Malcolm X Killing Exonerations; Voting Rights Struggle; Workers & The Great Resignation

Wall Street bankers see wealth increase as the country struggles. How increasing inequality hurts our future.

Baba Zak A. Kondo, professor of history at Baltimore City Community College and author of "Conspiracies: Unraveling the Assassination of Malcolm X,” tells us about developments in the case of the assassination of Malcolm X, where two of the men found guilty of the killing got their convictions thrown out on Thursday, and the tragedy of having the lives of two innocent men destroyed due to these wrongful convictions. We talk about how this is representative of the story of the system of state violence in America, the role of the FBI and FBI informants in this case, whether the US government was involved, and the importance of finding out the truth about Malcolm X’s death.

Lena Taylor, state senator from Wisconsin, joins us to discuss the fight for voting rights in the U.S., the protests in front of the White House, where dozens were arrested, and the importance of engaging in direct action to fight for fundamental rights and representation in our democracy. We also talk about the Kyle Rittenhouse trial, whether justice will be served, one of the central themes, in this case, that hinges on who has the right to space and who gets to claim self-defense, and how these concepts and rights get allotted unequally.

Steve Grumbine, founder and CEO of the nonprofits Real Progressives and Real Progress in Action and host of the podcast Macro n Cheese, joins hosts Michelle Witte and Bob Schlehuber to talk about Wall Street bankers and traders being in line for the biggest bonus increases since 2009, in some cases 30% to 35% increases, and how this exacerbates inequality, with most working-class people seeing wages stagnate and navigating increasing precarity. We talk about the “Great Resignation” and the debate around its causes and its scale, whether this is a sign of workers gaining a certain degree of agency or if there are other elements at play, the debate around the origins and causes of the current wave of inflation, and how the conventional wisdom analysis of this phenomenon is ideologically loaded.

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