hip hop

"Now we have the opportunity to open our books and write our history. Now we're baking the bread and we're going to make them eat it," says Maria Isa, hip-hop artist and activist. Maria and fellow Puerto Rican artist Lah Tere were in Puerto Rico when protests began last year--protests that have seen students and workers in the streets over budget cuts and tuition hikes, seen peaceful demonstrators teargassed by police. Protests as dramatic as anything in the UK, Egypt, Tunisia, or Wisconsin--yet almost never seen on US news despite taking place in the US. Maria and Lah Tere join Laura in studio for a conversation about Puerto Rico's uprising, the role of artists and musicians in keeping action alive, and ways to get involved right here in New York. Have you seen much news from Greece lately? As Brandon Jourdan reports, 300 migrants there, mostly from North Africa, are on hunger strike for their right to remain in the country. As of press time they were on their 37th day and at least 59 of them have been hospitalized --they have pledged to die for their cause if that's what it takes. Is water a human right? That's the question at the center of the new documentary Water On The Table, featuring former GRITtv guest Maude Barlow. Maude has devoted her life to fighting corporate interests to keep our water clean and available for everyone--future generations as well as the present one. Filmmaker Liz Marshall set out to bring an epic vision of Canada's water and the battle over it to the screen, and you can find out more about Maude (and watch her interview with Laura) and the movie through the links here. Seth Freed Wessler of the Applied Research Center and ColorLines has been in Arizona recently, investigating the spread of that state's anti-immigrant law, SB 1070, around the country. He shares some of his findings. Distributed by Tubemogul.

Images of student protests at the University of Puerto Rico, set to the music of Maria Isa. Check out http://mariaisa.com and watch the full conversation with Maria and Lah Tere at http://grittv.org Distributed by Tubemogul.

The revolution in Egypt at first was less about poverty and labor than it was about police brutality and the mistreatment of the people by a repressive regime. But now, Khaled Fahmy notes, the growing labor movement in Egypt is coming to the fore, following two years of concerted effort and protest by workers across the country.The protests continue, and Fahmy tells us that many of the functions of the government have been nearly completely shut down by the protesters, who remain in the streets and vow to stay until Mubarak is gone."I had the feeling it might happen," says Medea Benjamin of CodePink of the ongoing revolution in Egypt. Recently back from Cairo, Medea has been traveling through Egypt to get to Gaza for a while, and she says that the feeling in that country was of too many people angry, frustrated, and willing to fight their government to go on another 30 years without fighting back.Medea joins Laura in studio to discuss her recent experience in Egypt, including nearly being arrested at gunpoint, and having had friends detained for hours by state security forces.The revolution continues in Egypt, and in addition to creating new coalitions and partnerships as different groups come together in the streets, it's inspiring artists around the world. Jasiri X and M-1 of Dead Prez have a new track, "We All Shall Be Free," illustrated with scenes from the protests in Cairo.This weekend saw something revolutionary — not just in Egypt, but in Congo. ; The V-Day foundation , led by playwright and GRITtv guest Eve Ensler, opened its first City of Joy, a compound that will help Congolese women, many of them rape survivors, heal and learn, as V-Day puts it, to “turn their pain to power.”

Peace talks between Israel and Palestine are "a calming pill. Kind of a time game," according to Micha Kurz, co-director of Grassroots Jerusalem and a founder of Breaking the Silence, an organization of former IDF soldiers speaking out about their experiences in the Occupied Territories. While the talks stall, settlement building continues, and settlement building, Kurz notes, becomes a "fact" that makes the idea of a Palestinian state less viable. What can be done to change these facts on the ground? Kurz returns to GRITtv as part of a tour of North America, talking about grassroots initiatives for change in Jerusalem and beyond. From our friends at ColorLines, we bring you a selection from their "Drop the I-Word" campaign. Billy Wimsatt made a splash when he was 21 with the book Bomb the Suburbs--the "bomb" of the title meaning graffiti, not weaponry. Sixteen years later, he's back with a new book, and a new strategy, though with no less enthusiasm and fire for change. Instead, he says, it's time "to play the game in a more sophisticated way—to win."Please Don't Bomb The Suburbs is "a midterm report on my generation" according to Wimsatt, and a manual for continuing to move forward. He joined Laura in studio recently to discuss social movements post-Obama, the hip-hop generation coming of age, and why he's optimistic for the future. Finally, the recently-passed Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act had as one of its strongest features the right for shareholders to vote on CEO pay for corporations for which they hold stock. But the Chamber of Commerce and other business groups want to take that away. Laura has some thoughts.