The FDA’s approval of gene-editing therapy to effectively treat sickle cell disease has many people hopeful while also thinking about the many lives lost to the disease. One of the most high profile people in the entertainment world with sickle cell was hip-hop artist Prodigy, who died of related complications in 2017. Kai invites you to listen back to an episode of WYNC’s podcast “ The Realness ,” which documents the rapper's life and experiences in the music industry. As a kid with sickle cell...
Dec 13, 2023•30 min•Transcript available on Metacast The Food and Drug Administration has approved gene therapy as a treatment for sickle cell disease, effectively making a cure available to many people affected by the genetic disease. Sickle cell disease is a group of inherited red blood cell disorders and is the most common form of an inherited blood disorder. In this episode, Kai is joined by Ashley Valentine of Sick Cells , which seeks to elevate the voices of the patient community to influence decision makers and empower people with the disea...
Dec 11, 2023•50 min•Transcript available on Metacast This week on Notes from America, host Kai Wright talks with Dr. Joy Buolamwini , a computer scientist who uses art and research to illuminate the social implications of artificial intelligence. The self-described “poet of code” warns that A.I. could write the biases of today’s world into algorithms and even regress the progress of U.S. civil rights in everything from medicine to loan applications and police surveillance. Kai and Dr. Buolamwini take calls about listener fears around A.I. and addr...
Dec 04, 2023•50 min•Transcript available on Metacast Playwright Lynn Nottage says it’s in her nature to be optimistic. And if it’s true what they say that you can manifest good things by thinking positively, well, it’s worked out for her in myriad ways. Nottage is the first and only woman to have won a Pulitzer Prize for Drama twice, and she’s one of today’s most produced playwrights. Her work, though, explores the experiences of Americans existing in the margins who have little reason to have hope. In this episode, she joins Kai to reflect on her...
Nov 27, 2023•51 min•Ep 330•Transcript available on Metacast Boston's Big Dig started as a vision for a large-scale highway tunnel system that became a cautionary tale about American infrastructure. Guest host Nancy Solomon speaks with Ian Coss , host of The Big Dig podcast from WGBH and PRX, which dives into the history behind some of the most notable infrastructure projects in the Greater Boston area leading up to The Big Dig, which became “a symbol of waste and corruption.” Nancy and Ian talk through the notorious failures and unsung successes of the B...
Nov 20, 2023•51 min•Ep 329•Transcript available on Metacast Guest host Janae Pierre sits down with legendary poet and activist Nikki Giovanni, who is the subject of a new documentary, Going To Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project . Giovanni reflects on the legacy of Black storytelling, gospel music, what she describes as original libraries, and why she’s working to get more Black women involved in space travel. Plus, we hear from Kai as he pays a visit to Kimberly McGlonn, an award-winning social entrepreneur. The founder of Grant Blvd & Blk Ivy Thrift , wel...
Nov 13, 2023•51 min•Transcript available on Metacast It’s been 10 years since the Black Lives Matter was founded i in response to the acquittal of the man who fatally shot 17-year-old Trayvon Martin. Kai Wright speaks with organizer Chelsea Miller about the impact the movement has had on a generation of young people. She makes the case for why we must keep telling the story of Black life and death in America and saying the names of those killed as a result of police violence. Plus, in partnership with New Yorker Radio Hour, Kai discusses the impac...
Nov 06, 2023•52 min•Ep 327•Transcript available on Metacast The events of October 7th shook the world and greatly impacted different intersections of people. Arab Americans sit at a unique intersection. As an Arab American journalist, Notes From America producer Suzanne Gaber set out to find a place for her to process the complex emotions she’s been feeling since that day. She visits the Palestinian American Community Center in Clifton, NJ and speaks with the center’s executive director, Rania Mustafa , to hear how the center is prioritizing communal men...
Oct 30, 2023•50 min•Transcript available on Metacast Imminent Danger, a new series from NYC NOW, looks into the role state medical boards had in how one doctor was allowed to keep practicing despite consistently bad outcomes. Marquita Baird has kept a bootbox full of medical records on a shelf in her home in Shawnee, Oklahoma for over two decades in the hope that, someday, someone would ask about what happened after an OB-GYN named Thomas J. Byrne performed a hysterectomy on her in 1999. Shawnee was one of several areas where Byrne would practice ...
Oct 26, 2023•27 min•Transcript available on Metacast Killers of the Flower Moon, a new film directed by Martin Scorcese based on the bestselling book of the same name, tells the story of how greed and profound injustice took the lives of so many Osage. The film has helped people like Damon Waters, an Osage filmmaker and actor reconnect with his roots and imagine a different future for Fairfax, Okla., where the film takes place. Damon joins us to discuss the impact the film had on him and his upcoming documentary about the restoration of Tall Chief...
Oct 23, 2023•50 min•Ep 324•Transcript available on Metacast Our friends at On the Media have teamed up with ProPublica to create a miniseries about how the U.S. Supreme Court moved so far to the right. In the third and final episode of We Don't Talk About Leonard , Leonard Leo is in Maine, a man in his castle, at the height of his powers. He has helped remake the American judicial system, and now he has a plan to do the same for society and politics — to make a Federalist Society for everything. ProPublica reporters Andrea Bernstein, Andy Kroll, and Ilya...
Oct 19, 2023•52 min•Transcript available on Metacast How can we have a more honest conversation about security, war, and peace in the region? As the humanitarian crisis in Gaza deepens, we ask two scholars with ties to the region for help. Kai is joined by Laila El-Haddad, a Palestinian author and journalist based in Clarksville, Maryland, whose family has fled their home in northern Gaza. She is the author of “Gaza Mom: Palestine, Politics, Parenting, and Everything In Between,” and her latest book is "The Gaza Kitchen: A Palestinian Culinary Jou...
Oct 16, 2023•50 min•Transcript available on Metacast Our friends at On the Media have teamed up with ProPublica to create a miniseries about how the U.S. Supreme Court moved so far to the right. In the second episode of We Don't Talk About Leonard , Leonard Leo realized that in order to generate conservative rulings, the Supreme Court needs the right kind of cases. ProPublica reporters Andrea Bernstein, Andy Kroll, and Ilya Marritz investigate the machine that Leonard Leo built across the country to bring cases to the Supreme Court and fill vacant...
Oct 12, 2023•52 min•Transcript available on Metacast In a new memoir, How to Say Babylon, the award-winning poet and essayist is revisiting her youth as a Rastafari girl. Being Rasta is about so much more than what shows up in American pop culture – it’s an anti-colonial, pro-Black way of life that was deeply important to Safiya’s father. But for her, it was a set of rules and dictates that tried to shrink the world for her and her sisters. This week, she tells Kai the story of her childhood, the history of the often persecuted Rastafari movement ...
Oct 09, 2023•51 min•Ep 320•Transcript available on Metacast Our friends at On the Media have teamed up with ProPublica to create a miniseries about how the U.S. Supreme Court moved so far to the right. In this first episode of We Don't Talk About Leonard , ProPublica reporters Andrea Bernstein, Andy Kroll, and Ilya Marritz investigate the background of the man who has played a critical role in the conservative takeover of America's courts — Leonard Leo. From his humble roots in middle class New Jersey, to a mansion in Maine where last year he hosted a fa...
Oct 05, 2023•52 min•Transcript available on Metacast One guest says “a free market is a mythical creature, like Santa Claus.” So how do we describe “capitalism” really, and can we make it do better? We examine our current economic system, callers’ feelings about it, and the evolution of that system with guest host Noel King, host of Vox’s “Today Explained.” She’s joined by Vinson Cunningham, Staff Writer for the New Yorker, and Kirstin Munro, Professor of Economics and the New School. Plus we take your calls. This episode was inspired by “Today Ex...
Oct 02, 2023•48 min•Transcript available on Metacast Silicon Valley is notorious in the global economy and the American psyche. According to author Malcolm Harris , the Bay Area tech hub and California at large are a laboratory for the worst consequences of capitalism–centuries in the making. Harris unpacks this theory in his book “Palo Alto: A History of California, Capitalism, and the World.” He joins Kai to dig into the global history of Silicon Valley and his upbringing in the region. Tell us what you think. Instagram and X (Twitter): @noteswi...
Sep 28, 2023•32 min•Transcript available on Metacast Ayana Mathis joins us to discuss her new novel, The Unsettled . It’s an intergenerational story centered around one Black family’s struggle to find freedom in the 1980s. Like her previous work, migration and movement are major themes in the book. But this time, her characters are at a crossroads, unsure of their next step in search for self-determination. Ayana breaks down the characters in her gripping novel, the questions which torment them, and her own journey grappling with those themes. Dur...
Sep 25, 2023•50 min•Transcript available on Metacast A new graphic memoir from New Yorker cartoonist Navied Mahdavian tells the story of his decision to move with his wife from San Francisco to rural Idaho. Mahdavian joins producer Kousha Navidar to discuss, This Country: Searching for Home in (Very) Rural America . Plus, we take your calls. Tell us what you think. Instagram and X (Twitter): @noteswithkai . Email us at notes@wnyc.org . Send us a voice message by recording yourself on your phone and emailing us, or going to Instagram and clicking o...
Sep 21, 2023•24 min•Ep 315•Transcript available on Metacast Starting with the 1925 Scopes Trial — also known as the "trial of the century" — we look at one of the most controversial topics in our time: the debate over evolution versus a Fundamentalist understanding of the Bible. It started with a substitute teacher in Tennessee who believed that evolution should be taught in the classroom. What followed was a fiery debate that rocketed around the world. From that moment on through to the withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accord, we’ll unpack the major mo...
Sep 18, 2023•31 min•Transcript available on Metacast In 2013 Chicago shut down 50 public schools – the largest mass closing in U.S. history. The city promised a chance to revitalize communities. 10 years later, it’s another reality. We speak with Sarah Karp from WBEZ and Lauren FitzPatrick from the Chicago Sun Times about their recent reporting story . Tell us what you think. Instagram and X (Twitter): @noteswithkai . Email us at notes@wnyc.org . Send us a voice message by recording yourself on your phone and emailing us, or going to Instagram and...
Sep 14, 2023•19 min•Transcript available on Metacast “The Death of Public School” author Cara Fitzpatrick tells the story of a movement, six decades in the making, that’s picked away at the very idea of public education in the U.S. Listeners from Chicago and Jersey City, including a teacher, call in with their own perspectives about the state of our schools. Tell us what you think. Instagram and X (Twitter): @noteswithkai . Email us at notes@wnyc.org . Send us a voice message by recording yourself on your phone and emailing us, or going to Instagr...
Sep 11, 2023•32 min•Transcript available on Metacast As hip hop turns 50, Kai and reporter Christopher Johnson look back on an era of “conscious rap” that championed a sound that was political, community-minded and deeply pro-Black. But about six years after it started, that first wave of socially-conscious hip hop seemed to be over. Who killed it? And what’s the story of its rise and fall tell us about the relationship between culture, politics, and commerce? We speak to: - Rapper Kool Moe Dee - Writer and filmmaker Nelson George - Dan Charnas , ...
Sep 07, 2023•19 min•Transcript available on Metacast This summer, producer Regina de Heer explored diaspora stories through the lens of music. In this installment, she meets someone whose identity is more complex than what we hear in the mainstream: Nodia Mena is a Lecturer of Spanish in the Department of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures at the University of North Carolina Greensboro. She gave a TEDx talk a few years ago about her background as a Garifuna person born in Honduras, now living in the United States. Growing up in Honduras, her peo...
Sep 04, 2023•32 min•Ep 310•Transcript available on Metacast Vivek Ramaswamy labeled Trump the best president of the 21st century. Chris Christie compared Ramaswamy to ChatGPT. Conservative callers share their reflections on the first Republican presidential debate, and Mona Charen from The Bulwark breaks down why having just 12 minutes of airtime can encourage bad behavior. Send us your song for our summer playlist! What’s a song that represents your personal diaspora story? Go to notesfromamerica.org and click on the “RECORD” button to leave a voice not...
Aug 31, 2023•19 min•Ep 309•Transcript available on Metacast From Stone Mountain to Alpharetta, we hear from listeners around the state and unpack what Trump’s indictment means for future elections and our democratic process. As former President Trump is indicted in an alleged conspiracy to overturn the lawful results of the 2020 election in Georgia, we wonder what’s on the mind of folks in Georgia right now. In partnership with our friends at WABE in Atlanta, we welcome Rose Scott , host of WABE’s daily news magazine Closer Look . We hear from listeners ...
Aug 28, 2023•32 min•Transcript available on Metacast Producer Regina de Heer is asking listeners for songs that represent something about their identity as part of a diaspora – any kind of diaspora! And you’ve been answering. In this installment, we hear Brazilian Calypso, a modern take on a Yiddish classic by the Andrews Sisters, and get a special submission from one of our favorite show guests. And you can hear the playlists now at WNYC.org/playlist . Send us your song for our summer playlist! What’s a song that represents your personal diaspora...
Aug 24, 2023•11 min•Ep 307•Transcript available on Metacast More people consider climate change an urgent concern than ever. But people in the climate movement fear that our collective anxiety about the end of the world has paralyzed us from taking action. In this episode, Kai collects stories of climate victories. Kai talks with Rikki Held, the 22-year-old lead plaintiff in Held v. Montana , a lawsuit brought by the group Our Children’s Trust. Held and her co-plaintiffs won an historic victory recently when a court ruled that the state violated their ri...
Aug 21, 2023•49 min•Transcript available on Metacast David Wallace-Wells , author of The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming calculated the cost to fix our climate. It requires us to reconsider what needs to change and who’s responsible. He talks to Kai about some of the ways we can rethink the history of climate change and one way forward. Send us your song for our summer playlist! What’s a song that represents your personal diaspora story? Go to notesfromamerica.org and click on the “RECORD” button to leave a voice note with your answer. Tel...
Aug 17, 2023•19 min•Transcript available on Metacast It's beyond impossible to save the planet one meatless plate at a time. So what can we do instead? Producer Rahima Nasa wants to know about the roots of plant-based eating. So she talks to writer and cook Alicia Kennedy, author of No Meat Required: The Cultural History and Culinary Future of Plant-Based Eating . If not eating meat is not enough, then what is? Send us your song for our summer playlist! What’s a song that represents your personal diaspora story? Go to notesfromamerica.org and clic...
Aug 14, 2023•33 min•Ep 304•Transcript available on Metacast 
