Black Market Reads Givens Foundation for African American Literature

In this inaugural episode of Black Market Reads: On Health, Lissa Jones introduces her series co-host Bukata Hayes, Vice President and Chief Equity Officer at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Minnesota. Together they welcome their guest Linda Villarosa, a Pulitzer Prize Finalist and contributor to the NYT 1619 Project.

There’s an alarming saying in medical circles that Black people in the US “live sicker and die quicker.” Linda Villarosa, explores this phenomenon in her book UNDER THE SKIN: The Hidden Toll of Racism on Health in America. Villarosa finds that erroneous beliefs about Black bodies, dating from the time of enslavement, continue to influence medical practices today. Coping with the daily stress of racism ages Black people prematurely. And racist beliefs held by doctors and other medical professionals often keep Black people from getting the care they need.
Black Market Reads is produced by the Givens Foundation for African-American Literature in partnership with iDream.tv. Funding for this series is provided by Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota, as part of Blue Cross’ long-term commitment to improving the health of Minnesota communities and ensuring that all people have opportunities to live the healthiest lives possible.
Series artwork created by Ta-coumba T. Aiken

 

In this episode Lissa welcomes co-host Bukata Hayes as they explore the power of storytelling and the nourishment of soulful food with author Rose McGee.

ROSE MCGEE, founder of Sweet Potato Comfort Pie, travels
across the United States to deliver pies and nurture relationships.
She was featured in the 2015 PBS documentary A Few Good
Pie Places. After George Floyd’s murder in 2020, her caring
community pie baking and delivery gained recognition from NBC Nightly News, Ms McGee
resides in Golden Valley, MiN, where she was named
“Citizen of the Year”.

How special education used disability labels to marginalize Black students in public schools
The Unteachables examines the overrepresentation of Black students in special education over the course of the twentieth century. Excavating the deep-seated racism embedded in both the public school system and public policy, it explores the discriminatory labeling of Black students, and how it indelibly contributed to special education disproportionality, to student discipline and push-out practices, and to the school-to-prison pipeline effect.
Keith A. Mayes is associate professor of African American & African Studies and faculty affiliate in sociocultural studies in education at the University of Minnesota. He is author of Kwanzaa: Black Power and the Making of the African American Holiday Tradition.
GO DEEPER www..BlackMarketReads.com

More About Seph Rodney
Seph Rodney, PhD was born in Jamaica, and came of age in the Bronx, New York. He has an English degree from Long Island University, Brooklyn; a studio art MFA from the University of California, Irvine; and a PhD in museum studies from Birkbeck College, University of London. While in London, he created, produced, and hosted a radio show called The Thread.

Seph Rodney, PhD, is a former senior critic and opinion editor for Hyperallergic. He has written for the New York Times, CNN, MSNBC, and other publications. He is featured on the podcast The American Age. 

His book, The Personalization of the Museum Visit, was published by Routledge in 2019. In 2020 he won the Rabkin Arts Journalism Prize. In 2022 he won the Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant.

THANKS TO:
Walker Art Center

iDream.TV

Platform Arts

 

From cell phone footage of police killing unarmed Black people to leaked racist messages and even comments from friends and family on social media, online communication exposes how racism operates in a world that pretends to be colorblind. In When the Hood Comes Off, Rob Eschmann blends rigorous research and engaging personal narrative to examine the effects of online racism on communities of color and society, and the unexpected ways that digital technologies enable innovative everyday tools of antiracist resistance.
In this episode Lissa talks with Dr. Rob Eschmann about When the Hood Comes Off: Racism and Resistance in the Digital Age (University of California Press, 2023), his book exploring racism in the digital age. Rob Eschmann is a writer, scholar, filmmaker, and educator from Chicago. He is Associate Professor of Social Work and a member of the Data Science Institute at Columbia University, as well as Faculty Associate at Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society.

Two-time Sue Grafton Memorial Award-winner Tracy Clark introduces readers to FALL (Thomas & Mercer), a hard-boiled, page-turning thriller featuring Chicago Police Detective Harriet Foster, a Black woman in a male-dominated department who, with a new female partner, must stop a killer targeting Chicago aldermen.