You may know her as the Grammy-nominated singer, or for playing the cunning and iconic Wilhelmina Slater on “Ugly Betty.” But before all that, Vanessa Williams was a bright young college student from New York who would make history as the first Black Miss America, in 1984. And yet before she could complete her term, she would be dramatically dethroned — in a nude photo scandal that would ignite a torrent of racism and see her branded as “the pageant's own Hester Prynn.” In this episode, Jess and Susie revisit the incredible making, and the staggering undoing, of the first Black Miss America.

FOR MORE:

• Books: Looking for Miss America: A Pageant’s 100-Year Quest to Define Womanhood, by Margot Mifflin, and There She Was: The Secret History of Miss America, by Amy Artsinger
• Articles: Goodbye, Swimsuit Competition. Hello, ‘Miss America 2.0.’ and Here’s What You Didn’t See on Miss America (both New York Times, both by Jess)
• Listen: Glamorous Trash, a Celebrity Book Club Podcast, in which Jess and Susie join host Chelsea Devantez to talk about Vanessa Williams’ memoir

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In 1991, America’s sweetheart Sally Field starred in a movie about an American woman’s desperate escape from her abusive Iranian husband. For Susie, and a generation of other Iranian-American kids, this was the only representation they saw of themselves in pop culture – and it was not great. It was essentially a horror film – and the horror was Iran. In this episode, best-selling author (and fellow Iranian-American) Porochista Khakpour joins Susie to talk about what it was like growing up in the shadow of ‘Not Without My Daughter’ and its comically dark view of their homeland.

GUESTS:

• Porochista Khakpour, best-selling author

FOR MORE:

• The Not Without My Daughter Problem: How a Sally Field Movie Became an Iranian-American Headache (New York Magazine)
• Iranians Moving Past Negative Depictions In Pop Culture (by Porochista Khakpour, LA Times)
• Order Porochista’s book Tehrangeles

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As we revealed in part one, the 2007 Rutgers women’s basketball team was having a Cinderella season when radio host Don Imus callously dragged them into a national firestorm with a racist slur, effectively stealing their moment. But the women of Rutgers didn’t just go away quietly – they fought back, rising above the noise to tell their story. Susie and Jess are joined again by former Rutgers captain Essence Carson and Emmy-winning journalist Jemele Hill to unpack the aftermath of that sordid episode, and discuss the complexities of who gets to respond in anger when they are publicly targeted, and why.

GUESTS:

• Essence Carson, former WNBA star, Rutgers captain and current creative executive
• Jemele Hill, Emmy award-winning journalist

FOR MORE:

• A First-Class Response to a Second-Class Put-Down (NYT, 2007)
• Imus: Race, Power and the Media (Newsweek, 2007)
• Don Imus, DJ fired for racial slur at Rutgers players, dies at 79 (ESPN, 2019)

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