Dissent / by Helena Swanson-Nystrom

Our second episode explores dissent—as both a shaper and a component of the social contract. We hear from Tim McCarthy, an educator, historian, and citizen-activist; Charlene Carruthers, founding national director of Black Youth Project 100; Nate Boyer, former Seattle Seahawks long snapper and United States Army Green Beret; David McCraw, vice president and deputy general counsel of The New York Times; and Stas Walker, a blogger, essayist, and scholar.

This episode is marked explicit due to brief strong language describing an incident of hate speech.

For additional information on the issues we briefly examine, we recommend the following resources:

  • Protest Nation: Words That Inspired A Century of American Radicalism (Timothy Patrick McCarthy & John McMillian eds., The New Press 2010).
  • Charlene A. Carruthers, Remnants of Survival: Black Women and Legacies of Defiance, in The Burden: African Americans and the Enduring Impact of Slavery (Rochelle Riley ed., Wayne St. Uni. Press 2018).
  • Nate Boyer, An Open Letter to Colin Kaepernick, from a Green Beret-Turned-Long Snapper, Army Times (Aug. 30, 2016), https://www.armytimes.com/opinion/2016/08/30/an-open-letter-to-colin-kaepernick-from-a-green-beret-turned-long-snapper/.
  • Nate Boyer, Ex-Green Beret Nate Boyer Writes Open Letter to Trump, Kaepernick, NFL and America, ESPN (Oct. 13, 2017), http://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/21003968/nfl-2017-ex-green-beret-nate-boyer-writes-open-letter-president-donald-trump-colin-kaepernick-nfl-united-states-america.
  • David McCraw, I Hardly Expected My Letter to Donald Trump’s Lawyer to Go Viral, N.Y. Times (Oct. 17, 2016), https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/18/insider/i-hardly-expected-my-letter-to-donald-trump-to-go-viral.html.
  • David McCraw & Stephen Gikow, The End to an Unspoken Bargain? National Security and Leaks in a Post–Pentagon Papers World, 48 Harv. C.R.C.L. L. Rev. 473 (2013). 
  • Anastasia Walker, Cleveland State and the Degradation of “Free” Speech in the Trump Era, Huffington Post (Nov. 29 2017, 9:33 PM), https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/cleveland-state-and-the-degradation-of-free-speech_us_5a11dd0ee4b0e30a9585082a.

This episode was produced by Mareva Lindo.

Thanks to Doctor Turtle for the music:
"Lullaby for Democracy" (http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Doctor_Turtle/The_Double-Down_Two-Step/lullaby_for_democracy)
"Go Tell It On the Molehill" (http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Doctor_Turtle/Flush_Your_Rolex_1416/go_tell_it_on_the_molehill_2)