Steven Winn March 17, 2021Updated: March 17, 2021, 4:25 pm
Soledad O’Brien taping on set. Photo: Rob Pohle/Hearst
From his couch in rural Kansas, a burly white man who is “between manufacturing jobs” glances up at the camera and looks away. When people put the out-of-work label on you, he says, “it’s hard to imagine how your life could be. It kills the dream.”
Moments later, a member of the Potawatomi Nation speaks proudly of the Indigenous rituals and traditions woven into his identity. His wife offers this amendment about life on the reservation: “As a woman, I’m not equal,” she says. “As a white woman, I’d have it easier.”