Unruly Subjects

Text the Unruly Hotline Here This week, Chenjerai interviews reporter Daniel Boguslaw about his recent WIRED article, US Law Enforcement Warns of ‘Anti-Tech Extremism’ as AI Hatred Grows.   They discuss how tech corporations, law enforcement at the federal level, and even local institutions are collaborating to frame people in the fast growing resistance to AI and data centers as terrorists and th...

Text the Unruly Hotline Here This week, Chenjerai reports from ground zero outside Delaney Hall, the detention facility in Newark, NJ where hundreds of ICE detainees have been on hunger strike due to the horrible, egregious conditions. You’ll hear an interview that Chenjerai recorded with Sally Pillay, an immigration activist with the Eyes on Ice Coalition who volunteers outside the detention cent...

Text the Unruly Hotline Here 🙏 We make Unruly Subjects 100% independently! Support the show on Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/UnrulySubjects  This week, Unruly Subjects is diving back into one of our most popular and urgent topics: the explosive growth of corporate data centers and the community-led movements rising up to stop them. We are joined by Astra Taylor (writer, filmmaker, and co-...

Text the Unruly Hotline Here This week’s show is about informed consent, pregnancy, drug testing, hospitals, and the family policing system. Specifically, we break down a form of surveillance called “test-and-report” that's being used to punish parents and newborns in medical settings. And we hear from a coalition that's been organizing against it. 📝 Got a minute to tell us a little bit...

Text the Unruly Hotline Here This week, we hear the story of how the "punishment bureaucracy" uses narrative and media to maintain state violence. We’re looking at the devastating impact of jailing someone simply because they cannot afford to pay bail. We dive into how punishment systems defend themselves and the stories that police, prosecutors, politicians, and media institutions tell...

Text the Unruly Hotline Here Before he was a scholar, journalist, and podcast host, Chenjerai was a rapper. And this week’s show is all about how hip-hop is connected to our larger political struggles.  📝 Got a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself?  Take the Unruly Subjects Audience Survey . 🙏 We make Unruly Subjects 100% independently! Support the show on Patreon here: https://www.patr...

Text the Unruly Hotline Here ** Got a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself?** Take the Unruly Subjects Audience Survey: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSd2yAl6HSeeImYB94zgMHftklj_hVArDjRY4Q3fJQ57UgA_hA/viewform Here at Unruly Subjects you know we’re celebrating May Day ✊🏻✊🏽✊🏾✊🏿 So this week, we’re featuring two interviews that help us think through this critical question:...

Text the Unruly Hotline Here This week, we look back at the martial law crisis that happened in South Korea in 2024, the Union-led opposition that organized swiftly, and the nationwide general strike that helped played a key role in defeating martial law and spurring mass mobilization. 🙏 We make Unruly Subjects 100% independently! Support the show on Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/UnrulySu...

Text the Unruly Hotline Here It’s Black Maternal Health Week! So on this week’s show we’re taking a deep look at the conditions Black mothers face before and after giving birth.  🙏 We make Unruly Subjects 100% independently! Support the show on Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/UnrulySubjects   We feature an esteemed guest to discuss the mental health dimensions of maternal health: Saadiqa Ku...

Text the Unruly Hotline Here This week on Unruly Subjects , Chenjerai finally gets into sports. Kind of. Recently, it came to his attention that Steph Curry - one of the greatest NBA players of all time - has been investing in Israeli technology that’s linked to military actions that country is taking in Palestine,Gaza, Iran, Lebanon, and beyond. What’s up with that? Chenjerai unpacks this situati...

Text the Unruly Hotline Here This week on Unruly Subjects , Chenjerai is joined by his close friend Professor D Noble to unpack the viral fallout surrounding white rapper Jack Harlow. Following Harlow’s move into Neo Soul with his new album Monica , Chenjerai and Professor Noble dive into the controversy sparked by Harlow’s recent interview on the New York Times’ Popcast , where he claimed he has...

Text the Unruly Hotline Here This episode is all about the fight against data centers. Specifically, we’re sharing the story of how the residents of Monterey Park, California waged a successful campaign against the construction of a data center in their town. Chenjerai interviews Hrag Balian and Steven Kung, co-founders of No Data Centers in Monterey Park and Claire Wang, an independent journalist...

Text the Unruly Hotline Here This week, Chenjerai drives down to Philly to break bread with his friend - community activist and advocate April Lee. They visit Black Dragon, an innovative takeout spot in West Philly featuring Black Chinese cuisine from the mind of Chef Kurt Evans. Over noodles and spring rolls, April gives her analysis of the family policing system and talks about survival, structu...

Text the Unruly Hotline Here This week, the show features a long conversation between Chenjerai and his good friend Ronald Young Jr. Ronald is the creator and host of Weight For It , an award-winning narrative podcast that explores the ways we think about our bodies. They talk about the latest season of the show, which gets deep into questions of identity, safety, and what health even means. And t...

Text the Unruly Hotline Here This week, we have an episode all about the Trump administration's attack on federal workers and how people are mobilizing to fight back. We feature an interview with two prominent organizers with the Federal Unionist Network : Paul Osadebe and Chris Dols.  Paul Osadebe is a former Civil Rights attorney from the Department of Housing and Urban Development. He’s a...

Text the Unruly Hotline Here This week, we have an episode all about what’s happening right now in Brazil - and how we got here.   We feature an interview with Gilberto Porcidonio, a journalist, screenwriter, and writer from Brazil. He is a reporter and fact-checker for Piauí magazine and narrator of Chumbo & Soul, an Audible podcast series produced by Rádio Novelo about the Brazilian dictator...

Text the Unruly Hotline Here This week, we feature an interview with journalist Gillian Brockell who recently wrote a story published in Mother Jones that breaks down what’s happening onboard ICE deportation flights, the private-equity airline that’s profiting off the cruelty, and more.  Also, Chenjerai has an update on  labor struggles happening across the country and across sectors including the...

Text the Unruly Hotline Here This week, Chenjerai is back on one of his favorite beats: policing in America 👮 He has a long conversation with Mac Muir, the author of Cop Cop: Breaking the Fixed System of American Policing. Muir recently served as the Executive Director of Oakland, California’s Community Police Review Agency and before then was a Supervising Investigator at NYC’s CCRB. He shares s...

Text the Unruly Hotline Here This week, we feature a conversation with veteran labor organizer and strategist Bill Fletcher Jr. all about general strikes.  What do people mean when they say general strike? What makes strike power different from other kinds of protest power? And what kind of conditions actually have to exist for this kind of action to succeed, especially in a moment when the repres...

Text the Unruly Hotline Here This week, we feature an interview with Mother Jones reporter Abby Vesoulis, who recently co-authored with Ari Berman the report “Your Private Data Is Building Trump’s Voter Purge Machine ”. Vesoulis breaks down the Trump administration’s plans for election interference via voter suppression, the Department of Justice’s role in purging voters, and how we can try to fig...

Text the Unruly Hotline Here This week, we feature an interview with George “Conscious” Lee . He’s an orator, educator, and social media influencer who uses his platform to break news and promote dynamic understandings of justice. He’s built a massive, engaged audience on Instagram and TikTok  by highlighting social and political issues that demand widespread awareness. In his interview with Chenj...

Text the Unruly Hotline Here While we're cooking up our next full episodes of Unruly Subjects, we wanted to re-share our first UNRULY HOTLINE segment that we originally published in Episode 2. In this segment, Chenjerai listens and reacts to callers that responded to the question: "How do you balance your love life with the struggle?”  Unruly Subjects is created in partnership with Rowho...

Text the Unruly Hotline Here As the assault on Gaza continues and the crisis deepens, our individual freedom to critique Israel’s actions has become more and more fraught. We have a deep commitment to anti-racism in all its forms on Unruly Subjects, including antisemitism. But we find ourselves in a place where condemning the actions of a country is falsely - and often frighteningly - equated with...

Text the Unruly Hotline Here NEWS FIEND is a weekly segment where Chenjerai offers his commentary and reflections on some of the week's headlines. This is a feature that is offered for all Patreon members of Unruly Subjects , but we wanted to give our listener's here a taste of the UNRULY SUPPORTER perks.  We're a completely independent show! Each new supporter helps us make this pr...

Text the Unruly Hotline Here This week - on the heels of Zohran Mamdani’s historic victory in NYC’s mayoral election - we’re featuring an interview with Maya Meredith, a Brooklyn-based leader in the New York City chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America’s Afrosocialists and Socialists of Color Caucus. Maya lets us know about some of DSA’s upcoming campaigns, talks about canvassing and organ...