Finding the Warmth of Our Sun

Too often we're not having the right conversations; the panic around CRT is one of those. While education is good, the conversation about why it is happening, and the exactly what, is how we understand these moments.

Not a specific dive, but a conversation of ugly realities of race, democracy, and the United States, creating anxiousness about the present and near future.

On this episode, originally released in September of 2021, Matthew explores the role of police in society, their effectiveness, and why the idea of defunding them isn't actually scary.

Assistant UW-Madison Professor Kevin Lawrence Henry Jr joins to dig deeper into critical race theory and how it is applied, exploring some of the more challenging tenets and examples of it out in the real world.

Madison's failure to purchase a permanent homeless shelter for men was the fault of a small, yet an unsurprising group of Alders. Their rationals were rooted in anti-Black racism, and classism, but also fully developer supported, and it continues a cycle of Madison's failure to invest in justice initiatives that make structural changes. It's a shame such a small group has held up issues of justice, but this seems to be a habit for them.

America is racist: It's a simple answer to a bad question. There are some more revealing questions to ask, such as when did institutional racism end

Matthew's off this week. But he wanted to revisit this episode from December, 2020.

On this episode, Matthew talks with Nada Elmikashfi talk about climate change, the failure of the US to lead, how the future world-leading nations will be the ones leading on climate, and what race and capitalism have to do with it all.

Abolish the police, re-imagine public safety. This is a must, we must dismantle law enforcement as we know it, re-imagine public safety in investing in people, communities, mental health, housing, education, healthcare, and more. Their history is intertwined with racial and class oppression, protecting the ruling class and their property over justice. This is beyond them being bad at the job they alleged they do. Ill-tempered, lack of accountability, not solving the social ills they respond to, not solving most crimes, and can kill with almost zero accountability with increasing militarization. Let yourself engage with the idea of abolition.

The media and moderate pushback against accusations of the resurrection of Jim Crow have begun. As soon as people, mostly Black, started to say the GOP was pushing Jim Crow laws, mostly white men decided to climb their self-built pedestal of the only "objective" truth-tellers to say this was an overreaction. In response, Black writer and thinker Jamelle Bouie said, "Jim Crow wasn't Jim Crow, until it was." We must look at these laws in the context of intent, and the larger conversations of voting, and whose votes "count" coming from the anti-democratic party of the GOP.