Everybody's an outsider - to someone else. If you're male, you're not one of the girls. If you're a home-boy, you're no oreo. If you're a Jew, some Christians would like to save your soul. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, life as one of the "others." A black conservative, two half-black, half white sisters, and an immigrant anarchist — all outsiders.

Randall Kenan is the author of "Walking on Water: Black American Lives at the Turn of the Twenty-First Century." He tells Steve Paulson about some of the people he met during his six year journey around the country whose lives challenge our stereotypes of what it means to be Black. Also, Shelby Steele, author of "A Dream Deferred", tells Steve Paulson why he opposes affirmative action and what it means to be a Black conservative.

Judith Strasser reads "Song," a poem by Edward Hirsch about being an outsider. Also, Mariamne Whatley takes Jim Fleming through a workshop exercise on diversity, showing how everyone is an outsider. Whatley is a dean at the University of Wisconsin.

Walter Roth and Joe Kraus are the authors of "An Accidental Anarchist" - which tells the story of a young Russian immigrant shot by Chicago's police chief in 1908. They tell Judith Strasser that at the time, the city was swept up in anti-anarchist hysteria, and that public attitudes towards immigrants are still shaped by ignorance and fear. Also, novelist Danzy Senna talks with Judith Strasser about the dilemmas of being bi- racial. Senna's novel is called "Caucasia."

Distribution dates:

• week of 08/29/99 - hour 3