Maria Hinojosa & Chenjerai Kumanyika: Forced Removals, Foreign Detention, the War on Education & Free Speech

Synopsis:  On this month’s “Meet the BIPOC Press,” award-winning journalists Maria Hinojosa & Chenjerai Kumanyika lay out the constitutional crisis before us and ask what the media’s role is in this moment.

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Description:  In the US today, immigrants, students, visitors and even U.S. residents — are facing exclusion, militarization, detention, rendition, and elimination of basic due process rights. Are our media doing enough to sound the alarm? In recent weeks, the government has detained students like Mahmoud Khalil, Rümeysa Öztürk and Mohsen Mahdawi, apparently over their support for Palestine. Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland man who was wrongfully exported to El Salvador, is being held at the notorious CECOT mega prison. We’ve also seen widespread ICE operations, random visas revoked and ideologically-driven attacks on the funding and functioning of our institutions of higher education. Our guests on this month’s Meet the BIPOC Press live and work at the intersection of these issues: Maria Hinojosa is the co-anchor and Executive Producer of Latino USA, and producer of the Pulitzer-prize winning podcast, Suave — which is just out with a second season. She is a Distinguished Journalist-in-Residence at Barnard College. Chenjerai Kumanyika is a Peabody Award-winner, creator and co-host of Uncivil, and creator and host of the podcast series Empire City: The Untold Origin Story of the NYPD. He is also an Assistant Professor of Journalism at New York University. As the Republican regime moves towards authoritarianism, will the media stand for democracy before it’s too late?

“What's being taken advantage of in this moment is the painting of a picture of people who are, to use that 1990s term, ‘super predators,’ therefore, they deserve nothing, no due process. It's not true. But if you only consume media that is coming from the Trump administration, you are convinced that all of these people who are being taken out of the country are terrifying.” - Maria Hinojosa

Guests:

•  Maria Hinojosa: Pulitzer-Prize Winning Journalist & Founder, Futuro Media; Distinguished Journalist-in-Residence, Barnard College.

•  Chenjerai Kumanyika: Peabody-Prize Winning Audio Journalist, Uncivil & Empire City: The Untold Origin Story of the NYPD; Assistant Professor Journalism, NYU

Music Credit: “Present Past” by Mark De Clive Lowe from his album Past Present (tones poems across time) released on BBE Records..  "Steppin" by Podington Bear. And original sound production and design by Jeannie Hopper.

RESOURCES:

Watch the broadcast episode cut for time at our YouTube channel and airing on PBS stations across the country 

Full Episode Notes are located HERE.

*Recommended book:

“Once I Was You” by Maria Hinojosa  *Get the Book

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Related Laura Flanders Show Episodes:

BIPOC Press for the People: Bursting the Corporate Media Bubble: Watch / Podcasts-Listen: Episode

•  Crime & Migration: An Abolitionist Plan for Immigration Justice: Watch / Listen: Episode

•  Not Wanted at Harvard? BIPOC Media on Claudine Gay, Anti-Zionism & Diversity in Education:  Watch / Podcast-Listen: Episode and Full Uncut Conversation  

Related Articles and Resources:

• Universities are scared of Trump.  Princeton spoke out - and others should join us. By the Daily Princetonian Editorial Board, March 19, 2025, Daily Princetonian

•  Ice director wants to run deportations like ‘Amazon Prime for human beings’, by Marina Dunbar, April 9, 2025, The Guardian

•  AP wins access to White House events after judge rules government can’t bar its journalists, by David Bauder, Associated Press, PBS News

•  The Conservative Activist Pushing Trump to Attack U.S. Colleges, by The Daily podcast of the New York Times

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