In an effort to alleviate tensions in Ukraine, French President Emmanuel Macron and Russian leader Vladimir Putin met in Moscow; and U.S. President Joe Biden and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz met in DC. To discuss, we SPOTLIGHT Nina L. Khrushcheva. Khrushcheva is a professor in the Graduate Program of International Affairs at the New School, where she teaches courses on International Media, Comparative Propaganda, Culture and Capitalism, Film and Empire, and Russia’s Contemporary Politics and History. She is the author of Imagining Nabokov: Russia Between Art and Politics, and The Lost Khrushchev: A Journey into the Gulag of the Russian Mind. She is also a senior fellow of the World Policy Institute, where she heads the Russia Projects, which examines the contours of the current national identity of Russians and its impact on Russian politics. Media includes: Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Nation, The Wall Street Journal, International Herald Tribune, Financial Times, NPR, BBC, CNN.
Amir Locke, a 22-year old Black man, was fatally shot by Minneapolis police officers during an unrelated no-knock search warrant. To discuss, we FEATURE Andrea M. Headley. Headley is a public management, social equity and criminal justice policy scholar. She is an Assistant Professor at the McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown University. Her research focuses on policing to understand how organizational, managerial, and individual level factors affect policing services and outcomes, with a keen focus on inequities and disparities. Specific examples of her past work include assessing police-community relations, analyzing dispositional outcomes in citizen complaints, evaluating the effects of race during use of force encounters, as well as evaluating body-worn cameras. She teaches specialized courses on criminal justice policy and generalist courses on public management. Media includes: The Conversation, Dayton Daily News, PBS, NBC.
Jury selection has begun for the federal hate crime trial of the men that killed Ahmaud Arbery. All three men were found guilty of murder in state court in November. To discuss, we FEATURE Jennifer Epps-Addison. Epps-Addison serves as the President and Co-Executive Director of the Center for Popular Democracy and CPD Action's network of 49 partner organizations in 33 states. As President, she leads CPD’s racial justice campaigns, and works closely with its network of local affiliates. Epps-Addison boasts over 15 years of community organizing experience, advancing systems-change campaigns for economic and racial justice. She has a commitment to supporting and growing Black-led organizations, strengthening investments in power-building efforts in communities of color, and deepening organizing strategies that build power with the white working class by addressing racism head-on and building authentic alliances based on shared interests and shared values. Prior to her return to organizing, Jennifer was a trial attorney in the Wisconsin State Public Defender's Office. Media includes: The Washington Post, The Guardian, International Business Times, Politico, MSNBC, NPR.
Ottawa's mayor has declared a state of emergency as protestors gather on the streets of Canada's capital. Protestors mainly consist of antigovernment truckers who gathered to protest COVID restrictions. To discuss, we FEATURE Nomi Claire Lazar. Lazar is Professor in the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa where she is also an elected member of the Governing Board. With a background in legal and political thought, she has written extensively on emergency powers, political ethics, national constitutions and their legitimacy, utopian and apocalyptic politics, time and temporality, and political rhetoric. Her books include States of Emergency in Liberal Democracies (Cambridge, 2009/13) and Out of Joint: Power Crisis, and the Rhetoric of Time (Yale, 2019). Media includes: Macleans, Channel News Asia, Toronto Star, Singapore Straits Times, PBS.
Book bans are becoming increasingly more common across U.S. schools, according to the American Library Association, who have released a preliminary report that showed an unprecedented amount of book challenges. Most books being challenged by lawmakers and parents are books that focus on sexual activity, sexual identity or gender identity. To discuss, we FEATURE Emily J.M. Knox. Knox is an associate professor in the School of Information Sciences (the iSchool) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her areas of expertise include information access, censorship, book banning, libraries and librarianship, and information ethics. Knox’s book, Book Banning in 21st Century America, was published by Rowman & Littlefield in January 2015. She also contributed a chapter on religion and intellectual freedom to the Library Juice Press Handbook of Intellectual Freedom: Concepts, Cases, and Theories. Knox serves on the board of the National Coalition Against Censorship. Extensive media experience.
The Super Bowl is Sunday. To discuss, we FEATURE Alexis McCombs. McCombs is an On-Air Sports Contributor where she discusses NFL football, sports, pop-culture, business and female-centric issues. McCombs also created, executive produced and co-hosted a weekly NFL talk show for Huffington Post where three women interviewed athletes about politics, religion and other hot topics. After numerous women admitted to being intimidated by NFL football but wanted to speak intelligently about the game, McCombs penned Girls Guide to Go: Football 101 & The Big Bowl Game. Media includes: The New York Times, USA Today, Essence, Inc., Black Enterprise, CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS.
February is Teen Dating Violence and Awareness Prevention Month. To discuss, we FEATURE Mary David. Currently the Director of Communications for Journey Out, a Los-Angeles based nonprofit leading the fight against commercial sexual exploitation, David educates a range of key stakeholders on the dangers, realities, and mechanisms for assisting victims and survivors of human trafficking and sexual exploitation. She also leads the youth sex trafficking prevention programming, working directly with youth to create content that raises awareness among young people about the dangers of sexual exploitation. A survivor of child sexual abuse and domestic violence herself with years of experience training children and adults about the dangers of sexual predators, David is uniquely equipped to reach diverse audiences, including at risk youth. Media includes: The Huffington Post, Baltimore Sun, Teen Vogue, ABC, CBS, KTLA, Fox.
February is Black History Month and to commemorate, we FEATURE Koritha Mitchell. Mitchell is a professor of English at Ohio State University. Her research centers on African American literature, racial violence in United States history and contemporary culture, and black drama and performance. She examines how texts, both written and performed, help communities to survive and thrive. She is the author of From Slave Cabins to the White House: Homemade Citizenship in African American Culture and the award-winning book Living with Lynching: African American Lynching Plays, Performance, and Citizenship, 1890 - 1930. Media includes: CNN, Good Morning America, The Huffington Post, NBC News, PBS Newshour, and NPR's Morning Edition.
WMC SheSource also has a list of experts for Black History Month.
Liz Theran
