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Playlist: Black Lives and Police Violence

Compiled By: PRX Editors

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Curated Playlist
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The Invention of Race

From The Center for Documentary Studies | 54:00

One-hour historical documentary that tells the story of the construction of race, and racism, as we live with them today.

Scor_ep32photo_emphasis_small This history special traces the development of racial, and racist, ideas, from the ancient world -- when "there was no notion of race," as historian Nell Irvin Painter puts it -- up to the founding of the United States as, fundementally, a nation of and for white people (despite the "all men are created equal" language of the Declaration of Independence). Relying on the work of Painter, National Book Award-winning historian Ibram Kendi, and a recorded workshop presentation by the Racial Equity Institute, host and reporter John Biewen tells a story that names names: The Portuguese writer who, commissioned by the slave-trading leaders of his country, literally invented blackness, and therefore whiteness, in the 1450s, according to Kendi. The enlightenment scientist who first divided humanity into five "races" and coined "caucasian." The black runaway indentured servant in 17th century Virginia whose capture, and sentencing to lifelong servitude, marked the first official sanctioning of chattel slavery, and the first time a black person was treated differently from a white person in the law, in colonial America. And Thomas Jefferson and Ralph Waldo Emerson, whose "Anglo-Saxonist" thinking gets a fresh look.  

The Invention of Race is adapted from several episodes of the more in-depth 14-part series, Seeing White, on the Scene on Radio podcast: 
http://podcast.cdsporch.org/seeing-white/
 

Birding While Black

From New Hampshire Public Radio | Part of the Outside/In series | 51:29

Outside/In is a show about the natural world and how we use it – but access to nature is not equal.

Oipodcast_a_small Outside/In is a show about the natural world and how we use it – but access to nature is not equal.

Part 1: 
Black Birders Week

On May 25, 2020,  the same day that police killed George Floyd in Minneapolis, Christian Cooper was birdwatching in the Ramble, a 36-acre semi-forested woodland in New York City's Central Park. He asked a white woman to obey the park rules and leash her dog, but she refused and called the police. 
The incident demonstrates how the experience of public outdoor spaces isn't the same for everyone.

in response to the encounter, and "the murders of Ahmaud Arbery, Breyonna Taylor, George Floyd, and the countless others," a group of naturalists under the umbrella BlackAFinStem organized #BlackBirdersWeek, a week-long program celebrating black nature enthusiasts and scientists.

Part 2: Swimming Lessons

Swimming is an activity that is, depending on who you are, where you are, when you are alive in history,  more or less a part of human experience -- and in the United States, it is deeply connected to slavery, segregation, and violence. But organizations like Black Kids Swim aim to change by supporting black swimmers and showcasing black joy.

Part 3: How racist housing policies affect health + unequal exposure to climate-driven heat waves

As protests against police violence have swelled to huge numbers this week, temperatures have also climbed into one of the first serious heat spells of the year, with Washington, D.C. hitting the mid 90s.

Severe heat is the deadliest form of extreme weather in the United States. Because of the design of urban spaces combined with the country’s history of discriminatory housing policies like redlining, Black Americans and other marginalized communities are affected in disproportionate numbers.

The Impact of Police Violence on Health

From WHYY | Part of the The Pulse Specials series | 58:58

The killing of George Floyd by police officers in Minneapolis has sparked another wave of national outrage over police brutality and violence. Protesters have taken to the streets, demanding an end to police violence, and some are even asking for police departments to be defunded or abolished altogether. On this episode, we explore what better policing could look like, and what role research and science might play in serious reform. We talk with experts about the effects police violence is having on Black Americans’ health — both mental and physical. It’s not only the actual violence — it’s also the constant fear of violence, and the fear of being stopped and arrested that’s causing stress and anxiety. We hear ideas for reform, along with how we can improve, or even reinvent, American policing.

3000x3000_itunes_thepulse_1_small PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS 

How science can offer police a better way to handle protests
All over the country demonstrations have been mostly peaceful, but in many places, protesters and police have clashed. When violence erupts during a protest, what role do police play?  How can police crowd control crowds better? Last year, Pulse reporter Alan Yu traveled to Hong Kong, to cover the protest movement there, and just recently he covered the protests in Philadelphia. We listen back to his story about crowd control, and hear about his latest experiences in the U.S.  
Bad apples come from rotten trees
We talk to Rashawn Ray, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Maryland, College Park, about his experiences with police, and his essay “Bad apples come from rotten trees in policing,” as well as potential police reforms driven by data.  
Health consequences of police violence 
Harvard University public health researcher David Williams and Bay Area pediatrician and community health advocate Rhea Boyd discuss the health impact of police violence on communities of color. The threat of violence can lead to increased anxiety, depression, and hypervigilance.
Tear gas
Rohini Haar, an emergency medicine physician in Oakland, California, and medical expert for Physicians for Human Rights, explains the health effects of tear gas, which can include permanent injury and even death.
Making decision while on high alert
We talk to Karen Quigley, a psychology professor at Northeastern University, about how more factors than we might think affect police officers’ decision-making. Judith Andersen, a health psychologist at the University of Toronto Mississauga, then weighs in on how better, science-based training could help officers overcome their fight-or-flight response in the midst of stressful situations.
Redefining police 
Tracey Meares — a law professor at Yale Law School, and founding director of The Justice Collaboratory — discusses her research on how to improve the relationship between police and the public, which she says involves a fundamental reframing of how we think about police.

Separate and Unequal

From Lester Graham | 50:28

Uprisings and riots by African Americans in 1967 left white people shocked and surprised. A presidential commission was assigned to look into why it happened. It blamed white attitudes and systematic racism. The Kerner Commission report of 1968 also outlines remedies. This documentary looks at the results of the failure to address those issues.

In 2017, the National Association of Black Journalists awarded its Salute to Excellence Award in the Radio Documentary: Top 15 Markets category.

This documentary was produced in cooperation with the Detroit Journalism Cooperative (DJC). The DJC is a partnership of five media outlets reporting on the city’s future after bankruptcy. The partnership includes Michigan Radio, WDET, Detroit Public Television, Bridge Magazine and New Michigan Media.

Support for the Detroit Journalism Cooperative on Michigan Radio comes from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the Ford Foundation and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Kerner-johnson_small This documentary examined the findings of the Kerner Commission, which was created to address the inequities that were the root cause of the riots and civil disturbances of the summer of 1967. The commission’s recommendations were largely ignored, which has contributed to an ever-more divided country. The documentary also examined attitudes about race in today's America, including its impact on education, housing, joblessness, and police relationships.

Reviving Reconstruction

From Open Source | Part of the Open Source with Christopher Lydon series | 59:00

Conversations with Eric Foner and Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw about a history of oppression and racism from the Civil War to today.

Screen_shot_2020-06-04_at_2 We’re transfixed, all of us, looking at a collision of deadly viruses, racial hatred and a pandemic disease. Suddenly what commands attention is the black push-back, with a lot of white support, against an injustice system – sparked by yet another police killing of a helpless black man, 30 years down the video trail from Rodney King. What grips us is partly the video spectacle of cop cars burning last weekend, and mostly peaceful marches everywhere since then. It’s also this replay loop of documented brutality in the work of policemen, enforcing second-class citizenship in this endangered model democracy. The history piece is our focus, back to the abandonment of Reconstruction after the Civil War. The trouble in the land has roots in two centuries and more of slavery, we know, and also in the way slavery ended: in a horrible civil war and then a failed attempt to reimagine and rebuild a nation of free and equal people. That re-start, less familiar in my old textbooks, was called Reconstruction. It got pushed aside after a decade for what was called Redemption. Meaning: restoration of white planter power and forced Jim Crow subjection of the former slaves. This is our unfinished history, as in James Joyce’s most famous line: history as the nightmare from which we are still trying to awake. In the turmoil around the headline viruses – COVID-19 and racism – we have a sort of thought experiment this hour: is yet another Reconstruction what we need? Can we picture it?

Improving the Relationship Between Citizens and Police

From Good Radio Shows, Inc. | Part of the Peace Talks Radio: Weekly Hour Long Episodes series | 59:00

We asked a number of different stakeholders for their top ideas about improving the relationship between citizens and their law enforcement officers – a relationship that has certainly been strained in some U.S. communities in recent years. Current and former police officers, city councilors, community leaders, police trainers, and criminologists all suggest ways to bring more peace around the sometimes frayed connection between citizens and police.

You_in_blue_cover_14_small In some communities in the United States, the relationship is frayed between law enforcement officers and the citizens they are sworn to serve.  Some high profile police shootings or overly aggressive police encounters with citizens captured on video by police cams or citizens have only intensified the tension in some places.  Since one of our goals in the PEACE TALKS RADIO series is to provide a forum that might lead to nonviolent conflict resolution strategies, we’ve sampled opinions from 13 people, all stakeholders in the issue, and asked each what they thought might help most to improve the relationship between the police and the citizenry.  Then we followed up with a few questions for each.  Current and former police officers, city councilors, community leaders, police trainers, and criminologists all suggest ways to bring more peace around the sometimes frayed connection between citizens and police.

Guests include Steven Herbert, University of Washington Professor; Cleveland City Councilor Zack Reed;  Former Albuquerque Police Department employee Karen Fischer,
Albuquerque Police officers John Garcia, Shermane Carter and Brian Werle; Bernalillo County Deputies Aaron Schwartz and Autumn Neas; Santa Fe Police Officer Gardner Finney; Jim Ginger, CEO of Public Management Rources;  Mike Scott, former police officer and director of the Center for Problem Oriented Policing: Greg Saville, police training expert and former police officer; Glenn Ivey, former prosecutor and former state's attorney in Prince Georges County, Maryland.

Exploring White Privilege and Preventing Violent Extremism

From Good Radio Shows, Inc. | Part of the Peace Talks Radio: Weekly Hour Long Episodes series | 58:59

On this edition of PEACE TALKS RADIO, Megan Kamerick interviews Layla Saad, the author of "Me and White Supremacy: Combat Racism, Change the World, and Become a Good Ancestor". Also, Sarah Holtz speaks with the Executive Director of Parents for Peace, Myrieme Churchill, to learn about the group’s vision and strategies in helping families deal with family members who become drawn to extremist and terrorist causes.

Saadbook_small

On this edition of PEACE TALKS RADIO, Megan Kamerick interviews Layla Saad, the author of "Me and White Supremacy: Combat Racism, Change the World, and Become a Good Ancestor". The book grew out of an Instagram challenge that thousands of people took part in where they reflected on their thoughts, feelings and behaviors around race. Saad offers an opportunity for white allies to understand more about their own privilege and how they often unconsciously participate in racism, despite good intentions, and also how they can take meaningful action to create a more equitable society.  

Also on this program , Sarah Holtz speaks with the Executive Director of Parents for Peace, Myrieme Churchill, to learn about the group’s vision and strategies in helping families deal with family members who become drawn to extremist and terrorist causes.  The search for identity, purpose, and belonging are essential as young people grow into adulthood, but these motivators can just as easily be exploited to violent ends. Parents for Peace is a national non-profit organization working to prevent such outcomes. The group supports families confronting extremist ideology and violence in young people.

Ep. 11: "Live Wire House Party" with Ijeoma Oluo, Danez Smith, and Amythyst Kiah

From Live Wire! Radio | Part of the Live Wire House Parties series | 58:59

This episode features writer Ijeoma Oluo and poet Danez Smith, with music from Amythyst Kiah.

Ep11_thumb_small In response to nationwide protests against police brutality, host Luke Burbank and announcer Elena Passarello share conversations with writer Ijeoma Oluo, who unpacks the themes of systemic racism in her book So You Want to Talk About Race; poet Danez Smith, who explains how they're looking for leadership elsewhere in their poem “My President;” and singer-songwriter Amythyst Kiah, who performs her Grammy-nominated song “Black Myself."