Counter Stories

On our final episode of our Education Series episode, the crew talks higher education. What does diversity and inclusion look like? We talk with Kha Yang, the inaugural Associate Vice President of Inclusive Excellence, at the University of St. Thomas about her experience and vision for the largest private university in Minnesota. 

Minnesota’s, and possibly the country’s, first female Somali principal joins the crew to talk about her journey to becoming the principal of Gideon Pond school in Burnsville. Her aptness of spreading love and joy is at the core of how she wants to leads her school. 

Many people see environmental work as conservation, protecting the natural spaces throughout this world. But that is only part of the larger environmental justice picture. Our guests Roxxanne O’Brien and Justice Jones have been working in North Minneapolis to educate, empower and encourage urban residents to take a look at how things like air quality, water quality and green spaces effect their da...

The crew is joined by St. Paul Central’s new principal Cherise Ayers, who plans on making Central work for everyone, where everyone thrives. As an alumnae herself, Ayers has returned with a vision cultivate a Central where everyone thrives. The theme this year: We’re in this together. She takes her responsibly to the school, the community, parents and especially our children very seriously.

Our latest Grab Bag covers a variety of topics, but all with the theme of the lack of empathy and inhumane treating of people, including how a pastor in Alabama was arrested for watering his neighbor’s flowers, the removal of encampments for the un-housed, and those who benefit for student loan forgiveness.

As people are getting prepped to go back to school, a new lawsuit has been filed against Minneapolis Public School’s initiative to support and retain teachers of color. In addition to the halting of The WOKE Act in Florida, the crew discusses how not learning the true history of this country only leaves room to repeat history, or, prevents one from understanding how something like putting cotton o...

In the first of a series focusing on the education system, the crew talks about back-to-school jitters. As parents (and auntie) of BIPOC children, we have additional concerns about what our children do and did experience in school. We question whether they’re learning the full history of this country and how we can empower them to stand up to the system. 

On our latest Grab Bag show, we talk about yet another racist review of a movie that doesn’t focus on white people, the latest set back on holding someone accountable for the murder of Emmitt Till, and racist happenings at “family-friendly” theme parks. 

Where do we come from and why is that important? The crew talks about the want and need to, but also the barriers to, finding their roots. Once discovered (what we can), how can we preserve the story of our roots for future generations - not just so they know their history, but so they can embrace it?

This week we tackle the continuous work of debunking Stereotypes inside and outside of our communities. There are many ways to debunk stereotypes, but one thing we know for sure is that authentic relationships outweigh them all.

In what is likely the first of its kind, our guests this week started a conference about eating disorders in BIPOC communities. Intergenerational trauma, accessibility, beauty standards and disability justice are just a few issues that play a role in our relationship with food. Guests: Angela Goens, Whitney Trotter 

Our latest show explores how people of color often experience extractive experiences when in predominantly white spaces. From professional compensation to the reliving of their own experiences, the crew invites listeners to ask themselves, are my personal or professional interactions extracting resource, time, energy from my BIPOC peers? 

Our latest Grab Bag show touches on a variety of topics including the January 6th hearings, the first Indigenous Miss Minnesota, the record settlement between the city of Brooklyn Center and the family of Daunte Wright, and a check in with our co-hosts. 

As Juneteenth becomes a more mainstream celebration, we wondered if those benefiting from the holiday know the history behind it. Rose McGee, the brains behind Sweet Potato Comfort Pie and author of Kumbayah The Juneteenth Story joins the crew to dig deeper into the history of the emancipation proclamation and the recent resurgence of interest in the importance of June 19th.  Rose McGee, Sweet Pot...

There are many complexities to mental health. Those complexities increase when you’re a person of color. Sam Choo sought to bring those complexities to the surface as the, up until recently, content producer for the public radio show Call to Mind; bringing personal experience, cultural perspectives and the ability to bring the conversation to the public. 

On this episode, we vent about where we are as the anniversary of George Floyd’s murder coincides with a recent string of mass shootings raising the question, when will enough be enough? Counter Stories is a co-production of the Counter Stories crew, the other media group, and Ampers, Diverse Radio for Minnesota’s Communities. With support from the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund.

Sarah Lancaster is many things. She is a public school teacher, a coach, a director of school plays, president of the local civic association, and as the only teacher of color in her rural school district, she’s an important connection between her students and the education system. Onamia is majority Indigenous students, and having grown up in the community, Lancaster made her journey back to make...

May is Foster Awareness month. Hoang Murphy joins the crew to talk about his personal experience in the foster system and how his organization, Foster Advocates, is giving the power to the young people living this often-invisible reality.  Guest: Hoang Murphy, Foster Advocates

The Minnesota Chippewa Tribe is posing two questions to their enrolled members this year regarding blood quantum, or BQ as it is often seen as a derogatory term. BQ was established by the colonizers and continues today. The questions will inform the tribe leadership about whether BQ should be removed as a requirement to be a member of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe and allow the tribe to determine i...

A question about the lack of Black players on Argentina’s national futbol team between colleagues, sparks a conversation about blaqueamiento. Blaqueamiento is a racial whitening practice that occurred in some previously-colonized countries in the Americans and Caribbean. This practice of idealizing and preferring European features, continues to this day throughout the world. 

In this special episode, we bring you the conversation our producer, Hlee Lee, moderated at a recent event celebrating the 20th anniversary of ThreeSixty Journalism, a nonprofit providing journalism training to the youth of color. The five panelists are all graduates of the program, have taken what they learned and applied it to their careers in various fields. Guests: Evan Odegard Pereira, Amolak...

Counter Stories There has been a lot of news about labor recently with the unionizing of Amazon workers in New York and recent teachers strikes in Minnesota. In this episode, the crew talks with Alanna Galloway and Daniel Perez about their work in the labor movement and how people of color have an important, albeit complicated history with labor unions. --- Counter Stories is a production of the o...

Overt racism is more and more prominent. From hotels banning Native Americans to the crew’s own personal experiences in racist housing practices, from it taking more than a hundred years to pass an anti-lynching law to recent conflicts between communities of color. Racism has gone from hidden and passive-aggressive to open and overt. 

On this Grab Bag show, we talk about making those in dominant culture UNCOMFORTABLE. Including, the nonsensical questions Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson is facing from senators, a big red panda making white people mad, more cases of Anti-Asian hate a year after the murders of six API women in Atlanta, and the confirmation of the Mille Lacs Reservation. On this Grab Bag show, we talk about making thos...

When Russia invaded Ukraine, the Crew immediately looked around to see how we could help the people suffering from the war. Our guest currently resides in Germany and has utilized social media to connect with a group of women to bring supplies from Germany to Ukraine during the ongoing conflict with Russia. Guest: Heidi Inman. To support her work, monetary donations can be made to: Paypal - @innie...