Karen Frillmann

Editor-At-Large, WNYC Narrative Unit

Karen Frillmann appears in the following:

The Secret Tapes of a Suburban Drug War

Monday, March 01, 2021

A cop in Westchester, NY, was disturbed by what he saw as corruption. He started recording his colleagues -- and revealed how we’re all still living with the excess of the war on drugs.

Blackness (Un)interrupted

Monday, February 22, 2021

Our Future of Black History series concludes with conversations about self-expression. Because when you carry a collective history in your identity, it can be hard to find yourself.

The Case Against Those ‘Tubman $20s’

Thursday, February 18, 2021

People are excited to replace Andrew Jackson’s face with an abolitionist hero. But Dr. Brittney Cooper argues not all honorifics are the same.

Impeachment: Catharsis and Impunity

Monday, February 15, 2021

The Senate’s trial and acquittal of Donald Trump left many with mixed emotions. But did it move us any closer to a reckoning with the worst of America’s political culture?

The ‘Beautiful Experiments’ Left Out of Black History

Monday, February 08, 2021

Saidiya Hartman introduces Kai to the young women whose radical lives were obscured by respectability politics, in the second installment of our Future of Black History series.

The Origin Story of Black History Month

Monday, February 01, 2021

We’ve got complicated relationships with this annual celebration -- from joy to frustration. So to launch our Future of Black History series, we ask how it began and what it can be.

New Hopes, Old Fears

Monday, January 25, 2021

Kai checks in with poet Jericho Brown, historian Kidada Williams, and listeners as we all try to transition out of the Trump presidency.

How Martin Luther King, Jr., Changed American Christianity

Monday, January 18, 2021

And what MLK’s uniquely Black theology can teach us about the relationship between faith and politics in 2021.

The American Story, in a Single Day

Monday, January 11, 2021

January 6, 2021, offered a hyper-condensed version of our country’s entire political history--with all of its complexity, inspiration, and terror.

The (Un)Making of a ‘Model Minority’

Monday, January 04, 2021

An odd racial pecking order puts Indian Americans in a curious place -- outside of whiteness, but distinct from other people of color. How’d that come to be? And is it changing?

Lessons From a Year in Isolation

Monday, December 28, 2020

A first draft of history for 2020, told through three very personal efforts to find -- and keep -- human connection amid a pandemic.

The Racist History of Georgia’s Runoff

Monday, December 21, 2020

Segregationists gamed the system 57 years ago. But this year, Black organizers may have finally slipped the knot that Jim Crow tied around democracy in the state.

Tell It To Me Straight, Doc

Monday, December 14, 2020

Two Black physicians describe the racist history the medical world carries into the COVID-19 vaccine rollout -- and answer listeners’ questions about why we should still get vaccinated.

ACT UP, Fight Covid

Monday, December 07, 2020

The HIV epidemic is nearly 40 years old. So what can we learn from that pandemic, as we approach a year of living with COVID-19?

One Family’s Land of Opportunity

Monday, November 30, 2020

A family’s legend about "40 acres and a mule” takes host Kai Wright on a fact checking mission to the Mississippi Delta. He finds an unexpected solution to wealth inequality in the U.S.

MAGA, the New Confederate Lost Cause

Monday, November 16, 2020

White supremacist myths turn defeated leaders into heroic victors. Will Donald Trump now get the same transfiguration as Robert E. Lee?

What the Election Means for New York and New Jersey

Tuesday, November 10, 2020

WNYC’s politics reporter Brigid Bergin and New Jersey Public Radio’s Nancy Solomon join us to take your calls and answer how recent elections are impacting our communities.

Meditations on a Bittersweet Election

Monday, November 09, 2020

Melissa Harris-Perry joins Kai to discuss all of our complex feelings as Donald Trump’s presidency comes to an end.

An Invitation To Dream

Monday, November 02, 2020

Radical imagination is now essential. What can we imagine for our country, our communities, and ourselves --beyond this election, and beyond this pandemic?

They’ve Never Wanted You to Vote

Monday, October 26, 2020

From poll taxes to the canard of “voter fraud,” it’s always been a struggle to cast a ballot in America. We review the record, and investigate the anti-democracy enablers of 2020.