theGrio Daily, Michael Harriot

"Black excellence has as much to do with the supremacy of whiteness as it has to do with the excellence of Blackness." Michael Harriot talks about the few Black billionaires in America to dismantle the argument that if one Black person is successful then oppression no longer exists.

"We want to see if we can verify or justify some of those racist concepts." What would happen if America flipped it's racists and systemic policies around and it was white people who were affected? Michael Harriot takes a look at what that might look like.

"It's not just about fairness, it's about making your product as good as it can be." Michael Harriot debunks the myth that any attempt at equity is an attempt to achieve equality of outcome. This concept simply isn't possible because minorities are subject to economic, social, political and educational deficits that white people do not experience.

"Every institution in this country that matters is controlled by white people." White people disproportionately make up the federal government, hold positions of power in the judicial system and run the country's most influential companies, yet there's a feeling at the moment they're being pushed out of power. Michael Harriot is here to calm their fears, they're still in charge. 

"Seeing the other side makes everyone's argument stronger but you can't present a straw man argument just to sound smart." Let's talk about contrarians. Michael Harriot dives into the straw man arguments that are often used against Black and brown people and why they are problematic. 

"A lot of the things we think of as conservative aren't really conservative; they're just white." The term conservative has come to mean certain things yet the policies they support don't often back their ideologies. For instance, it makes no sense to say you support small government but then back pro-life policies that are ultimately the federal government telling a woman what to do. Michael Harriot shares several other examples of the hypocritical thinking and explains that conservative really just means "pro-white."

"The history of racism is what they don't want you to know." The push to keep accurate Black history from being taught is nothing new and Michael Harriot highlights several times throughout history that anti-CRT has been the norm. 

"White ain't a culture, it's just the leftovers from everybody else." When identifying your race, ethnicity and nationality, things can get confusing. Michael Harriot admits even he has questions. As he answers a viewer who asked "what race are you?" he dives into the fact that all these categories are really just made up by white people.

"We know that nothing applies to all people." When society refers to a neighborhood that houses predominantly white residents, it's referred to as "the middle class" or a "rich neighborhood" but when an area that houses mostly Black families is described, it's called "a Black neighborhood." Why is that? Michael Harriot is here to explain and introduce you to default socialization.

"The next time you ask me why Black people or me in particular are so obsessed with race, the answer is, I'll stop when y'all stop." theGrio Daily continues a series of episodes that answer listener's frequently asked questions. Michael Harriot starts with addressing the amount of attention and focus that's put on racial labels in American society.