The Takeaway

This Thursday, Paramount+ is bringing viewers back onboard the USS Enterprise with the new series, "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds." 

Actor Celia Rose Gooding stars in the series as Uhura. The role was originated by Nichelle Nichols in the original "Star Trek" television series when it premiered in 1966. 

Gooding joined The Takeaway to discuss taking on the role of Uhura and how she sees it fitting into her burgeoning career in entertainment.

It’s Teacher Appreciation Week, but more than two years into the pandemic, many teachers are struggling to find the light in a darkened tunnel. According to the National Education Association, a nationwide teacher shortage and widespread burnout have a significant number of teachers considering leaving the profession entirely. Recent cases have also underscored the ways in which both liberal and conservative leaning educators feel constrained by their districts.

We speak with Prudence Carter, Professor of Sociology at Brown University about what this moment represents for teachers nationwide.

For this story, The Takeaway also spoke with Rachel Stonecipher, a former teacher at MacArthur High School in Irving, Texas. After it was discovered that the school had removed "LGBTQ safe-space" stickers from classroom doors, Stonecipher and other teachers sent an email to administrators asking for an explanation. Shortly after, the Irving Independent School District placed Stonecipher on administrative leave.  Later, in April of 2022, the district declined to renew Stonecipher's contract, which she believes was, in part, done in response to her stand on the “safe-space" stickers. 

The Takeaway reached out to the Irving Independent School District in response to this story and received a statement dated April 22 that reads in part: “[O]n April 18, 2022, the Irving ISD Board voted on both renewals and terminations...[t]hese Board votes impact contracts for the 2022-2023 school year. No teacher contracts were terminated with immediate effect.” 

The news is monumental in every sense: a historic legal development, an unprecedented violation of Court protocol, and a decision that will have stunning consequences for women all across the country. 

The Politico reporting by Josh Gerstein and Alexander Ward includes a link to the draft opinion authored by Justice Samuel Alito back in February. It’s a draft opinion that decisively reverses Roe v. Wade and the legal precedent it set nearly 50 years ago. 

We spoke with Prof. Melissa Murray of NYU School of Law and cohost of the legal podcast Strict Scrutiny and OB/GYN, abortion provider, and founder of Pegasus Health Justice Dr. Ghazaleh Moayedi about their reaction to these recent developments and what this leaked opinion indicates for the future of reproductive rights. 

Amazon is contesting the recent historic union win at their Staten Island warehouse. The National Labor Relations Board decided on May 2nd to give Amazon a hearing to present evidence for their claims of preferential treatment by the NLRB in Brooklyn. Amazon also claims the Amazon Labor Union intimidated warehouse workers into voting for the union and bribed them with weed. The director of the NLRB branch where the case will be heard has said he’s seen evidence that “could” overturn the election results. The hearing is set for May 23. Lauren Kaori Gurley, senior staff writer for Motherboard, joins us to discuss the battle between Amazon and The NLRB. 

Global film audiences have generally heard of Bollywood and come to associate that as the dominant Indian film industry. But in recent years, Tollywood, another film industry from a part of India where the Telugu language is spoken, has been making a huge mark in and outside of India.

The film “RRR,” which came out at the end of March, has grossed over $130 million worldwide, making it the third highest grossing Indian film of all time.

According to film critic Siddhant Adlakha, part of the appeal of Tollywood is that its films are even flashier than Bollywood’s, and audiences share celebratory communal experiences seeing them in theaters.

The Takeaway speaks with Adlakha about what the success of "RRR" signals for the future of Tollywood.

The acquittal of 4 police officers who brutally beat Rodney King in 1992 triggered the destruction of Korean-owned businesses and violence directed toward Korean Americans living in South Central Los Angeles.

Claire Jean Kim, professor of political science and Asian-American studies at the University of California, Irvine, and author of Asian Americans in an Anti-Black World, joins us to discuss the racial tensions that already existed between Black and Korean Americans and how structural racism pits Asians and Black Americans against each other.

After the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the 1965 Voting Rights Act and even Loving v. Virginia, one major issue around the racial justice movement remained unaddressed: fair housing.

On April 11, 1968 President Lyndon Johnson signed the National Fair Housing Act into law.  Because of this, April is National Fair Housing Month. All month, advocates, organizers, and communities commemorate this landmark piece of Civil Rights legislation which outlawed discrimination in housing.

On this episode of The Takeaway, Melissa Harris-Perry and Dorian Warren take a Deep Dive into the history and current state of fair housing in America, 54 years after the passage of the National Fair Housing Act. 

Guests:

Lisa Rice, President and CEO of the National Fair Housing Alliance

Jim McCarthy, President/CEO of Miami Valley Fair Housing Center

Michael Allen, Attorney and Partner at Relman Colfax

Ava Deakin, lead plaintiff in Deakin v. Old Town Triangle Association

Senator Tim Kaine from Virginia

Much like the unrest that was triggered by the police killings of George Floyd in 2020, the Rodney King verdict was an inflection point in the relationship between communities and police. The not guilty verdict was preceded by a long history of police brutality in Los Angeles’ Black and Latino communities that were already suffering from heightened levels of gang-related violence; political, social, and economic inequality; and a heightened vulnerability from systemic issues underlying urban life, still prevalent in America’s cities today.

But, one thing the media missed was an event that took place right before: the Watts truce of 1992. On April 28, 1992, Black and Latino gangs across L.A. saw what was happening around them and decided to finalize a peace treaty. That treaty was strongest in L.A.’s predominantly Black Watts projects amongst four gangs: the Grape Street and PJ Watts Crips, and Bounty Hunter and Hacienda Village Bloods. 

Aqeela Sherrills was a former Grape Street Crip who helped broker the peace deal between the groups. Today, he is a community violence activist and public safety advocate. Sherrills is co-founder of the Community Based Public Safety Collective and the President and Board Chair of the Newark Community Street Team. He joined the show to discuss the 30th anniversary of the Watts truce and L.A. rebellion, and he explained how these events hold valuable lessons on redefining public safety. 

The Food and Drug Administration is supposed to put safety standards in place and investigate and respond to outbreaks of food-borne illnesses. But a recent investigation from Politico titled “The FDA’s Food Failure,” revealed significant structural leadership issues and found that the food arm of the agency – the Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition – has repeatedly failed to create regulations or respond in a timely manner to a wide range of food safety, health, and nutrition issues.

We speak with the reporter who worked on that investigation, Helena Bottemiller Evich, Senior food and agricultural reporter for Politico.

Here's a comment from the FDA from an FDA spokesperson: 

The FDA has accomplished a tremendous amount in the last 10 years to make the American food supply as safe as it’s ever been. At the FDA we are harnessing new technology, data management, and strategies to improve our ability to identify and interdict unsafe food products to build a New Era of Smarter Food Safety. By advancing our scientific capabilities to detect pathogens and other contaminants, we are now detecting more outbreaks and we are making real progress on reducing toxic elements in the food supply. On April 27, 2022 we issued draft guidance to industry to help reduce the levels of lead in juices—which is good for everyone, but in particular young children, and as part of our Closer to Zero action plan, we expect to issue additional guidance on lead action levels for foods commonly eaten by babies and young children later this year.

April is National Poetry Month and The Takeaway is talking with young poets across the country. Alyssa Gaines is Urban Word’s 2022 National Youth Poet Laureate Midwest Regional Finalist. She joined the program to talk about her work and shared one of her poems