“This is what I am, do you read me?” Cleopatra Kambugu is a biologist, activist and transgender film personality. Her wish to understand her gender expression led her to study genetics and molecular biology in university and later undergo surgery to help others decode what she felt she already was. In today’s episode we talk about Cleopatra’s resilience, her experience in Uganda during the threats that came in 2013 with the Anti-Homosexual Act, her participation in the award-winning documentary, Pearl of Africa, and her ideas about change, that change is a marathon, we are planting seeds take time to grow. And while they grow we must remember it is important to enjoy the life we have.

Biases in search engines are not only an issue of algorithms, our bias is built into the beliefs we have about the world. And our beliefs are influenced by the stories we absorb through our culture and more and more the information we find online. Today I’m speaking with Michelle M. Wright, distinguished professor or literature and Emery College. She has been researching how blackness is constructed through the stories that are told in the public sphere. Today we talk about new stories coming into the culture and ways we can strive to be more inclusive when telling our own stories, looking at the questions we ask others and holding space for ambiguity.