Kqeds Forum

Documentary filmmaker Peter Nicks began filming at Oakland High School in fall 2019 to capture its seniors’ final year. He ended up capturing the specifically local experiences of a global turning point. From a student-led campaign to remove police officers from their school that begins months before George Floyd’s murder and resultant protests, to uncertain conversations around a new virus and an eventual Zoom graduation, the documentary “Homeroom” provides insight into the 2020 graduating class, depicting the students of Oakland High as the vanguard of national conversations on inequity and social justice. Nicks, whose previous Oakland-set documentaries depicted a public hospital and the city’s police force, joins us to discuss “Homeroom” and what it means to tell Oakland’s stories.

Many parents and kids are feeling relief as the state's 6 million K-12 school children head back into the classroom for full time, in-person classes after more than a year of mostly distance learning. But fears over the spread of the highly contagious delta coronavirus variant have other parents signing their children up for independent study and demanding online zoom classes. Experts and state officials continue to back a full reopening, pointing to rising absenteeism, depression and anxiety among many children, as well as devastating loss of learning for students in predominantly low-income school districts. We'll talk about what California's schools are doing to keep students safe and address parents' concerns.

The story of reggaeton music is layered and complex, and, according to reggaeton pioneer Ivy Queen, “the real story of reggaeton is about la resistencia. Resistance.” Queen is also the narrator of the new podcast “Loud” by Spotify and Futuro Studios, which gives reggaeton the documentary treatment and explores its nuances. “Loud” journeys through reggaeton’s origins in Jamaican dancehall to Panamanian reggae in español to “las calles” of Puerto Rico to New York and beyond. Once criminalized in Puerto Rico in the ‘90s and early aughts, reggaeton is now one of the most popular genres in the world -- reggaeton superstar Bad Bunny was Spotify’s most-streamed artist in 2020. We’ll take a critical look at reggaeton’s origins and evolution, from its dancehall roots to the massive pop presence it has today.

"For thousands of years, time has been harnessed, politicized and weaponized," writes technology historian and horologist David Rooney in his new book, "About Time." Rooney examines a dozen timekeepers from sundials and hourglasses to the atomic clocks on satellites that create GPS. In doing so, he traces time's role in shaping civilization, pushing against perceptions of clocks objectivity and analyzing the utilization of time in accumulating and maintaining power. The son of a clockmaker and former curator of timekeeping at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, England, Rooney joins us to discuss the power of clocks.

Outside the gates of the Kabul airport, thousands of Afghans seeking to flee the country camp along the access road, which is now blocked by the Taliban. Scenes like this have Afghan-Americans anxiously watching the news and waiting to hear from loved ones. Northern California is home to the largest Afghan diaspora in the country. As Afghanistan reels from the takeover by the Taliban, we talk to community members about how they are taking in the quickly shifting news and their work to prepare for the growing refugee crisis. How you can help: NPR: The Simple Steps You Can Take to Help Afghan Refugees

More than 20 million California voters are receiving mail-in ballots now for the Sept. 14 gubernatorial recall election. Voters will be asked only two questions: whether to recall Gov. Gavin Newsom and, if he is recalled, who should be the new governor. Even for a state that leans blue, most polling shows voters are split over whether or not to remove Newsom. We'll talk with KQED's politics team to break down when to vote, the candidates on the ballot and why participation in this election is so important.

When asked to name some of the Bay Area’s signature foods, many would jump to name Mission burritos, It’s-It ice cream sandwiches or — especially for tourists visiting San Francisco piers — clam chowder. KQED food editor Luke Tsai is adding another food to that list: garlic noodles. “Here in the Bay Area, Asian Americans love garlic noodles. Black and Latino folks love garlic noodles. Indeed, once you start looking for garlic noodles, it seems, you find them everywhere,” Tsai writes in his recent article. So what’s behind the love for this dish born in San Francisco’s Vietnamese community? We’ll talk to Tsai about how garlic noodles became one of the Bay Area’s most iconic foods.

A 2018 analysis by the Center for American Progress estimates that state colleges allocate more than $1,000 less per year for Black and Latinx students than white students. Americas colleges and universities have a dirty open secret: they have never given Black people an equal chance to succeed, writes Atlantic staff writer Adam Harris in his new book, The State Must Provide. Harris traces the laws and practices that established racial inequality and segregation in higher education back to slave codes through Plessy v. Ferguson and the overturning of affirmative action policies. He joins us to discuss this history of racial exclusion and segregation and his argument that financial support of historically Black colleges and universities could act as a form of reparations.

I have spent much of my journalism career bearing witness to the human cost of climate change, writes Lizzie Johnson in her new book, "Paradise: One Towns Struggle to Survive an American Wildfire." Nearly three years after the Camp Fire decimated the town of Paradise, taking 85 lives and razing 90 percent of its homes, Johnson weaves together its human impact, building from her San Francisco Chronicle reporting and an estimated 500 interviews. In Paradise, she writes of an ambulance holding a premature newborn and his IV-attached mother, a school bus driver maneuvering to save his passengers and other narratives of attempting survival against a blaze engulfing distances greater than a football field each second. Johnson joins us to share Paradises stories and what they foretell in the face of climate inaction.

The Bay Area saw some of the biggest increases in people signing up for food stamps during the pandemic. Home to the highest income inequality in California, the Bay Area’s hunger problem has been an issue of growing concern since well before COVID-19. The Biden administration announced Monday that it will approve the largest permanent increase in food assistance in the history of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Yet the Bay Area’s cost of living may mean that increase is only a drop in the bucket. We talk with researchers and advocates about the unique landscape of food insecurity in the Bay Area and how they’re addressing the problem.

With breathtaking speed, the Taliban have regained control of Afghanistan for the first time since American military forces drove them out 20 years ago. Collapse of the U.S.-backed government triggered panic in Kabul,with many questions about what comes next as the Taliban takes over. We'll talk with Afghan-Americans in California about how they're reacting to the news and we'll look back at the past decades of American military involvement to ask how intelligence so badly underestimated the strength of the Taliban and overestimated the stability of the Afghan government.

Alameda school board member Mia Bonta and attorney Janani Ramachandran are vying to represent East Bay Assembly District 18 and succeed Bonta's husband, Rob Bonta, who resigned to become the California attorney general. A special runoff election on Aug. 31 will determine who will become the next representative for the district, which covers West Oakland to San Leandro. We talk with the candidates to get their views on housing supply, criminal justice reform and more.  

For a few days in late 2015, global outrage coursed at the photo of Alan Kurdi, the lifeless two-year old Syrian boy found washed ashore in Turkey after the boat carrying him and other migrants sank on its way to Greece. Omar El Akkad's new novel "What Strange Paradise" imagines an alternative narrative: a young migrant child survives a shipwreck and tries to forge his way to safety. El Akkad, who's also a journalist and former war correspondent, says he wrote the novel to counter what he calls "the privilege of instantaneous forgetting." We talk to him about the ongoing global refugee crisis and the human stories that inform his work.

Later this year, NASA's James Webb Space Telescope will be strapped to a French rocket and launched nearly one million miles into space to look at galaxies formed 300 million years after the Big Bang. The telescope employs new and novel technology, including a gold-covered mirror, the largest ever launched into space, and a sunshield the size of a tennis court and made of five paper-thin layers that will cool down the telescope's sensitive infrared equipment. The hope is that the telescope, which has taken 25 years to design and build at a cost of $10 billion, will shoot back images even more spectacular than the Hubble Telescope. The engineering risks are complex, but scientists hope for a grand reward.

In one month, the U.S. will mark the 20th anniversary of 9/11, when nearly 3,000 Americans were killed in terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. In a new piece for The Atlantic, staff writer Jennifer Senior details how the family of Bobby McIlvaine continues to mourn and search for meaning two decades after he was killed in the attacks. The portrait reveals the disparate ways his loved ones process their grief, including Bobby’s father, who turned to 9/11 truther conspiracies to make sense of the loss, and Bobby’s former girlfriend, who holds on to one of his journals. As we remember the tragedy of that fateful day in 2001, we’ll talk to Senior about what the McIlvaines’ story tells us about grieving, both as individuals and as a nation.

The number of adolescent patients needing hospitalizations for eating disorders has doubled at UCSF Benioff Children's Hospitals during the pandemic. In-patient treatment centers have also seen demand skyrocket and now have months-long waiting lists. Experts say that for young people, not being able to see friends or family, taking classes online and spending more time scrolling through social media feeds have all contributed to the rapid increase in eating disorders. We talk about why the pandemic has created a ripe environment for more eating disorders and how to address the problem.

The 2020 Olympics in Tokyo have been described as the “strangest” or “weirdest” in Olympic history. The pandemic delayed the games for a year and limited how the world’s biggest sporting tournament could play out--no spectators, lots of covered faces, social distancing and players isolated from others. The games also roused a plethora of debates ranging from questions over player uniforms to questions about identity to whether they should have been held at all in a country with low coronavirus vaccination rates. In this hour of Forum, we look back at the Tokyo Olympics and explore the triumphs, and challenges of putting on the games in the middle of a pandemic and also dive into California’s influence on the games.

Last week, Apple announced it will scan U.S. iPhones for images of child sexual abuse. It’s a serious problem. Back in 2018, 45 million photos and videos with child sex abuse material were reported by tech firms. Apple’s move was praised by child protection groups. But privacy experts say that this is an alarming departure from the company’s commitment to security, and will open the door to governments to surveil their citizens.

California’s fourth largest hydroelectric plant, Hyatt Powerplant at Lake Oroville, has been shut down due to lack of water for the first time in its nearly 60 year history. This after water levels sank to 24% of the lake’s capacity, in what the Department of Water Resources attributed to “climate-induced drought.” We discuss the effects of California’s drought on the power supply and what steps the state is taking to make up for the loss of water and hydroelectric power.

President Biden announced an executive order last week that aims to make half of all new vehicles sold electric by 2030. The move is part of Biden’s larger plan for taking action on the climate crisis and has the backing of U.S. automakers. Not a legally binding mandate and more of a voluntary pledge, it remains to be seen how much progress will ultimately be made in helping lower greenhouse gas emissions. California set its own goal for electric vehicles earlier this year when Gov. Gavin Newsom ordered all sales of new gas-powered vehicles in the state phased out by 2035. Many Democrats urged Biden to pursue a similar order, which is closer to those adopted by other countries, but he resisted. We’ll learn more about Biden’s executive order and what impact California’s own policies and growing electric vehicle industry will have on the national plan.