As parents, we all want to teach our kids to be inclusive, but how? Join Jasmine Bradshaw each week as she gives you the tools and practical strategies that you need to talk to your children about race, religion, and culture. If you are a parent who values inclusion and wants to teach your children how to truly love those who are different from them, this podcast is for you!
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We’ve got some changes coming at First Name Basis! I started the First Name Basis Podcast back in 2019 when I looked at my tiny daughter and wanted to make the world a better place for her — a place that would be more inclusive, kind and anti-racist. In the past almost 5 years, we’ve created this beautiful community where we’ve had so many hard but…
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9.2: Don’t Do THIS During Black History Month
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In case you haven’t noticed yet, I’m passionate about Black History Month. I did not enjoy learning about Black history growing up. It felt more like grieving than celebrating for me, and because of that it’s my dream to make Black History Month a positive experience for ALL children and students. So today, as part of that, I’m talking about 3 mist…
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Can you believe February is right around the corner?! And with it comes BLACK HISTORY MONTH! Celebrating Black History Month is so important for ALL kids, not just Black children, and I created Bite-Sized Black History to help kiddos everywhere be able to learn about Black history in a way that is both meaningful and joyful. In this episode, I’m te…
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We’re wrapping up Season 8 with this episode, and it’s got me thinking all about our evolution over the years. From beginning as a tiny Instagram account to starting the podcast, from working with families to working with schools, First Name Basis has grown in ways that is a dream come true! I consult with schools across the country to implement an…
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Like so many of you, I have been all consumed the last few weeks by the events going on in Gaza and the genocide that is being carried out against the Palestinian people. We've put everything on pause at First Name Basis to be able to try to share updates and share actions that we can be taking as a collective to try to support the activists and so…
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8.14: Black and Brown Emojis Are Not a Punch Line
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This episode can be summarized with one sentence: Please stop using Black and Brown emojis if you are not Black or Brown. Skin color is something that should be celebrated, not laughed at, but I have seen people using emojis that don’t match their skin tone time and time again. I think a lot of the time people aren’t intentionally trying to do some…
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8.13: Invisible Lynching and What It Says About the Fight for Justice
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Trigger warning: Before you continue reading these show notes or listening to this episode, please be aware that it discusses lynching and white supremacist violence. Lynching is a reality both now and in the past. Yet despite the fact that lynching continues to happen, it took more than 120 years to get an anti-lynching bill passed. In that time, …
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Growing up as a multiracial child, I often felt my racial identity shifting and developing — heck, even as an adult I do! Navigating what it means to be multiracial continues to be a journey for me, which is why I was so excited to be able to interview Dr. Jennifer Noble. Dr. Jenn, as she’s known online, is a licensed psychologist, parent coach and…
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8.11: 3 Things I’ve Learned On My Anti-Racist Journey
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This episode is a bit of a role reversal with someone I admire SO MUCH. I have been a longtime fan of Rachel Nielson’s podcast 3 in 30: Takeaways for Moms. Each episode is 30 minutes long and provides 3 ACTIONABLE takeaways for listeners to go and do. She has over 250 episodes covering a huge variety of topics — from potty training to mental health…
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8.10: Let's Talk Language: Under-Resourced
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Language is always evolving and we need to evolve with it. Reflecting on the words we’re using and recognizing opportunities to grow and change is a natural (and necessary) part of our anti-racist journeys. It means breaking down and unlearning things that we thought in the past, but the result is language that better aligns with our intent. So thi…
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8.9: Teaching Children About Disabilities
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July 26, 2023, is the 33rd anniversary of the Americans With Disabilities Act. If you’re doing the math in your head, let me give you a shortcut: That means the ADA wasn’t passed until 1990. 1990?! It took quite a while for Americans with disabilities to officially be named a protected class as neither the 1964 Civil Rights Act nor the 1965 Voting …
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8.8: My Journey: Resisting White Supremacy Culture and Finding Joy
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Y’all, I’m gettin’ REAL in this episode. We always talk about how anti-racism is a journey not a destination, and it’s so important to take time to reflect on that journey. So in today’s episode, I’m sharing part of my journey with you! You may have heard of the Characteristics of White Supremacy Culture developed by Tema Okun. She is a white woman…
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Parents of Black children are all too familiar with “The Talk.” “The Talk” where they teach their kids not to have their hands in their pockets at a store. “The Talk” where they teach their kids how to act around police in an attempt to keep themselves safe. “The Talk” where they teach their kids about the racism they’re already experiencing and wi…
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8.6: The Untold Story of “The Star Spangled Banner”
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You probably learned in school all about the story of Francis Scott Key watching the “rockets red glare” and “bombs bursting in air” as a prisoner on a British warship and turning the experience into “The Star Spangled Banner.” But, in reality, there is a lot more to this story than you learned about in history class — and a lot of what you did lea…
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8.5: The Story of the First Openly Gay MLB Player: Glenn Burke
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Happy Pride my friends, especially to the LGBTQ+ members in our community! To celebrate Pride, I wanted to share an episode from my Bite-Sized Black History program that features a Black American who was LGBTQ+. So today, we’re learning about Glenn Burke, who was the first openly gay Major League Baseball player! Glenn Burke was an amazing athlete …
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8.4: Motherhood: An Unexpected Act of Resistance
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This episode is a special one to me, one dedicated to all of the Black and Brown moms out there. A lot of my Black and Brown friends who are stay-at-home moms in the thick of it with tiny kiddos have told me that they feel like they’re not doing enough to contribute to the anti-racism movement. For my friends and anyone else in this community who r…
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8.3: The Untold Story of the Story That I Told: Correcting Mistakes When Teaching Kids About Slavery
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Did you read the title of this episode? It’s a doozy! As convoluted as “The Untold Story of the Story That I Told” is, I couldn’t resist calling this newest episode that because of the WILD ride I went on making it. Years ago I made an eBook called “Rise and Resist” where I highlighted five different Black people who were alive around the time of J…
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I’ve been thinking a lot about coded language lately. If you’re unfamiliar with that term, coded language is when someone is talking negatively about a marginalized group without explicitly saying who they’re talking about — but the “code” is that other people in the dominant culture know exactly who they’re talking about. While coded language is s…
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Bite-sized Black History Bite-sized Black History is a podcast just for kids that empowers you to teach the little ones you love about brilliant Black Americans who have been largely overlooked by our history books. We featured 28 different people, one for each day of Black History Month! Invest today and use the coupon code BLACKHISTORY15 for 15% …
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7.18: An Update on Our Cross Country Move
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It’s been a few months since we moved across the country from Arizona to Maryland, and I’ve gotten questions from so many of you wondering how we like our new home. So this week for our Season 7 finale, my husband Carter and I are giving you all the details! We’re telling you all about our opinions on the East Coast, things we miss about Arizona, h…
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When we really take a moment to step back and think, it’s easy to agree that Jesus had brown skin because he was from the Middle East. If that’s the case, why is Christ so often depicted as white with light skin, hair, and eyes? In this episode we uncover the roots of white Jesus, explain the impact this depiction has made on us and our communities…
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7.16: Your School Has a Diversity Statement. Now What?
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We all know that 2020 was a wake-up call for a lot of people. It was a time of reflection, a time of change (hopefully), and a time where schools all over seemed to prioritize inclusion by drafting diversity statements. But here we are in 2022, and I find myself asking: Have the diversity statements made a difference? It’s not enough for a school t…
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7.15: How to Center Indigenous Peoples During Thanksgiving
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I made my “Untold Story of Thanksgiving” episode to help me — and hopefully you — understand the true, accurate history. As I think about the episode, I think it does a good job at correcting the history, but it still centers on the colonizers. Because of that, I’ve been thinking a lot about how I can better make Indigenous Peoples the center of ou…
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7.14: Teaching Our Children About Unfamiliar Accents
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Have y’all ever driven down the East Coast? I don’t mean to spoil the magic for you but I gotta say, it’s basically a straight shot through a wall of trees. So I was pretty excited when I noticed a few colorful billboards dotting my path. That excitement quickly turned to disgust when I realized that those billboards were super-duper racist. These …
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7.13: The Importance of Black and Asian Solidarity
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To say I’m obsessed with New York Times bestselling author Joanna Ho’s novel “The Silence That Binds Us” is an understatement. Yes, it’s a book technically written for young adults, but it’s also one adults need to read — because not only is it a beautiful story of grief, but it is also an impactful story about anti-racism. I had the privilege of i…
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If you’ve been around a while, you’ve heard me say it hundreds of times: Race is a social construct. Race was created and has always been manipulated to make sure that the people in the dominant culture — in the U.S., that means people who are white, middle class, Christian, male and cisgender — can maintain power. History is full of examples of th…
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7.11: Real Quick: Politicians Need Experience
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Politicians need experience to do their job. This may fall under the “unpopular opinion” category to some people, but it’s something I feel strongly about and have been thinking about for a while. You wouldn’t want someone who played a surgeon on TV — but didn’t actually go to medical school — to perform surgery on you. So why would you want someon…
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7.10: The Scariest Costume: An Untold Story of Appropriation
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When the team here at First Name Basis was doing the research for our recent episode “Alcatraz: An Untold Story of Indigenous Resistance,” we came across the story of the Tammany Society — and we knew right away that story was too wild not to share! The Tammany Society — also known as the Tammany Hall or the Columbian Order — was organized in the l…
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7.9: Children of Color in Schools: the Stories Behind the Statistics
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One of the biggest messages we’re trying to get across with First Name Basis is that learning a person’s story and getting to know them as an individual is the best way to create understanding and foster anti-racist, inclusive communities. Heck, it’s such an important concept that it’s our name! Getting on a first name basis with people has so much…
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7.8: Culture is Not a Costume: Cultural Appropriation and Halloween
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Can you believe that Halloween is just around the corner? I know some of you super-prepared parents out there are already getting costumes put together for your kiddos, and you may be wondering about cultural appropriation as you're looking through the shelves and online at all the costume options. I get asked all the time about how to avoid cultur…
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7.7: Alcatraz: An Untold Story of Indigenous Resistance
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Alcatraz. What comes to your mind when you hear the name of that little island off the coast of San Francisco? For me, I heard "Alcatraz" and I pictured that guy who says, "Say hello to my little friend." I know, I know, wrong coast. I couldn't have been more off base. But all I really knew is that it used to be a high-security prison and I imagine…
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My dear friends, we have been on this anti-racism journey together for 3 years, and it’s AMAZING to think about the growth we’ve gone through together. Over the course of more than 100 episodes, we’ve gone from talking about the basic building blocks to more in-depth conversations. And just like we as adults have worked to build up our own understa…
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7.5: Oh No! I Talked About Racism and Made Things Worse
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I’ve heard from so many parents who have been listening to the First Name Basis Podcast and other anti-racist educators, have tried to implement the suggestions they learn as they try to teach their children … only to feel like it’s all completely backfired. Perhaps you’ve been there, where you’ve talked to your kiddos about racism only to hear the…
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7.4: Where Did Student Loans Come From and Why Is College So Expensive?
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The fact that there is a need for student loan forgiveness really paints a picture of just how complicated education funding has become. So how did we get to this point, and why is the already huge cost of attending college continuing to increase? To answer this, I interviewed my dad, Ken Clarke, who spent more than 35 years working as a financial …
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7.3: Real Talk: You Should Support Student Loan Forgiveness
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It’s been a few weeks since the White House announced a plan for student loan forgiveness, and in that time, you’ve likely seen all sorts of articles and social media posts pushing back against it. Watching these arguments unfold has been frustrating, and it can be hard to know what to say. To help all of us know how to respond, I interviewed my da…
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7.2: Ways to Make Immigration About People, Not Status
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Immigration is about so much more than debates, laws and policies — it’s about people. Every person who has interacted with the immigration system has their own story that goes far beyond their status, and if we really want to make productive and lasting changes to policy, we need to start by focusing on the individual people and their unique exper…
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7.1: You Are Not Meant to Do This Alone: The Power of Anti-Racist Community
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Anti-racism is meant to be done in community. It makes sense, right? This work is SO important and we need to be sharing it with others in order for change to actually happen. But we also need support in it — especially during the times when it feel like that change is coming at a snail’s pace. In this episode, we’re talking more about why communit…
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6.13: How Can I Help My Kiddos Grapple With Hard History?
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You know what would really help us all out? If we realized that historical figures are more than the heroes/villains that we often reduce them to. Although past presidents and leaders had important titles with huge amounts of power, it’s critical that all of us, including our children, understand that they were people. People who were complicated. …
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6.12: How Can I Show Up on Social Media When I Don’t Have All of the Answers?
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Social media feels like a double-edged sword: It can be a great way to keep in touch with family and friends and learn new things, but it can also be a place where debates run heated, long and seem unproductive. So how do you navigate knowing when and how to speak up when you see people post things that are racist, discriminatory and untruthful? We…
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6.11: Environmental Justice: What in the World are Carbon Credits?
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“Carbon credit” is a trendy term you might have heard being used by businesses, government officials and the news media, but what exactly is it? We’re answering that in this week’s episode, which is the first in our Summer School series! Summer School is a brand-new series where I’m sharing quick tips and tidbits for you to be thinking about this s…
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6.10: Anti-Racist Education at Home and in the Classroom
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We want our children to embrace anti-racist education both at school and at home, but what does that actually look like? We’re talking about anti-racism in the classroom for the second week in a row because it’s such an important topic to be thinking about right NOW. It might be a little early to be in full-on “back-to-school mode,” but it’s not to…
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Classrooms should be places of growth, discovery and change, and as parents and caregivers we need to support teachers in fostering a positive environment for students. And Patrick Harris II is a teacher who knows first-hand how important that is. Patrick is one of my teaching idols, and he recently released a book about being a teacher titled “The…
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6.8: The Untold Story of 'The Star Spangled Banner'
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You probably learned in school all about the story of Francis Scott Key watching the “rockets red glare” and “bombs bursting in air” as a prisoner on a British warship and turning the experience into “The Star Spangled Banner.” But, in reality, there is a lot more to this story than you learned about in history class — and a lot of what you did lea…
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We’re packing our boxes and leaving the dry Arizona heat for the suburbs of Washington, D.C.! This move has been in the works for two years now, and I can’t believe it’s finally happening! Carter and I have put a lot of thought into this move and where we want to raise our kiddos, and in this episode we’re answering all of your questions about why …
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6.6: 3 Things Children Need to Know About Slavery
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As a Black bi-racial person, learning about slavery growing up was so hard for me for so many reasons — it was traumatizing and heartbreaking to think about the conditions my ancestors lived through, it felt like a burden to be the only Black person in my class and having everyone look to me, and there were so many things that just didn’t make sens…
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I’ve always thought Mildred and Richard Loving’s last name was kismet. Mildred was a Black woman and Richard was a white man who loved each other, and just wanted to keep on loving each other. On June 12, 1967, Richard and Mildred Loving won their landmark civil rights case against the state of Virginia. Because of the Lovings, states were no longe…
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6.4: Say This, Not That When Someone Comes Out To You
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When a family member or friend chooses to come out to you, it is an extremely vulnerable moment for them, and how you respond is so important. You may find yourself wondering what should you say that’s affirming and loving — and what should you avoid saying that can be harmful. This week on the podcast, we have Elena Joy Thurston to help talk us th…
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6.3: Racism is Built on a Big Fat Lie Pt. 2: Uncle Tom and Other Myths
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If you’ve been here for a while, you’ve probably heard me say about a million times that race is a completely made up social construct — with no basis in biology — that is used to justify racism. There are SO MANY examples in our society that prove just how made up race is, and this week in Part 2 of our two-part series, we’re tackling a few of tho…
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6.2: Thoughts, Prayers, AND Action: We Need Stricter Gun Laws
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As a former teacher and a mom, I have a recurring nightmare that I’m sure many of you share: a constant, ever-present fear of my children — and any other children — being exposed to or a victim in a school shooting. It’s an ever-present fear because it’s an ever-present reality. And this ever-present reality isn’t only happening with school shootin…
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6.1: Racism is Built on a Big Fat Lie Pt. 1: Blood Quantum and the One Drop Rule
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Think back to when you were a kid. Remember when you’d be playing a game and you were about to make an epic power move or even win the game, and the person you were playing with would suddenly shout, “I HAVE A FORCE FIELD!” They knew they were about to lose, so they changed the rules or made up a new one to make sure they could win. Remember how fr…
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