August 2014: Michael Brown and the events in Ferguson, and why are we so thirsty for what Shonda Rhimes is feeding us?

On this month's show, we look at police brutality in the wake of the killing of Mike Brown by police officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri. Ferguson is about 3 miles outside of St. Louis. Witnesses say Brown was shot with his hands up. Autopsy reports show that Brown was shot 6-8 times, twice in the head. This most recent death of a black person by the police has us all asking a perennial question, why? Why is it so okay to kill black people and people of color?

We’ll also look at the solidarity between protesters in Ferguson and Palestinians in Gaza as well as Asian American responses to police brutality.  We will also look at responses by celebrities, especially celebrities of color. 

In the second half of our show, we raise the question: why are we so thirsty for what Shonda Rhimes is feeding us? Rhimes' is the head writer and producer behind hugely successful television dramas, including Scandal and Grey's Anatomy, which prominently feature women of color. A new show of hers, How to Get Away With Murder, will debut this fall. We explore how Rhimes' female characters are deeply polarizing:  while they are reiterative of negative stereotypes of women of color and are evocative of a post-racial context, we still find them extremely appealing. 

Listen to the show here.