The Agony and the Ecstasy: Race and the Future of the Love Story Part 2 (ENCORE)
PART 2….In 2019 a well known romance writer began tweeting about other writers in her community and concerns about racism. It led to a huge reckoning within an organization called the Romance Writers of America, which is still unfolding. And although the online debate seemed to be isolated to a specific community of romance writers and their fans, it was really a microcosm of what’s been happening all over the US....
The Agony and the Ecstasy: Race and the Future of the Love Story Part 1 (ENCORE)
In 2019 a well known romance writer began tweeting about other writers in her community and concerns about racism. It led to a huge reckoning within an organization called the Romance Writers of America, which is still unfolding. And although the online debate seemed to be isolated to a specific community of romance writers and their fans, it was really a microcosm of what’s been happening all over the US. In this episode...
Where There’s Smoke: Asthma, Wildfires, and Fossil Fuels (ENCORE)
In this episode we bring you one little girl’s experience in a Northern California neighborhood with high asthma rates and other health challenges. We also look at one part of Southern California that is bombarded with pollutants from oil refineries, a trucking thoroughfare, and one of the world’s largest ocean ports. Special thanks to the Park Foundation for support of this program. Image Caption: Ta’Kira Dannette Byrd, 11-year-old...
Inflamed: Deep Medicine and the Anatomy of Injustice
Inflammatory diseases are on the rise around the world, and doctors are finally starting to pay more attention to them. But why does a beneficial part of our immune system turn unhealthy? Raj Patel and Rupa Marya think it has a lot to do with the world we’re forced to live in. They talk about the collapse of our planet and what it has to do with inflammation, and how our bodies are a mirror of a much deeper disease in...
Revolutionary Mothering and Reproductive Justice
In the mid 1990s, the Reproductive Justice movement was formed by Black and indigenous women as a response to the limitations of the “reproductive rights” movement. Movement leaders argue, “rarely do we find ourselves fighting for just one aspect of reproductive justice such as abortion rights” – SisterSong. Dr. Alexis Pauline Gumbs, scholar and writer, joined us to talk about her book...
Viva Brother Nagi from Kerning Cultures
Nagi Daifallah was a young farm worker from Yemen who moved to California in the early 1970s when he was just 20 years old. He went on to become one of the organizers of the infamous 1973 grape strike in California, led by Cesar Chavez. But one night in 1973, after a day of striking he was beaten to death by a local county sheriff outside a restaurant in Lamont, California. Although the sheriff who killed him never faced justice,...
A History of Traditional Root Healing (ENCORE)
In some parts of the world, traditional herbal remedies are the norm. When we think of natural remedies we tend to think of older generations living in remote areas, in far away countries, with little access to modern healthcare. We rarely think about the ancient medicinal plants that might exist in our very own cities. On today’s episode we look at plant and herb medicines through the lens of Michele Elizabeth Lee the...
The Response: Heatwaves and Energy Poverty in the Mediterranean
In today’s episode, we’re going to focus on energy poverty. When temperatures rise to the point where they become dangerous, what happens to people who can’t escape the heat? As temperatures continue to soar and extreme heatwaves become the norm, a lack of resources to stay cool — so, having access to things like air conditioning, for example, — is a huge issue across the world. To find out how people are fighting energy...
70 Million – Forget Reform, They Want Abolition
This week on Making Contact we’re taking you to St. Louis, Missouri with the Podcast 70 Million to learn about the city’s ongoing efforts to re-imagine public safety beyond incarceration. Organizers in St. Louis have given up on trying to simply reform the criminal legal system. Now, they’re working to abolish it. And they’re starting with the closure of the “Medium Security Institution” known as...
The Way Home
We visit two distinct projects working with food to revitalize identity and ancestry: Part one: In many Indigenous communities, there’s a gap in knowledge about growing and cooking traditional foods. On the Blackfeet Nation in rural Montana, Mariah Gladstone and Kenneth Cook are trying to change that. They launched an online cooking show called Indigikitchen and in this episode, we follow them into the field as...
