Because of the Lovings, states were no longer permitted to create racist laws that would pr...

When a family member or friend chooses to come out to you, it is an extremely vulnerable moment for them, and how you respond is so important.  You may find yourself wondering what should you say that's affirming and loving — and what should you avoid saying that can be harmful. This week on the podcast, we have Elena Joy Thurston to help talk us through how we can be better allies to our LGBTQ fr...

If you've been here for a while, you've probably heard me say about a million times that race is a completely made up social construct — with no basis in biology — that is used to justify racism. There are SO MANY examples in our society that prove just how made up race is, and this week in Part 2 of our two-part series, we're tackling a few of those myths and exposing them for what they are: big...

As a former teacher and a mom, I have a recurring nightmare that I'm sure many of you share: a constant, ever-present fear of my children — and any other children — being exposed to or a victim in a school shooting. It's an ever-present fear because it's an ever-present reality.  And this ever-present reality isn't only happening with school shootings but with gun violence at churches, in grocery...

Think back to when you were a kid. Remember when you'd be playing a game and you were about to make an epic power move or even win the game, and the person you were playing with would suddenly shout, "I HAVE A FORCE FIELD!" They knew they were about to lose, so they changed the rules or made up a new one to make sure they could win. Remember how frustrating that was?   That, my friends, is what ra...