A Conversation with Historian Louis Hyman About How Black Americans Used the Sears Catalog to Fight Back Against Jim and Jane Crow Racism

Professor Louis Hyman is a historian of work and business at the ILR School of Cornell University, where he also directs the Institute for Workplace Studies in New York City. He has published two books on the history of personal debt (Debtor Nation and Borrow) and a history of how American work became so insecure (Temp).

Several months ago Louis wrote a series of Twitter posts which were read by millions of people about the "hidden history" of how African-Americans used the Sears catalog as a way of fighting back against Jim and Jane Crow white racism and white supremacy.

Professor Hyman explains how the consumer's republic was and remains a key battleground for civil rights and the color line, the many ways that black Americans used the Sears catalog as a way of participating in day-to-day resistance against segregation and other types of discrimination across the United States, and how Sears and America's suburban mall culture were sites where whiteness was both reproduced and defended. Louis also debunks the very popular (and empowering) myth that Sears was co-founded by a black man.

On this week's show, Chauncey DeVega reflects on Ralph Ellison's "Invisible Man" and  a recent experience with everyday racism. And in keeping with the theme of this week's show Chauncey also shares a wonderful story about the nationwide network of Sears retirees who gather on a regular basis to socialize, reconnect, and who are keeping the wonderful legacy of that American cultural and retail institution alive.

This week's podcast with Louis Hyman can be listened to or downloaded here.

A Conversation with Professor Eddie Glaude Jr. on the Color Line, Survival, the Black Freedom Struggle and the Age of Trump

Eddie Glaude Jr. is the William S. Tod Professor of Religion and African American Studies at Princeton University. His publications include Democracy in Black: How Race Still Enslaves the American Soul and In a Shade of Blue: Pragmatism and the Politics of Black America. In 2006, he worked with Cornel West to develop a public online course called the “Covenant Curriculum: A Study of Black Democratic Action.”

Professor Glaude has also written for The New York Times, The Huffington Post, and Time, and he has appeared on the Tavis Smiley Show, Hannity & Colmes, MSNBC, CNN, and C-SPAN.

Professor Glaude explains the lessons of the Black Freedom Struggle for surviving in a time of disaster that is Donald Trump's presidency, how not to surrender to despair in this moment, developing a more sophisticated way to discuss race and social inequality, and how Black Pragmatism and black folks' "Blues Sensibility" are tools for living and maintaining our moral virtue.

On this week's show, Chauncey DeVega explains why Donald Trump's State of the Union address was (another) vile, violent, and dangerous threat to democracy and the American people.

Chauncey is also disgusted by how the American people continue to aid and abet Donald Trump and the Republican Party's evil treatment of brown and black children from Latin and South America who have been "disappeared" into concentration camps.

At the end of this week's show Chauncey shares a story about a Black History Month Pioneer who invented the video game cartridge.

This week's podcast with Eddie Glaude Jr. can be listened to or downloaded here.

 

A Conversation with David Leonard about the Super Bowl, Colin Kaepernick, and the Politics of the Black Athlete

David Leonard is Professor in the Department of Critical Culture, Gender and Race Studies at Washington State University, Pullman.

He is the author of numerous books and articles on race, politics, popular culture and sports including After Artest: The NBA and the Assault on Blackness.

David explains how sports are inherently political, why Colin Kaepernick is viewed as such a threat by the NFL and White America, Black Lives Matter and resistance by "taking a knee" at sporting events, the black athlete as a social and political figure, the insincere and problematic neoliberal politics of Nike's 30th anniversary "courage" ad campaign, as well as Tim Tebow, white privilege and hypocrisy.

On this week's show, Chauncey DeVega challenges the myth of billionaires and capitalism as uplifting the world's poor and being saviors for humanity and shares how Donald Trump is now the White House sex tour guide who lies (even always, again and often) about Barack Obama.

At the end of this week's show, Chauncey shares two happy stories. The first is about a working class man who just won Powerball. The second is a wonderful story about a 3-year-old boy who was lost in the woods and saved by a friendly bear.

This week's podcast with David Leonard can be listened to or downloaded here.

A Conversation with Tim Wise about White Privilege and the Trump Teen MAGA Mob from Covington High School

Tim Wise is one of the United States' leading anti-racism activists, authors, and scholars. He is the author of numerous books including his most recent Under the Affluence: Shaming the Poor, Praising the Rich and Sacrificing the Future of America.

Wise explains how the Covington High School Trump mob's racist mocking and harassment of Native American elder Nathan Phillips in Washington, D.C. is an example of white privilege in action, how white racial innocence is presumed to always be operative in America, the ways that white folks--especially white conservatives--are rarely held responsible for their racist behavior, and the many ways that teachers and parents and other adults have failed to properly educate the white Trump teen MAGA mob.

Tim Wise also shares what he would tell the Covington High School teenage Trumpsters if he was invited to give a talk or training at their school.

On this week's show, Chauncey DeVega shares some recent  examples of horrible and abominable behavior including Donald Trump and Mike Pence trying to claim Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s legacy as their own, how the Trump regime wants to kill the "useless eaters" by cutting food stamps--again, and how 26 billionaires have more money than 3.8 billion people on the whole planet.

And at the end of this week's show Chauncey DeVega shares a story about the intelligence of our animal friends the crows and geese. 

This week's podcast with Tim Wise can be listened to or downloaded here.

My Conversation with Peter Bebergal About How Ghost Hunters, Psychics, and Mediums Use Technology to "Hack" the Paranormal and Supernatural

Peter Bebergal writes widely on the speculative and slightly fringe. His essays and reviews have appeared in NewYorker.com, The Times Literary Supplement, Boing Boing, The Believer, and The Quietus. He is the author of Season of the Witch: How the Occult Saved Rock and Roll. His new book is Strange Frequencies: The Extraordinary Story of the Technological Quest for the Supernatural.

THE EXTRAORDINARY STORY OF THE TECHNOLOGICAL QUEST FOR THE SUPERNATURAL

 ****To support The Chauncey DeVega Show during this fundraising month you can make a donation via Paypal at chaunceydevega.com or at Patreon.**** 

During this Art Bell Coast to Coast AM inspired New Year's Eve special episode of The Chauncey DeVega Show, Peter explains how mystics, psychics, and other practitioners of the occult and magic used the early versions of the internet as a space to practice their dark arts, how the national trauma of the American Civil War fueled the practice known as "spirit photography", and how séances were a space for female empowerment through the "spiritual fluid" known as "ectoplasm". Peter also researches if yes, you can actually hear the voices of the dead speaking through radio waves and other manifestations of "electronic voice phenomena".

On this week's New Year's Eve special episode Chauncey honors Alan Naiman, a hero who worked as a humble (and very frugal) social worker, and who at the time of his passing away gave 11 million dollars to charities which help babies and children.

Chauncey also reflects on our shared trials and struggles in the Age of Trump during these last few weeks of 2018. And as we wind down 2018 and transition to 2019, Chauncey offers some critical appraisals about the progress of the podcast, his own personal successes and failures during 2018, and (hopefully) shares some wisdom about goal setting and personal progress in the new year.

This week's podcast with Peter Bebergal can be listened to or downloaded here.

My Conversation with Paul Breines About Being a Freedom Rider and What It Was Like to Risk His Life Fighting Against Jim Crow Terrorism

Paul Breines was a student at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, Wisconsin and a member of the Student Council on Civil Rights when he was arrested for his participation in the Freedom Rides during the summer of 1961. As part of the Freedom Ride Breines, along with three other students, traveled from Nashville, Tennessee to Jackson, Mississippi via a Greyhound bus where all four participants were arrested in the Greyhound terminal in Jackson, Mississippi on 21 July 1961. Paul Breines is also Associate Professor Emeritus of History at Boston College.

****To support The Chauncey DeVega Show during this fundraising month you can make a donation via Paypal at chaunceydevega.com or at Patreon.**** 

Professor Breines shares what it was like to challenge Jim Crow terrorism--with his life--as a Freedom Rider during the Civil Rights Movement, how he as a white person made the decision while in college to confront white supremacy, and the rules of living a principled life that he learned from his mother.

Professor Breines also reflects on one of the most important questions of the modern age: What type of White Person do I want to be? And by implication, what type of Human Being should we all want to be?

This conversation is from one of the very first episodes of The Chauncey Devega Show and has been reedited and remastered as a holiday gift and way of saying "thank you" to all of the good and kind friends, listeners, fans and other supporters of the podcast.

On this week's Christmas holiday-themed podcast Chauncey warns the public about how Frosty the Snowman is really an evil undead wizard. Chauncey also hopes that Krampus--the goat man supernatural being who punishes naughty people during the December holiday season--will take Donald Trump and his wicked voters and other supporters to the underworld as punishment for their sins.

And Chauncey also reminds the friends, supporters, and other listeners of The Chauncey DeVega Show that racism and white supremacy are often absurd but that this makes such ideologies no less dangerous. A Christmas holiday example: in the Netherlands neo-Nazis and other right-wing fiends are physically attacking people who want "Zwarte Piet" aka "Black Peter", the racist blackface minstrel assistant to "Sinterklaas" aka Saint Nicholas, removed from that country's and region's holiday celebrations.

This week's podcast with Paul Breines can be listened to or downloaded here.

A Conversation with David Blight About Frederick Douglass "The Prophet of Freedom" and How His Wisdom Can Help America Survive Donald Trump

David Blight is the Class of 1954 Professor of American History at Yale University. He is also the Director of the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition. Professor Blight is the author of many books including his newest Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom.

Professor Blight is also a contributing writer for such publications as The New York Times, Washington Post Book World, the Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the Boston Globe.

****To support The Chauncey DeVega Show during this fundraising month you can make a donation via Paypal at chaunceydevega.com or at Patreon.**** 

Professor Blight explains how the wisdom and example of Frederick Douglass's life can help save American democracy in the Age of Trump, separating the myth and legend of Frederick Douglass from the real man, and how studying the Black Freedom Struggle and the color line can help us to better understand how the United States of today came to be.

On this week's podcast Chauncey reflects on the many interesting happenings in one recent day and what they tell us about our shared humanity and the horrible death--and the Trump regime's mocking and evil response to it--of a seven-year-old child from Guatemala who recently was stolen away from her family and this world while in the custody of the United States Border Patrol.

This week's podcast with David Blight can be listened to or downloaded here.

A Conversation with Seth Abramson About How Donald Trump May Be the Greatest Traitor in American History

Seth Abramson is the author of the New York Times bestselling book Proof of Collusion: How Trump Betrayed America.

Abramson's work and commentary has also been featured by The Washington Post, The New York Times, New York Magazine, Newsweek, Vanity Fair, The Boston Globe, Politico, The Wall Street Journal, Roll Call, USA Today, NPR, Politico, The Atlantic, Rolling Stone, The Washington Post, The Guardian, The Chicago Tribune, The New Yorker, Newsweek and many other news outlets.

To support The Chauncey DeVega Show during this fundraising month you can make a donation via Paypal at chaunceydevega.com or at Patreon. 

Abramson explains how special counsel Robert Mueller is conducting one of the most sophisticated and thorough investigations in American history into Trump's collusion with Russia and the ways that Donald Trump and his cabal have repeatedly shown that they are guilty.

Abramson also provides an insider's perspective on what it must be like to be Donald Trump's attorney as well as how Robert Mueller's team is responding to the mountains of evidence--and foolish, obvious, apparently criminal behavior--that is the Trump-Russia scandal.

Abramson makes a prediction: Robert Mueller's investigation will be successful and Donald Trump's only salvation will come from staying in the White House as long as possible to avoid being put in prison.

On this week's podcast Chauncey explains why the Trump-Russia scandal is about more than "just" collusion and treason but a fight for the soul of the country and any effort to defend the social safety net and those of us who are not members of the 1 percent from the global plutocrats and their culture of cruelty. To that end, Chauncey shares a story about the heroic women who stood up to Donald Trump by telling The New York Times about what it is like to be undocumented workers at his New Jersey golf club and where they also take care of his home there.

And of course, Chauncey shares a wonderful story about a great and brave doggie friend who guarded their human being's home and waited for them to return after the recent California inferno.

This week's podcast with Seth Abramson can be listened to or downloaded here.

How Season Three of the Hit Podcast "Serial" Explores Race, Inequality, Class and White Privilege in America's Criminal Justice System

There are three guests on this week's special December fundraising month episode of the podcast.

Julie Snyder is the co-creator and producer of the hit podcast series Serial. Emmanuel Dzotsi is the co-host and reporter for Serial's most recent season which focused on crime and punishment in America as revealed through what happens at the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas in Cleveland.

To support The Chauncey DeVega Show during this fundraising month you can make a donation via Paypal at chaunceydevega.com or at Patreon.

Julie and Emmanuel reflect on what they learned about justice and inequality in season 3 of Serial, the challenges of balancing truth-telling and narrative, and how race and class--especially white privilege--complicates the ways that different audiences respond to the "shocking" unfairness that Serial "exposed" about the country's criminal justice system.

Criminal justice reporter George Joseph is the third guest on this week's show.

George's work has appeared at The Appeal, ProPublica, The Guardian, Foreign Policy, and The Verge. His most recent story IBM Used NYPD Surveillance Footage To Develop Technology That Lets Police Search by Skin Color warns the public about how major cities such as New York are deploying facial recognition and other "artificial intelligence" programs which "learn" about the "races" of different groups in order to "teach" cameras and other surveillance technology to search and follow their human targets on command. This is Orwellian-level racial profiling enabled by "big data" and algorithms.

George also shares his reporting on police brutality and how plain clothes and other undercover cops are running amok in America and what this reveals about a larger police culture of racism and discrimination and violence.

On this week's podcast Chauncey explains how Michael Flynn's deal with Special Counsel Mueller is just one more sign that the Trump mafia crime family is encircled. The question now becomes how will Trump and his cabal lash out against the rule of law to stay in power by expanding their authoritarian regime.

And Chauncey reviews the story about how a black private school-academy in Louisiana was able to use black pathology porn and other stereotypes to hustle Ivy League and other almost all-white elite colleges and universities.

Of course, Chauncey "connects the dots" by calling out how the real issue is the ways that elite universities function as gatekeepers of privilege and social capital which will do anything to punish those individuals who dare to expose the real con job that is elite higher education and a corrupt ruling class in America.

This week's podcast with Julie Snyder, Emmanuel Dzotsi, and George Joseph can be listened to or downloaded here.

A Conversation With Sociologist James Loewen About the Lies Our Teachers Told Us About American History and the Color Line

There are two guests on this week's podcast.

James Loewen is the author of the bestselling book Lies My Teacher Told Me. He has also written award-winning books such as Sundown Towns, Teaching What Really Happened, and The Confederate and Neo-Confederate Reader.

In his several decades of teaching and scholarship Professor Loewen has traveled around the United States and world giving lectures and offering training sessions to educators and activists and the general public. He has also won prestigious awards for his scholarship and other work from the American Sociological Association and the Association for the Study of African American Life and History.

Professor Loewen shares his thoughts on the resurrection of the Confederacy in the South and the Republican Party, the Charlottesville white supremacist riot, history memory, "sundown towns" and racial segregation, and resurgent anti-Semitism in the Age of Trump. In addition, Professor Loewen also reflects on the need to tell the truth about American history in the classroom and the struggles over how textbooks should discuss (or not) white on black chattel slavery and other crimes in the country's history.

Professor John Terrell is the second guest on this week's show.

He is the Regenstein curator of Pacific anthropology at the Field Museum in Chicago, a professor of anthropology at the University of Illinois at Chicago, an adjunct professor of anthropology at Northwestern University, and an honorary fellow in anthropology at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

Professor Terrell explains why so-called "DNA tests" such as "23 and Me" help to perpetuate incorrect and dangerously outdated ideas about "race", geography, and human ancestry, how new age eugenics and "race science" tries to erroneously connect "intelligence" to "heredity" and "populations", and why having these discussions with the public about science and society is so difficult

On this week's podcast Chauncey reviews how Donald Trump's assault on democracy and human dignity and even the survival of the human race continued over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend.

And Chauncey shares his thoughts about  the new movies Creed 2 (which was horrible) and Green Book (which was a pleasant surprise). Plus, Chauncey reminds all of the good, kind, and generous friends, listeners and other supporters that next month, December 2018, is fundraising month to support The Chauncey DeVega Show and his other projects and work.

This week's podcast with James Loewen and John Terrell can be listened to or downloaded here.