We Can Be podcast - The Heinz Endowments

Emmy-winning composer, director & photographer Emmai Alaquiva joins host Grant Oliphant to discuss the role of art in fighting “the radical particles that have been dropped in our laps” by the COVD-19 crisis, & protests brought on by the killing of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officers, who were later fired.   Emmai is CEO of the media production entity Ya Momz House , which has...

Global Leadership Award winner Leah Lizarondo , founder & CEO of 412 Food Rescue , talks with host Grant Oliphant about what COVID-19 reveals about food insecurity, the “Mister Rogers mentality” that drives the largest volunteer-led food transport network in the nation, and how movie star Michael Keaton has helped spur record volunteer involvement during the current crisis.   Melding technology, l...

Dr. John Graham , a senior scientist with the Clean Air Task Force , talks with host Grant Oliphant about the effects COVID-19 is having on the air we breathe, why this is an “exceptional moment” for air quality, and what the current “war on expertise” could mean for our future.   A San Francisco Bay Area resident, John grew up in the rural dairy farm community of Glenn Falls, New York, and holds...

Patrick Dowd , executive director of Allies for Children , joins host Grant Oliphant to talk about the myriad of ways COVID-19 is affecting our young people, including hunger, access to technology, the health and well-being of their parents, child care – and the action needed to prepare for what’s next.   A bold voice for policy and practice changes that improve the well-being of children, Patrick...

Monica Ruiz , executive director of Latino advocacy entity  Casa San Jose , joins host Grant Oliphant to talk about the unique ways COVID-19 is affecting immigrant and refugee communities, why the census is key to changing the narrative around Latinos, and the teachable moments that the current crisis offers us.   Born in Cleveland Ohio and with family roots in Guatemala and Puerto Rico, where her...

Brookings Institution scholar and author Dr. Andre Perry joins host Grant Oliphant to talk about the moral lessons we can learn from the COVID-19 crisis, why black and brown people are dying from the virus at a vastly disproportionate rate, and why hearing from his son’s teacher gives him hope.   Andre is an internationally acclaimed voice on race and equity. He is a columnist for The Hechinger Re...

Artist/activist Jasiri X , co-founder/CEO of 1Hood Media , joins host Grant Oliphant to talk about the role of art in times of crisis, why COVID-19 lays bare a historic distrust of the medical system by people of color, & the reality that many who are deemed “essential workers” do not make a living wage.   Jasiri X is leading 1Hood Media — a collective of socially conscious artists and activists w...

DeRay Mckesson and his instantly recognizable blue down vest have become synonymous with advocacy for victims of police violence and an end to mass incarceration.   A civil rights activist, community organizer and former middle school teacher, DeRay came to national prominence as a leading voice in the Black Lives Matter Movement when he documented – and participated in – protests following the de...

Dr. Andre Perry of The Brookings Institution has made exploration of race and structural inequality – especially as it affects education and economic inclusion – his life’s work.   A Pittsburgh native born into a challenging family environment, Andre learned early the importance of community, school and neighborly kindness in guiding youth like him toward realizing their full potential. A high sch...

Rue Mapp founded Outdoor Afro , a “social media community that introduces African Americans to the Great Outdoors” because she remembers the exhilaration she felt as a child in the run from the car to the creek when her parents pulled into the driveway of the family’s ranch in the Northern California woodlands.   “I want everyone to have that opportunity to feel that rush of joy and sense of belon...

In 2018, Americans gave $427 billion to charities of their choice. Phil Buchanan , founding chief executive of The Center for Effective Philanthropy and author of “ Giving Done Right: Effective Philanthropy and Making Every Dollar Count, ” is working to make certain people have the best possible information to ensure those hard-earned dollars do the most possible good.   Phil has his father to tha...

“The Things They Carried” brought National Book Award-winning author Tim O’Brien fame, and the unparalleled poetic beauty and honesty of his novels, short stories and memoirs have cemented his status as one of our most revered contemporary writers.     Born and raised in southern Minnesota, Tim was a high school student body president who opposed the Vietnam War, and was drafted several weeks afte...

As the national rhetoric about refugees skews toward outright xenophobia, Hello Neighbor Founder and CEO Sloane Davidson is “creating an army of support” that is changing their lives and strengthening the fabric of neighborhoods.   At a 2016 family Thanksgiving dinner with five Syrian refugees who had recently resettled in Pittsburgh, Sloane realized something powerful was happening. She knew if s...

In 2010, journalist and Postindustrial media co-founder Carmen Gentile was embedded with the 32 Calvary regiment in eastern Afghanistan when he was struck in the right side of the face by a rocket-propelled grenade.   Carmen details the moment he was blinded in his right eye – and the ensuing years of heartbreak and healing, including his return to Afghanistan and his decision to make Pittsburgh h...

Emmy-winning composer, in-demand director and respected mentor Emmai Alaquiva is candid about what rescued him during his early hard times: “The arts saved my life.”   CEO of the media production entity Ya Momz House (a tribute to his own mother) and a centrifugal force of light and positivity, Emmai shares his story of homelessness; his early ‘90s hip-hop days with Pensoulzinakup ; and how he’s b...

In part two of host Grant Oliphant’s two-episode conversation with Dr. Cornel West and Bakari Kitwana , they examine the revolution in priorities our society needs if we are to thrive, the young activists that are driving their hope, and why empathy – on both sides of the aisle – is key.   Celebrated activist and academic Dr. Cornel West is professor of the Practice of Public Philosophy at Harvard...

In part one of a two-episode conversation, Dr. Cornel West and Bakari Kitwana examine why joy is important in our lives (especially for those in the social justice realm), what reparations could mean to our nation, and why artists are the indispensable ingredient in society today.   Celebrated activist and academic Dr. Cornel West is professor of the Practice of Public Philosophy at Harvard Univer...

When Wasi Mohamed led the Muslim community in an international fundraising effort that raised a quarter of a million dollars for the families of those killed in the attack on the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the world got to know the man many have called “a 24-hours-a-day bridge-builder.”   Born and raised in an Indian-Muslim family in central Pennsylvania, Wasi recalls his...

More than 2,300 lives have been lost and 8,500 people wounded in over 2,000 mass shootings in the United States in the past seven years. Survivors of the attack at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida., that left 17 dead know this trauma of violence all too well.   But Parkland students are organizing, speaking out, and reaching across boundaries to offer support to others who...

As a United States Air Force pilot, newly engaged to his South African fiancée, Chris Howard ejected from his aircraft as it fell into a nosedive during a solo training mission in January 1995. Twenty years later, he was one of the youngest university presidents in the United States.   Dr. Chris Howard , president of Robert Morris University since 2015, grew up in Plano, Texas, the great-great-gra...

“I got into art-making because I want show the different ways that people show up in the world, and to represent voices that are often not heard,” says janera solomon, executive director of the Kelly Strayhorn Theater. That aim has never been needed more than now, as her neighborhood grapples with rapid change and the risk of cultural erasure.   In the past decade, Pittsburgh’s historic East Liber...

Groundwater poisoned from fracking, toxic coal sludge, and industrial pollution can sicken those who live near the source, and ruin land for generations to come. Often those most acutely affected are also those with the least resources to fight for environmental justice.   So, Emily Collins did something about it, founding Fair Shake , the nation’s first nonprofit law firm devoted to providing env...

Sybrina Fulton is the mother of slain teen Trayvon Martin, and Jasiri X is the co-founder of anti-violence artist collective 1Hood Media , but both are so much more than those descriptors suggest.   “He was my youngest boy,” says Sybrina of her son Trayvon, the unarmed 17-year-old who was followed and shot to death in 2012 by a neighborhood watch coordinator for “looking suspicious” in a Sanford,...

With over 2.5 million weekly “ Very Smart Brothas ” readers, a GQ column and new Harper Collins book “ What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Blacker ,” Damon Young is artfully illuminating life as a black man in 21st century America.   “So many of the narratives about being black in America are ensconced in deep trauma,” says Damon. “And yes, we do deal with racism, oppression and structural inequality,...

“THERE ARE BLACK PEOPLE IN THE FUTURE," in cut-out white letters on the black background of a steel billboard, stood high above Pittsburgh’s rapidly changing East Liberty neighborhood last spring – and brought national acclaim to interdisciplinary artist and cultural producer Alisha Wormsley .   But that science fiction-inspired contribution to The Last Billboard art project – and the controversy...