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This week, we're sharing an episode of Some of My Best Friends Are... 

The show is hosted by Khalil Muhammad and Ben Austen, two best friends who grew up together on the South Side of Chicago in the '80s. Khalil is Black; Ben is white. They invite listeners into their conversations about the absurdities and intricacies of race in America. Mixing anecdotes, entertaining storytelling, and thoughtful debate, Some of My Best Friends Are... helps listeners make sense of our deeply divided country.

In this episode, Khalil and Ben tell each other for the first time about trips they each took to prisons abroad. Ben traveled to Finland and Norway. Khalil traveled to Germany. They ask: How did the Nazi occupation influence Germany’s modern day prison industrial complex? How is the prison guard and inmate dynamic in Norwegian facilities different from America? They dish on what made these trips so monumental and talk about whether America could ever replicate the models they observed.