This American Roach

Summary

Radiolab – “This American Roach” (May 29, 2026)

Episode Overview

In “This American Roach,” Radiolab’s Alex Neeson sets out on a personal and investigative journey to confront her profound fear and disgust of cockroaches—specifically, the American cockroach (Periplaneta americana). Through storytelling, expert interviews, culinary adventures, and historical context, Neeson and the Radiolab team explore why humans are so deeply repelled by “pests,” how these feelings intersect with history and social stigma, and whether we might be able to see these creatures—and ourselves—differently. The episode deftly weaves together humor, discomfort, science, and cultural critique to challenge our collective perceptions about this much-maligned insect.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Anatomy of Roach Revulsion

[02:02–06:44]

• Alex Neeson shares a visceral story of a birthday encounter with a large American cockroach in her home, vividly describing the sense of panic and disgust.

• Despite being a science reporter and not hating all bugs, she describes unravelling at the sight of a roach, feeling helpless and overwhelmed.

  “Every single time I see a roach, I completely unravel... I just snap.” — Alex Neeson [05:24]

• Sets the stage for her quest: Can exposure and knowledge help her conquer this fear?

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2. Immersion Therapy: Exterminators and Pest Expos

[06:44–12:01]

• Visits the New York City Pest Expo, meeting seasoned exterminators and entomologists who show no fear—only professional detachment and curiosity.

• Exterminators Lakeisha Fulcher and Cedric Simmons take Alex into the thick of infestations, explaining how to spot roach signs and use industrial pesticides.

  “Flashlight is the most essential piece of the toolkit.” — Cedric Simmons [09:04]
  “Give me five days—let’s go.” — Lakeisha Fulcher [08:16]

• She experiences a sense of growing confidence but quickly hits a wall when, alone at home, her reflexive disgust returns despite her training.

  “I didn’t freak out... it was nothing like before. But then, a roach in my own kitchen... and I just couldn’t do it.” — Alex Neeson [12:40]

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3. Can Culinary Curiosity Cure Disgust?

[13:19–18:39]

• Chef Joseph Yoon, edible insect advocate, introduces Alex and colleagues to gourmet bug dishes—with one caveat: even Yoon avoids cockroaches.

  “Absolutely not. I’m already having to do a lot of work to convince people... Roaches don’t help my cause.” — Joseph Yoon [14:06]

• After persuasion, Yoon prepares dubia roaches, Madagascar hissing cockroaches, and finally American cockroaches. The group samples each in turn—some are tolerable, but the American cockroach proves deeply unpalatable.

  “It tastes like something that you shouldn’t eat.” — Alan Gaffinsky [17:44]
  “According to a Bugs as food expert, the American cockroach is literally inedible.” — Alex Neeson [18:24]

• Even the edible insect chef is nearly repulsed to the point of spitting it out.

  “It’s a warning sign to me. It’s kind of like, ‘don’t eat me, I dare you to eat me. I’ll kill you.’” — Joseph Yoon [18:31]

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4. Rethinking the “Pest”: Psychological & Social Layers

[20:03–22:14]

• Science writer Bethany Brookshire joins to reflect on how humans designate animal “villains,” drawing on her own vendetta against squirrels.

  “Every time an animal has succeeded really well at living near us, we hate them. If we can’t take it in, tame it, and put it in a little doggy sweater, we do not want it.” — Bethany Brookshire [21:19]

• The term “pest” is interrogated as a tool of dehumanization and objectification.

  “That word ‘pest’ takes an animal... and turns it into an object. We're saying that animal has no value.” — Bethany Brookshire [21:30]

---

5. The Deep History of Roaches and Race

[25:17–31:03]

• Entomologist Sammy Ramsey reveals a little-known history: the American cockroach originated in Africa and arrived in North America on slave ships.

  “The American cockroach is actually from Africa, and they climbed aboard those ships... when they got to the US they set up a whole new population.” — Sammy Ramsey [25:28]

• Alex and author Angela Flournoy discuss the loaded cultural associations of roaches, particularly as tied to race, poverty, and shame in the Black community.

  “That story just plays straight, like, directly into, like, all the old... racist story that’s been told about Black people in this country. I mean, ‘roach’ is an old anti-Black slur.” — Alex Neeson [27:26]

• They discuss the shame, vigilance, and stigma tied to cleanliness and roach encounters in Black American homes.

  “When I tell a stranger a story on the record about a roach in my home, there is something... in my chest that's like, damn, now they know.” — Alex Neeson [29:31]

• Brookshire reframes roaches (and rats) as symbols of social contract failure and systemic neglect, not as reflections of personal worth.

  “These are animals succeeding because our social contract has failed... You could see them... as a symbol of the failed social contract.” — Bethany Brookshire [30:10]

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6. Roach Reality: Survivors, Cleaners, and Forest Creatures

[23:04–32:49]

• Sammy Ramsey explains their remarkable biology:

  • Survivors since the age of dinosaurs
  • Exceptional resilience—can survive headless for a week, withstand radiation
  • Fast runners, eat a wide range of materials, and are ultra-resistant.

  “Cockroaches are survivors... had they not been, they would not have survived this long.” — Sammy Ramsey [23:48]

• Roaches’ supposed filthiness is contextualized: they’re naturally clean and become dirty from living among human refuse.

  “They’re actually naturally very clean animals, cleaning their antennae almost the way that cats clean their whiskers.” — Alex Neeson [31:43]

• In their native African habitats, they are crucial decomposers in vibrant ecosystems.

  “They eat primarily organic matter... leaves, decomposing trees, logs. They’re decomposers.” — Alex Neeson [32:23]

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7. Closing Meditation: Re-Imagining the Roach

[32:49–36:38]

• Alex Neeson delivers a vivid, almost poetic narrative about the life cycle of a wild American cockroach in the Congo Basin rainforest, humanizing the creature and placing it back in its natural context—far away from the “pest” we know.

  “At the base of her abdomen is a reddish capsule called an ootheca... inside it are 16 eggs... she pauses, looking both ways... as if reciting a prayer.” — Alex Neeson [33:10–33:55]

• This segment reframes the roach as just another animal, separated from centuries of stigma, shame, and displacement, inviting listeners to reflect on empathy and interconnectedness.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “I just wanted to hate this bug and see if I can not hate it. And then it’s like... now this [history].” — Alex Neeson, reflecting on learning about the roach’s journey with enslaved Africans [26:21]

• “That roach ain’t got nothing to do with you.” — Aubrey, encouraging liberation from personal shame [29:54]

• “Our social contract has failed... These animals succeed where racism thrives.” — Bethany Brookshire [30:10]

• “They're just trying to clean themselves of filth that they picked up from us.” — Alex Neeson [31:55]

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Key Timestamps

• [02:02] Alex Neeson’s personal roach encounter
• [06:44] Pest expo and immersion with exterminators
• [13:19, 15:26, 16:13] Tasting bugs (crickets, roaches—disgust and reaction)
• [20:30] The concept of animal villains and the category of “pest”
• [25:28] The American cockroach’s journey on slave ships
• [27:26, 29:31] Cultural/racial shame and the “roach” as a slur
• [30:10] Roaches as markers of social neglect
• [31:43] Roaches' own cleanliness habits
• [32:49–36:38] Closing narrative: the cockroach’s natural life cycle in Africa

---

Episode Takeaway

“This American Roach” delivers classic Radiolab insight: what we revile says as much about us as it does about the reviled. Roaches—in all their adaptation, history, and proximity—mirror back our fears, prejudices, and systems. Understanding them, even just a little, is a portal to re-examining ourselves.

Transcript

[Latif Nasser]

Hello, friends. We're doing something new and fun. A show not just for your ears, but also for your eyes and your skin and your tongues.

[Aubrey]

Latif, that sounds a little weird.

[Lulu Miller]

What we are doing is a live show where we give the full Radiolab treatment to other senses. Not just hearing, but now taste and touch.

[Latif Nasser]

We're taking the stage as part of the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City. One night only, 6-9-20 to explore pleasure.

[Lulu Miller]

You're going to be literally tasting things and feeling things that hopefully you have never tasted or felt before.

[Latif Nasser]

And with the help of friends, musicians, science, writers, foodies, we're going to try to blow out your senses to give you a new understanding of how you taste and feel this world.

[Lulu Miller]

We would love if you join us, make us your Tuesday night date, June 9th at 6pm in Tribeca.

[Latif Nasser]

I love that it's Tuesday night. Like, we're not asking for a Friday night.

[Lulu Miller]

We're not a Friday night date, sure.

[Latif Nasser]

But Tuesday night, you know, you can spare one of those.

[Lulu Miller]

I love a Tuesday night date.

[Latif Nasser]

You can buy your [e-mail] audio that's tribecafilm.com audio and we're gonna give you

[Lulu Miller]

a little discount code. So get your pen or your notes app ready. That's TF26.

[Alex Neeson]

Radiolab.

[Latif Nasser]

That's it. Join us.

[Lulu Miller]

Hope to see you there.

[Latif Nasser]

Oh, wait, you're listening.

[Alex Neeson]

Okay. All right. Okay. All right. You're listening to Radio lab radio from WNWeiss. Okay, so I have to tell you a story, all right? And I think I'm.

[Latif Nasser]

I'm Latv Nasser, this is Radiolab, and I'm sitting with reporter Alex Nissan.

[Alex Neeson]

So my birthday is in August, and a couple summers ago here in New York, we were in the middle of this very hot, very sticky heat wave,

[Cedric Simmons]

okay?

[Alex Neeson]

And I had, like, a nice day. Didn't do too much, I think I went to my community garden. I remember spending some time there. There's a park near where I live that I like to go to. And so I'd been outside all day, and I came home and needed to take a shower, okay. And I was getting out of the shower in this, like, cloud of steam, drying off, putting, like, moisturizer on my face. And I went to leave the bathroom barefoot to go into my bedroom, which is right next door, to get dressed, okay? And I lifted my foot to take a step into the hallway, but right before it touched the floor, I felt these thready little legs on the bottom of my foot. And I looked down, and there on Its back was a gigantic roach.

[Latif Nasser]

Oh, wait.

[Alex Neeson]

What?

[Latif Nasser]

I thought you were gonna say like, a serial killer. You mean like a roach? Like a cockroach.

[Alex Neeson]

An American cockroach. Yeah, and this was, like, a big one.

[Latif Nasser]

And it was on its back like it was dying.

[Alex Neeson]

Yeah, but with roaches, you just never know. Like, it could look dead, but be just alive enough that it's gonna flip back over and run up my leg. And with my foot hovering over this bug, I'm flooded with revulsion, but also terror. Like, this bug has gotta go now. And so I got back in the shower, scrubbed my foot, wrapped myself in a towel, ran to go find my cat, put her next to the roach, take a few steps back, and I wait. And she's looking at the roach and looking at me, and I'm like, do something. But she just walks away. So then I'm like, pull yourself together. Like, buck up. I have to square up against the roach.

[Latif Nasser]

The dying or dead roach.

[Alex Neeson]

Right?

[Latif Nasser]

Okay.

[Alex Neeson]

So I put on yellow rubber gloves, and then I get a wad of paper towels saturated in water, grab toilet bowl cleaner. You know, like the blue gel.

[Latif Nasser]

Okay.

[Alex Neeson]

Squirt a bunch of it into the paper towel, and from, like, three feet away, toss it so that it lands gel down on top of the roach. And then I take a shoe, and holding it, like, as far away from my body as I can get it, I'm just like. Like,

[Latif Nasser]

Okay, yeah, yeah.

[Alex Neeson]

And then I get a trash bag, scoop it up, and stick it in there, and then tie it up super tight.

[Latif Nasser]

Wow.

[Alex Neeson]

Then it goes into the trash chute. And standing there in rubber gloves next to the trash chute on my birthday, I'm just like, what is wrong with me? Like, this is not the first time that this has happened. Every single time I see a roach, I completely unravel. Like, I just go nuts. And I don't even hate bugs in general. It's just something about this bug. I don't know. Like, I just snap. And for some reason, when it happened this time, I was like, I'm a whole adult person. I'm a science reporter. This has to stop. Huh?

[Latif Nasser]

Okay, so is what is what we're doing here like, it's like how Alex learned to stop worrying and love the roach.

[Alex Neeson]

Uh, not really. Um, I'm not really trying to get cozy with roaches. I just want to figure out how to get to a place where I'm not terrified of them. And obviously, I know this is something that a lot of people are afraid of, and I wanted to figure out, you know, is there something I can do so that the next time I see one I don't completely lose my mind? So I figured I'd go hang out with people who face basically the worst version of this every single day.

[Latif Nasser]

Okay.

[Alex Neeson]

Which is how I ended up at the after party. One of the finest expos in New York, probably in the nation, for the New York City Pest Expo. And we get top notch pest control

[Sammy Ramsey]

companies and exterminators from all over.

[Latif Nasser]

There was like a roach ball.

[Alex Neeson]

Yeah, it's like the social part. Like there's food, there's drinks, there was a dj, like there's music. And also. Oh yeah, I've seen roaches drop off the ceiling. A ton of people who have been in straight up nightmare scenarios. I've knocked on doors and seen them running up and down the doors.

[Sammy Ramsey]

Roaches were in everything from the record player to the TV to the bedhead.

[Alex Neeson]

This place was literally, I'm telling Stephen

[Cedric Simmons]

King levels of roaches.

[Alex Neeson]

And yet, no fear. We had to take care of the situation. How many insects do you have at home?

[Joseph Yoon]

Oh, I have about four or five thousand bed bugs. Yeah.

[Alex Neeson]

This is Lou Sorkin, an entomologist and pest control consultant.

[Joseph Yoon]

All these three cockroach species, millipede, centipede, spiders, whip scorpion.

[Alex Neeson]

And right next to him, he had this huge plastic tub of cockroaches.

[Joseph Yoon]

This is a Madagascar hissing cockroach.

[Latif Nasser]

Oh, yes. Madagascar ones are huge, right?

[Alex Neeson]

Yeah. Like some of the biggest roaches in the world. And at one point, Lou just picked one up with, with his bare hands.

[Joseph Yoon]

They won't bother you. They're just, you know, sitting. They're tasting. You can see the palps come from the mouth down and touch my skin.

[Alex Neeson]

I think I might have nightmares tonight. We'll see. And I was like, how are these people like that? Hi, nice to see you. And could I get like that? Well, let's go. Let's take a stroll. So I found some exterminators who agreed to let me follow them around. One named Lakeisha Fulcher. Here we have 11 buildings, all 16 stories. She works at a public housing complex on the Lower east side. I go in your house, you have 300 roaches. I'm happy. Give me five days. Let's go. And also a guy named Cedric Simmons. He has his own company.

[Cedric Simmons]

So right now we're headed to North Bronx to a residential unit that has been having some issues with German roaches.

[Alex Neeson]

And they just started showing me the ropes.

[Cedric Simmons]

Flashlight is the most essential piece of the toolkit.

[Alex Neeson]

We went into basements and trash rooms. If I turn the light on, of course they're scattered. They're going to places like this. They showed me how to find signs that roaches were living there Even when they're hiding.

[Cedric Simmons]

So you'll be looking for marks like this, what look like pen tapping.

[Alex Neeson]

It'll look like pepper, like stuck pepper on a wall.

[Cedric Simmons]

It's roach droppings.

[Alex Neeson]

And of course, how to kill them.

[Cedric Simmons]

There's one right back there. Look.

[Alex Neeson]

Oh, yeah.

[Cedric Simmons]

See it?

[Alex Neeson]

Cedric takes me inside this house, and the first thing he does is take a look around the closet with his flashlight. And you can see the roaches perched up on the wall.

[Cedric Simmons]

Oh, there's two more up there.

[Alex Neeson]

And then he goes to the kitchen sink and he pulls out this jug. And it's this chemical, you know, it's basically industrial strength. Raid.

[Cedric Simmons]

Yeah, it is pretty strong. It has a pretty good knockdown, too. Knockdown meaning how quick it reduces the population.

[Alex Neeson]

The kind of stuff you need a license to buy. Like, you can't get this at home depot. So what does this actually do to them?

[Cedric Simmons]

So it attacks their nervous system and it disrupts it, and it makes them basically just incapable. And then it succumbs them.

[Alex Neeson]

Is it painful for them?

[Cedric Simmons]

I don't know. I don't know.

[Alex Neeson]

At some point he pointed out a pregnant roach.

[Cedric Simmons]

That one back there has its egg sac about to come out.

[Alex Neeson]

The one on the wall?

[Cedric Simmons]

Yeah, in the corner.

[Alex Neeson]

Is that that little, like, protruding area?

[Cedric Simmons]

Yeah, that's an egg sack.

[Alex Neeson]

Oh, man. And then he started spraying them. And after about 10 minutes, they made their last twitches.

[Cedric Simmons]

That guy's definitely dead.

[Latif Nasser]

How did you feel about that? Like, did you feel bad?

[Alex Neeson]

Sort of.

[Cedric Simmons]

The sack is coming out.

[Sammy Ramsey]

Damn.

[Alex Neeson]

I was like, that sucks for a second.

[Joseph Yoon]

Yeah.

[Alex Neeson]

And then it's like, I didn't think about it for the rest of the day. Oh, well, Sorry. Honestly, what I really felt were these little glimmers of confidence.

[Latif Nasser]

Like you weren't afraid?

[Alex Neeson]

Well, it's not that I wasn't afraid, but it was like my fear had shrunk just enough that I was starting to feel kind of bold, like maybe I could kill these things too.

[Cedric Simmons]

So here we have roach activity and rodent activity, and then also.

[Alex Neeson]

That's the granular bait.

[Joseph Yoon]

Yeah.

[Alex Neeson]

Okay, we saw one. I didn't freak out. Like, Cedric took me to Grand Central Station.

[Sammy Ramsey]

656 train up Wing.

[Alex Neeson]

And let's, let's. Let's go for it. I was seeing fat roaches and acting like it was no big deal. Oh, big one. Okay. I didn't like it. It's so tall. But it was nothing like before.

[Cedric Simmons]

So I can step on them or I can spray them.

[Alex Neeson]

I don't know. Stepping seems kind of old school. Maybe we do that. Wow, that was fun.

[Joseph Yoon]

Yeah.

[Alex Neeson]

But then one night, I was just sitting around my apartment. A friend was over. We were watching tv.

[Latif Nasser]

Okay.

[Alex Neeson]

And I went to the kitchen for a glass of water, and I saw something slightly moved in the sink. So I looked inside, and I saw antenna. And I was like, nope. Walked straight out of the kitchen, got my friend, told him he needs to come deal with it. And then I stood behind him and squealed while I watched him kill it.

[Latif Nasser]

Wait, what happened to all your training?

[Alex Neeson]

I don't know. I just couldn't do it.

[Bethany Brookshire]

What?

[Alex Neeson]

I mean, first of all, lakeisha and Cedric, nowhere to be found.

[Latif Nasser]

Right.

[Alex Neeson]

And second of all, I was seeing this roach in my house in my sink, where I had just washed blueberries that morning. And I think it triggered some kind of survival instinct. And I just don't think any amount of pest control knowledge was gonna override that. Yeah, basically, I was just like, okay, well, that didn't work. Back to square one. You know, I gotta start over. And one day, I was just googling around, and I stumbled across this guy.

[Joseph Yoon]

Hey, guys. I'm chef Joseph Yoon, edible insect ambassador at Brooklyn Boggs. And we're gonna show you how to

[Alex Neeson]

eat all these bugs.

[Latif Nasser]

Yay. I've seen this YouTube video of him doing, like, different dishes with bugs.

[Alex Neeson]

Yeah, like gourmet dishes.

[Latif Nasser]

Yeah.

[Sammy Ramsey]

Bug appetite.

[Joseph Yoon]

The beautiful notes of cricket, umami, and nuttiness. This is perfect.

[Latif Nasser]

Oh, wait, but you're not gonna.

[Alex Neeson]

Well, I just thought if anyone could help me get over that revulsion I feel towards these bugs.

[Joseph Yoon]

The scorpion literally adds so much flavor.

[Alex Neeson]

Maybe it's this guy. Like, if I could just eat a roach, maybe it wouldn't be nasty anymore. It would just be a little snack.

[Latif Nasser]

Okay. All right.

[Alex Neeson]

And so I sent him an email, and I was like, do you ever cook with roaches? And he wrote back to me and was like, absolutely not. I'm already having to do a lot of work to convince people that they should eat other bugs. Roaches have such a bad reputation. Like, roaches don't help my cause, basically.

[Latif Nasser]

I love that it's a bridge too far for him.

[Alex Neeson]

So I went back and forth with him being like, you're the only person I can possibly think of who could make me, like, eating a roach.

[Latif Nasser]

Yeah.

[Alex Neeson]

And then finally, you bullied him.

[Latif Nasser]

Into doing it.

[Alex Neeson]

I fear I might have. I fear I might have. Smells good. It does smell good.

[Sammy Ramsey]

Well, let's see. Let's see.

[Latif Nasser]

Okay, so what happened? Let's do it. What's going on?

[Alex Neeson]

Right. So me and eight of our colleagues, Joseph had, like, very, very generously invited us to his home. Ingrained.

[Joseph Yoon]

We're all gonna try something really kind of unusual and weird.

[Alex Neeson]

So obviously all of us are really nervous, including Joseph, because he's never actually eaten an American cockroach before. So we started with his usual dishes. Crickets, ants, mealworms.

[Joseph Yoon]

This is the brewed 19 cicadas. And it has a cricket tempura batter on it.

[Latif Nasser]

Okay, so this is just a warmup?

[Alex Neeson]

Yeah.

[Gabby Santis]

Delicious.

[Aubrey]

I love it.

[Alex Neeson]

It's good. And the whole time I'm looking over at the bowl of cockroaches on the counter out of the side of my eye. And by the way, they weren't like random roaches. These were food safe from a lab.

[Latif Nasser]

Okay, Good to know.

[Alex Neeson]

And honestly, Latif, I was kind of in denial that any of this was about to happen.

[Joseph Yoon]

They're quite frightening.

[Cedric Simmons]

I think

[Joseph Yoon]

maybe I'll pull the legs off of them.

[Alex Neeson]

Please do. First up, dubia roaches.

[Joseph Yoon]

There might be innards that squirt in your mouth.

[Alex Neeson]

Fried. I can't really taste anything, which is ideal. Something.

[Joseph Yoon]

It's mental.

[Alex Neeson]

Something poked the inside of my mouth.

[Latif Nasser]

It's a leg. You think it's a leg?

[Alex Neeson]

I love to. I don't know what it was, but I hated it inside of the battery.

[Aubrey]

You're doing really good.

[Alex Neeson]

Next. Madagascar hissing cockroaches. And he had blanched these and done nothing else.

[Joseph Yoon]

I can dress a cockroach, but still a cockroach.

[Alex Neeson]

He put them on a cutting board and sliced them so we could slurp the insides out like an oyster. It looks like cottage cheese. But this one was not that bad.

[Joseph Yoon]

It has, like, a really umami smell.

[Alex Neeson]

Better. Much better. It was like eggs.

[Latif Nasser]

Huh?

[Alex Neeson]

And then finally, my arch nemesis, the American cockroach.

[Joseph Yoon]

Oh.

[Alex Neeson]

So he grabs some kind of cooking oil, throws it in a pan, and adds all these aromatics like garlic, red pepper. And then he throws in the roaches.

[Joseph Yoon]

You know what? It has kind of a chemist smell to it that the other two didn't have.

[Alex Neeson]

It's kind of weird, but as he started to cook, everyone's faces, including Joseph's, just started to fall. Because no matter how long he was, like, sauteing these freaking roaches with all these aromatics, it just smelled off. Let's Just have the chocolate crickets. But Joseph still grabbed a spoon.

[Joseph Yoon]

I think someone has to do it.

[Alex Neeson]

Took a bite. What, what does it taste like? And the look on his face made me feel really guilty.

[Joseph Yoon]

I mean, I, I, I, I almost spit out what I ate.

[Alex Neeson]

Terrestrial's producer Alan Gaffinsky also tried it.

[Joseph Yoon]

Nervous. I mean, it doesn't. Oh yeah, there it is. Well, initially it just kind of just was tasting sort of the garlic like an onion. But that's that smell that you guys have been smelling is. It's also a taste. It tastes like something that you shouldn't eat. Yeah, yeah.

[Latif Nasser]

What does the roachy smell smell like?

[Alex Neeson]

Kind of like medicinal, but in like a foul, sour kind of way.

[Latif Nasser]

So you did not eat it?

[Alex Neeson]

No. Like according to a Bugs as food expert, the American cockroach is literally inedible.

[Joseph Yoon]

It's a warning sign to me. It's kind of like, don't eat me. I dare you to eat me. I'll kill you.

[Latif Nasser]

Man, this is really not going well.

[Alex Neeson]

Yeah, no, the whole thing completely backfired.

[Latif Nasser]

Yeah.

[Alex Neeson]

So we're gonna take a quick break.

[Latif Nasser]

Yeah. Cleanse our palates.

[Alex Neeson]

Yeah. But after the break, things are gonna get even messier. We'll be right back.

[Lulu Miller]

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[Latif Nasser]

This is Radiolab back with reporter Alex Neeson, who has just faced her deep seated fear of the roach in a number of unspeakable ways.

[Alex Neeson]

Yes.

[Latif Nasser]

But it backfired and she only managed to surface her maybe even more deep seated disgust for them.

[Alex Neeson]

Yeah, I didn't want them in my life, in my city, in my state, anywhere.

[Latif Nasser]

Sure.

[Alex Neeson]

On planet Earth.

[Latif Nasser]

Yeah.

[Alex Neeson]

I just hate them. And this boom likes to slide sort of. Amidst all of this, I came across this book called How Humans Create Animal Villains by science writer.

[Bethany Brookshire]

Can I Cuss on this program.

[Alex Neeson]

Yes. Bethany Brookshire.

[Bethany Brookshire]

So this squirrel is known as fucking Kevin.

[Alex Neeson]

And this book, it was just on the front table at my neighborhood bookstore. But it turned out to be exactly what I needed, because while the animal Bethany hates is a squirrel, he lives

[Bethany Brookshire]

in the maple tree in front of my house.

[Alex Neeson]

Particularly the ones that she named Kevin. Fucking Kevin, who were eating all of her tomatoes.

[Bethany Brookshire]

Doesn't even eat it. Just one bite and then leaves it.

[Alex Neeson]

So this is, like, personal.

[Bethany Brookshire]

Yes. I really did contemplate a BB gun.

[Alex Neeson]

Wow.

[Bethany Brookshire]

But Kevin is one of the creatures that led me to this deep question

[Alex Neeson]

of the question the book was asking.

[Bethany Brookshire]

What is it that makes us hate animals?

[Aubrey]

Yeah.

[Alex Neeson]

I could sort of feel it elevating me out of my murder, murder, murder, kill, kill, kill, lizard brain to this idea that I could really get behind.

[Bethany Brookshire]

Every time an animal has succeeded really well at living near us, we hate them. If we can't take it in, tame it, and put it in a little doggy sweater, we do not want it.

[Alex Neeson]

That word pest takes an animal that is like a living, breathing creature that lives here on this planet with us and turns it into an object.

[Bethany Brookshire]

We're saying that that animal has no value. We are saying that anything we need to do to get rid of that animal is worthwhile,

[Alex Neeson]

which is exactly how I feel about roaches. And she sort of proposes that we should do away with the category of pest altogether.

[Latif Nasser]

Mm.

[Alex Neeson]

Wait, that's fascinating. And, you know, the wheels in my head just, like, start spinning, and I just kept thinking, like, huh? This is how I want to be in the world. What? I want my politic to be like, I'm going to make a T shirt that says abolish pests and let people ask me about it. Like, I'm down, and I really want to not hate the roach. Yes, but how?

[Bethany Brookshire]

Well, so a lot of the way we respond to animals and the anger we feel and the frustration arises out of our own ignorance.

[Latif Nasser]

Sounds like you need to, you know, walk a mile in their little weird, disgusting feet.

[Alex Neeson]

Ugh. I know. I think it's time to learn about these revolting, repulsive, nauseating, offensive, terrible animals.

[Sammy Ramsey]

Okay, so let's chat a little bit about the disgust response.

[Alex Neeson]

So I called up entomologist Sammy Ramsey, professor at the University of Colorado, Boulder.

[Sammy Ramsey]

Okay. I needed you to see what is happening on this tree. Look at this.

[Alex Neeson]

Because this guy.

[Sammy Ramsey]

Somebody look at this.

[Alex Neeson]

Really? How cute is this bug? Loves bugs.

[Sammy Ramsey]

This bug. How cute is this bug?

[Alex Neeson]

He even has a YouTube channel where he sometimes sings to Bugs.

[Latif Nasser]

Okay. He likes bugs.

[Alex Neeson]

I love it. And so I thought if anyone could help me abolish the pest in my heart, it would be Sammy.

[Sammy Ramsey]

All right, Alex listeners, y' all ready for Dr. Sammy Storytime? Yes, it's Dr. Sammy Storytime. All right, y', all, we might get some theme music for that at some point.

[Alex Neeson]

But anyway, and maybe it's just because Sammy is really charming, but talking to him, I couldn't help but feel my hatred of the roach.

[Sammy Ramsey]

They are the coolest.

[Alex Neeson]

Begin to soften.

[Sammy Ramsey]

Cockroaches are survivors.

[Alex Neeson]

I learned that they're at least as old as the dinosaurs. As a species, they can go for

[Sammy Ramsey]

ridiculous amounts of time without food. You can cut off a cockroach's head, and it can survive for more than a week.

[Alex Neeson]

They can run, like, three miles an hour. They're basically the cheetah of the insect world.

[Sammy Ramsey]

They are very resistant to. To nuclear radiation. They can eat paper, just paper.

[Alex Neeson]

It's some of these survival techniques, like their tendency to run away from light and their ability to flatten their bodies

[Sammy Ramsey]

and squeeze into even the tiniest crack

[Alex Neeson]

or crevice that make people distrust them.

[Sammy Ramsey]

Like, we step on a cockroach

[Alex Neeson]

and then ever so slowly lift our foot,

[Sammy Ramsey]

and it runs away. And we're just like, how? What sort of sorcery did you just do?

[Alex Neeson]

So I was listening to all this stuff Sammy was telling me.

[Sammy Ramsey]

Do they have nine lives?

[Alex Neeson]

It was almost like I could feel the roach begin to transform into something more than just a pest. So they've sort of evolved to protect themselves in this way from us, the predator. And like, other predators, I guess.

[Sammy Ramsey]

Like, these organisms are absolutely incredible. And had they not been.

[Alex Neeson]

But then he told me that as much as I didn't want cockroaches around,

[Sammy Ramsey]

cockroaches, they don't want to be here.

[Alex Neeson]

They didn't want to be around either.

[Latif Nasser]

Huh. What does that mean?

[Alex Neeson]

Well, apparently, the name Paraplanita americana, the American cockroach, is a misnomer.

[Sammy Ramsey]

They used to live their best lives just running around on a totally different continent.

[Aubrey]

Okay.

[Sammy Ramsey]

But in order to really tell its story, I need to take you back hundreds of years. When colonists showed up on the west coast of Africa, they corralled a bunch of human beings onto these ships. They stacked them like furniture and gave them no opportunities to behave like humans, to go to the restroom. The cleanliness standards on those ships were pretty low. And there were also some hitchhikers on those ships. See, the American cockroach is actually from Africa, and they climbed Aboard those ships that had a bunch of unprotected food in various places. And they found the slats of wood between the ships to be great spaces for them to wedge their bodies. And when they got to the US they set up a whole new population.

[Alex Neeson]

So they got here on slave ships.

[Sammy Ramsey]

They didn't really have too much of a choice in the matter.

[Alex Neeson]

He tells me this in this conversation, and it just, like, it felt like, damn, okay, why, like, why would you. Let's start this whole conversation over and just like, can we just not. It was just sort of like. Like, I can't even just hate a bug without the shadow of slavery. Like, I just wanted to hate this bug and see if I can not hate it. And then it's like, now this.

[Latif Nasser]

Hmm. I mean, can you. Like, what was inside of that moment for you?

[Alex Neeson]

Well, I talked to a bunch of people about this.

[Aubrey]

Are you asking me if I feel kinship to these roasters?

[Alex Neeson]

Nope. Absolutely not. And one of them was author and my friend Angela Flournoy.

[Aubrey]

Obviously, the. The metaphor is abound because there's, like,

[Alex Neeson]

this thing that I think everyone's going to do, which is be like, oh, great shared history. You guys survived something together. And so, you know, you should feel some special conn to this insect, Right. That just sort of walks itself into the room.

[Latif Nasser]

It does.

[Alex Neeson]

And I'm like, absolutely not. That story just plays straight, like, directly into, like, all the old. Just the oldest and most boring racist story that's been told about black people in this country. I mean, roach is an old anti black slur. And because of racism, black people were forced into poor housing conditions and so sometimes had to live in closer proximity to the roach. And of course, I knew all that. But to see. See that that line of history actually started with a roach on a slave ship is just like, wow, that is. Yeah, it just feels like. It's just like, damn. Like, yeah, I told Cedric Simmons, the

[Cedric Simmons]

exterminator, you know, a lot of people won't treat it with a kit with caring hands.

[Alex Neeson]

And. And he spoke to this fear of mine.

[Cedric Simmons]

I think they'll weaponize it.

[Alex Neeson]

You know, like, should I suppress this? Like, everything winds up in the wrong hands.

[Aubrey]

And it's like, oh, those people, they probably already know. You know, I just, like, assum. Chatgpt is probably telling people this information. You know, we live in a dystopia.

[Alex Neeson]

But still, does putting this in my story, like, could it deepen this racist idea? Like, does it give legitimacy to the idea that some people have that black people and roaches go together.

[Aubrey]

I think that it's really, it's legitimate. The feelings of. I've tried since I knew I was going to come and talk to you about cockroaches, which I, who I also, you know, I really don't like them. And I, I, I've been thinking about some of the origins of my dislike. And when I was growing up, my mom was really like, we would go over certain relatives, house or whatever and she would like make us shake everything out on our porch before we came inside the house. And she was very over the top, like vigilant about roaches and assumptions about like cleanliness. And some of that had to do with this idea of like shame and like socioeconomic shame. And it's, this says something about us. Like we might not have all the money, etc, but we're fastidious. And one evidence of that is like,

[Alex Neeson]

we don't have roaches. Yeah. The honest thing is that like when I tell a stranger a story on the record about a roach in my home, like there is something, however small in my chest that's a little bit like, damn, now they know.

[Aubrey]

Well, you have to free yourself. Don't you have to pay yourself in that shame, you know?

[Alex Neeson]

Yeah.

[Aubrey]

You have to free yourself of the burden of like, that roach ain't got nothing to do with you.

[Alex Neeson]

Yeah.

[Bethany Brookshire]

I think of roaches in the same way that I think of rats.

[Alex Neeson]

Again, Bethany Brookshire.

[Bethany Brookshire]

These are animals that are succeeding because our social contract has failed. Right. The roach arrived in America and succeeded because of a massive failure of a social contract that we called enslavement. Right. And they continue to succeed where social contracts fail, where racism thrives, you know, where people end up underserved and kind of forced into histories that leave them in a state of poverty and lack of opportunity. Right. And so you could see them not so much as a parallel story, so much as a symbol of the failed social contract that kind of got us here.

[Alex Neeson]

My goal here is to regard the roach as a roach. And in so many ways the roach is not just a roach. The roach is a stand in for like class and race and like all of these things that are like, way more consequential than just like a bug being a bug, you know?

[Latif Nasser]

Yeah.

[Alex Neeson]

And all of this got me thinking about another roach.

[Sammy Ramsey]

Fact, I can talk about bugs forever.

[Alex Neeson]

So that Sammy told me about, which is that roaches are only dirty because they live in our sewer systems, which are filthy. And just like in New York, the way we dispose of trash, what do we do with it. We stick it out on the street all night, and then the roaches crawl all over it and pick up germs and stuff.

[Sammy Ramsey]

Then these roaches, as gross as they can be sometimes, are constant cleaners.

[Alex Neeson]

They're actually naturally very clean animals, cleaning their antennae almost the way that cats clean their whiskers, making sure that they

[Sammy Ramsey]

are getting rid of all the bits of foreign matter that could accumulate bacteria or fungi.

[Alex Neeson]

They spend a lot of time trying to clean themselves of filth that they picked up from us. And it made me wonder, if you take away all the different layers of human filth that we've placed on the roach, what's left? What is that animal?

[Latif Nasser]

Huh? Yeah. And where. I'm curious. I want to hear more about, like, how. How they live on the continent that they are native to.

[Alex Neeson]

Yeah. So, like, they live basically anywhere that there's vegetation, so jungle forests. And they eat primarily organic matter. Leaves, decomposing trees, logs. They're decomposers. So they also eat, like, the bodies of dead animals and plants.

[Latif Nasser]

It's so funny to think of them, like, not in a house or a city or something like that. They're actually, like forest creatures, you know?

[Alex Neeson]

Yeah. Yeah. And actually, I thought I would end this story by taking you there, to the place they came from. We're deep in a tropical rainforest in the Congo Basin. Huge trees, kapoks and mahoganies, tower hundreds of feet overhead, their canopies filled with monkeys and parrots and eagles. The air is thick and humid, and on the ground, scurrying along along the edge of a rotten log, is a female American cockroach. And this one is about to become a mother. At the base of her abdomen is a reddish capsule called an ootheca. It's shaped like a tiny kidney bean. Inside it are 16 eggs. She carries them and incubates them within this protective casing, dragging it along like a wagon. She pauses briefly to nibble at the edge of a damp leaf. She carries on, gliding effortlessly across the jagged debris that comes, covers the forest floor until she comes across a small hole in the soft, muddy soil. She pauses, looking both ways, making sure the coast is clear before dropping the utheca inside. She stares down at her children, or maybe past them. One by one, she oscillates her antennae up towards the sky and back down again, slow and considered, as if reciting a prayer. And then she scurries away. A month passes. The eggs inside become tiny, translucent, translucent larvae, each the size of a grain of rice. They've grown long thin antennae which are folded forward into a tangle of their six stringy legs. The larvae have no lungs, so they breathe through 10 little holes along the sides of their bellies. They're getting hungry and thirsty, and one day, as if responding in perfect time to an invisible conductor, all 16 babies flex the muscles in their abdomens and in unison take a giant collective breath. Their slender bodies swell with air, growing and growing and growing, until the utheca pops, cutting the last tie to their mother that they've got. And together they scatter, some towards the river, some towards a wall of underbrush, some up the thick trunks of hundred year old trees out into the forest to begin their lives.

[Latif Nasser]

This episode was reported by Alex Neeson and produced by Jessica young and Annie McEwen. It was edited by Pat Walters and fact checked by Sophie Sami. Special thanks to Jessica Ware, Timothy Marzullo and Alexandra A. Bell. That's it for us. Thanks for listening.

[Gabby Santis]

Hi, I'm gabby. I'm from the bay area, california and here are the staff credits. Radiolab is hosted by lulu miller and latif nasser. Soran wheeler is our executive editor. Sarah sandbach is our executive director. Our managing editor is pat walters. Dylan keefe is our director of sound design. Our staff includes jeremy bloom w. Harry fortuna, david gable, maria paz gutierrez sindhu, naina sambandan, matt kielty, mona margauker, alex neeson, sara khari, natalia ramirez, rebecca rand, anissa vitze, arian wack, molly webster, and jessica young, with help from gabby santis. Our fact checkers are diane kelly, emily krieger, natalie middleton, angeli mercado, and sophie semay.

[Aubrey]

Hi, I'm aubrey calling from salt lake city, utah. Leadership support for radiolab science programming is provided by the simons foundation and the john templeton foundation. Foundational support for radiolab was provided by the alfred p. Sloan foundation.

[Lulu Miller]

Radiolab is supported by Capital One. With no fees or minimums on checking accounts. It's no wonder that Capital One bank guy is so passionate about banking with Capital One. If he were here, he wouldn't just tell you about no fees or minimums. He'd also talk about how Capital One cafes are open seven days a week to assist with your banking needs. Yup, even on weekends it's pretty much all he talks about. In a good way. What's in your wallet? Terms apply. See capitalone.com BankGuy Capital One NA Member

[Geico Gecko]

FDIC and now for a bit of breaking news. Between your breaking news with me, the Geico Gecko, here are some things you ought to know. Today, people who switch their car insurance to geico save about $900 a year. Experts are calling that. Nice to know. Also, plants can hear when bees buzz. My ficus just heard that. And finally, animal experts have confirmed that goats have regional accents. I'm getting a hint of Irish there.

[Sammy Ramsey]

It feels good to get good news. It feels good to Geico.