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The Real Crime

October 19, 2020
An illustration of Breonna Taylor, with white roses crowning her and a label "JUSTICE".

Attack ads and contemporary political rhetoric about crime have a disturbing campaign ancestor: The Willie Horton ad that may have cost Michael Dukakis the presidential election in 1988. It relied on racism for its efficacy, and it ushered in an era of so-called “tough-on-crime” laws and posturing that nearly broke criminal legal systems, like the…

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NM’s COVID-19 Spike, an In-Depth Look at Monuments, Statues and Conquistadors

October 19, 2020
Illustration of people standing next to each other in front of a city skyline, which has been taken over by giant coronaviruses.

This week on New Mexico in Focus… Correspondent Russell Contreras speaks with Vanessa Fonseca-Chávez, a New Mexico native who is now an assistant professor at Arizona State. As co-editor of the book “Querencia: Reflections on the New Mexico Homeland,” and as a Chicana who is critical of monuments to Spanish conquistadors, she is working on a biography…

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