Samantha Mellerson is with the W. Haywood Burns Institute, a national Black led organization that works to dismantle structural racism. We discuss the mainstream criminal justice reform movement and its successes and challenges.

A discussion on: the power dynamics within inter-racial adoptions; the politics of the Democratic party and an over-reliance on the Supreme Court and; potential legislative solutions to build Black power in the child welfare space.

We analyze how Child “Welfare” criminalizes poverty, targets Black families for family separation and serves as a vector of policing and structural violence.

Part Two of our conversation around the Left and its engagement (or lack thereof) with urban gun violence.

Lawrence and Dayvon address some of the political reasons why the left fails to address gun violence in Black urban communities. The left’s failure to address Black community’s immediate material needs for security and self-determination is exposed to be a critical reason why working-class Black voters seem reluctant to vote for leftist candidates.

Senator Jill P. Carter is the most progressive member of the Maryland State Senate and long time Maryland legislator. She discusses her battles with the Democratic Party establishment in Maryland.

Lawrence and Rasheem give a presentation on the limitations of the mainstream “Community Violence Intervention” programming, expose some of the fundamental limitations of their approach.

In this special two-part episode, Lawrence and Rasheem start with a discussion of Roe’s repeal, what it means for the Black community and how we got here. We then transition to an episode recorded before Roe’s repeal, where they discuss some of the larger dynamics around reproductive justice.

Rasheem and Larence talk about the research, and their personal experiences, relating to physical discipline. They’ll seek to understand why, despite research on the empirical harms of physical discipline, so many Black parents feel it is a part of a necessary part of raising Black kids.