BlackTalk Podcast based out of Alberta examines racism, successes and the way forward

A new podcast based out of the University of Alberta in Edmonton is hoping to keep the conversation going on the fight against anti-Black racism.

BlackTalk Podcast launched Tuesday — on the one-year anniversary of the death of George Floyd —  with its first five episodes.

One of its founders, University of Alberta political science professor Andy Knight, said the idea began following the explosive world-wide protests and Black rights movements that followed Floyd’s death.

“That moment… I call it the ‘George Floyd moment,’ because it had a significant impact on a number of people, including myself,” Knight said.

“I wanted to raise the issue of starting the conversation on race, because it felt like that was a pivotal moment in our history where people across the globe — not just in the United States, but all around the world including Canada — more or less said, ‘Enough is enough’ with the anti-Black racism.

“I felt as an academic, one of the things we could do was to try to start a conversation on race, where we are today, what is the history, the legacy of slavery and how can we move forward from here?”

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2:42 Optimism and skepticism about progress on racial justice one year after George Floyd’s murder

Floyd, a Black man, was killed in Minneapolis on May 25, 2020, after then-officer Derek Chauvin knelt on his neck for nine and a half minutes. Chauvin was later convicted of murder, while three other fired officers are awaiting their trials.

Knight co-hosts the podcast with Zack Penddah, a political science student at the U of A.

“We have guests from Edmonton, Barbados, United States, and as far as Nigeria,” Penddah said. “And what we’ve done is, we’ve engaged in conversations regarding the Black experience, Black struggle and Black success.

“As a Black individual, when you’re rising up through the world, what you begin to see is there are certain conditions that you have to endure and overcome in order to succeed.”

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The pair agrees that one of the main goals of the podcast is to showcase Black people in positions of success, so that the next generation can be encouraged to strive for more representation.

“There has to be a progressive, an active way of targeting young Black people who are very well qualified,” Knight said. “Let’s level the playing field.”

“Showing this representation, hopefully, is what we’d like to see later on,” Penndah said. “More Black youth seeing that this is possible and taking on some of these positions in the future. Seeing that, ‘Hey, we can do this too.'”

Notable guests so far in BlackTalk include Sir Hilary Beckles, a historian from Barbados who focuses on social history and colonialism, author and journalist Cecil Foster, former Liberal MP Celina Caesar-Chavannes, University of Alberta nursing professor Bukola Oladunni Salami, and former Fort Valley State University president Ivelaw Griffith.

The BlackTalk Podcast can be listened to online on its website, or through podcast providers like SoundCloud and Apple Podcasts.

The podcast was sponsored by the University of Alberta’s Kule Institute for Advanced Study (KIAS).