Hello and welcome to Book Wine Club Season 2, a podcast where I, Lauren Popish, pair my latest read with a new wine, and then talk it out with my opinionated and inebriated co hosts, Ryan Consbruck and Julia Popish. 

On today’s episode Ryan, Julia, and I will discuss a story that asks if it’s ever really possible to overcome our private wounds, and at what cost. in Real Life by Brandon Taylor. This one’s got science, nachos, and an unexpected romance. In this episode, we will discuss the entire book, including our ratings. 

Today we’ll be pairing our read with a glass or three of Margins - Chenin Blanc Skin Fermented 2019. Pour yourself a glass and stay tuned.

Link to book: https://amzn.to/2X0n9aO

Link to wine: https://www.kingstonwine.com/wines/Margins-Chenin-Blanc-Skin-Fermented-2019-w7217480y8

Real Life by Brandon Taylor

Almost everything about Wallace is at odds with the Midwestern university town where he is working uneasily toward a biochem degree. An introverted young man from Alabama, black and queer, he has left behind his family without escaping the long shadows of his childhood. For reasons of self-preservation, Wallace has enforced a wary distance even within his own circle of friends—some dating each other, some dating women, some feigning straightness. But over the course of a late-summer weekend, a series of confrontations with colleagues, and an unexpected encounter with an ostensibly straight, white classmate, conspire to fracture his defenses while exposing long-hidden currents of hostility and desire within their community.  Real Life is a novel of profound and lacerating power, a story that asks if it’s ever really possible to overcome our private wounds, and at what cost.

About the author:

Brandon Taylor is the author of the novel Real Life, which was a New York Times Editors’ Choice. His work has appeared in Guernica, American Short Fiction, Gulf Coast, Buzzfeed Reader, O: The Oprah Magazine, Gay Mag, The New Yorker online, The Literary Review, and elsewhere. He is the senior editor of Electric Literature’s Recommended Reading and a staff writer at Lit Hub. He holds graduate degrees from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where he was an Iowa Arts Fellow.  

About the wine:

30 days of skin contact on organically farmed Chenin Blanc Clarksburg. Chenin is one of our favorite grapes, and the skin contact really makes an intense and lovely twist on the noble variety. Grapes are hand harvested, all ambient yeasts for the ferment, no filtering or fining, and all neutral oak vessels. A small sulfite dose for stability is the only thing added.

Hello and welcome to Book Wine Club Season 2, a podcast where I, Lauren Popish, pair my latest read with a new wine, and then talk it out with my opinionated and inebriated co hosts, Ryan Consbruck and Julia Popish. 

On today’s episode Ryan, Julia, and I will be discussing the second half of White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo. If you haven’t listened to the previous episode where we discussed the first half of the book, you’re going to want to stop, go back, and listen to that episode first.  

Today we’ll be pairing our read with a glass or three of Amour Geneve blue wine. Pour yourself a glass and stay tuned.

Link to book: https://amzn.to/2PhScK3

Link to wine: https://www.amourbluforever.com/product-page/12x-amour-gen%C3%A8ve

White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo

In this “vital, necessary, and beautiful book” (Michael Eric Dyson), antiracist educator Robin DiAngelo deftly illuminates the phenomenon of white fragility and “allows us to understand racism as a practice not restricted to ‘bad people’ (Claudia Rankine). Referring to the defensive moves that white people make when challenged racially, white fragility is characterized by emotions such as anger, fear, and guilt, and by behaviors including argumentation and silence. These behaviors, in turn, function to reinstate white racial equilibrium and prevent any meaningful cross-racial dialogue. In this in-depth exploration, DiAngelo examines how white fragility develops, how it protects racial inequality, and what we can do to engage more constructively.

About the author:

“I grew up poor and white.  While my class oppression has been relatively visible to me, my race privilege has not.  In my efforts to uncover how race has shaped my life, I have gained deeper insight by placing race in the center of my analysis and asking how each of my other group locations have socialized me to collude with racism. In so doing, I have been able to address in greater depth my multiple locations and how they function together to hold racism in place. I now make the distinction that I grew up poor and white, for my experience of poverty would have been different had I not been white” (DiAngelo, 2006).

About the wine:

Throughout my childhood, my father had a special connection with all shades of blue: from the tint of navy blue in the lenses of his eyeglasses, to his sky-blue driving gloves. He was also an avid collector of many precious blue pieces of jewelry. They ranged from turquoise and topaz bracelets all the way down to the blue historical artifacts he would collect abroad while on military deployment. All of these items complemented his rich and colorful personality.  

Upon his tragic departure, many of these precious heirlooms were lost and never found. Finding a way to express my father's unique sense and expression of blue to the world became my dream and then our mission.

It's been quite an adventure. We've become very cognizant of how others have failed in many ways.  Nonetheless, we persisted in finding a way to produce a truly natural, organic, and delightful blend of nature, science, and taste.  A wine which matures throughout a natural fermentation and aging cycle, while retaining its transfixing color and also fully satisfying all the requirements of the FDA, TTB, and European Union. With these institutional approvals, patents on our process and formula, and now growing acclaim, the dream has become reality.

Get in touch

Our sommelier, Emily Rutan: @emilythesomm
Lauren Popish: @laurenpopish
Julia Popish: @juliapopish
Ryan Consbruck @specialrobotdog

Hello and welcome to Book Wine Club Season 2, a podcast where I, Lauren Popish, pair my latest read with a new wine, and then talk it out with my opinionated and inebriated co hosts. 

On today’s episode Ryan, Julia, and I will be exploring the counterproductive reactions white people have when their assumptions about race are challenged, and how these reactions maintain racial inequality in White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo. This one’s got racial stereotypes, white supremacy, and a whole lot of reckoning. In this episode, we will discuss the first half of the book. Our final rating will come in the next episode to give you enough time to read along with us.  

Today we’ll be pairing our read with a glass or three of Amour Geneve blue wine. Pour yourself a glass and stay tuned.

Link to book: https://amzn.to/2PhScK3

Link to wine: https://www.amourbluforever.com/product-page/12x-amour-gen%C3%A8ve

White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo

In this “vital, necessary, and beautiful book” (Michael Eric Dyson), antiracist educator Robin DiAngelo deftly illuminates the phenomenon of white fragility and “allows us to understand racism as a practice not restricted to ‘bad people’ (Claudia Rankine). Referring to the defensive moves that white people make when challenged racially, white fragility is characterized by emotions such as anger, fear, and guilt, and by behaviors including argumentation and silence. These behaviors, in turn, function to reinstate white racial equilibrium and prevent any meaningful cross-racial dialogue. In this in-depth exploration, DiAngelo examines how white fragility develops, how it protects racial inequality, and what we can do to engage more constructively.

About the author:

“I grew up poor and white.  While my class oppression has been relatively visible to me, my race privilege has not.  In my efforts to uncover how race has shaped my life, I have gained deeper insight by placing race in the center of my analysis and asking how each of my other group locations have socialized me to collude with racism. In so doing, I have been able to address in greater depth my multiple locations and how they function together to hold racism in place. I now make the distinction that I grew up poor and white, for my experience of poverty would have been different had I not been white” (DiAngelo, 2006).

About the wine:

Throughout my childhood, my father had a special connection with all shades of blue: from the tint of navy blue in the lenses of his eyeglasses, to his sky-blue driving gloves. He was also an avid collector of many precious blue pieces of jewelry. They ranged from turquoise and topaz bracelets all the way down to the blue historical artifacts he would collect abroad while on military deployment. All of these items complemented his rich and colorful personality.  

Upon his tragic departure, many of these precious heirlooms were lost and never found. Finding a way to express my father's unique sense and expression of blue to the world became my dream and then our mission.

It's been quite an adventure. We've become very cognizant of how others have failed in many ways.  Nonetheless, we persisted in finding a way to produce a truly natural, organic, and delightful blend of nature, science, and taste.  A wine which matures throughout a natural fermentation and aging cycle, while retaining its transfixing color and also fully satisfying all the requirements of the FDA, TTB, and European Union. With these institutional approvals, patents on our process and formula, and now growing acclaim, the dream has become reality.

Get in touch

Our sommelier, Emily Rutan: @emilythesomm
Lauren Popish: @laurenpopish
Julia Popish: @juliapopish
Ryan Consbruck @specialrobotdog