16 episodes

Come Through with Rebecca Carroll is a podcast that explores culture, race and identity against the backdrop of the 2020 election. The series will provide listeners with 15 essential conversations they can take with them during this pivotal time. Conversations with prominent thinkers, cultural critics, writers, artists, and politicians on topics like climate change, diversity and inclusion programs, immigration and more are prompted by our host’s lifelong personal inquiry into what it means to form an identity as a black woman against the default American backdrop of mainstream whiteness and white supremacy.

Come Through with Rebecca Carroll WNYC

    • Society & Culture
    • 4.7 • 302 Ratings

Come Through with Rebecca Carroll is a podcast that explores culture, race and identity against the backdrop of the 2020 election. The series will provide listeners with 15 essential conversations they can take with them during this pivotal time. Conversations with prominent thinkers, cultural critics, writers, artists, and politicians on topics like climate change, diversity and inclusion programs, immigration and more are prompted by our host’s lifelong personal inquiry into what it means to form an identity as a black woman against the default American backdrop of mainstream whiteness and white supremacy.

    15. Julián Castro's Common Census

    15. Julián Castro's Common Census

    Julián Castro served as the mayor of San Antonio, Texas before joining the Obama administration as housing secretary. And he was briefly in the race for president, the only Latinx candidate in the 2020 Democratic primary. But he admits he still gets stagefright. When he spoke at the Democratic National Convention in 2012, “for the first 30 seconds, I thought I was going to pass out on-stage in front of 25 million people watching,” he tells host Rebecca Carroll. “That's my advice for people just getting into it: be prepared for the nerves at the beginning, but then it'll be fine.” These days he’s stumping for the U.S. Census and he’s encouraging undocumented people to participate. “[Organizers] can’t take that information and turn it over to Immigration,” he says. “I know that it takes a little bit of a leap of faith during this Trump era especially, but that is what the law says and that’s how the law will be enforced.” Plus, we end the podcast season as we began it, with Rebecca’s best friend, Caryn Rivers.
    Liked the show? Subscribe and follow Rebecca for updates on all things Come Through!

    • 41 min
    14. Ira Madison III Keeps It, Kay Oyegun Gives It

    14. Ira Madison III Keeps It, Kay Oyegun Gives It

    As a struggling screenwriter, Twitter was exactly what Ira Madison III needed to get noticed. More than 200k followers later, he’s writing for Netflix (“Daybreak” and the upcoming “Q-Force”). He tells host Rebecca Carroll, “I think that by virtue of being Black and telling your story, you are already analyzing and critiquing what it means to be Black in this era.” For writer and producer Kay Oyegun (NBC’s “This is Us”), “Black women are always my protagonists.” When she writes a script, “I always say, ‘assume everyone's Black unless I say otherwise.’” 
    Liked the show? Subscribe and follow Rebecca for updates on all things Come Through!

    • 45 min
    13. Waubgeshig Rice Saw This Apocalypse Coming

    13. Waubgeshig Rice Saw This Apocalypse Coming

    Waubgeshig Rice is a Canadian journalist and bestselling author (Moon of the Crusted Snow) from the Wasauksing First Nation, who grew up in an Anishinaabe community. He hopes COVID will be a wake-up call to a crisis that has been going on for decades: climate change. “People from so-called ‘marginalized communities’ know what it's like to have that sort of tenuous hold on life and know that the world can end at any time, if it hasn't already,” he tells host Rebecca Carroll. “And the dominant mainstream majority is finally understanding just how close they are to chaos.”
    Liked the show? Subscribe and follow Rebecca for updates on all things Come Through!

    • 27 min
    12. Ava DuVernay Takes Us Online, Desmond Meade Leads Us to Vote

    12. Ava DuVernay Takes Us Online, Desmond Meade Leads Us to Vote

    Ava DuVernay was a young teenager when she went to a U2 concert and encountered a flier for Amnesty International that changed her life. She tells host Rebecca Carroll, "it was just that little piece of something that said, 'There's more than you in the world. Look outside, look beyond. Think about the majesty of other people outside where you sit.' All of that opened up a whole new world for me." She recently launched an online education initiative that uses her Netflix series "When They See Us" to teach high school-age kids about systematic racism and the impact of social justice. Plus, Rebecca talks with Desmond Meade of the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition about why it’s more important than ever to vote.
    Liked the show? Subscribe and follow Rebecca for updates on all things Come Through! 

    • 33 min
    11. Gabrielle Union is Raising Black Daughters and Learning As She Goes

    11. Gabrielle Union is Raising Black Daughters and Learning As She Goes

    Gabrielle Union is a force. But before she became an actress, activist, and businesswoman, Gabrielle was a Black girl from Omaha trying to find Black community, belonging, and love in a largely white suburb in California. After years of difficult relationships and trying to fit the standards other people had set for her, she finally feels like she’s come into her own. And now, she's trying to instill that confidence in her daughters. That requires "being super conscious," she tells host Rebecca Carroll, and "really questioning every single thing that we've been taught about skin color and body type." It's all a work-in-progress. 
    Liked the show? Subscribe and follow Rebecca for updates on all things Come Through!

    • 34 min
    10. Don Lemon is a Soldier for The Army of Truth

    10. Don Lemon is a Soldier for The Army of Truth

    Over the past several years, we’ve watched Don Lemon go from a semi-conservative broadcast journalist to an emotionally expressive, openly opinionated public figure. The CNN anchor has even drawn the ire of President Trump. And Lemon is OK with that. “If the President is exhibiting racist behavior,” he tells Rebecca Carroll, “it is incumbent on journalists to point that behavior out and to say what it is: to call racism, racism; to call a lie, a lie. You're doing your job.”
    Liked the show? Subscribe and follow Rebecca for updates on all things Come Through!

    • 34 min

Customer Reviews

4.7 out of 5
302 Ratings

302 Ratings

rohnerfam ,

Poignant & Important

Interviews are conducted smoothly, thoughtfully, and with a nuance that peels away the pretense to get to the heart of our relationship with race. Against the backdrop of all things 2020, this podcast helps us all explore the intricacies of race using conversations as a vehicle. Highly recommend!

Agranok ,

Phenomenal and brilliant

Come Through is a phenomenal podcast. Rebecca Carroll is one of the most insightful interviewers I have ever heard, going right to the heart of the matter and then digging even deeper. Her guests are also brilliant and they discuss different facets of race, the pandemic, and our future that are both timeless and timely. I absolutely recommend Come Through.

Em Sheff ,

Love it!

Timely, fresh and smart interviews with amazing change-makers and thinkers. Thank you, Rebecca!

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