The Unbearable Whiteness of Being a #PubRadioVoice

What it means when your inner public radio voice is white

Close your eyes for a moment and imagine you’re turning on the radio dial, or more likely, streaming your favorite public radio station. Whose voice is it that you hear delivering the news or telling that surprisingly engrossing personal narrative? Perhaps it sounds like this:

The voice Clemson University assistant professor Chenjerai Kumanyika heard in his head was, in part, a white woman’s. Kumanyika wrote about the experience in a recent Transom.org post:

The voice I was hearing and gradually beginning to imitate was something in between the voice of Roman Mars and Sarah Koenig.

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