Back in America

Is our education system ready for AI—or still grading with yesterday’s rules? In this episode of Back in America, Stan talks with Shahid, an award-winning fractional CTO and CISO with 35+ years in regulated industries, from medical devices to federal health tech. He argues that AI isn’t just a tool; it’s a colleague, a co-student, and a force multiplier—if teachers and teams learn context engineering and treat AI as a companion.

We dig into:

In this episode of Back in America, I sit down with Clayton Weimers, Executive Director of Reporters Without Borders (RSF) USA, to talk about the state of press freedom in America and beyond. From the decline of local journalism to the rise of AI in newsrooms, we explore the paradox of living in an age of information abundance while losing access to trustworthy reporting.

Clayton explains why the U.S. now ranks 57th out of 180 countries on the World Press Freedom Index, how economic pressures are creating “news deserts” across the nation, and why trust in journalism cont...

“Leave all your hope, family, and dreams behind.” That’s the banner Darryl Burton saw when he first walked into Missouri State Penitentiary—infamously known as the “bloodiest 47 acres in America.” He was 22. He was innocent.

In this episode of Back in America, Darryl shares his extraordinary story: how a false accusation, coached jailhouse informants, and prosecutorial misconduct stole nearly 25 years of his life. With no DNA, no weapon, no motive—and no justice—Darryl was sentenced to life without parole for a crime he didn’t commit.

Thanks to the relentless...

In this episode, Stan speaks with Prof. Maurice Wallace of Rutgers University about the enduring impact of James Baldwin, the evolution of Black American vernacular, and the complex relationship America has with its history of slavery and race. Prof. Wallace explores Baldwin’s profound influence on his own academic journey, how language and sound shape Black cultural identity, and why America continues to struggle with the legacy of emancipation, mass incarceration, and systemic inequality.

Through insights into literature, photography, and the “Black modernist soundscape,” this conversation reveals deeper truths about America’s culture, values, and iden...

For over a century, a small group of dedicated cowboys has upheld a fading American tradition: the Highwood Mountains cattle roundup. In this episode of Back in America, we explore Only Roundup Remains, a documentary capturing the grit, camaraderie, and deep generational ties that keep this way of life alive. Filmmakers Brian Liu and Andrew Labens, alongside the cowboys themselves, share their journey of documenting this historic event, the challenges they faced, and the profound reflections on a changing America.

From saddle sores to late-night campfire discussions, this is a rare glimpse into a vanishing world where...

A green card interview is supposed to be the last step before legal residency—but what if it’s actually a setup?

This episode of Back in America features filmmakers Sam and David Cutler Kreutz discussing their short film, "A Lien," a story about a couple navigating the complexities of the US immigration system. The conversation delves into the film's themes of family, the "banal cruelty" of the immigration process, and the broader political context surrounding immigration in America.

Key Topics

Discuss The Inspiration Behind "A Lien" The New York Time...

What does the First Amendment mean in a modern, diverse America? In this episode of Back in America, host Stan Berteloot speaks with Knox Thames, an international human rights lawyer, advocate, and author with over 20 years of experience across U.S. administrations. Thames, who served as the Special Advisor for Religious Minorities in the Near East and South Central Asia, unpacks the historical roots and contemporary challenges of religious freedom in the United States.

From the First Amendment’s foundational promise of freedom of religion to the complexities of pluralism in a globalized world, th...

Host Stan Berteloot welcomes Coco Kee, entrepreneur, blockchain pioneer, and host of the Blockchain Asia Podcast. Coco shares her journey from studying literature and theater at Peking University to becoming a leading figure in cryptocurrency.

In this episode of Back in America, Stan Berteloot sits down with David Reaboi, a national security expert, media analyst, and Claremont Institute Fellow, known for his incisive takes on political warfare and influence operations. Dubbed a “right-wing Twitter pugilist” by Politico, David shares his unique perspective on some of the most contentious issues shaping the United States today.

We discuss his views on Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis, and the evolving dynamics of federalism. David offers his candid take on January 6, the role of political violence, and how America’s fractured unity might lead to a b...

Cia analyst interview with Host Stan Berteloot welcomes David McCloskey, a former CIA analyst and bestselling author. They discuss David's career in intelligence, focusing on geopolitical tensions in the Middle East.

In this episode of Back in America, Stan Berteloot explores the extraordinary life of Tom Peine, who left a corporate career in Germany to become a deputy sheriff in the deserts of Arizona. At 40, Tom stepped into an entirely new world, navigating America’s complex gun culture, immigration, and race dynamics from the front lines of law enforcement. His story challenges assumptions about identity, resilience, and belonging in America. Join us for a conversation on the twists and tensions of Tom’s unique journey—and what it really means to protect and serve as an outsider on the inside.

T...

In this provocative episode of Back in America, we sit down with Dr. Patti Fletcher, author of “Disruptors: Success Strategies for Women Who Break the Mold.” Dr. Fletcher challenges traditional notions of empowerment and exposes the systemic barriers holding women back in 2024 America. Drawing from her personal journey—including her family’s legacy of overcoming adversity during the Armenian genocide—she reveals why true disruption requires efficiency, effectiveness, and equity. Listen as Dr. Fletcher explains why she can’t stand the word “empower,” how women can harness their own inherent power, and what it takes to break free from antiquated status...

In this episode, we sit down with Alvaro de Cozar, an award-winning journalist and podcast producer, to explore the power of storytelling in a time of political upheaval and misinformation. I talk with Alvaro about his story and podcast episode on Aquilino Gonell, a Dominican immigrant, former U.S. Army soldier, and U.S. Capitol Police officer who defended the Capitol during the January 6th insurrection. Gonell’s journey from pursuing his American dream to confronting its harsh realities offers a profound reflection on democracy, truth, and what it means to be an immigrant in today’s America.

Al...

In this episode of Back in America, we confront one of life’s most challenging realities—caring for a dying loved one at home. Join us as we talk with Dr. Andrea Sankar, professor of medical anthropology at Wayne State University and author of Dying at Home: A Family Guide for Caregiving. Drawing from her experience and extensive research, Dr. Sankar offers profound insights into the emotional and logistical complexities of turning a home into a sanctuary for end-of-life care. Learn about the cultural perspectives on death, the crucial role of community support, and practical advice for caregivers. This hear...

In this episode of “Back in America,” we sit down with Tamar Huggins, founder and CEO of TechSpark, a platform empowering Black, Indigenous, and people of color through technology education. Tamar shares her journey from building computers with her father to launching Sparkplug, an innovative AI tool that translates classical literature into African American Vernacular English (AAVE). We explore the critical issues of AI bias, the importance of diverse training data, and how education can bridge gaps in tech. Tamar explains why she considers Sparkplug a “human AI” and discusses her mission to make technology accessible and inclusive for all stud...

In this episode of Back in America, host Stan Berteloot interviews acclaimed journalist Brendan Koerner about his undercover investigation into the world of OnlyFans, a platform that connects adult performers with subscribers, through his Wired cover story - 'She has 80,000 subscribers but she always has time for you'. Koerner reveals the hidden workings of the platform and the surprising reality of its chat services. From his initial encounters to becoming an undercover chatter himself, Koerner exposes the intricate business operations and psychological dynamics that drive OnlyFans. Tune in to uncover the truth about the creators, their chat specialists, and...

Hey everyone, Stan Berteloot here, your host of the Back in America podcast. After a long two-year break, we’re back with fresh, insightful episodes exploring American culture, values, and identity through the eyes of an expatriate.

I’ve been busy working with amazing companies like NeuTigers, Pontosense, and Nytro Marketing, and staying active with Share My Meals, fighting food waste. The world has changed since COVID-19, and so have I. The Me Too movement, Black Lives Matter, and climate change have profoundly impacted me.

We’re back with new in...

This episode was originally published on December 17, 2020

In this episode, I interview three crew members of the EPIX / BBC docuseries Enslaved: The Lost History of the Transatlantic Slave Trade.

While 2020 has been a year of intense examination of racism in response to the Black Lives Matter movement, Enslaved takes a deep dive at the historical realities of the Middle Passage. Starring Samuel L. Jackson, The Guardian’s Afua Hirsh, and investigative journalist Simcha Jacobovici, the series travels across the globe to sites of slave ships to uncover what these sunken graveyards can reveal about life on...

Back in America is a podcast exploring America’s culture, values, and identity. This conversation was recorded live on September 17. You can watch the unedited version on our Youtube channel. 

Listen to this episode to learn more about the release of the Pentagon report on UFOs to Congress. The importance of cosmos exploration. The chances of finding extraterrestrial life in our lifetime.

After taking a long summer break during which my intern Josh Wagner took over Back in America with his excellent series Poetism I am happy to be back behind the mic.

My...

If the particular cannot be repeated, it remains forever lost; and this is why there can be no final closure to mourning. There can only be, alongside of mourning,​ learning to love new particulars ––Louise Fradenburg

In this week’s installment of “Poetism,” we’d like to ask about how words, poems, songs, and other kinds of art objects help bring life to a world. And by world, we mean a perspective, something experienced and understood in the innermost part of our being. Whether faced by inner solitude or loss, words attempt to communicate a state of affairs...

The sullen murmur of the bees shouldering their way through the long unmown grass, or circling with monotonous insistence round the dusty gilt horns of the straggling woodbine, seemed to make the stillness more oppressive. The dim roar of London was like the bourdon note of a distant organ.

These lines, from the opening pages of Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, emphasize unseen background noises as constituting an environment. The bees, working through the grass, create the biological condition of possibility for nature and the world, especially in their unseen sta...

Across Northern Europe, so-called “bog people” have often been discovered shuffling around in the peat. While no one is quite certain where these quasi-mummified bodies come from––some date as recently as the 1940s––they have posed a strange mystery for countless poets and artists.

This week, Back in America’s Poetism team takes a look at one of Seamus Heaney’s bog-inspired poems “The Bog Queen” from his 1975 collection North. Written in the spring of the May 1968 movement and the beginning of the Irish “Troubles,” “The Bog Queen” ventriloquizes the voice of its eponymous queen, pretending to experience underground li...

Elegy

Who would I show it to

In this short one-line poem, W.S. Merwin condenses the anguish of loss, of being alive, and of the limitations of languages into a neat little package. Why write in the absence of finality? And what happens when mortality catches up with us?

In this installment of Poetism, Podcast Editor Josh Wagner takes to the studio to ask about the honesty of writing––can writing ever reflect a true impression of reality? To field such questions about life, poetry, and everything in between, Stanford grad...

She listen to a little of that D’Angelo music, some love’s melody, sophisticated-type rap, which she say sounds more like real music, like intelligent music, than some of that other music, then she cuts the radio off ––Gayl Jones, The Healing

Like the narrator in Gayl Jones’ The Healing, this week’s installment of Poetism focuses on and around “black music,” that is music which conveys a specific feeling of a sensation or time without explaining anything. For me, it’s like being a child at an adult’s card table; no one tells you how the gam...

Why are we so blind, why do we see so little, when there is much around us to see?

So asks philosopher Alva Noë in Strange Tools, an exploration of how art objects contain, persuade, envelop, and direct our attention. What happens when we love a song, poem, or a moment in a day? How do these works of art direct and misdirect our attention? What––physically, emotionally, actually––happens to us in these moments of transport? And how can we talk about any of this without poorly paraphrasing that direct experience?

...

Happy July! While Stan and the usual Back in America podcast are on a hiatus this summer, Podcast Editor Josh Wagner will be hosting a new series entitled Poetism, tracing the foundations of and influences behind American poetry and music.

Each week, Josh will invite a guest on the air to talk about an unusual pairing of a poem and song––seeing how they overlap and converse with one another. In the process, we hope to expose listeners to new poets and songs and make a case for the enduring relevance of poetry in an age o...

Before we dive into today’s episode, a personal note: This summer, I will be going back to France for the first time in two years, and I will take a break from podcasting until September. 

However, my interns Josh and Emma will be keeping the lights on by releasing podcast episodes and newsletter articles (subscribe here).

Josh has been working on a series of episodes discussing American music and poetry, which will be released weekly in July and August.

So, Back in America will be in summer mode, and I know y...

This episode was recorded live on May 26 and includes questions from the audience.

It is part of a series on sustainable initiatives to save our planet. In his latest interviews, host Stan Berteloot spoke with Navi Radjou about the frugal economy and Bruno Sarda about how corporations are experimenting with sustainability. 

Stan’s guest, Stefan Gallard, is a French-American working for Grain de Sail, a company that has built the first modern wind-powered cargo ships. 

Grain de Sail transports wine, coffee beans, and chocolate across the globe in its 80- foot schooner. Its sail...

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Back in America is a podcast exploring America's culture, values, and identity. This episode is part of a series on positive initiatives to save our planet. In his last interview, Stan Berteloot spoke with Navi Radjou about the frugal economy. Today, he is talking to Bruno Sarda, an internationally renowned expert in sustainability. 

For years, corporations have advertised their green initiatives to reassure both investors and customers about their sustainable practices. Yet as we know, climate change is only getting worse, so we wanted to ask B...

Careful listeners of Back in America may have noticed that we have expanded our team and welcomed two interns to research, record and write the podcast alongside me, Stan Berteloot.

In the spirit of transparency, I’d like for you to formally meet my interns Josh Wagner and Emma Myers in true podcast fashion as they interview each other!

They also discuss their own exciting projects coming soon: be on the lookout for Josh’s Poetry and Eugenics series both releasing this summer, and Emma’s deep dive into the history of vaccine hesitancy and medica...

In this episode, Back in America’s host, Stan Berteloot speaks with Navi Radjou, internationally renowned Indian-French-American scholar, innovation and leadership advisor, and bestselling author based in New York. Navi’s most recent book, Frugal Innovation: How To Do More With Less, shows how companies can innovate faster, better, and more sustainably. 

The conversation focuses on Navi’s work on developing an alternative to capitalism and concrete actions individuals and businesses are taking to build a better, more sustainable world.

“My job is to introduce Americans to new ways of doing business, new ways of creating...

Bridging COVID-19 Isolation and the Digital Divide with Bridging Tech

In 2021, it is nearly impossible to get anything done without a laptop: apply for a job, go to school, safely connect with friends, or schedule a COVID-19 vaccine appointment. Yet, there are fewer laptops in existence than humans on this planet, presenting a unique challenge for unhoused students. Not only are they disadvantaged in terms of their living situation, but also have to deal with this extra technological hurdle known as the digital divide.

Naturalized Americans have a unique set of familial and i...

As Biden announces new executive actions on gun control, the Back in America team invites you to re-listen to an episode on guns in America, initially published on Oct. 23, 2020.

In his executive actions today, Biden restricted the sale of “ghost guns,” untraceable guns which are sold in kits.

Today’s announcements are less expansive than the president’s initial campaign promises. Yet, administration officials suggest that these measures are only the first steps of Biden’s plans for addressing gun violence. Further legislation will require Congressional approval and include a nationwide assault weapons ban (someth...

In this episode, Stan Berteloot continues to explore how leading American collapsologists thinkers conceive of the collapse of our Western civilization.

Since the 1990s, scholars have been predicting that the end of the Cold War and the struggle between capitalism/communism will also bring about “the end of history.” But, are these worries founded? What are we to make of the last 30 years?

After previous episodes with John-Michael Greer and Richard Heinberg, Stan sat down with Derrick Jensen, an American author, ecophilosopher, radical environmentalist, and anti-civilization advocate. He once said that “We’re going to watch the en...

Today is March 8, International Women's Day, and on this day I suggest that we listen to Dr. Maya Rockeymoore Cummings and her work for civil justice.

This episode was previously released on Jan. 22, 2021. In this episode of Back in America, I speak with Dr. Maya Rockeymoore Cummings, former chair of the Maryland Democratic Party, political consultant, and activist. She recently ran to represent Maryland’s 7th District in Congress after undergoing a double mastectomy.

Dr. Maya Rockeymoore Cummings is the widow of Congressman Elijah Cummings, a good friend of former Congressman John Lewis. When Lewis died in...

As countries worldwide scramble to vaccinate their citizens against the deadly COVID-19 pandemic, governments have to make the uncomfortable calculus of who deserves to get the vaccine right now. The ones who are spreading it the most? The ones in essential high-risk jobs? People over a certain age? That threshold is unclear and hotly contested. With several months to go before vaccines are readily available to any desiring American adult, legislators have to ask The Question: who first? And, as more vaccine becomes available, they will also have to ask whether it is morally justified for the U.S...

First published on November 18, 2019

When a French journalist returns to live in the US 25 years after leaving it as a student, he struggles to recognize the country he loves. He embarks on conversations with Americans of all backgrounds in a quest to understand what America means today.

This was the first installment of Back in America.

The episode is part of a series on masculinity in America.

Here I speak to Eric Marsh a Black activist and a social worker in Philadelphia. 

We spe...

Witches are everywhere! Your neighbor might be a witch, you can run into one at the farmer market, the organic food store, the alternative medicine section of your bookstore, and definitely at feminist rallies––you could even be a witch without knowing it!

Since the 1960s, the historical stereotype of the witch has been reclaimed as a feminist icon. 

In their everyday lives, American witches act just the same as anyone else. While it is forbidden for outsiders to enter certain covens, many sell protection spells on Etsy for $15 a pop. They post pictures of Midni...

This episode was originally recorded live and you can watch the entire interview on our YouTube channel.

Trica Baker was the VP of Marketing Services at Merrill Lynch for 13 years before leaving her job to take care of her teenage son who was struggling with severe depression.

After battling this disease for three long years, her son tragically committed suicide. In the aftermath of those dark days, Tricia fell into a terrible depression and suffered from Post-Traumatic Stress, barely able to leave her bed.

Yet, her dog Miki, guided by a mysterious instinct...

What is really at question is the American way of life. What is really at question is whether Americans already have an identity or are still sufficiently flexible to achieve one. This is a painfully complicated question, for what now appears to be the American identity is really a bewildering and sometimes demoralizing blend of nostalgia and opportunism. ––James Baldwin

In recent months, shows about Jewish thought and theology (Pretend it’s a City, Unorthodox) have populated Netflix’s “Trending Now” tab. But what does it mean to be an American Jew in 2021? Why are many...