Listening to April Baskin and Tracie Guy-Decker talk, one would think they’ve known each other their whole lives.
The natural rapport between the two women is part of the magic that makes their podcast, “Jews Talk Racial Justice with April and Tracie,” such a pleasure for listeners.
Baskin and Guy-Decker first met about a year ago while serving as facilitators for “Jewish Social Justice in a Time of Quarantine,” a three-part, multi-generational program about racial justice sponsored by the Baltimore Jewish Council and held at the Jewish Museum of Maryland.
Baskin is a diversity and inclusion expert and founder of Joyous Justice, a Black women-led social justice organization. Guy-Decker is the JMM’s former deputy director and founder of B’more Incremental, an online community of people interested in fighting racism in Baltimore.
Due to the pandemic, the program took place via Zoom. Nonetheless, virtual communication was a necessity since Baskin, a native of Sacramento, California, lives in Senegal. (She moved to the West African nation after a friend invited her and a group of fellow Jews of African heritage to participate in what she called a “Black Jews of Color Birthright” trip.)
While leading the program, Baskin and Guy-Decker developed a strong connection.
“I just adored April, and at one point she made an off-hand comment about wanting to maybe start a show or something,” Guy-Decker says. “And so after we did our event, I said, ‘What can we do? What should we do together? I love talking to you.’ And she said, ‘Yeah, let’s start a podcast.’”
Baskin says the podcast, which is one of the programs offered by Joyous Justice, seemed like a good vehicle for her and Guy-Decker for several reasons. For one thing, since the killing of George Floyd last May, Baskin — a racial justice advisor to the Jewish Social Justice Roundtable and Leading Edge, and immediate past vice president of the Union of Reform Judaism’s Leading-edge Audacious Hospitality Department — has been flooded with requests for her services.
“I got a notice on Facebook that the visits to my [website] went up about a thousand percent!” she says.
After trying to manage all of the demands for her time, Baskin says she realized she needed to find alternate ways to impart diversity and equity training. “So a core part of how we’re setting up everything connected with Joyous Justice is recognizing my finite availability,” she says.
The podcast, Baskin says, is a way of reaching the most people in the shortest amount of time.
In addition, she says, “We created ‘Jews Talk Racial Justice’ because people have lots of different questions, and there’s lots of different things that people are either confused about or stuck around. They’re things that Tracie and I have spent a lot of time really thinking about.” The podcast’s format is “rooted in friendship and [how transcending] lines of racial difference can serve as a model for how diverse members of the Jewish community can talk about racial justice,” says Baskin. “It’s OK to talk about race. It doesn’t always have to involve tsoris [trouble]. It can actually be fun and affirming, right?”
Baskin and Guy-Decker, who is now a senior partner at Joyous Justice, aired the first episode of their weekly podcast last September. Topics range from Jewish holidays and books about race and racism to white supremacy, politics and finding joy in social justice work.
So far, there are 26 episodes of the free podcast, which airs every Thursday.
Joyous Justice also has a blog that includes discussion guides for some of the most popular podcasts. “If we do an episode that somebody really likes and they’re an educator, they can use that to bring it to their class,” says Guy-Decker. “Or if they’re teaching an introduction to Judaism course, or they have a friendship circle or a book group and something comes up that we happen to cover, we also create a resource guide that has a summary and some discussion questions.” Currently, the podcast — which is available on iTunes, YouTube, Facebook, and other outlets — averages between 150-250 downloads per episode. Guy-Decker and Baskin also release video versions of the episodes, which receive between 100-150 views.
Baskin says the podcast is “purely a labor of love. Every time we get to interact, it’s a wonderful affirmation and a healing moment when we realize there are kindred spirits out there and we get to work together and build something.”
Says Guy-Decker: “It’s a little weird because when I go to work every day, I’m just going into my basement because of COVID but also because I’m now working for April who lives in Senegal. And I just look forward to going to work every day. I have a to-do list a mile long. And I’m just trying to decide which of these things is going to have the biggest impact, because that’s what I’m going to do first. And they all have a big impact. It’s wonderful.”
For information about “Jews Talk Racial Justice with April and Tracie” click here. For information about Joyous Justice, click here.
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