LibGuides: Antiracism : A Guide to Stories, Perspectives, and Connections: Podcasts

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Guide by Eliza Selander, Librarian

This guide is updated regularly with new materials, while older materials may remain if still relevant. Community input is welcome.

Suggested resources will be evaluated for accuracy and relevance using the SIFT Method (Stop, Investigate, Find, Trace).

Please send resource suggestions, comments, and questions to eselander@nvcc.edu.

A Note to Listeners

Below you will find a mix of podcast recommendations: some touching on Black culture, some on Black history, most available on various podcasting platforms but for simplicity's sake linked here either within Spotify or on the broadcaster's website. The podcast hosts represent a variety of races. Some podcasts listed here will offer very recent episodes; others, whether as a series, a season, or a standalone episode, have reached their logical end, but the content continues to be relevant to the pursuit of antiracism due to the stories, perspectives, or connections shared with listeners.

Podcasts: Stories, Perspectives, Connections

The Read
"Join bloggers Kid Fury and Crissle for their weekly podcast covering hip-hop and pop culture's most trying stars. Throwing shade and spilling tea with a flippant and humorous attitude, no star is safe from Fury and Crissle unless their name is Beyoncé. (Or Blue Ivy.)" May contain explicit language.
Gettin' Grown
"Keia and Jade are two happy and hard working (Blackity) Black Women who are just trying to learn how to adult, for real. Join us each week for Kitchen TableTalk, Petty Peeves and Lessons in Black Women Self Care, as we try to figure out life as 30-somethings."
Lynching in America
"After slavery was formally abolished, lynching emerged as a vicious tool of racial control to reestablish white supremacy and suppress black civil rights. More than 4,000 African Americans were lynched across 20 states between 1877 and 1950. These lynchings were public acts of racial terrorism, intended to instill fear in entire black communities. Government officials frequently turned a blind eye or condoned the mob violence. The effects of racial terror lynchings are still felt today." Sponsored by Bryan Stevenson's Equal Justice Initiative.

"Racism and Medical Education: Telling the Full Story" - Episode from Beyond the White Coat
"The history of medicine is filled with amazing scientific discoveries and remarkable innovation, but the profession is also haunted by a history of structural oppression and exclusionary practices that act as barriers for people of color. This history influences the policies, practices, and procedures that govern how physicians are trained in the United States today. In this episode of “Beyond the White Coat,” AAMC (American Association of Medical Colleges) President and CEO David J. Skorton, MD, speaks with AAMC Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer David A. Acosta, MD, about the history of structural racism in U.S. medical education and how that history informs today’s learning environment." Aired October 2020.
Notes from America with Kai Wright
"A show about the unfinished business of our history and its grip on our future. Underlying almost every cultural divide and fervent debate as we approach the 2020 election is one basic question: Who is the USA for? Who’s allowed to live here? Who has control over whose body? Who gets to vote? Who gets access to a good public education? Who sets the definition of justice? The arguments we’re having now started in the aftermath of the actual Civil War, when Americans set out to do something no other country had tried before: to build the world’s first multiracial democracy."
...While Black
"While Black: A Podcast on Black Excellence offers two seriously opinionated hosts bringing you the real and sometimes raw on anything happening while Black... We support our Black listeners by creating access to people and information that may prove difficult otherwise. Nothing is actually in isolation and our hue often connects us in color, culture and experience. To our non-Black audience, we are a resource providing answers to questions many are afraid to ask out loud. Finally, we humanize Black folks to those interested in better understanding Black life."

"The Backlash against DEI" - Episode from The Assignment with Audie Cornish
"Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programs are facing a backlash, mostly from conservative commentators. This backlash came into sharp relief after Claudine Gay resigned as president of Harvard University. Some of her critics claimed it as a victory against the “DEI regime.” Audie talks to Celeste Headlee, a journalist and the founder of Headway DEI, about how this discourse is affecting those trying to continue their DEI work in corporations and organizations across the country." Aired in January 2024.
Code Switch
"It's the fearless conversations about race that you've been waiting for. Hosted by journalists of color, our podcast tackles the subject of race with empathy and humor. We explore how race affects every part of society — from politics and pop culture to history, food and everything in between. This podcast makes all of us part of the conversation — because we're all part of the story. Code Switch was named Apple Podcasts' first-ever Show of the Year in 2020."
Pod Save the People
"Organizer and activist DeRay Mckesson explores news, culture, social justice, and politics with analysis from Kaya Henderson, De’Ara Balenger, and Myles Johnson. Then he sits down for deep conversations with experts, influencers, and diverse local and national leaders. New episodes every Tuesday."