Making Contact

Today on Making Contact, we present the film Mirrors of Privilege: Making Whiteness Visible. The film takes us on the transformational journey of white men and women who overcome issues of unconscious bias and entitlement. Producer, Dr. Shakti Butler explores what is required to move through stages of denial, to awareness, to making a solid commitment to end racial injustice.

"Honorable people can do terrible things" says Andrea Pitzer in her book "One Long Night: A Global History of Concentration Camps." We talk to Andrea Pitzer about her research as she traces the evolution of the camp, from its earliest incarnation in Cuba to its modern day forms in China, Burma and Guantanamo. What is a concentration camp? Why are they so deadly? And most importantly, what do we do to fight them?

Today, a divided nation experiences one of the most tumultuous presidential transitions in US history. Leaders from marginalized communities across the nation are watching, with cautious optimism, as Biden and Harris seek to tackle several serious crises amid a raging pandemic.

This year on making contact, instead of our normal end of year show commemorating movement leaders we've lost, and highlighting their work, we remember victims of police murders who didn't receive as much coverage, and activists who succumbed to COVID-19.

The Trump administration has issued numerous policies to systematically dismantle asylum as a legal right. They're also locking up asylum seekers for months or years, until they either win their case, are returned to their home countries, or self deport. Reporters Valeria Fernández and Jude Joffe-Block follow two asylum seekers as they endure detention, legal cases, and family separation in the US, where they sought refuge.

2020 was a tumultuous year rocked by two twin plagues: police violence which led to the George Floyd protests and continued discussions about police brutality and of course the novel disease COVID-19. Normally here at Making Contact, we look back on movement leaders we've lost over the year in order to pay them tribute and honor their lifetime of work. But this year, we're commemorating those we've lost to police killings who might not have received as much media coverage in part one of our show, and in part two, we remember organizers and activists who died because of COVID.

According to the CDC, Blacks and Latinos are 3 times as likely to die from COVID as their white counterparts. This disproportionate harm has sparked a response from community organizers and researchers alike. Up next on Making Contact we turn our attention to those Americans who are bearing the brunt of the coronavirus fallout.

On this episode of Making Contact, we look at the privatization of our earth's most precious resource – water. People around the world have been organizing against this privatization in the face of climate change and rising sea levels that threaten to contaminate our limited drinking water supplies.

Three years after Hurricane Maria hit, Puerto Ricans are still reeling from its effects and aftereffects. We bring you a Haymarket Books talk by Marisol LeBrón, Yarimar Bonilla, and Molly Crabapple, on a collection of essays called "Aftershocks of Disaster: Puerto Rico Before and After the Storm" which discusses the legacy of Maria, and also community organizing in the face of government abandonment. This piece includes clips from the Short Film : "Aftershocks of Disaster," directed by Juan C. Dávila, and produced by Yarimar Bonilla.

Most of us have a home to shelter in place during COVID -19. But what about the homeless? We take a look at life on the street before COVID-19, following two women as they undergo several evictions from encampments. And then we talk about the specific challenges the homeless face during COVID-19 and what we can do to fix the housing crisis.