KQED's Forum

Barely a day after a gunman killed 10 people at a Buffalo, New York, grocery store in a predominantly Black neighborhood, another gunman at a church service for a Taiwanese congregation in Laguna Woods, California, killed one person and injured several others. “This should not be our new normal,” said Orange County representative Katie Porter. And yet, these incidents and their impacts feel all too familiar: Communities of color feeling unspeakable grief and terror. We’ll discuss the hate-filled ideology and so-called “replacement theory” being mentioned in the wake of the Buffalo massacre. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For about a quarter century, KQED Forum listeners have been getting dressed, brushing their teeth and driving to work to the sounds of “Peter Pan” by musician Mike Marshall. On Monday, they will have a new soundtrack. Each hour of the show is getting its own new theme song, composed by NPR’s Ramtin Arablouei. To mark the occasion, we’ll talk about what makes a great theme song, including the best TV themes through the decades. And we’ll open the phone lines to ask our listeners: What TV theme song do you never skip? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jigsaws, crosswords, Sudokus, cryptics and even scavenger hunts: A.J. Jacobs is convinced that puzzles of all kinds have made him a better person. In his new book, “The Puzzler,” Jacobs takes readers along as he enters all manner of puzzle competitions, talks to puzzle makers and solvers and looks at the history of some of the most popular puzzles around. His book also has embedded within it a specially crafted puzzle with a $10,000 prize for the first person to solve it. We’ll talk to Jacobs about why he thinks puzzles shift our worldviews, build community and make us better thinkers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Bay Area singer-songwriter Sean Hayes has been singing the blues for the last 30 years, but his music seems especially necessary these days. “Pain, suffering, worry meet pain again,” he sings on his newly released album “Be Like Water.” Hayes describes himself as a songwriter who “makes music to dance to or cry to, or maybe both at the same time.” He joins us in the studio to play live from his new album. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"Any kind of comfort or satisfaction is poisonous to any kind of growth,” choreographer Alonzo King told Forum ten years ago on the 30th anniversary of his company LINES Ballet. “You want to expand your heart and expand your mind. And that wants to continue going until you leave the planet,” he said. Now, with his 40th anniversary ballet “Deep River” opening at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts on Friday, King joins Forum to talk about his expansive career and the process of making art in uncomfortable times. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

According to a recent survey by Pew Research, the majority of Americans favor abortion rights. But in the leaked draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade, Justice Samuel A. Alito writes “We cannot allow our decisions to be affected by any extraneous influences such as concern about the public’s reaction to our work.” Public reaction, however, has been swift. Demonstrators decrying the opinion have gathered outside the Supreme Court, the homes of Supreme Court justices and in demonstrations across the country. In response to the draft opinion, some states have indicated they intend to introduce laws to ban and even criminalize abortion, while other states have begun drafting legislation to create safe havens for reproductive rights. Given the divide between the majority of the Court who voted in favor of this draft and the public’s support of abortion rights, has the Supreme Court lost its legitimacy as a branch of government that is blind to politics? We’ll talk to Slate’s Dahlia Lithwick about the future of the Court and what is at stake. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Last Thursday, we spoke with San Francisco Chronicle reporters about their yearlong investigation into the city-funded single-room-occupancy buildings that are supposed to provide supportive housing for the homeless. In this show, we’ll get an inside look from staff that run SROs and the nonprofit operators that oversee them. Some operators say the city hasn’t given them adequate resources and funding to serve their tenants, who often struggle with drug and behavioral issues. Meanwhile, staff say they are underpaid and under-supported in jobs that often involve dealing with violence and verbal abuse from residents. Still, there is evidence that SROs are a proven model to move people off the streets and create community among residents and staff. We’ll talk about what it's like to run an SRO and what supportive housing projects need to succeed. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What does it mean for a generation of young people to come of age seeing other young Black people routinely endangered, attacked or killed? In her new book of essays titled “The Trayvon Generation,” poet, scholar and educator Elizabeth Alexander explores that question and meditates on the persistence of racism in the American experience. She writes that “the race work of the generations of my great-grandparents, my grandparents, my parents, and myself is the work of our children’s generation” – a reality Alexander says she both laments and feels enraged by. The book, which includes poetry as well as visual art, expands on her viral 2020 New Yorker essay that reflected on the young people who have always known stories like Trayvon’s – and George Floyd’s and Breonna Taylor’s and Philando Castile’s and…. We’ll talk to Alexander about “The Trayvon Generation” and her hopes for its future. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On June 7, San Francisco voters will decide whether to recall District Attorney Chesa Boudin. It’s a ballot fight that pits the former public defender’s progressive ideas on criminal justice reform against claims that he’s soft on criminals and has made San Francisco’s streets more dangerous. Boudin joins us to talk about his record and what he thinks his opponents get wrong, crime in San Francisco and why he thinks he should stay in office. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When a classmate in junior high school told Julissa Arce, an immigrant from Mexico, that she sounded like a white girl, she took it as a compliment. “Sounding like a white girl gave me a false sense of security. Having an accent said I was from someplace else; sounding like a white girl fooled me into thinking I could belong in the United States,” she writes in her new book, “You Sound Like A White Girl: The Case for Rejecting Assimilation.” Writer, speaker, and immigration rights advocate, Arce became well known after publishing her first book, “My (Underground) American Dream,” about her experience working for Wall Street giant Goldman Sachs even though she was undocumented. In her latest release, she eviscerates the idea that through assimilation, anyone can be successful and accepted in America. In reality, she argues, assimilation functions as a tool of white supremacy. We talk with Arce about what it means to reject assimilation and how Latinos and other people of color are reclaiming their identities. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices