Talking Radical Radio

In episode #378 of Talking Radical Radio, Scott Neigh interviews Rachel Zellars and Wendie Wilson. Zellars is an African-American academic, lawyer, and community organizer who has lived in Canada for more than a decade and a half, and in Halifax for the last couple of years. Wilson is an African Nova Scotian teacher, artist, writer, and community advocate whose family has been in the province for at least eight generations. They talk about the African Nova Scotian Freedom School that they were part of organizing this past summer. For a more detailed description of this episode, go here: https://talkingradical.ca/2020/11/10/radio-a-grassroots-freedom-school-for-african-nova-scotian-youth/

In episode #377 of Talking Radical Radio, Scott Neigh interviews Renae Watchman, Michael Truscello, and Leah Hamilton. They are faculty at Mount Royal University, a small undergraduate institution in Calgary, and members of the Mount Royal Anti-Racism Coalition. They talk about what racism looks like in the academy, and about what it means to oppose it. For a more detailed description of this episode, go here: https://talkingradical.ca/2020/11/03/radio-fighting-racism-at-an-alberta-university/

In episode #376 of Talking Radical Radio, Scott Neigh interviews Michael Kwag, the director of knowledge exchange and policy development at the Community-Based Research Centre. They talk about the CBRC's use of research, community-level interventions, and advocacy to promote the health of gay, bi, trans, Two-Spirit, and queer men. For a more detailed description of this episode, go here: https://talkingradical.ca/2020/10/27/radio-community-based-research-and-advocacy-supporting-gay-and-bi-mens-health/

In episode #375 of Talking Radical Radio, Scott Neigh interviews Medeana Moussa and Wing Li. They are the executive director and director of communications for Support Our Students Alberta, a grassroots, nonpartisan network focused on standing up for the rights of students to an accessible and equitable public education system. They talk about the importance of public education, the dangers of charter schools and privatization, how the school system in Alberta has been responding to COVID-19, and what SOS Alberta is doing in response. For a more detailed description of this episode, go here: https://talkingradical.ca/2020/10/20/radio-standing-up-for-students-and-public-education-in-alberta/

In episode #374 of Talking Radical Radio, Scott Neigh interviews Shannon Hardy and Bridget Graham. They are the coordinator and director of volunteers, respectively, of Abortion Support Services Atlantic, a grassroots mutual aid group that supports people in Atlantic Canada in the face of barriers to accessing abortion services. For a more detailed description of this episode, go here: https://talkingradical.ca/2020/10/13/radio-grassroots-abortion-support-in-atlantic-canada/

In episode #373 of Talking Radical Radio, Scott Neigh interviews Susan Campbell and Angie Lynch. They are social workers and community organizers who work for community legal clinics in Ontario, and they talk about Just Recovery Ontario, a campaign that is pushing for a recovery from the pandemic that would fix the many injustices and shortfalls in our social safety net that COVID-19 has made so evident. For a more detailed description of this episode, go here: https://talkingradical.ca/2020/10/06/radio-social-justice-in-the-wake-of-the-pandemic/

In episode #372 of Talking Radical Radio, Scott Neigh interviews Carole Tootill and Joshua Wright, residents of British Columbia who are heavily involved in forest protection activism. They speak about the Fairy Creek blockades, a direct action that is protecting some of the last big-tree, old-growth forest on Vancouver Island from clear-cut logging. For a more detailed description of this episode, go here: https://talkingradical.ca/2020/09/29/radio-direct-action-in-defence-of-old-growth-forest/

In episode #371 of Talking Radical Radio, Scott Neigh interviews Tamara Lorincz and Brent Patterson. Lorincz is a long-time peace and justice activist and a member of Canadian Voice of Women for Peace. Patterson has also been involved in peace and social justice issues for many years, and is the executive director of Peace Brigades International - Canada. They talk about the campaign to oppose the federal government's plan to spend $19 billion on a new fleet of fighter jets. For a more detailed description of this episode, go here: https://talkingradical.ca/2020/09/22/radio-stopping-canada-from-spending-19-billion-on-new-fighter-jets/

In episode #370 of Talking Radical Radio, Scott Neigh interviews France Trépanier and Chris Creighton-Kelly. Trépanier is an artist and curator of Kanien’kehá:ka and French ancestry. Creighton-Kelly is also an artist, and is of Anglo-Indian descent. They are the directors of Primary Colours/Couleurs primaires, a project that has been working to shift Canada's arts system in decolonial and anti-racist directions. For a more detailed description of this episode, go here: https://talkingradical.ca/2020/09/15/radio-pushing-canadas-arts-system-in-anti-racist-and-decolonial-directions/

In episode #369 of Talking Radical Radio, Scott Neigh interviews Christine Bro and Quentin Rowe-Codner. Bro is the lead organizer for Service Employees International Union Local 2, and is based in Vancouver. Rowe-Codner is a sales associated at a private liquor store in Maple Ridge, BC. They talk about SEIU Local 2's Unions Are Essential campaign, launched to support the unionization of essential and frontline workers during the pandemic, and about the recent successful organizing drive at Rowe-Codner's workplace. For a more detailed description of this episode, go here: https://talkingradical.ca/2020/09/08/radio-unionizing-during-the-pandemic/

In episode #368 of Talking Radical Radio, Scott Neigh interviews Sharon Gregson. She works with the Coalition of Child Care Advocates of BC and is the provincial spokesperson for British Columbia's $10aDay child care campaign. They talk about the importance of high-quality, affordable, accessible, public child care, and about both the gains the campaign in BC has made so far and what it has left to win. For a more detailed description of this episode, go here: https://talkingradical.ca/2020/09/01/radio-campaigning-for-10-a-day-public-child-care/

In episode #367 of Talking Radical Radio, Scott Neigh interviews activist and academic Shahrzad Mojab. She was involved in the recent publication of *Lives Lost: In Search of a New Tomorrow*, a translation of a powerful poem by Iranian poet Saeed Yousef that remembers the massacre of political prisoners in Iran in the 1980s. They talk about the book, the history it remembers, and the importance of grassroots remembrance of state violence, particularly through literature, art, and poetry. For a more detailed description of the episode, go here: https://talkingradical.ca/2020/08/25/radio-literature-art-and-the-remembrance-of-state-violence/

In this rebroadcast of episode #346 of Talking Radical Radio (originally broadcast in March 2020), Scott Neigh interviews Sharon Fortney. She is the Curator of Indigenous Collections and Engagement at the Museum of Vancouver. She talks about the complicated colonial history of museums and about the Acts of Resistance exhibit, which features the massive banners designed by Indigenous artists and used in an aerial blockade of tanker traffic in the Burrard Inlet to oppose the Trans Mountain tar sands pipeline expansion project. For a more detailed description of this episode, go here: https://talkingradical.ca/2020/08/18/radio-rebroadcast-museums-indigenous-protest-art-and-the-trans-mountain-pipeline/

In epsiode #366 of Talking Radical Radio, Scott Neigh interviews Cole Rockarts of Free Transit Edmonton. They talk about the importance of public transit and about the growing effort to make it public, accessible, high quality, and free. For a more detailed description of this episode, go here: https://talkingradical.ca/2020/08/11/radio-the-growing-movement-for-free-public-transit/

In episode #365 of Talking Radical Radio, Scott Neigh interviews Sidrah Ahmad-Chan and Niya Abdullahi about Rivers of Hope, an organization based in Toronto whose "mission is to dismantle Islamophobia, racism, and all related forms of oppression" in order "to create a safer and more equitable world for us all." For a more detailed description of this episode, go here: https://talkingradical.ca/2020/08/04/radio-opposing-islamophobia-in-all-of-its-intersections/

In episode #364 of Talking Radical Radio, Scott Neigh interviews Max ZB about Bricks and Glitter, a Toronto-based "community arts festival, celebrating Two-Spirit, trans and queer talent, ingenuity, caring, anger, and abundance." For a more detailed description of this episode, go here: https://talkingradical.ca/2020/07/28/radio-bricks-and-glitter-radical-queer-music-arts-politics/

In episode #363 of Talking Radical Radio, Scott Neigh interviews Gillian Müller and Tony Tran. Both work in Canada's TV and film industry, and both are involved in BIPOC TV & Film, a grassroots organization of Black, Indigenous, and people of colour from all sectors of the industry that is dedicated to increasing BIPOC representation both behind and in front of the camera. For a more detailed description of this episode, go here: https://talkingradical.ca/2020/07/21/radio-anti-racism-in-canadas-tv-and-film-industry/

In episode #362 of Talking Radical Radio, Scott Neigh interviews organic vegetable farmer Brent Preston. He is the president of the Ecological Farmers Association of Ontario, one of the member organizations of a new Canada-wide coalition called Farmers for Climate Solutions, which is pushing for changes in policy that will make the country's agricultural sector part of the solution to climate change. They talk about the relationship between agriculture and the climate crisis, and about the work of Farmers for Climate Solutions. For a more detailed description of this episode, go here: https://talkingradical.ca/2020/07/14/radio-farmers-fighting-climate-change/

In episode #361 of Talking Radical Radio, Scott Neigh interviews Fazeela Jiwa of Fernwood Publishing and David Bush of Between the Lines. Both organizations are independent Canadian publishers that specialize in social justice-focused, critical, and radical titles. They talk about their own work, about the impacts of COVID-19 on the publishing industry, and about the Radical Publishers Alliance, a new organization of around 30 publishers from around the world with left-leaning politics who have come together to support each other and act in solidarity. For a more detailed description of this episode, go here: https://talkingradical.ca/2020/07/07/radio-radical-publishers-take-on-the-world/

In episode #360 of Talking Radical Radio, Scott Neigh interviews Souheil Benslimane, who describes himself as a father, a partner, and an illegalized and criminalized migrant living in Ottawa. Since his release from prison in 2018, he has been involved in the Criminalization and Punishment Education Project (CPEP). Benslimane talks about his experiences of criminalization, about the anti-carceral work of CPEP, and about what he thinks needs to be happening in this critical moment to advance an abolitionist agenda. For a more detailed description of this episode, go here: https://talkingradical.ca/2020/06/30/radio-radical-organizing-in-support-of-prisoners-and-against-policing-and-prisons/