Maria and Julio react to the deadly white supremacist attack at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York. They talk about the rise in mass shootings rooted in racist and anti-Black ideologies, and the culpability of right-wing media and politicians. They also discuss the primary elections held this week across the country.

ITT Staff Picks:

• In this piece for The Grio, David A. Love analyzes the ways that journalists and all-white newsrooms have failed in their coverage of the Buffalo shooting by refusing to reckon with the reality of white supremacist and racist violence. 

• “A question remains for those who still reside in this republic: What do we owe the deceased in Buffalo and all those who preceded them? It cannot be anything less than pursuing the truth and unveiling all the interconnected evils that led to their tragic end,” writes Esau McCaulley for The Atlantic.

• Ryan Cooper writes about how the results of the 2022 midterm elections could have big repercussions for key election administration posts, and the integrity of the 2024 presidential election, in this piece for The American Prospect. 

Photo credit: AP Photo/Matt Rourke

Julio is joined by Jason Wu, public defender at the Legal Aid Society's Harlem Community Law Office, and Tiffany Diane Tso, freelance writer, editor, and co-founder of the Asian American Feminist Collective. They reflect on the rise in hate crimes targeting different Asian American communities, and how to build community safety beyond policing. They also get into the opportunity for multiracial solidarity in light of the increasing white supremacist violence in this country.

ITT Staff Picks:

• “A year after the shootings, many additional attacks on Asian Americans have continued across the country, something activists view as part of the long tradition of violence and discrimination against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders woven through the nation’s history,” by Frances Kai-Hwa Wang for PBS Newshour in April 2022.

• In this analysis of data from AAPI Data and Momentive, professors Janelle Wong and Sara Sadhwani found that “all racial groups experienced a hate crime over the first months of 2022 at very similar rates to one another.”

• “In interviews with more than a dozen community members — from shopkeepers to long term residents and elected officials — one particular sentiment coursed through the interviews: The systems that were supposed to protect people — from homeless people to the elderly and women — have failed Chinatown,” writes Lam Thuy Vo in this piece for Documented.

Photo credit: AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura

In this rebroadcast episode from 2020, Maria and Julio are joined by Dr. Michele Goodwin, law professor at the University of California, Irvine, host of Ms. Magazine’s On The Issues podcast and author of the book, Policing the Womb: Invisible Women and the Criminalization of Motherhood, and Mary Ziegler, law professor at Florida State University, historian and author of the book, Abortion and the Law in America: Roe v. Wade to the Present. They talk about the future of Roe v. Wade and unpack the history of reproductive justice for women of color and immigrants.

ITT Staff Picks: 

• Michele Goodwin writes about the new “Jane Crow era” in the United States, for The Atlantic: “Leaving the protection of people who can become pregnant to the devices of hostile state legislatures has been and will be disastrous.”

• Tech reporter Louise Matsakis writes about the privacy experts who are warning about data-tracking if Roe is overturned, for NBC News. 

• As the country faces the prospect of a post-Roe future, The Washington Post spoke to people who remember what life was like before the landmark decision.

Photo credit: AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana

This episode originally aired in September 2020 and was mixed by Leah Shaw Dameron.