Synopsis
Jaison Gardner and Dr. Kaila Story talk race, gender, and LGBTQ issues, from politics to pop culture. A new episode every week, from Louisville Public Media.
Episodes
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Strange Fruit #209: How 'Open TV' Is Changing Who Gets To Make Television
01/09/2017 Duration: 34minIf you grew up with network TV like we did (or basic cable, if you were lucky), you might find the current media landscape overwhelming — not just what shows to watch, but what platforms to access. The multiple ways it's now possible to consume and produce entertainment has made the industry more accessible to creators working outside the traditional network system, and a happy byproduct is more people of color, queer people, and trans people telling their own stories. That's what you'll find on Open TV, a Chicago-based platform for queer and intersectional television. This week we meet Open TV founder Dr. Aymar Jean Christian, who's also an assistant professor of communication at Northwestern University. Christian started the platform as a research project two years ago and joins us to talk about how they focus on centering marginalized artists, and some of the original work they've produced so far.
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Strange Fruit #208: Museum Celebrates "The Ordinary Extraordinary Colored Girl"
28/08/2017 Duration: 26minThis week we speak with Vashti DuBois, Executive Director and Founder of The Colored Girls Museum in Philadelphia. DuBois says she was inspired to create a physical space celebrating "the ordinary extraordinary colored girl" because black girls and women have been contributing to the world in a powerful way but getting no recognition. "I use colored because I really think of how the world takes its Crayola crayon to the black girl and colors her whatever they want her to be," DuBois says. "Color her promiscuous, color her too angry, color her too assertive. And many of us will take that same crayon and color each other, because that's what we've been taught to do." She joins us to talk about what kinds of objects and experiences she seeks to share, and her own most transformative moment in the process of bringing the museum to life.
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Strange Fruit #207: Some Places Are Not For Straight People
18/08/2017 Duration: 25minIf you're straight, you're probably not used to being denied access to things based solely on your sexual orientation — unlike LGBTQ people, who have been historically excluded from housing, jobs, and clubs because of their identities. But a new opinion piece in The Advocate says there are spaces that straight people just don't belong. Specifically, in the back rooms or "play spaces" of gay bars — which are often places where typical social rules about sex are relaxed, if not absent. Columnist Alex Chevez describes the need for such segregated spaces, calling them, "[C]ultural zones for certain demographics that are intentionally exclusionary — not out of hate, fear, or prejudice, but because everyone deserves space, and you must respect it." In his Advocate piece, he tells the story of one such space in a bar he frequents. A few months ago, a straight woman wandered into the space. Someone touched her, she complained, and now that play space has been converted to a well-lit smoking lounge
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Strange Fruit #206: "Queen Sugar" Actor Brian Michael Smith On Being Trans In Show Business
11/08/2017 Duration: 37minYou may have seen Brian Michael Smith on "Girls," "Law and Order," "Blue Bloods," or other television shows and commercials, playing cisgender men. Now he appears on the OWN Network's "Queen Sugar," playing a transgender cop — and earlier this summer, Brian came out as trans himself. He joins us this week to talk about visibility and representation, and his first day on the set. "Honestly, it was like going to black heaven," he says. "It was a dream come true in so many ways." Later in the show, we meet Lori Selke, an activist and journalist who was recently profiled in The Advocate. From the outside her family looks pretty typical: a woman, a man, and a couple adorable kids. But actually, Lori's butch, her husband Gus is a self-described dandy, and they're both queer and polyamorous. You might think of it as a different kind of passing, but Lori just says her family is "queerer than we look." [Brian Michael Smith photo by Ben Enser]
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Strange Fruit #205: New Leadership At A Legendary Regional Institution
04/08/2017 Duration: 36minThe Highlander Research and Education Center in New Market, Tennessee is a living piece of civil rights history. It functioned as a folk school from the 1930s through '60s, hosting Rosa Parks, Dr. King, Congressman John Lewis, and other activists and icons. Now in its 85th year, the Highlander continues to be a space where movement leaders come together to teach and to learn. Executive Directors Ash-Lee Woodard Henderson and Rev. Allyn Maxfield-Steele join us this week to talk about the center's legacy, and its future. We also check in a little closer to home with Dominique Barber, who's organizing the Louisville Black LGBT Pride Festival, coming up on August 27th. [Photo: highlandercenter.org]
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Strange Fruit #204: Documentary Series Lets Trans People Tell Their Own Stories
28/07/2017 Duration: 33minPresident Trump's tweets about the armed forces this week brought the stories of transgender service members into the spotlight. This week on Strange Fruit, we learn about documentary film series that tells stories specifically from the lives of trans people of color. André Perez, the filmmaker at the helm of "America in Transition," joins us to tell us more about the project and why it's important to bring these stories into the light. Learn more about the project at americaintransition.org.
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Idina Menzel
27/07/2017 Duration: 10minTony Award-winning actor, signer, and songwriter Idina Menzel originated the role of Maureen Johnson in the Broadway and film versions of "Rent," kicking off a celebrated career and solidifying her place as an LGBTQ icon. She spoke to Jaison Gardner and Kaila Story, hosts of WFPL's Strange Fruit podcast, in anticipation of her appearance in Louisville next month. Menzel will perform at the Louisville Palace on August 6th. Check out the Strange Fruit Facebook page for a chance to win tickets to the show and a meet & greet with the artistl.
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Strange Fruit #203: Juicy Fruit News Roundup!
21/07/2017 Duration: 34minThe race for mayor of St. Petersburg, Florida is getting ugly — thanks in part to racist rhetoric like this from a candidate named Paul Congemi: "Your people already got your reparations. Your reparations came in the form of a man named Barack Obama. My advice to you, if you don’t like it here in America, planes leave every hour from Tampa airport. Go back to Africa. Go back to Africa. Go back!” That's right. A political candidate at a public appearance in 2017... is telling black people to go back to Africa. We talk about this and other stories in the news this week, in an all-Juicy-Fruit news roundup!
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Strange Fruit #202: Race And Racism In Covering The Drug Crisis
14/07/2017 Duration: 33minThere's no shortage of profiles and think pieces putting a human face on the Opioid crisis. Coverage focuses on addicts' struggling families and childhood traumas, framing addiction as an illness you suffer from — not a crime you perpetrate. Much of this media attention is centered on white drug users and their families. When the drug crisis was largely in black communities, drug use was linked to depravity and a proclivity for crime. The response was a "war" on drugs that focused on punishment, not treatment. This week we reflect on how race and racism play into the way we talk about addiction and drug use.
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Strange Fruit #201: "No Fats, No Femmes," and the Politics of Desirability
07/07/2017 Duration: 26minScroll through any gay dating app and you'll come across the words. "No fats, no femmes." It says a lot about which kinds of bodies are seen as desirable and which are not. Especially in gay black spaces, where a simple "preference" is often anything but simple. Artist Jamal Lewis is making a documentary exploring this phenomenon. We speak to him this week about his own dating experiences, and the politics of desirability.
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Strange Fruit: Our 200th Episode!
23/06/2017 Duration: 01h13minWe recorded our 200th episode in front of an audience this week at the Green Building in Nulu! Guests Karter Louis and Leah Halston joined us to dish about everything from problematic superheros to some truly disturbing candy preferences. We took questions from the audience, then danced the night away!
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Strange Fruit: What Are Your Favorite Pride Moments in LGBT History?
16/06/2017 Duration: 35minWas it Ellen's Puppy Episode? The formation of the Mattachine Society? The Repeal of DOMA? Or Muriel Hemingway locking lips with Roseanne? The Kentuckiana Pride Festival is this weekend, and to celebrate, we each count down our favorite Pride moments on this week's show — from academics and activism, to politics and pop culture. Let us know what you think of our choices, and tweet us your own!
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Strange Fruit: Rapper Fly Young Red On The Inspiration Behind "Lorraine"
09/06/2017 Duration: 36minLast week we talked about a new song and video by New Orleans-based rapper Fly Young Red. "Lorraine" deals with the challenges faced by trans women of color, from violence to poverty. On this week's show, Fly Young Red joins us and reveals the song's very personal, real-life inspiration. Fly's gay sister, a trans woman named Chyna Gibson, was shot and killed in late February, at just 31 years old. "I felt like I had the responsibility to go ahead and do this song, to tell the story of those girls so I can help save somebody," Fly says. "Because it happens all the time." In our Juicy Fruit segment this week, WFPL's digital editor Jonese Franklin joins us and we talk about everything from foster care for trans kids in Canada to the 40th anniversary of everybody's uncle's favorite hairstyle: the Jheri curl.
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Strange Fruit #199: Ten Years Of Celebrating LBGT Students At UofL
02/06/2017 Duration: 31minTen years ago, Brian Buford was put in charge of the LGBT Center at the University of Louisville. That same year, UofL created its Audre Lorde Chair in Race, Class, Gender, and Sexuality Studies — a position held ever since by our own Dr. Story. The campus wasn't openly hostile to gay students, but it wasn't explicitly inclusive, either. And those at the intersections of queer and Black were feeling even more unsure of where to find belonging. Buford says he knew they had their work cut out for them. "How do we go from a quiet acceptance to a campus where we're actively advocating for you," he says. "We're sending a message of welcome and inclusion and support." Now, ten years later, UofL has been held up as a nationwide example of LGBT inclusion — from the Bayard Rustin Themed Living Community to their program teaching medical students how to interact with their future LGBT patients. Buford was just named Grand Marshall of this year's Kentuckiana Pride Parade in honor of his work (He says
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Strange Fruit #198: Mark Anthony Neal On Black Masculinity & Rompers
26/05/2017 Duration: 31minHe's one of the great Black thought leaders of our time, especially when it comes to black masculinity. So of course, when we had the chance to talk to Dr. Mark Anthony Neal about anything our hearts desired, we brought up rompers.
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Strange Fruit #197: Yes We DO Look Nice Today!
19/05/2017 Duration: 33minThis week, longtime Louisville activist and artist Tan Hazelwood joins us for an all-Juicy-Fruit episode! We talk about Lavinia Woodward, the Oxford student who stabbed and otherwise assaulted her boyfriend during a drug-induced argument. A judge delayed her sentencing and likely won't give her jail time because she's studying to be a surgeon and her future is so bright. She's young, slim, pretty, and white, in case you hadn't guessed. Sounds like a case of what we on this side of the pond would call "affluenza." Fruitcakes, do you have Hoteps in your life? Are they popping up on your timeline with poorly-thought-out arguments about the emasculation of the Black man, and how #BlackLivesMatter isn't for them because it was started by queer women? We listen to and analyze a passionate rebuttal by Mouse Jones, from Slay TV's show The Grapevine. "Let them lead! They're trying to make sure we're not shot no more," Jones says in the video. "You're not doing it. I can't do it. A lot of us ca
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Strange Fruit #196: A Very Special Mother's Day Show
12/05/2017 Duration: 47minThis is Mother's Day weekend, and we decided to have two very special guests on the show to celebrate: our moms! Jaison interviewed Kaila's mom, Sylvia, and Kaila interviewed Jaison's mom, Jackie. Embarrassing baby stories ensued. We also invited some of our fruitcakes to tell stories about their moms, and what they shared will make you laugh, cry, and want to hug your mom.
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Coming Soon On Strange Fruit: Mother's Day!
11/05/2017 Duration: 30sWhen you invite your mamas onto the radio, anything could happen. We learned a lot about each other, and we asked some of our friends to share stories about their mamas, too. Catch the full episode this weekend at strangefruitpod.org.
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Strange Fruit #195: After 18 Years, Hip-Hop Feminist Joan Morgan Is Still Breaking It Down
05/05/2017 Duration: 37min"When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost: A Hip-Hop Feminist Breaks It Down" came out in 1999. It was the age of the video vixen, and feminists were decrying the objectification of women in hip-hop imagery and lyrics. Then Joan Morgan published her groundbreaking book examining the complexities of life as a black woman, feminist, and music lover in the age of hip-hop. This year, the book turns 18. Last month, a new edition was published with a forward by Brittney Cooper and an afterword by Treva Lindsey. It's also just been released as an audio book, read by actor Joy Bryant. It's clearly a work with enduring relevance, but its initial reception wasn't all positive. "There were a lot of elder feminist stateswomen who basically just dismissed the book as, 'this person is not really a feminist because if she was really a feminist, she couldn't possibly love hip hop,'" Morgan says. "So finding my tribe years later - the people who actually find value in the book, has been such a precious gi
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Strange Fruit #194: Rainbows & Roses Soirée Is A Derby Party With A Special LGBTQ Cause
01/05/2017 Duration: 32minDerby Week is finally here! With it come fancy hats, random celebrity sightings, tardiness to work, and parties all night, every night. Derby events come in all shapes, sizes, and degrees of swankiness. This week, we learn about a two-part Thurby night party that's raising money for a cause dear to our own hearts. The Rainbows & Roses Soirée is a fundraiser for the LGBTQ+ Coalition of Louisville, the brainchild of artsits Josh Miller and Theo Edmonds, who join us this week to tell us more. The coalition came together just over a year ago, with members from Louisville Youth Group, Kentuckiana Pride Coalition, Trans Women National, and IDEAS xLab. They have an ambitious five-year plan to create an LGBTQ+ Community Center. Theo Edmonds says they wanted to focus on what people actually want and need before putting any bricks on the ground. "The important part of a community center is that first word: community," he says. Edmonds say they decided to spend a year assessing those needs, so they've held