I'm Brian Lehrer. This is my daily politics podcast from WNYC Studios. It's Thursday, November 4th.

Now, after an election that a Republican won in Virginia, partly by promising to ban talking about race in certain ways in school,

we welcome back journalist Celeste Headley with her new book, Speaking of Race.

You may know Celeste Headley from her time on WNYC as co-host of The Takeaway,

or even more likely from her very popular TED Talk seen 20 million times plus from what I've read,

that offers 10 ways to have better conversations with people in general about anything.

Like don't set a goal of changing someone's mind before you even engage.

She was on with us for her book about that called We Need to Talk, How to Have Conversations That Matter.

So now she has turned specifically to conversations about race, hopefully successful, conversations about race.

The full title of the book is Speaking of Race, Why Everybody Needs to Talk About Racism and How to

Do It. Hey, Celeste, thanks for coming on. Welcome back to WNYC. Thanks, Brian. It's good to be back.

And I will note that the Boston Public Radio story on your book started by saying, as a self-described

light-skinned, black Jew, journalist and author

Celeste Headley often hears things that people otherwise wouldn't say. Would you take that as a starting

point for us about your relationship with your own racial identity and some of the things

it has made you privy to? Sure. I mean, I'm one of those racially nondescript people, right?

People have a tough time knowing what I am.

And so it's quite common for people to assume I'm whatever they are.

This happens all the time with white people especially.

And so they end up making casually racist remarks

that they would not make if they knew that I were black. And it's been a, it's been a journey

in my life in figuring out how to respond when that happens because it happens all the time.

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