On the evening of April 22, 2024, New York University assistant journalism professor and pro-Palestinian activist Chenjerai Kumanyika was arrested for participating in a daylong protest at the school. NYU had repeatedly warned protesters to clear the area or face police action. Despite this, Kumanyika brought his 4-year-old daughter to the encampment, and posted an Instagram video of her cheerily singing “Free, free Palestine.”
Kumanyika recounts his arrest in Episode 4 of Empire City, his much-praised podcast recounting the origins and early history of the New York City Police Department. His young daughter, he reports, had told him that she thought the job of the police was to “keep people safe,” and he could not bear the thought that his child might regard New York City’s police as protectors. Kumanyika, the son of a civil rights activist, sees the NYPD as irredeemably destructive and wants to pass that view to both his daughter and his podcast audience. He succeeds, at least with her. After his arrest, Kumanyika says, she told him, “I don’t want to go to jail.”
Empire City was last year’s most lauded historical podcast, honored with just about every podcast prize there is, including Ambie, Signal, and Webby awards. It was produced by Crooked Media, best known for its Pod Save America podcast, hosted by four left-of-center former Obama aides. Kumanyika is a captivating storyteller who excavates shocking episodes from the distant past. (To my mind, the most shocking was learning that corrupt constables, prior to the Civil War, were kidnapping free black people to sell into slavery.) But Kumanyika wants to flat-out end the NYPD, and indeed, all police as an institution. He has admitted as much, though not in Empire City. To advance this ideology, Kumanyika makes numerous factual errors and engages in slippery arguments, drawing conclusions that do not follow from his premises. Thanks to the podcast’s dazzling production qualities and emotional force, most listeners—and awards judges—didn't listen with critical discernment. So I did.
