Kai Wright

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Kai Wright is an American journalist, activist, author, and podcast host. [1] [2] He has served as copy editor at the New York Daily News, senior writer at The Root, senior editor at City Limits, editorial director at ColorLines, [3] and features editor at The Nation. [4] Wright's journalism has focused on social, racial, and economic justice. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, Mother Jones, and Salon, among other outlets, and his national broadcast appearances include MSNBC and NPR. [1] [5] [6] He is the current host and managing editor of Notes from America with Kai Wright on WNYC. [1]

Contents

Career

Kai Wright began his career as a journalist in the late '90s at the Washington Blade. His first assignment was a story looking at the disproportionate risk of HIV infection among people of color, and particularly young gay men of color. He then spent much of his early career writing about impact of HIV/AIDS on young gay men of color. [7]

Wright went on to become a favorite reporter at Type Investigations (formerly The Investigative Fund) where he covered economic inequality, access to healthcare, and racial inequity. [1] At the same time he became an Alfred Knobler Fellow at its parent organization, The Nation Institute. [8] [6]

Wright gained notoriety in the HIV prevention world as he, while writing as a columnist and later senior writer at The Root, he served as publications editor for the Black AIDS Institute. [9] [10]

He spent time as senior editor at City Limits, copy editor at the New YorkDaily News, and news reporter at The Washington Blade [11] before joining ColorLines in 2010, initially as editorial and later as, editor-at-large [5] [3] He is credited with transforming the publication from a bimonthly print journal to a daily digital destination reaching 1 million readers a month. [11]

In 2015, Wright was persuaded to join The Nation as a features editor, making it, at the time, one of the few political magazines with people of color in senior leadership. [4] Wright edited the magazine's features, investigative reports, and editorials, helped cultivate new talent, and developed new digital ventures. The magazine looked to him to enhance coverage in his areas of expertise - issues of race and racial justice, inequality, labor, health, and sexuality. [11]

While features editor at The Nation, Wright began hosting the podcast “The United States of Anxiety” in partnership with WNYC Studios.

Since becoming managing editor at WNYC and host of its narrative unit, Wright has hosted the podcasts Indivisible, Caught: The Lives of Juvenile Justice, There Goes the Neighborhood, The Stakes and United States of Anxiety [12] [13]

Outside of his home publications, his writing has appeared in In These Times, [14] Truthout, [15] Common Dreams, [16] Essence magazine, and Mother Jones. [17]

Personal life

Wright is a native of Indianapolis, Indiana [18] and lives in Brooklyn, New York. [11]

Bibliography

Black AIDS Institute Publications

Prose and other projects

Awards

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">HIV/AIDS in the United States</span> HIV/AIDS epidemic in the United States

The AIDS epidemic, caused by HIV, found its way to the United States between the 1970s and 1980s, but was first noticed after doctors discovered clusters of Kaposi's sarcoma and pneumocystis pneumonia in homosexual men in Los Angeles, New York City, and San Francisco in 1981. Treatment of HIV/AIDS is primarily via the use of multiple antiretroviral drugs, and education programs to help people avoid infection.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">GMHC</span> New York City–based non-profit AIDS service organization

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LeRoy Whitfield was an African-American freelance journalist who chronicled his personal experience with HIV infection and AIDS. He was hailed by many as one of the nation's leading journalists reporting on AIDS in the African-American community.

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The National Task Force on AIDS Prevention (NTFAP) was founded in 1985 as a "National Minority Organization dedicated to ending the HIV epidemic by advocating for and assisting in the development of HIV education and service programs by and for gay and bisexual men of color." The NTFAP was created to provide support to gay men of color who did not identify with prevailing HIV/AIDS programs and education campaigns, which mainly targeted white gay men. The importance of the NTFAP began to emerge in the 1980s when the rate of infection in communities of color was rapidly increasing compared to white communities. The goals of the task force have been to guarantee the local gay men were targeted by HIV/AIDS preventive services. The NTFAP aimed to create culturally relevant propaganda that would help slow the rate of infection in communities of color. While the work done by the NTFAP stayed in the local San Francisco area, the intent of the organization was to set an example for the nation to follow in creating preventive services that crossed ethnic and cultural lines.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kenyon Farrow</span> LGBTQ and HIV/AIDS activist

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Many women have been infected with the HIV/AIDS virus. The majority of HIV/AIDS cases in women are directly influenced by high-risk sexual activities, injectional drug use, the spread of medical misinformation, and the lack of adequate reproductive health resources in the United States. Women of color, LGBT women, homeless women, women in the sex trade, and women intravenous drug users are at a high-risk for contracting the HIV/AIDS virus. In an article published by the Annual Review of Sociology, Celeste Watkins Hayes, an American sociologist, scholar, and professor wrote, "Women are more likely to be forced into survival-focused behaviors such as transactional sex for money, housing, protection, employment, and other basic needs; power-imbalanced relationships with older men; and other partnerings in which they cannot dictate the terms of condom use, monogamy, or HIV." The largest motivator to become part of the sex trade was addiction, the second largest being basic needs, and the third was to support their children/family.

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<i>Caught: The Lives of Juvenile Justice</i> Podcast on mass incarceration in the US

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References

  1. 1 2 3 4 "People - Kai Wright | WNYC | New York Public Radio, Podcasts, Live Streaming Radio, News". WNYC. Retrieved 2021-10-29.
  2. ↑ "Forgotten Sons". POZ. 2012-01-09. Retrieved 2021-12-03.
  3. 1 2 "How Social Media Helped Spread Protest In Michael Brown Shooting". NPR.org. Retrieved 2021-11-05.
  4. 1 2 "How The Nation Is Facing The New Era Of Journalism". HuffPost. 2015-04-07. Retrieved 2021-11-05.
  5. 1 2 3 Whaley, K. P. (2015-07-31). "Kai Wright". Wisconsin Public Radio. Retrieved 2021-10-29.
  6. 1 2 "Kai Wright". The Nation. 2010-04-02. Retrieved 2021-10-29.
  7. ↑ "Do the Wright thing | EDGE Boston, MA". EDGE Media Network. Retrieved 2021-11-12.
  8. ↑ Vora, Jayati (2010-06-28). "Ask [Kai Wright] About Gay Youth in New York". Type Investigations. Retrieved 2021-12-10.
  9. ↑ "A black plague: a new report says blacks are hit hardest by AIDS". The World from PRX. Retrieved 2022-01-14.
  10. ↑ Housing Works (2009-02-19). "Where Are the Black Gay Men?". The Body Pro.
  11. 1 2 3 4 5 Room, Press (2015-01-28). "'The Nation' Magazine Names Kai Wright as Features Editor". The Nation. ISSN   0027-8378 . Retrieved 2021-10-29.
  12. ↑ Blistein, Jon (2019-04-23). "New Podcast 'The Stakes' Plots Episodes on Conscious Hip-Hop, Mueller Report". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 2021-11-05.
  13. ↑ "Indivisible". NPR.org. Retrieved 2021-11-05.
  14. ↑ "Kai Wright". In These Times. Retrieved 2021-12-10.
  15. ↑ Truthout (10 December 2017). "Kai Wright". Truthout. Retrieved 2021-12-10.
  16. ↑ "Kai Wright". Common Dreams. Retrieved 2021-12-10.
  17. ↑ "African American Experience: Black History and Culture Through Speeches, Letters, Editorials, Poems, Songs, and Stories | IndieBound.org". www.indiebound.org. Retrieved 2022-02-04.
  18. ↑ Wright, Kai; Gerald, Gil (2008). Saving Ourselves; The State of AIDS in Black America and What We're Doing About It. Los Angeles, California: Black AIDS Institute.
  19. ↑ "A black plague: a new report says blacks are hit hardest by AIDS". The World from PRX. Retrieved 2021-11-12.
  20. ↑ "Kai Wright | ColorLines". www.ColorLines.com. Archived from the original on 2021-10-25. Retrieved 2021-10-29.
  21. ↑ National Association of Black Journalists (2012). "2012 Salute to Excellence Winners". National Association of Black Journalists. Retrieved 2022-02-03.
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