In Washington, DC, the story often ends when Congress passes a law. For us, that’s where the story begins. We examine the consequences of what happens when powerful people act — or fail to act. This season, Jillian Weinberger explores the big ideas from the 2020 presidential candidates: how their ideas worked, or didn’t work, in other places or at other times. Produced by Vox and the Vox Media Podcast Network.
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What good are piecemeal reparations? From Georgetown University, where school leadership once sold enslaved people, to Evanston, Illinois, where redlining kept Black residents out of homeownership, institutions and local governments are attempting to take reparations into their own hands. But do these small-scale efforts detract from the broader call for reparations from the federal government?
Fabiola talks with Indigenous philanthropist Edgar Villanueva, founder of the Decolonizing Wealth Project and creator of the Case for Reparations fund, about the reparatory justice efforts underway across the country and the role that individual donors might be able to play in reparations. Fabiola also speaks with activist Kavon Ward, who worked to restore Bruce’s Beach, waterfront land in California, to the descendants of Black families who were pushed off the land by eminent domain. (Ward’s work was funded by Villanueva’s organization.) They discuss how jurisdictions are repaying Black people for what was taken from them — and if that repayment can be considered reparations at all.
This series was made possible with support from the Canopy Collective and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. To provide feedback, please take our survey here: https://forms.gle/w9vYsfFGvdJLJ3LY9
Host: Fabiola Cineas, race and policy reporter, Vox
Guest: Kavon Ward, founder, Where Is My Land; Edgar Villanueva, founder, Decolonizing Wealth Project
References:
Decolonizing Wealth, Second Edition: Indigenous Wisdom to Heal Divides and Restore Balance by Edgar Villanueva (Penguin Random House, 2021)
How a California beachfront property now worth millions was taken from its Black owners (CBS, May 2021)
Governor Newsom Signs SB 796, Authorizing the Return of Bruce’s Beach (California state Sen. Steven Bradford, September 2021)
How Black activist Kavon Ward found her calling in the fight for Bruce’s Beach (Orange County Register)
272 Slaves Were Sold to Save Georgetown. What Does It Owe Their Descendants? (The New York Times, April 2016)
In Likely First, Chicago Suburb Of Evanston Approves Reparations For Black Residents (NPR, 2021)
We want to hear from you! Take Vox’s audience survey today: vox.com/feedback
This episode was made by:
Producer: Jonquilyn Hill
Engineer: Patrick Boyd
Deputy Editorial Director, Vox Talk: A.M. Hall
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40 Acres: The old Jim Crow
Monday, October 3, 2022 • Duration 42:49
Why slavery? Marxist scholar Adolph Reed argues that Jim Crow — not enslavement — is the defining experience for Black Americans today. Reed recounts his childhood in the segregation-era South in his book The South: Jim Crow and Its Afterlives. Fabiola speaks with Reed about his experience, his argument that reparations aren’t necessarily a healing balm, and what policies and resources are needed to create a more equitable society.
This series was made possible with support from the Canopy Collective and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. To provide feedback, please take our survey here: https://forms.gle/w9vYsfFGvdJLJ3LY9
Host: Fabiola Cineas, race and policy reporter, Vox
Guest: Adolph L. Reed Jr., author of The South: Jim Crow and Its Afterlives
References:
The South: Jim Crow and Its Afterlives by Adolph L. Reed Jr. (Verso, 2022)
The Marxist Who Antagonizes Liberals and Left (New Yorker)
Black Americans’ views of reparations for slavery (Pew Research)
Library Visit, Then Held at Gunpoint (New York Times, 2015)
The Racial Wealth Gap Is About the Upper Classes (People’s Policy Project, 2020)
Income Inequality and the Persistence of Racial Economic Disparities (Robert Manduca, 2018)
We want to hear from you! Take Vox’s audience survey today: vox.com/feedback
This episode was made by:
Producer: Jonquilyn Hill
Engineer: Patrick Boyd
Deputy Editorial Director, Vox Talk: A.M. Hall
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Green New Germany
Season 3 · Episode 3
Wednesday, January 22, 2020 • Duration 24:01
Two decades ago, Hans-Josef Fell quietly started a revolution in his home country, with a law that looks a lot like part of the Green New Deal endorsed by many Democratic candidates. That law transformed Germany, and that has the potential to change the world.
Fell found a way to make renewable energy technology — like solar panels and wind turbines — cheap. His law allowed Germans to sell the renewable energy they create to the grid at a really high fixed price. Germany paid that fixed price through a surcharge on every electricity consumer’s bill.
Demand for renewables grew so much in Germany that China started to mass produce solar panels and wind turbines, which drove the price down. Now, people all over the world can afford this technology. But the law has also had some unintended consequences. Due to some amendments and market forces, the surcharge on Germany’s electric bills have skyrocketed. Electricity has become a burdensome expense for Germans living on welfare, and the high cost has even left a few spending a lot of time in the dark.
Further listening and reading:
Vox’s David Roberts on how government policy helped make solar technology affordable
Vox’s Umair Irfan and Tara Golshan on Sen. Bernie Sanders’s Green New Deal
Vox’s guide to where all the 2020 candidates stand on policy, including climate change issues
Subscribe to The Impact on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app to automatically get new episodes of the latest season each week.
Host:
Jillian Weinberger, @jbweinz
About Vox:
Vox is a news network that helps you cut through the noise and understand what's really driving the events in the headlines.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
After conviction, a second chance
Season 3 · Episode 2
Wednesday, January 15, 2020 • Duration 29:39
President Gerald Ford took office during one of the most difficult times in the country’s history. In August 1974, the US had just lived through Watergate, President Richard Nixon’s resignation, and more than a decade of divisive fighting over its involvement in Vietnam. While millions of Americans fought in Southeast Asia, many others protested the war at home — or dodged the draft.
Ford wanted to find a way to bring the country together. Just a few weeks after assuming the presidency, he created a Clemency Review Board, a bipartisan group that would decide the fate of the young Americans who were convicted of refusing induction, or going AWOL (absent without leave), from Vietnam. Those young men could fill out an application, and the board would decide whether they deserved a pardon — which would erase a felony conviction from their record.
Many of the Democratic candidates for president want to do the same thing today. They’re proposing a Clemency Review Board to review applications from federal inmates, many of whom are serving long sentences because of harsh penalties enacted during the War on Drugs.
In this episode: forgiveness and redress after two long conflicts, the Vietnam War, and the War on Drugs. The Impact looks back at how Ford tried to heal the nation — and how he transformed the lives of two men as a result. We’ll also find out how Ford’s idea might work today, for a new generation of young people behind bars.
Further listening and reading:
The Uncertain Hour’s third season explores the War on Drugs and its aftermath
Vox’s German Lopez on incarceration in America
Vox’s guide to where 2020 candidates stand on policy, including criminal justice reform
Professor Mark Osler’s law review article on Ford’s Clemency Review Board
Subscribe to The Impact on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app to automatically get new episodes of the latest season each week.
Host:
Jillian Weinberger, @jbweinz
About Vox:
Vox is a news network that helps you cut through the noise and understand what's really driving the events in the headlines.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
How to stop an epidemic
Season 3 · Episode 1
Wednesday, January 8, 2020 • Duration 31:41
Sen. Elizabeth Warren is running for president with a plan to fight the opioid epidemic. Her legislation would dramatically expand access to addiction treatment and overdose prevention, and it would cost $100 billion over 10 years. Addiction experts agree that this is the kind of money the United States needs to fight the opioid crisis. But it’s a really expensive idea, to help a deeply stigmatized population. How would a President Warren get this through Congress?
It’s been done before, with the legislation Warren is using as a blueprint for her proposal. In 1990, Congress passed the Ryan White Care Act, the first national coordinated response to the AIDS crisis. In the decades since, the federal government has dedicated billions of dollars to the fight against AIDS, and it’s revolutionized care for people with this once-deadly disease.
But by the time President George H.W. Bush signed the bill into law, hundreds of thousands of people in the US already had HIV/AIDS, and tens of thousands had died.
In this episode: how an epidemic begins, and how it ends. We look at what it took to get the federal government to finally act on AIDS, and what that means for Warren’s plan to fight the opioid crisis, today.
We always want to hear from you! Please send comments and questions to impact@vox.com.
Further listening and reading:
When We Rise: My Life in the Movement, Cleve Jones’s book about his work for LGBTQ rights and against AIDS
And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic, by Randy Shilts
Vox’s German Lopez on Elizabeth Warren’s plan to fight the opioid epidemic
Vox’s guide to where 2020 candidates stand on policy
Subscribe to The Impact on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app to automatically get new episodes of the latest season each week.
Host:
Jillian Weinberger, @jbweinz
About Vox:
Vox is a news network that helps you cut through the noise and understand what's really driving the events in the headlines.
Follow Us:
Vox.com
Newsletter: Vox Sentences
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
The Impact of 2020
Season 3
Monday, January 6, 2020 • Duration 03:56
In this season preview, Vox’s Jillian Weinberger calls a fellow native Ohioan to discuss the perils of Swing State pride during presidential elections, and their frustration with the way election coverage casts their home state.
Facing yet another presidential election, The Impact is taking a different tack. We're not running around Ohio, asking patrons in diners to name their preferred candidate. We're exploring what all these contenders actually want to do if they're elected.
The 2020 candidates have some bold ideas to tackle some of our country's biggest problems, like climate change, the opioid crisis, and unaffordable health care. A lot of their proposals have been tried before, so, in a sense, the results are in.
This season, the Impact has those stories: how the big ideas from 2020 candidates succeeded — or failed — in other places, or at other times. What can Sen. Elizabeth Warren's proposal to fight the opioid crisis learn from what the US did to fight the AIDS epidemic? How did Germany — an industrial powerhouse that invented the automobile — manage to implement a Green New Deal? How did public health insurance change Taiwan?
If you haven’t already, subscribe to The Impact on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app to automatically get new episodes of the latest season each week.
We always want to hear from you! Please send comments and questions to impact@vox.com.
Host:
Jillian Weinberger, @jbweinz
About Vox:
Vox is a news network that helps you cut through the noise and understand what's really driving the events in the headlines.
Follow Us:
Vox.com
Newsletter: Vox Sentences
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
New season, new host
Season 2
Monday, December 16, 2019 • Duration 03:10
Sarah Kliff returns for a farewell and a handoff to The Impact's new host, Jillian Weinberger, who has a preview of what's to come in our next season.
If you're not already, subscribe to The Impact on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app to automatically get new episodes of the latest season each week.
Featuring:
Sarah Kliff, @sarahkliff
Host:
Jillian Weinberger, @jbweinz
About Vox:
Vox is a news network that helps you cut through the noise and understand what's really driving the events in the headlines.
Follow Us:
Vox.com
Newsletter: Vox Sentences
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Denmark’s paternity leave problem
Season 2 · Episode 8
Friday, December 14, 2018 • Duration 35:38
Denmark gives new parents nearly a year off work after they have a baby. Most of that time can be taken by either parent — but dads take barely any time at all. That has consequences for Danish men and women at work and at home. For the final episode of season two, the Impact travels to Denmark to find out why Danish dads are thumbing their nose at paid leave. We also discover a solution in another country, where more dads are enjoying time off with their new babies. We always want to hear from you. Send us your thoughts and questions at impact@vox.com.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
The incredible shrinking city
Season 2 · Episode 7
Friday, December 7, 2018 • Duration 32:50
For decades, Memphis grew by bringing its suburbs into the city limits. City officials thought this suburb-gobbling policy would be an economic boon-- that it would bring in tax revenue. Instead, the policy was an economic disaster, especially for the majority black neighborhoods in the city's core. In this episode, we’ll tell you about the consequences of Memphis’ sprawl, and the city’s plan to fix its past mistakes. We always want to hear from you. Send us your thoughts and questions at impact@vox.com Thanks to LaTonia Blankenship, Preston Hurt, and Ruby Estelle Smith.
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Leaving Baltimore behind
Season 2 · Episode 6
Friday, November 30, 2018 • Duration 45:48
Baltimore is running a unique housing experiment that gives longtime residents vouchers to leave the city’s poorest, most violent neighborhoods for new homes in more affluent suburbs nearby. In this episode, we follow a mom named Alethea through this policy experiment. You’ll hear how Baltimore’s segregationist history planted the problems this program is trying to solve, why some participants are really frustrated with the initiative, and how Alethea decides whether to stay — or go. We always want to hear from you. Send us your thoughts and questions at impact@vox.com.
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