Making Contact

Saltwater Soundwalk: Indigenous Audio Tour of Seattle

On today's show, we'll travel to Seattle to hear indigenous voices and Coast Salish languages, and to reflect on the importance of the Salish Sea and connecting waters, by immersing ourselves in an audio experience called  “Saltwater Soundwalk.” 

Ninety Seconds to Midnight

A new philosophy steeped in the ideas of Artificial Intelligence, space colonization, and the long-term survival of the human species is gaining ground among the wealthy.  However, there are reasons to question its goals and its ethics. Longtermists believe that not only could we colonize space and create simulated humans in giant servers around stars, but that we must. Anything short of a trillion-year multi-planetary existence for our species would be a moral failing. They also believe tha...

Capital City: Gentrification and the Real Estate State

While wages have flatlined for most working class people, rents have reached new highs, leaving most people struggling. But it’s not just in the US. The rising cost of living is affected the entire world. Samuel Stein’s new book, Capital City and the Real Estate State, highlights the growing influence of investment capital into land as the driving force behind gentrification and the power developers have over city and local governments. We talk to Samuel about the rise of the global real est...

Blindspot:Tulsa Burning and Focus: Black Oklahoma

On this episode, we turn our focus to how journalists and historians today are covering the Tulsa Race Massacre. KalaLea, producer and host of the podcast series Blindspot: Tulsa Burning, talks about how she led coverage of the brutal 1921 attack on a prosperous Black Greenwood neighborhood in Tulsa, Oklahoma known as Black Wall Street. And, we'll hear from members of Tulsa's Tri-City Collective who continue to investigate the history there. 

Pandemic and Profit

To mark the three year anniversary of the official start of the Covid-19 pandemic, we'll be looking at two alternative supply chains for masks that emerged in the fallout of the Trump administration's failure to prepare.

70 Million: Why Policing Our Schools Backfires

On today's show, we hear a story from our podcast partner 70 Million about the relationship between students with special needs and school resource officers and the changes some would like to see in an edited version of  “Why Policing Our Schools Backfires." 

Behind The Sound with Making Contact

In this episode, long-time producers Anita Johnson and Salima Hamirani introduce the newest members of the Making Contact team, recap highlights from the past year, and preview what to expect from the show in 2023.  

Angelic Troublemaker: Bayard Rustin ENCORE

On today's show, we bring you a special encore episode from our archives to honor Black history and heritage. We take a look at the life and legacy of Bayard Rustin, one of the most central figures in the African American struggle for civil rights and freedom. Rustin was a pacifist, a gay man, and a practitioner of nonviolence who dedicated his life to racial equality, economic justice and ending warfare. This program first aired on Making Contact in 2021.

The Healing Project: An Abolitionist Story

This week on Making Contact we bring you to "The Healing Project," a multimedia installation that shares stories from incarcerated people about how the trauma of imprisonment has impacted their lives and families.

The Fight Over The Indian Child Welfare Act Is Not Just A Custody Battle

On the face of it, the legal arguments at the Supreme Court over the Indian Child Welfare Act seem to be a custody battle over Native children and the right to adopt them by white parents. But, the funding behind the court case hints at something deeper and could dismantle indigenous sovereignty as we know it.

The Response: Mutual Aid with Joshua Potash

Joshua Potash, a New York City-based anti-capitalist abolitionist discusses the history and theory behind mutual aid with our partners at The Response Podcast.

Upstream: Worker Cooperatives

On today's show we learn about worker cooperatives: what are they and can they offer an alternative to the dominant capitalist mindset? Our partner podcast Upstream brings us to a bike and skate shop in Richmond, CA that's providing a much-needed service to its community, while also empowering its own workers, in this story that first aired in 2018.

70 Million: Punished and Persecuted for Being Unhoused, Part 2

This week on Making Contact we continue with our look at a community of unhoused people in Echo Park in Los Angeles, California and how they were forcibly evicted by police despite an enormous show of support from protesters. Thanks to our podcast partners at 70 Million we bring you part two of “Punished and Persecuted for Being Unhoused.”

70 Million: Punished and Persecuted for Being Unhoused, Part 1

Fallen Heroes 2022

Thousands of social justice leaders in communities all over the world passed away this year. We're closing out the year, as we usually do, with inspiring words from some of the Fallen Heroes of 2022.

Two Revolutions, Many Secrets (Encore)

In the midst of our stress and trauma dealing with the sometimes harsh realities of life, its hard to imagine what stories we will ultimately tell our children and grandchildren. This week's Making Contact is about two strong women who survived historic trauma, and the stories they later told their families.

The A Word

This week, we explore an often-overlooked issue in the Arab world; racism towards Black Arabs. In this episode, Kerning Culture reporter Ahmed Twaij looks at racism in his own community, taking us from his Iraqi roots, through to modern day slurs still commonly used in many Arab communities around the world.  

Web Extra: Interview with Rebecca Piazza, USDA

In this special mini-episode, producer Amy Gastelum sits down with Rebecca Piazza to learn more about WIC, and what the program is doing to try and increase its low participation rates.

Well Nourished: How Mutual Aid is Transforming Food Security for Single Moms in Ohio

Federal food programs, like WIC, face big changes coming out of the White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition and Health. Meanwhile, a single moms collective in Ohio holds it down for the single pregnant and parenting people in their community. Motherful's resource pantry serves their 325-strong membership out of a garage three times a week.  We talk to members and founders to learn what's it's like to participate, how it all started and where food justice is headed for them now and in the...

How To Hold Back The Ocean (Encore)

As climate change melts the polar ice caps and raises sea levels, how will we adapt? We visit two locations: On Sapelo Island Georgia, the last remaining Gullah Geechee community fights to save their ancestral lands from the flood waters. Instead of leaving their land, or building a giant sea wall, they've chosen to use oysters to create what's called a living shoreline. We take a look at how they're built and if they're working. Meanwhile, in New York, the Army Corps wants to construct seag...

The Way Home (Encore)

What does food mean to identities struggling against colonialism and displacement? First, we visit the Blackfeet Nation in Montana as members of Indigikitchen harvest bison and talk about Native food systems. Then, we head to Bloomington, Indiana where a young archeology professor has brought methods of growing and sharing food from the deeper past to a modern Latino diaspora.  

Post-Roe Abortion Access from The Response Part 2

Mutual aid efforts to provide pregnancy prevention and medical abortion in post-Roe southern United States. 

Post-Roe Abortion Access from The Response Part 1

Our friends from the podcast The Response bring us their piece Abortion Access and Reproductive Justice in a Post-Roe Landscape, plus a quick update on how the issue of abortion access impacted the 2022 midterms. 

Ollas Populares- Lessons from Lockdowns

Groups all over Latin America turn to the age-old practice of communal cooking to feed citizens during pandemic lockdowns. A Buenos Aires arts organization solidifies their community, and a Peruvian architect brings new ways of building to the hillsides of Lima. 

70 Million: Tribal Land, Banishment, Rehabilitation and Re-Entry

This week on Making Contact - with assistance from our podcast partners, 70 million - we head to the state of Alaska, where rising violent crime and substance abuse have increased incarceration rates among Native Americans. Making use of their legal sovereignty, some Alaskan Native leaders issue “blue tickets,” documents that sentence offenders to legal expulsion. Journalist Emily Schwing looked into these banishment practices and their impacts on those affected by both tribal and state crim...

The Agony and the Ecstasy: Race and the Future of the Love Story Part 2 (Encore)

We revisit a major race debate within the Romance Writers of America that began in 2019 and talk about why questions of race in art and in institutions are so relevant in today's America. This is a two part series.

The Agony and the Ecstasy: Race and the Future of the Love Story Part 2 (Encore)

We revisit a major race debate within the Romance Writers of America that began in 2019 and talk about why questions of race in art and in institutions are so relevant in today's America. This is a two part series.

The Agony and the Ecstasy: Race and the Future of the Love Story Part 1 (Encore)

We revisit a major race debate within the Romance Writers of America that began in 2019 and talk about why questions of race in art and in institutions are so relevant in today's America. This is a two part series.  

Where There’s Smoke: Asthma, Wildfires, and Fossil Fuels (Encore)

One child’s experience in a neighborhood with high asthma rates and other health challenges. 

Inflamed: Deep Medicine and the Anatomy of Injustice

We talk to Raj Patel and Rupa Marya about their new book "Inflamed: Deep Medicine and the Anatomy of Injustice."

Revolutionary Mothering and Reproductive Justice

In today's episode, Dr. Alexis Pauline Gumbs tells the birth story of the book she co-edited with China Martens and Mai'a Williams, Revolutionary Mothering: Love on the Front Lines and gives context to the book with stories of the Reproductive Justice Movement.

Viva Brother Nagi from Kerning Cultures

Nagi Daifallah was a young farm worker from Yemen who participated in the 1973 Grape Strike along with the UFW until he was murdered by a Sheriff. We visit his story via our friends at Kerning Cultures.   

The Response: Heatwaves and Energy Poverty in the Mediterranean

In today’s episode, we’re going to focus on energy poverty. When temperatures rise to the point where they become dangerous, what happens to people who can’t escape the heat? As temperatures continue to soar and extreme heatwaves become the norm, a lack of resources to stay cool — so, having access to things like air conditioning, for example, — is a huge issue across the world. To find out how people are fighting energy poverty, we visit southern Europe, a region that experienced a series o...

70 Million – Forget Reform, They Want Abolition

Making Contact is a 29-minute weekly program committed to investigative journalism and in-depth critical analysis that goes beyond the breaking news. On the web at www.radioproject.org.

The Way Home

What does food mean to identities struggling against colonialism and displacement? First, we visit the Blackfeet Nation in Montana as members of Indigikitchen harvest bison and talk about native food systems. Then, we head to Bloomington, Indiana where a young archeology professor has brought methods of growing and sharing food from the deeper past to a modern Latino diaspora.

Hunger Strike! How Immigrant Taxi Drivers Took on City Hall

New York City taxi drivers were drowning in debt because they had to buy their licenses from the city. We join our friends at the podcast Self-Evident to take a look at the hunger strike they used to renegotiate the terms of their debt.

Escape to Cairo from Kerning Cultures

This week, we bring you a story from our podcast partner Kerning Cultures about Patrice Lumumba’s children, and their escape to Cairo. 

How to Hold Back the Ocean

More and more coastal communities want to build sea walls to prevent catastrophic flooding because of rising sea levels. But do they work? We talk about the risks of the planned seagates in New York and we visit Sapelo Island Georgia to learn about how to Gullah Geechee community plans to defend their ancestral lands by using a natural shoreline, built of oysters.

70 Million: When "Bail Reform" Isn't

This week on Making Contact, we look at Bail Reform in the state of Texas with the help of our podcast partners 70 Million. For conservative lawmakers and bail reform advocates have long debated what bail reform can look like for those who cannot afford to bail themselves out of jail.

Juristac and the Amah Mutsun: Indigenous Resistance and Regeneration (Encore)

White Hoax: Racism, Divide-and-Conquer, and Politics

Seeking Shelter: Building Housing and Community for LGBTQ Elders (Encore)

Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender seniors are much more likely than their straight counterparts to be alone and isolated as they age. Housing and support for these elders is a growing need--and the issue is not confined to the United States. In this edition, we'll visit Jakarta Indonesia, and Los Angeles, California, to hear stories of building housing and community for LGBTQ seniors.

I Am Because I Am: The Expansion of Gender Identity (Encore)

Making Contact is a 29-minute weekly program committed to investigative journalism and in-depth critical analysis that goes beyond the breaking news. On the Web at www.radioproject.org.

The Agony and the Ecstasy: Race and the Future of the Love Story Part 2

We revisit a major race debate within the Romance Writers of America that began in 2019 and talk about why questions of race in art and in institutions are so relevant in today's America. This is a two part series.

The Agony and the Ecstasy: Race and the Future of the Love Story Part 1

Jerusalem Calling from Kerning Cultures

The Palestine Broadcasting Service started airing in 1936, from a brand new transmitter tower in Ramallah. It was a British station in three languages, aimed at promoting the message of the mandate government throughout the region. But over the following decades, as Palestine saw political upheavals, bloody conflicts and power shifts, the radio station found itself in the middle of it all, and became a unique capsule of the events that lead up to the Nakba. This story originally aired on Ker...

Escaping The Narcissism of The American Dream

22-19 “The Pseudo-Science of Whiteness: Biology as a Social Weapon ENCORE” POD

Making Contact is a 29-minute weekly program committed to investigative journalism and in-depth critical analysis that goes beyond the breaking news. On the web at www.radioproject.org.

re:Work - Redemption

This episode explores the story of Billy Taing, a Cambodian refugee who got caught up in the US criminal justice system at a young age.

Operation Boulder from Kerning Cultures