Walidah Imarisha is the guest on this week's episode of The Chauncey DeVega Show.
Walidah is an activist, writer, and historian whose work focuses on the history of black Americans in the Pacific Northwest, the power of speculative fiction, and how storytelling, organizing, and dreaming are essential tools for social change work.
I discovered her work on the website Gizmodo as referenced in a story about black migration to the Northwest. While there may not have been black folks in the game Oregon Trail, there most certainly were black Americans in every part of the United States and its territories.
Walidah's work is so exciting because she exposes that important "hidden history", while also using it to discuss the realities of white supremacy and racism in supposedly white "liberal" communities today.
In this episode of The Chauncey DeVega Show, Walidah and Chauncey talk about race, history, and migration; have some ghetto nerd sci-fi mind meld moments; laugh about "Black Peoples Employment Month", and reflect on Imarisha's various experiences with presenting the truth and reality of so-called white liberal America at museums, schools, and other venues.
Walidah Imarish is the real deal--smart, quick, funny, and insightful. This was a fun and rich conversation at the virtual bar known as The Chauncey DeVega Show.
In this episode of the podcast, Chauncey also shares some stories about his journey back to Connecticut last week, ponders the eccentricities of aging parents, the realities of "dry begging", opens up his hands to try to cobble together some monies to fix his mother's washing machine, and talks about last weekend's WWE Summerslam event while also sharing a story about (quite literally) almost bumping into the great George Lucas at a local movie theater for the second time.
