Making Contact

On this week's episode, we speak with Bay Area based comedian Karinda Dobbins about the release of her debut comedy album, Black & Blue. In Black & Blue, Karinda shares personal stories - finding humor in the most ordinary moments of her daily life - including her girlfriend's arbitrary policy on household pests, the changes hipsters have brought to Oakland, and a Black woman's unique packing list for hiking. This is an encore presentation of a show that first aired August 14, 2024.

Featuring:

Karinda Dobbins, standup comedian, writer, and actor

Making Contact Staff:

Host: Anita Johnson

Producers: Anita Johnson, Salima Hamirani, Amy Gastelum, and Lucy Kang

Executive Director: Jina Chung

Editor: Adwoa Gyimah-Brempong

Engineer: [Jeff Emtman](http://www.jeffemtman.com/)

Digital Media Marketing: Lissa Deonarain

Music Credits:

Dee Yan-Key "Hold on"

Audiobinger "The Garden State"

Learn More:

Karinda Dobbins

Making Contact is an award-winning, nationally syndicated radio show and podcast featuring narrative storytelling and thought-provoking interviews. We cover the most urgent issues of our time and the people on the ground building a more just world.

During his first term, Trump stacked the Supreme Court with hard right judges creating a 6-3 split that led to the overturning of Roe v. Wade, a stunning ruling in which a human right which was previously granted by law was taken away from the public. This time Trump faces even less resistance and could remake the Supreme Court once again.

Ellie Mystal, justice correspondent and columnist for The Nation magazine, joins us to talk about the Supreme Court: what the democrats could have done under Biden to fix the third branch of government so that we wouldn't now be in such a politically vulnerable position; but also what we can expect in terms of possible new Supreme Court nominations and what they could mean for our remaining rights.

Featuring:

• Ellie Mystal: The justice correspondent and columnist for The Nation magazine and host of their legal podcast, "Contempt of Court." Author of "Allow Me to Retort: A Black Guy's Guide to the Constitution"

Music:

• Nihilore - More Scared of You
• Anemoia - Tephra
• Ben Von Wildenhaus - Week Twenty-Five
• Axletree - Flight to the North
• Mindseye - Spores (instrumental)
• Crowander - Opening Lines.

Making Contact Team

• Host: Salima Hamirani
• Producers: Anita Johnson, Salima Hamirani, Amy Gastelum, and Lucy Kang
• Executive Director: Jina Chung
• Editor: Adwoa Gyimah-Brempong
• Engineer: Jeff Emtman
• Digital Media Marketing: Lissa Deonarain

Find Out More

• How Trump Could Remake the Supreme Court:
• The Courts Can't Stop the Trump-Musk Coup:
• Contempt of Court podcast:
• Allow Me to Retort: A Black Guy's Guide to the Constitution

Making Contact is an award-winning, nationally syndicated radio show and podcast featuring narrative storytelling and thought-provoking interviews. We cover the most urgent issues of our time and the people on the ground building a more just world.

Dr. Flemmie Kittrell was a Black home economist whose research in the field of early childhood education shaped the way we think about child development today. She became the first Black woman to earn a Ph.D. in nutrition and contributed immensely to programs like Head Start – even though her name is often left out of the history. We'll hear more about her life and work in a story from the podcast _Lost Women of Science_,_ _hosted by Carol Sutton Lewis and Danya AbdelHameid.

Featuring:

• Dolores Caffey-Fleming, Program director of Project STRIDE, Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science
• Allison Horrocks, Public historian
• Lauren Bauer, fellow in Economic Studies at the Brookings Institution

Credits

Making Contact

• Episode host and producer: Lucy Kang
• Producers: Anita Johnson, Salima Hamirani, Amy Gastelum, and Lucy Kang
• Executive Director: Jina Chung
• Engineer: [Jeff Emtman](http://www.jeffemtman.com/)
• Digital Media Marketing: Lissa Deonarain

Music Credit:

• "Science Documentary" by [Aleksey Chistilin]

Lost Women of Science: "Flemmie Kittrell and the Preschool Experiment"

• Hosted by Danya AbdelHameid and Carol Sutton Lewis
• Written and produced by Danya AbdelHameid with senior producer Elah Feder
• Music composed by Lizzie Younan
• Episode sound designed and mastered by Alex Sugiura
• Executive producers: Amy Scharf and Katie Hafner
• Chief multimedia editor at our publishing partner, _Scientific American_: Jeff Delviscio

Learn More:

Making Contact homepage: www.focmedia.org

Listen to the full episode from _Lost Women of Science: https://www.lostwomenofscience.org/podcast-episodes/flemmie-kittrell-and-the-preschool-experiment

Making Contact is an award-winning, nationally syndicated radio show and podcast featuring narrative storytelling and thought-provoking interviews. We cover the most urgent issues of our time and the people on the ground building a more just world.

In 1965 Margaret Crane was a young designer creating packaging for a pharmaceutical company. Looking at the rows of pregnancy tests she thought, "Well, women could do that at home!" and so she made it a reality for potentially pregnant people to be able to know about and take control of their own lives and bodies.

But while the design of the prototype was simple, Crane faced the issues we continue to fight when it comes to reproductive rights and the health and autonomy of people who give birth: an uphill battle to convince the pharmaceutical companies, the medical community and conservative social leaders that at-home pregnancy testing was safe and necessary. After all this, Crane is only now receiving credit for her contributions to the industry.

Featuring:

• Margaret Crane – Graphic designer and inventor of the first home pregnancy test
• Wendy Kline – Dema G. Seelye Chair in the History of Medicine, History Faculty Purdue University
• Jesse Olszynko-Gryn – Head of the Laboratory for Oral History and Experimental Media at Max Planck Institute for the History of Science
• Arthur Kover – Emeritus Professor of Marketing, Fordham University
• Alexandra Lord – Chair, Division of Medicine and Science at the National Museum of American History

Credits:

• Host: Amy Gastelum
• Producers: Anita Johnson, Salima Hamirani, Amy Gastelum, and Lucy Kang
• Executive Director: Jina Chung
• Editor: Adwoa Gyimah-Brempong
• Engineer: Jeff Emtman
• Digital Media Marketing: Anubhuti Kumar

Music Credits:

• Podington Bear, Rhythm and Strings

Learn More:

• National Museum of American History: https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/nmah_1803285
• A Woman's Right to Know, Pregnancy Testing in 20th Century Britain: https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262544399/a-womans-right-to-know/
• Predictor by Jennifer Blackmer: https://newplayexchange.org/plays/348156/predictor

Making Contact is an award-winning, nationally syndicated radio show and podcast featuring narrative storytelling and thought-provoking interviews. We cover the most urgent issues of our time and the people on the ground building a more just world.

A new philosophy steeped in the ideas of Artificial Intelligence, space colonization, and the long-term survival of the human species is gaining ground among the wealthy. However, there are reasons to question its goals and its ethics. Longtermists believe that not only could we colonize space and create simulated humans in giant servers around stars, but that we must. Anything short of a trillion-year multi-planetary existence for our species would be a moral failing. They also believe that all of our ethical actions should focus on the countless lives that may exist in that dim future, instead of on the people alive today. Is this the kind of ethics we should all accept, however? Philosopher and historian Émile P. Torres joins us to discuss Longtermism and its dangerous pitfalls.

Featuring: Émile P. Torres, Philosopher and Historian

Credits: Host: Salima Hamirani Co-host: Amy Gastelum Executive Director: Jina Chung Segment Editor + Interim Senior Producer: Jessica Partnow Staff Producers: Anita Johnson, Salima Hamirani, Lucy Kang, Amy Gastelum Audio Engineering: Jeff Emtman

Music Credits:

Rocky Marsiano – Whatshappenin Blear Moon – Ongoing Cases Alex Productions – Born Dilating TImes – Faded Flowers Danny Bale – Fern Music (Extended)

Learn More:

Emile P. Torres Article on Longtermism

Making Contact is an award-winning, nationally syndicated radio show and podcast featuring narrative storytelling and thought-provoking interviews. We cover the most urgent issues of our time and the people on the ground building a more just world.

This week on Making Contact, we bring you a story of urban planning and how race has shaped American cities. In his book, Hella Town: Oakland's History of Development and Disruption, Mitchell Schwarzer explores the origins and the lasting impacts of transportation improvements, systemic racism, and regional competition on Oakland's built environment. Schwarzer, an architectural and urban historian, pulls from his experience as a city planner, and educator to tell the story of a city divided.

Like this program? Please show us the love. Click here: http://bit.ly/3LYyl0R and support our non-profit journalism. Thanks!

Featuring:

Mitchell Schwarzer; Professor in the Department of the History of Art and Visual Culture at California College of the Arts. He has written books on architectural theory, visual perception, and the buildings of the San Francisco Bay Area.

Credits

• Host: Anita Johnson Producers: Anita Johnson, Salima Hamirani, Amy Gastelum, and Lucy Kang Executive Director: Jina Chung Interim Senior Producer: Jessica Partnow Engineer: Jeff Emtman

Music:

• Blue Dot Sessions "Bedroll" Blue Dot Sessions "Messy Inkwell" Andy G. Cohen "Our Young Guts"

Learn More:

Hella Town: Oakland's History of Development and Disruption Most Segregated Cities

Making Contact is an award-winning, nationally syndicated radio show and podcast featuring narrative storytelling and thought-provoking interviews. We cover the most urgent issues of our time and the people on the ground building a more just world.

In episode two of "Exposed" from our friends at the San Francisco Public Press, we explore a little-known chapter in San Francisco's nuclear era: human experiments carried out to assess the health effects of radiation. Scientists from the Naval Radiological Defense Laboratory, located at the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard, designed and executed at least 24 experiments that involved gathering data from humans — in some cases, injecting test subjects with radioisotopes or having them ingest fluids laced with trace amounts of radioactive materials. Even football players from the San Francisco 49ers were enrolled as test subjects in these so-called tracer studies.

We hear from military veterans who were sent on a mysterious mission to spread radioactive substances onto rooftops at an Army base near Pittsburg, Calif., for an experiment the radiation lab played a role in designing. Some recount experiences of witnessing nuclear bomb blasts in the Nevada desert. We also examine a national pattern of human radiation experiments revealed by Eileen Welsome, the author of a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation, who shined a light on similar practices conducted by government facilities, hospitals and other institutions.

Featuring:

• Eldridge Jones, who served in the military and was part of Operation Stoneman
• Merle Votaw, a Navy veteran who participated in Operation Stoneman II
• Eileen Welsome, author of "Plutonium Files"
• Holly Barker, Anthropologist and professor at the University of Washington who studied the Marshall Islands

Credits:

San Francisco Public Press: Reporting: Rebecca Bowe and Chris Roberts Editing: Michael Stoll and Liz Enochs Research Editing: Ambika Kandasamy Web Design: John Angelico Copy Editing: Kurt Aguilar, Michele Anderson and Richard Knee Archival Research and Illustration: Stacey Carter Audio Editing: Liana Wilcox, Mel Baker and Megan Maurer Sound Gathering: Justin Benttinen Photography: Sharon Wickham, Yesica Prado and Guillermo Hernandez Graphic Design: Reid Brown Fact Checking: Dani Solakian and Ali Hanks Proofreading: Lila LaHood, Noah Arroyo, Zhe Wu and Sylvie Sturm Special thanks to Alastair Gee and Danielle Renwick at The Guardian and Ben Trefny at KALW Public Radio, and to Laura Wenus and Amy Pyle Making Contact: Host: Salima Hamirani Producers: Anita Johnson, Salima Hamirani, Amy Gastelum, and Lucy Kang Executive Director: Jina Chung Editor: Adwoa Gyimah-Brempong Engineer: Jeff Emtman Digital Media Marketing: Anubhuti Kumar Music Credits: Midday, by the Blue Dot Sessions Sweet Leilani, by Bing Crosby

Learn More:

Exposed on the San Francisco Public Press

Exposed Part 1

Making Contact is an award-winning, nationally syndicated radio show and podcast featuring narrative storytelling and thought-provoking interviews. We cover the most urgent issues of our time and the people on the ground building a more just world.

Today we present the first half of a two-part radio documentary from our friends at the San Francisco Public Press, "Exposed," opening a window into the little-known history of the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard. The sprawling abandoned naval base, in San Francisco's southeast waterfront Bayview neighborhood, is currently the site of the city's largest real estate development project. The base played a key role in the Cold War nuclear era, when it housed a research institution known as the Naval Radiological Defense Laboratory, which studied the human health effects of radiation.

In episode one of the podcast, we trace the radioactive contamination found in the shipyard soil today back to its origins, with nuclear bomb testing in the Marshall Islands. We also hear from environmental justice advocates, including one who led a health biomonitoring survey revealing that nearby residents have toxic elements stored in body tissues that match the hazardous chemicals of concern identified at the shipyard.

Featuring:

• Ahimsa Porter Sumchai, community advocate and medical doctor
• Michelle Pierce, Executive director of Bayview Hunters Point Community Advocates
• Leaotis Martin, resident of Bayview
• Raymond Tompkins, community advocate, chemist and former member of the Hunters Point Shipyard Restoration Advisory Board
• Daniel Hirsch, president of Committee to Bridge the Gap; Derek Robinson; Navy representative.

Credits:

San Francisco Public Press:

Reporting: Rebecca Bowe and Chris Roberts Editing: Michael Stoll and Liz Enochs Research Editing: Ambika Kandasamy Web Design: John Angelico Copy Editing: Kurt Aguilar, Michele Anderson and Richard Knee Archival Research and Illustration: Stacey Carter Audio Editing: Liana Wilcox, Mel Baker and Megan Maurer Sound Gathering: Justin Benttinen Photography: Sharon Wickham, Yesica Prado and Guillermo Hernandez Graphic Design: Reid Brown Fact Checking: Dani Solakian and Ali Hanks Proofreading: Lila LaHood, Noah Arroyo, Zhe Wu and Sylvie Sturm Special thanks to Alastair Gee and Danielle Renwick at The Guardian and Ben Trefny at KALW Public Radio, and to Laura Wenus and Amy Pyle

Making Contact:

Host: Salima Hamirani Producers: Anita Johnson, Salima Hamirani, Amy Gastelum, and Lucy Kang Executive Director: Jina Chung Editor: Adwoa Gyimah-Brempong Engineer: Jeff Emtman Digital Media Marketing: Anubhuti Kumar

Music Credits:

Midday, by the Blue Dot Sessions Sweet Leilani, by Bing Crosby

Learn more:

Exposed on the San Francsisco Public Press

Exposed Part Two

Making Contact is an award-winning, nationally syndicated radio show and podcast featuring narrative storytelling and thought-provoking interviews. We cover the most urgent issues of our time and the people on the ground building a more just world.

Today we head back to Indianapolis with the podcast Urban Roots.

In the 1950s and 1960s, Ms. Jean Spears was a young mother and burgeoning preservationist. She saved antiques from houses about to be demolished; she bought a home in a white slum and renovated it; later on, she did the same with a historic home in the black neighborhood near Indiana Avenue. In the eighties, she and some neighbors started digging into this black neighborhood's history, uncovering the names of Black doctors, civic leaders, and other professionals who had lived there, many of whom had worked for Madam C.J. Walker. She helped rename the neighborhood to Ransom Place, in honor of Freeman Ransom, Madam Walker's prodigious lawyer. And in 1991, they succeeded in getting the Ransom Place Historic District included in the National Register of Historic Places.

Thanks in no small part to the connection to Madam C.J. Walker, Jean Spears was able to save this pocket of Black history, in an area that — as we explained last episode — the city of Indianapolis had almost erased from memory. But black Indy history is about more than Madam Walker, and other stories and places in the city need protection, too. In this episode, we'll introduce you to three Black women who are carrying on what Ms. Jean Spears started — safeguarding these little-known stories of the past and guiding Indianapolis toward a brighter future.

Featuring:

Claudia Polley, Urban Legacy Lands Initiative; Kaila Austin, artist and historian; Judith Thomas, Deputy Mayor of Neighborhood Engagement for the City of Indianapolis; Paula Brooks, the Environmental Justice Program Manager at the Hoosier Environment Council.

Credits:

Urban Roots:

Urban Roots unearths little-known stories from urban history, especially histories of women and people of color that are in danger of being forgotten. Our mission is to elevate underrepresented voices and help preserve the places significant to them.

Hosts and Executive Producers: Deqah Hussein-Wetzel and Vanessa Maria Quirk Editor and Executive Producer: Connor Lynch Mixer: Andrew Callaway. Music/Composer: Adaam James Levin-Areddy.

Making Contact Credits

Episode Host: Salima Hamirani Producers: Anita Johnson, Salima Hamirani, Amy Gastelum, and Lucy Kang Executive Director: Jina Chung Editor: Adwoa Gyimah-Brempong Engineer:[ Jeff Emtman](https://www.jeffemtman.com/) Digital Media Marketing: Lissa Deonarain

Music:

Roman- Galaxy (inspired up melody)

Will Bangs – I'm so glad you exist

Learn More:

Urbanist Media

Madam C.J. Walker was a brilliant entrepreneur who built a haircare empire and became the first African American woman millionaire. You might have heard about her, but not many people know that her headquarters used to be located in Indianapolis, along a once vibrant Black corridor called Indiana Avenue, a place that today is known for parking lots, high-speed traffic, and uninspiring university buildings.

Why do so few people know this story? Because, over decades, government planners and private developers slowly and systematically erased Indiana Avenue's history. Luckily, however, some Black Hoosiers are working to uncover, and reclaim, what almost disappeared without a trace. In this episode, we tell their, and the Avenue's, story.

Featuring:

A'Lelia Bundles: Journalist and Madam C.J. Walker biographer; Susan Hall Dotson of the Indiana Historical Society; Claudia Polley of the Urban Legacy Lands Initiative; Wildstyle Paschall, artist and community advocate; Devon Ginn of the Walker Legacy Center; and centenarian/Indiana Avenue author, Mr. Thomas Hart Ridley.

Credits:

Urban Roots Credits:

Urban Roots dives deep into little known stories from urban history, unearthing histories of women and people of color that are in danger of being forgotten.

• Hosts and Executive Producers: Deqah Hussein-Wetzel and Vanessa Maria Quirk.
• Editor and Executive Producer: Connor Lynch
• Mixer: Andrew Callaway. Music
• Composer: [Adaam James Levin-Areddy.](https://www.ajla.me/)

Making Contact Credits

• Episode Host: Salima Hamirani
• Producers: Anita Johnson, Salima Hamirani, Amy Gastelum, and Lucy Kang
• Executive Director: Jina Chung
• Editor: Adwoa Gyimah-Brempong
• Engineer:Jeff Emtman
• Digital Media Marketing: Lissa Deonarain

Music Credits

• Tephra- anemoia
• Ben von Wildenhaus - Week Twenty-five

Learn More:

Urbanist Media

Making Contact is an award-winning, nationally syndicated radio show and podcast featuring narrative storytelling and thought-provoking interviews. We cover the most urgent issues of our time and the people on the ground building a more just world.