A Public Affair

Philip Berrigan, American peace activist and Catholic priest, is remembered as courageous example of nonviolent resistance. Beginning in 1968, Berrigan organized against war, systemic racism, materialism, destruction of the environment, and nuclear weapons. His unyielding stances led to imprisonment and excommunication from the Catholic church.

In the recently published  A Ministry of Risk: Philip Berrigan’s Writings on Peace and Nonviolence, editor Brad Wolf has compiled a collection of writings. Wolf asks readers to consider what insights Berrigan’s writings offer into the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, the climate crisis, a fraying social safety net, and desperate refugees at our southern border.

Wolf joins A Public Affair host Bert Zipperer to discuss the life and legacy of Philip Berrigan as well as the intersection of faith and resistance.

Brad Wolf is executive director and co-founder of Peace Action Network of Lancaster, Pennsylvania. A former lawyer, prosecutor, professor and community college dean, he writes for various publications.

The post What Philip Berrigan Taught Us About Peace and Nonviolence appeared first on WORT-FM 89.9.

A 2019 study found that Wisconsin is has one of the worst racial disparities for Black children in the US. How does that pan out for student’s living in Madison? Importantly, what is the actual experience for Black people who get their education at our schools?

Today we are spending the hour with a group of Black scholars who are working to expose a more complete history of Black Madisonians’ experiences in education. In that work, the Black Madison Voices Project aims to advance anti-racist curriculum, policies, and practices in our K-12 and higher-learning institutions. At the heart of the project are interviews with Black folks who went to school in Madison.

Five members of the group join host Ali Muldrow to discuss why they got involved and what they have learned from interviewees so far. 

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About our guests:

Dr. Maxine McKinney de Royston is an Associate Professor at UW-Madison in the Department of Curriculum & Instruction.  Her teaching and scholarship focus on developing and sustaining learning spaces that support the intellectual thriving and holistic well-being of Black students.

Ruby Bafu is a 6th year PhD candidate in Sociology studying students’ experiences in online learning spaces. 

Jalessa Bryant is a doctoral candidate in the Multicultural Education area of the Curriculum and Instruction Department at UW-Madison.

Dr. Aireale J. Rodgers is an Anna Julia Cooper Fellow and Assistant Professor of Higher Education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis department.

Yanika Davis is a second year Master of Public Health student at the UW School of Medicine and Public Health.

The post Amplifying Black Voices in Madison: Individual Classroom Experiences appeared first on WORT-FM 89.9.

April is National Poetry Month and as we approach the end of the month, we turn to the poets in our community. Host Douglas Haynes is joined by former Wisconsin Poet Laureate Kimberly Blaeser, current Madison Poet Laureate Steven Espada Dawson, and current Wisconsin Poet Laureate Nicholas Gulig. We hear a poem from each and discuss poetry in community, the impact of a poet laureateship, and what it’s like to be, as Steven puts it, poetry’s cheerleaders.

Event mentioned during the show:

You can learn more and register for the event here.

Kimberly Blaeser, past Wisconsin Poet Laureate and founding director of In-Na-Po—Indigenous Nations Poets, is a writer, photographer, and scholar. She is the author of six poetry collections including Ancient Light, Copper Yearning, and the bilingual Résister en dansant/Ikwe-niimi: Dancing Resistance. Blaeser edited Traces in Blood, Bone, and Stone: Contemporary Ojibwe Poetry and wrote the monograph Gerald Vizenor: Writing in the Oral Tradition. Her photographs, picto-poems, and ekphrastic pieces have appeared in exhibits such as “Visualizing Sovereignty,” and “No More Stolen Sisters.” An Anishinaabe activist and environmentalist, she is an enrolled member of White Earth Nation and grew up on the reservation. The 2024 Mackey Chair in Creative Writing at Beloit College and a Vassar College Tatlock Fellow, Blaeser is a Professor Emerita at UW–Milwaukee and an MFA faculty member for Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe. Her accolades include a Lifetime Achievement Award from Native Writers’ Circle of the Americas. Blaeser splits her time between her home in rural Wisconsin and a water-access cabin near the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in Minnesota.

Steven Espada Dawson is a writer from East Los Angeles. The son of a Mexican immigrant, he received his MFA from Purdue University, where he studied under Kaveh Akbar, Marianne Boruch, Roxane Gay, Terese Marie Mailhot, and Donald Platt. He has served as a poetry editor for Sycamore Review and Copper Nickel. Recipient of a Pushcart Prize (XLVII), his recent poems have appeared in AGNI, Colorado Review, Gulf Coast, Kenyon Review, POETRY, and Waxwing. He is a 2021 Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Fellow and the ’22 – ’23 Jay C. and Ruth Halls Fellow in Poetry at UW–Madison’s Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing, where he teaches creative writing. He is the Poet Laureate of Madison, WI.

Nicholas Gulig is a Thai American poet from Wisconsin. He is the author of Orient (Cleveland State University Poetry Center, 2018), winner of the 2017 CSU Poetry Center Open Book Competition; Book of Lake (CutBank, 2016); and North of Order (YesYes Books, 2015). In 2011, Gulig was the recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship to Bangkok. He is also a recipient of the Ruskin Art Club Poetry Award, the Black Warrior Review Poetry Prize, and the Grist’s ProForma Award. Gulig is an associate professor of languages and literatures at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater and lives in Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin. In 2023, he was appointed poet laureate of Wisconsin through 2024. In 2023, Gulig received an Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellowship.

Image by cromaconceptovisual from Pixabay

The post For the Love of Poetry appeared first on WORT-FM 89.9.

Friday morning, Israel attacked Iran in the latest of mutual attacks. The first was an Israeli attack on April 1st of Iran’s embassy compound in Syria. Then on April 13th, Iran conducted a retaliatory strike of numerous missiles and drones, most of which were intercepted. These attacks have us all wondering if a Middle East-wide war is impending. 

Joining host Esty Dinur to talk about the likely hood of a regional war is journalist Richard Silverstein and International Crisis Group‘s Joost Hiltermann.  

Richard  Silverstein is an independent journalist who reports on Israeli national security affairs, including the Israel-Palestine and Israel-Iran conflicts.  He has published the Tikun Olam blog for the past 20 years.

Joost R. Hiltermann is Program Director, Middle East & North Africa for International Crisis Group.  Tthe International Crisis Group is an independent NGO dedicated to preventing deadly conflict. Hiltermann is author of A Poisonous Affair: America, Iraq, and the Gassing of Halabja (Cambridge, 2007), and Behind the Intifada: Labor and Women’s Movements in the Occupied Territories (Princeton, 1991).

Image by BockoPix on Flickr, used under Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike Creative Commons License.

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While campus protests over Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza have continued in recent months, so have attacks on academic freedom and free speech at universities across the U.S. In his recent piece for Truth Out, “Israel Has Formed a Task Force to Carry Out Covert Campaigns at US Universities” activist and scholar William I. Robinson argues that the attacks are part of an Israeli government campaign to shape US public opinion and neutralize opposition to Israel’s war.

Robinson points to a report by Israeli news outlet Ynetnews, that says the government is behind the covert campaign to harass and intimate students, campus journalists, faculty, and administration. He tells A Public Affair, “The  intent is to crush any dissent on U.S. campuses, any attempt at solidarity with Palestine, any attempt to oppose the genocide that’s being carried out.”

William I. Robinson  is an American professor of sociology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He’s the author of a number of books including Can Global Capitalism Endure? (Clarity Press, 2022) and Global Civil War: Capitalism Post-Pandemic (PM Press, 2022).

Photo by Ian Hutchinson on Unsplash

The post Who is Behind the Crackdown on Campus Free Speech? appeared first on WORT-FM 89.9.

Project 2025 is a sweeping policy blueprint for the first 180 days of next Republican president, written by the Heritage Foundation and supported by more than 80 conservative organizations. The goal of the plan is to “rescue the country from the grip of the radical Left.”

The Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) calls the plan a threat to our democracy. President and cofounder Wendy Via joins host Nate Carlin to talk about the more than nine hundred page agenda. She argues that we have not recovered from the 2016 to 2020 presidency. “The idea that Americans can take for granted that our institutions will hold, that our democracy is so solid that nothing can happen to it. I think that is a mistake,” she tells listeners. “I do not want people to be afraid–I just want people to exercise their rights within our democratic process. Is it possible for a right wing president to get into office and destroy a lot of our democratic foundations? I think the answer is yes”

Wendy Via is an expert in the intersection of technology and far-right extremism and the effect on democracy as well as in achieving change and influencing narratives and actions around some of the most pressing civil and human rights issues of our time, including far-right extremism, systemic racism, economic inequality, immigration, criminal justice reform, and LGBTQ+ rights.

Image by David Peterson from Pixabay

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A 2017 Pew Research survey found that a quarter of Black Americans had faced online harassment due to their race or ethnicity. As our society moves more and more online, how do we cope with this reality?

In his new book, When the Hood Comes Off: Racism and Resistance in the Digital Age, Dr. Rob Eschmann analyzes a wealth of data, interviews with students of color, and millions of social media posts to unpack the influence of online communication on face-to-face interactions. He joins host Ali Muldrow to discuss online racism and the way people choose to respond to it. 

Dr. Rob Eschmann is a writer, educator, filmmaker, and scholar from Chicago. He is an Associate Professor at the Columbia University School of Social Work and a Faculty Associate at at Harvard’s Berkman-Klein Center for Internet & Society. Rob wrote and directed “Choose Your Own Resistance”, an immersive, multi-perspective film about choosing to challenge racism. Additionally he writes on educational inequality, community violence, racism, social media, and youth wellbeing.

The post Facing Online Racism, Harassments, and Micro Aggressions appeared first on WORT-FM 89.9.

Last week, President Biden unveiled his latest student loan forgiveness proposal while speaking at Madison College. He described a plan that would cancel debt for anyone who began repaying undergraduate loans more than 20 years ago and would cancel accrued interest for some borrowers.

Carole Trone and Benjamin Lee from the Wisconsin Coalition on Student Debt join host Douglas Haynes to talk about the proposed plan and the broader issues around student debt. The coalition is a nonprofit that aims to clarify student debt, college affordability, and loan repayment.

For confidential assistance, the Wisconsin Coalition on Student Debt help line can be reached at 833-589-0750. You can ask questions by email at [email protected]

Additional support for student loan debt can be found at studentaid.gov

Carole Trone is the Interim Executive Director of the Coalition and Executive Director of Fair Opportunity Project, a nationally focused and student-led nonprofit organization with a mission to empower students to access and afford college. Prior to this role, she served as Senior Vice President for Educational Services at the Wisconsin Association of Independent Colleges and Universities. She earned a Ph.D. in Educational Policy Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and has taught and served in various roles there. Carole earned her undergraduate degree from Wesleyan University and is originally from Washington, D.C.

Benjamin Lee is a board member of the Wisconsin Coalition on Student Debt. He is also Associate Counsel at Ascendium Education Group, a nonprofit organization making education and training beyond high school a reality for more people. Benjamin’s focus includes compliance, bankruptcy, incident response, and risk management, and he is a frequent trainer and presenter on student loans. Benjamin received his law degree from the University of Minnesota, where he studied nonprofit, corporate, and consumer law, and took on student loans of his own.

Photo by Dylan Gillis on Unsplash

The post The State of Student Loan Debt appeared first on WORT-FM 89.9.

“We do not believe that we can sit by and watch as people are being slaughtered, as children are being starved to death, and as our governments refuse to do anything about it–except, you know, maybe some strong words here and there. We have a responsibility as global civil society to take actions when our governments fail, and we are going to do everything that we can to make sure that we are protected as much as possible.”

That is human rights attorney and social justice activist Huwaida Arraf talking about the upcoming Gaza Freedom Flotilla. She will be on traveling into Gaza on the flotilla which depart later this month. Cassandra Dixon, Madison-based activist, will also be on the flotilla.Their aim is to deliver 5,500 tons of humanitarian aid. Huwaida and Cassandra join host Esty Dinur to talk about logistics, risks, and motivations behind the trip.

Huwaida joined us in June 2010 after a flotilla led by Mavi Marmara that was attacked by Israeli forces. We played a short clip during the show, and the full episode can be heard here:

Then, we turn our attention to war tax resistance as the proposed federal budget for fiscal year 2025 allots nearly $850 billion for the Department of Defense.  The National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee (NWTRCC) says they oppose militarism and war and refuse to be complicit in paying taxes for such violence Esty talks with Paula Rogge who has been practicing war tax resistance for 39 years and organizes with NWTRCC. 

Event mentioned during the show: The Madison-Rafah Sister City Project hosting Commemorating the Life of Rachel Corrie, on April 14th at 944 E. Gorham St from 1:30pm to 3:30 pm.

About our guests:

Huwaida Arraf is a Palestinian-American civil/human rights attorney and social justice activist. She has been involved in numerous legal and grassroots initiatives for Palestinian rights for the last two decades, including co-founding the Nobel Peace Prize-nominated International Solidarity Movement (ISM), and leading the Free Gaza Movement, which organized sea voyages to Gaza to confront and challenge Israel’s illegal blockade on the two million Palestinians living there. Huwaida currently practices civil rights law in Detroit and was a 2022 candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives for Michigan’s 10th Congressional District. 

Cassandra Dixon is 65 and lives in Wisconsin, US, at a small catholic worker house providing overnight hospitality to women and children visiting a nearby federal prison.at Oxford, Wisconsin. She works as a residential carpenter in Madison and has volunteered regularly in the West Bank since 2006, helping to accompany schoolchildren and farming families whose lives have been impacted by the construction and expansion between their villages. She is a member of Madison Rafah Sister City Project, and has been involved in many events to raise funds for humanitarian aid, as well as congressional visits and other efforts to call for a ceasefire.

Dr. Paula Rogge is a board-certified family physician and former clinical assistant professor in the UW Department of Family Medicine. Since medical school, she has worked to educate the public about the importance of nuclear disarmament. She is a member of Physicians, Health Professionals and Concerned Citizens for Social Responsibility Wisconsin, the Interfaith Peace Working Group and the Friends Meeting of Madison. Over the last several years, she has been speaking out about the adverse health effects of the F35 fighter jet on East side residents. Since October of 2023, she has protested the US government’s role in providing financial and military support to Israel’s war on Gaza. She has been a war tax resister for 39 years, “redirecting” federal income taxes from war to organizations that feed and house people, that work for peace and justice.

Featured image from US Boats to Gaza.

The post We Can’t Stand By and Watch: Gaza Freedom Flotilla and War Tax R... appeared first on WORT-FM 89.9.

Following the October 7th Hamas attack on Israel, stories of horrifying atrocities against civilians spread through the media. Many of the most horrendous stories came from Zaka, an Israeli search-and-rescue organization. Some of these accounts have since been refuted by respected Israeli sources, but their reach has gone beyond a simple news correction.

Investigative journalist Arun Gupta joins Allen Ruff to talk about fabrications, rape claims, and the dehumanization cause by propaganda. They talk at depth about Gupta’s Intercept piece “American Media Keep Citing Zaka — Though its October 7 Atrocity Stories are Discredited in Israel”  and his YES! piece “Claims of Mass Rape by Hamas Unravel Upon Investigation.”

Note to listeners: this interview involves discussion of very violent and disturbing allegations.

Arun Gupta is a journalist who has written for the Washington Post, The Nation, YES!, Raw Story, The Guardian, and Jacobin. He is a graduate of the French Culinary Institute in New York and author of the upcoming “Bacon as a Weapon of Mass Destruction: A Junk Food-Loving Chef’s Inquiry Into Taste” (The New Press).

Image by 01x07x2022000 on Wikimedia used under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.

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