The Takeaway

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.

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. 

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.

In her new film, "Try Harder," Debbie Lum takes viewers through the reality of the American college application process and the intersections of race, class, educational opportunity and attainment. 

The documentary focuses on students who attend Lowell High School in San Francisco California, a school known for academic excellence. Asians represent the majority of the student body, but all of the students at Lowell high school face intense pressure from their families and peers to get into the most competitive colleges.