KQED's Forum

In late September, writer Saeed Jones lamented the selfishness and cruelty he’d witnessed during the pandemic: “I’m angry and sad and bitter,” he tweeted, adding, “This is not who I want to be.” In October, ProPublica published a story by journalist Sarah Smith with the headline “We’re Losing Our Humanity and the Pandemic Is to Blame,” documenting stories of willful disregard for others’ needs and concerns. We’ll talk about what’s fueling internal rage and public disputes everywhere from grocery stores to airplanes, and what the pandemic has exposed in our human relationships.

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In his latest book “Our Country Friends,” novelist Gary Shteyngart tackles the pandemic novel. In the book, the protagonist, Sasha Senderovsky, a writer whose star is slowly flaming out, gathers his family and high school friends in a pod at his country home to ride out the early days of the pandemic. Lauded by the New York Times as the “perfect novel for these times and all times,” “Our Country Friends uses the pandemic to explore themes of family, longing, and loss all with Shteyngart’s characteristic humor and wit. We’ll talk to Shteyngart, who is famous for his dystopian novel “Super Sad True Love Story,” about what it was like to write in real-time about the dystopia unfolding around him. 

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The Supreme Court heard oral arguments Monday in lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of SB 8, the controversial Texas law that bans abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy and deputizes private citizens to enforce it. We’ll analyze what the justices’ responses may signal about the fate of the law, and we’ll look ahead to other cases on the Court’s docket bearing on the regulation of guns, greenhouse gas emissions and immigration.

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Día de los Muertos or Day of the Dead, is an ancient tradition that started with indigenous people in the Americas, morphed when Catholics arrived, and has seen a resurgence in recent decades in California. This year, the Los Angeles Times set up a virtual Día de Los Muertos altar this year to create a community space to honor loved ones who have passed. The virtual altar reflects the pandemic, which pushed many traditions online, and an example of how the Latin American tradition of honoring the dead has evolved over time. We discuss the practice of honoring the dead as well as cultural and personal connections to Dia de los Muertos. 

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Across California, cities are reckoning with their historical legacies of racism towards the Chinese community. In May, Antioch became the first city to issue a formal apology for its anti-Chinese policies and the mob-led destruction of its Chinatown in 1876. This month, San Jose followed with a similar apology for enforcing anti-Chinese policies and fomenting racial hatred that resulted in the obliteration by fire of its Chinatown, once one of the largest in California, in 1887. For many Californians, the scope of violence towards Chinese immigrants is history they have never learned. For descendants of these settlers, the stories are not just history, but a sorrowful legacy that continues to impact their lives. We talk about why these apologies are happening now, and whether saying sorry is enough to right past wrongs.

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The 2021 UN Climate Change Conference, COP26, begins Sunday, collecting world leaders and activists to discuss and negotiate ambitious climate change policies with the aim of staying below 1.5 degrees of global temperature rise. California, which has already been experiencing the effects of climate change in the forms of sea level rise, record-breaking wildfires and extensive droughts, will be represented by a 22-member delegation of state lawmakers and a number of activists. We’ll talk about the goals of California’s delegation and what’s at stake for the state.

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Activist and former sharecropper Fannie Lou Hamer famously said “you are not free, whether you are Black or white, until I am free.” Hamer and her bold, radical honesty are the subject of a new biography by historian Keisha Blain, who sheds light on Hamer’s life and the ideas and political strategies that were central to the Civil Rights movement. In “Until I Am Free: Fannie Lou Hamer’s Enduring Message to America,” Blain documents key moments in Hamer’s activism, including her pivotal role in co-founding the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. As voting rights remain a battleground in the U.S., Blain joins us to talk about Hamer’s legacy and the lessons we can learn from her activism.

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This week, a Food and Drug Administration advisory panel recommended a dosage for the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for kids ages 5 and up and California state officials say they’re preparing to offer them by the end of next week. The vaccines would be authorized under emergency use with full FDA approval expected sometime in 2022. While some parents say they are eager to vaccinate their elementary-school-age children, many remain hesitant. Meanwhile school districts in California including in Los Angeles, Oakland and Sacramento have already set up vaccine mandates for students starting as early as January. Public health and education officials now face the challenge of getting as many of the state’s eligible 3.5 million children vaccinated as possible. We dig into the latest news and answer your questions about pediatric vaccines and school mandates.

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In time for Halloween frights, horror podcast hosts share their picks for the best films of the genre. From zombie apocalypses to tales of the demon-possessed, we'll hear what makes for a satisfying cinematic descent into terror. And we'll explore why some of us avoid the scary stuff, and why others can't get enough of the dark side.

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McSweeney’s, the idiosyncratic San Francisco publishing company, releases a literary journal, McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, with no fixed format. The quarterly has been published in a variety of artistic, unusual forms from an oblong edition to a bundle of mail delivered to the wrong address. Its new “Audio Issue” may be the most elaborate yet. It’s a box of booklets, a scroll, a keychain, a fictional toy company catalog and other objects that, in a collaboration with Radiotopia producers, all have audio components. The issue experiments with ways audio and text work together in storytelling, and it seeks to expand our understanding of what it means to make art accessible to those with impaired hearing, or sight, by expanding content across the senses.

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