KQED's Forum

What do you notice out the window from your seat on BART, or Muni, or the Golden Gate Ferry? When you ride public transit, you’re free to look around, and looking around can tell you a lot about where you live. We talk about the breathtaking vistas and hidden histories revealed to us through the windows of public transit and how what we see – or don’t see – shapes our connection to the Bay Area.

Guests:

Vincent Woo, filmmaker. Woo is the creator and director of "Tunnel Vision: An Unauthorized BART Ride"

Liam O'Donoghue, host and producer, East Bay Yesterday

Mey Lee, co-curator, Muni Raised Me exhibit - at SOMA Arts earlier this year.

Sarah Katz-Hyman, editor, Muni Diaries

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Brown v Board of Education, the landmark civil rights decision banning racial segregation in public schools, was supposed to give Black children greater educational opportunities. But instead, according to Columbia Teachers College professor Bettina Love, it marked the beginning of an anti-Black educational agenda, characterized by low academic expectations, excessive suspensions, surveillance and physical violence. Love grew up in the 1980s and 90s, a period when the Reagan and Bush administrations pushed ideas of “school accountability” and “school safety” that she says were used to justify punishment of Black children and that have harmed a generation. We talk to Love about her and her peers’ experiences in school as “eighties babies” and why she thinks reparations are essential to repair public education.

Guests:

Bettina Love, professor at Teachers College, Columbia University; author, "Punished for Dreaming: How School Reform Harms Black Children and How We Heal"

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In 2017 students at Albany High School in the East Bay became aware of a private instagram account created by a student, and followed by just over a dozen more, containing viciously racist posts about fellow classmates. The disputes about why it happened, how to hold the creator and the followers accountable, and what to do about the anger, shame and fear caused by the posts tore through the school and the town. “Whatever you believed about Albany, about America, about teenagers, racism, sexism, social media, punishment and the public discourse on each of these topics, the story of the Instagram account could be marshaled as evidence. It was the incident that explained everything and yet also the incident that couldn’t be explained,” writes Dashka Slater. We talk to her about her five years of reporting on the story and her book, “Accountable: The True Story of a Racist Social Media Account and the Teenagers Whose Lives It Changed”.

Guests:

Dashka Slater, author, "Accountable: The True Story of a Racist Social Media Account and the Teenagers Whose Lives It Changed." - Her previous books include "The 57 Bus: A True Story of Two Teenagers and the Crime That Changed Their Lives"

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Whether you’re a seasoned chef or first-time cook preparing a casual dinner with friends, Thanksgiving can be a stressful time in the kitchen. Many of us are frantically checking the internet for recipes, tips, and fresh ideas on what to eat on Thursday. New York Times Cooking is aware of the stakes — they know their recipes will end up on dinner tables across the country in a few days and have been preparing for this moment since last spring. Not limited to just recipe offerings, their deep-dive videos on green beans, stuffing, and turkey also help us understand why these dishes have become mainstays over the years. They join us to give tips on how to prepare the ultimate feast and answer your last-minute questions.

Guests:

Eric Kim, chef and food columnist, New York Times Cooking and Food; author of cookbook, "Korean American: Food That Tastes Like Home." Website URL: https://erickim.net/

Emily Weinstein, editor in chief, New York Times Cooking and Food. She also writes the popular New York Times newsletter "Five Weeknight Dishes."

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San Francisco is a city of survivors. For all the talk of doom loops, the city has reinvented itself many times, and if it had an architectural mascot, it would be Ferry Building, argues San Francisco Chronicle urban design critic John King. In his new book “Portal,” King tells the story of the building that once saw 50 million ferry travelers annually and now serves as a popular destination for the food-obsessed and folks who want to take in the spectacular view. We talk to King about his book and how good urban design can revitalize a city.

Guests:

John King, author, "Portal: San Francisco's Ferry Building and the Revinvention of American Cities"; urban design critic, San Francisco Chronicle

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People of all genders have rimmed their eyes with pigment for thousands of years. But as Zahra Hankir explains in her new book on the history of eyeliner, its use goes far beyond aesthetics. Eyeliner has also served as a vehicle for identity, self-expression, empowerment and protest. Bedouin men in the deserts of Arabia have worn it to repel the sun – and attract potential mates. Egyptian Queen Nefertiti’s celebrated beauty centered on her perfectly winged lines. In modern-day Iran, women wear eyeliner as a form of resistance against an oppressive regime. Hankir joins us to discuss “Eyeliner: A Cultural History.”

Guests:

Zahra Hankir, author, "Eyeliner: A Cultural History," and "Our Women on the Ground: Essays by Arab Women Reporting from the Arab World" - Hankir is a Lebanese-British journalist

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The astronomical price of housing is the root source of so many of the Bay Area’s most pressing problems and bitter battles. A problem so big begs for big ideas. In this show we explore a couple of novel approaches to spur the creation of affordable housing by fundamentally changing the way we think of land and property ownership. We’ll talk about the new popularity of an old idea – taxing the value of land instead of the property on it – and about the growing community land trust movement.

Guests:

Noni Session, co-founder and executive director, East Bay Permanent Real Estate Cooperative

Lars Doucet, author, "Land Is a Big Deal: Why Rent Is Too High, Wages Too Low, and What We Can Do about It"

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Explore your inner Goth with Mina's interview with co-founder of The Cure Lol Tolhurst and dive into the Hyphy movement with Pendarvis Harshaw, host of KQED's podcast series Rightnowish Presents: Hyphy Kids Got Trauma.

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Last week, Ohio voters approved Issue 1, a ballot measure to amend the state constitution to protect abortion access. The vote was the latest in a string of state-level victories for abortion rights supporters since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year. But in many states, women are now living with bans and restrictions that make abortions much harder to get since the Dobbs decision. We’ll look at what the Ohio outcome could mean for the future of abortion rights around the country, and how the issue is playing out in the 2024 presidential election.

Guests:

Michele Goodwin, professor of constitutional law and global health policy, Georgetown Law. Her books include "Policing the Womb: Invisible Women and the Criminalization of Motherhood"

Rebecca Traister, writer-at-large for New York magazine and The Cut. Her cover story “Abortion Wins Elections” appeared in the March 2023 edition of New York magazine. Her books include, Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women's Anger

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By the late 1980s, there were more than 200 lesbian bars in the U.S. Today, only a few dozen are still operating. In San Francisco, lesbians, queer women and nonbinary people are still mourning the Lexington Club — and some can remember a time when nearly every neighborhood in the city had a lesbian bar of its own. But can the decline of these places simply be chalked up to rising rents, dating apps and the LGBTQ+ community’s embrace of queer — rather than specifically lesbian — spaces? We’ll hear from three lesbian bar aficionados about what the Bay Area’s lesbian spaces, from the historic Wild Side West to the newest bar, Mother, mean to them. And we’ll hear how the history of lesbian bars and the challenges they’ve faced in trying to keep their doors open can inform their future.

Guests:

Alex U. Inn, Bay Area drag king; creator of the dance party Unleash! for women over 40; co-founder of the Pride Parade counterpoint known as the People’s March

Carol Hill, executive director, San Francisco Beacon Initiative; “stewards” El Rio’s queer party Mango once a month

Krista Burton, author, "MOBY DYKE: An Obsessive Quest to Track Down the Last Remaining Lesbian Bars in America”; creator of the popular blog Effing Dykes

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