Thanksgiving retrospective 🦃
5 episodes highlighting Native voices & stories
Gobble gobble, turkeys — it’s Thanksgiving! On the one hand, this is a beloved, coma-inducing holiday for eating turkey and stuffing, spending time (fighting) with friends and family, and finding much-needed gratitude for the world around you.
However, for many, the celebration is deeply controversial. Many Indigenous Peoples and others in the U.S. recognize Thanksgiving as a time to remember ancestral history and acknowledge and protest the racism and oppression they continue to experience today. Two years ago, November became National Native American Heritage Month. And as conversations about race, racism, and the impact of white supremacy have broken into the mainstream dialogue, the number of podcasts providing a deeper and more thoughtful discussion on these issues is booming.
Here are five of my favorite podcasts and episodes highlighting Native stories and voices, covering everything from the United States’s history of land theft to present-day Native issues and even sci-fi movies (but make it decolonized). Enjoy!
This Land
Both seasons one and two are fantastic. The first season of This Land was a masterful lesson in Native American history, law, and policy masquerading as a true-crime podcast in the most brilliant way possible. Obviously, the plot is grim, but Native American journalist and host Rebecca Nagle will make you wish every true-crime podcast was this engrossing and educational. For season two, Nagle takes listeners through the 40-year history of the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) and her year-long investigation into a current federal lawsuit.All My Relations: ThanksTaking or ThanksGiving?
This podcast pairs the precision of Indigenous academia with the warmth of a late-night chat with friends. Native hosts Matika Wilbur and Dr. Desi Rodriguez Lonebear skillfully interview guests about topics like food sovereignty, Native mascots, blood quantum, queerness, Indigenous feminism, and how healing land can heal the body. These women make it easy and so damn funny to learn. This episode unpacks the real story of Thanksgiving from an Indigenous Perspective, featuring Wampanoag scholars Paula Peters and Linda Coombs.Toasted Sister Podcast: The Thanksgiving Episode
Our bellies know a LOT about Thanksgiving food, but what do you know about traditional Indigenous cuisine? In this episode, host Andi Murphy talks to Native chefs and foodies about how Thanksgiving’s colonization affected traditional Indigenous foodways and ingredients and what three Wampanoag women are doing to educate and revitalize the Native American food scene in their communities.Métis In Space
Métis is a french word referring to someone of mixed Indigenous ancestry, and space is where all the wildest movies take place, duh! Molly Swain and Chelsea Vowel are two Métis women and huge sci-fi nerds who love to drink wine and deconstruct the tropes, themes, and hidden meanings behind the whitest genre of film and television we've ever known. Over five seasons, they have covered everything from Westworld to Thor: Ragnarok and so much more.Stuff You Missed in History Class: How the First Thanksgiving Worked
This is from the OG’s of podcasting, but there’s a reason they are still around today. This show is known for bringing unique moments in history to the ears of history geeks everywhere. In this episode, Katie and Sarah answer the important question: How much of the first Thanksgiving story we learned in school is actually true? And lemme tell ya, they always do their homework.
New technology from Sonnant could give old podcasts new life - AI can be scary, but this seems cool! This week, PodNews had a write-up about a new tool called Archival Retrieval that automatically checks trending topics to find relevant podcasts from your archives to promote and even clips the audio for you.
Patreon to launch video streaming capabilities - Patreon already hosts podcasts, but, according to Ashley Carman of Hot Pod and The Verge, they will now be a one-stop-shop for all your podcasts needs with video hosting capabilities, as well.
Edison Research released The Black Listener Report 2021 - This was the first-ever comprehensive research on Black podcast listeners in the U.S., and the findings reveal the importance of Black creators and more.
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➡️ What Do I Need to Get Press Coverage for My Show? ⬅️
On the Simplecast blog, professional podcast critic Gavin Gaddis offered steps you can take to make your podcast as media-friendly as possible. Peep some tips below and read the full article for more info!
Here’s what you’ll need:
A website - A homepage where all the key info about your show is in one easy-to-navigate spot. (Hint: Twitter is not enough.)
A press kit - A one-stop-shop with media-relevant details about your podcast's premise, cadence, the folks involved, etc.
Strong first impression - Make it easy for everyone to love your podcast by putting your best episode forward.
Podcast transcripts - Transcripts make your show accessible, boost your website's SEO, and they have the unintended bonus of making life easy for podcast journalists.
Production credits - Proper credit to those not on the mic is often overlooked but necessary information for journalists covering podcasts.
TOXIC: THE BRITNEY SPEARS STORY - Britney Spears is officially FREE! I know hosts Barbara Gray and Tess Barker from the LA comedy scene, and I have to be honest, a few years ago, when they first started Britney's Gram, I thought it was performance art about performance art. But it turns out these badasses were about to start the #FreeBritney movement! Their new WitnessDocs podcast Toxic explains everything you need to know about Britney's career, conservatorship, and how she finally broke free.
WELL ACTUALLY: WORST MOVIE SONGS OF ALL TIME - This is my creative assistant Holly Brown's podcast! She helps me with this newsletter, among other things, and she also co-hosts a great podcast of her own. 'Um, well, actually…" You might not be a true nerd if you haven't uttered those words before, but Holly, Kane, and Brad test listeners' knowledge of nerddom with the deepest dives, funnest facts, and nerdiest quizzes out there. This episode gets nostalgic as they explore all of the worst movie songs of all time. See if your picks made their list!
AM I NORMAL?: HOW MANY FRIENDS DO I NEED? - I'm obsessed host Mona Chalabi's charts on Instagram, so I've been meaning to check out her podcast with TED. I can definitely relate to the pandemic friendship fade, so I had to listen to this episode with evolutionary psychologist Robin Dunbar on what it means to maintain friendships in a screen-obsessed world. After mapping out my own relationships against the averages, I think I'm pretty normal, but I have a bit of reaching out to do.
THE TIM FERRISS SHOW - I know this man doesn't need my help promoting his podcast. Still, the fact remains that I've been listening to literally dozens of hours of his recent episodes about Bitcoin, cryptocurrency, and Web3 — particularly interesting were #547 with Balaji Srinivasan, #499 with Katie Haun, and #542 with Chris Dixon and Naval Ravikant. This is not financial advice, but you *NEED* to stay up on these conversations related to blockchain… it's the future!
Host Mesh Lakhani interviews his buddy Phil Toronto, a crypto investor and NFT enthusiast, about the recent NFT NYC conference and the latest trends in NFTs.
This episode is part two of Mesh's interview with Phil defining buzzwords like Web3, crypto, and the Metaverse, how they relate to each other, and what we should be expecting in the months to come.
So… ROLL CALL! 🗣
Who are your favorite Native American creators, and what are your favorite Indigenous-led podcasts?
Follow me @courtneykocak on Twitter and Instagram. For more, check out my website courtneykocak.com.