This episode of Radiolab was talking about the efforts to make the square dance the national folk dance of America. They begin by talking about the history of square dancing and how square dancing developed. They transition to talking about the history of America and the characteristic diversity of the American people. They really set the stage for the story they are telling by establishing a strong narrative in regards to the head space that the majority of American people at the time of the 20th century. The narrative being this huge sense of overwhelming American pride but more specifically white pride as the rise of the civil rights movement hit America and as the increasing amount of immigration to America brought this sense of “otherness”. I would definitely consider Radiolab a liberal podcast because of their location, the topics they choose to cover and the narrative that they choose to tell. In this podcast specifically I think that their political views are more obvious than in other episodes. For example when they interview the square dancers the way that they set up their stories almost creates an irony there. They talk about the civil rights movement and how the white people of America choose to neglect minorities in policy and making the square dance the national folk dance would be another example of this. Then they cut to square dancers talking about the sense of pride that they feel in square dancing almost equating it to white pride. The square dancers\/ the people involved in attempting to make square dancing the national folk dance are also saying that square dancing is inclusive because “there were black people there too”. As the listener it’s almost like when someone says something really racist and follows it up with, “I can’t be racist I have a black friend.” Another interesting thing about this podcast is the tone of the entire episode. The entire episode feels light-hearted and the tone that they use is very happy and it feels informative. I don’t know if it is because I am a minority but the way that they talked about how if square dancing were to be named the national folk dance that would be a huge disservice to all of the cultures that make up American culture really riled me up. I felt angry as I listened to this episode even though I don’t really particularly care about square dancing and if it was named the national folk dance I don’t believe that it would have an actual effect on my personal life but for the 40 minutes of this podcast I felt strongly about square dancing not being named the national folk dance. Which is credit to Radiolab’s amazing story telling and how they pull you into the story rather than just have you idly listening. I feel like this podcast was specifically relevant to today’s political atmosphere too which is probably why they chose to do this story. A portion of the podcast was dedicated to talking about the whitewashing of American culture and that is currently happening with Hollywood and their white washing of minority characters and casting white actors .It feels like because of the majority of the American population being white for so long as they lose their majority they’re grasping for straws to hold onto their power which we see with the Republican politicians. They tolerate Trump because he can rile up the crazy white supremacists and thus old white people in the senate can hold on to their seats even if it means halting progress as a country. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
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