The Tight Rope

https://feed.podbean.com/spkerboxmedia/feed.xml

514.8K

Downloads

Episodes

As we navigate the balance between hope and uncertainty, we invite you to join Dr. Cornel West & Professor Tricia Rose on The Tight Rope, a weekly program where we welcome listeners and guests as thought collaborators. The Tight Rope is rich in creative, unfiltered dialogue on topics ranging from culture, art, and music to the contours of systemic racism, philosophy, the power of Socratic self-examination, and the possibilities of a peaceful and just world. Our innovative and interactive format will highlight the professors’ combined expertise to encourage critical thinking, self-reflection, and human connection as we navigate The Tight Rope.

Episodes

Thursday Aug 13, 2020

How Did Yara Shahidi Get James Baldwin's Signature?

Thursday Aug 13, 2020

Episode Summary

In this episode of The Tight Rope, our hosts are joined by Dr. Cornel West’s very own student at Harvard, award-winning actress, producer, and change agent Yara Shahidi of Grown-ish fame. Learn about Yara’s passion for storytelling, her new production company 7th Sun that she launched with her mother, as well as her Black Iranian heritage. Yara reads and discusses her favorite passage from James Baldwin. The episode ends with a fascinating Office Hours discussion on John Lewis, his life, legacy, and politics. Join the rich dialogue that brings together joy and justice with Yara Shahidi, Dr. Cornel West, and Professor Tricia Rose on The Tight Rope.

Cornel West

Dr. Cornel West is Professor of the Practice of Public Philosophy at Harvard University. A prominent democratic intellectual, social critic, and political activist, West also serves as Professor Emeritus at Princeton University. He graduated Magna Cum Laude from Harvard in three years and obtained his M.A. and Ph.D. in Philosophy at Princeton. West has authored 20 books and edited 13. Most known for Race Matters and Democracy Matters, and his memoir, Brother West: Living and Loving Out Loud, West appears frequently on the Bill Maher Show, CNN, C-Span, and Democracy Now. West has appeared in over 25 documentaries and films, including Examined Life, and is the creator of three spoken word albums including Never Forget. West brings his focus on the role of race, gender, and class in American society to The Tight Rope podcast.

Tricia Rose

Professor Tricia Rose is Director of the Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in America at Brown University. She also holds the Chancellor’s Professorship of Africana Studies and serves as the Associate Dean of the Faculty for Special Initiatives. A graduate of Yale (B.A.) and Brown University (Ph.D), Rose authored Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America (1994), Longing to Tell: Black Women Talk about Sexuality and Intimacy (2003), and The Hip Hop Wars: What We Talk About When We Talk About Hip Hop and Why It Matters (2008). She also sits on the Boards of the Nathan Cummings Foundation, Color of Change, and Black Girls Rock, Inc. Focusing on issues relating to race in America, mass media, structural inequality, popular culture, gender and sexuality and art and social justice, Rose engages widely in scholarly and popular audience settings, and now also on The Tight Rope podcast.

Yara Shahidi

Yara Shahidi is a 20-year-old actress and producer, most known for her role as Zoey Johnson in Black-ish and Grown-ish. Among numerous nominations and awards, she was a 2020 NAACP Image Award nominee for Outstanding Actress in a Comedy Series (Grown-ish) and 2019 Teen Choice Award nominee for Choice Summer Movie Actress (The Sun Is Also a Star). Yara is a vocal activist and champion for social justice. Her newly launched production company, 7th Sun, recently signed with ABC to “develop and produce scripted and alternative television projects for cable.” The aim of 7th Sun is to focus on stories from underrepresented communities and their histories, heritages, cultures, and joys. Yara is the youngest producer to work on network television, and she is also involved with Girls for Gender Equity and the Third Wave Fund.

Insight from this episode:

Strategies on creating spaces of joy and sanity in the present moment of crises and pandemics.
Behind-the-scenes look at Yara’s life as a student at Harvard and growing up in Hollywood in the context of Black Lives Matter and the #MeToo movement.
Reflections on Yara’s connections to both Prince and the Obamas and their role in shaping her and her family.
Selections and analysis of James Baldwin’s “The Artist’s Struggle for Integrity.”
An honest look at Black freedom fighter and neoliberal politician John Lewis, and productive myth-making, Black violence, and the seduction of politics.

Quotes from the show:

“We have to come to terms with catastrophe, such that we are not surprised by evil nor paralyzed by despair.” –Dr. Cornel West The Tight Rope Episode #10
“In what ways, given the time that we were growing up, was the myth of utopia not even granted to us? We were born into a world in which we’ve seen corruption at heightened levels… In many ways, purpose has been two-pronged in that it has helped me, with an exceeding amount of clarity, move forward and say, okay, what are the moves I want to make in my world to try and make an impact?” –Yara Shahidi The Tight Rope Episode #10
On being entrenched in corporate America: “How do I balance the impact of what I’m doing on a personal level to the positive impact I make to this corporate world that I’m still trying to figure out how I want to deal with?” –Yara Shahidi The Tight Rope Episode #10
“I wouldn’t be where I am if people hadn’t handed the mic to me.” –Yara Shahidi The Tight Rope Episode #10
“How do I pay enough attention to the world around me to service it to the best of my ability?” –Yara Shahidi The Tight Rope Episode #10
On Prince: “I really do feel that he created the foundation for how we move through this industry.” –Yara Shahidi The Tight Rope Episode #10
“My last name, Shahidi, means witness or to bear witness. I hope that through art or whatever these other avenues are-- I’m considering law school, we’ll see-- that I’m able to do that [bear witness] to the best of my ability and to continue to open doors in every space.” –Yara Shahidi The Tight Rope Episode #10
“Many people that are frontlines in this movement are also creatives in the truest sense. It’s something I struggle with is seeing the level of vitriol sent their way in a movement that is so steeped in love. In hearing [James Baldwin’s] words of that cognitive dissonance that occurs when you see someone aware enough that it calls attention to your own state of sleep, that that is what [the vitriol] stems from really contextualizes this moment.” –Yara Shahidi The Tight Rope Episode #10
“My dear brother John Lewis was part of a rich tradition of Black people that put a primacy on morality and a centrality on spirituality. He was such a kind human being. He was so gentle. He was a sweet person. He had a soulfulness to him.” –Dr. Cornel West The Tight Rope Episode #10
“Is it a fair standard to hold him [John Lewis] to? Can a person be in Congress 33 years, 15 years, 5 years and not fundamentally have to wrestle with the contradictions that will in a sense require a less pure response? I just don’t see how you do it.” –Tricia Rose The Tight Rope Episode #10
“Don’t come talking to me about what my violence might look like when you’re constantly crushing my neck to death.” –Tricia Rose The Tight Rope Episode #10
“The arc of the force of their [Black freedom fighters] efforts is what we want to recall while we still the truth about all our human frailties.” –Tricia Rose The Tight Rope Episode #10