There have been many thought provoking things written following the brutal murder of George Floyd. One of the things that stood out to me was this message from psychologist John Amaechi:

“You’ve got to recognise it’s not enough to be ‘not racist.’ You’ve got to be vehemently, proactively anti-racist. You’ve got to embrace the wince; those moments that you think that you hadn’t done enough, those moments you know you haven’t made a difference and do it.

“Educate yourself. There are booklets out there. Do it. Make some demands of yourself, of everyday things you’re going to do.”


Here’s a link with things you can do….
https://docs.google.com/document/d/10iIz_pFB8DzPkwddc8dcmJdJ0ZMITfTs7lvs4uyusZk

Here are our podcast choices for this week:

1Xtra Talks – DJ Ace and Seani B hosted a powerful edition of the 1Xtra podcast discussing the impact of George Floyd’s death. It features open, honest and frank conversations, between themselves and their listeners, on themes of racial injustice, police brutality, white privilege, micro-racism and more.

It makes you think about all of the microaggressions you have gone through, the little pieces of racism you have gone throughout your life and times you may not have checked somebody on it, or times when you just brushed it aside. It’s a lot. It’s been heavy on my heart,” says DJ Ace.

“We’ve seen everybody get involved with the posts, everybody getting involved with the social media stuff. But do you really, truly understand the fight that we’re fighting?” says Seani B.

The Dope Black Podcast – Another important listen has been this podcast, hosted by Leanne LeversRoshan Roberts and Olivia Cope. With guests from the UK, from the US and across Africa, contributors discuss how they have all been affected by George Floyd’s death and their thoughts on the protests around the world.

This quote, from one contributor called Naomi, stood out to me: “It’s heartbreaking to see black people having to leave their houses to protest during a pandemic, which we know is disproportionately killing us. And it just highlights what has always been a terribly unfair situation, but at the moment it just feels even more so.”

About Race with Reni Eddo-Lodge – Reni Eddo-Lodge, the author of the bestselling book “Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race” released a podcast accompanying her book. She did this, as Eddo-Lodge explains at the start of the series: “I’ve always been very wary of being seen as the sole representative of a vast and wide-ranging anti-racist movement.” 

The podcast consists of interviews with activists, presenters, politicians, musicians on how our recent history has resulted in the politics of today. Despite the podcast being launched several years ago, it has risen up the podcast charts in the last week. Renay Richardson, Founder and CEO of the audio company Broccoli Content, says“The last episode was in May 2018. It is still the only podcast documentary series about race in the UK hosted and produced by a black team. It was recorded in my living room.” 

B
roccoli Content has also launched ‘Equality in Audio’ which is encouraging production companies throughout the UK to take a pledge to ensure equality in audio. You can find out more and sign up to this campaign on their website.

The Next Episode – For perspectives on the protests that have been taking place in the US and the UK, the podcast BBC spoke to a number of protestors on why they are marching. The statistics from presenter Linda Adey speak for themselves: “Official US figures looking at how African Americans are treated by police, shows that even though they make up less than 14% of the actual population, they accounted for more than 23% of fatal shootings by police in 2019. And there were over 1000 fatal shootings in America.”

Have You Heard George’s Podcast? – George The Poet received widespread acclaim for his interview on Newsnight earlier this week (“When you talk about the history of race relations,” George said, “you have to consider the role of the British Empire, as I’ve spoken about extensively on the African continent, and the political and economic consequences of that interaction.”) For more on George, look no further than his multi-British Podcast Award winning podcast, which has also been nominated for a Peabody. It mixes in fiction, music and storytelling, with a production and depth that takes your breath away.

In Search of Black History – Released last year on Audible, this series by Bonnie Greer provides stories of people from African descent that you would have likely not have been taught before, featuring interviews with academics and experts. Greer tweeted earlier this week: “You’ll find out stuff about why George Floyd could be murdered in the street by cops, how we’ve always resisted and why the George Floyd protests are an arc of struggle.” Just to note, you need to be a subscriber of Audible to listen to this limited series.

Ctrl Alt Delete – The broadcaster Emma Gannon interviewed the author Layla Saad this week, host of the Good Ancestor Podcast and author of the book “Me & White Supremacy.” The book was originally self-published on Instagram as part of a challenge with the name of the book, but it ended up being a New York Times Bestseller. Gannon has said that all advertising revenue for the episode will go to the Black Lives Matter Fund.

Growing Up with Gal-Dem – And finally, I want to give a big shout out to the great people at Gal-Dem. If you are unfamiliar with Gal-Dem, they are an award-winning website and a print publication produced by women of colour and non-binary people of colour. They have also launched an engrossing and engaging podcast in the last couple of months, where a guest looks back at their diary entries, text messages and letters from their younger selves and evaluates what has changed in their life and what has stayed the same. 

Gal-Dem have also launched a membership scheme in the last few months, including a tier (at just £9 a month) that also pays for membership for someone in the Gal-Dem community who is not able to purchase a membership for themselves.

As always with the Great British Podcast Newsletter, if there are any podcasts that you think this newsletter should consider, please do let me know by filling in this form. We listen to every podcast that we receive.

Thank you so much for reading and we’ll see you next week.

Scotty  / @scottygb

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Categories: Weekly Picks