No, COVID Isn’t “Over,” and the Need for Continued Community
This March marks four years since the COVID-19 pandemic was officially declared. Public health failures and government inaction have forced communities to take matters into their own hands. On today’s show, we look at two groups steeped in the values of community care. First, we’ll hear about the Auntie Sewing Squad, which distributed over 350,000 hand-sewn masks to communities in 2020-2021. Then, we’ll speak with...
Jenny Odell on Saving Time
On this week’s episode, we take a critical look at productivity culture and the idea that time is money by speaking with Jenny Odell, acclaimed author of Saving Time: Discovering a Life Beyond the Clock and How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy. We dig into the ideas behind Saving Time, which gives a panoramic overview of how the ways we think about time actually shapes our lives. Then begin to disentangle our daily...
Giving Bayard Rustin His Flowers (Encore)
Today, we continue celebrating Black history and heritage with a special encore episode honoring an often forgotten civil rights leader. We take a look at the life and legacy of Bayard Rustin, a central figure in the and organizer of the 1963 March on Washington. Rustin was a trusted advisor to labor leader A. Phillip Randolph and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Rustin’s methodology for challenging racial inequality and imperialism...
Powerlands (Encore)
On this week’s Making Contact, we bring you a special encore of an episode that first aired in June. We’ll hear an extended interview with Ivey Camille Manybeads Tso, a queer Diné filmmaker and director of the award-winning documentary Powerlands. Powerlands traces how multinational energy corporations extract resources and profits while displacing and harming Indigenous communities around the world. The film follows...
Pandemic and Profit (Encore)
On today’s show, we’ll revisit the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic by looking at two alternative supply chains for masks during the fallout from the Trump administration’s failure to prepare. We’ll be speaking with the ProPublica reporter David McSwane about his book Pandemic, Inc.: Chasing the Capitalists and Thieves Who Got Rich While We Got Sick. The book details the shadowy supply chain of brokers...
Powerlands
On this week’s Making Contact, we feature an extended interview with Ivey Camille Manybeads Tso, a queer Diné filmmaker and director of the award-winning documentary Powerlands. Powerlands traces how multinational energy corporations extract resources and profits while displacing and harming Indigenous communities around the world. The film follows Indigenous activists in Navajo Nation, Colombia, Mexico and the Philippines who...
Pandemic and Profit
To mark the three year anniversary of the official start of the Covid-19 pandemic, we’ll be looking at two alternative supply chains for masks that emerged in the fallout of the Trump administration’s failure to prepare. We’ll be speaking with ProPublica reporter David McSwane about his book Pandemic, Inc.: Chasing the Capitalists and Thieves Who Got Rich While We Got Sick. The book details the shadowy supply chain...
Escaping The Narcissism of The American Dream
Next, a conversation with Tiffanie Drayton, author of the new book Black American Refugee: Escaping the Narcissism of The American Dream. Black American Refugee examines in-depth the intersection of Drayton’s personal experiences, the broader culture and the toll of American racism and global white supremacy on Blacks in the US. Image Credit: © Marcus Duncan 2021 Image Caption: Tiffanie Drayton_Photo Like this program?...
Aftershocks of Disaster: Puerto Rico Before and After the Storm (Encore)
Making Contact · Aftershocks of Disaster: Puerto Rico Before and After the Storm (Encore) Three years after Hurricane Maria hit, Puerto Ricans are still reeling from its effects and aftereffects. We bring you a Haymarket Books talk by Marisol LeBrón, Yarimar Bonilla, and Molly Crabapple, on a collection of essays called “Aftershocks of Disaster: Puerto Rico Before and After the Storm” which discusses the legacy of Maria, and...
Canada’s Slavery Secret
Making Contact · Canada’s Slavery Secret Today we’ll take a look at Canada and its history of Black enslavement. Canada, our northern neighbor, is rarely mentioned when we talk about the trans-Atlantic slave trade. In fact, we often equate Canada with being the safe space where Blacks escaped US slavery – the final stop on the underground railroad, so to speak. But Canada indeed has its own history of slavery...
