Making Contact

This year on making contact, instead of our normal end of year show commemorating movement leaders we've lost, and highlighting their work, we remember victims of police murders who didn't receive as much coverage, and activists who succumbed to COVID-19.

The Trump administration has issued numerous policies to systematically dismantle asylum as a legal right. They're also locking up asylum seekers for months or years, until they either win their case, are returned to their home countries, or self deport. Reporters Valeria Fernández and Jude Joffe-Block follow two asylum seekers as they endure detention, legal cases, and family separation in the US, where they sought refuge.

2020 was a tumultuous year rocked by two twin plagues: police violence which led to the George Floyd protests and continued discussions about police brutality and of course the novel disease COVID-19. Normally here at Making Contact, we look back on movement leaders we've lost over the year in order to pay them tribute and honor their lifetime of work. But this year, we're commemorating those we've lost to police killings who might not have received as much media coverage in part one of our show, and in part two, we remember organizers and activists who died because of COVID.

According to the CDC, Blacks and Latinos are 3 times as likely to die from COVID as their white counterparts. This disproportionate harm has sparked a response from community organizers and researchers alike. Up next on Making Contact we turn our attention to those Americans who are bearing the brunt of the coronavirus fallout. 

On this episode of Making Contact, we look at the privatization of our earth’s most precious resource – water. People around the world have been organizing against this privatization in the face of climate change and rising sea levels that threaten to contaminate our limited drinking water supplies.