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.

July 2014: Actress Tamara Brown, the Occupation of Palestine, Sierra Mannie's Dear White Gays article, the Aaliyah biopic

On this month's show, we had in  studio a special guest, Montreal actress, singer, director, writer, and educator Tamara Brown.  We talked to her about her work as a cofounder of Metachroma Theatre in 2010, an independent theatre company with the mandate of normalizing the presence of visible minority artists onstage.

We also hold space for Palestinians whose lives are threatened by the ongoing siege in Gaza and the latest Israeli military operation, “My Brother’s Keeper”. Gaza is the world's largest open-air prison, where some 1.5 million people on a roughly 140-square-mile strip of land are subject to random terror and arbitrary punishment, with no purpose other than to humiliate and degrade. We have assembled some voices of Palestinian women speaking in resistance to the Occupation of Palestine and the ongoing assault on Palestinians by Israel in the name of Zionism.

Sinmi breaks down the reaction to Sierra Mannie’s article "Dear White Gays: Stop Stealing Black Female Culture" where Mannie critiques the growing cultural practice of some gay white men flaunting the markers of stereotyped black womanhood. What do we think about this alleged solidarity between bougey white gay men and black women? 

Mercedes brings us the latest on the departure of Zendaya Colman from the Lifetime network’s biopic of Aayliah.  This is the latest in a series of controversial biopics of black cultural icons. Is Hollywood whitewashing our singers?

Listen to the show here.

June 2014: Maya Angelou, 300 sandwiches, Amanda Blackhorse and an offensive NFL trademark and more

Mercedes pays homage to the phenomenal woman Maya Angelou, who passed away earlier this month. Sinmi discuss the blog, 300 sandwiches, and the idea that a man would propose after a woman has made him 300 sandwiches. Alyssa will be telling us about how Navajo activist Amanda Blackhorse managed to get an NFL  trademark revoked.  We will also honor the life of Yuri Kochiyama as well as salute Laverne Cox in her appearance earlier this month on Time Magazine.

Listen to the show here.