A Conversation with Sociologist Joe Feagin About the Enduring Power of Racism in Trump's America; Kevin Willmott, Writer of "BlacKkKlansman", Reflects on the Absurdity of White Supremacy

There are two guests on part one of this very special two-part 200th episode of The Chauncey DeVega Show.

Kevin Willmott is a professor of film at The University of Kansas. He is also one of the writers on Spike Lee’s great new film BlacKkKlansman. Kevin and Chauncey discuss the surreal truth of how Ron Stallworth, a black man, teamed up with a fellow police officer, who is Jewish, to infiltrate the Ku Klux Klan. Kevin also reflects on how BlacKkKlansman is a direct counter to the racism and bigotry of Trump’s America, W.E.B. Du Bois’ concept of “double consciousness”, blaxploitation films and the desperation of hate mongers. Chauncey and Kevin also share what happened when they watched BlacKkKlansman in a theater with white Donald Trump supporters.

Joe Feagin is the second guest on this week’s episode of The Chauncey DeVega Show. He is a distinguished professor of sociology at the University of Texas-Austin and one of the leading scholars of race and social inequality in the world. Professor Feagin has written dozens of books including The White Racial Frame:Centuries of Racial Framing and Counter-Framing, Racist America, and How Blacks Built America

During this week’s episode of The Chauncey DeVega Show, Professor Feagin and Chauncey discuss the myth of white “working class anxiety” and Trump’s election, liberal racism, and all of the myths and half-truths being circulated about race and class in the parts of the country which voted for Donald Trump. Professor Feagin also offers some warnings about the hope that “millennials” and other young white people will be and are less racist and bigoted than their parents and grandparents.

In this week’s very special 200th episode, Chauncey DeVega ponders if a black man named Daryl Davis who befriends white supremacists and brings them to the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington D.C. is a hero or perhaps just a well-intentioned but gullible man.

And at the end of this week’s show, Chauncey gives some advice to a black woman who is dating a white man who refuses to acknowledge her anxieties and fears about racism and violence in Trump’s America.

This episode with Joe Feagin and Kevin Willmott can be downloaded from Libsyn and also listened to here.