Unruly Subjects

Mobilizing Black Brazil: Culture, Power, and the Fight Over Democracy

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 dictatorship from the perspective of the Black population. Chenjerai and Gilberto have a wide-ranging discussion about what’s happening in Brazil right now -  from the history of Black politics and policing in Brazil, to the current situation on the ground and the corrupt paramilitary groups who control much of the country. Also, we also hear an excerpt of Chenjerai’s interview with Pedro Borges, a journalist and the co-founder of Alma Preta, an agency specializing in the coverage of racial issues in Brazil. Listen to the full conversation on the Unruly Patreon page.  ☎️ Call our UNRULY HOTLINE: Have something you want to ask Chenjerai? Something you want us to cover on Unruly Subjects? Have a good joke? Leave us a message here:  215-436-9212We make Unruly Subjects 100% independently - support the show on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/UnrulySubjectsFollow Chenjerai on Instagram @chenjerai and Bluesky @chenjerai.bsky.social and follow Unruly Subjects @unrulysubjectspod. Get in touch unrulysubjects@gmail.com.Buy Cold War on Five Continents at Haymarketbooks.com Additional Music by Blue Dot Sessions and Grizzly BeatzUnruly Subjects is created in partnership with Rowhome ProductionsFurther reading & sources from this episodeFollow Gilberto Porcidonio on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/puppet_gram/Listen to Gilberto’s podcast Chumbo & Soulhttps://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/chumbo-e-soul/id1853091993Check out Alma Pretahttps://almapreta.com.br/Here’s How We Pressured An Airline To End Its Contract with ICEhttps://truthout.org/articles/heres-how-we-pressured-an-airline-to-end-its-contract-with-ice/Jesse Jackson Knew Better Than To Forget https://www.theringer.com/2026/02/18/national-affairs/jesse-jackson-obit-civil-rights-legacy-martin-luther-king-jr Support the show

Shackled at 30,000 Feet: What You Don’t Know About ICE Flights—and Who’s Paying for Them

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 health care workers in NYC, the public school teachers on strike in San Francisco, and we share an excerpt of Chenjerai’s interview with Elisabeth Fay, a Clinical Associate Professor at NYU and an elected member of Contract Faculty United-UAW's bargaining committee. They discuss the stalled contract negotiations with the university, the CFU-UAW's call for a strike authorization vote this week, and why this is an issue everyone should care about (listen to the full interview on Patreon).Chenjerai talks with singer and musician Collette “Coco” Watson about her new album “Sanctuary”. Support her work here: https://gofund.me/bdc70e100☎️ Call our UNRULY HOTLINE: Have something you want to ask Chenjerai? Something you want us to cover on Unruly Subjects? Have a good joke? Leave us a message here:  215-436-9212We make Unruly Subjects 100% independently - support the show on Patreon! Free and paid members get access to bonus content, discounts on merch (coming soon), & more:  https://www.patreon.com/UnrulySubjectsFollow Chenjerai on Instagram @chenjerai and Bluesky @chenjerai.bsky.social and follow Unruly Subjects @unrulysubjectspod. Get in touch unrulysubjects@gmail.com.Buy No Neutrals There at Haymarketbooks.com Additional Music by Blue Dot Sessions and Grizzly BeatzUnruly Subjects is created in partnership with Rowhome ProductionsFurther reading & sources from this episodeICE Deportation Flights Are Getting Crueler and Longerhttps://www.motherjones.com/politics/2026/01/omni-ice-deportations-charter-flight-stonepeak-private-equity/Gillian Brockell’s Websitehttps://gillianbrockell.ghost.io/Why We’re Calling a Strike Authorization Votehttps://nyucontractfacultyunion.org/2026/02/04/why-were-calling-a-strike-authorization-vote/AAUP Statement on Oklahoma’s attack on tenure at regional universities and community collegeshttps://www.aaup.org/news/elimination-tenure-oklahoma-regional-universities-and-community-colleges Support the show

Who Polices the Police? with Mac Muir

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 stories from inside his work as a police investigator and discusses the changes needed to hold bad cops accountable. We also hear an excerpt from an interview with a nurse and negotiator on the front line of the ongoing massive Kaiser Permanente strike. You can listen to the full interview on Patreon. We make Unruly Subjects 100% independently. Please support the show on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/UnrulySubjectsFollow Chenjerai on Instagram @chenjerai and Bluesky @chenjerai.bsky.social and follow Unruly Subjects @unrulysubjectspod Get in touch unrulysubjects@gmail.com.Additional Music by Blue Dot Sessions and Grizzly Beatz. And be sure to check out A.D. Carson’s music: https://aydeethegreat.bandcamp.com/Unruly Subjects is created in partnership with Rowhome ProductionsFurther reading & sources from this episodePatients over Profits: Kaiser Permanente’s Shift in Institutional Priorities and the Dire Consequences to Health Carehttps://unacuhcp.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/ProfitsOverPatients_2026.pdfCop Cop: Breaking The Fixed System of American Policing by Mac Muir and Greg Finchhttps://bookshop.org/p/books/cop-cop-breaking-the-fixed-system-of-american-policing-greg-finch/80787c7f569e3db3?ean=9781638930082&next=tAnd for a VERY different take on what to do about police read Copaganda: How Police and the Media Manipulate Our News By Alec Karakatsanishttps://bookshop.org/p/books/copaganda-how-police-and-the-media-manipulate-our-news-alec-karakatsanis/64c2d92e5fd56320?ean=9781620978535&next=tBeing Dope: AD Carson - https://global.oup.com/academic/product/being-dope-9780197772669The NYPD Strategic Response Unit https://www.thenation.com/article/society/nypd-settlement-agreement-police-violence/The Mollen Commission Report - https://digitalcommons.nyls.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2017&context=nyls_law_review Support the show

What It Takes to Shut It Down: General Strikes, Movement Strategy, Solidarity

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 repression is this real?In this episode, we also hear from two workers on the ground in Minneapolis: Dr. Robert Mills III is a pediatrician and Nakia Dunbar is a school administrator. They talked about what it's been like to do their jobs while ICE is terrorizing the city, when families are scared, and when employees are scared to come in. And Chenjerai takes us to a Salon 50 event in NYC where he interviewed author Sequoia Patterson about her new book, talked to Dana Rachlin about the event series and learned more about the connections between childcare and public safety. ☎️ Call our UNRULY HOTLINE question: Have you ever had a job that you would describe as a scam? Maybe it’s a role that was clearly bad for society. Or maybe work that was just alienating. Call us here if you had (or have) a job you want to tell us about:  215-436-9212Writer and scholar Leigh Claire La Berge will join Chenjerai on an upcoming episode to discuss the hotline responses. She’s the author of Fake Work (Haymarket Books), a memoir that looks back at her stint as a management consultant in the late 90s. We make Unruly Subjects 100% independently - support the show on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/UnrulySubjectsFollow Chenjerai on Instagram @chenjerai and Bluesky @chenjerai.bsky.social and follow Unruly Subjects @unrulysubjectspod Get in touch unrulysubjects@gmail.com.Buy books at Haymarketbooks.com Additional Music by Blue Dot Sessions and Grizzly BeatzUnruly Subjects is created in partnership with Rowhome ProductionsFurther reading & sources from this episodeThe Citywide General Strike has a Rich History in Americahttps://jacobin.com/2026/01/ice-minneapolis-general-strike-historySolidarity Divided: The Crisis in Organized Labor and a New Path toward Social Justicehttps://bookshop.org/p/books/solidarity-divided-the-crisis-in-organized-labor-and-a-new-path-toward-social-justice-bill-fletcher-jr/d53c76836f07a2a5?ean=9780520934740&next=tClaim No Easy Victories: The Legacy of Amílcar Cabralhttps://bookshop.org/p/books/claim-no-easy-victories-the-legacy-of-am-lcar-cabral-bill-fletcher-jr/e7c97ba41b2363da?ean=9781942173847&next=t Support the show

How Trump 2.0 Built a Vote Purging Machine with Abby Vesoulis

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 fight back ahead of the upcoming midterm elections. Also, Chenjerai previews a longer interview with veteran labor organizer and strategist Bill Fletcher Jr. about the purpose and power of general strikes. They discuss this in the context of the ongoing nurses strike in New York City and the statewide walkout planned in Minnesota this Friday, January 23rd in reaction to the violent ICE escalations that are ongoing in Minneapolis. ☎️ There’s still time to respond to our UNRULY HOTLINE question: Have you ever had a job that you would describe as a scam? Maybe it’s a role that was clearly bad for society. Or maybe work that was just alienating. Call us here if you had (or have) a job you want to tell us about:  215-436-9212Writer and scholar Leigh Claire La Berge will join Chenjerai on an upcoming episode  to discuss the hotline responses. She’s the author of Fake Work (Haymarket Books), a memoir that looks back at her stint as a management consultant in the late 90s. We make Unruly Subjects 100% independently - support the show on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/UnrulySubjectsFollow Chenjerai on Instagram @chenjerai and Bluesky @chenjerai.bsky.social and follow Unruly Subjects @unrulysubjectspod Get in touch unrulysubjects@gmail.com.Buy No Neutrals There at Haymarketbooks.com Additional Music by Blue Dot Sessions and Grizzly BeatzUnruly Subjects is created in partnership with Rowhome ProductionsFurther reading & sources from this episodeNYC Nurses Strikehttps://www.thecity.nyc/2026/01/20/nysna-nurses-strike-mamdani-sanders/AARP calls for accountability over DOGE sharing Social Security data https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5699159-aarp-demands-doge-accountability/ICE out of Minnesota https://labornotes.org/2026/01/will-ice-ignite-mass-strike-minnesotahttps://www.left-horizons.com/2026/01/17/minneapolis-trade-unions-call-general-strike-over-ice/Register for Labor Notes Annual Conference! https://labornotes.org/2026 Support the show