Building Back Black Wall Street
Black Wall Street, or the historically Black neighborhood Greenwood, Oklahoma is the site of a once prosperous, thriving, Black community. It is also the site of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, a violent attack waged by white supremacists, killing hundreds of residents and leveling homes and businesses. In the second episode of our three part Black History Month series, we talk about how the community built back. In fact, Greenwood’s...
Denial of the Funk: The Impact of Racism on our Nation’s Health
The problem in America is, America’s been in denial about its problems. And that’s a problem. America doesn’t have a race problem, in reality there’s been catastrophes visited upon Black people. Catastrophes visited on Indigenous brothers and sisters. Catastrophes visited on Latino brothers and sisters. Catastrophes visited on working people. Catastrophes visited on women of all colors. We can go on and on. This week on...
How Ollas Populares fed Buenos Aires through a pandemic (Encore)
We travel to Buenos Aires with reporter Rosina Castillo who immerses us in the culture of a local community arts organization who saw a need in their community and took action during the height of the pandemic. La Casona de Humahuaca transformed their operations to host “ollas populares” or community kitchens to help support their community and make it through the toughest parts of COVID together, all the while learning more about...
Saltwater Soundwalk: Indigenous Audio Tour of Seattle (Encore)
In this special encore episode of Making Contact, we present “Saltwater Soundwalk”: Indigenous Audio Tour of Seattle. Produced by Jenny Asarnow and Rachel Lam, this rhythmic, watery audio experience, streams of stories that ebb and flow, intermixes English with Coast Salish languages. Indigenous Coast Salish peoples continue to steward this land and preserve its language, despite settler colonialism, industrialization and...
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 Agony and the Ecstasy: Race and the Future of the Love Story Part 2 (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 we...
