About this episode
City Cast Chicago is bringing you a preview of another podcast, "Some of My Best Friends Are," from Pushkin Industries. Harvard professor Khalil Gibran Muhammad and journalist Ben Austen are friends, one Black and one white, who grew up together on the South Side of Chicago. On the podcast, Khalil and Ben, along with their guests, have critical conversations that are at once personal, political, and playful, about the absurdities and intricacies of race in America. In this preview, Khalil and Ben revisit the origins of their friendship during a live conversation at the 2022 Chicago Humanities Festival . Ben shares memories of his first job delivering bagels around Chicago, and Khalil speaks to when he first realized he had a Chicago accent. Above all, they connect with a hometown audience and discuss the hard work of studying and admiring a city that can be tough to love at times.