Strange Fruit

We had three brilliant scholars on our show this week. In fact, they were so brilliant, we didn't have any time left for our own analysis and response. So here it is!

It's Black History Month, and we're kicking things off with a show about some of our favorite figures in black history - especially those in the LGBT community. Our guests this week are making space right here in Louisville for teaching and learning about Black History (among other things). Director Talesha Wilson and assistant director Tamika Dozier founded and operate a group called Diversity at the Table, that seeks to bridge the gap between formal, academic learning, and community knowledge. College classrooms provide a forum for young people to explore new and challenging ideas, and Wilson wanted to give that same experience to people who aren't pursuing a formal education. "Instead, you can learn through interactive activities," she explains. "So I started Diversity at the Table to have those conversations about intersectionality, gender, race, class, and sexuality... things that we go through on a regular basis." And she's seen the program's popularity grow. "After a while, I started realizing that this was a space for people to actually heal." Wilson and Dozier joined us to talk about Diversity at the Table, and stuck around to talk about the folks they admire in Black History. Wilson says she admires Claudette Colvin, who refused to give up her bus seat to a white person. Her act of civil disobedience was months before Rosa Parks did the same thing, but Colvin wasn't seen as a suitable "face" of the movement because she was a teenage mother. We also sing the praises of beauty entrepreneur Annie Turnbo Malone, Marsha P. Johnson of the Stonewall uprising, Bayard Rustin, Audre Lord, James Baldwin, and current newsmaker Jaden Smith. "I love how he does not let society's idea of what masculinity is supposed to be define how he carries and behaves himself," Dozier says. She also says her school taught students about notable Black people who are related to struggles - abolitionists, Civil Rights leaders - but not necessarily those who just accomplished or invented great things. Wilson agrees. "I learned about Harriet Tubman, I learned about Malcolm X, and I learned about Martin Luther King," she says, but a message seemed clear: "Be more like Martin and less like Malcolm." Stay with us throughout February for more heroes from Black History, and let us know which figures you look up to.

What percentage of your state's population is Latino, or Asian-American? Do Latinos and Asian-Americans make up that same percentage of your state's government? We can tell you, without knowing your state, the percentages are not the same. A new report from the New American Leaders Project (NALP) explains why. That organization is focused on training first- and second-generation immigrants to run for office. The report, "States of Inclusion: New American Journeys to Elected Office," shows there's much work left to be done. This week we talk with Christian Phillips, a research fellow with the NALP, about some of the barriers that keep Latinos and Asian-Americans from running for office - everything from a lack of funding to not seeing themselves as leaders. In our Juicy Fruit segment, we tackle the hashtag on everyone's timeline: #OscarsSoWhite.

We're halfway through the first month of 2015, an there's been so much going on, we haven't yet had time to bring you a look back at the conversation we loved in 2015! On this week's show we listen back to some of those memorable stories and guests. But first, we go back even further to 2013, when Mark Anthony Neal joined us to talk about his book, "Looking for Leroy: Illegible Black Masculinites." Our chat with Dr. Neal has been on our minds lately in light of criticism against NFL player Odell Beckham Jr. (Complex magazine says they're "just not sure what to make" of videos of him dancing) for not adhering to stereotypical ideas about how a black man should act. Dancing, or his style of dancing at least, is one of those illegible black masculinities Dr. Neal spoke to us about. The last couple of years have been marked with what seems like a steady stream of police violence against unarmed black people. Early in 2015, Freddie Gray's name was added to the list of victims, and Baltimore activists took to the streets in protest. We spoke with hip-hop artist Born Devine about the unrest, and the history of community-police relations in Baltimore. One theme that seems to come up a lot on Strange Fruit is the idea that people who have been discriminated against should know better than to discriminate against other people or groups. But time and time again, we see this isn't the case. Our conversation with Victoria Syimone Taylor (aka DJ Syimone) last year made it obvious that queer spaces are not always safe spaces for queer people of color. 2015 brought the name Rachel Dolezal to our national attention. She's the NAACP chapter president from Spokane who was pretending to be African American. Debates sprang up about whether "trans-racial" was A Thing, and in the midst of all the think pieces, we turned to Dr. Yaba Blay, author of "(1)ne Drop: Shifting the Lens on Race," for some clarity. As 2015 drew to a close, the Netflix documentary "Making a Murderer" turned everyone's atteniton to injustices in the criminal justice system. Much earlier in the year, we'd been thinking about those issues ourselves, after meeting and speaking with Sabrina Butler Porter. She was wrongfully convicted of murdering her baby, and spent six years in prison — three on death row. We couldn't do a 2015 round-up without including one of our favorite new friends, Dr. Carol Anderson. She's an Associate Professor of African American Studies and history at Emory University, and she was in town to deliver the 9th Annual Anne Braden Memorial Lecture. We listen back to her brilliant explanation of how voter ID laws hurt people of color. And to wrap up today's look back, we revisit probably the most memorable episode for us this year: The day the Supreme Court decision made same-sex marriage legal in all 50 states. We held off on recording our show that week, hoping the decision would come down before we went into the studio, and it did. We spent that Friday at press conferences and the County Clerk's office, then came back and recorded our show, sometimes through tears (or in Jaison's case, as he claims, allergies). While we were at the County Clerk's office, we witness the first gay marriage in Louisville — possibly Kentucky. Today we listen back to some audio from that day. Happy Belated New Year, Fruitcakes! We have great things planned for 2016, so stay tuned, and keep in touch!

We're lucky enough to live in a time when more and more parents of transgender kids are accepting, loving, and trying to help their children be their authentic selves. And the medical community is developing new ways for trans kids to achieve their physical goals, but experts disagree on what the treatment protocol should be — and how early they should start. That's the subject of an article in this month's issue of Scientific American Mind, and the author of that article, Francine Russo, joins us this week to talk about it. Russo says drugs known as puberty blockers can essentially put the brakes on a child's sexual development while they and their doctors determine what to do next. The officially-accepted standard of care is to start puberty blockers at the first sign of puberty, then start cross-sex hormones at age 16. "And that's where the controversy in the field is," Russo explains. "Some doctors feel if the child is so clearly trans, and has been for a very long time - what they say in the field is the child has been 'insistent, persistent, and consistent' over time - those children, some doctors feel, should get cross-sex hormones and start going through puberty as early as 14 or 15, although the professional standards say don't do it before 16." We also asked Russo about a sidebar in her story about brain imaging studies done on trans people. Early results of these studies seem to show differences in the brains of trans people and cisgender people, and also hint that sometimes a trans woman's brain, for example, reacts to stimuli in ways that a cis woman's brain would — not in ways that a cis gender man's brain would. In Juicy Fruit this week, we remember David Bowie, specifically in terms of his championing of black people and his lovely longtime marriage to Iman.

Louisville's Fairness Ordinance is one of the oldest comprehensive LGBT protections in the nation. Since early 1999, it's been illegal to discriminate based on sexual orientation or gender identity in our city, so many of us take it for granted that we'll be protected. But what about those members of our own community who live or work a short hop across the river, in Southern Indiana? While New Albany passed a fairness law in 2012, there's no such law in Jeffersonville - but our guest this week, Indiana University student Evan Stoner, is spearheading the effort to change that. Stoner, who's lived in Jeffersonville for the past 12 of his 19 years, says he's experienced first-hand the consequences of living in a city that doesn't explicitly embrace its queer citizens. "I've endured discrimination in the school system, on social media, from other people who also live in Southern Indiana," he explains. "I've come to the realization that there is a need right now to make progress in Indiana." Stoner has not only asked the city council to consider a non-discrimination law, but is also organizing that city's first-ever Pride Festival, to take place this summer. He joins us to talk about his efforts, and the reactions of the community. Our other guest this week will be familiar to long-time listeners, and to reality TV fans. Wil Heuser joined us in 2012 to talk about representations of LGBT people on reality TV, shortly after his stint on Big Brother. Now he's back in Louisville full-time, working as the creative director of Modern Louisville Magazine. The monthly magazine focuses on local LGBT issues and society events. And this month's issue features our own Dr. Kaila Story breaking down issues of bisexual identity and erasure. Friend to the show Chris Hartman graces the cover, and Jaison Gardner appears in Hartman's list of 2015's biggest moments. Chatting with Wil and Evan was a great way to start 2016! They're both doing important and creative work that makes our community better, and we can't wait to hear about their accomplishments throughout the year!

The day after Christmas is always busy at shopping malls. The holiday blockbusters are in the movie theaters, and gift cards are burning holes in pockets. But this year on Dec. 26, security at the Mall St. Matthews was apparently overwhelmed by the number of teenagers in the mall. What exactly happened and how many young shoppers were there remain in question. What we know for sure, though, is that local news media seized on the word "riot" in reporting on the incident — despite a lack of injuries, arrests or property damage, and the insistence of many eyewitnesses that no riots occurred. On this week's show, we talk about the closure of the mall, the media's reaction and the story's racial overtones with WFPL's urban affairs reporter Jacob Ryan, who reported on the incident and the response to it, and attorney Joe Dunman, who wrote an opinion piece about it for Insider Louisville.

As 2015 draws to a close, we have our annual chat with Grant Barrett, an officer with the American Dialect Society, about the words and phrases that were on everyone's lips (and texts, and tweets, and Tumblrs) this year. Last year, they chose #BlackLivesMatter - the first time in the organization's history that the Word of the Year was a hashtag. One of our favorite contenders this year is a hashtag that grew out of the #BlackLivesMatter movement: #StayWoke. "It's being aware of the injustice in the world," Barrett explains, "and letting your friends and followers know that you are keeping an eye out - that you're one of those people who isn't just sheeple." They haven't released the official list yet, but we talk about top contenders, including Netflix and chill, thighbrows (they're the new thigh gap), creppy, spoopy, and "watch me Whip, watch me Nae Nae." Barrett says the song is so mainstream now that it's transcended its genre (and his third grade son even mad a Whip and Nae Nae Christmas cookie!).

Lea DeLaria became the first openly gay comic ever to appear on American television, when she appeared on the Arsenio Hall Show in 1994. She chalks it up to hard work and the fact that "lesbian chic" was having its moment. But she didn't start out as a comedian - her father was a jazz musician, and her first gigs were as a singer. Now she's acting, of course, in the Netflix hit "Orange Is the New Black." DeLaria joined us this week to talk about her multi-faceted career (the latest of her six albums, a collection of David Bowie covers called "House of David," is currently blowing up the charts on Amazon). She'll be in town next February to appear with Voices of Kentuckiana in their annual Beaux Arts Ball fundraiser. And in our Juicy Fruit segment, we talk about an upcoming episode of MTV's True Life, "I'm a Gay for Pay Porn Star." (Photo credit: Sophy Holland)

She was the first openly-gay comic ever to appear on American television, and now she plays Big Boo on the Netflix hit, Orange Is the New Black. Triple threat Lea DeLaria joins us this week to talk about her multi-faceted career (did you know she's released six jazz albums?), how OITNB proved that viewers were hungry for diverse and complex female characters, and what it's like being an out & proud butch lesbian in the entertainment industry. Saturday night at 10 on 89.3 WFPL, or WFPL.org. (Photo credit: Sophy Holland)