Radiolab - The Vanishing of Harry Pace: Episode 3

Black No More, White No More: Episode Three from The Vanishing of Harry Pace, a six-part series created by Jad Abumrad and Shima Oliaee. We follow Harry's grandkids and great grandkids as they grapple with his legacy in their own lives.

Duration: 43m
Broadcast on: 25 Jun 2021
Audio Format: other

Black No More, White No More: Episode Three from The Vanishing of Harry Pace, a six-part series created by Jad Abumrad and Shima Oliaee.

We follow Harry's grandkids and great grandkids as they grapple with his legacy in their own lives.

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Hey, this is Jad. Before we get to today's episode, I want to ask you to do something. Reflect back on what you've heard in this series so far. If we've taught you something new, or introduced you to people you've never heard of before, will you please consider supporting our show? Donations from listeners are an important source of funding for Radiolab, and it helps our team bring you deeply researched series like The Vanishing of Harry Pace. If you've been enjoying this series, one thing you can do is support the work we do with a donation. It's really easy to donate. You can text the words black swan to the number 70101, and we'll text you back a link where you can chip into your support, or you can go to radiolab.org/donate where you can donate. Thanks for your support. We really appreciate it. Now on to this week's episode. This is the vanishing of Harry Pace, a mini-series on radiolab. I'm Jad Abumrod, here with... I'm Shima A. Oliai. Man, I jumped in too fast again. There's an A in there? I jumped in too fast. Anyhow, this is episode 3, The Last in the Harry Pace trilogy. And it's all about the gray space. So, on last week's episode. And what? What? Why? We were left with this kind of uncomfortable question. Are you black? No, I'm as white as you! You're white! I'm not!

I'm just saying, my sense, when I heard that story, I thought the dude could be white. I was, I kept saying, wait, is he white? Because that sounds like the white boy. Is he white? And you know, Shima wouldn't tell me, but I'm like, he white, that's white. I'm sorry. So, Harry Pace vanishes by passing into white society. And then there's the question of what to make of it. Like, was he pressured into passing? Did he choose to? Was he actually white all along and passing for black? And what does that even mean even? And I love this notion of this possibly white guy who put on black, not face, but a black persona to ultimately help liberate and free and get access to things for black folks. I love that part of the story. Now, there's no way for us to get into his head. Because Harry didn't leave any journals or letters behind about this moment. All we really have are these two pictures. And so, like inevitably what we ended up doing with our collaborators, Kia C. Lehman and Amani Perry was just like staring at these pictures and trying to read into them. Okay, I'm going to show you pictures of Harry Pace.

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