'Throughline' Coming To KPBS-FM

Speaker 1: 00:00 If recent tumultuous events in the news have proved nothing else. It's made clear that we are witnesses to history and it also might've gotten many of us thinking, how did things ever get this way? KPBS FM takes a step toward an explanation by adding a new program to its lineup through line from NPR. The new show started as a history podcast and true to its name. It connects the events of the past with our present day lives. Joining me are the hosts of through line runned, Abdel Fattah and team Arab, Louie. And welcome to the show. Thank you. Thank you so much for having us run. What sparked the creation of this show? Do you have your own questions about how the past shaped the present? Yeah, Speaker 2: 00:46 Absolutely. Um, you know, it really goes back, um, several years, um, to when, you know, Ron, Tim and I first met when he, when he arrived at NPR to work on, um, what would become, how I built this. Um, we sat just a few feet away from each other and, um, eventually started talking and realized that, um, we both had this really kind of keen interest in, um, not only how did we get to where we are, but also how do we think we got to where we are? How are we told we got to where we are, right. Because a lot of the media coverage, which is kind of always it's 24 hours is always going non-stop. Um, and that combined with kind of the history we learn in school, it just feels like it leaves, um, a lot of gaps, um, and shapes things in, in kind of certain narratives. Speaker 2: 01:35 Um, and, and we were always in our just kind of personal conversations asking, is that the whole story, is there more here, you know, you growing up in, in, um, middle Eastern households, that's a very, um, a very common topic history, especially when it comes to politics and religion. Right. Um, and so it was a very natural place for us to be having conversations. And out of that, we started thinking why isn't there more content out there that gives you kind of that, that perspective, those different perspectives, that kind of challenges the narratives we think we know, um, and does it in a way that's really engaging, right? Where it's not just, you know, one person or two people talking on a mic where it's really immersing you in the really rich stories of the past Speaker 1: 02:24 Rom teen through-line gives context to issues. We kind of thought we knew a bell, but find out there is so much more to the story. Can you give us an example of that? Speaker 3: 02:34 So, um, I mean, examples from our show, um, there, there were a bunch, I think I can tell you some of my favorites. Um, one of them was the episode we did on the history of American police last summer, after the killing of George Floyd. Uh, there were a lot of questions about how the relationship between the police and, um, African-Americans in America particularly had gotten to this point. And we been thinking about it since we started the show about doing an episode about the police, because its history is way more complex than most people probably knew. And I think the basic knowledge about, uh, police and the way the police function for most of us has been driven by American television and the experiences we've had being indoctrinated into our attitudes towards the police. But that history is, is, is much deeper. And it goes all the way back to, um, the slave patrols in the South, uh, where, you know, every young man was conscripted into basically, uh, the service, which set a certain precedent. Speaker 1: 03:33 The sleeve patrol statute from Louisiana in 1835. It declares that slave patrols Speaker 4: 03:39 Are to arrest any slave or slaves, whether with, or without a permit who may be caught in the woods or forest with any fire or torch, which slave or slaves thus arrested shall be subjected to corporal punishment, not exceeding 30 stripes. So you can hear in that early legislation, part of the concern is, is an uprising, um, is arson is the fear that's leis will burn things down and the responsibility, not of what we would later expect due process, um, or what a white property owners were entitled to in the bill of rights, but in fact, immediate corporal punishment. So the tying together early on, uh, the surveillance, the deputization, essentially of all white men to be police officers or in this case, slave patrollers, and then to dispense corporal punishment, uh, on the scene are all baked in, uh, from the very beginning Speaker 3: 04:43 That wasn't illuminating for me. And I think that it really drew out a history that many of us just didn't think about or know that much about and put in context, the current kind of tensions between citizens and the police in America Speaker 1: 04:57 And the events of the past few days alone must have raised so many questions for you to explore. Can you tell us about some of the historical connections you've had on your mind or I'm teen? Yeah. Speaker 3: 05:09 Is a really, I mean, this has been causing me to lose sleep the last couple of nights kind of wrenching over my mind, what, um, through liner generally, what kind of pop history can offer in this moment. And I have to be honest, I think we're in really unprecedented times in some ways, but with that said, I do think there's space right now to tell us a larger historical story about a trend line that has pushed us to this moment where we're seeing such anger from so many segments of our society and such tension that's spilling out into the streets and how dangerous the kind of current moment is in terms of the economic instability. We're seeing coupled with a pandemic, um, coupled with real struggle and confusion out there. And it feels like a very chaotic moment. We have an episode coming up about chaos and how humans with chaos historically, um, and some examples to that. Um, but that's not maybe quite right for this moment. I think some of the trends, as I said, really revolve around economics and the kind of income inequality situation in United States and how that's evolved over time to push us in a place. But it's in a place where the country does feel very divided and it feels sometimes like we live in different universes. So we're really trying to figure out how we respond to this moment. But I have to be honest, it's really tough. It's a really tough moment in that sense. Speaker 1: 06:27 I think a lot of people agree with you. I've been speaking with [inaudible] and [inaudible] the hosts of through line, which debuts Sunday morning at 10 on KPBS FM. Thank you both. I appreciate it. Speaker 3: 06:41 Thanks so much for having us. Thank you.