Let's Grab Coffee

Around the world, coffee is part of countless cultures’ daily routine. Perhaps your day starts with brewing a cup at home or grabbing your daily fix on the way to work. In fact, coffee is a global industry worth $495 billion per year but less than 1% of this revenue returns to people of African descent, who are the originators of coffee, or to African countries, where the majority of our coffee is imported from, highlighting the ongoing inequalities in the coffee trade.

One local Memphis coffee company is on a mission to change how we understand coffee’s Black history and its Black future - Cxffeeblack. Today I am joined by Cxffeeblack co-founder, Renata Henderson.

As the lead roaster for Cxffeeblack, Renata Henderson is Memphis, TN's first Black female roaster, continuing the tradition of Black women roasters in Ethiopia, where coffee originates. In addition to creating an entirely all Black coffee supply chain from Ethiopia to Memphis, TN – the first of its kind – Cxffeeblack also hosts the Barista Exchange Program which took 4 Black American baristas from the US to Ethiopia, Rwanda, and Kenya and which will bring African baristas to Memphis, in a cultural and coffee educational exchange. Cxffeeblack was honored as the 2024 Global Notable Roaster of the Year by Sprudge Media Network, a renowned international authority on coffee and its culture.

You can learn more about cxffeeblack at cxffeeblack.com or if you're in the Memphis area, stop by the Anti-Gentrification Cxffee Club.

Today is a special feature - a panel conversation I organized for SXSW featuring creatives discussing how to maintain your creative voice and vision.

Social media turned creativity into content and artists into content creators. But, what if you have something more to say beyond recycling trends and presenting a carefully curated social media feed? How do you tell an entertaining, informative, and/or educational story reflective of your community in an industry that often limits representation to tired tropes? Culture critic, Dr. Saida Grundy sits down with three creatives spanning the media landscape - Munirah Jones, creator of The Mound, OWN Network’s first animated series, Dominic Lawson, host of award-winning podcast Black is America, and documentary producer, Enora Moss - to uncover how they leveraged everyday technology to carve out their own creative lanes to tell the stories they wanted to tell without sacrificing their soul.

This month Let’s Grab Coffee features conversation with Dominic Lawson, host and creator of the award-winning Black Is America podcast. On today’s show, Dominic and I talk about the importance of storytelling - how we tell stories and the stories we tell. We listen to a very special award-winning episode of Black Is America highlighting Memphis's own, Tom Lee: The Everyday American Hero.

The Black Is America podcast highlights little-known African-American figures and stories. This award-winning podcast helps tell the story of America through the lens of the African American experience. For more about Black Is America, visit blackisamericapodcast.com

This month Let’s Grab Coffee features conversation with Dominic Lawson, host and creator of the award-winning Black Is America podcast. On today’s show, Dominic and I reflect on how the past is ever present - on an individual and society level - but we can only connect the dots looking backwards. We also listen to a jaw-dropping episode of Black Is America highlighting Doris Miller: The American Defender.

The Black Is America podcast highlights little-known African-American figures and stories. This award-winning podcast helps tell the story of America through the lens of the African American experience. For more about Black Is America, visit blackisamericapodcast.com

This month Let’s Grab Coffee features conversation with Dominic Lawson, host and creator of the award-winning Black Is America podcast. On today’s show, Dominic and I talk about the importance of courage. Dominic also drops some invaluable tips for current and future podcasters. We also listen to absolutely captivating Black Is America episode about Henry Johnson: The First American Hero of World War I.

The Black Is America podcast highlights little-known African-American figures and stories. This award-winning podcast helps tell the story of America through the lens of the African American experience. For more about Black Is America, visit blackisamericapodcast.com

This month Let’s Grab Coffee features conversation with Dominic Lawson, host and creator of the award-winning Black Is America podcast. On today’s show, Dominic and I talk about Black Is America and the importance of storytelling. We also listen to the Black Is America episode about Sylvia Robinson: The Godmother of Hip Hop.

Today’s episode of Let’s Grab Coffee is a special show featuring the Conversation Piece podcast with Patrick Armstrong. I’m sitting on the other side of the microphone while Patrick interviews me about my new book, Out of Place: The Lives of Korean Adoptee Immigrants. While I’m normally the one interviewing authors about their books and what they know about the world around us, I wanted to share with you what the experiences of Korean adoptee immigrants tell us about race, family, and belonging. It was an absolute honor to be interviewed by a fellow Korean adoptee and to give you a glimpse into the lives of Korean adoptees. Over 150,000 Korean children have been adopted into U.S. families – typically white families – and while Korean adoption is often heralded as a type of “forever family” evidencing multiculturalism, in Out of Place I examine the policy failures and attitudes about race, immigration, and citizenship that made Korean children adoptable orphans and then later deportable adults.

Episode mentioned:

How is it that seemingly everyone – from liberals to conservatives, to celebrities, social media trolls, and your least favorite family member – has a Dr. Martin Luther King Jr quote or Civil Rights Movement reference at the ready? How is it that such disparate groups with various interests find meaning and support for their causes in Dr. King’s words? How is it that they can lay claim to his dream for their own visions of the future? Today I’m joined by Dr. Hajar Yazdiha to dig into how the Civil Rights Movement has become a readily available collective memory. She shares how groups reshape memory to make and contest political claims and the consequences of this reshaping. She also talks about how collective memory can be reworked to restore pieces of the past through processes of truth and reconciliation.

It's the start of a new year, and unsurprisingly one of the most reported New Year Resolutions is fitness-related. According to a survey from Forbes Health/One Poll, respondents most frequently cited improved fitness as a goal. Every day we are bombarded with messaging from media, advertisers, friends, and family about what our bodies should look like and how we can take control of our bodies. Many of these messages are inaccurate and harmful, but how can we break free especially during the New Year when ads for new gym memberships seem to be everywhere? And, what is at the root of all of this focus on body management? Today I’m joined by Chrissy King, author of The Body Liberation Project: How Understanding Racism and Diet Culture Helps Cultivate Joy and Build Collective Freedom. We discuss how we can detach from society’s obsession with controlling our bodies and not just for our own personal well-being but as a component of collective liberation. If you’ve ever found yourself hating your body, believing that losing a few more pounds would lead to happiness, or frustrated that you can’t attain the latest body goals, then this is the conversation you’ve been waiting for.

Let’s Grab Coffee kicks off the new year with friend of the show, Dr. Justin K Dodson. As always, he gives us insightful questions to consider and prompts to help us get curious about our wants, needs, and feelings. Looking to make a change this year? Justin offers some practical strategies for following through on your new year goals.