Why Are They So Angry?

Show Notes Project 2025 is like systemic racism on steroids, and it’s the playbook developed by the conservative think tank Heritage Foundation that the ultra right wants to implement within days of a GOP candidate winning the American presidency. Like systemic racism, it’s a plan that addresses every American institution—the judicial system, education, health care, law enforcement—you name it and...

Join Dr. Carol François and Kourtney Square as they reminisce about their three years recording Why Are They So Angry? episodes and creating the WATSA? ecosphere. They’ll stroll down memory lane to tell which episodes were favorites then spill the tea on what’s next for them and the WATSA? project. Want more like this?  Check us out at www.whyaretheysoangry.com

The carnival dunking booths used to be a midway staple, but that seemingly innocent amusement has a sinister and racist history. Join Dr. Carol François and Kourtney Square as they expose the horrific side of carnivals and why a baseball thrown at 100 miles per hour had deadly consequences. Want more history of systemic racism,  check us out at https://www.podpage.com/why-are-they-so-angry/

The landmark Supreme Court decision making it illegal to use race as a factor in college and university admissions is sending shockwaves through America. Listen as Dr. Carol François and Kourtney Square dissect how the ruling could possibly have a negative impact on elementary and secondary education, businesses, industry, and employment practices and how the decision is unraveling decades of work...

Are new technologies exacerbating societal inequities and even reinforcing systemic racism? What role is facial recognition playing in government oversight and policing of citizens? How is reliance on algorithms undermining our basic freedoms? Dr. Carol François and Kourtney Square explore these and other questions about artificial intelligence and its impact on racial, social, and economic justic...

Resistance to the American form of chattel slavery took many forms. Listen as Dr. Carol François and Kourtney Square illuminate the history of antebellum midwifery and its role in resisting forced breeding of enslaved women then trace this resistance to its modern day role in supporting positive, alternative birthing methods for Black women. Want more hidden history, check out our website at www.w...

Nearly 179 years ago, Rev. Henry Highland Garnett declared to Black enslaved people, “Let your motto be resistance! resistance! RESISTANCE!” Black people have resisted historic and ongoing oppression in all forms, especially the racial terrorism of lynching, racial pogroms, and police killings, since their arrival upon American shores. Listen as Dr. Carol François and Kourtney Square tell the stor...

Did you know Mississippi’s first ever labor union was formed in 1866 by a group of Black washerwomen? Join Dr. Carol François and Kourtney Square as they tell about the impact these women and their strike had on labor movements in the South and around America both then and now. Want more? Learn unadulterated history at https://learn-whyaretheysoangry.thinkific.com/

We’re delighted to share with you our entry into the American Black Film Festival (ABFF) Podcast Competition. Listen here and wish us luck!

Shortly after the Civil War and as recently as 1954, whites exercised systemic racism against Blacks through violent expulsions, land grabs, and terrorism robbing them of land, property, and businesses. Many times these terroristic incidents resulted in Blacks being murdered while being driven from their homes and off their land. Listen as Dr. Carol François and Kourtney Square describe the hidden...

The 2022 year is winding down, so join Dr. Carol François and Kourtney Square, her niece, as they wrap up season three with a look back on and update about some of the year’s episodes. They’ll also make gift and reading recommendations just in time for holiday gift giving. And they’ll announce the winner of the notorious “Rutherford B Hayes Award”--- an award the hosts give to a person or persons...

You’ve probably seen the iconic poster of a white woman in a red bandanna proudly flexing her muscles with the words “We Can Do It” emblazoned across the top. The poster became known as Rosie the Riveter. Few know that image easily could have been of a Black woman since over 600,000 Black American women were “Rosies” in defense industry and government jobs supporting WWII war efforts. Listen as Dr...

If you think Halloween is scary, listen as Dr. Carol François and Kourtney Square tell real horror stories of how African American cemeteries have been desecrated, destroyed, and disrespected through grave robbing and gentrification. Want more like this? Go to https://www.podpage.com/why-are-they-so-angry/ to get the history they didn’t teach you in school. Citations Dallas' First Freeway Built Ov...

If you’ve never heard of the Reverse Freedom Rides of 1962, you’re not alone. Join Dr. Carol François and Kourtney Square as they tell this hidden history of how Southern segregationists tricked Blacks into boarding buses bound for what they thought was a brighter new life in the North. Then listen as your hosts draw a through line from that pernicious incident to current news stories about migran...

Choosing, applying to, and getting accepted into a college or university is fraught with stress as well as excitement. The process is doubly challenging for Black students who often face personal racist acts and systemic racism at predominantly white institutions (PWIs). Join Dr. Carol Francois and Kourtney Square as they tell the story of two talented young Black men who faced an angry mob over a...

If you think the school choice movement and policies are about allowing parents to use tax dollars to get the best education for their children, you’d better listen to this episode to hear what’s really going on. Join Dr. Carol François and Kourtney Square as they show the link between segregation academies of the Jim Crow South era and the systemic racism behind today’s proposed school choice pol...

Black owned newspapers have been community bedrocks for sharing issues, news, and concerns since 1827. Join Dr. Carol François and Kourtney Square as they tell about a courageous female journalist who was terrorized and threatened with death for protesting three brutal lynchings in Memphis, TN. She went on to be central to the crusade against lynching, the development of Black newspapers, and the...

Since the time of the ancient empires of Western Africa until the present, Black business people and entrepreneurs have created wealth and prosperity for their communities. Listen as Dr. Carol François and Kourtney Square describe how Black wheelers and dealers prospered and hear the surprising story of the Oyster King, a Black man who created his own empire in New York City’s oyster dining indust...

Join Dr. Carol François and Kourtney Square as they debunk the myth that chattel slavery was not practice in Northern American states. You’ll also hear  the riveting story of Ona Judge and the surprising founding father who doggedly tried to re-enslave her until his dying day. Want more? Go to https://www.podpage.com/why-are-they-so-angry/ to hear more untold and hidden history. Citations Afr...

Mothers seem to get all the play, but fathers need love too! Join Dr. Carol François and her niece Kourtney Square as they pay homage to the often unsung hero—the Black father. The team will debunk the myth of the absentee father, share some fatherly pearls of wisdom, and count down their list of best Black TV dads. Citations A Definitive Ranking Of Black TV Dads Black Dads Matter | Institute for...

Taxes and slavery are intertwined in ways most people can't imagine. Join Dr. Carol François and Kourtney Square as they trace how taxing plantation owners on the enslaved people they held in bondage lead to economic shortcomings in the South that still resonate today. Want more? Go to https://www.podpage.com/why-are-they-so-angry/ for more unknown and untold history.  Citations  A perma...

Few can fathom what was lost in the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. The prosperous, all-Black district of Greenwood in Tulsa, Oklahoma, known as “Black Wall Street" was 35 bustling city blocks that included two newspapers, pool halls, auto repair shops, beauty parlors, grocers, barber shops, funeral homes, a school, a YMCA, a roller-skating rink, a hospital, and a U.S. post office substation. Listen as...

After the Civil War, the Freedmen’s Bureau and its bank were established to help transition newly freed enslaved Blacks into citizenry. Unfortunately, the Bureau and its bank had a sordid, corrupt history that marked the beginning of a cultural legacy of mistrust by the Black community towards banking institutions and creation of the systemic wealth gap between Blacks and whites that continues to...

America had its own versions of the Berlin Wall, in fact there are twenty-six existing, demolished or planned segregation walls, fences, road barricades/closures, and buffer strips in Alabama, California, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, Missouri, New York, Ohio, Tennessee, and Virginia built between white and Black/African American neighborhoods as...

Girl Scouts of the USA began as an all-white organization in Savannah, Ga., in 1912. But over time, the organization confronted systemic racism in its own ranks and became what Dr. Martin Luther King described as “a force for desegregation.” Listen as Dr. Carol François and her niece Kourtney Square reprise their episode tracing the evolution of Girl Scouts and their connection to Maggie Lena Walk...