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Kev Choice: Love, Growth, and the Power of Music (Encore)
We sit down with Kev Choice, a classically trained pianist, rapper, composer, and educator, who has reshaped the Bay Area music scene. Raised in Oakland with San Francisco roots, Kev blends hip-hop, jazz, soul, and classical music into a unique sound. His latest EP, All My Love, explores themes of love, vulnerability, and human connection, with soulful melodies and reflective lyrics capturing the complexities of relationships. This episode first aired in November 2024. Featuring: Kev Choice – Kev Choice is a pianist, rapper, composer,...
read moreThe Way Home (Encore)
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 they harvest a bison and film the process. Part two: Dr. Keitlyn Alcantara studies the reason the Tlaxcala, an indigenous tribe...
read moreWhen Survival is Criminalized (Encore)
October is National Domestic Violence Awareness Month, so we are revisiting a show from our archives about criminalized survival, the criminal justice system’s long practice of imprisoning survivors of intimate partner violence when they fight back against their abusers. We’ll hear from journalist Natalie Pattillo and filmmaker Daniel A. Nelson, who followed the stories of imprisoned women Kim Dadou Brown, Tanisha Davis and Nikki Addimando for their documentary film And So I Stayed. This show first aired in July 2023. Featuring Natalie...
read moreHow the Legacy of Colonialism Keeps Puerto Rico’s Healthcare System in Shambles (Encore)
Almost half of Puerto Rico’s doctors have fled the island over the past decade, leading to a lack of specialists and treatment and incredibly long wait times. And this isn’t just an inconvenience. People are dying from lack of care. Why is Puerto Rico’s health care system collapsing, and why are doctors fleeing the island? We take a look at its deeply dysfunctional private medical system and why attempts to fix it, and create a universal health care plan on the island, are being hindered by Puerto Rico’s status as a...
read moreThe City Displaced
We return to Norfolk, Virginia, where flooding and rising sea levels threaten residents, and the climate plan for the city could perpetuate harmful patterns of segregation and environmental racism. With the help of the podcast Wading Between Two Titans, we’ll take a look at how urban redevelopment is pushing out low-income and Black residents and what happens when communities are displaced due to climate gentrification. Featuring: Mr. Vernell, resident Vincent Hodges, social worker and organizer Monét Johnson, lead housing and environmental...
read morePort City, from Generation to Generation
In this episode, we’ll head to Norfolk, Virginia, where flooding and rising sea levels are disproportionately threatening Black residents, while the city is also also weathering a housing crisis. We’ll hear about how sea-level rise, racism and housing are intertwined in this coastal city in a story from episode one of the podcast Wading Between Two Titans, brought to us by the University of Virginia’s Repair Lab and producer Adrian Wood. Featuring: Dr. Tommy L. Bogger, professor of history at Norfolk State University Cassandra...
read moreSaltwater 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 gentrification. Part story, part sound collage, this piece is scored entirely with the sounds of the waters and animals...
read moreEl Béisbol Is Where We Shine
On this week’s Making Contact, we talk about baseball with the help of some Venezuelan players living in Peru. In a story brought to us by the podcast In Confianza, with Pulso, we hear about how their hopes and dreams of making it big can fuel community when they’re living far from home. The story featured in this show first aired in July 2024. Featuring: Raian Baute, Venezuelan baseball aficionado Rodrigo Baute, Los Astros player Manny Padron, Major League Baseball scout for the Miami Marlins Franklin Lopez, Los Astros coach Wilmer...
read moreBayard Rustin: The Gay, Black Civil Rights Activist (Encore)
This episode has been published as “Angelic Troublemaker: Bayard Rustin” and “Giving Bayard Rustin His Flowers” Sixty-two years ago, a quarter of a million people gathered for the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on August 28, 1963. On today’s show, we take a look at the life and legacy of a central organizer of the march, Bayard Rustin. Rustin was an openly gay civil rights leader and a trusted advisor to labor leader A. Phillip Randolph and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. This show first aired in June 2021....
read moreMiami’s Battle Over Bilingual
This week, we’re sharing a guest episode from our friends at Project Pulso: Miami’s Battle Over Bilingualism. The path for Miami to get as bilingual as it is today has been hard. Deep discrimination and mass resistance were what it took to get here. Today’s episode is about a decades-long power struggle between those who embraced diversity and those who fought to repress it. Produced in July 2024. Featuring: Dr. Paul George, Miami native and long-term resident Eduardo Padron, Cuban-born former president of Miami Dade College...
read moreThe Black Panthers in Algeria (Encore)
This story is brought to us by the podcast Kerning Cultures. “Black Panthers in Algeria” tells the story of Elaine Mokhtefi as she landed in newly independent Algeria in the early 1960s and found herself at the center of a special period in the country’s history when it was known as the “Mecca of revolution.” Elaine encountered world famous radicals, ragtag political parties, spies and military leaders – and became an unlikely sidekick to one of the most iconic liberation groups of our time. This episode first aired on Making Contact...
read moreBeyond the Glass Wall: Immigrant Rights Post-9/11
The Department of Homeland Security, which includes Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), was created in the aftermath of 9/11. To contextualize what’s happening with immigration today under Trump 2.0, we bring you one person’s story of being caught in the anti-Muslim fervor post-9/11 and how she became an organizer advocating for the immigrants’ rights. We’ll also hear what her story teaches us about avoiding burnout in doing social justice work. This story comes to us by way of Re:Work from the UCLA Labor Center. Featuring:...
read moreIndigenous Intervention: Using Culture in Indigenous Substance Abuse Treatment
This episode was originally published as Culture & Spirituality As Substance Use Treatment in Indigenous Communities. In the late 1990s, psychologist Dr. Joseph Gone, a professor and member of the Aaniiih Gros Ventre tribe, returned home during his doctoral training to the Fort Belknap Reservation in north central Montana. There, he set aside Eurocentric concepts of psychology he was learning in school and instead asked tribal members how mental illness is addressed using traditional Indigenous practices. What he learned changed the...
read moreCrosswinds: Change
On this week’s show, we’ll continue with the podcast mini-series Crosswinds from the University of Virginia’s Repair Lab and producer Adrian Wood. The show looks at the impact of coal dust pollution on Black neighborhoods in Virginia through the lens of environmental racism. In this episode, we’ll listen to how the looming gentrification of one community might impact the pollution. Featuring: Lathaniel Kirts, practitioner-in-residence at University of Virginia’s Repair Lab Mark’eta Kirts, resident Lawrence Turner, resident...
read moreCrosswinds: Friendship
We take a deep dive into coal dust air pollution in the Hampton Roads region of Virginia, where trains transporting coal expose residents of predominantly Black communities to harmful dust. We look at this issue of environmental racism with the help of the podcast Crosswinds, featuring producer Adrian Wood. Featuring: Lathaniel Kirts, practitioner-in-residence at University of Virginia’s Repair Lab Malcolm Jones, practitioner-in-residence at University of Virginia’s Repair Lab Grace Holmes, Virginia Department of Environmental...
read moreHow Public Schools Are Failing Black Students with Dyslexia (Encore)
Featuring: Geraldine Robinson, Oakland matriarch raising her grandkids Cheryl Theis, Education Advocate, Disability Rights Education & Defense Fund Megan Potente, Educational Therapist and Co-State Director, Decoding Dyslexia CA Kareem Weaver, Oakland NAACP Education Committee Making Contact Team: Episode Host: Monica Lopez Executive Director: Jina Chung Engineer: Jeff Emtman Digital Media Marketing: Lissa Deonarain Episode Credits: Reporter/Producer: Lee Romney Editor: Monica Lopez and Lisa Morehouse Engineer: James Rowlands More...
read moreWhy Policing Our Schools Backfires with 70 Million (Encore)
School resource officers are often called upon in middle and high schools to help with routine discipline. But for many children, especially those with disabilities, a law enforcement response to their behavior can lead to the school-to-prison pipeline. This week on Making Contact, we hear a story from our podcast partner 70 Million about the relationship between students with special needs and school resource officers and the changes some would like to see in an edited version of “Why Policing Our Schools Backfires.” Featuring:...
read moreDisability: Our Culture Ourselves (Encore)
Disability “Disability: Our Culture Ourselves”— in this episode we discuss disability, culture and identity from the perspective of disability communities themselves. Seattle based activist Dorian Taylor talks about the specific challenges disabled people face while accessing public transportation and Professor Sara Acevedo discusses the powerful ways that common language and terminology can shape our perceptions of disability, and why even today we are seeing further exclusion of disabled people. Special thanks to CIIS,...
read moreCaring Relationships: Disability and Maintaining Dignity (Encore)
The vast majority of care recipients are exclusively receiving unpaid care from a family member, friend, or neighbor. The rest receive a combination of family care and paid assistance, or exclusively paid formal care. Whether you’re a paid home care provider, or rely on personal assistance to meet your daily needs, or a family member caring for a loved one, the nature of the working relationship depends on mutual respect and dignity. During this week’s anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, we’ll revisit the dynamic and complex...
read moreDecoding Algorithmic Racism with Dr. Safiya Umoja Noble (Encore)
On this week’s episode, we dive into the hidden biases of the digital age with Dr. Safiya Umoja Noble, author of the groundbreaking book, Algorithms of Oppression. Dr. Noble unpacks how search engines, often seen as neutral tools, can reinforce harmful stereotypes and limit access to critical knowledge. Join us as we explore the forces shaping our digital experiences and discuss the urgent need for accountability in technology. This is an encore presentation of a show that first aired in December 2024. Featuring: Dr. Safiya U. Noble is...
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