Making Contact

On this edition, we hear from Dr. Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, assistant professor in the Department of African American Studies at Princeton University. Dr. Taylor most recently wrote, “From Black Lives Matter to Black Liberation.” We’ll be sharing a talk with Dr. Taylor’s insights on Black Liberation as framed through this most recent election.

On the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on August 28th 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. delivered one of the most famous speeches of all time. But it nearly didn’t happen. On this special edition of Making Contact for MLK Day, Gary Younge, author of “The Speech” talks about Martin Luther King Jr.’s Dream and the story behind it. Special thanks to The New School for the recording.

“Mirrors of Privilege” is a film and conversation guide designed to help bridge the gap between good intentions and meaningful change. From Shakti Butler, director of “Cracking the Codes: The System of Inequity” and “The Way Home: Women Talk About Race in America,” “Mirrors of Privilege” features stories from white men and women on overcoming issues of unconscious racism and entitlement.  

After a mass shooting, two common responses are to examine gun laws and mental health services. In this show, we revisit the tragedy in Isla Vista where a survivor is using his experience to talk about toxic masculinity, mass shootings, and violence.

Thousands of local social justice organizers passed away this year. People doing crucial work in their communities, whose deaths didn’t make the headlines.  On this edition of Making Contact, we’ll hear about some of the fallen heroes of 2016.

The Get on the Bus program provides support and free transportation for children and families throughout California to visit their mothers and fathers in prison.  

On this edition of Making Contact we look at some of the struggles and victories in the fight for transgender access to gender-specific spaces and programs.

The Black Panther Party combined Black Power’s militancy with socialist ideology, and infused funk music with Franz Fanon’s writings.  Their impact on American culture, from music to style to community organizing, continues to resonate today.   Fifty years after the birth of Black Panther Party, we take a look at the lasting cultural legacy of the Black Panther Party through the eyes of the generations that followed.

The Murder of Fred Hampton began as a film on Hampton and Illinois Black Panthers, but midway through the shoot, Chicago police murdered Hampton. Filmmakers arrived to shoot crime scene footage later used to counter news reports and police testimony.

The actions at Standing Rock against the Dakota Access Pipeline continue. We share interviews from the Voices of Standing Rock. Vincent Medina is a Chochenyo Ohlone Native working to revitalize the Chochenyo language for future generations.

Given Trump’s winning the election, and the difference between his popular votes and electoral votes, we revisit our show on the Electoral College. It’s history in the era of slavery, and how it works today.

As relations between the United States and Russian governments continue to deteriorate, people are growing concerned that we’re on the brink of another nuclear arms race.  Both the U.S. and Russia are modernizing their nuclear arsenals.  According to Jackie Cabasso, Executive Director of the Western States Legal Foundation, “it’s frighteningly easy to imagine how something could go wrong in that situation.”  Women Rising Radio takes us inside the movement for nuclear disarmament, to meet the women on the frontlines of the fight for a future free of nuclear weapons.  From the US to Russia, the UK, Israel, the Marshall Islands and Japan, these dedicated advocates make the case for returning to the Nonproliferation Treaty and fulfilling its mandate.    Featuring:  Jackie Cabasso, Executive Director of Western States Legal Foundation, Mayors for Peace, and Abolition 2000 Global Network to Eliminate Nuclear Weapons. Abacca Anjain-Maddison, Marshall Islands Senator, member of Marshall Islands delegation arguing the

Greg Palast, is an investigative reporter and documentary filmmaker. His new film, "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy: a Tale of Billionaires and Ballot Bandits," unmasks the continuing and unrelenting Jim-Crow attempts by America's "Billionaire Bandits" to prevent minority communities from exercising their constitutional right to vote.  Featuring: Greg Palast, Investigative reporter, documentary filmmaker    

In the US, the right to vote is one of the country’s most cherished and hard-fought rights. But it doesn't mean that everyone has equal access to the polls. In 2013 the Supreme Court struck down a key civil rights provision of the Voting Rights Act. This November will be the first presidential election in 50 years where voters will not have the full protection of the original law. In this second installment of Making Contact’s Immigrants and Elections series, we explore some of the barriers immigrants and other historically disenfranchised voters face in gaining access to the polls.

Since the 2013 Supreme Court ruling on the Voting Rights Act, many states have pushed changes to voter laws that raise disturbing connections to the past. Before the anniversary of the Voting Rights Act on August 6th, we revisit the hard fought battles for voting rights and the implications of new laws. Featuring: Reverend Tyrone Edwards, civil rights historian in Plaquemines Parish Louisiana Tyrone Brooks, Georgia State Representative Clifford Kuhn, Professor of History at Georgia State University JT Johnson, civil rights organizer Allen Secher, rabbi Jerel James, Tamia Adkinson, docents at Civil Rights Museum of St. Augustine August Tinson, testified in U.S. vs Fox (1962) Gary May, professor of history at the University of Delaware and the author of Bending Towards Justice: The Voting Rights Act and the Transformation of American Democracy.

As relations between the United States and Russian governments continue to deteriorate, people are growing concerned that we’re on the brink of another nuclear arms race.  Both the U.S. and Russia are modernizing their nuclear arsenals.  According to Jackie Cabasso, Executive Director of the Western States Legal Foundation, “it’s frighteningly easy to imagine how something could go wrong in that situation.” Women Rising Radio takes us inside the movement for nuclear disarmament, to meet the women on the front lines of the fight for a future free of nuclear weapons.  From the US to Russia, the UK, Israel, the Marshall Islands and Japan, these dedicated advocates make the case for returning to the Nonproliferation Treaty and fulfilling its mandate.

Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem was founded on a promise to serve all patients with the same, excellent care. This week, against the backdrop of military occupation, we go inside Hadassah’s Mount Scopus maternity ward. There, the separation of Jewish and Arab mothers resulted in conflict between midwives at the hospital.

In a world that increasingly seems to strive for uniformity, afro-descendant Creole people on the eastern coast of Nicaragua seek to hold on to their unique culture through their food. Incoming palm plantations are fragmenting traditional Creole farmland and making it difficult for local coconut oil businesses. Overfishing and pesticides from the palm fields are reducing stocks of fish in the lagoons, making it more difficult to access traditional protein sources. In the towns and cities along the coast, an influx of foreign products is setting a new standard for how you should look, talk and eat. Rondon is one of the most celebrated traditional Creole dishes. Similar to a curry, it has a base of coconut milk in which you cook cassava, dasheen, breadfruit, baby corn and fried fish with fresh herbs and spices. It's a dish with strong connections to Africa. For a people descended from freed blacks, escaped slaves and indigenous Americans, holding on to Rondon is holding on to heritage.

The US military didn’t shrink much under President Obama, and our perpetual state of war has barely waned since 9-11. Author Rosa Brooks says the consequences of this ‘new normal’ reach deep into our society; far beyond the body count of those killed overseas. On this edition, Rosa Brooks speaks about her new book, How Everything Became War and the Military Became Everything. Special thanks to Politics and Prose Bookstore in Washington DC Featuring Rosa Brooks, author of How Everything Became War and the Military Became Everything. Host: Andrew Stelzer

September 11, 2001 ushered in an era marked by the unending War on Terror, dragnet government surveillance programs, and escalating attacks on people perceived to be Muslim. Just last month, Khalid Jabara, a 37-year old Lebanese American man was shot and killed on his front porch in Tulsa Oklahoma by a neighbor who had harassed his family for years, calling them ‘dirty Arabs’ and ‘Mooslems’. This is just one of the many reported attacks on people perceived as Muslims in the United States.  Last year, there were 174 incidents of anti-Muslim violence, and that’s only if you count the attacks that made headlines. This backlash is just tip of the iceberg.  Below the surface is a growing Islamophobia with deep roots in history and empire.  Where does the idea of the ‘Muslim enemy’ come from?  And how has it evolved into what we see today? Fifteen years after 9/11, Deepa Kumar, author of Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, takes us back nearly 15 centuries to find out.