KPFA - Making Contact

Composer, pianist, and vocalist Samora Pinderhughes tells us about The Healing Project, a fundamentally abolitionist project, that explores the structures of systemic racism and the prison industrial complex. This story first aired February 2023.

The Healing Project takes action towards abolition with forms such as musical songs, films, community gatherings, live performances, an exhibition, and a digital library of audio interviews. At the center of the project are the intergenerational voices of people across the country, including folks incarcerated in prisons and detention centers. Their stories, experiences, and ideas serve as the foundation for The Healing Project’s vision for societal transformation.

The post The Healing Project: An Abolitionist Story (encore) appeared first on KPFA.

The vast majority of care recipients are exclusively receiving unpaid care from a family member, friend, or neighbor. The rest receive a combination of family care and paid assistance or receive exclusively paid formal care.

Whether you are a paid home care provider, or you rely on personal assistance to meet your daily needs, or you are a family member caring for a loved one, the nature of the working relationship depends on mutual respect and dignity. During this week’s anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, we’ll revisit the dynamic and complex relationship of care receiving and giving.

GUESTS:

The post Caring Relationships: Negotiating Meaning and Maintaining Dignity (encore) appeared first on KPFA.

Inflammatory diseases are on the rise around the world; when left unaddressed, they can turn chronic. Now, doctors are finally starting to pay more attention. But why and when does a beneficial part of our immune system turn against us?

Raj Patel and Rupa Marya think it has a lot to do with the world we live in. They talk about climate change, ecological devastation, the collapse of our planet and what all that has to do with inflammation. Their thesis: our bodies are a mirror of a deeper disease in society and the environment. But there’s still hope. They point a way back to health via Deep Medicine, which is the quest to reignite our commitment to the web of life and our place in it.

GUESTS:

Tré Vasquez, Co-director/collective member at Movement Generation Justice & Ecology Project

Raj Patel, author, academic, journalist, activist

Rupa Marya, author, Professor of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, and a co-founder of the Do No Harm Coalition

The post Inflamed: Deep Medicine and the Anatomy of Injustice (encore) appeared first on KPFA.

Kids are coming out as LGBTQ+ younger than ever, making their identities more politicized than ever before. Hateful political rhetoric and discriminatory laws are likely contributing to the poor mental health documented among LGBTQ+ kids.

In an effort to combat these struggles, researchers are studying what works to keep kids healthy, happy, and alive. In this episode, we discuss data around what may help prevent suicidality among Black trans youth, and we hear about a program helping parents learn how to support their LGBTQ+ kids by changing their own behavior.

GUESTS:

Dr. Myeshia Price, Associate Professor at Indiana University in the Human Development program within the Department of Counseling & Educational Psychology and Associate Research Scientist with the Kinsey Institute.

Flomichelle Battles, Interim Executive Director of Trans Solutions Research and Resource Center.

Dr. Caitlin Ryan, Director of the Family Acceptance Project.

The post Family Matters: What Helps Black Trans Kids Thrive appeared first on KPFA.

In 2023, Kirin Clawson’s endocrinologist placed a puberty-blocking implant in her arm, a medical intervention that is associated with improved mental health for many trans kids with gender dysphoria. In February, Indiana joined several other conservative states banning this treatment for minors. In the first of a two-part series, we hear from the Clawson family how the ban has impacted their family. Then we hear from psychologist, Dr. Myeshia Price about how all adults in the lives of children can support gender diverse youth, despite increasing discriminatory anti-trans laws aimed at kids.

GUESTS:

The Clawson family, including Beth, mother and child health worker; Nathaniel, father and project manager; and their children Kirin, Max, and Izzy.

Dr. Myeshia Price is an Associate Professor at Indiana University in the Human Development program within the Department of Counseling & Educational Psychology and Associate Research Scientist with the Kinsey Institute.

Bradford Barrett is an Indiana State House Representative.

The post Family Matters: How Communities Support Trans Kids in Conservative States appeared first on KPFA.

Caste — one of the oldest systems of exclusion in the world — is thriving. Despite the ban on Untouchability 70 years ago, caste impacts 1.9 billion people in the world. Every 15 minutes, a crime is perpetrated against a Dalit person. The average age of death for Dalit women is just 39. And the wreckages of caste are replicated here in the U.S. as well, erupting online with rape and death threats, showing up at work, and forcing countless Dalits to live in fear of being outed.

Dalit-American activist Thenmozhi Soundararajan puts forth a call to awaken and act, not just for readers in South Asia, but all around the world. She ties Dalit oppression to fights for liberation among Black, Indigenous, Latinx, femme, and Queer communities, examining caste from a feminist, abolitionist, and Dalit Buddhist perspective.

Thenmozhi Soundararajan is a Dalit American artist, organizer, technologist, and theorist and the author of The Trauma of Caste: A Dalit Feminist Meditation on Survivorship, Healing, and Abolition. Currently, Thenmozhi is the Executive Director of Equality Labs.

The post The Trauma of Caste: A Dalit Feminist Meditation appeared first on KPFA.

What does it mean to disclose and divest? We take a look at the demands behind the student encampments for Palestine and talk to Kelly Grotke about endowments. Then, we take a trip back in time with Andrea Pritchett, who was a part of the encampments in the 1980s against South African Apartheid.

The post Disclose! Divest!: Behind the Fight Over College Endowments appeared first on KPFA.

What are borders, and why do we have them? How is violent border enforcement at the U.S.-Mexico border connected to Israel’s brutal assault on Gaza? What happens when borders cross living land and communities?

We dig into these questions with the help of Heba Gowayed, sociology professor at CUNY Hunter College and Graduate Center. Then we hear a story about one time when the natural boundary between two countries changed — and what happened to the people caught on the other side.

The post Borders: What are they good for? appeared first on KPFA.

Today’s Making Contact is preempted by special spring fund drive programming.

The post Special Spring Fund Drive Programming appeared first on KPFA.

Today’s Making Contact is preempted by the following:

C.S. Soong interviews Nate Powell about his graphic adaptation of James W. Loewen’s book Lies My Teacher Told Me.

The post Special Spring Fund Drive Programming: Nate Powell on his adaptation of Lies My Teacher Told Me appeared first on KPFA.