[encore] 387: Stop Looking At My Last Name Like That by Michael Torres

The Slowdown: Poetry & Reflection Daily

American Public Media

Arts, Performing Arts

4.8 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 25 June 2025

⏱️ 8 minutes

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Summary

Today’s poem is Stop Looking At My Last Name Like That by Michael Torres.

The Slowdown is currently taking a break. We’ll be back soon with new episodes from a new host. This week, we’re going back into the archive to revisit Tracy K. Smith’s time as host. Today’s episode was originally released on May 19, 2020.

In this episode, Tracy writes… “Rationally speaking, I know that another person’s bigoted thinking is their problem, not mine. But it’s hard to leave it at that. It’s hard to accept that sometimes my race causes another person to jump to conclusions about what I know or have or deserve… and what I don’t.”

Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Transcript

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1:33.0	Hi, it's Major. The slowdown is on a break right now, but we'll be back soon with a new host.
1:39.7	In the meantime, we're bringing you some of the best episodes from our archives. Today, we revisit an
1:46.7	episode from Tracy K. Smith's time at the helm. Enjoy. I'm Tracy K. Smith, and this is The Slowdown.
2:11.3	A dozen years ago, when we were on the market to buy our first home together, my husband, who is white, thought nothing of wearing a hoodie and sneakers to open houses.
2:23.8	I teased him that he could afford to look just any old way, but not me.
2:29.9	As a black woman, I anticipated the possibility that some real estate broker might see me and say to
2:37.6	himself, this is out of her price range. And I wanted to circumvent that bias. Such strategizing is a
2:47.0	burden and an inconvenience, but it sometimes does what it is intended to do, which is to short-circuit a stereotype.
	...

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