We Unpack Black Male Privilege

Still Processing

The New York Times

News Commentary, Society & Culture, News, Arts

4.8 • 9.2K Ratings

🗓️ 17 May 2018

⏱️ 49 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This week, shortly after multi-hyphenate artist Donald Glover blew up the internet with the video for his song "This is America," Wesley and guest host Rembert Browne (New York Magazine, Grantland) explore Glover's career, and how he evolved from a likable comedian to a cultural provocateur and authority on blackness. We like Glover's brain and the music and TV he is making, but we also wonder about the speed with which he's been anointed a "genius." Who gets left out when we apply that label so liberally to men? What do women have to do to be considered geniuses? More specifically, why aren't we using that term for black women? And is there such a thing as black male privilege? Jenna will be back next week. Discussed this week: Magic Mike XXL (Warner Bros., 2015)"I'm Not Black, I'm Kanye" (Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Atlantic)"This is America" (Childish Gambino)"That Hump" (Erykah Badu)"How I Got Over" (Aretha Franklin)"For a Black Artist to Win Album of the Year, They Have to Make an Album of the Decade" (Rembert Browne, Vulture)"Miss Independent" (Ne-Yo)

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm Wesley Morris. I'm a culture critic at The New York Times.
0:04.9	And your favorite person in the whole wide world, Jenna Wortham,
0:10.0	is out for the week. So we were talking about who we'd have come talk to me instead of Jenna.
0:17.6	And we decided our friend, Rember Brown,
0:19.8	writer from New York Magazine, my old Grantland buddy, the personality, the brain,
0:25.2	sitting across me right now. Hi, Rem. Hey, Wes. This is great. You look great. Do I? You do.
0:33.2	You look great. Thanks. Looks like a million dollars. I'll take it.
0:38.7	And this is still processing.
0:44.4	Before we start, Rem, Jenna and I both think it's a good idea to thank all the people who came out
0:49.6	to see us in Australia in Brisbane and Melbourne and Sydney. They were really into the show.
0:57.5	And I was very moved by that. I also wanted to say about the people of Australia.
1:01.7	You just treated us well. You're very nice to us. If we seemed lost,
1:06.4	do you want to point us in the right direction, which was not infrequent, at least for me.
1:12.5	Flat whites and excellent beverage. That's a coffee. That's a coffee. Yes. That's cool. It's delicious.
1:17.9	They figured out milk and espresso better than we have. And perhaps even there I say at the
1:23.9	Italians. Dang. I'll say, it kind of sounds like North Williamsburg. Oh, wow. Is that a
1:31.1	compliment or a dip? I don't know what it, but you're not wrong. You told me earlier that it's like,
1:36.0	it kind of reminds you of LA. It is a little bit like we didn't leave except we a little bit did.
1:40.9	It's very different from the US, but it also is a little bit like Williamsburg. And it also
1:46.1	was a little bit like Los Angeles. Like all of Los Angeles is replicated in different topographical
1:53.8	and cultural ways in Sydney. Not replicated, but they're similar anyway. So General left us
1:59.0	a special message, Ram. Yes. And she's off on a beach somewhere doing a handstand. It's
	...

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