I'm Brian Lehrer. This is my daily politics podcast from WNYC Studios. It's Tuesday, May 25th.

After the police killing of George Floyd a year ago today, it's not just been policing or criminal justice reform advocacy

that have changed. Washington Post columnist Perry Bacon Jr. writes, it became more untenable to have

no or few black people in most industries and professions. In fact, using the author Ibram X. Kendi's

term, he writes, we are in the midst of a black renaissance that he says white people and everyone else can benefit from, too. Perry Bacon, Jr., who

some of you may know from his database journalism at the website 538, just joined the Washington

Post this month as their newest columnist. So Perry, welcome back to WNYC. And first of all, congratulations

on being a Washington Post columnist. You know we loved your stuff at 538. So I'm so psyched

for you that you're a full-fledged Washington Post columnist now. That's very exciting.

Brian, I appreciate that. And thanks for having me. I've always enjoyed being on the show.

And I'm excited about my new job,

but also sad that I'll have fewer polls and charts and numbers

in my stories than I used to.

The term Black Renaissance in the title and lead line of your piece

that you attribute to Ibram X. Kendi,

what's the big picture of what that means in 2021?

What Ibram is talking about, and I want to credit him with that idea, and I agree with,

is that if you look at like a lot of high-level fees, if you look at a lot of, we're seeing

the, you know, the Oscars, if you look at the best-selling books right now, Isabel

Wilkerson and Ibram Kendi himself, if you look at comic best-selling books right now, Isabel Wilkerson and Ibram Kendi himself.

If you look at comic book writing,

has more black people in it than before,

...