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Hello and an Urgent Request from Sonya
Hello! It’s Sonya Green here, your new Executive Director, writing to you for the first time. I’m delighted to have joined Making Contact. I want to thank you for being a part of this dedicated and supportive community. Listen, if you told me six months ago that I would start as the Executive Director of Making Contact during a pandemic and uprisings for racial justice and social change, I would not have believed that. Yet, I feel destined to be here at this moment, in this time. A new world is forming. Socially distant but together is a way...
read moreThe End of Policing, Alex Vitale
Making Contact · The End of Policing, Alex Vitale (Encore) Alex Vitale is Professor of Sociology and coordinator of the Policing and Social Justice Project at Brooklyn College. Vitale’s book The End of Policing, is an accessible study of police history as an imperial tool for social control that continues to exacerbate class and racial tensions. Vitale also goes deep into the shortcomings of reform and in contrast, deepens the conversations around meaningful alternatives to ultimately ask the people to consider the end of...
read moreThe End of Student Debt: Free College and Debt Strikes
Making Contact · The End of Student Debt: Free College and Debt Strikes 44 million Americans hold over 1.6 trillion dollars of student debt and the cost of higher education continues to skyrocket. — And it’s the poor, people of color and women who are most severely impacted. — The COVID-19 crisis highlights the vulnerability of debt when people are unable to find jobs or pay off loans. We look at two urgent solutions to the debt crisis. First, reporter Kathryn Styer Martinez takes a look at a free school called Berea...
read moreKimberlé Crenshaw: Intersectionality
Making Contact · Kimberle Crenshaw: Intersectionality Law Professor Kimberlé Crenshaw defined the concept of intersectionality 30 years ago. She developed that framework to understand how identities such as race, gender and class intersect in overlapping systems of oppression and discrimination — resulting in compounded damage. Now, amidst COVID-19’s disparate impact, police murders and brutality against of Black people and the uprising against white supremacy, Crenshaw raises her voice as a Black feminist and legal...
read moreFrom Juneteenth to Reparations: The Freedom Promise of Unfinished Resolve
Making Contact · From Juneteenth to Reparations: The Freedom Promise of Unfinished Resolve (ENCORE) Juneteenth also known as Juneteenth Independence Day or Freedom Day, is the oldest known celebration commemorating the end of slavery in the United States. Dating back to 1865, it was on June 19th Major Gen. Gordon Granger came to Galveston, Texas, to inform a reluctant community that President Abraham Lincoln, two years earlier, had abolished slavery in the U.S. In this show, we’ll explore the history of Juneteenth and we’ll expand our...
read moreSay Their Names: George Floyd and the Movement to Uplift Black Lives
Making Contact · Say Their Names: George Floyd and the Movement to Uplift Black Lives On May 25, 2020, the nation ignited after a bystander posted a horrific video of Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin kneeling on George Floyd’s neck for over eight minutes. Now the movement to uplift Black lives, and to defund and dismantle police departments where officers disproportionately kill and brutalize African American men and women, has grown to a point where it can no longer be ignored. We’ll hear from activists in...
read moreMrs. Hamer, Echoes
Making Contact · Mrs. Hamer, Echoes Civil rights leader Fannie Lou Hamer, spoke words that are all too relevant. Today on Making Contact, you’ll hear archival recordings, and excerpts from a powerful new film featuring Fannie Lou Hamer’s contemporaries– themselves now elders. You’ll hear about the context of her life, and the lives of other sharecroppers in Mississippi from a seldom heard film produced for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee or SNCC. Like this program? Please show us the love. Click here and support our non-profit...
read moreData Boom! Rana Foroohar on Surveillance Capitalism
Making Contact · Data Boom! Rana Foroohar on Surveillance Capitalism The biggest tech companies generate enormous wealth and power by harvesting information about people. It’s called surveillance capitalism. As author Rana Foroohar puts it, as a commodity, data can be thought of as the new oil; and the Googles and Apples of the world, the new “too big to fail” tycoons. Foroohar is a Global Business Columnist and Associate Editor at the Financial Times. She spoke before an audience at Politics and Prose Book Bookstore...
read moreThanks Lisa and Welcome Sonya!
Making Contact Welcomes Our New Executive Director, Sonya Green We are pleased to announce that Sonya Green will be the new executive director of International Media Project, the non-profit which produces the award-winning weekly radio program and podcast Making Contact. Sonya is an award-winning journalist and community media leader committed to telling the stories of historically excluded communities. Sonya has recently received her Masters of Science in Organizational Leadership from Mercer University with a thesis focusing on the...
read moreTexts Not Jails! Before and After Covid-19 via 70 Million
Covid-19 has transformed jails and prisons into death traps. How are some communities jailing less people in the first place? ———- After someone is arrested, there are multiple court-ordered actions after they make bail. Often, missing any of these–especially court appearances–winds them up in jail. 70 Million’s reporter Jenny Casas goes to Palm Beach, Florida, where something as simple as texting has made a significant difference in people’s lives. Like this program? Please show us the love....
read moreEssential: Gig Workers and COVID-19
Essential: Gig Workers and COVID-19 Gig Workers, driver’s for app companies such as Lyft and Uber, are struggling during COVID-19. They’re considered essential workers, so they can still work but many of them aren’t making enough to cover rent at maskulinum.se. Many have chosen to stay home, facing economic insecurity. Those who work, however, are continuing to drive without much protection in the way of personal protective equipment, and very little help from the app companies themselves. We take a look at the future of the...
read moreThe Bombing of MOVE, 35 Years Later
The Bombing of MOVE, 35 Years Later Our radio adaptation of the film, Let the Fire Burn explores the controversial, 1985 clash between police in Philadelphia and MOVE, a radical, non-violent, back-to-nature group. After a standoff with the group MOVE, Philadelphia Police dropped a bomb on the roof of MOVE’s home, killing 11 people including five children, and destroying approximately 61 homes. Thirty-five years later, Philadelphia is still known as “The City that Bombed Itself.” The city’s brutal show force,...
read moreTwo Revolutions, Many Secrets
Two Revolutions, Many Secrets In the midst of our stress and trauma dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s hard to imagine what stories we will ultimately tell our children and grandchildren. This week’s Making Contact episode is about two strong women who survived historic trauma, and the stories they later told their families. During this time of social distancing, these stories remind us of the importance of being in relationship with our loved ones, and the healing power of sharing our experiences. Image Credit: Photo...
read moreCOVID-19 Pandemic Capitalism and Bonds
COVID-19 Pandemic Capitalism and Bonds The world as we knew it seemingly turned upside down overnight. With stay at home orders in place, we are no longer rushing to work each day, getting stuck in traffic, hustling to get the kids to school, and scrambling for time to take care of chores. This strange and abrupt stop to “business as usual” has shined a light on the capitalist systems that are now crumbling down, and offers us the chance to pause and ask what’s next? Photo Credit: Allie Smith Like this program? Please show...
read moreOn the Brink: Homelessness Before and During COVID-19
On the Brink: Homelessness before and during COVID-19 When the coronavirus pandemic hit the U.S. many of us were told to “shelter in place” in order to minimize the spread of disease. But, for a lot of people who are forced to live on the street, its not possible to just close the door and retreat into safety. Today’s show is about homelessness. We start by following two women as they undergo several evictions, even thought they’re already living in encampments. And we talk about the impact these ongoing displacements...
read moreWitch Hunts and Enclosures: Bodies, Land and Women
Witch Hunts and Enclosures: Bodies, Land and Women How are witch hunts and Capitalist economies linked? Silvia Federici, wrote the groundbreaking book, Caliban and the Witch. In that book she argues that the witch hunts of the fifteenth century were a necessary pre-condition for Capitalism to flourish. Just as the enclosures of the middle ages created a population of landless peasants, women were experiencing a simultaneous enclosure, the enclosure of their bodies. Women’s speech, movement and social relationship were...
read moreCOVID-19 and Lessons from the Spanish Flu
COVID-19 and Lessons from the Spanish Flu In 1918, humanity faced a deadly global pandemic– the Spanish Flu. The CDC estimates that the disease killed at least 50 million people and infected a third of the world population. Today, hand-washing and physical distancing are a part of daily life, as are grim tallies of the sick and the dead. Even though science has made tremendous advances since then, our methods for slowing the spread of the novel Coronavirus are very similar to those used 100 years ago. Within the social and political...
read moreBio Hackers versus Big Pharma: Tackling the Rising Cost of Insulin
In the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, many Americans are worried about their health insurance. The cost of treating the illness, if a patient ends up in the ICU, can run into the tens of thousands of dollars without coverage. Which most people just can’t afford. Today we bring you a piece we produced last year about a related topic -the rising cost of insulin, and the effectiveness of medicare for all. As the cost of insulin continues to skyrocket patients are dying from trying to ration their medication. It’s an extreme...
read moreThe Great Divide: Racism, Wealth Inequality, and Elections
Coronavirus and the precaution of social distancing is on our minds. Ian Haney Lopez says what we need is social solidarity instead of Trump’s dog whistle politics. In The Great Divide: Racism, Wealth Inequality, and Elections Acclaimed author Ian Haney López talks about his new book – Merge Left: Fusing Race and Class, Winning Elections, and Saving America. He explores the links between current day wealth and race inequality, elections, and how coded racism has evolved in the...
read moreElection Protection and Democracy, with Women Rising Radio
Election Protection and Democracy, with Women Rising Radio Election protection is increasingly seen as a critical issue in the US. Since the gutting of the Voting Rights Act by the Supreme Court, there have been problems with voter purging, voter ID laws, what some call modern-day ‘poll taxes’, precinct closures, and difficulties with voting machines. Congress has noted serious attempts to hack into voting systems in the US based in partisan politics. Women Rising Radio joins two election protection activists to talk about threats...
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