Growing up racially diverse: A not-so-politically-correct roundtable

“​So many hate-filled​ things—whether on social media​ or just people talking—are based on stereotypes that are not accurate​. Too many people ​simply ​don’t ​interact with people who are different from ​them.” —Joe Rodriguez

In this episode of Deviate, childhood friends Rolf, Kaye, Tony, and Joe discuss the racially specific nicknames people gave each other in high school back in the 1980s (7:40); how exactly their racial and socioeconomic situations influenced the way they grew up as young people (14:30); why it’s important to respect specific aspects of other people’s lives, even if you can’t entirely relate to them, and how individual people don’t necessarily represent everyone in a given group (37:00); what it feels like to be judged by strangers on the basis of your race, especially when you come from a minority group (51:30); how their race and the location of their neighborhoods affected their extracurricular lives as teenagers, and how diversity exists even within individual racial groups (1:06:00); how dating and marrying across racial lines can give you a deepened perspective on racial difference ​(1​:18:00); and how the personal experience of racial diversity is so much richer, more nuanced, and intertwined with “social capital” than the way it’s discussed in the click-bait atmosphere of social media (1:30:00).

Kaye Monk-Morgan is an Assistant Vice President for Academic Affairs at Wichita State University. Tony Johnson works with troubled youth as an intervention specialist with the Wichita Public Schools. A former newspaper journalist, Joe Rodriguez works as the Director of Development at Wichita’s Holy Savior Catholic Church and Academy.

Notable Links:

• Wichita North High School
• What it’s like to be a black police officer in America (Deviate episode)
• What it’s like to be a Latino police officer in America (Deviate episode)
• The power of small choices across decades (Deviate episode)
• On Political Correctness, by William Deresiewicz (essay)
• Wichita State Shockers men’s basketball (sports program)
• Nico Hernandez (Olympic boxer from Wichita)
• Mike George (20th century professional wrestler)
• Lawrence Welk (20th century TV bandleader)
• Code-switching (linguistic “language alternation”)
• Colin Kaepernick (American athlete and activist)
• Kansas Bureau of Investigation (criminal justice agency)
• Barry Sanders (former NFL running back from Wichita)
• James Jabara (Korean War jet ace from Wichita)
• Việt Kiều (Vietnamese diaspora term)
• Mullet (1980s haircut)
• Tiger Woods (American professional golfer)
• Grinnell (academically prestigious college in Iowa)
• Arapaho (Native American tribe)
• Art Deco (arts and architecture design style)

The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber.

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