"A Change of World" tells the story of how poets who were swept up in the Women’s Movement of the 1960s and 70s radically changed American poetry. As poet Alicia Ostriker says, "For the first time in the history of writing, which is about 4000 years or so, women could write without fear, without constantly looking over their shoulder to see if they were going to be approved of by men.” How did this come about?

Betty Friedan’s “The Feminine Mystique” was a primary catalyst of The Women’s Movement. In poetry, it was Sylvia Plath’s posthumous book “Ariel,” which electrified a generation of women poets. We’ll hear from Plath herself and from women poets who were coming up during the 1960s. We’ll also hear about the radical sexual and psychological candor of Plath’s friend, Anne Sexton.

By the 1970s women poets were publishing a huge variety of poetry that simply was not imaginable a decade earlier. Yet they still didn’t have mainstream literary approval. When Adrienne Rich won the National Book Award for Poetry in 1974, she accepted on behalf of her fellow nominees Audre Lorde and Alice Walker. This was a watershed moment. As Honor Moore says, :It was shocking. Feminism had no standing in the culture.  It was courageous in the sense that none of these three poets would ever be accepted or considered in the same way again.”

In the face of continuing sexism in the literary establishment, women poets began forming their own informal communities, with readings, magazines, bookstores, workshops and mentorships. We’ll hear about this movement from poets who participated, like Sharon Olds, Judy Grahn, Sonia Sanchez, Susan Griffin, as well as archival audio from some of the leading poets of the time. 

Spring planting on the family farm is the time of the annual gamble --- on the alchemies of nature, on the health of livestock, on future fall harvest market prices. Planting introduces five families who are among the 1 percent of Americans who live and work on farms: the Griffieons of Iowa; the Pecusas of Hopi, Arizona; the Mains of northern California; the Wises of North Carolina; and the Hagers of western Massachusetts.

Whenever Kenrick McRae uses his car, he does a thorough spot check first. Before he gets in, he walks around the car, even testing the brake lights by putting a brick on the pedal to verify that the lights are on.

"I always want to be on the right side of the law," he told CBC's The Doc Project radio program.

But no matter how scrupulous he is, McRae, who is Black, can't seem to avoid being stopped by Montreal police. He's been pulled over dozens of times, he says, some months, as many as 15.

"They might say some kind of light is not working, [or] they thought I didn't have my seatbelt on, but when they come up, they see the seatbelt is on," he said.

Montreal police declined The Doc Project's request for comment on McRae's experiences. A representative wrote that the force does not discuss specific cases, particularly those that have been brought before Quebec's police ethics commissioner, as McRae's complaints have. 

McRae, 48, has filed five racial profiling complaints against Montreal police with the help of the Centre for Research-Action on Race Relations (CRARR), a Montreal-based civil rights advocacy group.

Two were settled through conciliation; one was dismissed by the police ethics commissioner; and in a fourth case, the province's police ethics committee ruled in McRae's favour and ordered the suspension of the officers involved. The Quebec Human Rights and Youth Rights Commission recommended that the city and officers pay damages to McRae, but the deadline for that passed, and the case is now likely to go before the provincial Human Rights Tribunal.

One complaint, over a ticket for being a driver under the influence of alcohol that McRae received in August 2019 while clearing out empty containers from his car, is still in progress.

2019 report examined racial profiling by Montreal police

McRae's experience is far from unique, says Alain Babineau, a retired RCMP officer who spent more than three decades in policing and helped McRae file one of his complaints. 

Babineau said he has encountered others who say they've been stopped as frequently as McRae. 

"Those are the folks that come forward. Not everybody that gets racially profiled comes forward," said Babineau, a McGill University law graduate who now works as a civil rights advocate. 

Civil rights advocates in Montreal have been trying to shine a light on cases of alleged racial profiling by police for over a decade.

In 2019, a report commissioned by the City of Montreal that looked into street checks, found Indigenous people and Black people were four to five times more likely than white people to be stopped by police.

"It's horrific because they've accepted this as being their plight in life, and at some point, you have to develop some type of anger and animus towards law enforcement," said Babineau.

Following the release of the 2019 report, Montreal Police Chief Sylvain Caron said he was "very surprised" by the findings but vowed to take quick, concrete and transparent action to reduce racial disparities.

In July 2020, after a series of consultations, the police service introduced a policy on street checks with guidelines outlining when and how officers could stop people. 

Ticketed while taking out recycling

McRae, who was a police officer in his native Guyana, moved to Montreal in 2006.

He'd initially hoped to continue his career in policing, but he doesn't speak French, which ruled out that possibility. 

Eventually, he found a job as a brake rider at Montreal's Trudeau International Airport, towing planes around the tarmac before and after takeoff. 

It was a well-paying job, McRae said, enabling him to buy a used 2002 Mercedes SUV. 

But soon, he said, he found himself being regularly pulled over while driving to work. 

In one instance last August, McRae was stopped by a police officer while throwing out some cups and cans from his car with his recycling just outside his apartment building.

He was issued a $486 ticket for "being the driver of a road vehicle, having consumed alcoholic beverages" after an officer pulled an empty beer bottle from his recycling. McRae said he was neither drinking nor driving his car at the time.

He said he initially refused to show the officer his ID but gave it to her after three more police cruisers arrived on scene. 

"So, I count to 10, and I said, 'You know, today is not my day to die,'" he recounted.

McRae said this and other experiences with Montreal police have given him a clear impression. 

"I'm not worth it, you know, living in this society."

He said he'd move away from Montreal but that he can't leave the city because he co-parents a teenage daughter.  

'We don't have systemic racism'

Filing individual complaints against police as McRae has done has hardly made a dent in the wider problem of racial profiling, says Babineau. He says there seems to be an unwillingness on the part of politicians and police administrators to tackle systemic racism.

"We don't have systemic racism," RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki told the Globe and Mail in June when asked whether the problem exists on the force in the wake of widespread protests over racism in policing following the death of George Floyd in police custody in Minneapolis.

She told several media outlets that she was struggling to precisely define the term.

Curtis Zablocki, the RCMP's commanding officer in Alberta, shared his boss's view. 

"I do see us different than the United States," he said at the time. "I don't believe that racism is systemic through Canadian policing. I don't believe it's systemic through policing in Alberta."  

Their comments sparked an outcry. Lucki and Zablocki quickly walked them back, acknowledging they had more to learn on the subject. 

Babineau said it's frustrating that police leaders are still trying to catch up to the problem when people of colour in Canada have been highlighting it for decades.

"It's a very simple question with very complex answers," said Massimiliano Mulone, an associate professor of criminology at the University of Montreal.

Mulone was one of the co-authors of the 2019 Montreal street check report and is currently studying the impact of the police's new street check policy. In cities across the country, he said, the data suggests that Black and Indigenous people are stopped at higher rates than white people.

The reasons why aren't just the fault of police, he said; the disparity reflects bias and prejudice that exist more widely. 

Mulone saw similar levels of racial discrimination when street checks were prompted by a call from a citizen, for example.

"You cannot put all the fault on the police, but at the same time, you cannot say the police doesn't have any responsibility in this systemic discrimination," he said. "It's not just a police problem; it's a society problem."

The nature of police work, in turn, makes existing biases even stronger, Mulone said.

"Police officers work a lot on the premise of suspicion ... [In] their experience, they think that race is an important determinant of suspicion."  

Babineau said he witnessed and participated in systemic racism during his 28 years in the RCMP, mostly stationed in Ontario. 

"Even if you're a racialized police officer, you become part of the culture in which you operate," he said. 

"I was part of the drug squad for 10 years. So, we're targeting so-called high crime areas. And you end up targeting a particular community and developing these particular stereotypes in your mind as to who's involved in [criminal activity]."

Babineau said that sometimes led to communities being over-policed by officers who were intent on making arrests.

To date, there's been some progress in certain Canadian jurisdictions, but overall, improvements have been limited, Babineau said.

For example, the new street check policy introduced in Montreal last summer prohibits "any police checks that are unfounded, random or based on a discriminatory criterion." But, in Babineau's view, it will do little to curb racial profiling because it doesn't lay out sanctions for officers who break the rules.

He suspects the policy was an effort to make it look like the city was taking action in a summer of protests over police brutality.

The Doc Project reached out the Montreal police service about the street check policy, but they declined to comment.

Furthermore, Babineau said, traffic stops such as those McRae encountered aren't included in the policy, which focuses on pedestrian stops.

Mulone said he would like to see racial discrimination become a criteria when it comes to evaluating the effectiveness of police programs. He also wants to see police services shift their primary purpose from fighting crime to creating a sense of security in the communities they serve. 

"The main mission [should be] to contribute to the security of the people, and the security of the people is due to the fact that you're not targeted in a way that is discriminatory. "

A toll on mental health

CRARR's executive director, Fo Niemi, is hopeful McRae's most recent complaint, filed with Quebec's police ethics commissioner, will be successful.

Niemi has helped McRae file this and other complaints against Montreal police and says while cases can drag on for years, "McRae is someone who will not back down."

McRae said he's prepared to fight but that his experience with Montreal police has deeply affected his psyche. 

"I'm scared every day, especially when I go outside."

Babineau said the recurring nature of McRae's negative experiences are likely taking a toll on his mental health. 

"You can argue that he's suffering from some form of PTSD, right? Because this happened to him repeatedly," Babineau said. "And that's very serious in my opinion — and here's a guy who was a cop." 

This program is the story of women in the ultimate Man’s World – the labs and Shuttle crew cabins of NASA.  Told in the first person, these stories explore the experiences of NASA’s first woman engineers and scientists and its first astronauts.  It also tells the fascinating story of a group of women pilots who – in the early 1960s – were led to believe that they would be America’s first women astronauts and were given the exact same physical tests are the Mercury astronauts.  The program is narrated by Eileen Collins, the first woman commander of a Space Shuttle. 

Ify Chiwetelu and Jane Testar spend an hour exploring what it takes to love, or even just like, your body. How do you love the body you’re in in the face of diet culture and challenges to body positivity? This special will make you think about your relationship with your body, challenge ingrained thought processes, and question your behaviours. The Bod Pod is not passive listening, it’s a call to action...

* Winner of the RTNDA-UNITY Award for excellence in diversity coverage, 2009
* Winner of the Wisconsin AP Awards for Best Documentary, 2009
* Winner of the Asian-American Journalists Association for excellence in coverage of Asian-American/Pacific Islander issues (radio), 2009
*  Winner of the University of Wisconsin Extension/UW Colleges Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Collaboration (Wisconsin Public Radio and the Wisconsin Institute for Public Policy and Service)
===================================

More than 30 years since fleeing their native Laos after the Vietnam War, many Hmong still struggle with issues of cultural preservation and identity as they forge new lives in America. Bridging the Shores is a one-hour documentary that explores the challenges - and triumphs - of the Hmong-American community as they strive to assimilate into mainstream society yet preserve their traditions. Sources have been drawn from three states with the largest Hmong populations (Wisconsin, Minnesota, and California) but this program can appeal to any audience with a strong interest in Southeast Asian culture or immigrant communities. Topics covered include the generation gap, modern weddings, Hmong's efforts to incorporate their history into American classrooms, efforts to repatriate disturbed refugee remains in Thailand, spirituality, the career of Minnesota Senator Mee Moua, treating elders with PTSD, and new music forms incorporating traditional Hmong and American hip-hop.

We’re all used to narrative that’s told with words. But what about narrative that’s told through art? Book art?

Barry McCallion
Host Francesca Rheannon: I met the artist Barry McCallion in a local writing group that both of us attended for a time. He’s a wonderful writer, but what I didn’t know until I visited him in his home in East Hampton NY is that he’s also a wonderful artist. A book artist. The bookshelves in his study are filled with what one journalist called “astonishingly beautiful and utterly unique books, an artistic treasure trove.” Indeed they are. They combine painting, objects, sculpture and, most of all, imagination to build a narrative that is more evocative than literary.

Much of McCallion’s work is centered on his Oarsman series, books that tell a story through painting, collage and objects that compose a kind of journey. The series was inspired by a vision. McCallion writes: “In 1970, a man in a rowboat, hovering in the air, appeared suddenly in the middle of my living room.  For some time I had been searching for a subject - a theme - that would enable me to combine art with narrative. The Oarsman's appearance solved the problem.”

Matthew Rose
When we spoke with Barry McCallion (featured in the first segment of today’s show) he spoke about his origins as an artist in the Fluxus Movement, including mail art, where artists mailed pieces of their art to each other in a collaborative process.

Back in 2009, WV’s Francesca Rheannon interviewed Matthew Rose about an exhibition he mounted in a Fluxus art gallery in Soho in Manhattan. The exhibition was of an unbound book of art postcards he curated, A Book About Death, which was created out of the mailed postcards of artists from around the world.

One school on the White Earth Reservation in Minnesota puts a focus on culturally based education and it might be getting results. From sugar bushing to round dance competitions, cultural practices are part of the educational process. Overall, only 56 percent of American Indian students graduated on time in Minnesota in 2015, according to the Minnesota Department of Education. The average is 84 percent. In this continuation of our collaboration with the American Graduate initiative, we’ll talk with educators from the White Earth Reservation about their approach and what they’re seeing.

In Oregon, the graduation rates for Native students remain well below all other groups. A new report from the state’s Department of Education shows graduation is up by six percent overall from four years ago. But Native students are at the bottom. But there is some hope in Warm Springs centered around a curriculum that includes Native history and culture. The creators of the curriculum have confidence that students exposed to their culture are more likely to stay in school and achieve future success.  

 

About the Pilot The As I Am pilot features reports, analyses, and commentary on social, political, cultural and artistic topics seldom heard on traditional public radio broadcasts. Hosted by the award-winning journalist, author and scholar Helen Zia, public radio audiences will hear unique voices and perspectives on a variety of issues from across the country. The As I Am Pilot has also just recently received an award from the American Women in Radio and Television in the "Outstanding Special Category," for a segment that was previously aired on American Public Media's Weekend America. The Pilot features up and coming author Min Jin Lee as she discusses her new book Free Food for Millionaires with Boston College's Professor Min Hyoung Song. As I Am's Paul Niwa reveals the effects of gentrification on Boston's Chinatown through one man's battle against his landlord's rent increase. American Public Media's Angela Kim's journey from California to the Midwest reminds us that no matter where we may move we are often searching for something, anything, to remind us of where we came from. Nationally recognized slam poet Regie Cabico performs a piece that challenges the notion that we can be easily defined by a census box. Known for his cookbooks and popular television show Yan Can Cook, Chef Martin Yan steps out of the kitchen to talk with the award-winning broadcast journalist Sydnie Kohara. A group of UMass Boston students' trip to the Gulf Coast is chronicled as they discuss rebuilding the Vietnamese American communities ravaged by Hurricane Katrina. And International Studies Professor at Trinity College Vijay Prashad comments on why his ideal home isn't in the present, it is in the future. You can hear these stories and more, on As I Am: Asians In America. Musical consideration for the pilot has been provided by Boston Progress Radio a community-based online radio station and blog focusing on independent Asian American music and art. For more information on Boston Progress Radio please visit their website: www.bprlive.org. Bio for Helen Zia Helen Zia is an award-winning journalist and a Contributing Editor to Ms. Magazine, where she was formerly Executive Editor. She is the author of Asian American Dreams: The Emergence of an American People (2000), which President Bill Clinton quoted at White House ceremonies and was a finalist for the prestigious Kiriyama Prize. She is coauthor, with Wen Ho Lee, of My Country Versus Me (2002). Their book reveals what happened to the Los Alamos scientist who was falsely accused in unsubstantiated front page stories of being a spy for China in the worst case since the Rosenbergs. Her articles, essays and reviews have appeared in numerous publications, including Ms., New York Times, Washington Post, The Nation, Essence, The Advocate, Curve, and OUT. Ms. Zia testified before the US Commission on Civil Rights 1997 about inaccurate and biased news coverage of Asian Americans during the spotlight on campaign finance. She traveled to Beijing in 1995 to cover the UN Fourth World Congress on Women as part of a journalists of color delegation. Her work on the Asian American landmark civil rights case of anti-Asian violence is documented in the Academy Award nominated film, "Who Killed Vincent Chin?" A second generation Chinese American, Helen Zia received an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from the Law School of the City University of New York and was the first recipient of the Suzanne Ahn Journalism Award for Civil Rights and Social Justice. She is an Expert Fellow with University of Southern California's Justice and Journalism program of the Annenberg School of Journalism, and is a Writer-in-Residence at New York University's APA Institute. She is a graduate of Princeton University and a member of the university's first graduating class of women. She quit medical school after completing two years, then went to work as a construction laborer, an autoworker, and a community organizer, after which she discovered her life's work as a writer.

How do we prepare to say goodbye at the end of someone's life, and how does that goodbye impact our mental health as we grieve? This hour-long show is about the challenges and benefits of saying a good goodbye. Through stories, we explore different facets of goodbyes, including why so many of us avoid saying goodbye even in the most life-changing moments. We also discuss how initiating a goodbye conversation can make us more emotionally resilient long-term. We combine compelling storytelling with practical expert guidance to give you the tools you need to start your own difficult conversations.

• A hospice nurse shares lessons he’s learned in his work 

• A mom of three faces her own death with clarity and courage 

• A poet reflects on saying goodbye after the death of her son 

• An expert in childhood loss discusses how families can say their goodbyes 

Joy Ladin, poet and a professor of English at Yeshiva University, decided in the wake of the 2016 election to reach out to people who thought that East Coast, academic types like herself might look down on them. The author of The Soul of the Stranger: Reading God and Torah from a Transgender Perspective, Ladin sought out conversation on the two topics she knows best: gender and the Bible. We also spoke with two transgender rabbis – Ari Lev Fornari and Elliot Kukla – to get their takes on what sacred Hebrew texts teach about gender.

Mesma Belsare says Hinduism never left her conflicted about her gender identity. At an early age, she was facsinated by Bharatanatyam, a 3,000-year-old dance that originated in the Hindu temples of Southern India and in modern times is predominantly performed by women. Today, she is a painter and a dancer who expresses herself through her Hindu roots. We also hear from Ruth Vanita, director of South & South East Asian Studies at the University of Monday who explains that Hinduism takes a flexible approach to gender, and offer stories in which gender has no permanent state.

Michelle Brooker is an Australian woman who didn't publicly transition until her 60s. Raised Catholic, she came to embrace Buddhism, and credits Buddhist practice for her transition to the woman she feels she always was. We also hear from Carol Anderson, a professor of religion at Kalamazoo College who says Buddhism doesn’t offer a specific answer to what it means to be transgender but does offer stories and theology which seem to accept the fluidity of gender.

Guest hosted by Rev. David Wynn. This series is made possible by the Arcus Foundation. 

This year we are celebrating the 50th anniversary of the riots at the Stonewall Inn.  But LGBT history and the movement toward equality and civil rights for LGBT people didn’t just start in 1969.  There were many people who took part of the movement before and after Stonewall.  

This year’s 50th anniversary celebration is a great opportunity to reveal a large part of history that until recently has been largely invisible. We have partnered with acclaimed author and LGBT historian, Eric Marcus, to bring you 4 special programs this year on the 5th Sunday of March, June, September and December.  Eric is the creator of the Making Gay History podcast series.  As part of the research he did for his history books, Eric sat down and recorded interviews with many icons in the LGBT civil rights movement.  Some of the names you will recognize and others you won’t, but each of these incredible people helped shape gay history. In this special series, Eric Marcus shares some of his archive with us.

This month we begin our series with Magnus Hirschfeld, Del Martin, and Phyllis Lyon.

Learn More:
Eric Marcus
Making Gay History
Magnus Hirschfeld Interview
Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon Interview

The story of marriage equality in the United States, told through two Supreme Court cases. 

Part 1: 

Mildred and Richard Loving were jailed and banished for marrying in 1958. Nearly a decade later, their Supreme Court case changed the meaning of marriage equality in the United States — decriminalizing their own marriage while they were at it. This is the story of Loving.

Our guests are Magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui of the U.S. District Court for Washington, D.C. and Farrah Parkes and Brad Linder of The Loving Project.

Part 2:

It’s the most recent landmark case in our Civil Rights SCOTUS series, the decision that said the fundamental right to marry is protected under the 14th Amendment. How did it come about? What was the status of marriage before June of 2015? And why is the government so involved in the marriage business anyways?

This episode features the voices of Melissa Wasser from the Project on Government Oversight and Jim Obergefell, the named party in Obergefell v Hodges.

Climate change is coming for your food. In the American Heartland, farmers are battling increasingly severe weather, with epic floods and heat. Nearly half the land in the United States is used to grow crops and food animals, and agriculture accounts for an impossible to ignore 10 percent of our total greenhouse gas emissions. If we’re serious about fighting climate change, we need farmers to be part of the solution. In this documentary, based on Hot Farm, a new podcast from the Food & Environment Reporting Network and hosted by Eve Abrams, we travel across the Midwest, talking to farmers about what they are doing, or could be doing, to combat climate change. 

 

Among the people we meet is David Bishop, an Illinois farmer who became an unlikely Pied Piper in the sustainable agriculture movement. More than 30 years ago, after a drought wiped out his corn and soybean crops, Bishop changed the way he farmed. It was 1988, the same summer that a scientist named James Hansen told Congress that human activity was causing “global warming,” unofficially launching the climate-change era. While Bishop’s neighbors vowed that next year would be better, Bishop decided that he couldn’t go on doing the same thing. He started diversifying the crops he grew and replacing chemical fertilizer with manure. Over the next decade he kept asking himself, “What else can I do?” He began selling what he grew directly to consumers—something virtually unheard of in farm country back then. He didn’t consider what he was doing a crusade against climate change, but rather a way to break free of a system that was squeezing farmers from both ends—forcing them to grow only a handful of commodity crops and sell those crops to a handful of big buyers who set the prices. Along the way, Bishop has inspired—and helped guide—many younger farmers. Which is crucial, because as Abrams explains, we need more Dave Bishops if we are going to reduce the amount of greenhouse gas emissions coming from U.S. agriculture.

 

In the second half of the documentary, we meet some farmers who, unlike Bishop, are still raising commodity crops and remain unconvinced that how they farm is contributing to climate change. This is true of most American farmers. But as producer Dana Cronin explains, farmers are practical above all else. If doing something differently makes farming and financial sense, they’re likely to embrace it. This is how Lin Warfel, who is skeptical of man-made climate change, came to be involved in a farmer-led initiative called Saving Tomorrow’s Agriculture Resources, STAR for short. The idea is to change farming practices in ways that safeguard the soil—the foundation of a farmer’s livelihood—for the next generation to farm. But many of the practices endorsed by STAR also help reduce carbon emissions, even if that isn’t the reason the farmers adopt them. It’s the kind of voluntary, meet-them-where-they-are strategy that the USDA and others hoping to convince farmers to join the climate.    

Reveal’s American Rehab exposes how a treatment for drug addiction has turned tens of thousands of people into an unpaid shadow workforce. 

In Episode 1, we meet Penny Rawlings, who is relieved to get her brother into drug rehab at a place called Cenikor. She doesn’t realize that getting him out of treatment is going to be the bigger problem.

Cenikor’s model has its roots in Synanon: a revolutionary, first-of-its-kind rehab that started in the 1950s on a California beach. Its charismatic leader, Charles Dederich, mesmerized the nation by claiming to have developed a cure for drug addiction. But as it spread across the country, Dederich wanted the rehab to turn into something else: a business.