More Episodes
Future Hindsight is a weekly podcast seeking to spark civic engagement, inspire hope, and reinvigorate our social contract.
October Surprise: Devlin Barrett
Building Authoritarian Power: Nathan Stoltzfus
Building Power Online: Alice Marwick
Digital Labor Organizing: Jess Kutch
Supreme Inequality: Adam Cohen
Decolonizing America: Nick Tilsen
Building Civic Power: K. Sabeel Rahman
What are we reading?
Find the books we discuss and support local bookstores below!
-
Education and Title VI
The United States has a long and unpleasant history when it comes to Native Americans and education. The long-standing boarding school program severely damaged Indigenous communities; erased millennia-old customs, histories, and languages; and inflicted generational trauma still present in tribes today. The era of boarding schools is now a thing of the past, but the...
-
A Brief History of Family Separations at the Southern Border
February 19, 2021 Brook Sayen Immigration Comments Off on A Brief History of Family Separations at the Southern BorderThe Trump Administration oversaw many malicious, destructive policies, but few rankled as much as immigrant child separation. The program began in 2018 as a ‘zero-tolerance policy‘ that soon spun out of control. Suddenly, anyone who committed the misdemeanor offense of illegally crossing the border was detained and referred for prosecution. The policy removed children from...
-
Whole-Worker Organizing
Unions have long been a bastion of the middle-class and are a vital part of American labor. They help raise wages, improve working conditions, and provide much-needed stability for workers in various fields. At a time of increasing worker precarity, unions are engaging in innovative work to address the issues that the most marginalized workers...
-
How the New Deal Segregated America
We often think of segregation as a bad policy that ended long ago—a shameful part of our history put far behind us. In reality, segregation continues to shape, where we live, our politics, and even culture. This week Mila was joined by journalist, author, and historian Richard Rothstein. He is the author of The Color...
-
Why Does the Right Hate Critical Race Theory?
January 29, 2021 Brook Sayen Racism In America Comments Off on Why Does the Right Hate Critical Race Theory?This week we had the distinct honor of interviewing Mari Matsuda, a co-founder of Critical Race Theory (CRT). In her enlightening conversation with Mila, she laid out a utopian vision of the future, how it might work and how we might get there. Our conversation happened after the former Trump Administration had publicly denounced CRT...
-
Remembering Dr. King
Hello and welcome to our first blog post of the Biden Presidency! This week marked the commemoration of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, a Presidential Inauguration, and Future Hindsight’s return to a podcast app near you. Our 13th season holds the magnifying glass to systemic racism in America in its many different forms. We have...
-
White Supremacy in America
Last week, we were shocked and horrified as a violent mob of the President’s supporters descended on the Capitol, killing a police officer, injuring dozens more, swarming the House and Senate chamber on the hunt for lawmakers, and generally defiling the People’s House. Shocked and horrified, but not surprised. This malignant coup attempt, fueled by...
-
Future Hindsight’s Best of 2020
Let’s get straight to the point: 2020 was a very bad, no good year for the world, and we’re beyond excited to leave it in the dust. 2020 exposed massive faults in many facets of American life, but it also motivated us to demand change. The Black Lives Matter demonstrations this summer became the largest...
-
It’s Time to Forgive Student Debt
As our season on rebuilding a better America after COVID winds down, we’re taking a look at one of the essential facets of our democratic society: our higher education system. Mila sat down with long-time Bard College president Leon Botstein to understand why the higher education system in America is failing so many of us...
-
How Abolition Democracy Can Save Us From Ourselves
December 11, 2020 Brook Sayen Democracy Comments Off on How Abolition Democracy Can Save Us From OurselvesDonald Trump may have lost the election (even if he won’t accept it), but as our guest Bernard Harcourt explains this week, we have a long road to justice ahead of us. Harcourt is the author of The Counterrevolution: How Our Government Went to War Against Its Own Citizens. In it—and in his interview with...
Future Hindsight is proud to be a member of The Democracy Group, a network of podcasts about democracy, civic engagement, and civil discourse.
Implicit Teacher Bias: Walter Gilliam
Walter Gilliam is the Director of The Edward Zigler Center in Child Development and Social Policy, and Professor at the Yale University Child Study Center. We discuss implicit bias in preschool teachers, expulsion rates among preschoolers, and the role of universal Pre-K to access early learning.
Unapologetically Indigenous: Sarah Pierce and Amy Sazue
Sarah Pierce and Amy Sazue work on education policy for NDN Collective, an Indigenous-led organization dedicated to building Indigenous power. Honoring the narrative of the Indigenous is an important step towards education equity, since US curriculum now perpetuates the erasure of Indigenous history.
Separating Children: Laura Briggs
Laura Briggs is the author of Taking Children: A History of American Terror. We discuss the history of child separation for political ends, ranging from the enslaved and Native children, to the children of the poor and Central American refugees. The legacy of these racist policies still haunt us today.
Unions & Racial Justice: Tamara Lee
Tamara L. Lee, Esq. is an industrial engineer, labor lawyer, and professor at the Rutgers School of Management and Labor Relations. We discuss wage discrimination, innovation and equity in organized labor, and a new framework for justice in our times.
State-Sponsored Segregation: Richard Rothstein
Richard Rothstein is a journalist, historian, and author of The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America. We learn about state-sponsored segregation, its continuing legacy and impact on disparities in wealth and income, and a new movement to redress racial segregation.