Episode 67: John Biewen

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Rachel Zucker speaks with public radio reporter and documentarian John Biewen about his work at the Center for Documentary Studies, especially his two series Seeing White and MEN, which investigate the history and reach of whiteness and masculinity. Rachel and John talk about how John decided to make these series, about the format of Seeing White and MEN, how and why it was important and effective to have a recurring conversational partner or official co-host, the value of white people examining whiteness and men examining toxic masculinity, virtue signaling, problems with imaginative empathy and how to not just think about oppression but begin to do something about changing it.

Projects by John Biewen

• Scene on Radio

• Storymakers: Durham

Other People, Projects and Books Mentioned in the Episode

• Chenjerai Kumanyika

• Celeste Headlee

• Reality Radio (ed. by John Biewen; University of North Carolina Press, 2017)

• Race Traitor by Noel Ignatiev (Routledge, 1996)

• Class, Race and Marxism by David Roediger (Verso, 2017)

• White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk about Racism by Robin DiAngelo

• Allan Gurganus

• Natasha Tretheway

Other Relevant Links

• Center for Documentary Studies in Durham, NC

• Uncivil, hosted by Chenjerai Kumanyika

• Minnesota Public Radio

• NPR News

• American Radio Works

• This American Life

• PRX

• Racial Equity Institute

• Ibram Kendi

• Ijeoma Oluo

• “In the Same Breath: The Racial Politics of the Best American Poetry 2014” by Isaac Ginsberg Miller (Published in American Poetry Review)