Monday, October 7, 2019: Exploring Blackness and Policing of Black People in Europe

Margo and Vanessa

Margo

Interview with Vanessa Eileen Thompson

Margo Okazawa-Rey, gender studies professor and a member of the legendary Combahee River Collective, discusses the similarities and differences between anti-Blackness in the U.S. and in Europe with Afro-German scholar Vanessa Eileen Thompson.  Thompson is a researcher at the Goethe University in Frankfurt and a former visiting scholar at UC Berkeley's Department of Ethnic Studies. She is one of the organizers of the upcoming symposium "On the Matter of Blackness in Europe: Transnational Perspectives" to be held at UCLA October 11-12. Find out why a symposium on racism in Europe is being held in the United States!

Click here to listen to the entire interview with Vanessa. 30:33 min

Vanessa Eileen Thompson is a postdoctoral researcher and lecturer at the Institute of Sociology at Goethe-University Frankfurt, Germany. Previously, she was a guest lecturer in gender studies at the University of Cologne and a fellow at the Department of Black Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her research and teaching are focused on critical race and racism studies, black studies (with a focus on Black Europe), gender and queer studies, post- and decolonial feminist theories and methodologies, critical security studies, and transformative justice. Thompson is also engaged in these fields as an activist.  Her current research project focuses on racial gendered policing in Europe and transnational articulations of abolitionist visions and alternatives from a black feminist perspective. Vanessa has published articles on the work of Fanon, black social movements in Germany and France, and racial gendered policing in Europe.


Film: The Art of Ama Ata Aidoo

Then we listen to excerpts of the brilliant documentary "The Art of Ama Ata Aidoo", which chronicles the career and writings of one of the foremost African feminist writers. Aidoo, the author of nine books, two plays and many short works, also served as Ghana's Minister of Education from 1982-1983. After eighteen months, she concluded that she would not be able to realize her goal of free universal education because nationalist ideals had been subverted by the elite. In 2000 she founded the Mbaasem Foundation, a non-governmental organization based in Ghana with a mission "to support the development and sustainability of African women writers and their artistic output."

Much love to all of you who have supported me and KPFA Women's Magazine over these many years. -Kate Raphael

Click here to listen to the show. 59:50 min

Monday, July 8, 2019: Whose Image Is Our Body Image? - Shani Raviv

This week on Women's Magazine we explore the racial, cultural, economic and emotional roots of our obsession with thin bodies.

Buy this book at your local bookstore or online.

Shani Raviv's memoir, Being Ana, explores the role that anorexia, personified as Ana, played in her life for ten years, from age 14 to 24. Moving from South Africa to Israel and back again, with parents who were depressed or absent, uncomfortable because of class issues and a severe squint, anorexia was less an extreme diet than a search for order and structure. Yet none of the adults around her recognized the problem and intervened. Shani talks about how she eventually healed and what you can do if you think someone you know is suffering from an eating disorder. For more information about eating disorders at NationalEatingDisorders.org.

Click here to listen to the entire show. 59:58 min (There is a break in the recording at 44:46 that lasts for about 45 seconds.)

Also on today's show:
Sabrina Springs



EVENT:

KPFA Movie Matinee, The Hunger Games
WHEN: JULY 27, 2019 @ 3:00 PM


WHERE: 474 24TH STREET, OAKLAND, CA 94612

Monday, October 1, 2018: Hip Hop Feminism

Joan Morgan, Ohio State University Hip Hop Literacy Conference

In this segment we hear a brilliant talk by author and journalist Joan Morgan, who introduced the concept of "Hip-Hop Feminism" in her 1999 book, When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost. Her new book, She Begat This: 20 Years of The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, looks not only at the impact of Hill's groundbreaking album, but at her significance to Black women, where Black women were in 1998 versus where they are today. In my favorite part of the talk, host Davey D says, "Can we put on the feminism hat for a minute," and Morgan says, "I never take off the feminism hat."

Women's Magazine never takes off our feminism hat. We are bringing you feminist analysis of today's news, yesterday's history, the books we read, the films we see, the music we hear, 52 weeks a year.  And we can only do it because of you.  Please give what you can at www.kpfa.org to help us keep bringing you powerful women's voices like Joan Morgan's.

Click here to listen to entire show. 59:50 min

Also on today's show:
Resisting Kavanaugh

Monday, May 7, 2018: Lucy Jane Bledsoe on Paradises Built in Hell

Rebecca Solnit's 2010 book A Paradise Built in Hell posits that disasters, whether natural or human created, commonly bring out our most generous and cooperative nature, leading to the development of new forms of community and democratic organization. This week on Women's Magazine, I talk with two women who have done their own research into this phenomenon. 

Lucy Jane Bledsoe's new novel, The Evolution of Love, imagines the aftermath of a massive earthquake in the East Bay, and suggests that our bonobo nature, favoring love and cooperation over conflict and competition, might ultimately triumph. Bledsoe is the award-winning author of A Thin Bright Line, which has just been optioned for a film.

Hear Lucy read from The Evolution of Love Saturday May 12th, 5 PM at Laurel Books in Oakland.

Click here to listen to the show. 59:50 min

Also on today's show:
Rahila Gupta



Events:
The Asian American Film Festival, CaamFest starts Thursday May 10 - 24. Follow link for schedule and tickets.

Monday, April 2, 2018: Mothering Middle-Aged Daughters

This week on KPFA Women's Magazine, Sandy Butler, coauthor of IT NEVER ENDS: Mothering Middle-Aged Daughters, talks about the challenges for women in remaining close - but not too close - to their daughters as they age. Butler is the author of two previous books, Conspiracy of Silence: The Trauma of Incest; and the Lambda award-winning Cancer in Two Voices. IT NEVER ENDS was a collaboration with Nan Fink Gefen.



Click here to listen to entire show. 55:28 min



SAN FRANCISCO VILLAGE READING

San Francisco Village
3220 Fulton St
San Francisco
Sunday, April 8, 2018 
2:00 pm - 3:30 pm


Also on today's show:
Women Directors Struggle for Opportunity
Previewing SF International Film Festival

Monday, January 8, 2018: Lily Iona McKenzie's Curva Peligrosa

Find this book at your local bookstore, library or on-line

The second part of the show Kate talks with author Lily Iona McKenzie about her newest novel, Curva Peligrosa, about a larger-than-life Mexican woman who settles in a tiny Alberta town after a twenty-year trek. It's an engaging and surprising story, touching on indigenous rights and the power of community.

Listen now for complete interview or Get MP3. 44:59

Click to here to listen to the entire show. 59:50 min

Also on today's show:
Transparenting - the real true story

Monday, January 1, 2018: Laugh in the New Year with Women's Magazine

Greetings, Women's Magazine listeners! Despite dire predictions regarding the future of KPFA and Pacifica, as of now we are still here and tomorrow, New Year's Day 2018, I'll be bringing you an hour of funny and smart women.

In the first segment comics Dhaya Lakshminarayanan, Karinda Dobbins, Maysoon Zayid, JADE (Just Another Disabled Entertainer) and Nina G. join me to talk about the highs and lows of 2017 and beyond, what they're looking forward to in 2018 and what it's like doing comedy as women whose multiple identities are so often under attack.

It's wild, it's witty and it's informative. Follow the links below to connect to audio file of the show that was aired on Monday and the full, unedited interviews. So put on your headphones and start laughing. And follow the links above to check out the websites and performance schedules of the artists.

Click here for the interview with Dhaya and Karinda. 29:51 min

Click here for the interview with JADE and Nina. 37:27 min

Click here for the interview with Maysoon. 17:26 min

Click here to listen to entire show. 59:50 min

Also on today's show:
Eryn Mathewson

Monday, August 31, 2015: Nina Serrano's Lifetime of Art and Activism

Spend this hour-long conversation with Nina Serrano, whose six decades of art and activism include being the first foreign woman to travel with Fidel Castro and his army, making a teleplay with Roque Dalton, guerrilla fighter and poet laureate of El Salvador, cofounding Mission Cultural Center, staffing the Free Chile Center and SF Poetry in the Schools, and of course, hosting La Raza Chronicles/Cronicas de la Raza and Open Book at KPFA.

Nina is also a widely anthologized poet, mother, grandmother and an award-winning filmmaker. Our conversation also touches on feminism, writing and the Beat scene (she is not now, nor was she ever, a Beat). This show features seldom-heard clips from two of Nina's films.

Click here to listen to entire show. 59:50 min.

Listen to La Raza Chronicles on KPFA, Tuesdays at 7 PM and Cover to Cover Open Book with Nina Serrano the first two Wednesdays of the month at 3:30 PM.

Monday August 10, 2015: Countering Dehumanization

Challenging Dehumanization

Interview with Margo Perin

We talk with Margo Perin, founder and director of Write & Rise, about how she uses narrative to help incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people, at risk youth, as well as police and their families, heal from trauma.  Perin is the author of the autobiographical novel The Opposite of Hollywood, and contributing editor of the anthologies Only the Dead Can Kill:  Stories From Jail, and How I Learned to Cook and Other Writings on Complex Mother-Daughter Relationships.

"I don't think the system can change unless work is done on both sides." Margo Perin



Listen now or Get MP3. 25:29 min.

Not Throw Away Women: Black and Indigenous Women Disrupt Violence

And from Making Contact: Not Throw Away Women: Black and Indigenous Women Disrupt Violence.  We learn how one community is undoing the silence around the violence women of color face. We also hear about how serial killers were able to hunt down mostly Black women for three decades in South Los Angeles. Then to the Yucatan where pregnant indigenous women struggle under a health care system failing to provide proper medical care.

"If you are a woman of color and you're impoverished, you're at the very bottom and your life is seen as not worth anything."

"We may never know just how many women have died."

Click here to listen to this segment from Making Contact.  There are 4 audio files so be sure to scroll down. 34:21 min.

Host: Laura Flynn and Jasmin Lopez
Contributing Producers: Rochelle Robinson and Karen Stefan Tenorio

Featuring:
Rochelle Robinson, Making Contact Fellow
Kimberly Smith, community member attending Her Resilience mural project
Gabrielle Rae Travis,  Her Resilience Community Outreach Coordinator
Margaret Prescod founder of Black Coalition Fighting Back Serial Murders and host of KPFK’s Sojourner Truth
Mirna Aracely Tuz Acosta, Safe Maternity for the Indigenous Population in East Yucatan
Neyi Amparo Cime Arceo, resident of Xanlah.
Thanks to the Mary Wohlford Foundation for funding towards this program.

For more programs from Making Contact go to: http://www.radioproject.org/.  Making Contact airs every Friday at 3:30 on KPFA 94.1 FM or www.kpfa.org.


Click here to listen to entire KPFA Women's Magazine show. 59:50 min.

Monday, February 16, 2015: Elmaz Abinader on Body, Home and Memory

Elmaz Abinader is a Bay Area poet, writer, and teacher.  In her most recent collection, THIS HOUSE MY BONES, she says, "the body and the earth exchange their positions and perspectives. The memories of war are on the skin as well as on the mesa, the exile is written in dust and cells."

Safi wa Nairobi speaks with Elmaz Abinader about her writing, her inspirations and creating space for writers of color in the white-dominated world of publishing and MFA programs. This program was recorded in studio at KPOO.

Elmaz will be reading from her book on Feb 20 at 7 PM at Laurel Books, Oscar Grant Plaza in Oakland and on March 5, 7 PM at UC Monterey Bay in the Living Room.

Click here to listen to entire show. 59:50 min.


Also on today's show:
Joan Little and the Right to Self-Defense

Monday, November 24, 2014: TELL NO LIES

"Fiction is the truest truth."

Women's Magazine talks with author Barbara Rhine about her new novel, TELL NO LIES.  It's the story of a Black militant on the run, a Berkeley feminist and a UFW organizer in the midst of planning the largest farm worker march in the country's history.

TELL NO LIES is available at local bookstores, on-line, and at Amazon.com on paper and for electronic readers.





or Get MP3,

Listen to entire show. 59:50 min.

Also on today's show:

Women In Black

Leslie Feinberg

Monday, November 3, 2014: The Power in Our Hands: Nora Barrows-Friedman discusses her new book.

In Our Power

Journalist and author Nora Barrows-Friedman talks about her new book IN OUR POWER: Students Organize for Justice in Palestine, which compiles interviews with 70 young activists from 30 universities around the country who are finding their collective strength. Nora Barrows-Friedman discusses the meteoric rise of the national campus organization, Students for Justice in Palestine, its successes and challenges, and its relationship to other movements including feminist and queer movements on campus.

To purchase: http://justworldbooks.com/in-our-power/

Nora Barrows-Friedman is a journalist, staff editor at The Electronic Intifada and the author of In Our Power: US Students Organize for Justice in Palestine. She has also contributed to Al-Jazeera English, Inter Press Service, Truthout.org, Left Turn magazine, and various other international media outlets. From 2003-2010, she was the Senior Producer and co-host of Flashpoints, an award-winning investigative newsmagazine operating out of KPFA/Pacifica Radio in Berkeley, California. Nora has been regularly reporting from Palestine since 2004.

In the years following Israel’s 2008–9 “Operation Cast Lead” assault on the Palestinians of Gaza, a new kind of student movement emerged on US campuses, in support of the idea that Palestinians should gain the full exercise of their human and political rights within their historic homeland. This new movement of students for justice in Palestine has helped to put “BDS,” the worldwide campaign supporting the Palestinian call for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions of Israel until it abides by international law, firmly onto the national map.

In 2013 and early 2014, journalist Nora Barrows-Friedman crisscrossed the United States interviewing the young activists who form the core of this movement, and their voices ring out strongly from every page of her new book. In Our Power reveals the rich political legacy these students are building. This new student movement in support of Palestinian rights faces many challenges from on and off-campus opponents. But the strength and intelligence of the voices revealed in the pages of In Our Power show us that truth, justice, and “people power” are capable of withstanding such attacks and continuing forward to victory.

Nora Barrows-Friedman book launch events:

Thursday, November 6th, 7 to 9 PM

at La Pena Cultural Center, Berkeley, CA

Friday, November 7th, 7 to 8:30 PM

at Modern Times Bookstore, San Francisco, CA

Listen to entire show. 59:50 min.

Also on today's show:

Multimedia shamanistic performer Dohee Lee

Artists: Carmen Melendez-Lugo, Sawyer Rose and emiko oye

Monday, October 27, 2014: BAD FEMINIST Roxane Gay

Wanting Equality for Women: Roxanne Gay Discusses her Essays and Writings

And Tara Dorabji interviews author Roxane Gay, about her new collection of essays, "Bad Feminist." Gay is also the author of the novel AN UNTAMED STATE and a frequent contributor to Salon, The Guardian and The New York Times Book Review.

"I don't mind men taking care of cars and trash."

Our bodies are still under legislative control. Women still don't have the same rights as men. Gay discusses the sanctity of choice and the physical and ecomomic consequences to pregnancy.

Gay writes and talks about what it means to depict sexual violence. She talks about rape culture and how necessary it is to ethically depict sexual violence and to stop exploiting rape for craven means. Listen to how she sees the world as a "bad feminist."

Listen to the entire show. 59:50 min.

Also on today's show:

Gone Girl and Rape Myths

Fracking for the Cure?

Monday, August 11, 2014: Conversation with Karen Joy Fowler

This week on Women's Magazine, Kate Raphael is in conversation with Karen Joy Fowler, whose novel WE ARE ALL COMPLETELY BESIDE OURSELVES has won the Pen Faulkner Prize for 2013 and has recently been longlisted for the Man Booker Prize.  Fowler cofounded the James Tiptree, Jr. Award for speculative fiction which challenges or expands our concepts of gender.

Karen Joy talks about her writing process, genre vs. literary fiction, where she finds ideas for her writings and why she writes. Ultimately she strives to write books that are fun to read and entertaining.

Read below what other writers are saying about We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves.

“You know how people say something is incredible or unbelievable when they mean it’s excellent? Well, Karen Joy Fowler’s new book is excellent: utterly believable and completely credible – a funny, moving, entertaining novel that is also an important and unblinking review of a shameful chapter in the history of science.”

—Dr. Mary Doria Russell, biological anthropologist and author of The Sparrow and Doc

“It’s been years since I’ve felt so passionate about a book. When I finished at 3 a.m., I wept, then I woke up the next morning, reread the ending, and cried all over again.”

—Ruth Ozeki, author of My Year of Meats and A Tale for the Time Being

Listen now or Get MP3 44:06 min.






Click here to listen to the entire show. 59:49 min.

Also on this show:
Breastfeeding Awareness Month

July 14, 2014: Stories from Chicago Public Housing

First up: Grief in Palestine

The death toll in Gaza climbs daily. More than 200 Palestinians have died; 1 in 4 are children. The US gives Israel $14 million a day most of which is spent by the military. One can be assured that every kid that has been killed has been with weapons we paid for. Call or write your Congress people. To find out what is currently happening the following websites are excellent sources: Arab Resource and Organizing Center, US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, and The Electronic Intifada.

To order this book:
  http://voiceofwitness.org/high-rise-stories/

VOICE OF WITNESS EXPLORES CHICAGO PUBLIC HOUSING

Global Val Ibarra of Mutiny Radio speaks with Mimi Lok and Audrey Petty of Voice of Witness about their book, High-Rise Stories: Voices from Chicago Public Housing.

Voice of Witness is a San Francisco-based nonprofit using oral history to illuminate human rights crises of our time. Voice of Witness was started in 2004 by author Dave Eggers and physician/human rights scholar Lola Vollen. In 2008 Mimi Lok came on board as Executive Director and Editor. The Voice of Witness Book Series depicts human rights injustices through the stories of the men and women who experience them. The Voice of Witness Education Program connects thousands of students and educators each year with these stories and issues through common core-aligned, oral history-based curricula and holistic educator support. All of the teaching tools are free or at a very low price.

In High-Rise Stories, they use the stories of people displaced by the destruction of Chicago's high-rise public housing to illustrate the consequences of gentrification, redlining, privatization, and new approaches to urban policy. This Chicago specific book resonates on a national level.

Listen now or get MP3. 32:09 min.





Hear the entire program in the KPFA archives. 59:49 min.


Also on today's show:
Tomboy, the Art of Nancy Cato

Men Explain Things to Rebecca Solnit

Photo: © Adrian Mendoza,
courtesy rebeccasolnit.net

Writer, historian, and activist Rebecca Solnit is the author of fifteen books about environment, landscape, community, art, politics, the power of stories, and hope.  He recent books include Unfathomable City: A New Orleans Atlas, and The Faraway Nearby.  A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities that Arise in Disaster was the San Francisco Public Library’s One City One Book for 2012.  River of Shadows, Eadweard Muybridge and the Technological Wild West won the National Book Critics Circle Award in criticism, and the Lannan Literary Award).

She works with the group 350.org on climate issues and against gentrification and displacement in San Francisco. She is a contributing editor to Harper’s and regular contributor to the political site Tomdispatch.com.

Her latest book is a collection of essays titled, provocatively, MEN EXPLAIN THINGS TO ME.  You can still get this beautiful book as a thank you gift for your donation to KPFA of $85 or more - go to www.kpfa.org/support.

 

Listen to this interview:



or Get MP3

April 14, 2014: The German Doctor: An Interview with Lucia Puenzo

THE GERMAN DOCTOR:  Kate Raphael talks with filmmaker and novelist Lucia Puenzo, whose film THE GERMAN DOCTOR (WAKOLDA), adapted from her novel, opens next week.

An article in the New York Times over the weekend talked about something called "slow cognitive tempo," a new form of Attention Deficit Disorder which scientists are studying and doctors are busy diagnosing and medicating in kids.This is really nothing new but the stage is different, jobs are much fewer and it is harder and harder to make one's way in the world.And of course drug companies are always manufacturing new products and finding new uses for old ones to treat these supposed diseases and paying doctors to prescribe them and give out samples, and parents are not encouraged or educated to challenge the wisdom of doctors, and so on and so on.

This overdrugging of kids in order to make them fit into an ever narrowing box of acceptable behavior and capabilities is a form of social engineering that makes it possible for us to do less of the more overt types, but is no less harmful and it raises some tough questions of who is culpable and for what.  It's easy to say that the people who design experiments on developmentally disabled people are evil.  But I think most parents who give their kids Ritalin so they can do better in school and stop getting in trouble are really trying to do right by their kids.  And most of the doctors who prescribe these drugs, and the scientists who research these supposed disorders, are also trying to help.

These are some of the questions at the heart of the new film by Argentine director Lucia Puenzo.  The film is called in English THE GERMAN DOCTOR, and it opens on April 25 at the Embarcadero and the Albany Twin.  It deals with the time that Josef Mengele spent in Argentina after the war.  Lucia Puenzo is the author of five novels and the director of two previous films,  Her debutfilm, XXY, won numerous awards including the Critics' Week grand prize at the 2007 Cannes film festival.  The German Doctor is based on her novel, WAKOLDA, which is also the name of the film in Spanish.

Listen now:





or Get MP3 13:20 min.

Click to hear entire show. 59:50 min.

Also on today's show:

Tara Dorabji talks with Shailja Patel, whose one-woman show Migritude, is now a book published by Kaya Press, which celebrates its 20th anniversary this week with a reading at City Lights.

Filmmaker and activist Tracey Quezada talks about what's wrong with the criminal justice approach to child sexual assault and what we can do to address this public health problem as a community.

December 2, 2013: Dorothy Allison and Gail Tsukiyama: Creating a Writers' Community

Great writing is often portrayed, in our masculinist culture, as a solitary outpouring of individual genius.  But for the most brilliant women writers of our time, writing is something done alone, yes, but nourished and honed by a community of supportive women who challenge and strengthen each other.

Dorothy Allison, author of the best-selling Bastard Out of Carolina and Cavedweller, has been called one of the most passionate and gifted writers of her generation.  Gail Tsukiyama is the author of nine novels, including Women of the Silk and The Language of Threads, and was one of nine writers invited to appear at the first Library of Congress Book Festival.  In this conversation, the two friends discuss how their interactions with other women writers, especially at the unique women's writing retreat Hedgebrook, informs and nurtures their work.  They also talk about their own writing processes and methods for overcoming despair, fear and the temptation of endless revision.

Gail and Dorothy with other writers at Hedgebrook

 Listen now

Also in this show:  The Many Faces of Doris Lessing.
Listen to the full show.

December 2, 2013: The Many Faces of Doris Lessing

Professor Gayle Greene, author of The Poetics of Change: The Fiction of Doris Lessing, talks about the iconic writer's complex relationship with feminism, Communism and the earth itself.  Though Lessing has been gleefully portrayed in the media as antifeminist, Greene says "There are many Doris Lessings," and that while Lessing chafed against the constraints of feminists who wanted her to stay in the Golden Notebook moment when she had moved on to "larger" concerns, her ability to create real women characters who were as intelligent as she was speaks for itself.

Listen:



or Get MP3

Listen to the full show, including a conversation between two of the most unique voices in contemporary women's literature, Dorothy Allison and Gail Tsukiyama.

November 25th: Worlds beyond what we can see: Arab-American playwright Mona Mansour

Urge for Going now at Z Space

Mona Mansour talks about growing up on the west coast with an American mother and Lebanese father and how she came from being an actor to writing plays. Her play "Urge For Going" the second in a trilogy, tells the story of Palestinian refugees in a Lebanese camp.

Urge for Going is showing now through December 8th at Z Space at 450 Florida Street in San Francisco. Tickets can be purchased on their website box office.

Listen now:
 

Listen to the entire show including clips from Andrea Smith and Arundathi Roy, and our interview with Kameron Hurley.