Some of My Best Friends Are

Thank You For Being Some of Our Best Friends

In the final episode of the show, Khalil and Ben talk with Chicago poet laureate avery r. young. He’s the multitalented interdisciplinary artist behind the podcast’s theme song, ‘Lil Lillie.’ They discuss the story behind the song and how racial justice influences his work. Ben and Khalil also reflect on their time working on this show. To check out avery r. young’s work, go to his website: https://www.averyryoung.com/ See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Samantha Irby is Quietly Hostile & Raucously Funny

Ben and Khalil get personal with author and TV writer Samantha Irby on this week's show. Her bestselling essay collections Wow, No Thank You and We Are Never Meeting in Real Life are super intimate, full of gory details, and laugh-out-loud funny. She joins Ben and Khalil to talk about her latest book, Quietly Hostile; how she uses comedy as therapy; and her work on the latest season of the Sex and the City reboot And Just Like That...  Quietly Hostile by Samantha Irby See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The End of Affirmative Action

The Supreme Court recently issued a decision banning race-conscious admission in higher education. In this episode, Ben and Khalil talk with Anurima Bhargava, who served in the Civil Rights Division of Obama’s Department of Justice focusing on education. Anurima also went to high school with Ben and Khalil at Kenwood Academy in Chicago. They talk about what’s great about going to a diverse school, as well as how the conservative movement plotted to get rid of affirmative action and what is lost as a result. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Fantastic Future: Reimagining the American City

This week, Ben and Khalil are talking about the future of cities. Their guest, Toni Griffin, is an architect, urban planner, and artist. She teaches at the Harvard School of Design, where she leads the Just City Lab, a team focused on community revitalization in city planning. Toni joins Ben and Khalil to talk about centering people in urban design, and her new show at the 2023 Venice Architecture Biennale that imagines "fantastic futures.”See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From The Last Archive: Acting Out

Here’s a special episode from another Pushkin show we love -- The Last Archive. In the 1930s, at a women's reformatory in upstate New York, an upstart social scientist made a study that launched the field of social network analysis. It was revolutionary, but missed something happening at the same time at the same school, something we know now in part from the story of the school's most famous inmate: Ella Fitzgerald. To hear the rest of the season, visit The Last Archive show page on Apple Podcasts, at pushkin.fm, or wherever you get your podcasts.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.