The Takeaway

As another class of Gen-Z graduates, they are taking one more step into adulthood. But still, our nation is divided by racial violence, economic inequality and disappearing reproductive rights. For this reason, The Takeaway takes a Deep Dive into Gen-Z: Who are they and what do they want?

To give us a better idea we talked to Cathy Cohen, the David and Mary Winton Green Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago and Philip N. Cohen, Professor and Director of Graduate Studies of the Department of Sociology at The University of Maryland. Cathy Cohen is the principal investigator and founder of the GenForward Survey.

One of the biggest concerns for Gen-Z is economic security. As the older part of this cohort enters the workforce we discussed what work they want to do as well as what work should do for them. We speak with 20-year-old Parker Lacewell who’s facing these questions as well as Terry Nguyen, a reporter for The Goods at Vox who covers consumer and internet trends, and technology. 

We also looked into how Gen-Z utilizes technology to do everything from organizing to quitting their jobs. We spoke with Pamela Aronson, Professor of Sociology at the University of Michigan-Dearborn about what their use of technology tells us about their hopes for the future.

WNYC's Radio Rookies Rainier Harris and Folashade Olatunde joined to discuss their concerns for their generation. Activist, strategist, influencer and founder of the Gen Z Girl Gang, Deja Foxx told us how her cohort uses the power of social media to affect change in the world. And, we had the privilege of listening in on a conversation between Marley Dias, founder of #1000BlackGirlBooks and her Mom, Janice Johnson Dias, author of Parent Like It Matters. They discussed everything from college, to the massacre in Buffalo to the future of reproductive rights. 

From the 1870s into the 1990s, the Canadian government and Catholic churches ran a vast network of boarding schools called "Indian residential schools," where Indigenous children were taken and forced to assimilate into white Canadian culture. Countless children suffered sexual, physical and psychological abuse in these institutions, and survivors and their families are wrestling with the repercussions to this day. Connie Walker, the host of the podcast Stolen: Surviving St. Michael’s, speaks with us about her own family's experience with a residential school, which she uncovered while reporting the new second season of the show, and what the U.S. can learn from Canada’s attempted reckoning with this past.

This weekend, rapper and poet Omar Offendum will be performing a show he wrote called “Little Syria” at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM). In it, Offendum uses music to tell the story of the Little Syria neighborhood of Manhattan, which flourished in the late 19th and early 20th century, before many of its residents were displaced by construction and left for Brooklyn.

The Takeaway speaks with Offendum about how he approached telling this history on stage.

Valarie Kaur is a civil rights activist, author of "See No Stranger" and leader of the Revolutionary Love Project. She joined us to reflect on her work that addresses hate crimes against Muslim and Sikh Americans, and how it connects to the racist attacks from this past weekend in Buffalo.

Last weekend’s racist attack at a Tops Supermarket in Buffalo has had significant ramifications for a part of Buffalo’s East Side, a neighborhood which has historically struggled with food insecurity. Tops is the lone supermarket in this part of Buffalo’s East Side, and it is now temporarily closed.  The attack highlights how the city’s legacy of institutionalized racism and segregation has given rise to food access and inequities in the communities affected.  In the aftermath, community-based providers are stepping in to address the food insecurity that continues to plague low-income communities of color. 

We speak with Allison DeHonney, Founder and CEO of Buffalo Go Green, whose organization is working to address food inequities in Buffalo's East Side, and Craig Willingham, Managing Director for CUNY Urban Food Policy Institute.

In response to a number of mass shootings and incidents of gun violence across the country this past weekend, including the Buffalo massacre, some cities instituted curfews. Policymakers are also having their perennial conversation on gun control.

The Takeaway speaks with Dr. Jonathan Metzl about the history and future of curfews and gun regulations in the U.S. 

Natasha Warikoo, Professor of Sociology at Tufts University spent time in a privileged suburb on the East Coast doing research for her book “Race at The Top: Asian Americans and Whites in Pursuit of the American Dream in Suburban Schools.”

In a majority white town she calls Woodcrest, the Asian population is growing, and the Asian students consistently out-perform the white students there. We speak with Natasha about the competition between white and Asian students at Woodcrest and in suburbs like it. We also discuss where this leaves students whose opportunities are limited due to the lack of resources and access.

The shooting in Buffalo is being investigated as a hate crime, and given the gunman’s racist writings all indications are that he targeted the Black community. 

We're joined by Jack McDevitt, Professor of the Practice in Criminology and Criminal Justice and Director of the Institute on Race and Justice at Northeastern University, to explore the connection between racism in America and hate crimes, and consider why explicit racism has declined over time, yet racist hate crimes have recently hit a 12-year high. We also consider when the switch happens from people holding racist views, to acting them out in lethal ways.

This past weekend, a gunman who appears to have been motivated by white supremacy shot and killed ten people in Buffalo, New York, where he traveled to target the city’s Black community.

The tragic shooting is one of several disturbing massacres motivated by hate that have occurred in recent years. But the history of race based violence dates back to the beginning of what is now the United States, and some of the recent racially motivated attacks call to mind the racist violence that targeted Black communities in the early 20th century.

The Takeaway speaks with Jelani Cobb, historian, staff writer at The New Yorker and incoming dean at the Columbia Journalism School.

Reverend Jacqui Lewis is Senior Minister at Middle Collegiate Church. She is the author of Fierce Love: A Bold Path to Ferocious Courage and Rule-Breaking Kindness That Can Heal the World and the host of the “Love.Period.” Podcast.

Reverend Jacqui Lewis a regular of the show and she always leaves our listeners with a timely message about the power of love and radical acceptance. We spoke with the Reverend Jacqui Lewis, Senior Minister at Middle Collegiate Church about how she's making sense of the tragic Buffalo massacre.