Making Contact

Fifty years ago, the Vietnamese Liberation Front inspired people of color around the world who were building movements for self-determination. Today, we hear from people who were organizing in the Spirit of Viet Nam fifty years ago, and those who are building on that work today.

Gloria Ushigua and Aura Tegria, two legendary indigenous heroines of the Amazon rainforest, tell us about their activism to keep big oil and other exploitative industries off their ancestral territories, and out of the Amazon. They describe their struggles to guard and conserve their own cultures, which depend on the health and safety of the Amazon.

Civil rights leader Fannie Lou Hamer, spoke words that are all too relevant today. In this episode, we hear archival recordings and excerpts from a new film featuring Fannie Lou Hamer. You'll hear about the context of her life, and the lives of other sharecroppers in Mississippi.

I Am Not Your Negro is a journey into black history that connects the past of the Civil Rights movement to the present of #BlackLivesMatter. It is a film that questions black representation in Hollywood and beyond.

Producer Robert Raymond interviews Alex Vitale, author of The End of Policing--a critical examination on the history of the police, and the police's evolution as a tool for social control that exacerbates race and class divisions.

We head to Soseongri, a small village nestled in the mountains of Seongju County. There, grandmas and grandpas in the 70s, 80s, and 90s are organizing daily protests and blockades to stop THAAD. THAAD is part of a missile defense system that gives the U.S. the ability to carry out a nuclear first strike.

On this edition of Making Contact, we present Dr. Ibram X. Kendi discussing his latest book, Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America. Stamped offers a deeply researched, provocative narrative that is a comprehensive history of anti-Black racist ideas—their origins, and how they became founding principles in our nation's institutions.

Cash is increasingly being replaced with cashless systems including cryptocurrencies. This week, we hear about the political economy of blockchain. And we hear from Greeks who've been using cryptocurrencies since the capital controls of 2015.

President Donald Trump's tax plan may exacerbate wealth inequity in the US. Chuck Collins, Director of the Program on Inequality at the Institute for Policy Studies addresses the complex history of the wealth gap. Also, producers from the Upstream podcast ask: is it time for Universal Basic Income?

On this episode of Making Contact, journalist Juan González discusses his new book, Reclaiming Gotham. He chronicles the evolution of the growth machine in America's cities – from redlining and racial covenants in the early 20th century, to land grabs and privatization in the 21st – and the rise of progressive alliances to reclaim them. Special thanks to Pegasus Books for organizing the event and allowing us to broadcast excerpts of Juan González's discussion of Reclaiming Gotham. The event took place in Berkeley, CA in October 2017.