A New Adventure by Delaney Rhea

Mid- December Heather and I embarked on an exciting adventure to record our own podcast. This has been a month and a half of a love-loathe relationship. We love our conversations and sharing them through a podcast but the technology hiccups and challenges have also given us an education by fire in recording and editing audio files that at times has us on the brink of sanity. The end result has been 7 episodes of the Listen Learn Love Podcast that we are very proud of. Every time we get a new positive review, or hear from a new listener, it is like a great parent-teacher conference where you learn that your suspicions of creating a clever and enjoyable child are indeed reality. 

Our inaugural episode was, I Was a Racist, where I confessed my implicit racial bias to Heather and we had a frank discussion about how lack of representation has led to most of us having inappropriately skewed expectations of people of color and others who are different from us. We highlighted the importance of these conversations coming from a place of honest self-evaluation instead of a place of shame and blame. 

In our second podcast, The Empathy Gap, we explored how several key current events are processed differently depending upon whether you can empathize with the struggles and distinct needs of others without having to experience their lives in order to believe their stories. 

Interracial Friendships should be the norm, instead of the exception, but as Heather shared statistics with me during this episode we explored the challenges as well as the many joys of increasing your circle of friends to include those who are from different races and ethnicities as yourself. For those who have already listened to this episode, it was the first of many times that my personal fashion sense has been called into question and we still laugh about dresses with pockets for guinea pigs. If you haven’t heard this episode, I hope that last sentence will inspire you to seek it out. 

Our schedule has been to release a new episode each Friday but sometimes current events necessitate conversations mid-week and that is what resulted in our episode 3.5, Capitol Riots. After the January 6th riots at the Capitol Building in Washington D.C., Heather and I needed to process our thoughts and decided to record our conversation to share on the podcast. Being able to have hard and honest conversations about really difficult events is something we feel strongly about sharing and modeling. Though you may not agree with us on every opinion and conclusion, we hope that our episode will give you a place to begin processing your own feelings about the events of that day and entering into discussions with those close to you. 

Our always amazing virtual assistant, Katie Sesti, chimed in on our episode, Fetishization of Women of Color, and not only did she increase the level of in-depth conversation, she increased the laughs and was the first one able to pronounce the word “fetishization” on the first try. To learn more about this topic or to hear us stumble through that word as though we were blindfolded and walking across Legos, make sure to find episode 4 wherever you enjoy listening to podcasts. 

In mid-January we celebrated the birth of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr and reflected on his legacy in the Civil Rights Movement and the effects his teachings still have today. In this Episode, Heather challenges me to dig deeper than the “I Have a Dream” speech and think about how to really understand MLK’s philosophy to better understand how his teachings fit into our current racial tensions. This episode introduces that idea that there are two Dr. Kings: the very complicated man who fought for civil rights in the face of great pushback and overwhelming disapproval, and the one that people like to quote small sentences promoting peace without accountability or change. If you aren’t sure which Dr. King you have known, this is a great place to start learning about him. 

Most people are rightly interested in peace and unity, but not everyone is ready or willing to accept accountability for the mistakes, traumas, and hurtful actions that led to our current state of social divisiveness. In our sixth episode, Unity Without Accountability, we explore the actions needed for genuine and lasting change. Even though it is a deep topic, the addition of Katie Sesti to the conversation was once again insightful and hilarities also ensued. 

Our final episode of January was recorded after the Inauguration on January 20th and we explore this time of transition and how each new administration brings hope for changes we would all like to see in policies.

We want to send a great thank you to all of our listeners and Patreon supporters for embracing and encouraging us along this podcast adventure. We have many great topics coming up and we are also open to suggestions and input from you, the listeners, to make sure we cover the conversations that need to be heard. 

Keep listening, keep learning, and above all, keep loving. 

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