It takes the average Latina, 12 extra months to earn what the average White, non-Hispanic man earns. That is because Latinas are only paid .55 cents to the dollar of […]

The post Yo Quiero Dinero! Storytelling with Midwest Mujeres appeared first on WORT-FM 89.9.

On today’s show, guest host Enjoyiana Nururdin speaks with Nick Pjevach about the local music scene–from the best concerts and summer festivals to how the city could better address equity in arts and entertainment.

Pjevach says that Madison has a “vibrant and lively” music scene. From neighborhood festivals and the upcoming “United in Sound” Concert on the Square, folks can find a musical happening almost every day of the week, especially if they consult Isthmus’s comprehensive music calendar. As Madison continues to grow, there’s a real opportunity to make sure the city’s entertainment options reach everyone and aren’t driven by private companies, says Pjevach.

In 2017, the City of Madison launched the Percent for Art program that allocates 1% of funds from large capital projects to arts and culture. That’s why visitors can experience murals and the Madison Public Market or see the mosaic at the new Bartillon shelter. In 2017, the city also published the Task Force on Equity in Music and Entertainment, which found real disparities in arts access.

Pjevach says that talking about music and entertainment means we’re also talking about public transportation, education and affordability. They also discuss Dane County’s plans for the Veteran Memorial Coliseum, the latest issues facing Cielo, the First Wave Program, CueThe608, and how to get younger generations in decision making roles in the local music scene.

Nick Pjevach has served as chair of the Madison Arts Commission since April 2023. He graduated with his MBA specializing in arts administration in 2019. He was the Wisconsin Union Directorate (WUD) Music Committee Director during the 2012-2013 school year, when 411 artists performed in 241 concerts on campus. Ask him how happy he is that folks have mostly stopped referring to Madison as the “Austin of the Midwest.”

Featured image of the Veteran Memorial Coliseum.

The post Local Music Is a Harbinger of Community appeared first on WORT-FM 89.9.

Earlier this week, the Atlanta City Council approved an addition $31 million dollars for the construction of the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center. This was after more than 16 hours […]

The post Cop City Explained with George Chidi appeared first on WORT-FM 89.9.

“The Philippines is under a new administration, but still the government’s case against de Lima hobbles along, a symbol of the country’s degradation from the Duterte years of violent populism […]

The post Timothy McLaughlin on Leila de Lima and the cost of criticism in The P... appeared first on WORT-FM 89.9.

The Trump regime’s attacks on public education at the federal level are filtering down to the states, like in Texas where the flagship university, the University of Texas, recently consolidated African and African Diaspora Studies, Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies, American Studies, and Mexican American and Latino Studies into a single unit. On today’s show, host Esty Dinur is in conversation with scholar and friend of the program, Karma Chávez about what’s happening in Texas and around the country.

Chávez says that we’re seeing a “manufactured backlash” on public education that conservatives initiated after the summer of rebellions and racial reckoning of 2020. She points to three pieces of legislation in Texas from 2023 that changed the landscape of academic freedom and paved the way for the more recent attacks on fields like ethnic studies–fields that were born from student activism–and what conservative administrators consider “unnecessary controversial subjects.” Now, as ethnic and gender studies programs have been restructured, students are registering for courses that may not exist in the Fall.

The recently consolidated departments at UT will now be called “Social and Cultural Analysis.” Chávez says this is reflective of a larger shift toward the language of “civics” that has gained popularity with conservative politicians and is championed by far-right think tanks like the Heritage Foundation. Though the attacks on higher education and DEI are most apparent in Southern schools like the University of Texas, Chávez cautions that what’s happening there is possible anywhere.

Karma R. Chávez is Chair and Bobby and Sherri Patton Professor in the Department of Mexican American and Latina/o Studies at the University of Texas – Austin. She is author of Queer Migration Politics: Activist Rhetoric and Coalitional Possibilities (University of Illinois Press, 2013); Palestine on the Air (University of Illinois Press, 2019); and The Borders of AIDS: Race, Quarantine, and Resistance (University of Washington Press, 2021). She is a co-founder of her university’s Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine and president of the American Association of University Professors Chapter at UT Austin.

Featured image of the University of Texas at Austin via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0).

The post Colonizers and Company Men Are Ruining Higher Education appeared first on WORT-FM 89.9.

Sold in headshops and on the grey market, “spice” or K2 is a way to get high while avoiding showing up on a drug test. Whether or not they’re legal […]

The post Synthetic Cannabinoids, the Analogue Act, and an Unprecedented Prosecu... appeared first on WORT-FM 89.9.

Last week, Madison’s Office of the Independent Police Monitor released a new finding: that police violence played a role in the death of a man in custody in 2024, contrary to the county’s medical examiner’s autopsy report. To talk about the place of medical examiners in the criminal justice system, host Dana Pellebon is joined by scholar, Terence Keel, author of The Coroner’s Silence: Death Records and the Hidden Victims of Police Violence.

Keel researches the relationships between medicine, science, race, and religion, with a focus on how the science of medicine in the US has been used to perpetuate racial injustice and inequity, especially when it comes to state monitoring and surveillance. He says that coroners are an overlooked piece in the criminal justice puzzle and that death investigation systems provide cover for violent state systems.

In 2013, the Death in Custody Reporting Act made it possible for Keel to look at the numbers. He found that in the twenty-year period after the Act, over 32,000 people were killed in police custody, leading him to argue that dying in custody has become the new capital punishment. They also talk about the history of the coroner role, one that dates back to the Colonial era, the rise of civilian oversight commissions, and the impact of coroner’s reports on Black and Brown communities.

Terence Keel is a professor of human biology, society and African American studies at UCLA. His latest book is The Coroner’s Silence: Death Records and the Hidden Victims of Police Violence.

Featured image of the cover of The Coroner’s Silence: Death Records and the Hidden Victims of Police Violence.

The post Dying in Custody Has Become the New Capital Punishment appeared first on WORT-FM 89.9.