Counter Stories

Two Afghan organizers join the Counter Stories crew to give us a brief lesson on the history of Afghanistan and colonization. We talk about the US interference that caused the recent Taliban takeover of Kabul and how it is impacting the vast Afghan diaspora. Guests: Nasreen Sajady, Arash Yousufi

In the fourth segment of our policymakers series, Representative Jamie Becker-Finn joins the crew to discuss how she’s disrupting the cycle of trauma through her work. She authored the Healthy Start Act, granting more parental rights to incarcerated expecting mothers.

In our third installment, Rep. Carlos Mariani highlights some of the initiatives he led and continues to lead at the Minnesota House of Representatives

We’re celebrating hometown hero Sunisa Lee, the first Hmong-American to compete at the Olympics. She held a whole community, a team, and the country on her shoulders. We talk about the pressures and barriers for athletes like Sunisa and Simone Biles.

In our second installment, Rep. Ruth Richardson returns to highlight some of the initiatives she led and continues to lead at the Minnesota House of Representatives this past season.

In our newest series, the Counter Stories crew talks with Minnesota Representative Ruth Richardson about her journey to the House and the passing of one of her bills: Dignity in Pregnancy and Childbirth Act.

The crew digs into another element of Indigenous trauma: boarding schools. More and more bodies of children sent to these boarding schools are being discovered, shedding more light on the intentional erasing of Indigenous language and culture.

Communities of color often navigate questions of membership and authenticity within our communities. In this episode, the crew tackles the nuance of cultural membership in their respective communities. What does it mean to be a card-carrying member within communities of color? And how do we hold on to that which is most sacred and recognizable to us as our cultural community’s shift?

On our first in-person show in over a year, the crew traveled to the Mille Lacs Band of Obijwe Reservation. The guests on this deep and emotional show share their first hand experiences around missing and murdered Indigenous women. Follow Missy Whiteman on Instagram for more of her work: @missy_whiteman

Juneteenth is officially a national holiday in the US. All this happening while groups throughout the country try to ban critical race theory in schools. We dig into just some of the nuances of this topic on this week’s Counter Stories.