The Takeaway

The lower federal courts in Alabama ruled in favor of drawing a new congressional map to more fairly represent Alabama’s Black population. On February 7th, the Supreme Court voted 5 to 4 to provisionally allow the current district map to stand. The lower courts may appeal the decision, but Alabamians would not expect a ruling before the 2022 elections. We speak with Representative Chris England, chair of the Alabama Democratic Party about voting rights and gerrymandering in Alabama.

For the next installment in our series Black.Queer.Rising., we talk with former NFL player, and current Vice President of Inclusion Strategy at Netflix, Wade Davis about his journey towards self-love and what he’s learned from talking with young people about the different experiences faced by queer youth today.

Does the NFL have a problem hiring and retaining Black coaches? We explore that and whether or not the Rooney rule has made an impact on hiring black coaches or if it’s just a bandaid on a larger problem plaguing the league with Dave Zirin, sports editor for The Nation.

In December of 2018, the bi-partisan bill, First Step Act, was passed and called for reducing prison sentences and improving conditions within federal prisons. After months of debate regarding the details of the bill, the Bureau of Prisons has now been mandated to implement this act.

Some states such as California and New Jersey have already taken steps to reduce the prison population, largely as a result of the spread of Covid-19. While the headlines may have us believe that we are finally entering an age of prison reform, the prison population has once again started to climb. We invited Lauren-Brooke Eisen, Director of the Justice Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, to talk about early release programs initiated during the pandemic and whether or not we can expect to see expansions of these seemingly successful programs.

The MLB is in a lockout for the first time since 1995.  The MLB and MLB Players' Association have yet to come to any agreement on the new collective bargaining agreement, which means pitchers and catchers likely won’t start on February 14th as planned. And with spring training being pushed back, that means opening day might be delayed as well. 

This is heartbreaking for the fans, including The Takeaway's own line producer Jackie Martin, who joins the show to break down the baseball drama.

For decades, women over 30 have been largely invisible on the big and small screen, relegated to playing mothers of male actors who are almost their same age  

Past studies show that women’s careers peak at 30, while men’s peak over 15 years later. According to a 2020 study by the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film, men experience only a 3 percent drop in representation for characters over 40, compared to 13 percent for women.

But that’s starting to change thanks in part to streaming platforms like Netflix and HBO Max. Today, there are more complex and interesting roles for middle aged women, from Kate Winslet’s police detective in Mare of Easttown to Sandra Oh’s department head in The Chair to Regina King’s Sister Night in Watchmen. 

For more, The Takeaway spoke to Helen Lewis, a staff writer at The Atlantic and author of Difficult Women: A History of Feminism in 11 Fights.

Patrisse Cullors joins us to discuss her new book, “An Abolitionist’s Handbook: 12 Steps to Changing Yourself and the World.”

Back in March 2020, we were still trying to figure out what COVID-19 was, when residents from a majority of states were under mandatory stay at home orders, and job losses soared when employers slashed roughly 870,000 jobs in March. In April, that number grew to 20.5 million when Congress ​​passed the CARES Act relief bill which included the Paycheck Protection Program that gave out loans to small business owners to help them stay afloat. 

To date, banks around the country have distributed nearly $800 billion dollars through nearly 12 million PPP loans. And these loans did help many small business owners. But while the program did a lot of good, there are those who struggled to understand the forms, who were denied loans, and now, some are struggling to have their loans forgiven.

Bryce Covert, an independent journalist writing about the economy, reported on this issue for The Intercept and learned that some borrowers are having problems with Bank of America, the second-biggest PPP lender.

We also hear from small business owners: Amy Yassinger, owner of Yass Jazz, Music and Productions, in Chicago, Illinois, and Christopher Martin, owner of CT Martin Inc that does Concierge IT services out of Michigan. 

The Takeaway reached out to the Small Business Administration about this story for comment and they declined to comment. We also reached out to Bank of America and here's what Bill Halldin, Bank of America Media Relations, said: 

We work with clients every day to ensure they receive forgiveness for as much of their Paycheck Protection Program loan as possible. To date, 94 percent of clients in the 2020 round have submitted forgiveness applications that have been fully completed by the SBA; in the 2021 round that percentage stands at 87 percent.

In the forgiveness process, we are required to follow the Small Business Administration’s rules and guidance. That guidance has been clear that payments made to contractors do not qualify for forgiveness under the SBA’s rules. If a client has additional documentation to support their application for forgiveness, we encourage them to submit that information and have made adjustments based on such submissions. Clients who want to appeal to the SBA can take their concerns to the SBA directly and do not require our involvement in that process.

Alicia Garza, principal at the Black Futures Lab and Co-Founder of the Black Lives Matter Global Network joins us as part of the series Black.Queer.Rising.

Here at The Takeaway we love our music, both classic tracks and new hits, but these days there are fewer new hits on the top charts. 

According to music-analytics firm MRC Data, new music makes up 30 percent of the current music market, while artists from previous decades are among the most downloaded on iTunes. On Spotify, songs like “Dreams by Fleetwood Mac'' are being discovered by new audiences, thanks in part to platforms like TikTok. 

So what’s happening? What does this signal about the future of the music industry? To answer those questions and more, The Takeaway turned to Ted Gioia, who writes the music and popular-culture newsletter The Honest Broker on Substack and is also the author of 11 books, including, most recently, Music: A Subversive History.