The Takeaway

The Equal Rights Amendment, an amendment to the Constitution that would invalidate any state law that discriminates against women, has been on a nearly 100 year journey. It was first introduced in 1923 and did not pass both the Senate and House until March 1972. On January 27,  2020. Virginia became the 38th state to vote for ratification. Section 3 of the amendment states that it takes effect two years after its ratification, so by that standard the ERA became law on Friday... or did it? Representative Carolyn Maloney represents New York’s 12th Congressional district and chairs the Oversight and Reform Committee. She joined to discuss the resolution and the amendment’s importance.   

ABC mockumentary Abbott Elementary takes us to a public school in Philadelphia, where the teachers do their best to educate their students in spite of a lack of resources and funding. Sheryl Lee Ralph plays a no-nonsense, veteran teacher and mentor to second-grade teacher Janine Teagues, played by the show’s creator Quinta Brunson. While the reality of the public school system is no joke, Abbott Elementary allows us to laugh at the absurdity of a dire situation and root for the unsung heroes of the public school system. We speak with Sheryl Lee Ralph about activism, education, and Abbott Elementary.

Joining our hosts to discuss the history of U.S. Health Insurance and how it compares to other countries is Julia Lynch, Professor of Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania, and Jamila Michener, associate professor in the department of Government at Cornell University about the connections between health inequities and our insurance system. We also take a look at the creation of the Affordable Care Act with one of its architects Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel who currently serves as Vice Provost of Global Initiatives at the University of Pennsylvania. Peter Suderman, features editor at Reason, joins us to discuss the current state of healthcare and health insurance and how both parties could make changes to their approaches on both. Finally, Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal discusses expanding health insurance for Americans with her Medicare for All Plan and how it will restore dignity to every American through adequate health insurance coverage.   

For the past 45 years, Leonard Peltier has been behind bars for a crime he says he didn’t commit.  The Native American activist was accused of killing two FBI agents during a shootout on Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota in 1975. Peltier was sentenced to two consecutive life sentences, and he’s been denied parole several times since.  Over the years, his imprisonment has been denounced by people like Pope Francis, Nelson Mandela, the Dalai Lama, and more. Many people expected former President Bill Clinton to grant him clemency, but he didn’t — and neither have any subsequent presidents. The U.S. attorney who helped put Peltier in prison has even pleaded with President Joe Biden to grant him clemency. Now, Peltier is begging for help amid the COVID pandemic. According to reporting from the Huffington Post, he says quote “fear and stress” associated with his prison’s COVID lockdowns are taking a toll on everyone, including himself. At 77 years old, Peltier has serious health problems including an abdominal aortic aneurysm and diabetes.  For more on Peltier and his activism, The Takeaway spoke to Kent Blansett, the Langston Hughes Associate Professor of Indigenous Studies and History at the University of Kansas and a Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw, Shawnee, and Potawatomi descendant. 

Instead of bringing you one daily podcast, we’re trying something different! We’re going to send each of our stories down the feed, so you can have shorter listens and more choices! This means you’ll get multiple Takeaway stories in your feed every day, and you can listen to them in any order that you want, or maybe hold onto one for later if you don’t have time.   You won’t lose anything, but you’ll gain a little bit of control. DEEP DIVE episodes will stay on the podcast feed as full episodes, and they’ll still be full of information.

Next month, New York City officials will vote on whether to give painter Faith Ringgold permission to move her painting “For the Women’s House” from Rikers Island to the Brooklyn Museum. When Ringgold visited the painting in 2019, she found that it was not being well maintained, and wasn’t even in view for most people being held at Rikers. The Takeaway speaks with Nicole Fleetwood, inaugural James Weldon Johnson professor of media, culture, and communications at New York University and 2021 MacArthur Fellow, and Russell Craig, a painter based in New York City, about how art is made and displayed in prisons and jails in the U.S.

Starting on January 7th, about 200 of those detained at one jail facility at Rikers Island went on a partial hunger strike in hopes to draw attention to the poor conditions at the jail, and also a lack of basic services. You’ve probably heard of the infamous Rikers Island, which is the main jail complex for New York City. And because it’s a jail complex, most people there, about eighty percent of the near 6,000 detainees, are waiting for trial and haven’t been convicted of a crime. And although the jail has long been characterized by dysfunction, brutal conditions, and violence, detainees and advocates say that Rikers is in its worst crisis since the 1990’s. Along with poor conditions at the jail complex, rising Covid, and issues with correctional officers not showing up for work, violence is also increasing in the jail with reports of detainees hosting fights for entertainment with little intervention from guards. Last year, 16 people died in custody at Rikers — and at least five died by suicide – making 2021 the deadliest year since 2013. The Takeaway spoke with Jan Ransom, a Metro investigative reporter with the New York Times, who has been following what’s happening at Rikers.

This week, David Ortiz was voted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame, while Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds did not make the cut. This means that Clemens and Bonds will no longer be on the main voting ballot going forward and their chances of ever making it into the hall of fame are slim. Many baseball fans and writers have voiced their anger over somewhat arbitrarily denying these greats entry into the hall over their use of performance enhancing drugs while allowing many other players who either used steroids or otherwise bent the rules. In other sports news, the Super Bowl is just weeks away, and while much of the current attention is on the big name musicians playing the halftime show, the NFL is still failing to hire and keep Black coaches, cementing its status as a league that profits off of Black athletes without investing in Black leaders at the highest levels. We speak with Burn It All Down co-host Amira Rose Davis about these stories and everything else happening in the sports world as we head towards February.

Indigenous Children are Overrepresented in Minnesota's Foster Care System Over the course of eight months, Jessica Washington, a reporter with the Fuller Project spoke with Native families, lawyers, and other experts to understand why Minnesota has the highest disproportionality of Indigenous children in the child welfare system in the country. The Takeaway speaks with Washington about her investigation. We also hear from one of Washington's sources, Teresa Nord, who is a Navajo and Hopi Indian descendant, and who has personal experience with the child welfare system in Minnesota.  New York Expands Whistleblower Law We speak with Rachel Green, an associate at Katz, Marshall & Banks LLP in Washington D.C. and a Stanford Law graduate about the recent changes, what they mean, and how they compare to both federal and state protections around the country. The Intersection of Sustainable Farming and Decarceration Sustainable farming in rural North Carolina provides a model for decommissioned prisons, decarceration, and opportunities for youth living on the edge of the criminal justice system. For transcripts, see individual segments.

Today, January 26th, New York’s Labor Law Section 740 expands, offering increased protection to whistleblowers. We speak with Rachel Green, an associate at Katz, Marshall & Banks LLP in Washington D.C. and a Stanford Law graduate about the recent changes, what they mean, and how they compare to both federal and state protections around the country.

Since 2011, Syria has been engaged in a devastating civil war. More than three hundred fifty thousand people have been killed during the conflict. The war has forced more than six million people to flee the country. These Syrians in forced exile have had to endure overcrowded refugee camps, treacherous journeys by sea, and painful family separations.  Academy Award winning director Megan Mylan is known for her films "Lost Boys of Sudan" and "Smile Pinki." Her latest documentary, "Simple as Water," follows several families of Syrian refugees.  The Takeaway spoke with Mylan to find out more about how she created such a compassionate depiction of people whose stories are frequently sensationalized. "Simple as Water" is available to stream now on HBO Max.

Understanding and Addressing Increasing Rates of Suicide Deaths Amongst Black Youth Last week, Academy Award winning actor Regina King lost her only child to death by suicide. The tragic loss of a loved one to suicide is a pain far too many have endured. We speak with Dr. Michael Lindsey, Executive Director, NYU McSilver Institute for Poverty Policy and Research about rising suicide rates among young people of color.  Hospitals Are Overwhelmed in Arizona  In Arizona and elsewhere, the omicron wave has overwhelmed hospitals and burned out healthcare workers.  Humanitarian Crisis in Afghanistan Afghanistan food insecurity crisis affects more than 23 million people, nearly half the country. 'Simple as Water' Shows the Meaning of Family for Syrian Refugees Academy Award winning director Megan Mylan joins The Takeaway to discuss her new film “Simple As Water,” which tells the story of Syrian Refugees displaced around the world.    

Mitch McConnell's Verbal Separation of African Americans and Americans Sparks Outrage In light of light of the Republicans' blockage of the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, Latino Rebels reporter Pablo Manríquez asked MiSenate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell whether he had a message to people of color ahead of the midterms. Senate Minority Leader McConnell said, “Well, the concern is misplaced because, if you look at the statistics, African American voters are voting in just as high a percentage as Americans.” The comment ignited a wave of angry responses on social media. Commenters noted that it was just the latest example of how often white people in power don’t see Black people and other people of color as Americans. We speak with Manríquez and professor Khalil Gibran Muhammad about McConnell’s comment and the response. A Report Reveals Potential Conflicts of Interest in Sheriff Campaigns The report reveals more than $6 million in potential conflicts of interests for sheriffs in 11 different states. These Sheriffs, who are elected officials, received contributions from businesses that stood to benefit from contracts with the sheriffs’ offices and jails in their control. The Takeaway speaks with Keshia Morris Desir, Census & Mass Incarceration Project Manager at Common Cause, about the report. A New Guaranteed Income Program Will Launch in Georgia This Year  In Her Hands is a partnership between the the Georgia Resilience & Opportunity (GRO) Fund and GiveDirectly who are planning to supply 650 Black women across Georgia with $850 per month over the course of two years. For more on this, The Takeaway spoke to Hope Wollensack, Executive Director of the Georgia Resilience and Opportunity Fund and co-director of the In Her Hands Initiative.  For transcripts, see individual segment pages.

The Past, Present and Future Of The Biden Administration This week, the filibuster and voting rights act fell through in the Senate, and student debt forgiveness, criminal justice and climate change reforms hang in the balance. These failures have had an impact on voters across the country, according to recent polling. So what does that mean for the future of the Biden administration? For the discussion we're joined by Joel Payne, Democratic strategist, host of the podcast, Here Comes the Payne, and CBS News political contributor. NYC Law Granting Noncitizens the Right to Vote Concerns Some Advocates A new law allowing roughly 800,000 noncitizens to vote in local elections went into effect in New York City. Some Democrats and immigration advocates don't see it as a win. Russell Berman, staff writer for The Atlantic, joined to discuss his recent reporting on the law and what it means for the Democrats nationally. Russia's Potential Invasion of Ukraine We spoke with Professor Kimberly Marten about why Russia has chosen this moment to take more aggressive action towards Ukraine, and whether the U.S. and other Western powers have any other options to prevent a military conflict. How Should the Media Be Covering Democracy At Risk? The Takeaway spoke to Margaret Sullivan, media columnist at the Washington Post, and Lewis Raven Wallace, author of The View from Somewhere and the host of the podcast of the same name. For transcripts, see individual segment pages.  

How Antitrust Laws Are Defining the Facebook Monopolization Case: We get the latest on Facebook/Meta antitrust lawsuit, and learn more about what constitutes antitrust with Vanderbilt law professor Rebecca Allensworth.  A Year and a Half After McGirt v. Oklahoma, State Officials Still Want Ruling Overturned: State officials have filed 45 petitions with the Supreme Court asking the justices to either overturn or rule more narrowly on McGirt. This month, the Court has been considering some of those petitions. The Takeaway speaks with Allison Herrera, Indigenous Affairs reporter for KOSU, about the most recent developments. A Word about Wordle: We speak with Associate Professor of Social Psychology at the University of Florida, Matt Baldwin, about why playing Wordle and sharing our results with friends and family is so rewarding. How to Reimagine Judging: Judge Nancy Gertner, argues that judges must be actively involved in revolutionizing the justice system. She also offers up six key recommendations for reimagining judging, including improvements to judicial selection and community engagement.  For transcripts, see individual segment pages.