WRFG Atlanta 89.3 FM

To listen to past programs, click on the Public Affairs: What Happens Now? – Archive Index

What Happens Now? airs on the 1st and 3rd Wednesdays of each month from 4pm to 5pm, sharing the time slot with The Crossroads.

What Happens Now? is a public affairs program dedicated to exploring pressing social issues with the goal of helping listeners sharpen the critical lens they use to understand their social world. The program provides insight that encourages reflection and equips listeners to think and act in ways that benefit themselves and their communities.

Through in-depth conversations, WHN? explores the often overlooked or taken-for-granted aspects of social problems, uncovering the angles of our social world that are often hidden in plain sight while quietly shaping our communities and lives. The program highlights the actions people take to survive and resist in the face of systemic challenges, and guests are encouraged to share personal experiences and strategies for navigating barriers while offering listeners practical and inspiring examples of resilience and everyday ingenuity.

What Happens Now? Life in Song: Importantly, a common critique of public affairs programming, and media more broadly, is that guests and listeners are often inundated with heavy, urgent issues around the clock, making it overwhelming to process at times. What sets WHN? apart is its occasional integration of the educational and healing power of music. 

During select episodes, guests curate playlists of songs that have guided them through challenging seasons, supported their survival, or helped them reflect differently on pivotal experiences in their lives. These musical interludes, paired with the stories behind them, connect listeners to the ancestral traditions of healing through music and reinforces WHN’s emphasis on reflection and resilience. What Happens Now? Life in Song brings this work full circle by engaging in collective care, and engaging listeners in conversation while demonstrating how music can serve as a tool for understanding and coping. 

Shanae is the producer, engineer, and host of What Happens Now? She is a native New Yorker but has spent most of her adult life here in Atlanta. She is a mother, active community member, and interdisciplinary social scientist engaged in research, teaching, and applied practice. While decades of academic and professional experience are valuable, lived experience is the best teacher! Shanae and most of her guests bring personal life experiences that provide insights you simply cannot get from those who talk about what they have not lived through. What Happens Now? is for, of, and by everyday people who have lived, continue to navigate, and thrive through life’s challenges, and who are committed to informed discourse that inspires reflection, growth, and action!