Literary Friction - RE-RUN: Race with Reni Eddo-Lodge and Kishani Widyaratna

Literary Friction

Arts

4.9 • 593 Ratings

🗓️ 9 June 2020

⏱️ 66 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

We're in the midst of an international protest movement, sparked by the murder of George Floyd by a member of the Minneapolis police. As a result, it didn’t feel right to put out a new show, so instead we wanted to re-run a show from 2017 during which we talked about race with Reni Eddo-Lodge, the author of Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race and Kishani Widyaratna, an editor at Picador Books in London. In her now best selling book, Reni takes a thorough and passionate look at the UK's long and complicated relationship with structural racism. This show comes with the caveat that we recorded this conversation three years ago. Our thinking has evolved since then as we’ve all continued to read and listen and learn about race. For white people in particular, anti-racist work is an ongoing journey. However, it’s sad and frustrating that most of the issues we were discussing then remain the same. It’s important to point out that we were talking about race generally on this show, whereas the current protests are for Black Lives Matter, focussing on anti-blackness, which is connected but a more specific issue. Recommendations on the theme, race: Octavia: Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/288/288167/citizen/9780141981772.html Kish: Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/243/24381/wide-sargasso-sea/9780241951552.html Carrie: The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/190696/the-warmth-of-other-suns-by-isabel-wilkerson/ General Recommendations: Octavia: Mislaid by Nell Zink https://www.harpercollins.com/9780062364777/mislaid/ Kish: Living a Feminist Life by Sara Ahmed https://www.dukeupress.edu/living-a-feminist-life Reni: Your Silence Will Not Protect You by Audre Lorde https://www.silverpress.org/your-silence-will-not-protect-you Carrie: First Love by Gwendoline Riley https://pagesofhackney.co.uk/lockdown/product/first-love-gwendoline-riley/ Further Reading: Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race by Reni Eddo-Lodge https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/why-im-no-longer-talking-to-white-people-about-race-9781408870587/ Reni's podcast, About Race: https://www.aboutracepodcast.com/ Me and White Supremacy by Layla F. Saad https://www.meandwhitesupremacybook.com/ White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/566247/white-fragility-by-robin-diangelo/ Are Prisons Obsolete? by Angela Davis https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/213837/are-prisons-obsolete-by-angela-y-davis/ So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo https://www.littlebrown.co.uk/titles/ijeoma-oluo/so-you-want-to-talk-about-race/9781541647435/ Email us: litfriction@gmail.com Tweet us & find us on Instagram: @litfriction

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Literary Friction. I'm Carrie Plitt here as always with my co-host Octavia Bright. Hi, Octavia.
0:22.1	Hi, Carrie. We record this from lockdown, horrified by the murder of George Floyd by the police,
0:28.3	and the ensuing state violence in response to protests around the world. Given everything that's going
0:33.6	on right now, we thought that it didn't seem right to put out a new show. So instead, we wanted to run a show from three years ago during which we talked about race with Renietto
0:41.5	Lodge, the author of Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race, and Kishani Wadiaratna,
0:47.5	an editor at Piccador Books in London. That's right, Carrie. And this, of course, comes with a caveat
0:53.0	that we recorded this conversation three years ago.
0:56.2	Our thinking has evolved since then, as we've all continued to read and listen and learn about race.
1:01.5	For white people in particular, anti-racist work is an ongoing journey.
1:05.3	However, it's sad and frustrating that most of the issues we were discussing then remain the same.
1:10.7	It's important to point out also that we were talking about race generally on this show,
1:14.9	whereas the current protests are for Black Lives Matter, focusing on anti-blackness,
1:19.2	which is connected, of course, but a more specific issue.
1:22.3	If you're looking for more up-to-date and specific recommendations and resources about
1:25.9	anti-blackness and the work that needs to be done by all of us.
1:29.2	A lot is being shared online right now, including PDFs of writing by black activists and writers like Angela Davis and Bell Hooks,
1:35.8	and we recommend that you seek those out. It's also important to add that the publishing landscape in the UK has gone through some
1:42.2	really quite positive changes since our conversation about the industry with Kish. It's still not enough, but it's definitely a
1:48.8	movement in the right direction. One example is publisher Charmaine Lovegrove and her imprint
1:53.0	dialogue books founded the year we recorded this show and they're publishing really incredible
1:57.5	works by writers of colour and going from strength to strength. So we recommend
2:01.9	that you offer them your support. Yeah, Charmaine is great and dialogue books is great. And there's a lot
	...

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