Popaganda can be found anywhere you listen to podcasts
baftas and bbc broadcast the n-word—on purpose?
In this special short episode of The Popaganda Podcast, hosts Shannon Perez-Darby and Tashmica Torok talk about the BAFTAs moment that hit Michael B. Jordan and Delroy Lindo in real time. The N-word was shouted by John Davidson, whose life inspired a nominated film, and who has Tourette Syndrome with coprolalia—meaning the slur was an involuntary tic, not an intentional act.
Listen in as we talk about why the first take isn’t always the best take, how anti-Blackness and ableism shaped the public reaction, and why the real power here sits with BAFTA/BBC production choices—including what was reportedly edited out, and what was left in.
We refuse to let this moment eclipse the art: “Sinners” deserves celebration. It’s not just an award-winning film. It is an iconic culturally rich film that puts Black talent, historical experience, storytelling, and imagination
Pop Culture Homework
Watch: Sinners, featuring Michael B. Jordan and Delroy Lindo with Black American Sign Language (BASL) Performer Nakia Smith
Watch: I Swear, based on the true life story of John Davidson
Follow: @killk1yoshi on Instagram for more awareness content
Come for the Pop Culture. Stay for the Abolition.Sponsored in part by:Accountable Communities Consortium
Access: Transcript now available on Apple Podcasts
Credits:
Executive Producers: Shannon Perez-Darby and Tashmica Torok
Audio Production: Shannon Perez-Darby
Show Notes + Graphic Design: Tashmica Torok
pluribus
What if the apocalypse showed up… as excellent customer service?
In this episode of The Popaganda Podcast, survivor activists Shannon Perez-Darby and Tashmica Torok bring pop culture obsession and Transformative Justice-flavored analysis to Pluribus (Apple TV+), Vince Gilligan’s sleek, unsettling sci-fi series starring Rhea Seehorn as novelist Carol Sterka—a woman who becomes the world’s least willing VIP.
The premise: an alien virus transforms most of humanity into a calm, coordinated hive mind with one main hobby—politely assimilating everyone. Carol is one of 13 immune people, which means she gets to process catastrophic loss while an entire city of synced-up humans keeps saying her name like an HR training video: “Hi, Carol.”
(Respectfully: no.)
Carol survives the mass “switch up” that turns most of humanity into a calm, coordinated hive mind—while her personal world collapses, leaving her cycling through a full range of complex human emotions. Somehow, the internet’s hot take is: she’s too mad.
We dig into the show’s central seduction—and its menace: the hive mind is efficient and nonviolent, restoring order so smoothly it’s almost soothing—until you notice what it can cost in privacy, culture, and self-determination. But to Carol’s shock, not everyone experiences “collective” as the ultimate threat.
Then the season drops its most abolition-adjacent, TJ beat: after harm happens, the hive doesn’t retaliate. It doesn’t cage. It doesn’t escalate. The virus sets a boundary that reaches for safety and healing rather than punishment.
Leaving us with an important question: what could our world look like if we built responses to harm that keep people alive and cared for—while actively limiting the conditions that allow more violence to happen?
Pop Culture Homework
Pay attention to: the moments when “care” feels soothing… and when it starts to feel like control
Report back: Are you Team Carol (absolutely not) or Team “okay but the infrastructure is kind of impressive”?
Sponsored in part by: Accountable Communities Consortium
Access: Transcript now available on Apple Podcasts
Credits:
Executive Producers: Shannon Perez-Darby and Tashmica Torok
Audio Production: Shannon Perez-Darby
Show Notes + Graphic Design: Tashmica Torok
Virginia guiffre told you
In this episode of The Popaganda Podcast, survivor activists Shannon Perez-Darby and Tashmica Torok bring intimate storytelling and expert analysis to Virginia Giuffre’s posthumously published memoir, Nobody’s Girl: A Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice.
Before “release the Epstein files” became the public’s favorite internet punchline, Giuffre was a teenager trying to escape her father’s sexual and physical abuse by running away—only to find herself working for Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago. She became one of the most prominent survivors to share detailed accounts of how Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein targeted, groomed, and sexually abused children—then trafficked them through Epstein’s network of rich, powerful global leaders and celebrities, including Prince Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor.
Tashmica and Shannon wade through the public’s performative shock and unproductive political theater to center one simple, devastating question: Why did we ignore the truth that survivors have been telling us for years?
As more unredacted files are released to the public, the justice promised by the criminal legal system only gets more elusive. The details are horrific, triggering, and retraumatizing for survivors of sexual violence—but don’t worry: this is not your typical true crime wrap-up.
Listen in as two pop culture besties who also happen to be survivors share survivor-to-survivor care and truth-telling, connecting Nobody’s Girl to the systems that enable harm, use children as political leverage, and prop up a criminal legal system that can’t—and won’t—ever live up to the hype.
Pop Culture Homework:
Read: (or listen): Nobody’s Girl: A Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice
Read: “Sex Trafficking Prosecutions Won’t Stop the Next Epstein. Here’s What Will.” (Truthout)
Revisit: our episode on Sound of Freedom + how Christian nationalist anti-trafficking narratives shape public “common sense”
Revisit: our Wayward conversation + the troubled teen industry connections that show up here
Reflect: what would it mean to treat child safety like an emergency at scale—not a scandal, not a spectacle, not a campaign prop?
Sponsored in part by: Accountable Communities Consortium
Access: Transcript now available on Apple Podcasts
Credits:
Executive Producers: Shannon Perez-Darby and Tashmica Torok
Audio Production: Shannon Perez-Darby
Show Notes + Graphic Design: Tashmica Torok
breaking up with platforms: Boycotts, billionaires and fascist creeps
What happens when your comfort shows stop comforting—and your “fun little apps” start feeling like tiny extensions of state power?
In this episode, Shannon Perez-Darby and Tashmica Torok talk about how living under fascism is reshaping our relationship to pop culture, streaming, and the platforms we’ve treated like default companions. From canceling Hulu/Disney after the Jimmy Kimmel controversy (and the bigger question of what a boycott is actually asking for), to rethinking Spotify amid reports of ICE recruitment ads, we share what we’re wrestling with: values vs. convenience, visibility vs. safety, and how to stop “overstaying” in unhealthy relationships.
We also get real about grief (yes, even for a 20-year relationship with Grey’s Anatomy), the algorithmic slide into right-wing propaganda and diet-culture-as-evangelism, and why our nervous systems are demanding different kinds of stories right now—like audiobooks, games, and community-centered ways of staying connected that don’t depend on billionaire-owned platforms.
Are you in your breakup era, too? Then put on your softest sweatpants, order some takeout, and come on over for a lonely hearts club episode of The Popaganda Podcast.
Pop Culture Homework:
Listen: Dungeon Crawler Carl (audiobook)
Watch: No Other Land and support Masafer Yatta.
Reflect: What platform or subscription are you “overstaying” with—and what would a clean, loving exit look like?
Sponsored in part by: Accountable Communities Consortium
Access: Transcript now available on Apple Podcasts
Credits:
Executive Producers: Shannon Perez-Darby and Tashmica Torok
Audio Production: Shannon Perez-Darby
Show Notes + Graphic Design: Tashmica Torok