SMC On Being with Krista Tippett Podcast Worksheet

Fill out the attached podcast sheet for the podcast attached below.

Podcast Worksheet- Exposure
The Basics
Podcast Name ___________________________ Air Date_____________
Host(s) ____________________________
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Guest(s) ____________________________
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Welcoming in New Information
What did you know about the topic, the podcast host/s, the podcast guest/s before you listened to the podcast?
Language- Write down important vocabulary words pertinent to the podcast and key terms that were new to you
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Quotations- Write down any quotes that you found stunning or that you found interesting
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Ways Knowledge is Organized- (more quotable information)
Pertinent Statistical Information (Discovery Paradigm or Quantitative Data- information that is measurable,
systematized, repetitive, rigorous, accurate, valid)
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Pertinent Expert Information (Interpretive Paradigm or Qualitative Data- information that is focused on meaning
making from “experts.” “Experts” have a focused knowledge on subjects, topics, phenomena, or self.)
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Pertinent Critical Information (Critical Paradigm or Critical Scholarship- hidden narratives, power, equity, agency,
exploitation, oppression, asymmetrical power relationships, false consciousness, distorted communication, and push for social change)
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Processing the New Information
The podcast made me think•
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The podcast made me feel- (Profoundly not interested in if you liked it, this isn’t yelp, what did you feel?)
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Active Action Steps-Have you sought out to additional information? Yes or No Can you apply to other classes? Yes or No
Reflection Summary- In a full one-page reflection tell me about the experience of listening to this podcast. What did you learn?
Nancy- Hello Hello
https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/nancy/episodes/nancy-podcastepisode-1-hello-hello
TOBIN: Oh, we gotta talk to strangers.
KATHY: Oh, strangers. I don’t even like regular people that are my friends,
sometimes. I don’t know how I feel about strangers.
TOBIN: This show is called Nancy, so, like, the question I’m asking
people is: What do you think a show called Nancy would be about?
PERSON ON THE STREET 1: [LAUGHS] I had the same thought.
PERSON ON THE STREET 2: A show called Nancy.
PERSON ON THE STREET 3: I mean, it brings up the term of what it
means in gay culture of being a “nance,” or “nancy.”
PERSON ON THE STREET 4: I think it would be about a little old lady
named “Nancy” -PERSON ON THE STREET 5: A 30- to 40- year-old woman whose
husband left her -PERSON ON THE STREET 4: — Who has lots of cats.
PERSON ON THE STREET 5: — Maybe one or two kids, and now she
needs to figure out a way to support her kids.
PERSON ON THE STREET 3: Nancy. So what would you be discussing
on your podcast?
KATHY: Well, it’s actually going to be an LGBTQ podcast.
PERSON ON THE STREET 3: Well, I like it then.
[THEME MUSIC]
GUEST 1: From WNYC Studios, this is Nancy,
GUEST 2: With your hosts, Kathy Tu and Tobin Low!
[THEME MUSIC ENDS]
TOBIN: Hey, mom, you want to introduce yourself?
VIVIAN: Hi, this is Tobin’s mom.
TOBIN: This is my mom, Vivian. If you need a visual, she’s a petite Chinese
woman with transition lenses. Her driver’s license says she’s 5’2”, but she
likes to say that she’s shrunk since then.
TOBIN: Mom, I have to ask, do you remember … um … that
conversation we had when I came out? Do you remember the two
things you said to me?
VIVIAN: I don’t. I think I was just in such, like, trying to figure out all
my emotions at the moment. It’s pretty blurry to me.
TOBIN: I told my parents I was gay over Thanksgiving break of my freshman
year of college … the night before I was supposed to go back to school. I
had, what I would call, a vague sense of dread. But I thought I knew how my
mom might react — somewhere between a hug and a parade — which is not
what I got.
VIVIAN: Tell me what I said.
TOBIN: We had a conversation where you said, “I want to say two
things to you that I would say even if you were straight. Number one:
Don’t be such a slob, because no one’s gonna want to be with you if
you’re such a slob. And number two: I think you’ve gained weight.”
VIVIAN: Well, I guess it’s kind of a compliment to me because those
are just pretty normal things you would say to anybody. Even in that
crisis of a moment, I think I still felt … you’re my son and I’m just
gonna keep saying things that will improve you.
[MUSIC]
TOBIN: Can I tell you a horrible secret about coming out?
KATHY: Always.
TOBIN: The first person I came out to was not my best friend, but a girl I
knew who was obsessed with Will and Grace. And so, as a strategic move, I
was like, “This’ll probably be a softball I can throw to myself.”
KATHY: That is very strategic.
TOBIN: Yeah, and then it backfired, because I came out to her and she was
immediately like, “You are my Will!” [LAUGH] I love being typecast in my own
life. But seriously, it was great to have somebody there who was an
immediate cheerleader, and also sort of forcing me to, like, identify as a gay
man, as a queer person. And I think that’s, like, a thing that queer people
have in common, is these moments where you, like, have to define yourself.
KATHY: Over and over and over again, and to yourself and to other people,
um, and it’s hard to do when you’re actively trying to figure it out.
TOBIN: Right. It’s, like, both awful and wonderful and sometimes a mix of
both.
KATHY: Mostly mix of both. [Both laugh]
TOBIN: But I think, like, that’s one reason I’m so grateful we have this show,
because I think that’s what the stories are gonna be about.
KATHY: Right, like, we’re going to try and capture people figuring it out in
their own lives. Like the story of how I came out to my mom, and how it’s
been this long ongoing process for the both of us. Because as much as I
wanted an immediate positive response from her, or even just any response,
that’s not what I got.
KATHY’S MOM: Hello hello. [MANDARIN] How are you?
KATHY: When I was about 5 years old, my parents told me we were going on
vacation. So I packed up my little blue backpack, walked onto a giant
airplane, and we moved. From Taipei to Los Angeles.
We moved so that my sister and brother and I could have a better education,
so of course, right away they stuck me in school. And I, knowing no English,
promptly failed first grade. But to be fair, I did start in the middle of the year
and, you know, I thought I was on vacation.
So obviously, I’ve learned English, but I’ve lost a lot of my Mandarin along the
way. My parents speak mostly in Chinese, so our conversations are usually in
Chinglish. When I was growing up, my mom would yell at me in Chinese to
clean up the living room because something was out of place, and I would
scream back in English, “I’ll do it soon!” And it usually was my mom doing the
yelling because she did the bulk of the parenting.
So her opinion is the one I care about most. And frustratingly, she is the only
one who refuses to hear me come out.
KATHY’S MOM: My name? Chinese name is Chen Shun Lien. English
name is Emily.
KATHY: Her English name is Emily. She grew up in rural Taiwan, dirt poor.
ROSALIND: She told me that, like, when she was little, she would be
so happy even just to have like a little bit of, like, chicken on the table
or something.
KATHY: That’s Rosalind.
ROSALIND: Oh, I’m your sister, older sister.
KATHY: My mom was always working. She helped at the family laundromat,
and when she was 16, she went to nursing school, because that’s what her
mom told her to do. She worked as a nurse until she moved to the States
when she was 33.
She’d probably say she’s never met a gay person in her life. That she knew
of, at least.
Until me.
The first time I came out to my mom was after I had returned from a college
semester in Taiwan, relearning Mandarin. I was living in LA and in my first
relationship with a girl. And even though I felt like my mom wouldn’t take
kindly to this news, I felt like I needed to try. Maybe it’ll be okay, I thought.
Maybe she’ll understand and I’ve been scared for no reason. And with my
new Mandarin skills, I’ll be able to really explain myself.
So I wrote my mom a long email, and buried in the middle were four short
sentences about having a girlfriend. As soon as I hit send, I felt like I had
planted a bomb.
About an hour later, my mom called. She yelled and screamed for me to
move home. And through my ugly crying, I remember her saying, “I was
always afraid of this,” and “I can’t accept it.”
But I didn’t go home. In fact, we basically ignored that that interaction ever
happened. Instead, my mom and I went back to fighting about everything
else.
ROSALIND: I think you both have very strong personality and very
strong cultural beliefs. Like, those ideas are very very different. So I
think you guys clash a lot of the times.
KATHY: When my mom and I fight, she usually ends with, “Remember that
you’re Chinese.”
ROSALIND: Remember that you’re Chinese? The Chinese value the
tradition of honoring the roots and respecting the elderly, the way you
speak, the way you think has to be more of a conservative, it’s a more
conservative tradition, you know.
KATHY: Because she is so conservative, we clashed over everything. Growing
up, we clashed because I never wanted to wear dresses or anything pink. We
clashed because I wanted to play hockey and take martial arts classes. I
wanted her to be proud of me for putting together my IKEA dresser without
my dad’s help. She shook her head and said, “You better learn to let a guy
help me or you’ll never find a husband.”
Back then, even though I didn’t always know I was queer, I knew I was
different, and I was ashamed of it. So I spent a lot of time in my room
watching TV, wishing I were someone else, and living in my daydreams.
[MUSIC BREAK]
KATHY: A few years after I came out for the first time, I was living back at
home, single, and studying for the bar exam. I felt like I had no control over
my life, and every day felt like a never-ending slog. My mom did her best to
support me. She left me alone to study and she made sure I had food and
snacks. But even with all that support, I felt like there was a wall between us.
At this point in my life, I was out to everyone I knew, and very happy about
it. I guess what I didn’t expect was that I’d still long for my mom’s validation.
So, sitting in my room, books and lectures screaming at me, I thought, “I
need to come out to my mom again.”
But this time, I came armed. I found a Mandarin flyer from a local gay-rights
organization. In bold type at the top, it said, awkwardly translated, “After
Your Children Came Out … A Guide for Parents of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and
Transgender Children.”
I started a new email, attached the flyer, and pressed send. I emailed my
mom, who was downstairs.
About an hour later, I still hadn’t heard anything from her, so I went
downstairs into the kitchen where my mom was doing the dishes. I asked if
she got my email, and she nodded. Then I asked if she wanted to talk, and
she said, without looking at me, “What do you want me to say?” I didn’t have
an answer for her. I didn’t have the words for “validate my existence.” So I
said, “Nothing.” And we went back to not talking about it.
Which brings us to the third time that I’ve come out to my mom, a couple
years later.
KATHY’S MOM: Hello hello. [MANDARIN] How are you?
KATHY: We sat down in my sister’s room, because it’s the quietest place in
my parent’s house.
KATHY: Okay so, this is what I was thinking. We’re gonna talk about
things, and then we’re going to use Google Translate for the things
that don’t make any sense.
KATHY’S MOM: Ah, Google Translate. Sometime it cannot translate
very good.
KATHY: Yeah but the point is if you understand me.
KATHY’S MOM: I understand, but you guys cannot understand me.
KATHY: Really? Because I think that you don’t understand me.
KATHY’S MOM: I don’t know. Okay. Whatever.
KATHY: Okay, so we’ll try.
KATHY: I wanted to try it this way because my previous attempts at coming
out ended so abruptly. First she yelled at me, then she shut me down. But
maybe part of the part was that I had been approaching it as an
announcement rather than a conversation. So, this time, we were going to
talk. She had the tools to ask whatever she wanted, and to say whatever she
wanted. And I could, too. So I did.
KATHY: Part of me not liking myself for so long is that I had to keep
hiding part of me from you because you refused to talk to me about
it. And being… I mean I’m not completely gay, but I’m mostly gay.
That’s not something you choose to do. It’s just something that you
are. Does that make sense?
KATHY’S MOM: Yeah.
KATHY: You have no response?
KATHY’S MOM: [MANDARIN] What kind of response do you expect
from me?
KATHY: See that’s the same thing you told me last time, like when I
sent information to you in Chinese, I asked if you had any questions,
you said, “No. What else do you want me to say?” And I just want us
to talk about it because it’s a big part of my life and I think…
KATHY’S MOM: [MANDARIN] If you insist, I will talk about it. I can’t
do anything about it. [ENGLISH] I know what gay means. But every
parent wants you to have a normal life. [MANDARIN] What I mean by
normal is, marriage and kids. This is what I hope for you. This was
the expectation from my parents, so I expect the same from my own
children. We all have our own choices to make. If you really are gay,
there is nothing I can do about it. Because this is your choice. I only
hope for one thing, do not discount all men.
KATHY: Yeah, but that’s what I mean when I asked you do you
understand what it means to be gay — because that’s not how it
works.
KATHY’S MOM: [MANDARIN] This is how I feel. Why did you become
this way? Why did you choose this? [ENGLISH] I don’t know.
[MANDARIN] Is it because your family influenced you? Why do you
think this way? Why?
KATHY: It’s not something you choose. You just are. I don’t have the
capability of falling in love with men. Do you know what that means?
“Capacity.”
KATHY’S MOM: Capacity?
KATHY: It’s not possible for me to fall in love with men.
KATHY’S MOM: Why?
KATHY: I don’t know. It’s not possible.
KATHY’S MOM: Did you try?
KATHY: Yeah, there’s no trying. There’s dating — I guess that’s trying.
But you don’t feel anything. And because you can’t accept me as a
whole person, I’m always gonna feel like I’m lacking this — in this
relationship. And I can’t tell you everything because… so last month,
December, was a really hard month for me. But the things that were
upsetting me, I can’t tell you, because it would make you happy even
though it makes me sad.
KATHY’S MOM: Why?
KATHY: Because there was a girl that I liked who didn’t like me back.
And I was really sad for a really long time. But I can’t tell you that,
because you would just be happy that this wasn’t happening for me.
And so December was a really hard time, and why I wasn’t home so
often. But I couldn’t tell you these things.
KATHY’S MOM: Hm. Understand.
[MUSIC BEAT]
KATHY’S MOM: [MANDARIN] If you feel that you need to act this way
to be happy and more comfortable, then go ahead. If you make this
decision, or when you meet the right person, I guess I can’t do
anything about it. [ENGLISH] So go ahead. What am I gonna do?
[MANDARIN] But if you want me to totally support you, I can’t do that
yet.
KATHY: The thing you should know, though, is that whoever my
partner is doesn’t change who I am now.
KATHY’S MOM: [MANDARIN] I don’t think you’ve changed, I just don’t
want to talk about it.
KATHY: But why?
KATHY’S MOM: [MANDARIN] I think this is my fault. I gave birth to
you this way, isn’t that my fault? A normal life isn’t like this.
KATHY: Wha– Who says what’s normal?
KATHY’S MOM: My generation, [MANDARIN] from start to end. I don’t
think there is anything wrong with it. But in my opinion, I expect my
children to behave in certain ways, and if they don’t, I can’t do
anything about it. I can’t say I reject you because if I do, you’ll be
unhappy. And I don’t want you to be unhappy. If you ask me if I care,
of course I do. But I will let go of my care, I will minimize how much I
care. As long as you’re happy.
KATHY: I think that’s the only thing I can ask. I mean it’s not fair to
change someone’s mind immediately.
KATHY’S MOM: [MANDARIN] Okay?
KATHY: That’s fair.
[MUSIC BREAK]
KATHY: Coming Out Version Three: my mom didn’t say, “I understand.” She
didn’t say “It’ll be okay,” or even, “I accept you.”
All along I thought if I could just get my mom to understand me, if I could
just be clear, I’d reach her. We would connect, and she would accept me. But
I was never going to get that in just one conversation.
KATHY’S MOM: [MANDARIN] After our conversation I thought about it
for a while, how I was going to say…
KATHY: Recently, my mom left me this voicemail.
KATHY’S MOM: [MANDARIN] But I want you to know, if you need to
talk about anything, call me…
KATHY: She said she and my dad tried their best to support me and my
siblings, but their understanding of us is limited.
[MOM SPEAKING MORE IN MANDARIN]
KATHY: She wants me to know that I can call to talk about anything. She may
not give me the answer I want, but she’ll be there to listen.
KATHY’S MOM: [MANDARIN] As you grew up, I knew you were
different, but I hope you know what you’re doing.
KATHY: She told me that, as I grew up, she knew I was different, but no
matter what I do with my life, she will always be there when I call. And my
room will always be there if I need it.
KATHY’S MOM: Bye bye.
[MUSIC ENDS]
TOBIN: Is there anything that you ever had to tell your parents that
was hard to tell them?
PERSON ON THE STREET 1: Um, that I was gonna move to New York
without a job. Sell my car and move here without a job.
PERSON ON THE STREET 2: Okay, so … Mom, dad, guess what? I
started drinking.
PERSON ON THE STREET 3: Yeah, ‘cause my dad is really protective,
so I wouldn’t be as open to him with my problems as I am with my
mom.
PERSON ON THE STREET 4: There was a time that I told my parents I
wasn’t going to college … [that] I was going to clown school instead.
PERSON ON THE STREET 5: Um, coming out was very difficult.
[MUSIC ENDS]
[MIDROLL]
KATHY: Tobin.
TOBIN: Kathy.
KATHY: One of the things I think that surprised me about coming out was
that it really wasn’t just me who was going through something. The other
person suddenly had a thing that they had to go through, too.
TOBIN: Yeah, like, I had no idea the amount of processing that my parents
needed to do just to understand everything and to come to terms with it. We
fought a lot and we had a lot of intense discussions. But the weirdest thing
was that my dad, like, processed it through — I guess I would call them five
friends.
[QUEER EYE FOR THE STRAIGHT GUY THEME]
TOBIN’S DAD: I became a total Queer Eye for the Straight Guy fan …
boy.
TOBIN: I just wanna be clear here: my dad fucking loved this show. Like, he
taped all the episodes. He tried out Ted Allen’s recipes.
TOBIN’S DAD: They were guys I thought it would be really fun to
learn from and to hang out with for a week.
TOBIN: I remember you took, like, a lot of tips from them.
TOBIN’S DAD: Well, I took some personal grooming tips. For example,
Carson, he gave me a new word which was … I had already rolled up
my sleeves for work because I work as a doctor, and rolling my
sleeves up keeps them cleaner. But he called it “zhuzhing up” the
sleeve.
TOBIN: You know, the show used to give me a huge amount of
anxiety.
TOBIN’S DAD: Well, my anticipated thought is that it did because you
thought it was too stereotypical. I thought that they were very
comfortable in their style, so that it was kinda like, for me,
“Stereotype be damned!” The one guilt I had was how much I told
you I loved the show, and I didn’t know if that offended you.
TOBIN: In what way would my feelings have been hurt, though?
TOBIN’S DAD: Well because that — I realized that you probably saw -and I realized that I got that hint from you right away — you actually
said something to that effect, that you thought it was too flaunting-it,
it was too gay, too put-on.
TOBIN: It was really — yeah, I’ll admit, it was really tough because at
the time it seemed, like, a million miles down the road from where I
was. I think it was, like, at the time where I was figuring out I was
gay this was really intimidating to see five guys who had these sort of,
like, gay superpowers.
KATHY: [TEASING] Why do you hate Queer Eye?
TOBIN: Uhh, I mean, I wouldn’t call myself a Queer Eye truther, like, a lot of
people are super pissed that this show is coming back. I definitely hated it at
the time, but it had more to do with me than it did with them. Like, these
guys on the show they didn’t seem like full people to me, and so they sorta
didn’t help me imagine what my life would be like as an adult gay man …
Which was funny because for my dad it did the complete opposite. it totally
helped him do that.
TOBIN’S DAD: Let’s say … This show gave me more security and
some sense of hope for you in the future than, say, a movie
like Brokeback Mountain, which sorta scared the shit out of mom and
me.
TOBIN: I remember in some of the talks we had about — after I came
out — that, you know, you had lost your best friend to AIDS and I -whether or not we explicitly said it, I felt that that was one of the
fears for me as a gay man.
TOBIN’S DAD: Toby, the first AIDS epidemic broke in the early ‘80s,
and it broke big and hard in the Bay Area. In the hospital I was part
of teams that took care of many gay men who suffered from the
secondary effects — the secondary infections — and then finally dying
of AIDS, and so I saw that throughout the ‘80s into the ‘90s, until all
the great retrovirals came on. And thankfully they were taking effect
and having real positive effect. I remembered that was my first
image, or fear, that popped into my head the moment you said that. I
remember driving to work and at times kinda starting crying, and I
would actually have tears rolling down my face thinking about you as
a gay man and I remembered starting having to say to myself, “I am
the father of a homosexual man.” And it wasn’t because it was a
negative stereotype, it was because I had to recast how I thought
about you as my son, from the day you were born to the time you
went to college and like another door opened and suddenly it took us
into a whole new universe.
[MUSIC BREAK]
TOBIN: So even though I personally wasn’t a fan of Queer Eye, I can
appreciate what it did for my dad. Like, it let him see a different way of being
gay, that my life didn’t have to be sad and tragic, but that I could be, you
know, like, a happy fulfilled gay person who was accepted into people’s lives.
Um … and could give them tips on how to be a better dresser.
KATHY: Wait, did your dad dress better because of Queer Eye?
TOBIN: A hundred — a hundred and fifty percent. He still rolls his sleeves the
way Carson Kressley taught him to do in 2003, which was terrible because
now he uses it as ammunition to make fun of how I dress.
TOBIN’S DAD: Okay, no, okay, now I have to share one guilty thing
that I’ll tell you. We go out to Cleveland, and we have dinner with you
and your first boyfriend. And I don’t know if you remember how you
guys were dressed, but you guys were doing the — I feel — fashion
faux pas of wearing denim top jackets and denim jeans. And
afterwards mom and I were talking about it, and I said, “I have to tell
you, Viv, they look like extras from Brokeback Mountain.”
TOBIN: Oh my God.
TOBIN’S DAD: I said that! I admit to you now that I said that about
you. I apologize for that, Tobin. But, to this day, it still makes me
laugh.
[MUSIC BREAK]
TOBIN: I would say it took me a long time to realize how much time he and
my mom would need to just process everything.
KATHY: Yeah, I’m pretty sure my mom is still trying to process what we
talked about. Like, honestly, I’m probably gonna have to come out to her
again.
TOBIN: Do it for Season Two!
KATHY: People are gonna be sick of this.
TOBIN: But really, we do have so much more to cover.
KATHY: So here’s a preview of what’s coming this season on Nancy.
[MUSIC STARTS]
MARA: I fought it for a very long time. And one of the excuses I had
was, “I can’t be queer, because I have too much going on.”
JACKSON: And so to have one of the protagonists and, you know, the
most powerful, gracious, awesome wizard of all time being openly
gay, would just be huge.
KATHY: Like, I always, like, never wanted to catch, like, a butch
woman’s attention.
JOE: There is a whole narrative here that I was not privy to, that I
had no — that I didn’t participate in. I mean, your classmates are
right: you’re speaking about a relationship that you had with me, but I
didn’t have with you.
CHICHI: He got a kick out of a title called “Fortune Nookie.” I mean,
you know, it’s a clever title. So is “White on Rice,” so is “With Sex You
Get Eggroll.”
SARAH: Being a little, awkward 12 year-old gay kid and then seeing a
charming, confident gay adult — that allowed me to imagine an adult
version of myself.
MAURA: I never knew that I could … [CRYING] that I could actually
be a role model for somebody.
GREGORY: They say just that that cannot be, they say that it doesn’t
make sense. How can I be a Republican and gay at the same time? It
doesn’t make sense to them.
LINDSAY: And unfortunately a Nazi website picked up the episode and
wrote an article about me. I didn’t know the Nazis still existed.
DOMINIQUE: So people say if you could go back and change
everything that happened, what would you do different, and i’m being
totally honest -DAVID: — be totally honest, please -DOMINIQUE: I wouldn’t change anything, alright? I made a conscious
decision to be in love.
[MUSIC ENDS]
[CREDIT MUSIC STARTS]
TOBIN: Okay okay, business time. Kathy, say your thing.
KATHY: Follow us on Facebook
at https://www.facebook.com/nancypodcast/ and Twitter at
@NancyPodcast. We’ve got links, GIFs, and live video where we’re all going to
hang out together. And don’t forget to give us a fantastic review wherever
you get your podcasts. You know you want to!
TOBIN: Beautifully done, now let’s go to credits!
KATHY: Our producer…
TOBIN: Matt Collette!
KATHY: Sound designer…
TOBIN: Jeremy Bloom!
KATHY: Editor…
TOBIN: Jenny Lawton!
KATHY: Executive producer…
TOBIN: Paula Szuchman!
KATHY: Intern…
TOBIN: Cathy-with-a-C Wong!
KATHY: Special thanks…
TOBIN: Suzie Lechtenberg!
TOBIN: I’m Tobin Low.
KATHY: I’m Kathy Tu.
TOBIN: And Nancy is a production of WNYC Studios.
KATHY: Anything else?
TOBIN: I — I don’t know.
[LAUGHTER]
[CREDITS MUSIC ENDS]
TOBIN: [SINGING] I have a beautiful singing voice.
KATHY: [NOT SINGING] And I do not.