"That Got Weird," a digital series from Twin Cities PBS, confronts the uncomfortable with real stories of racism experienced by Indigenous, Black, Asian and other people of color in Minnesota. Along with a promise of anonymity, each subject interviewed has a hand in designing their own character and giving it a pseudonym. Myc Daz, the show’s character designer and co-animator, and Sergio Mata’u Rapu, director, co-animator and TPT digital series producer, share how the show got its start, the production process and why their guests’ stories are important.
That Got Weird, a digital series from Twin Cities PBS, confronts the uncomfortable with real stories of racism experienced by Indigenous, Black, Asian and other people of color in Minnesota. Along with a promise of anonymity, each subject interviewed has a hand in designing their own character and giving it a pseudonym.
Myc Daz, the show’s character designer and co-animator, and Sergio Mata’u Rapu, director, co-animator and TPT digital series producer, share how the show got its start, the production process and why their guests’ stories are important.
Hosts: Kari Haley, MD, and Steven Jackson, MD
Guest: Myc Daz, co-founder and creative director of Schoolz
Guest: Sergio Mata’u Rapu, documentary filmmaker, TPT digital series producer
HealthPartners website: Off the Charts podcast
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Kari Haley:
He's a rehab doctor from Chicago.
Steven Jackson:
She's an emergency medicine doctor from the Twin Cities.
Kari Haley:
Together, we're examining the health equity emergency.
Steven Jackson:
Inviting voices for change without the cue cards.
Kari Haley:
I'm Dr. Kari Haley.
Steven Jackson:
I'm Dr. Steven Jackson.
Both, together:
And this is Off the Charts.
Steven Jackson:
Well, welcome, everybody, to our show. You guys are really in for a treat. We have Sergio Rapu and we have Myc Daz. They are the creators of a digital series called That Got Weird as part of a partnership with TPT, and so, say hi, guys.
Myc Daz:
What's up-
Sergio Rapu:
Hey, everybody-
Myc Daz:
... people?
Sergio Rapu:
... in audio land.
Steven Jackson:
If you were to go to their landing page, it says that TPT reveals true stories of racism experienced by people of color in Minnesota, so very powerful, very pertinent, very local, which is awesome, but also universal in that you're talking about racism, which, obviously, is everywhere and impacts all of us in some degree or fashion or form. Tell me how you guys all got started. What's the vision?
Sergio Rapu:
The issue is that I don't do this kind of work. I'm a,, I'm a documentary filmmaker. I come from a little island in the middle of the Pacific called Easter Island or Rapa Nui. And so I've been living in Minnesota for 11 years and we've settled here and everything, but I'm very much a fish out of water in many senses, just living in the Midwest. And so I've been working at Twin Cities PBS for a while, and there was an interest around doing a digital series on the topic of racism, like how do we do this, right? These are important questions. How do we address them?
Sergio Rapu:
A lot of my work centers around documentary work, right? I tell real stories with cameras and interviewing real people and all that, and there was this idea around let's do a digital series that focuses on racism, digital for multiple reasons, right? It's easy. You can put it out on social media, YouTube, and all of that, but it's also easily watchable if you're on the go. We were really hoping to target a BIPOC audience, right, creating content for an audience that, honestly, doesn't very often watch PBS, right, which is where we're coming from.
Sergio Rapu:
In trying to figure out what to do ... there's a lot of content out there about racism. A lot of it is serious, a lot of it is egg-shell-y conversations, and I felt that it would do a disservice if we did more of the same. I was trying to find a way of figuring out how do we have these conversations that moves us beyond the emotion of fear and hurting other people to get us to a point of actually having bigger conversations around some of this stuff, but there were so many different elements around it. One, stories are so impactful, right, but in asking somebody to tell their story, you are also asking them to expose themselves to the public, which-
Steven Jackson:
Yeah, be vulnerable.
Sergio Rapu:
... and opens them up to backlash and all sorts of stuff, and so people may not be interested in doing that, and rightly so. Who wants that, right? This is eventually where the idea of, "Huh, maybe we should make it animated" came in. And this is tangential, but really, in the development stage of what could this show be, I was inspired by the lawyer cat video. Have you guys seen this one?
Steven Jackson:
Lawyer cat?
Kari Haley:
I don't know if I've seen the lawyer cat video.
Steven Jackson:
It sounds interesting, though.
Sergio Rapu:
Myc does. He's laughing.
Myc Daz:
I don't know what lawyer cat is.
Sergio Rapu:
You don't know what this is? OK. Well, if you search on YouTube, the lawyer cat video, you may find a Zoom call where a lawyer comes in to this four-way Zoom call with a judge and a few others, it's legal proceedings, but whoever had been using his computer before him had set up this cat filter.
Kari Haley:
Oh, I think I have seen this now that you're describing it. Yes.
Sergio Rapu:
Here's this guy trying to apologize for being a cat and he's saying, "No, I'm really a human being. I'm not really a cat." And, one, it was hilarious, it gives everybody a smile, but then the other part of it is I have no idea who this person is, so there are these elements of hiding identity, bringing levity, all of those things that can occur when you shift into this other space. The really scary thing for me was I don't do animation. I don't work in that space. I work in reality and documentaries, so this is where Myc Dazzle and his magic appears.
Myc Daz:
Sergio did a whole lot of animating. He rose to the occasion.
Steven Jackson:
Well, Myc, I'd love to hear about the partnership and also the part that you play and the part that you bring in producing such thought-provoking, but, again, palatable videos that invite bigger conversation. I don't feel like I'm walking on eggshells when I watch the videos.
Myc Daz:
Sergio came into my life through the magic of social media. I believe he just popped into my Facebook DMs, I'm not even really sure who gave him my information, and he asked if I do animation, and I was like, "No, I don't. I do illustration and I have experience in this random program called Character Animator, where you can essentially make puppets." And he was like, "That's exactly what I want," and I was like, "OK, then I guess I animate." My background is really in being a translator of very dense content into something palatable for people, so this was right aligned with the work that I'm already doing.
Myc Daz:
And I am a really huge nerd for character design and making sure you depict people in a way that's respectful and speaks to who they are as opposed to ... it's a fine line between caricature and disrespect, especially when you're talking about race. That's the lens that I came to the project with.
Kari Haley:
I think, after watching a few of the videos, it's very clear that you guys were, one, great together, and, two, watching the videos, it just makes me want to know more about your process too, like how do you identify the people that you are interviewing, how do you talk to each other about ... you were there in person talking to them and then, Myc, you doing the interpretation with the animation, and how does the process happen?
Sergio Rapu:
Yeah. Yeah. Well, the short and sweet of it is, really, we identify people that are willing to talk, right, to open up, and I'll tell you, everybody has a story about racism, microaggression, however you want to identify it, right? And so a lot of the folks that I interviewed were people that I knew, or one circle away, so people who knew people, and, really, I just, as a normal interviewer, I'd come in with my list of questions for the first couple ones and I'd sit down and I'd just start asking them, first, a few to build rapport and get us into it, but there came a moment, probably around question three, where the floodgates open because you know they just want to share, right, and it was, "OK, can I tell you about my racism story now?" "Yeah, yeah, yeah, go for it."
Sergio Rapu:
And so then we'd spend the next hour just talking about experiences and dissecting it and, "How did that make you feel and what did they actually say?" and, "What are you hopeful for in the future?" Hope and hopefulness was, and is, always an important element for me in the interview because, at the end of the day, we want to, I want to, leave the audience with a sense that it's going to get better. Yeah, I think that's really important. Going back to the process, however long interview and I got to extract the best five minutes, which is the hardest part.
Myc Daz:
I was just going to say, "How do you make that decision?"
Kari Haley:
I cannot imagine.
Sergio Rapu:
And then a lot of the conversation centers around what is the event, what are those microaggressions that occurred, right? Then I start planning, in my process, how do I reenact these, because that's another element to it. But then, once it's like at least the audio is cut together into five minutes and, my side, we do a little bit of audio magic to make sure that my side sounds good too, then we just kick it over to Myc, and he does a lot of the animation prior to that and in the interview process. It was important for us to also allow the characters, the guests, to be involved in the creation of their avatars.
Steven Jackson:
I was going to ask that, actually.
Kari Haley:
Oh, wow.
Sergio Rapu:
Yeah. A couple things, one, they pick the pseudonym that we use for them, we never use their real name, and then we ask them five key questions, so how do you identify gender, racially, how old do you want to be as your avatar, which doesn't necessarily have to be your actual age, but how old you want to be, what hairstyle, what hair covering do you want?
Myc Daz:
We'll show you the process, super-interesting.
Sergio Rapu:
Yeah, what was the other? Oh, skin color, what skin color would you like, and then the last one is what accessory would you like, right? Then that opens it up to like, "Oh, I have this pendent that's really important to me," or "I've always wanted to have this face tattoo," or something like that. And so then, with those elements, I hand it over to Myc. Myc never actually sees an image of the person that we-
Kari Haley:
Oh, I was going to ask that. Do you video record it or ...
Myc Daz:
I don't know what any of these people look like.
Kari Haley:
Wow.
Sergio Rapu:
He goes off of those five elements that we ask for-
Myc Daz:
And their voice.
Sergio Rapu:
And then-
Steven Jackson:
Wow.
Sergio Rapu:
... and the voice, yeah, right? Right, right. But what I'm actually super interested in is, Myc, how do you develop a non-offensive version of a person? Is there research that goes into that? I've never asked that.
Myc Daz:
One thing I learned early on in my artistic career is everybody just wants to be pretty. Whenever I was working with a client and it was too accurate, they'd be like, essentially, "Could you pretty it up for me?" The one thing that I hold true is just make sure it's cute and, if it's cute, it'll be acceptable to the client.
Myc Daz:
Approaching this process, it was just, once we pinned down Sergio's character, that was the style that the show was going to be in, and, after that, based off the feedback we got from the interviewees ... and they'd be very specific. I remember we had one guy who was like, "I want to be an old man." I was like, "OK, I'm making an old man," or "I have a really big beard," so that is the jump-off point for how I approach the character design. And then we'll do a round where I do a sketch, send it to Sergio so he can run it by his team, maybe even the interviewee, and, once I get the OK, I just shoot forward.
Steven Jackson:
Is it ever stressful, particularly for you, Myc, because you're doing the animations, you have not seen, I guess, a true image or a picture or anything, and you're letting the creative juices flow, man, are you ever nervous? And, I guess, a follow-up question to that is I'm assuming that the people that you guys interview, they see the final product before it's released?
Myc Daz:
The only nerves throughout this process, this is my first time working on a production that had a timeline that was "Turn this around in a week" type of timeline, so if there was any nervousness, it was around that and really having to pin down an idea quickly that people wanted. There were nerves in that respect, but I think I've been drawing caricatures specifically for long enough to where that itself wasn't a hurdle for me. That's the part that's exciting for me.
Kari Haley:
I was thinking, too, that you don't have a video or anything. It blows my mind. I don't even know what to say about it. But you depict emotion so well in these videos, how do you do that? You can really get invested in these characters or these people and these stories that you're listening to and seeing, and a lot of it is the animation behind it too. How do you really put that emotion into these people?
Myc Daz:
Oh, thank you. I want to clarify by saying I animated about half. Tim and Sergio did the rest. He was the everyman.
Sergio Rapu:
The good ones are Myc's.
Myc Daz:
I've had experience doing some animation using the software, but this was my first crash course in doing it for real and having to ... this is storytelling. These are stories that are emotive and I wanted to make sure that that was expressed in the animation. If I had to go in later, like, "I don't have enough eyebrows," I had to go in and add eyebrows that can really illustrate what people are feeling. And you find out that there's just little things that can tweak an expression, whether it's the eyelids on your eye or the shape of your eyebrows or the shape of your mouth can really change the emotion and really make people feel a thing, and how people are moving, how quickly or slowly they move while they're telling the story, also adds to that story. It was really just a crash course and a playground in figuring out how to make people exude emotion through animation. There was no process. It was really trial by fire.
Kari Haley:
That's awesome.
Sergio Rapu:
But, to answer your question, we actually don't show the finished piece to our guests until they're out. It's a practice that we use in documentary because, unless there's a red flag in terms of content, which we have advisors that we run it through the process to stop some of that, people always feel really self-critical about themselves and about how they're shown, and so it's always a fine line between showing somebody to say, "Here, this is what it is," and showing somebody and saying, "What do you think?"
Steven Jackson:
What do you think? Yeah.
Kari Haley:
Yeah. That makes sense.
Sergio Rapu:
And that adds complexity around who's making the decision and things like that. And so, oftentimes, and this is also a really hard part as a filmmaker and storyteller of I love everybody that I interview and so I don't want to bring harm to them. I want to represent them accurately, and so, from my lens and from the lens of everybody else who also reviews it, we're doing that. But, of course, if there's ever a red flag that we never see, it's pretty easy to just take down the video and fix that and then put it back up again. I think that's definitely something that we would do if that was ever flagged. Thankfully, everybody that has participated in the series has just loved it, really, just positive feedback. Ultimately, they all just, "I love my character, so many expressions, like the eyebrows."
Myc Daz:
Which is exactly what you want to hear.
Steven Jackson:
My beard was perfect.
Myc Daz:
Exactly. And the street loved it, which was everything we wanted. It got really good reception from my audience online. I'm not sure on TPT, but the people I showed it to really loved it. They thought it was necessary.
Sergio Rapu:
Yeah. What's funny is that this was intended for a BIPOC audience and we're getting really good traction on that. There's also a big non-BIPOC audience that is using it as a resource, right, "Whoa, wait a minute, I just said that. Shoot," right? And it's not to say that racism lives in only one space culturally. I have been racist to many other people in my life, right, and oftentimes unintentionally, I think most of the time unintentionally. I don't think I've ever been intentionally racist.
Steven Jackson:
That's in the recording.
Sergio Rapu:
Yeah. Yeah. There's an edit point there, or you can leave it in. That's fine. Right now, 10 episodes are out in the world and they're really serving multiple purposes. One, we are showing different communities in the media, which representation is always lacking, right, so the more-
Myc Daz:
Yes, it has.
Sergio Rapu:
... the more people of color we have up and out there as heroes and fighters, I think it helps us all, and then encourages conversation in those communities. Personally, I can have more closed-door conversations with coworkers and friends when they see that and they're like, "Oh, dang. You know what? That also happened to me," and then I can open up and be like, "Oh, tell me about that. Oh, shoot. Really? That also happened to me," right?
Sergio Rapu:
We're building community around these relationships. And then, finally, for those that are using it as a resource, it just furthers that conversation and also doesn't require the few people of color, say, in a company to come out and say, "Hey, this is my experience at this company," right? It puts so much on to an individual to say, "Hey, why is it difficult to do what you do at this company because of your background, because of your gender?" Those types of things. I think it's working on multiple levels.
Steven Jackson:
Well, we talk a lot about the power of storytelling on our show. And, even prior to the podcast inception, I was just a firm believer in the power of storytelling because you really hit the heart of the individual or individuals, and I think the impact is big and it's personal, and I think it causes people to go home and think, "How can I be better?" or go home and say, "I want to be better because I'm not where I want to be," those kinds of things.
Steven Jackson:
Another thing that we talk about on this show, probably every episode, we talk about trust a lot. And I would imagine that, when you are interviewing or you have prospective folks that you're going to interview for your digital series, the people that you talk to, they have to be vulnerable, right? You're opening up about a sensitive topic and a personal topic that may have involved hurt or even anger. And, apparently, you guys have some good training in people skills because it seems necessary to have to build rapport and build it quickly, because you said question three, I'm thinking question 33, you're like, "Question three, they're ready to open the floodgates."
Myc Daz:
Look at that face.
Steven Jackson:
Tell us about-
Myc Daz:
You just want to tell him your whole life story.
Sergio Rapu:
Well, you bring up a good point. We also have advisors on the show that work in the diversity and equity space that have advised on this other stuff, and Amina Jaafar, who's our person at Twin Cities PBS, she said something early on in the development of this that really stuck with me. She's like, "The stories that you should encourage people to tell are the stories that they have processed and they are done with, right? Those really hard stories that we are still processing, which can take years, depending on when that happens, that's when you start reopening the wound and causing hurt," right? That was my interpretation of what she said.
Sergio Rapu:
And so the stories that I tried to fish for were what are the stories around racism that you have learned things from about community and that, ultimately, those are the ones that you laugh about once you're done with it and have processed it and pushed it out. The ones that are still very emotional and visceral, you're still processing that, and for the purposes of this series, those stories didn't work.
Steven Jackson:
Makes sense.
Sergio Rapu:
But, yeah, I think building trust is really just about listening. So much of it is that I share, too, a lot about my experiences and build that connection. It also helps that a lot of the people that I interviewed I've known, that they're friends or colleagues or something like that, and so there's already a level of trust there. But, for the few that I was just meeting for the first time, yeah, yeah, it's really sharing with them and just listening. Yeah.
Kari Haley:
Yeah. And I think, when we think about the future of our podcast here too, one of the big things that both Dr. Jackson and I want to really do is, and the origins of this really was, letting people, one, tell their story and, two, be able to perhaps even get some expertise in there based on their life experiences, based on the research that they've done because of something that has happened to them. And I really appreciate, with your stories that you tell, is that it seems like you really just let the person say ... just let them talk, let them express the range of emotions that they have felt, because some of the episodes, when I've watched, I was like, "You really went from, 'This is how I felt at the time. This is how I'm feeling now,'" and then the ending on the hope, the future.
Steven Jackson:
Yeah, that's awesome.
Kari Haley:
I don't know. I'm just really impressed in the episodes that you guys have put out so far.
Steven Jackson:
What has been the most impactful episode for you guys personally? What episode have you gone home and said, "Wow, that's-"
Kari Haley:
That's a great question.
Steven Jackson:
... that's meaningful and I'm a little different after that interaction."
Myc Daz:
I feel like a thread that was interesting to me was so many interactions with the police. I was like, "Man, everybody has that one time they had a run-in," and that resonated with me because it's like I've had so many just-
Steven Jackson:
Or a few.
Myc Daz:
... ridiculous experiences with police, guns a-blazing, and it's like I thought it was just me. Seeing that reflected not even across race, it wasn't just a Black thing, there was multiple races that it was like, "I had a run-in with the police," and I was like, "Oh, this is a thing." And especially in light of the Twin Cities just had such a two years and it was affirming to me to know that it was just like a ubiquitous thing, there's a problem in general with this form of, I guess, policing that we need to address. And, yeah, those were the episodes that stood out to me and that resonated specifically with my experience.
Sergio Rapu:
Yeah. It was surprising to me how many times the school environment showed up. I guess, in some ways, bullying at school, maybe that wasn't as surprising, but even from the teacher's perspective how it shows up. I think the one episode that really hit me was ... I want to say it was the second or third episode. He's the, what do they call it, the older lumberjack character, Blackest Night.
Myc Daz:
Blackest Night.
Sergio Rapu:
That was his name. He talks about self-deprecation in order to fit in, "I make jokes about myself so that other people will accept me." And that resonates with me because I have done that a lot and, in many ways, I continue to do that, and I never realized, until I did that episode, that I was initially using it as a mechanism just to get inside and be part of the group and be fun and all that, but how it also then impacts the way that you look at yourself, that sometimes I would paint myself as a caricature, but then I end up seeing myself as a caricature, right, and nothing deeper than that. I think that resonated with me a little personally.
Myc Daz:
Which speaks to the original name, right? The original name of the show was Token, right?
Sergio Rapu:
Yeah. Right. Yeah, yeah, the original name of the show was Token.
Myc Daz:
Yeah. Especially growing up in a place like Minnesota, a lot of us can identify with that role. You know what I mean? I was the only Black kid at my school for a lot of years, so it's like it's a very real thing to have to navigate.
Sergio Rapu:
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. But I think I've learned a lot just from being in conversation with all these individuals because my experience being a person of color in Minnesota is very different than others. There are some similarities, but, yeah, I've just grown a lot, too, in making it, which I'm really thankful for everybody who has participated, for sure.
Myc Daz:
For sure.
Steven Jackson:
I think what stands out for me, and, first of all, I love them all, and I have a message for our listeners toward the end, but what stood out to me, out of all the episodes, and I pulled it up just to get the exact title, but it's "A True Story of Being Seen as a Threat." And that has a lot of personal meaning for me because I think about the whole concept of code-switching and you have to dummy yourself down or lower your voice so you're not perceived as being threatening or angry, and I don't want to be the angry Black man, or I've seen people in elevators clutch their purses tighter when I get in the elevator, those kinds of things, and that's just one of many examples. And, when I think about it, if I think about it too long, it's a little hurtful because, if you guys know me, my colleagues and coworkers, my family, they know I'm far from a threat, unless you make me mad, but that's something different and I'm not kidding, right? No. [He's kidding.]
Steven Jackson:
But, in general though, it's just something ... and what I love about what you guys have done, and are doing, is that there is going to be something for everyone to find themselves and see themselves and hear their own story. Even if you never interview how many people that are in Minnesota, I don't know the stats, even if you never get to everybody, you're going to be able to touch everybody because of what you guys are doing. Somebody's going to say, "Hey, that was me as well," and I think it's going to open up doors for conversation and for healing, which is what's needed after a crazy 2.5 years.
Kari Haley:
And I think, to even add on to how you were saying that your audience is even people who are not of color, are not a minority in Minnesota, I think these are just so digestible, and you can hear a story in a nonthreatening way, it's not accusatory towards you, and it's really like, "Oh, man, I maybe did that one time," or, "Ooh, I might do that," or "I might think that," or, "I say that to people sometimes and not realize the impact that I'm having on the person." I think these are great for people who are the dabblers or the people who are wanting to hear a little bit more.
Kari Haley:
Yeah, for me, one of the most impactful ones was thinking about being the token. That was maybe the prior thought of being the show name, it sounds like, but just growing up in a very white community, and especially as an adoptee, so somebody who, really, I identify as white culture because that's how I grew up, being a very digestible non-white person out in the world, nonthreatening, but being really easy for people to be like, "Oh, yeah, I have an Asian friend."
Myc Daz:
"Yeah, I am the Asian friend."
Kari Haley:
Check.
Sergio Rapu:
Yeah. No, I love hearing how people connect because so much of what you guys say resonates with my experience, other friends who have experienced these things. And I think another thing that I wanted to share is that the idea, the label, of a racist is so impactful when that is used on a person, "You are racist. You did this, you are racist," and that's something that we moved away from in this. Our intention was to see ideas and systems and preconceived ideas as maybe that, and not individuals, right, because individuals can change and shift, as I've learned through my experience and through all these different stories. I think, at the end of the day, it's important for people to remember that we can all do better and it's all really just about learning and connecting with other people. You are never one thing or another, it's OK to make mistakes, and what you do is then you apologize and then you move forward.
Myc Daz:
We're all figuring it out in real time.
Steven Jackson:
Where do we go from here? You guys have put out-
Kari Haley:
10? 10?
Steven Jackson:
... yeah, 10 awesome episodes, and I think this, if I can say, this might be our 10th episode maybe.
Myc Daz:
Oh, snap! Twinsies!
Kari Haley:
Something like that.
Steven Jackson:
Twinsies! No. Where do we go from here? What would you guys like to see That Got Weird go?
Kari Haley:
Yeah. What's your hope and dreams?
Sergio Rapu:
Well, I'd love for a season two. We've figured out how to make the sausage and now season two could be the gourmet $20 sausage. You know what I mean?
Steven Jackson:
OK, OK. I like sausage. Go ahead.
Myc Daz:
Michelin star sausage.
Sergio Rapu:
Or I don't know what the vegan-friendly version of that is. But, yeah, I think we've created a system of giving access to people who really want to tell stories, right, tell their own stories, share their own experiences in a safe way, and I would love for either us to continue as a season two, or us to be able to develop a mechanism for others to move forward in their own organizations to promote this idea of safe storytelling, safe sharing, these ideas that happen in closed rooms just with your best friends and your audiences. We can all benefit from that and share from that.
Sergio Rapu:
I think that's where I would love this to go, and I would love just to collaborate more with Myc. Myc's work is incredible in the sense that it's, also, it's inviting.
Myc Daz:
Thank you.
Sergio Rapu:
I think the characters are really inviting. They're cute. We had this conversation earlier of like, "Dang, everyone's going to want to be hot supermodels. Is that we should do?", but they're real and even my character, when I initially saw my character, I was like, "Dang, I got skinny legs. Do I have skinny legs?" I was thinking more of, "Could you create The Rock [Dwayne Johnson] version of me? That would be sweet."
Steven Jackson:
There you go. There you go.
Myc Daz:
That's next season.
Sergio Rapu:
No, no, but I accepted the skinny legs and the bun because I fell in love with my character, and that's the magic, where Myc brings in you don't have to be a supermodel to be able to love yourself and I-
Steven Jackson:
That's right, man.
Sergio Rapu:
... and I think that's a big part of this too, right?
Steven Jackson:
Yeah. Well, I have a suggestion, if I may. This is Off the Charts: Examining the Health Equity Emergency, so I would love if you guys would do an episode about some things that happen maybe in health care, maybe some stories, some accounts, some lived experiences that may fall right in line with the videos that you guys have produced because, again, we talk a lot about the dynamic of trust and relationships built on trust and how that trusting relationship can go south really quick if there is things like bias and racism or just somebody just not taking the time. You said that trust is built by listening. Imagine, if we, as physicians, don't listen, the different negative doors that can open up, and I'm even willing to be one of the interviewees.
Sergio Rapu:
Hey, nice.
Myc Daz:
[laughing] I'm a go ahead and put my name in the hat!
Kari Haley:
There's an idea.
Steven Jackson:
Challenge.
Myc Daz:
No, that's directly aligned with what we were thinking in regard to season two. We were thinking about getting much more hyper-focused, talking about a specific realm exclusively, and I think there is a lot of meat within the health industry and BIPOC folks' relationship with it because we all have horror stories. I just tore my Achilles and this terrible experience dealing with the health care system. And, no, I think that'd be tight.
Steven Jackson:
Well, let's talk.
Kari Haley:
Let's collaborate.
Steven Jackson:
Listen, we want to thank you guys for your time. I can talk all day. Our listeners know that. I have to do a lot of, "Shut up, Steve." No. But thank you guys for what you do. I think, a couple housekeeping things, how can our listeners find you guys? What's the easiest way to find you guys so they can locate the episodes and be a part of just the awesome experience that we've been afforded so far?
Sergio Rapu:
Yeah. Well the easiest way to find the episodes are, really, you go to YouTube type in TPT and That Got Weird, and they'll all populate up there in your search. I'm on Instagram, @smrapu, and really just all my work is at Twin Cities PBS. I have a couple new projects starting up, one around the Latino/Latina community here in Minnesota-
Steven Jackson:
Beautiful.
Sergio Rapu:
... so really looking forward to that one.
Myc Daz:
Yes, yes, yes. I am at mycdazzle.com and also on Instagram and TikTok and Twitter and all those fun things as Myc Dazzle, M-Y-C D-A-Z-Z-L-E. And something cool I have in the pipeline, I have been working for, I guess, three years now on a project with a friend of mine called Schoolz. It's an ed tech startup. Last year, we received a Bush Innovation Grant to really flesh it out. We're creating content, stories, animation, illustration for middle schoolers that hyper-focus on telling BIPOC stories and bring a reflection to the classroom, and it's all wrapped around social-emotional learning and advisory. That should be-
Kari Haley:
That's amazing
Myc Daz:
... out in the street soon.
Kari Haley:
Well, yeah, just thank you so much for doing this work, one, putting this material out there that I would really encourage our listeners, if they haven't gone and looked at these videos, to do it. They're very informative, very emotional sometimes, but I myself have enjoyed watching them so much. And I really appreciate you guys' time and for, Sergio, you coming in and coming and seeing us here for our podcast.
Myc Daz:
Thank you.
Sergio Rapu:
Awesome. Yeah. Thanks for having us. We really appreciate it.
Steven Jackson:
I'll be sitting next to my computer with YouTube open waiting for the videos to pop up, so let's get it. No, I'm just playing. Thank you guys so much-
Sergio Rapu:
Thank you.
Steven Jackson:
... and take care.
Steven Jackson:
Off the Charts is a production of HealthPartners and Park Nicollet.
Kari Haley:
It is recorded by Jimmy Bellamy with creative by Peggy Arnson, Tina Long, Tim Myers and Jeff Jondahl.
Steven Jackson:
Production services provided by Matriarch Digital Media.
Kari Haley:
Our theme music is by Ryan Ike.