32 min listen
Strange Fruit #143: Jose Antonio Vargas on "I AM a Kentuckian" Tour
FromStrange Fruit
ratings:
Length:
30 minutes
Released:
Oct 23, 2015
Format:
Podcast episode
Description
When Jose Antonio Vargas was 12 years old, his mom put him on a plane in the Philippines and sent him to the United States to live with his grandparents. It wasn't until he tried to get his driver's license as a teenager that he learned he wasn't in the country legally. A Pulitzer prize, several documentaries, and the cover of Time magazine later, he's one of the country's most outspoken voices on immigrant rights. And as an out gay man (he came out as gay while remaining "closeted" about his undocumented status), he speaks about the intersection of immigrant and LGBT issues. Vargas will be in town next week for the ACLU of Kentucky's "I AM a Kentuckian" tour, and he joined us this week to talk about his work. Since the last time we spoke, Vargas has produced a short documentary for MTV, examining the demographic he says is often left out of diversity conversations: White people. "This country is only gonna get gayer, blacker, browner, more Asian, women will break every possible barrier they can and should break," he said. "So if you think about what's at stake in American society, in American culture, what's at stake is the soul of white heterosexual men. The same people that wrote the constitution and wrote the laws. How much change can they handle, and how inclusive are our conversations going to be about race?" In our Juicy Fruit segment, we cover yet another police shooting — this time in West Palm Beach, Florida, where a drummer was shot by a cop after his car broke down on the side of the road. This time, though, other police in town have criticized the public handling of the shooting, calling for more transparency on the part of police administrators. And here in Louisville, Judge Olu Stevens dismissed the jury in a drug trial because they were all white, and the defendant was black. Kentucky's Supreme Court will soon decide whether it was an abuse of his judicial power.
Released:
Oct 23, 2015
Format:
Podcast episode
Titles in the series (100)
Strange Fruit #40: Don Lemon Says Don't Litter!: While we spent the week celebrating Jai's birthday and recovering from [EOY](http://www.eoy.net/), CNN's Don Lemon was busy making people mad and [agreeing with Bill O'Reilly](http://www.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/bestoftv/2013/07/27/nr-lemon-no-talking-points.cnn.html). In our Juicy Fruit segment this week, we deconstruct his list of advice for black folks. The video is worth a watch, but if you're pressed for time, it boils down to pulling up your pants and not having babies out of wedlock. It was a disappointing reminder that just because someone's family doesn't make them immune to the lure of respectability politics. But as Doc said, he's certainly no [Boykin](http://keithboykin.com/) (and we did agree with him that littering is gross). Also this week we bring you part two of our chat with Louisville activist Carla Wallace, and author Chris Crass. Chris was in town recently to celebrate the release of his book, [Towards Collective by Strange Fruit