Behind The Sound with Making Contact
This week’s show features a conversation among the entire Making Contact production team. Long-time producers Anita Johnson and Salima Hamirani and interim Senior Producer Jessica Partnow introduce our newest members, Lucy Kang, Amy Gastelum, and Jina Chung. Together, the team reviews highlights from shows aired last year and previews what they are each working on for 2023 and beyond. Along the way, they discuss their...
The Future of Abolition: Marc Lamont Hill, Michelle Alexander and Vonya Quarles
The Future of Abolition “Prison Abolition” had been a widely discussed idea for centuries, and was adopted –even by centrists– in the 1970’s. During the last 40 years and a staggering boom in imprisonment – prison abolition seemed like a fringe idea. “Get rid of prisons?!” Only radical activists thought that was possible. But in the last decade the tide has been turning. We’ve had the work of Michelle Alexander and...
The Poetic Address to the Nation (Encore)
November 8 marks one year since Donald Trump won the US presidency. One year later, Gallup puts the President’s approval rating at 33%, an all-time low. We at Making Contact reflect on his solid win in the electoral college, his resounding loss of the popular vote, and the year that is drawing to a close. The Poetic Address to the Nation was an event that brought together poets to speak out and against the current administration. The...
The Poetic Address to the Nation
The Poetic Address to the Nation was an event that brought together poets to speak out and against the current administration. The event featured poets Cam Awkward, Guillermo Gomez Peña, Michelle ‘Mush’ Lee, Chinaka Hodge, and many others to share pieces from immigration, to trans violence, to activism. Making Contact is broadcasting an abridged version of the event produced by the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts and the U.S....
Why focus on the normally under represented community of A.A.C. in the media?
As I prepare for my show for Making Contact on the public view of people who use A.A.C., I would like to comment on why covering the under represented A.A.C. community in the media is so important. People who use A.A.C., especially those who have both speech disabilities and mobility disabilities, are very marginalized in our society and thus do not get profiled in our media too much except when we are seen as victims or as doing...