About the show
Everyone has an opinion. Bruce Anthony isn't waiting for anyone to ask for his.
Honest curiosity. Not neutrality.
Unsolicited Perspectives is a weekly podcast about current events, politics, race, class, gender, and culture. It covers the things people have opinions about but don’t always take the time to understand.
Bruce studied history at the University of Maryland, and he reads today’s headlines through what happened before them. History usually explains what the headline leaves out.
Having an opinion doesn’t mean having the whole story. So the show looks at the arguments, questions the assumptions, and brings in people whose experiences might challenge what you thought you knew. Some episodes end with everybody agreeing. Plenty end with somebody rethinking a position, and sometimes that somebody is Bruce.
Guests are authors, historians, advocates, artists, and people who lived the story. Every interview starts with where they came from, because how someone got to a view matters as much as where they landed.
Some weeks it’s just Bruce, taking one theme and working through it from a few angles. And every week there’s The Sibling Happy Hour, where Bruce and his sister, J. Aundrea, bring the family dynamic to the headlines, relationships, politics, and whatever else ends up on the table.
You probably won’t agree with everything you hear. That’s fine. If you’re willing to listen and change your mind once in a while, you’re in the right place.
The opinions are unsolicited. What you do with them is up to you.
Music by @freebeats.io
The hosts
Bruce Anthony
Host
I'm Bruce Anthony. Long before I started a podcast, I was the guy asking questions and getting pulled into conversations that ran way longer than anybody planned. I've always wanted to know why people think the way they do.
I studied history at the University of Maryland and planned on teaching. Life went a different direction, but the teacher in me never left. I've tended bar, managed restaurants, owned part of a pro wrestling company, and worked as a personal trainer and fitness director. Every one of those jobs put me in a room with people whose lives looked nothing like mine. Everybody had a story, and I understood them better once I heard it.
The podcast started because people kept asking what I thought. I wanted more than a place to share my opinions, though. I wanted to sit down with people who knew things I didn't and had lived through things I hadn't.
What pulls me in most is where history meets the news. Who benefited, and who got left out? A lot of what we argue about today goes back to something we never finished dealing with.
I have opinions, and I'm not going to pretend I don't. But being sure of what you think shouldn't stop you from questioning it.
I don't want to be right. I want to be correct.
J. Aundrea
Co-host, The Sibling Happy Hour
If you've listened to The Sibling Happy Hour, you already know J. Aundrea doesn't let Bruce get away with much.
She's Bruce's sister and his co-host. She studied English Language and Literature at the University of Maryland, with a focus on race, class, and gender, so she's rarely short on a counterpoint. They've known each other their whole lives, which means they can go from agreeing to getting on each other's nerves inside of one conversation. It's family. You know how it goes.
She's quick, she's funny, and she is fully in her auntie era. She can laugh at the ridiculous stuff and call out the serious stuff in the same breath. Away from the mic, she puts her time into community work and social justice, and she brings that to the table too, along with the occasional side-eye.
Bruce may have started the podcast, but Jay makes sure he doesn't always get the last word.