UnfairNation the PodcastSeason 2 | Episode 6 Making movies is hard work … that increasingly doesn’t pay enough. The last few years have seemed like the golden age of entertainment. There’s been more shows to watch than people to watch them and more ways of watching your favorite shows than ever before. But while this era of “Peak Entertainment” has provided tremendous opportunities, the profits from this bounty have largely accrued to a very small percentage of writers, actors and entertainment executives.  My guest on this episode, Raamla Mohamed, is an Emmy nominated television writer a ..read more

Does documenting the police help make them better? We are a violent country by almost all measures, including the number of citizens in the United States who are assaulted or die at the hands of police.  In this episode, I’m talking to someone who is looking to end police brutality by shedding light on how the Los Angeles Police Department responds to calls. My guest William Gude has been running “Film the Police LA” for the last several years, a project that is part of a growing movement of “cop watchers” who leverage technology to document and then share how police respond to incident ..read more

It’s been a while since I recorded an episode, so apologies for that, but I think you’re going to like the changes we’ve made over the last few months. First, I’m making episodes a little shorter - just the right length to listen to on a three mile run, and because this podcast is a great cure for insomnia, you can also use it to knock out at night. Second, we’re now recording UnfairNation at Arizona State University’s beautiful and historic Herald Examiner Building in downtown Los Angeles. As some of you may know, I run The Difference Engine at Arizona State University, where we build produc ..read more

To proponents of defunding the police Arif AliKhan says that police departments as functional units still have a unique role to play in our society. To those who defend the police at all costs he says that the police need to be reformed, perhaps significantly. This is a balanced and pragmatic approach that may find limited traction in our current times. But it comes from a place of deep experience as the Director of the Office of Constitutional Policing at the LAPD, and prior to that roles as Assistant Secretary for Policy at the Department of Homeland Security and as Deputy Mayor of Los Ange ..read more

We're back from a bit of a break and informally starting a new season!  The decline of worker power over the last four decades has been fundamental and transformational according to my guest Anna Stansbury, a Ph.D. candidate at Harvard University. She argues that the long-term decline in worker power may have been caused by a number of related trends, including a decline in labor unions and ruthless cost-cutting and management by corporations.  Anna's hypothesis is laid out in a fascinating paper which she co-authored with Larry Summers entitled The Declining Worker Power Hypothesi ..read more

Hey! We're trying something different here while we take a bit of a break: answering your questions! If this resonates with you, we'd love to answer more of your questions. You can ask them on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram by tagging your post with #UnfairNation OR you can sign up for Ehsan's newsletter by going to UnfairNation.com and just reply to any newsletter with your questions! Some topics we cover:  - Why "UnfairNation"? - Why are people protesting NOW. - What's the difference between equality, equity and fairness? - Why police unions are one of the primary barriers to polic ..read more

I hope you all are doing well and staying safe. Maybe, if you find it within yourself to do so, you are protesting police brutality, or amplifying the voices of those who are. I hope you are doing something, because a revolution in policing needs to happen, and our nation needs to be on the right side of it. My guest today is going to talk to us today about these protests, as well as health inequities in rural South Carolina, among other topics. He's the Democratic front-runner for the Senate seat in South Carolina, aiming to unseat Lindsay Graham and according to many recent polls, he may ..read more

Today's episode is a story about a hospital across the bay from one of the wealthiest neighborhoods on the planet and why, despite all that money, it couldn't afford to stay open. The heroic effort to keep this hospital open has chilling lessons for all of us, especially today as Americans become increasingly sick and die from COVID. The story comes to us from my guest Eric Zell. Eric is a consultant, former political staffer and most recently an elected member of the West Contra Costa Healthcare District Board of Directors where he oversaw and then tried to save Brookside Hospital (also kn ..read more

We‘ve always been able to buy a first-class upgrade on a flight, but what happens when you can buy medical care, admissions to elite universities and high-school sports championships? This episode’s guest talks about the rise of this “Velvet Rope Economy” and what it means for the 99% (those of us making less than several million a year). His name is Nelson Schwartz and he’s an award-winning economics reporter at the New York Times and author of the recent book, The Velvet Rope Economy.   Links: Nelson’s book: The Velvet Rope Economy (Link: https://amzn.to/35UOw8L)   This ..read more

Militant groups, domestic terrorists and white supremacists (they play in the same little league division) are all finding that the rise in discrimination and hate crimes against Asian-Americans during the COVID-19 pandemic is helping their cause. In fact, they are capitalizing on the hatred. Some are going beyond Asians and blaming their old "go-to" groups such as Jews and Muslims for the virus. This is both a domestic and global phenomenon. Dr. Erroll Southers is this week's guest. He discusses how the rise in Coronavirus-related incidents ties in with the larger threat posed by homegrown v ..read more