70 Million – Highway Robbery: How a Small Town Traffic Trap Became A Legal Black Hole
This week on Making Contact, we bring you a story from our podcast partners, 70 Million titled Highway Robbery: How a Small-Town Traffic Trap Became A Legal Black Hole. About 20 minutes north of Birmingham, Alabama, on Interstate 22, is the working-class town of Brookside. Its almost 1300 residents make it about the size of a large high school. According to the 2020 census, Brookside’s population is mostly White and 21% are...
Blindspot: Tulsa Burning and Focus: Black Oklahoma
On this episode, we turn our focus to how journalists and historians today are covering the Tulsa Race Massacre. We hear from KalaLea, host of the critically acclaimed podcast series Blindspot: Tulsa Burning. The series tells the story of the rise of Greenwood, a prosperous Black neighborhood in Tulsa, Oklahoma, also known as Black Wall Street. The podcast recounts the brutal 1921 massacre and attack led by a group of white...
70 Million: Punished and Persecuted for Being Unhoused, Part 2
More than a quarter of the people experiencing homelessness in the U.S. live in California. Nowhere is the unhoused crisis more visible than in the city of Los Angeles, where almost 30,000 people camp out on sidewalks and in parks every night. On today’s episode we continue to follow a community of unhoused people in Echo Park in Los Angeles, that was forcibly evicted by police despite an enormous show of support from...
70 Million: Punished and Persecuted for Being Unhoused, Part 1
On this Making Contact, we hear a story from our podcast partner 70 Million about a community of unhoused people in Echo Park in Los Angeles and how they were forcibly evicted by police despite hundreds of protestors who showed up to support them. We’ll hear from people on the front lines about how people experiencing homelessness are criminalized for simply trying to survive on the street in this edited version of...
70 Million: When a State Treats Drug Addiction Like a Health Issue, Not a Crime
A year ago, Oregon became the first state to decriminalize drug possession. The goal is to reverse some of the negative impacts of the War on Drugs by approaching drug use from a health-centered basis. Reporter Cecilia Brown visits an addiction and recovery center in Portland that’s gearing up for what they hope will be an influx of people seeking treatment. Image Credit: Miracles Club Like this program? Please click here and...
70 Million: Taking Mental Health Crises Out of Police Hands
Making Contact · 70 Million: Taking Mental Health Crises Out of Police Hands Police encounters during a mental health crisis have a greater chance of turning deadly if you’re Black. New response mechanisms bypass law enforcement and result in helpful interventions. Reporter Jenee Darden looks at how folks in Northern California are trying to reimagine crisis response services. Image Caption and Credit: Asantewaa Boykin,...
70 Million: Where Juvenile Detention Looks More Like Hanging Out
Making Contact · 70 Million: Where Juvenile Detention Looks More Like Hanging Out There’s a place in rural St. Johns, Arizona, where teens who have encounters with officers of the law can play pool, make music, and get mentored instead of going to jail. It’s called The Loft, and it’s the brainchild of a judge who wanted to save the county hundreds of millions of dollars and divert young people towards the support many were not...
70 Million: How Black Women Are Rightfully “Taking Seats at the Table”
Making Contact · 70 Million: How Black Women Are Rightfully “Taking Seats at the Table” Nearly one in two Black women in the US have a loved one who has been impacted by our prison system. Many become de facto civilian experts as a result. Some rise to lead as catalysts for change. And now, scores of Black women are joining the ranks—as officers of the court, police, and judges—to manage and advance a system that has had such...
Lessons From Defund the Police
Making Contact · Lessons From Defund the Police It’s been a year since the call to “Defund the Police” rang out through the George Floyd Protests. The idea isn’t new – redistributing police funds into community projects that better support healthy communities -but, it’s never been as popular and forceful. Cities across the country have pledged to invest in mental health services, restorative...
A Thin Black Line: Press Freedom, Repression, and Surveillance
Making Contact · A Thin Black Line: Press Freedom, Repression, and Surveillance Journalists have been violently targeted by police and arrested alongside demonstrators at Black Lives Matter protests across the country. In this episode we’ll look at the struggle for press freedoms during a time of repression and surveillance. Image Caption: “A U.S. Park Service Police Officer takes video of spectators observing an incident...
