Show Notes
Producer’s Note: We need your financial support! Please give us 5 star ratings on Spotify, iTunes or wherever you listen to us. Also support our work financially on CashApp at $BlackDiplomats,Venmo @BlackDiplomats and on PayPal at paypal.me/BlackDiplomats. This week on Black Diplomats, where everyone can be a diplomat, I breakdown Russian President Vladimir Putin’s no-so-certain in-person attendance at this year’s BRICS Summit in South Africa’s, GOP House Leader Kevin McCarthy’s brave reassurance of the Republican support for Ukraine and the bullshit “journalism” claiming Vice President Kamala Harris is a liability for Joe Biden in 2024. And we have very special guest Rula Jebreal, who will talk about all things Palestine and Israel. Read this New Voice of Ukraine report about South Africa’s anxiousness about Putin attending BRICS in person. Also read this Washington Post analysis about House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s strong support for Ukraine. Watch Roy Wood Jr’s White House Correspondents Dinner stand up in full. It was great. His words about VP Harris start at 17:00. Show Outline: 01:36: Putin’s South Africa BRICS Problem And Ukraine’s Africa Diplomacy Challenges 14:24: House Speaker McCarthy Speaks Up For Ukraine 19:24: What Is VP Harris Up To? 29:09: Feature Interview with Rula Jabreal Intro, intermission and outro music by Detroit independent artist Ink Prod. About Rula Jebreal Rula Jebreal is a Visiting Professor at The University of Miami, where she teaches Communications. Jebreal served on the G7 Gender Equality Advisory Council, a body relaunched by French President Emmanuel Macron. She is an award-winning Journalist, author and foreign policy expert who has received accolades for her groundbreaking work in Italy, the United States and across the Middle East. In May 2017, Jebreal was enlisted to introduce former President Barak Obama at his first European public appearance since leaving office, at which he gave the keynote speech on food security and climate change, at the Global Innovation Summit. Jebreal is an on-air foreign policy expert she appears frequently on CNN, MSNBC Bloomberg, HBO and NBC, she has written many op-eds for the New York Times and The Washington Post and Foreign Policy, NewsWeek and Time. Jebreal Wrote extensively about authoritarian regimes and predicted Trump’s victory in an article for the Washington post in 2015 called Trump is America’s Berlusconi.
More from Terrell J Starr Official
I sat down with Maksym Butkevych, a human rights activist who spent more than two years as a POW in Russian captivity. Hearing him describe the torture and starvation he endured was heartbreaking. What moved me most was Maksym's transformation—from a pacifist with no military experience to someone who took up arms to defend his homeland immediately after the Russian invasion. He fought bravely until he and his unit were captured in June 2022. During his captivity, Maksym was starved and fed stale food, like his fellow POWs. He thought he wouldn’t make it out alive. He was released in October 2024. Today, Maksym continues to advocate for war veterans, defend refugee rights, and push for a diverse, inclusive Ukraine. To watch the full interview go to www.youtube.com/@terrelljstarrofficial Executive producer and host: Terrell J. Starr Editor and producer: Mike Hull Guest: Maksym Butkevych Special Thanks: Philip Ittner and On The Edge studio Follow us on Instagram, Twitter and Blue Sky at @terrelljstarr.
Regardless of how the talks in Alaska end between Russian President Vladimir Putin And U.S. President Donald Trump, Ukrainian-American soldier Yaroslav Ponomarov believes it will not end in Ukraine’s favor. Yaroslav moved to Brooklyn with his parents when he was five and grew up American. But when Russia invaded his homeland he decided to return, join the military and fight the colonizers. He said his commander gave him some sage advice.
Terrell was invited to be on a panel at the Hay Festival in Lviv in October. It's a wide ranging conversation that places the current war in the kind of historical context that is rarely a part of legacy media reporting. The work of Myroslav Shkandrij, professor emeritus at the Department of German and Slavic Studies, University of Manitoba, and author of Revolutionary Ukraine, 1917-2017: Flashpoints in History and Contemporary Memory Wars, prompted Ukrainians to reflect on serfdom as a form of slavery that existed in Ukrainian territory. Terrell Jermaine Starr is an American journalist and activist who writes about Ukraine, foreign policy and race. Chaired by Bohdana Romantsova, editor at Tempora Publishing House.
Have you heard of Project 2025? If not, you better learn fast. It's the GOP's 900-plus page conservative manifesto aimed at dismantling the federal government and the Democratic Party has no answer for it. Here to talk about 2025 is Anne Nelson, who read the entire document and is traveling the country to educate communities about the dangers that lie ahead if Trump wins in November. Host: Terrell Jermaine Starr Guests: Anne Nelson Producer: Mike Hull
Do HBCU students care about what’s happening in Gaza? Of course they do, but there are some distinct social-economic factors that play a role in how Black kids who attend HBCUs are protesting—or, in many cases, not at all. Two-time HBCU president Dr. Walter Kimbrough joins the podcast this week to talk about how he’d handle some of the challenges HBCU presidents face when it comes to student protests regarding Gaza, the right-wing congressional attacks on college presidents over Israel, as well as Biden’s commencement speech at Morehouse and Xavier University’s rescinding U.S. UN Ambassador Linda Thomas Greenfield’s invitation to deliver the school’s commencement address. Host: Terrell Jermaine Starr Guests: Dr. Walter Kimbrough Producer: Mike Hull