The effects of mass incarceration, new documentary looks at Latinos' role in Vietnam, a lookahead to possible winners at this Sunday's Emmys.
Ta-Nehisi Coates on the impacts of poverty to prison
America's prisons hold a disproportionate number of African-American men, and it's unclear why.
Fifty years ago, a Labor Department employee named Daniel Patrick Moynihan attempted to get to the heart of the problem in his report, "The Negro Family: The Case for National Action." The controversial document said high rates of welfare dependency, incarceration and unemployment were all rooted in slavery and oppressive Jim Crow laws.
While Moynihan identified several key issues, he stopped short of making policy suggestions. Half a century later, what's changed?
Atlantic national correspondent Ta-Nehisi Coates tells Take Two that Moynihan intended for the report to bring change for to America's communities of color, but few officials wanted to take on the task.
“What he was trying to do was assemble enough of an effort to actually get something done about the situation in African American communities, and so his thought was the way to do that was through talking about the family.”
Coates says Moynihan chose a family focus in order to appeal to more conservative American ideals. The report makes the case the many of black America's problems can be traced to the shortage of strong, employed and empowered father figures at home. But Coates says 1960s America wasn’t quite ready to hear their options.
“He left it out, because he was very very much aware that including the solutions would get us into conversations about who was on board for what.”
Coates says this was a ‘huge error.’ Without policy recommendations, the report was left up to interpretation. As a result, Moynihan’s document had the opposite effect, and, arguably fortified the institutional racism inveterate to American social policy.
Years later, in response to a wave of crime, the US began imprisoning at a rate that far surpassed other developed countries.
“The crime rise was actually an international phenomenon,” Coates explains.
“America is not necessarily unique in having experienced a rise of crime. It is unique in the percentage, [and] the proportion of its minority portion that it decided to lock up.”
Moynihan’s report suggested a multi-pronged approach for creating change in communities of color. As crime rose, however, Coates says the only policy that lawmakers were willing to get behind included longer jail terms for people of color. He says the impact of imprisonment have far-reaching effects, often setting young blacks up for a life of crime.
“It’s removed people from their homes and its removed people from communities in ways we did not used to do for the same crimes … It’s made going to prison what it used to be to go into the Army. It’s had a disastrous effect on the black community.”
Press the play button above to hear more from The Atlantic’s Ta-Nehisi Coates.
Joining Take Two to discuss:
- Ta-Nehisi Coates, national correspondent at The Atlantic
- Susan Burton, founder and executive director of A New Way of Life Re-entry Project, who will elaborate on the impacts on female heads of household who become incarcerated
Emmys 2015 preview: Jon Hamm, 'Transparent' are big hopefuls
Come Sunday, the red carpet will be rolled out in downtown Los Angeles for the 67th annual primetime Emmys.
Variety's TV critic
joined host Alex Cohen for a look ahead to the show.
Preview highlights:
Emmy voting has changed this year. How has it impacted the nominations?
"There have been a lot of changes, but I think the biggest one, and that's going to make the biggest difference come Emmy night, is the second round of voting post nominations is up to all of the Emmy academy voting bodies. So rather than just be for a blue ribbon panel, it's up to the entire 18,000 membership."
When it comes to the competition itself, what categories are you most excited about?
"I'm certainly excited to see what happens with Jon Hamm and see if he finally gets the trophy he so richly deserves, but I'm also really excited to see what happens in the best actress in a drama race. No black woman has ever won that race before, and we've got two fantastic contenders: Viola Davis is up for 'How to Get Away With Murder,' and Taraji P. Henson is up for the fantastic role of Cookie in 'Empire,' which was the breakout hit of the broadcast season."
Amazon's "Transparent" is nominated in the best series category. This is Amazon's big debut at the Emmys, with 12 nominations for this show. What does that say to you about changes in the way we're watching TV now?
"It's really amazing how this show has put Amazon on the map, and really transformed the way, as you said, we watch television. It's not just about the broadcast networks anymore. So if Amazon can win this trophy for best comedy series, it's really going to send a message to the broadcast networks that they have to sort of change the way that they're programming."
To listen to the full interview, click on the blue audio player above
'On Two Fronts' documents Latinos fighting for the US, equal rights
This year marks 40 years since the end of the Vietnam War. The impact of the almost 20-year conflict continues to be felt by the people who fled, the people who fought and families around the world.
The new documentary "On Two Fronts" brings the untold stories of Latino service members.
from
on Vimeo.
"We're looking at the struggles that Latinos in general had at home pursuing equality and civil rights, while at the same time being asked to serve their country," said filmmaker Mylène Moreno,
Serving in the military runs deep into the blood of Vietnam veteran Oscar Urrea. His father, an immigrant to the U.S. from Mexico, was adamant that his family give back to his new home.
"My dad would always say, 'I came into this country a free person and all my children are going to serve this country when they're born here,'" recalls Urrea.
To listen to the full interview, click on the blue audio player above
How CA water habits need to change to avoid a dystopian desert future
Twenty-five years from now, California will be hotter, drier and more populous.
That means our relationship with water will change, but if your picture of the California of 2040 is some sort of post-apocalyptic, 'Mad Max'-style dystopian desert, water experts say that's a bit of a leap.
"California has a lot of water," says Heather Cooley, co-director of the Water Program at the Pacific Institute. "It's really about how we manage it and how we use it. I think we have tremendous opportunity to be using water more efficiently in our cities, on our farms, in our homes and our businesses across the board."
So how do our water habits need to change so that we use it more effectively?
Mark Gold, with UCLA's Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, says that top on the list has to be using local water supplies more efficiently.
In urban areas like Los Angeles, Gold says, that means "really valuing every drop of water" and focusing on things like storm water capture and water recycling.
These kinds of transitions are moving closer from talk to actual implementation, Gold says, "but this sort of transformation of infrastructure in a big way is going to take that 25 years to happen."
Something else that will need to change within the next 25 years, is doing a better job of knowing our day-to-day water use in both urban and agricultural areas. Right now, Gold says, we're pretty horrible at it.
"Think about it," in L.A., "you get your water bill once every two months. You're trying to conserve, the Governor's saying we gotta cut back 25 percent, and you're only getting that reinforcement once every two months. That's ridiculous. We need to get real-time water meters all over the place."
Farms need to do a better job of keeping track of their water use as well, Heather Cooley says, and they already are making some significant changes. "We're seeing more and more farmers adopt drip irrigation. They're using weather and other scientific information to determine when to irrigate and how much to irrigate. We're undoubtedly going to see more of that."
What won't work, though, is keeping on the same course that California has been on in the past.
"We're already seeing difficulties with groundwater management in some of our main agricultural areas and along our coasts," Cooley says, "If we don't change our ways, those will only get worse."
To hear the full interview with Heather Cooley and Mark Gold, click the link above.
Weekend on the cheap: Sunday Sessions in Grand Park, 'Roga' and LA Podcast Festival
You survived the heat, then rain and now we're back to it being hot, hot, hot.
KPCC's social media producer Kristen Lepore joins Take Two every Friday with a handful of fun and almost-free events to fill our weekend.
Highlights on her to-do list: Sunday Sessions in Grand Park, 'roga' (that's running and yoga combined) at Santa Monica pier and the L.A. Podcast Festival.
For even more events, click here.
To hear more about Kristen's weekend recommendations, click on the blue audio player above