All the Other Barbies

This week, we’re sharing something special from our friends over at TIME. It’s a preview of their first original podcast, Person of the Week. Each week, TIME Senior Correspondent Charlotte Alter hosts candid conversations with the people who shape the world, about the forces that shape them. In this episode, Maryland Governor Wes Moore dives deep into the heart of patriotism, unpacking the often-misunderstood term, the symbolism of the American flag and what it means to be an American in today's changing world. Listen to more episodes of Person of the Week here.

Maria checks in with an important update about In The Thick. Your favorite political podcast is taking a break for the rest of 2023. While we won't be releasing any new episodes during this hiatus, all of our previous episodes are still available on your podcast feeds. We’ll be restructuring and coming up with something new and better than ever as we get ready for our 2024 election coverage! And we want to hear from you, dear listener. Reach out to us on social media and let us know what you’d like to see on the show in the coming year. Peace for now– but we’ll be back. No te vayas!

In this episode, we’re unpacking AI. Julio is joined by Karen Hao, contributing writer for The Atlantic focusing on AI, to talk about the human impact of the rapidly evolving technology and what it means to decolonize AI.  ITT Staff Picks:  Rebecca Tan and Regine Cabato report on the “digital sweatshops” across the Global South, where workers have to sort and label data for AI models, in this article for the Washington Post.  “Many creative types are wrestling with the credit conundrum and questions around copyright when it comes to making use of content that has been trained on original illustrations, graphics, and written material,” writes Ko Bragg, in this article for The Markup. Prosecutors from across the US are asking lawmakers to create a commission to study the impacts of AI on child exploitation, reports Meg Kinnard for The Associated Press. Photo credit: AP Photo/Richard Drew

Futuro Media is taking a short summer break, so we’re sharing an episode from 2022, where Maria and Julio talk with Kim Kelly, labor journalist and author of “Fight Like Hell: The Untold History of American Labor,” about the history of labor organizing in the United States and what it says about the labor movement today. They also discuss how women of color have been at the forefront of these movements. Photo credit: AP Photo/Eduardo Munoz Alvarez

Julio and guest co-host Fernanda Santos kick off the show with some of the latest news, including the first Republican 2024 presidential debate, and an update on extreme climate across the globe. In our roundtable, Mike German, fellow with the Brennan Center for Justice’s Liberty and National Security Program, joins Maria and Julio to talk about why people of color join white supremacist movements, and how authoritarianism in the Republican Party is nothing new.  ITT Staff Picks:  As the GOP presidential debates make their premiere in Milwaukee, Jeanne Whalen reports on Donald Trump’s failure to make good on a promise of bringing a manufacturing boom to Wisconsin, in this piece for the Washington Post.  The deadly fires in Maui reveal the danger of compounding climate events. Emily Pontecorvo writes, “While the precise relationship between the fires, the hurricane, and climate change has yet to be determined, these kinds of “compound” events are likely to increase in a warming world, with consequences that are hard to predict,” in this article for Heatmap.  Mike German answers nuanced questions in this Spanish-language Q&A with editor-in-chief of Brennan en Español, Mireya Navarro. Photo credit: AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall

Maria and Julio discuss the indictment of Donald Trump and his allies in Georgia, and the devastating fires in Maui. Then, we share a recent episode of Latino Rebels Radio. Julio talks to Myrriah Gómez, associate professor at the University of New Mexico, about the film “Oppenheimer” and its omission of New Mexican history in the creation of the atomic bomb. ITT Staff Picks: “Trevian Kutti, a former publicist for rappers Ye (Kanye West) and R-Kelly, is named as a co-defendant in the sprawling RICO case against Trump and his allies. Charged with three felony offenses, Kutti is accused of participating in the overarching criminal enterprise to subvert the election, as well as conspiring “to solicit, request, and importune Ruby Freeman, a Fulton County, Georgia, election worker, to engage in conduct constituting the felony offense,” writes Nikki McCann Ramirez in this article for Rolling Stone. Mitch Smith and Kellen Browning talked to some of the families of people that are still missing in Hawaii, in this article for The New York Times. Myrriah Gómez writes about how the Manhattan Project negatively impacted Indigenous and Mexican communities in New Mexico, a part of the story that was conveniently left out of the movie Oppenheimer, in this article for The Latinx Project. Photo credit: AP Photo

Julio and guest co-host Fernanda Santos discuss the reelection of Tennessee state Reps. Justin Pearson and Justin Jones and the move by New York City Mayor Eric Adams to relocate migrants seeking shelter. In our roundtable, Dr. Aria S. Halliday, associate professor in the Department of Gender and Women’s Studies at the University of Kentucky, joins them in Barbieland to break down the legacy of Black Barbie. ITT Staff Picks: Michelle Boorstein discusses the changing role of the Black church in liberation politics through the new sensation known as ‘The Justins,’ in this article for The Washington Post. Daniel Parra exposes the labor scam practiced by many New York City employment agencies, which often illegally charge immigrants upfront fees for their services, in this article for City Limits. “Whether you’re skipping Barbie in protest of its mega-corporation backer or standing in line for the film as we speak, it’s worth remembering the ways in which the 64-year-old doll has cemented unattainable societal expectations into our general consciousness, and how artists have used Barbie to dismantle the very ideas she represents,” writes Elaine Velie, in this article for Hyperallergic. Photo credit: Diane Bondareff/AP Images for Mattel

Julio and guest co-host Fernanda Santos discuss Gov. Ron DeSantis’ alarming amendments to the Florida school curriculum regarding slavery. They also discuss the newest indictment against former President Donald Trump. In our roundtable, Lauren Kaori Gurley, labor reporter for the Washington post, and Dani Fernandez, writer and actor on strike, join Julio to talk about the Hollywood strikes and the labor movement in the United States. ITT Staff Picks:  “If you’re wondering how Trump has survived as a candidate for office, you can look squarely at the conservative elites in politics and media,” writes Adam Serwer in this piece about Trump’s indictment, for The Atlantic.  “The history we teach to students in the present is as much about the country we hope to be as it is a record of the country we once were. A curriculum that distorts the truth of past injustice is meant, ultimately, for a country that excludes in the present,” writes Jamelle Bouie in this opinion piece for The New York Times.  Hamilton Nolan writes about how the writers and actors participating in the Hollywood strikes are fighting a battle that all Americans will benefit from, in this article for The Guardian. Photo credit: AP Photo/Ted Shaffrey

This week, we’re sharing something special from our friends over at The Boston Globe, it’s a preview of their new show, Say More. On Say More, host Shirley Leung talks to the doers and thinkers behind the BIGGEST ideas and debates of our time. Like … will artificial intelligence make humans obsolete? Can giving cash to low-income families bring stability to their lives? Is the U.S. already in a Cold War with China? Politics. Culture. Entrepreneurship. Women shattering the glass ceiling. And more. In this clip: Joan Donovan first saw extremism up close more than 20 years ago as the vocalist of a punk band in the Boston underground scene — when she got punched in the face by a neo-Nazi. Today, Joan is a sociologist at Harvard who studies disinformation and how it colors American society, including the outsized influence that white supremacists and other fringe groups hold in online forums and social media. With the 2024 presidential cycle already begun, Joan tells us what the public — and the media — can do to combat disinformation and limit the reach of bad actors. You can listen to more episodes of Say More here.

Julio and guest co-host Fernanda Santos discuss the judicial reforms in Israel and the rebranding of Twitter. In our roundtable, Fernanda is joined by climate reporter Kendra Pierre-Louis and Dr. Amite Dominick, president of the Texas Prison Community Advocates, for a  conversation on how the climate crisis is impacting incarcerated individuals. ITT Staff Picks:  In this latest episode of Intercepted, hosts Jeremy Scahill and Murtaza Hussain talk to Israeli American journalist Mairav Zonszein about the mass protests in Israel following judicial reforms that would limit the power of the Supreme Court. “The idea that Twitter and its 17 year-old codebase could be modified to run the global economy, of course, has exactly zero basis in reality,” writes Janus Rose, in this article for Vice. Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg reports on a lawsuit filed by the ACLU over children at risk of heat-related death in Louisiana’s Angola prison, for The Appeal. Photo credit: AP Photo/Eric Gay