FEATURING JACOB AND RITHIK - A nationwide uprising led by college students has sprung up to demand an end to Israel’s genocide in Gaza, it’s on-going occupation, and U.S. arms sales to Israel, as well as for universities to divest from Israel.
Students have set up encampments, reminiscent of Occupy Wall Street and other movements for social justice and have been met by violent police repression.
Epicenters include Columbia University in New York, University of Southern California, and the University of Texas at Austin. But the list of campus encampments has continued to grow and students remain undeterred by arrests, suspensions, threats of censure and accusations of antisemitism. In fact, many of the protests are dominated by Jewish students.
San Francisco State University students on Monday set up their encampment, and two student organizers give us an inside view of the protest actions.
FEATURING AMY FITCH-HEACOCK - The Arizona Supreme Court earlier this month restored a civil war era law banning abortion in all cases except when the life of the biological parent was in jeopardy. It is currently considered the most draconian abortion ban in the nation. When that law was first enacted in 1864, scientists did not even understand how ovulation worked. The ruling comes ahead of a ballot measure in the November election that seeks to enshrine abortion access in the state’s constitution. Pro-choice advocates say there is an increased surge of interest in passing the measure now.
FEATURING CEDRIC DE LEON - Workers at a Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee voted overwhelmingly to join the United Auto Workers (UAW) last week in a historic win for organized labor. Volkswagen is a German automaker and its Chattanooga plant was the only one in the entire company to not have union representation. It was also the first time a foreign-owned auto manufacturing factory in the southern United States unionized. UAW’s next union vote will take place at two Mercedes plants in Tuscaloosa, Alabama in mid-May.
Republican governors in Southern states have taken a hard line against UAW. The Governors of Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas signed on to a letter referring to the UAW as, “special interests looking to come into our state and threaten our jobs and the values we live by.”
FEATURING SHANA L. REDMOND - Several elite college campuses such as those of Columbia University, New York University, Harvard and Yale were closed on Monday following major protest actions in support of Palestinian rights and against Israel’s on-going genocide in Gaza. This comes days after more than a 100 activists at an encampment were arrested at Columbia.
Protesters have been vilified as antisemitic even though they include sizeable numbers of Jewish students. Many of those students joined in a seder at the Columbia encampment to mark Passover on Monday. Similar encampments have cropped up at college campuses across the United States.
Meanwhile, news emerged of the discovery of a mass grave containing more than 300 bodies in southern Gaza, lending even greater credibility to genocide accusations against Israel. The United Nations reported that victims were found stripped naked with their hands tied.
FEATURING STEPHANIE ABRAHAM - April is Arab American Heritage month, a time of year meant to celebrate the history and culture of Americans who claim ancestry from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA).
Such recognition was hard fought in light of the decades of demonization that Arab Americans faced after the September 11, 2001 attacks.
But in 2024 when Israel is carrying out a genocide in Gaza fueled by U.S. weapons, Arab Americans face a dilemma about how to celebrate their heritage—one that Stephanie Abraham writes about in YES! Magazine.
FEATURING HARRY FEDER - Harvard University and the California Institute of Technology last week announced they would return to requiring SAT and ACT test scores as part of their admissions processes. Starting before the COVID-19 pandemic, universities had begun to drop test requirements. The pandemic lockdowns accelerated the trend and soon thousands of institutions had become test-free or test-optional, including all University of California schools. Now, elite universities like Harvard are backtracking, in spite of decades of research showing the SAT is biased against women, people of color, and low-income applicants.
FEATURING MARK DUMMETT - It has been nearly 40 years since the world’s worst industrial disaster claimed the lives of thousands of people and continues to impact more than half a million. Justice remains elusive for the survivors of the Bhopal disaster in India who are living with the impacts of an unprecedented chemical leak from a plant run by Union Carbide Corporation in 1984.
Dow Chemical, which owns Union Carbide, has refused to properly compensate victims and conduct a thorough clean up. Litigation is on-going in both India and the U.S. Amnesty International, which has been documenting the disaster for years, has just released a new report called Bhopal: 40 Years of Injustice.
FEATURING JOCELYN MCCALLA - Weeks of chaos and violence in Haiti may be coming to an end as an agreement for a transitional government is drawn up this week. Haiti’s political parties and numerous stakeholding civil society groups have coalesced around the idea of a 9-member council that will remain in power for 22 months before elections can be held for a new president.
The current crisis peaked when violence broke out across Haiti, prompting Haitian President Ariel Henry to announce his resignation in response to pressure from the United States. He had been in Kenya, on the verge of authorizing a thousand Kenyan forces to deploy to Haiti to tackle political violence. Mr. Henry had taken over the presidency from Jovenel Moïse who was assassinated in 2021.
Many Haitians are desperate to flee the violence but face hostile politicians such as Florida Governor Ron DeSantis who has deployed National Guardsmen to the southern part of his state.
FEATURING HUWAIDA ARRAF - It has been six months since Israel’s latest war on Palestinians began and the death toll has surpassed 33,000. Human Rights Watch has just released a report accusing Israel of using starvation “as a weapon of war” against Palestinians and particularly children.
Meanwhile Doctors Without Borders has accused the Israel Defense Forces of targeting aid workers after the killings of 7 World Central Kitchen staff, saying “the pattern of attacks is either intentional or indicative of reckless incompetence.”
Responding to the on-going genocide, activists and advocates of Palestinian rights are planning to set sail on a number of ships carrying aid directly to the people of Gaza as part of a Freedom Flotilla Coalition.
FEATURING IMAN HUSAIN - Actor Ramy Youssef recently said the words “Free Palestine” on live television as part of his Saturday Night Live monologue. And film director Jonathan Glazer in his Oscars’ acceptance speech denounced the use of Judaism to justify the genocide in Gaza.
The issue of justice for Palestine has not always been welcomed in the arts. But, as Youssef and Glazer demonstrated, the tide is slowly turning. Part of that tide is the reissue of a protest song performed in 1972 by Egyptian-born Palestinian singer Zeinab Shaath.
The master copy of the song, called “The Urgent Call of Palestine” was thought to be lost to Israeli theft for decades. Writing about its resurrection at In These Times magazine is Iman Husain.
FEATURING TORY STEPHENS - When we think about climate change, we often think in terms of statistics, studies, and measurements of melting glaciers, dwindling wildlife populations, and mass human migration. It’s a grim reality. But, Grist, one of the leading climate solutions media outlets in the nation, asks us to imagine a future inspired by contemporary climate-related fiction.
Grist has partnered with YES! on its new project, Imagine 2200: Climate Fiction for Future Ancestors, an annual contest to celebrate short stories rooted in environmental justice and climate solutions. Grist’s Climate Fiction Creative Manager Tory Stephens discussed the project with YES! Senior Editor Breanna Draxler, guest hosting YES! Presents: Rising Up With Sonali.
FEATURING REV. LENNOX YEARWOOD JR. - The Biden Administration last week announced the strictest ever rule to regulate tailpipe emissions–one of the most significant sources of carbon emissions globally. But, it watered down the rule by giving automakers more time to comply–time being precisely what the planet is running out of as the climate continues to warm.
Rather than requiring the auto industry to produce more electric vehicles (EVs), the federal government says car manufacturers have to comply with the strict emissions rules and could do so by ensuring that about 56% of all new car sales are EVs by the year 2032– a challenge for American car makers. Meanwhile, Chinese-made EVs are flooding the global market and could easily help meet Biden’s climate goals. But the U.S. has imposed strict tariffs to keep out Chinese EVs and claimed that the smart cars are a national security threat.
FEATURING SARAH ANDERSON - As Americans prepare their tax returns ahead of the IRS’s annual filing deadline, a new report highlights just how much large corporate CEO pay packages rival corporate taxes. Examining the five year period of 2018 to 2022, the Institute for Policy Studies, together with Americans for Tax Fairness cataloged 35 companies that paid their top executives more than they paid the federal government. This is thanks in large part to the 2017 Republican-led American Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.
FEATURING JESS BRAVERMAN - The United States Supreme Court this week heard arguments in a case against the sale of medication abortion - a drug named Mifepristone. Just weeks ago drug stores such as Walgreens and CVS announced they would start carrying the abortion pill. Nearly two-thirds of all abortions in the US last year were medication abortions - a procedure that remains legal in 36 states. Will the nation’s highest court–which overturned the constitutional right to an abortion two years ago, now do away with the abortion pill as well?
FEATURING SUNNIVIE BRYDUM - New issues of YES! Magazine have hit newsstands and mailboxes all over the nation, and this Spring 2024 issue is themed around “Connections” - a deeply relevant idea at a time when more people are digitally connected than ever before at the same time as we are still grappling with pandemic-related physical isolation.
FEATURING FRANK HOPPER - A police reform initiative in Washington to hold law enforcement accountable is facing a test of its effectiveness. Initiative 940, the first of its kind in the nation, strips police of so-called qualified immunity.
In 2018, Washington state voters passed the initiative after members of the Puyallup Tribe mobilized in the wake of the police killing of a young Indigenous woman named Jacqueline Salyers.
Two years later, when police killed a Black man named Manuel Ellis, weeks before George Floyd’s similar police murder in Minnesota, Initiative 940 was put to the test.
FEATURING ARUN GUPTA - In the weeks after the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel, there were numerous claims of mass rape by Hamas soldiers of Israeli women. In November 2023, the group Physicians for Human Rights Israel released a position paper claiming there was pervasive sexual violence.
A month later, the New York Times published an investigation making similar claims. The two reports were widely cited to justify Israel’s on-going genocide in Gaza. The United Nations (UN) also released a report in early March in the same vein.
Investigative journalist Arun Gupta, has debunked the PHRI and New York Times reports for YES! Magazine in an in-depth story called Claims of Mass Rape by Hamas Unravel Upon Investigation. He spoke with YES! Senior Editor Sonali Kolhatkar on YES! Presents: Rising Up With Sonaliabout his investigation and also commented on the just-released UN report.
FEATURING ANNELIESE BRUNER - If ever there was a clear cut example of a community whose residents deserved reparations, it would be Tulsa, Oklahoma’s Greenwood district, known historically as Black Wall Street and destroyed by a white mob more than a hundred years ago. Descendants of survivors of the "Tulsa Race Massacre" have been agitating for reparations for years.
In the meantime, a new generation of Tulsa’s residents are rebuilding what was lost. Writing about it for YES! Magazine’s new Realizing Reparations series is Anneliese Bruner, writer and editor. Her great grandmother was Mary E. Parrish, a survivor of the Tulsa Massacre.
FEATURING TORSHETA JACKSON - The federal government has put off the issue of reparations for Black Americans for decades. Given the inaction on legislation like H.R. 40, the late John Conyers’ reparations bill, local efforts to achieve reparations have had some success. In a new story for YES!, part of our Realizing Reparations series, Torsheta Jackson has written a report detailing how some of those efforts have transpired.
FEATURING ERIN AUBRY KAPLAN - The state of California has gone further than any other state in examining the issue of reparations for Black people and making them reality. A state-appointed reparations task force worked for years to develop and produce an in-depth report looking at California’s history of systemic racism and its impact on Black Californians, and making a set of recommendations to remedy it. Now, the question remains: Will California finish the task it began by actually dispensing compensation?
The racial wealth gap in the United States persists largely because there was never proper compensation paid to the descendants of enslaved Africans, and also because systemic racism continues to infect the economy. In that context, young Black people remain disadvantaged compared to white kids who benefit from generational wealth and other privileges.
Torie Weiston-Serdan, writes about this in a new story for YES! Magazine. She asserts that, “Providing spaces for youth power and healing is essential, and while money alone cannot fully remedy racial trauma, investing in programs and resources to support Black youth is critical to narrowing disparities in wealth, health, and beyond.”
FEATURING JONITA DAVIS - So many mainstream cultural values are shaped by film, television, and, more recently, social media. Pop culture shapes our world view, making some things acceptable and others anathema. When it comes to the movement for reparations, how has modern pop culture shaped the prevailing narrative?
FEATURING TREVOR SMITH - Social movements often spur participants into adopting identities that help them articulate their personal connection to a cause. Can the same happen for the movement for reparations? In anew story for YES! Magazine, Trevor Smith, asks the question “Can reparationist be a distinct identity, akin to feminist or abolitionist, a label worn with pride by progressive individuals showcasing their belief in reparative compensation for Black people?”
FEATURING GENEVIEVE RAND - New York’s state assembly is considering a new bill proposing the creation of a Social Housing Development Authority to ease the state’s housing crisis.
The idea of “social housing” is not new, but it is an elegant solution, and offers a more direct alternative to the standard practice of subsidizing private developers in the hope that they will create affordable housing.
California has introduced its own version of the bill called the Social Housing Act, and activists across the country are pushing their own cities to adopt such an idea.
FEATURING EDGAR VILLANUEVA - As the 2024 presidential election season is in full swing and states across the nation are starting to hold their primaries, abortion access and the Israeli genocide in Gaza are front and center. But other issues of crucial importance to the U.S. electorate, such as reparations for Black Americans, are getting far less attention.
FEATURING NORMAN SOLOMON - President Joe Biden flew to Los Angeles this week to meet with Israeli American Haim Saban for an election campaign fundraising event. His meeting with an ardent backer of the on-going genocide in Gaza is symbolic of the greatest danger facing both, his political career, and this nation.
Meanwhile, Congress’ only Palestinian American member, Representative Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, is urging her supporters to vote “uncommitted” in her state’s upcoming primary election. Biden has been dogged by protesters at nearly every campaign event in recent months, demanding he back the call for a ceasefire in Gaza and stop sending deadly weapons of war to Israel.
Norman Solomon fears Biden is handing the 2024 election over to Donald Trump, the likely Republican Party nominee, who has promised a second term even more authoritarian than his first.
FEATURING MEGHAN ELIZABETH KALLMAN, JOSEPHINE FERORELLI - If you’ve ever wondered whether having a child impacted the issue of climate change and the future of the planet, you’re not alone. Such considerations are often raised in news media, social media, and person-to-person dialogues. An organization named “Conceivable Future,” run by Meghan Elizabeth Kallman and Josephine Ferorelli hosts conversations around the country to make space for people to talk about family planning and climate change without judgment.
Guest hosting for Sonali Kolhatkar is YES! Senior Editor Breanna Draxler, covering climate, environmental justice, and Native rights.
FEATURING YSABEL JURADO - The recent rainstorm, brought to California by a so-called “atmospheric river,” dumped record-breaking amounts of rainfall onto the Western state. In Los Angeles, which earned the grim title of homeless capital of the United States in 2023, city and county officials have been scrambling to ensure there are enough shelters. But, as the city that will be hosting the 2028 Olympics continues to struggle with a skyrocketing cost of living, are there good solutions to ensuring the unhoused are treated with dignity? And, if so, who is helping to implement them?
FEATURING BILL BLUM - On February 8, 2024, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case Trump versus Anderson, in response to the former president’s appeal of the Colorado Supreme Court’s decision banning him from that state’s presidential ballot. Justices appeared poised to rule in Trump’s favor.
Meanwhile on February 12th, Trump appealed another case to the Supreme Court, asking for a delay in a case brought by the Special Counsel after a lower federal court ruled he was not immune from prosecution for his role in the January 6th insurrection.
The nation’s highest court is stacked with rightwing justices, three of whom were appointed by Trump himself, and one of whom is married to an avid pro-Trump activist.
FEATURING EVETTE DIONNE - A new class of weight loss drugs has taken the United States by storm, and is different from previous medications in that it seems to work. The drugs, known by their pharmaceutical brand names such as Ozempic and Wegovy, contain semaglutide, a chemical that helps regulate appetite but also blood sugar - a critical function for people suffering from diabetes.
But, with many people taking the medication for cosmetic purposes, the drugs are in short supply. They are also expensive, required to be taken indefinitely, and so far, not covered by health insurers for weight loss. Meanwhile, investors are rushing to make a killing off the pharma stocks.
But are the drugs safe? How do they affect the size-based discrimination that people face? And, what impact do these drugs have on movements for fat liberation?
FEATURING SARA YOUNGBLOOD-GREGORY - The state of Israel’s official Twitter account recently posted photos of a gay Israel Defense Forces soldier named Yoav Atzmoni holding a rainbow pride flag in Gaza as “a message of hope to the people of Gaza living under Hamas brutality.”
Israel has, for years, painted itself as a defender of the LGBTQ community and portrayed Arabs and Palestinians as homophobic, prompting writer Sarah Schulman to popularize the term “pinkwashing” more than a decade ago.
FEATURING ELEZ BERESIN-SCHER - On Friday February 2nd Jewish students on more than a dozen college campuses across the United States organized “Shabbat for Ceasefire”events to sing, pray, and perform their tradition to call for an end to Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza. Jewish Voice for Peace, which helped organize the events, said in a press release, “Rather than seeing their Jewish identity and organizing for a ceasefire as somehow at odds, these Jewish students center ‘tikkun olam,’ repairing the world, as a core tenet of the Judaism which compels them to organize for a ceasefire in Gaza and a free Palestine.”
FEATURING COURTNEY HAGLE - A New York City jury has ordered Donald Trump to pay $83.3 million in damages to journalist E. Jean Carroll for defamation. Trump had spent years maligning Carroll in public forums and on social media, sometimes dozens of times in a single day. Ms. Carroll celebrated the settlement saying, “This is a great victory for every woman who stands up when she’s been knocked down and a huge defeat for every bully who has tried to keep a woman down.”
But Trump responded by claiming that, “Our Legal System is out of control, and being used as a Political Weapon,” and claimed that, “They have taken away all First Amendment Rights.” Such views were echoed in coverage of the settlement by rightwing media personalities, according to the watchdog group Media Matters for America.
FEATURING JAMIE L. MANSON - Thousands of people, including youth, protesting the right to an abortion showed up in Washington D.C. last week for the annual “March for Life.” The gatherings have generally attracted rightwing politicians and other media personalities seeking to politicize the issue of abortion and use religious scripture to justify forced births.
But this year, Catholics for Choice also showed up to the march to engage in counterprotest actions via provocative posters that they displayed all along the march route. The colorful posters featured questions such as “Pro-Life or Pro-Birth?” and “Not Sure How to Feel About Abortion?”
FEATURING IJEOMA OLUO - If you read mainstream news sources, the dire state of the world is usually on full display. Less covered are the ways in which people are fighting back against oppression and injustice in their communities.
But, Ijeoma Oluo, writer, speaker, and best-selling author of So You Want to Talk About Race, has an abundance of such stories in her new book, Be a Revolution: How Everyday People are Fighting Oppression and Changing the World - and How You Can, Too.
Oluo’s work on race has been featured in The Guardian, The New York Times and The Washington Post, among many other publications. She was named to the 2021 TIME 100 Next list and has twice been named to the Root 100. She received the 2018 Feminist Humanist Award and the 2020 Harvard Humanist of the Year Award from the American Humanist Association.
FEATURING MATTHEW KINCAID - It’s been less than four years since the police killing of George Floyd sparked a racial justice uprising and prompted a mainstream embrace of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion initiatives in corporate hiring, government, and the classroom. But the backlash has been swift. And, with 2024 election campaigns in full swing, rightwing racist dog whistles against DEI related ideas are out in the open. The New York Times this past weekend published an extensive investigation into the anti-DEI playbook. In a new book called Freedom Teaching, author Matthew Kincaid takes on the anti-DEI machine.
FEATURING DAVID SWANSON - The organization World BEYOND War is putting up half a dozen billboards across California’s Bay area highlighting a shocking, but little known, fact: That the United States military sucks up so much money that a tiny fraction of it could end world starvation.
FEATURING SHANE BURLEY - Gaza’s Ministry of Health has announced that Israel has killed more than 25,000Palestinians since it began its latest assault on the Palestinian territory. The grim death toll comes as the International Court of Justice is drafting a preliminary verdict in a case brought by South Africa charging Israel of genocide.
As we approach International Holocaust Remembrance Day on January 27th, writer and filmmaker Shane Burley has written a new piece for YES! Magazine called Don’t Let Zionists Weaponize Jewish Suffering pointing out that Israeli officials and war supporters are ironically employing the same language and logic as past perpetrators of genocide: charging its victims of genocidal intentions to justify killing them first.
FEATURING SCOTT FULFORD - Four years ago, the world was on the brink of a historic shutdown. The coronavirus was rapidly spreading, and by March 2020, American cities and states began issuing quarantine orders to stop the spread of COVID-19. Families already living in precarity stood on the edge of financial collapse as they were laid off or had to find child care for kids stuck at home.
Then, something miraculous happened. The U.S. government stepped in and began sending payments and unemployment checks to Americans all over the country. Far from falling deeper into debt, many people actually paid off debts and found some measure of financial stability. That story holds many lessons, and writing about it is Scott Fulford in his new book The Pandemic Paradox.
FEATURING ISA BLUMI - Houthi fighters from Yemen have been attacking commercial cargo ships and oil tankers in the Red Sea in an attempt to thwart Israel’s on-going genocide in Gaza. In response, the United States and United Kingdom launched airstrikes against Yemen last Friday seemingly in support of Israeli genocide, risking a wider regional war.
FEATURING CHRISTINA HARVEY - A mere 30 minutes after the Iowa Republican caucuses began on Monday, Associated Press declared former president Donald Trump the winner. Trump beat Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley by a landslide, grabbing a 30% lead. Although Trump is facing 91 criminal charges, there appears to be little question that he will be the 2024 GOP Presidential nominee. What does that mean for American democracy?
FEATURING ERRIN HAINES - Harvard University’s first Black president, and second woman President, Claudine Gay, was forced to resign in the wake of allegations that she engaged, first in antisemitism, and then, in plagiarism. In an op-ed in the New York Times, Gay wrote, “It is not lost on me that I make an ideal canvas for projecting every anxiety about the generational and demographic changes unfolding on American campuses: a Black woman selected to lead a storied institution.”
FEATURING NAVEED SHAH - Three years after the violent insurrection at the United States Capitol, more than a thousand people have been arrested and tried, and hundreds have been convicted of crimes. But the chief instigator of the attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election, former President Donald Trump, remains free and has now taken to calling the convicted “hostages.” Trump promises he will free them once he’s back in office. The larger question of the health of American democracy also remains tenuous as pro-Trump lawmakers have attempted to erode voting rights and fuel racism.
FEATURING RICO MOORE - The Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation in Washington State are restoring the lands and species of their traditional ecological community after decades of settler-colonialism-fueled destruction. Among the native species being successfully reintroduced are bighorn sheep, salmon, and lynx. In a series of stories for YES! Magazine, journalist Rico Moore explains exactly how the Indigenous-led recovery has unfolded.
FEATURING BREANNA DRAXLER - What happens when subsistence farming communities are forced to be cogs in the giant wheels of industrial agriculture? The results are dispossession of land, racial inequity, and loss of human and environmental health. A new story by YES! Senior editor Breanna Draxler shows how it’s possible to reverse this status quo by rebuilding systems from the soil up–literally.
FEATURING HUWAIDA ARRAF - South Africa has filed a genocide claim against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) at The Hague. The claim centers on Israel’s relentless bombing of the Gaza strip, considered to be the most destructive campaign of the century, worse even than what was done in Syria, Ukraine, or during the Second World War. The official death toll has now surpassed 22,000 and Israel says it intends to intensify its campaign. The U.S. has been Israel’s biggest political supporter, supplying it with hundreds of millions of dollars of weaponry.
FEATURING KSHAMA SAWANT - Seattle’s world renowned city council member and socialist firebrand Kshama Sawant announced early this year that she would not be seeking reelection. After a decade as an elected official, Sawant has moved on to launch her own worker-led organization Workers Strike Back, and started a new podcast called On Strike.
While on the city council, Sawant changed expectations for elected officials, refusing to bow down to financial and political pressures that most of her colleagues accepted, inviting loud and proud protests on issues of labor rights, fair wages, housing and rent, racial justice, caste discrimination, and much more. She was a thorn in the side of the establishment, faced and beat back recall efforts, and has been an ally to progressive causes inside the halls of power.
She joined us for an in-depth look back at her achievements as an elected official and her hopes for her new ventures.
FEATURING DR. AMARA ENYIA - A new survey by the Movement for Black Lives (M4BL) shows broad support among Black Americans for defunding police and refunding alternatives to policing. The survey, conducted in collaboration with GenForward at the University of Chicago, specifically shows that “Sixty-seven percent of Black Americans support reallocating part of police budgets toward investments in health care, education, and housing, and other areas, while 55% support divestment from police departments and allocating entire police budgets toward such investments.” At a time when media coverage of the racial justice demands from summer 2020 has waned, the study renews the urgency of reimagining the institutions that cause racial violence and harm.
FEATURING ANDY LEE ROTH - Each year, Project Censored publishes in book form, its annual survey of stories that the corporate news media failed to cover or badly misrepresented. Project Censored says its mission is to, “expose and oppose news censorship and … promote independent investigative journalism, media literacy, and critical thinking.” And to that end, State of the Free Press 2024 is just out and is a compendium of the top 25 censored stories of the year, many of which focus on climate change, as well as government failure to regulate corporations, and more.
FEATURING PENNY ROSENWASSER - The majority of high-profile U.S. protests against Israel’s 2023 assault on Gaza has been led by Jewish Americans, and groups like Jewish Voice for Peace and If Not Now. But you wouldn’t know it from perusing corporate media coverage of the war. A leading Jewish American voice says, "Not in My Name," in a searingly personal and powerful op-ed for YES! Magazine.
FEATURING LORNE STOCKMAN - When President Joe Biden touted his signature bill, the Inflation Reduction Act, in 2022, he and others touted it as “the single largest investment in climate and energy in American history.” But, the fine print revealed otherwise. Now, a new report by Oil Change International analyzes emissions under the Inflation Reduction Act and finds that it is worsening climate change and exacerbating environmental justice.
FEATURING REV. DR. STEPHANY ROSE SPAULDING - A federal court has just struck down a key aspect of the Voting Rights Act. The 8th circuit court of appeals last week in a 2-1 decision ruled that a lower court decision preventing private citizens and organizations from using Section 2 of the VRA to sue against racial discrimination in voting rights would no longer be permitted. Only the U.S. Attorney General could bring legal challenges. According to the Washington Post, “in the past 40 years, at least 182 successful Section 2 cases have been filed and, of those, only 15 ‘were brought solely’ by the attorney general.” The devastating ruling is only the latest attack on the seminal 1965 law that legally enshrined people’s right to vote.
FEATURING LAILA ELHADDAD - In spite of a pause in Israel’s assault on Gaza, there is a legal case being made that the U.S. is complicit in enabling Israeli genocide against Palestinians. According to a new lawsuit filed by the Center for Constitutional Rights, “The United States is not only failing to uphold its obligation to prevent the commission of genocide, but there is a plausible and credible case to be made that the United States’ actions to further the Israeli military operation, closure, and campaign against the Palestinian population in Gaza, rise to the level of complicity in the crime under international law.” The U.S. sends Israel billions in weapons each year and President Joe Biden’s administration has been an enthusiastic supporter of this decades-long trend.
FEATURING BRYN NELSON - Waste water–the water that drains down our sinks and showers and flushes down our toilets–is traditionally treated by sewage treatment plants before it can be reused. But such plants are expensive.
There is now growing awareness of a cheaper, more environmentally sustainable option to treat wastewater and that is to mimic how nature has always done it: through wetlands. Wetlands are considered to be the kidneys of an ecosystem, filtering and processing waste. It turns out constructed wetlands can work as well as natural ones and, when properly managed, can even be a tourist attraction.
FEATURING EVETTE DIONNE - As we head toward the end of the year, the latest issue of YES! Magazine is arriving in subscriber mailboxes and on newsstands centered on Elders, filled with stories on intergenerational housing and eldercare to the aging of Congress and Menopause. Today we’ll get a preview of the Winter 2024 issue of the solutions journalism outlet Rising Up host Sonali Kolhatkar works as racial justice editor and host of this program.
Read the full Elders issue starting on November 30 at yesmagazine.org and visit yesmagazine.org/subscribe to get your subscription started.
FEATURING ROSANNA LANDIS WEAVER - As workers around the United States are agitating for better wages and working conditions, a new report casts light on the gross overpaying of corporate CEOs. The shareholder advocacy group As You Sow, has released its 10th report on the most overpaid CEOs in the nation. The report’s findings undermine claims that high pay is incentive for better performance – logic that is rarely applied to low-wage workers.
FEATURING MEDEA BENJAMIN - Hundreds of journalists have signed onto a statement saying they condemn, “Israel's killing of journalists in Gaza and urge integrity in Western media coverage of Israel's atrocities against Palestinians.” U.S. media coverage of Israel’s brutal war on Gaza appears blatantly lop-sided, taking claims of the Israeli state at face value, while requiring “independent” verification of the atrocities that Palestinians are reporting. It’s a familiar pattern, says longtime peace and justice activist Medea Benjamin, who sees a strong link between uncritical media acceptance of the U.S.’s misdeeds in Iraq and coverage of what’s happening today in Gaza.
FEATURING SUSAN RINKUNAS - Ohio voters last week delivered a decisive victory for abortion rights in passing a ballot measure enshrining reproductive autonomy. Coming months after voters defeated a ballot measure seen as a proxy for anti-abortion conservatives, the vote was a strong indicator that Americans, even in states led by Republicans, oppose abortion bans. How did organizers approach Ohio’s abortion battle and what does it mean for the 2024 elections?
FEATURING FRANK HOPPER - Acclaimed filmmaker Martin Scorsese’s newest movie, Killers of the Flower Moon, has racked up more than $100 million at the box office and countless accolades. The film tells the story of white exploitation of members of the Osage Nation fueled by greed for oil money.
Starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert DeNiro as well as Indigenous actress Lily Gladstone, the film has also faced criticism for glorifying the murders of Osage Indians and telling the story through a white lens. Also missing, according to Indigenous writer Frank Hopper, is the issue of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women.
FEATURING KHURY PETERSEN-SMITH - There was a mass mobilization on Saturday November 4th in Washington D.C. and cities around the U.S. and world to demand an immediate ceasefire in Israel’s war on Gaza that has killed an estimated 10,000 people and counting. As opponents of the war grow in number, more than 5,000 Black activists, artists, scholars, students and over 150 organizations have signed a statement of Black Solidarity with Gaza. They include such luminaries as Angela Davis, Indya Moore, Marc Lamont Hill, Mumia Abu-Jamal, Robin D.G. Kelley and more.
FEATURING RUPA MARYA - Israel has admitted to responsibility for dropping a bomb on an ambulance outside Gaza’s largest hospital, Al-Shifa, claiming that Hamas forces were using it for transport. Gaza’s healthcare infrastructure is on the point of collapse as healthcare workers and facilities are stretched beyond capacity amidst an unfolding bloodbath, treating casualties with dwindling supplies and often no power.
In a new op-ed for YES! Magazine, physicians Ghassan Abu-Sitta and Rupa Marya, write, “This is an engineered catastrophe designed to maximize human suffering,” and that “The work of rehumanization is the medicine we urgently need.”
FEATURING ENRICO GNAULATI - Marriage, family, and domestic bliss are constant topics of discussion and debate in the U.S. From battles over marriage equality, the nuclear family, rising divorce rates, the rise of feminism, and conservative Christian insistence that traditional marriage is the bedrock of society, the discourse around intimate relationships is fraught with social, religious, and moral notions of love.
Further, conservatives such as Congress’s new Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson in particular, have used scriptural views of family and marriage as cover for homophobia and transphobia.
Now, a clinical psychologist brings decades of experience, both professional and personal, to readers in a new book about sustaining long-term relationships while rejecting organized religion’s view of morality. Enrico Gnaulati’s latest book is Flourishing Love: A Secular Guide to Lasting Intimate Relationships.
FEATURING DR. RICHELLE BROOKS - The Debt Collective, a debtors union, recently announced that it had canceled $10 million of student loans at Morehouse College, a historically Black university in Atlanta. After buying up the debts for a mere $125,000, the organization then forgave that debt. Debt collection agencies are allowed to buy bundled debts for pennies on the dollar.
Black borrowers are disproportionately impacted by student debt, both in terms of need and the ability to pay off loans. President Joe Biden made student debt forgiveness a major campaign promise but the U.S. Supreme Court earlier this year blocked his plan after Republican lawmakers filed a lawsuit against it.
FEATURING LES LEOPOLD - Unionized auto workers appear to have reached a tentative agreement with the Big Three automakers based in Detroit. After weeks of creative strategizing around strikes and setting high standards for their contract negotiations, manufacturers have agreed to many, but not all of United Auto Workers (UAW)’s demands including hefty wage increases, cost of living adjustments, and an elimination of a two-tiered hiring system.
Part of the union’s victory includes an agreement secured with GM in early October to bring electric car battery facilities under UAW’s national contract. Labor analyst Les Leopold sees this as critical to what climate justice organizers have for years been calling a “just transition” away from fossil fuels.
FEATURING ELENA NOVAK - When Hurricane Ian hit Florida in late September 2022, it took more than a hundred lives, becoming the deadliest storm to hit the U.S. since Katrina in 2005. Hurricane Ian also caused the most financial damage in Florida of any storm in history, becoming the third costliest in the U.S. as a whole, and resulting in a massive loss of housing.
In a state where developers were engaged in predatory behavior even before the storm, how have people been rebuilding in the intersection between climate change and disaster capitalism?
FEATURING LINDSAY KOSHGARIAN - When President Joe Biden addressed the American public from the Oval office on October 19th, he made the case for renewed aid to Israel by saying that it was vital to national security and that “American leadership is what holds the world together.” He gave his remarks ahead of a request to Congress for more than $105 billion in supplemental military aid to Ukraine and Israel.
So far Israel has killed more than 4,000 people in Gaza, including hundreds of Palestinian children. Writing for the National Priorities Project, Lindsay Koshgarian says, “In the face of massive suffering in Gaza and disregard for international law by the Israeli government, the U.S. must not provide additional military aid or weapons that would cause more deaths.”
FEATURING NORMAN SOLOMON - In his remarks to the American public on October 19, 2023, President Joe Biden said, “history has taught us that when terrorists don’t pay a price for their terror, when dictators don’t pay a price for their aggression, they cause more chaos and death and more destruction.”
Biden was referring to the Palestinian militia known as Hamas which carried out a series of deadly attacks inside Israel on October 7th. But Norman Solomon says that if Hamas is a terrorist organization, then, “the same description fits the Israeli government.” Why is language so important when discussing this war?
FEATURING MARJORIE KELLY - The U.S. economic system is facing increasing scrutiny for the wealth inequality it has generated and continues to worsen. A significant part of the stranglehold that our current form of capitalism has is cultural: the idea that when stock prices are booming and the Dow Jones is high, the economy is healthy and therefore ordinary Americans are thriving. But, applying a clarifying lens to the prevailing economic model reveals that we live under a system of what Marjorie Kelly calls “Wealth Supremacy.”
FEATURING STEPHEN ZUNES - The Israeli Army has issued evacuation orders to people living in Northern Gaza, demanding that they immediately relocate to Southern Gaza in anticipation of a deadly ground escalation of war. Israel’s latest war is in retaliation for a series of attacks by Hamas aimed at Israeli civilians that killed well over a thousand people and trapped about 100 hostages. So far, Israel’s air attacks on Gaza have been indiscriminate, also apparently targeting civilians. Over the weekend there were mass protests in cities around the world supporting Palestinian rights. Today we’ll examine what’s unfolding in Israel and Gaza through the lens of international law.
FEATURING DR. BETTINA LOVE - In 1983, an educational commission formed under President Ronald Reagan released a 35-page report called A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform. That report laid the groundwork for decades of reform, many of which remain in place today.
In a new book, Punished for Dreaming, Dr. Bettina Love lays out how, “a thirty- five-page educational report manufactured an educational crisis of catastrophic proportions that destroyed generations of Black families”- a crisis that combined the educational industry with the prison industry. To remedy the harm, Dr. Love calls for an implementation of “educational reparations.”
FEATURING SAURAV SARKAR - Unionized auto workers remain on strike against the so-called Big Three manufacturers in the U.S. leading a growing labor movement. United Auto Workers (UAW) has been extraordinarily effective at keeping GM, Ford and Stellantis off guard with clever tactics such as unannounced local strikes, leaking false information about where strike activity is taking place, and taking advantage of automakers’ complex supply chains. Writing about it in The Progressive is journalist Saurav Sarkar.
FEATURING SANDRA TAMARI - A recent assault by Hamas on a music festival in Israel has left hundreds dead and is considered the worst attack on civilians in Israeli history. Israeli forces have been attacking Gaza in retaliation, flattening entire neighborhoods and destroying schools. It’s a deadly but familiar formula that has prompted the Biden administration to declare this Hamas attack as “different” from earlier ones but resulted in the same equation of unequivocal U.S. support for the state of Israel.
FEATURING GREGORY SHUPAK - Massive flooding in the eastern Libyan city of Derna has resulted in thousands of people dead. Initial estimates placed the death toll at 11.300 but that number has since been revised down to just under 4,000 with 9,000 still missing. The devastation has been linked to the bursting of two dams when the massive Storm Daniel caused flooding.
In aiming to unearth why the death toll was so high, Western media outlets described Libya’s disastrous and on-going war–but with little mention of the role of the West, and specifically NATO.
FEATURING YEW - Every month there seems to be new data about the deadly impact of fossil fuel use on the climate. With no question whatsoever that we are experiencing dangerous climate chaos, the business-as-usual ethos of elected officials and corporate executives is hard to fathom–especially for young people whose future is in jeopardy.
Now, a youth-led group called Climate Defiance has vowed to forcefully confront those responsible saying, “If people in power will not save us, we will save ourselves.” Organizers with Climate Defiance have publicly confronted officials such as Carla Frisch, a top aide to Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, Tommy Beaudreau, Deputy Secretary of the Interior Department, and White House Climate Advisor Ali Zaidi.
FEATURING RON KNOX - The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and 17 U.S. states have just brought a long-awaited, groundbreaking, antitrust lawsuit against the online retail giant Amazon. Led by FTC chair Lina Khan, who only a few years ago wrote a powerful and now-famous law school paper arguing for a breakup of Amazon, the suit charges the tech company with illegally maintaining a monopoly at the expense of small businesses and consumers.
FEATURING TRACY DROZ TRAGOS - A new documentary called Plan C shines a light on the urgent work done by reproductive justice activists to get abortion pills into the hands of those who need it. In light of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the Roe V. Wade precedent, and growing conservative backlash to the abortion pill, the film’s message is timely and powerful. Plan C will be in theaters across the nation on October 6th, 2023.
FEATURING CLAUDIA MAGAÑA - Labor organizing in the United States is on the rise. According to the Washington Post, “July was one of the busiest months for strikes in three decades.” But, alongside the uptick in union activity is a sharp increase in employer-retaliations against organizing workers. The Labor Department reports that the number of unfair labor practice charges brought against employers increased by 16% in the first half of the fiscal year. Republican Senator Tim Scott underscored this practice with his recent comment, "You strike, you're fired."
A case in point is Amazon, one of the nation’s largest employers, which contracts with thousands of smaller delivery companies. Earlier this year 84 workers with a contractor named Battle Tested Strategies in Southern California made history by joining the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. In spite of the fact that Amazon had an active contract with the delivery company, it ended the contract. Now, in response to what is being called a “national worker retaliation crisis,” the group called Unemployed Workers United has launched the “Fired Up!” campaign.
FEATURING MICHAEL HARRIOT - What happens when a Black analyst and historian applies the same sort of historical and cultural lens to white Americans that whites have viewed Black people through? For example, what if, rather than “intrepid conquerors,” the first white settlers of the United States were more accurately viewed as incompetent thieving cannibals? That’s the kind of approach to history that Michael Harriot takes us through in his new book, BLACK AF HISTORY: The Un-Whitewashed Story of America.
FEATURING TARA RAGHUVEER - Wall Street firms have, for years, been eagerly buying up single family homes, offering enough cash to snatch them out of the hands of potential mortgage holders and then renting them out to people. To maximize profits, naturally these companies have been raising rents, making housing unaffordable. Advocacy groups around the country have pushed rent control measures, saying it’s the only way to ensure affordable housing. People’s Action has just released a memo countering the standard opposition to rent control and offering concrete examples where it has worked.
FEATURING AMIRA MATTAR - In spite of the fact that former president Donald Trump is facing many dozens of criminal charges and is scheduled for several trials between now and the next election, he is determined to resume residency at the White House. The Republican voter base is equally determined to support him. But, legal scholars contend that because he led an insurrection against the United States, he is disqualified from holding office under section 3 of the 14th amendment. To that end, Free Speech for Peopleis leading a campaign in multiple states to disqualify Trump from the ballot.
FEATURING LIZ GIEL - As GOP politicians bank on homophobic and transphobic rhetoric, policies, and laws to score political points and garner votes, a new study examines the impact such legislation has on gender expansive workers. It turns out that the vast majority of such workers feel that anti-transgender laws affect their mental health. More than half say the increase in anti-LGBTQ laws impact their ability to do their jobs. What can workplaces do to improve the environment for gender expansive workers?
FEATURING JUSTIN BLAKE - This summer more heat-related records were broken, hurricanes and major floods caused severe damage, and wildfires devastated towns. Still, President Joe Biden, who has promised to be proactive on climate justice, has refused to declare a climate emergency, saying he has “practically” done so. On Sunday September 17th, thousands of climate activists plan to descend on New York City for the March to End Fossil Fuels. The march takes place days before the United Nations Climate Ambition Summit in the city.
FEATURING CEDRIC DE LEON - Autoworkers are readying themselves for a potential strike as contract negotiations with the so-called “Big Three” drag on. The United Auto Workers (UAW) is negotiating on behalf of nearly 150,000 workers at Detroit-based auto manufacturing plants run by Ford, GM, and Stellantis NV. On the face of it, UAW’s demands sound audacious: a 46 percent pay raise and a four-day workweek, among other things. But given the decades-long decline in labor rights and wages, is it unreasonable?
FEATURING ARMANDO IBAÑEZ - Hollywood has always had a serious problem of racial representation. A white dominated narrative-setting industry has been especially problematic in its portrayal of immigrants and Latinx people, more often than not, casting them as domestic help or drug traffickers and criminals. Independent filmmaker Armando Ibañez, is breaking such boundaries with his award winning web series Undocumented Tales, now in its newly released 4th season.
FEATURING LINDSAY TOCZYLOWSKI - The state of Texas has been sending hundreds of migrants by bus to Los Angeles in what appears to be a political stunt. This past Sunday, L.A. received the 12th bus from Texas since mid-June. Immigrant rights organizations who are receiving the migrants, say there were 11 families hailing from Colombia, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Venezuela and Russia, and that about half the bus’s occupants were children. The goal of Republican governors like Texas’ Greg Abbott seems to be to force cities that have declared themselves “Sanctuary cities,” to disavow their compassionate stand of welcoming migrants. The opposite seems to have happened.
FEATURING MERITH BASEY - The cost of prescription drugs have long been out of control in the United States, with the federal government being barred from using its buying power to negotiate down sticker prices. Now, thanks to a provision in the Inflation Reduction Act, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services can begin negotiating lower drug prices. But pharmaceutical companies are already fighting back, with numerous lawsuits, placements of op-eds, and support from conservative lawmakers.
FEATURING GRACE COTANGCO - We live in an era of global warming. Although climate change is often described in global terms, its effects are localized and tend to disproportionately affect low-income communities of color who are less likely to live next to parks and more likely to live next to industrial sources of pollution. A growing movement for what’s being called “park equity” is working to ensure fairness in the distribution of green spaces and all the health benefits they provide.
FEATURING CHRIS WINTERS - The first Republican Party candidate debate for the 2024 presidential election featured Donald Trump in spirit but not in person. Most of the gathered candidates raised their hands when asked if they would support the former president if he were to win their party’s nomination–they would do so even if he is convicted of crimes. Trump faces a whopping 91 felony charges.
YES! Magazine’s Senior Editor Chris Winters writes that if that sounds like a lot, “it’s because Donald Trump was excessive in committing crimes in multiple jurisdictions.”
FEATURING EVETTE DIONNE - The newest issue of YES! Magazine is arriving in subscriber mailboxes and on newsstands now, chock full of stories and ideas revolving around the idea of “Growth.” Today we’ll get a preview of the Fall 2023 issue of the solutions journalism outlet where Rising Up host Sonali Kolhatkar works as racial justice and civil liberties editor.
Read the full Growth issue starting on August 31 at yesmagazine.org and visit yesmagazine.org/subscribe to get your subscription started.
GUEST: Evette Dionne, Executive Editor at YES! Media where she leads YES! Magazine. She is the former editor-in-chief at Bitch Media, and an award-winning journalist, pop culture critic, and magazine editor who covers culture and politics through the lenses of race, gender, class, and size. Her newest book, Weightless: Making Space for My Resilient Body and Soul, was published in December 2022 and her earlier book is Lifting As We Climb, which was longlisted for a National Book Award and won a Coretta Scott King author honor.
Fri, 25 Aug 2023
2766 - Florida Forces Schools to Whitewash Slavery and White Supremacy
FEATURING JESSE HOLLAND - Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is waging a war on history. In 2021 and 2022, DeSantis championed the so-called “Stop WOKE Act,” to undermine “woke indoctrination” and a “Marxist-inspired curriculum” in schools. Now, the Florida Board of Education this summer released new standards for teaching history in middle schools that whitewash slavery and uplift white supremacist patriarchy. Florida students will potentially be exposed to instruction that claims, “slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.” Further, the state has approved videos made by the ultra conservative Christian fundamentalist outlet PragerU.
FEATURING DEDRICK ASANTE-MUHAMMAD - It’s been 60 years since Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his iconic "I Have a Dream" speech at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. King noted that Black Americans live, “on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity.”
While there have been gains made since 1963 on the question of closing the racial wealth gap, there is still a long way to go. A new report released jointly by the Institute for Policy Studies and the National Community Reinvestment Coalition finds that without policy interventions, it could take African Americans more than 500 more years to achieve economic parity with whites.
FEATURING GABRIELA BARZALLO - Ecuador’s democracy is in deep trouble: Just days ago, Fernando Villavicencio, a member of the National legislature and a presidential candidate was assassinated in broad daylight. The shocking incident has highlighted Ecuador’s booming drug war. It has also eclipsed a political battle over climate justice. Not only will voters pick a new president on August 20th, but also decide on a ballot measure that allows for a major fossil fuel reserve to be left unextracted.
FEATURING KANIELA ING - Nearly a hundred people have so far been documented to have died in the devastating wildfires that swept the Hawaiian island of Maui, making it one of the deadliest such disasters in U.S. history. Federal agencies are pledging assistance even as survivors are desperately looking for loved ones or struggling to find lodging and other necessities. The historic town of Lahaina in particular, has been completely destroyed, the fires consuming precious artifacts alongside lives.
FEATURING COREY BRETTSCHNEIDER - Former President Donald Trump has been indicted yet again, in what may be the most consequential case he faces amid his myriad federal and state charges. Alongside the government’s bid to prosecute all those involved in the January 6th insurrection on the Capitol, Trump, as the leader of the mob, now faces charges related to his attempted overturning of the 2020 election results. The four felony charges include conspiring to defraud the government, witness tampering, conspiring against the rights of citizens, and obstructing an official proceeding. The former president was arrested and arraigned on Thursday.
FEATURING THOM HARTMANN - We think of democracy as a relatively recent idea that has taken root only in the last few hundred years of human civilization. But in a new book Thom Hartmann explains that in fact democracy is “the default state of virtually every animal species on Earth, and humanity is no exception.” Dictatorship, fascism, and authoritarianism are unnatural states, wrought by consolidation of disproportionate power, wealth or resources.
📖On Monday August 7th at 7 pm, Rising Up host Sonali Kolhatkar will discuss her new book Rising Up: The Power of Narrative in Pursuing Racial Justice at Powell's Books, 1005 W. Burnside St. in Portland, Oregon. This is an IN-PERSON event.
FEATURING VARIOUS WRITERS AND ACTORS - Hundreds of thousands of creative workers in the film and television industry are currently flexing their labor power. For the first time in more than 60 years, the Writers Guild of America (WGA) and SAG-AFTRA, the actors’ union, are striking simultaneously. Filming has halted mid-production and press junkets are on hold. At the heart of the unions’ conflict with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), which represents all the major entertainment media corporations, are the issues of royalty payments—known as residuals—and the use of artificial intelligence (AI). On Wednesday July 26th, Rising Up host Sonali Kolhatkar spent the morning at a picket line with striking writers and actors in Burbank, California, outside Disney headquarters and asked them why their unions were striking and how Hollywood workers are struggling even as corporate studios are thriving.
FEATURING CHELSEA HIGGS WISE - Hundreds of movement leaders, activists, organizers, funders, and journalists gathered in Atlanta, Georgia in June 2023 at Alight, Align, Arise, an invitation-only conference on reparations organized by the Decolonizing Wealth Project. As the conference’s media partner, YES! Media spoke with more than a dozen prominent organizers, activists, and leaders, among them was Chelsea Higgs Wise, a Virginia-based activist and the co-Founder and Executive Director of Marijuana Justice and creator and co-host of a podcast called Race Capitol.
FEATURING KENDRICK SAMPSON - Hundreds of movement leaders, activists, organizers, funders, and journalists gathered in Atlanta, Georgia in June 2023 at Alight, Align, Arise, an invitation-only conference on reparations organized by the Decolonizing Wealth Project. As the conference’s media partner, YES! Media spoke with more than a dozen prominent organizers, activists, and leaders, among them was actor and activist Kendrick Sampson, known for his work on Insecure and The Vampire Diaries. He has been active with Black Lives Matter and is the Founder and President of Build Power, a non-profit organization that engages with athletes and entertainers to use their platform to advance radical social change and dismantle systemic oppression.
FEATURING BLAIR BOWIE - Tens of thousands of American voters have seen their right to vote restored over the past year in states around the country. These are folks who have had felony convictions and were once upon a time barred from ever voting again. But painstaking work by activists, advocates, lawyers, and family members, has resulted in multiple states restoring voting rights. How did this happen? And which states are continuing to hold out?
Conversations ABC listen
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