Today’s episode of The Daily Whatever Show opened the way so many of our best conversations do: a little late, a little chaotic, and immediately full of warmth.
Lawrence and I were joined right from the start by Marlon Weems, and within seconds we were off to the races, bonding over Star Trek references, red shirts, gold shirts, and the kind of banter that only works when people genuinely like each other.
What started playfully quickly deepened. Building on yesterday’s conversation with Dr. Mary M. Marshall who was in today’s chat, we reflected on the teachers who shaped us, especially Dr. Hyler, our formidable sixth-grade English teacher.
Dr. Hyler taught Lawrence and me about reparations and unknowingly helped set both of us on lifelong paths toward justice and storytelling.
Marlon shared his own experiences in segregated schools and the stark contrast he saw later when his children attended schools with shockingly little Black representation.
That thread widened into a sober conversation about how quietly re-segregated our schools have become, and what that absence does to kids who are never reflected back by authority figures.
From there, the conversation moved into how racism and inequity show up outside the classroom.
Marlon told the painful story of his daughter being sidelined in high school theater, not for lack of talent, but because she was the only Black student in the program.
I shared my own heartbreak watching my younger child audition repeatedly without being cast, and how demoralizing that can be. These weren’t abstract points. They were lived experiences, offered plainly and without exaggeration.
We also talked about misinformation, media literacy, and how little basic civics many people are taught. Marlon described teaching college students how to evaluate sources and pointed out something that landed hard: misinformation is almost always free. He coined the great new phrase, “No Paywalls on Propaganda.”
That insight echoed later as we unpacked the increasingly unhinged state of American politics, including Trump’s bizarre letter threatening Greenland and the global consequences of leaders no longer trusting the U.S. to keep its word.
The episode closed the way it opened: candid, funny, and human. We talked parenting, exhaustion, blocking relatives for self-preservation, and the quiet hope that the kids being raised right now might actually save us.
We ended the show on a happy note, with our amazing guest promising to return very soon to discuss more great topics.
Thank you, Nick Paro, Dr. Mary M. Marshall, Cat, Polly Walker Blakemore Yanni Hamburger, Char Sundust, NeuroDivergent Hodgepodge, Eric Lullove, Mason/She/Her🩷💜💙 and our behind-the-scenes moderator Karen Marie Shelton and many others for tuning in.
We’ll be back tomorrow bright and early for our The Daily Whatever Show on with our guest Cass.
We love you all—truly!—mean it.
