“There’s nothing that will stop white people from trying to do some black shit. It’s fundamentally baked into every aspect of American popular culture. It is the first thing that we invented that was entirely ours — white people dressing as black people and entertaining other people.” — Wesley Morris

Wesley Morris (@Wesley_Morris) the Pulitzer Prize-winning critic at large for the New York Times. Formerly the co-host of the Grantland podcast “Do You Like Prince Movies?”, he now co-hosts the “Still Processing” podcast with Times colleague Jenna Wortham.

In this episode of Deviate Rolf and Wesley discuss the nature of podcast celebrity and how it differs from traditional celebrity (2:45); the stories that sports uniforms tell to the people who watch sports (23:00); the unique task of cultural criticism in the 21st century (30:00); the challenge of being seen as racially representational as a journalist and critic (40:15); and Wesley’s upcoming book about the invention of the performance of blackness in America (51:00).

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The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber.

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