The Takeaway

Last week, two far-right populist leaders were reelected in their respective countries: Viktor Orban in Hungary and Aleksandar Vucic in Serbia. Meanwhile in France, far-right populist candidate Marine Le Pen placed second in the election on Sunday, which means she will face off against current President Emmanuel Macron in an election runoff on April 24, 2022. 

What does the sustained strength of populism and its autocratic underpinnings abroad mean for the state of American politics and democracy?

To explore that question and more, we hear from David Rothkopf, columnist for The Daily Beast and USA Today and host of the Deep State Radio podcast.

In 2017, the World Health Organization found that even though maternal mortality rates were decreasing globally, the U.S. was one of two countries to experience a significant increase in its maternal mortality ratio. 

What this means is that women and other birthing people in the U.S. are "dying before, during, and after childbirth" at a rate higher than any developed nation in the world, with Black women and Black birthing persons 3 times more likely to die from pregnancy related complications than their white counterparts. 

In December, we took a deep dive into the issue of childbirth, disparities in maternal health outcomes, and the need for action. Listen to it here. The White House hosted its first ever Maternal Health Day of Action Summit on Dec 7, 2021 and in continuation of addressing the racial disparities in maternal health outcomes, announced that April 11th through April 17th is officially Black Maternal Health week. 

We speak with Raven Freeborn, Director of Policy, Organizing, and Partnership at Mamatoto Village, an organization creating career pathways in maternal health and providing accessible, reproductive support services for Black pregnant people and Black mothers. 

Yesterday, April 7th, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson was confirmed to the Supreme Court of the United States, making her the first Black woman to serve as a justice on the nation's highest court. Building off the confirmation of Justice Brown Jackson, we took a Deep Dive into the life and legacy of Judge Constance Baker Motley, the first Black woman to serve on the federal judiciary.

Constance Baker Motley was a civil rights lawyer, NY state politician, and the first Black woman appointed to the federal judiciary. Before finishing law school at Columbia University in 1945, Motley served as a law clerk in the office of Thurgood Marshall, the well known civil rights leader who was the first African American to serve on the Supreme Court of the United States.

In 1946, Motley joined the NAACP Legal and Educational Defense Fund where she served as a civil rights lawyer for nearly two decades. She represented well known civil rights leaders like MLK and Medgar Evans whose constitutional rights were often under siege by the American government during that time. She also represented those who took part in civil rights activism such as the Freedom Fighters and the Birmingham Children Marchers. She was considered a key legal and political strategist of the movement. 

In 1950, Motley was the legal mind behind the original complaint in Brown v. Board of Education (1954), the landmark case that ended school segregation in the U.S. in the mid 20th century. The complaint in Brown v. BOE (1954) argued that under the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment, racial separation under the guise of "separate but equal," was in-fact unequal therefore unconstitutional. This historical case set the legal stage for desegregation in the U.S.

In 1964, Motley became the first Black woman elected to the NY State Senate, and she eventually became the first Black woman elected to serve as Borough President of Manhattan. In 1966, President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed her to a seat on the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, making her the first Black woman to be appointed to the federal bench. 

Today, we took a deep dive into her life and legacy with Tomiko Brown-Nagin, Dean of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study and Professor Law and History at Harvard University. She's author of Civil Rights Queen: Constance Baker Motley and the Struggle for Equality, “A must-read for anyone who dares to believe that equal justice under the law is possible and is in search of a model for how to make it a reality,” said Professor Anita Hill. Anita Hill is the legal scholar and professor who captivated the American public in 1991 during her testimony before the Senate judiciary committee in the vetting process for then-nominee Clarence Thomas. Thomas is the only other African American to sit on the Supreme Court; he was appointed by George H. W. Bush to replace Justice Thurgood Marshall. He's married to Virginia Thomas who sent a great deal of text messages begging former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows to push to overturn the fairly drawn results of the 2020 presidential election.

We also spoke with President and Director-Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund (LDF), Janai Nelson, about the legacy Motley left and the pivotal cases she worked on during her time there. 

Simone Yhap, the immediate past president of the National Chair of the National Black Law Students Association also joined us. Yhap spoke to us about the obstacles Black law students continue to face, citing a recent incident from law student Brooklyn Crockton. Crockton posted a TikTok back in March about what happened when she arrived at court to serve as a Rule 9 attorney representing an indigent client. She says a court officer blocked her entry into the courtroom and asked if she was the defendant on trial. Simone speaks to this incident with her own story of racial discrimination during law school and reflects on how the historical confirmation of Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson will inspire the next generation of U.S. attorneys.

We speak with choreographer Claudia Schreier and composer Jessie Montgomery about their work on the piece Passage, performed this weekend by the Dance Theatre of Harlem. Passage was created in recognition of the 400th anniversary of the arrival of enslaved Africans to Virginia in 1619.

To learn more about her new book “The Trayvon Generation,” we speak with author Elizabeth Alexander, poet and president of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the nation’s largest funder in the arts, culture, and humanities. We also hear her thoughts on motherhood, philanthropy, and the anxieties of young Black people growing up and making art in this moment. 

Can there be LGBTQ+ affirmation within the Black Church?

That’s what the new PFLAG documentary “Taking the Long Road Home” explores through the lens and story of director Qiydaar Foster and participant Reverend Naomi Washington-Leapheart. They who joined us on The Takeaway.

Last week, members of the One Herald Guild, made up of employees of the Miami Herald and El Nuevo Herald newspapers, staged a virtual walkout. The action was taken to express frustration at McClatchy, the parent company of the newspaper, with whom One Herald Guild has been negotiating a labor contract for over two years. One of the biggest points of contention are the sharp pay disparities between El Nuevo Herald reporters and their English-reporting counterparts at The Miami Herald.

The Takeaway speaks with Miami Herald Capitol Bureau Chief and One Herald Guild co-chair Mary Ellen Klas about the ongoing negotiations.

WNYC’s youth radio initiative, Radio Rookies, is presenting its new season of stories this week. These young journalists are between the ages of ages 16 to 24 and have come from all over New York City. They’ve spent the past few months developing story ideas, learning interview skills and how to use audio equipment, and maybe most important of all – learning how to make a good story for the radio waves.

We speak with Carolina Hidalgo, Producer of Radio Rookies and two Rookies themselves, Folashade Olatunde and Rainier Harris, and speak to them about their stories their stories and experiences working on those stories. 

Check out more Radio Rookies stories here.

Amid the ongoing exodus of Ukrainians fleeing their country due to the Russian invasion, members of the country’s LGBTQ community find themselves in a particularly precarious position. Some of the countries that they are fleeing to, including Poland, have had vocal anti-LGBTQ movements in recent years. LGBTQ+ Ukrainian refugees also face obstacles towards receiving proper medical care, and at times, issues with their identifying documents.

We hear from Edward Reese, a non-binary, queer Ukrainian about his experience fleeing Ukraine. We also speak with two activists working to help LGBTQ Ukrainian refugees, Olena Shevchenko, Head of Insight Ukraine, an LGBTQ advocacy group based in Ukraine, and Miroslawa “Mirka” Makuchowska, Deputy CEO of Campaign Against Homophobia, a Polish LGBTQ+ rights organization.

Is the child welfare system set up to destroy Black families? That is a question asked in the new book TORN APART: How the Child Welfare System Destroys Black Families--and How Abolition Can Build a Safer World by Professor Dorothy Roberts. She challenges the system that exists, discusses the stories of families negatively affected, and the possibilities for change.