#QandA with Sonari Glinton / Host of Shattering the System Podcast Series

@DBPardes · 8mo ago · 0:46

1. "Black queer bodies do not matter"

So I have sensibilities that inextricably link my experience to my perspective and how I approach things. How does being a black queer man impact the way you are telling this story?

@Sonari · 8mo ago · 1:50

You. Hello. Thank you for having me. I wonder, how does this how am I affected by how does being black and queer affect me? I guess it's just that, like, you know, at some point, you look around when you have a middle class life or whatever, and you see people killing trans folks, and you're like, what am I really doing with my life in my job?

@DBPardes · 8mo ago · 0:58

2. Location … as character.

And obviously someone else died. Timothy Dean died after Jamal died. I want you to talk about your feelings around this location, West Hollywood, and how they've changed since your deep coverage of this story

@Sonari · 8mo ago · 2:19

One of the things that I loved about being in a public radio reporter was the best stories. The best storytellers on the radio did a thing that we would just call they took you There. Right? And I remember I helped to produce the series that NPR did on rivers. It was one of these big, nutty NPR series, but you literally felt like you were floating down the Nile with a Fabio, Chris Darkman or the Danube with know, like, it was really impactful

@DBPardes · 8mo ago · 1:00

3. Context and history

I'm really struck by how powerful the history is embedded into this podcast. The way you weave in the history of slavery and the roots of Dragon Ball culture and queer culture all the way up to today, where we have laws against trans folk and gay people and it's just all one big, complicated situation, and you really deftly try to uncomplicate it for us

@Sonari · 8mo ago · 2:40

And so you might notice some of that in my I should say I studied religious texts, so it was the sort of religious literature. And that, I think, always is a part of a story. Again, this is the lay of the land. That's what religion is. It's about story, right?

@DBPardes · 8mo ago · 1:06

4. Getting real

And what advice can you give other journalists who are struggling with their own personal identity and how to map that onto the stories they choose to tell?

@Sonari · 8mo ago · 3:09

You. I have to say that one of the things that I'm very I want people to be cognizant of is that this is not my first rodeo, but this is not my third story or my you know, I'm not my third year of being on air as a radio reporter or podcaster. It's more like my we're approaching, like, 20. And I had a whole decade of being on the air at NPR long before I did a story where I put myself into it