UpFront

How Indigenous and Black organizing pushed Washington’s NFL team to drop its racist slur name; Newsom re-closes businesses across California; Meet the Berkeley councilwoman trying to defund police

Art displaying solidarity between Indigenous & Black activists, from Instagram post by @99rootz

On this show:

0:08 – 5.4 million people in the U.S. lost their health insurance coverage during Covid-19, and premiums are expected to skyrocket next year, including in the marketplace created under the Affordable Care Act. We speak with Stan Dorn (@standorn), director of the National Center for Coverage Innovation at Families USA

0:34 – CA Gov. Gavin Newsom has announced statewide closures of all bars, and indoor dining, movies, cardrooms and more. The state’s re-closing as hospitalizations have surged due to Covid-19 — are Newsom’s actions enough, and do they come too late? Art Reingold, the Division Head of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the UC Berkeley School of Public Health, joins us. 

0:45 – The Washington, D.C. NFL team has dropped a vicious anti-Indigenous racial slur from its name, after years of organizing and legal action by Indigenous organizers and tribal nations as well as court cases. But Jacqueline Keeler (@jfkeeler) says this moment is only possible because of the reckoning caused by the Black activists organizing after the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. Keeler is a writer and activist of Diné and Ihanktonwan Dakota heritage, co-founder of Eradicating Offensive Native Mascotry, and editor in chief of Pollen Nation Magazine.

1:08 – Martinez held a peaceful 2,000-person-strong march for Black lives on Sunday, despite threats of racist counterprotesters and over the objections of the mayor and the police department. Sevgi Fernandez founded Together We Stand, an organization dedicated to dismantling racism, discrimination and police brutality, and organized Sunday’s protest in Martinez — she joins us to talk about what happened.

1:34 – Berkeley High students on Monday held a ten-hour campout at the city police department building to demand the police department be defunded by at least 50%. We air voices of those students and talk with Cheryl Davila, Berkeley City Councilmember for District 2, who has an item before the city council today to substantially defund the police. Davila also shares her own experience with traffic stops in Berkeley — activists say traffic stops are often racially motivated and lead to deadly police encounters between officers and Black and Brown residents. Another measure before Berkeley City Council today would take police out of traffic stops. The public can find the agenda and information about participating in the meeting here.

1:49 – What is it like to bike while Black in Berkeley? Reporter Danielle Kaye spoke with Black Berkeley residents who have been policed.