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Encore Broadcast: W. Kamau Bell’s Family Explores The Mixed-Race Experience

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Stylized graphic says "Mixed! Stories of Mixed Race Californians." In the lower right corner a white woman with a Black man smile while holding an infant. In the background, the same couple pose in a garden with their three mixed race daughters.
Comedian W. Kamau Bell and his wife, Melissa Hudson Bell, produced a new documentary film in which they ask kids, including two of their own, to reflect on mixed-race identity. (Graphic by Kelly Ma of KQED)

‘1,000% Me’: How W. Kamau Bell’s Family Explored the Mixed-Race Experience in New Film

This week we reprise one of our favorites in our eight-part series featuring the stories of mixed-race Californians: A conversation with W. Kamau Bell and Melissa Hudson Bell. Kamau Bell has centered conversations about race in much of his work as a comedian, author and TV host. But when Kamau, who’s Black, and his wife Melissa, who’s white, had kids, they knew their experiences around race would be much different than their daughters.

The Bells set out to make a film that centers the lives of other mixed-race kids like them. In a conversation with hosts Sasha Khokha and Marisa Lagos, the Bells open up about how they talk about race in their own family and the conversations they hope their film, “1000% Me: Growing Up Mixed” sparks in living rooms across the country.

Listen to this and more in-depth storytelling by subscribing to The California Report Magazine podcast.

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