Putting yourselves back in Summer 2020, the racial reckoning as people have been calling it,

how did you feel in that moment?

I was very anxious at the time. I felt people were seeing my skin more. You could see like who was faking their activism.

Over the past year since there's been a lot of conversations about race and racism.

Now that with us is settled,

how do you think those conversations have plans?

There's more talk about it, but there hasn't been much change.

It still feels like no one really clears.

Are you tired of the conversation?

Are you tired of being asked about race and racism?

Yeah, like I'm just supposed to have all these answers to questions before I haven't been asked.

It's not my duty to educate all the time.

I feel like you should educate yourself

and just not be a terrible person.

My life isn't a talking point.

Welcome to the show. I'm Kai Wright. There's this one detail in the grim story of Kyle Ritten House that haunts me. I don't know why it's this one there are so many others but here's the one that gets me. When Kyle Ritten House shot and killed his first victim, a confused and scared man with bipolar disorder who had just been released from a psych ward.

When a confused and scared but heavily armed Kyle Rittenhouse shot this man dead. The nearest bystander was a videographer

from the Daily Collar. This is a far right website, co-founded about 10 years ago by Tucker Carlson that spent 2020 generally giving its readers the impression

that a violent race war was underway. And sure enough, there they were right at the front line, capturing the violence about which they had so often fantasized.

So this week, with the breaking news of the Rittenhouse verdict behind us and with all the hot takes having cooled,

I want to revisit two conversations we had earlier this year that might help us understand how this awful case became a political

talisman.

...