Scene on Radio
Kenan Institute for Ethics at Duke University
Scene on Radio is a two-time Peabody-nominated podcast that dares to ask big, hard questions about who we are—really—and how we got this way. Our latest is Season 7, Scene on Radio: Capitalism. Previous series include Seeing White (Season 2), looking at the roots and meaning of white supremacy; MEN (Season 3), on patriarchy and its history; The Land That Never Has Been Yet (Season 4), exploring democracy in the U.S. and why we don’t have more of it; The Repair (Season 5), on the cultural roots of the climate crisis; and Season 6, Echoes of a Coup, the story of the only successful coup d'etat in U.S. history, in Wilmington, North Carolina, in 1898. Produced and hosted by John Biewen, with collaborators, Scene on Radio comes from the Kenan Institute for Ethics at Duke University. The show is distributed by PRX.
Episodes
Mentioned books
36 snips
Aug 24, 2017 • 44min
Transformation (Seeing White, Part 14)
The concluding episode in our series, Seeing White. An exploration of solutions and responses to America’s deep history of white supremacy by host John Biewen, with Chenjerai Kumanyika, Robin DiAngelo, and William “Sandy” Darity, Jr.
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38 snips
Aug 9, 2017 • 48min
White Affirmative Action (Seeing White, Part 13)
When it comes to U.S. government programs and support earmarked for the benefit of particular racial groups, history is clear. White folks have received most of the goodies.
By John Biewen, with Deena Hayes-Greene of the Racial Equity Institute and recurring series partner Chenjerai Kumanyika.
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Jul 26, 2017 • 51min
Losing Ground
For Eddie Wise, owning a hog farm was a lifelong dream. In middle age, he and his wife, Dorothy, finally got a farm of their own. But they say that over the next twenty-five years, the U.S. government discriminated against them because of their race, and finally drove them off the land. Their story, by John Biewen, was produced in collaboration with Reveal.
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33 snips
Jul 12, 2017 • 40min
My White Friends (Seeing White, Part 12)
Chenjerai Kumanyika, a media scholar probing race and whiteness, teams up with Myra Greene, an art professor renowned for her photography that explores identity. They dive into Greene's unique approach to capturing whiteness through photography. The duo discusses the complexities of racial identity and representation in art. Humorous anecdotes from a golfing experience reveal cultural stereotypes, while personal stories about interracial friendships highlight the intricacies of race within communities. Their insightful conversation challenges conventional narratives around race.
36 snips
Jun 28, 2017 • 46min
Danger (Seeing White, Part 11)
For hundreds of years, the white-dominated American culture has raised the specter of the dangerous, violent black man. Host John Biewen tells the story of a confrontation with an African American teenager. Then he and recurring guest Chenjerai Kumanyika discuss that longstanding image – and its neglected flipside: white-on-black violence.
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39 snips
Jun 14, 2017 • 38min
Citizen Thind (Seeing White, Part 10)
The story of Bhagat Singh Thind, and also of Takao Ozawa – Asian immigrants who, in the 1920s, sought to convince the U.S. Supreme Court that they were white in order to gain American citizenship. Thind’s “bargain with white supremacy,” and the deeply revealing results.
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30 snips
May 31, 2017 • 29min
A Racial Cleansing in America (Seeing White Part 9)
In 1919, a white mob forced the entire black population of Corbin, Kentucky, to leave, at gunpoint. It was one of many racial expulsions in the United States. What happened, and how such racial cleansings became “America’s family secret.”
The history of Corbin as presented by the Corbin city government, with no mention of the 1919 racial expulsion.
Elliot Jaspin’s book, Buried in the Bitter Waters: The Hidden History of Racial Cleansings in America
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43 snips
May 17, 2017 • 49min
Skulls and Skin (Seeing White, Part 8)
Scientists weren’t the first to divide humanity along racial – and and racist – lines. But for hundreds of years, racial scientists claimed to provide proof for those racist hierarchies – and some still do.
Resources for this episode:
Fatal Invention, by Dorothy Roberts
The History of White People, by Nell Irvin Painter
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17 snips
May 5, 2017 • 14min
Chenjerai’s Challenge (Seeing White, Part 7)
“How attached are you to the idea of being white?” Chenjerai Kumanyika puts that question to host John Biewen, as they revisit an unfinished conversation from a previous episode. Part 7 of our series, Seeing White.
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28 snips
Apr 26, 2017 • 40min
That's Not Us, So We're Clean (Seeing White, Part 6)
When it comes to America’s racial sins, past and present, a lot of us see people in one region of the country as guiltier than the rest. Host John Biewen spoke with some white Southern friends about that tendency. Part Six of our ongoing series, Seeing White. With recurring guest, Chenjerai Kumanyika.
Image: A lynching on Clarkson Street, New York City, during the Draft Riots of 1863. Credit: Greenwich Village Society of Historical Preservation.
Shannon Sullivan’s books, Revealing Whiteness and Good White People.
Thanks to Chris Julin, whose 1991 NPR report on the Wisconsin fishing rights dispute we featured.
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