Speaker 1: Hey, I'm Baritune Day Thurston and this is how to
Speaker 1: citizen with Baritune Day. In season two, we're talking about
Speaker 1: the money, because, to be real, it's hard to citizen
Speaker 1: when we can barely pay the bills. You've been learning
Speaker 1: a lot about my childhood during this season, and that's
Speaker 1: because childhood is where I first encountered some of the
Speaker 1: ideas we've been talking about, ideas about the economy. I
Speaker 1: didn't learn about all this stuff for the very first
Speaker 1: time in some college course. Now it's it's through a
Speaker 1: neighborhood shop that I remember. It's through a person that
Speaker 1: I knew. It's through an interaction or an experience. And
Speaker 1: that's true for most of us about most of the
Speaker 1: ideas that we ever think about as adults. Childhoods where
Speaker 1: it started. And that is so true for me with
Speaker 1: the idea of a co op. My mother was a hippie.
Speaker 1: She was a proud mama. She had a big afro
Speaker 1: at times, she rocked her cowboy boots and loved her
Speaker 1: NPR and she wore tie dye every chance she could get.
Speaker 1: She was a little bit different from the other moms
Speaker 1: on the block, and she was really into healthy food,
Speaker 1: I remember going to the co op with my mother
Speaker 1: for health food because I guess the grocery store at
Speaker 1: the end of the block didn't have healthy foods, and
Speaker 1: the co op was just different. There was a lot
Speaker 1: of granola, making it almost literally a crunchy place, and
Speaker 1: they had alternatives to everything I knew I loved like
Speaker 1: I loved cheerios, and they had odeos. I loved chocolate
Speaker 1: glaze donuts, and they had carib covered doughnuts, and I
Speaker 1: didn't love that because that wasn't a chocolate glaze donut
Speaker 1: and what even is a carrob I also blame co
Speaker 1: ops for bringing grape nuts into my life because that's
Speaker 1: not even food. That's more like a gravel situation, and
Speaker 1: grape nuts with skim milk is a c The co
Speaker 1: op to me was this tied I tote bag, largely
Speaker 1: white place miles away from home where we went to
Speaker 1: get special food. But now I'm learning there's a lot
Speaker 1: more to co ops. See as I've grown up, I've
Speaker 1: learned that co ops are more than what I remember
Speaker 1: from my childhood. And when you talk about the class
Speaker 1: of folks known as the working poor who can never
Speaker 1: get ahead because of extractive business models, cooperatives become more
Speaker 1: of an economic answer than the patruli soaked lifestyle I
Speaker 1: was used to as a kid. Today's guest shows that
Speaker 1: co ops might not be what you think they are either.
Speaker 1: Jamila Medley is an East Brooklyn native who, at the
Speaker 1: time we spoke was the executive director of the Philadelphia
Speaker 1: Area Cooperative Alliance. PACA is a co op of co
Speaker 1: ops building economic power in the Philly community and breaking
Speaker 1: all kinds of myths about what co ops are and
Speaker 1: who Therefore, co ops are basically a version of economic democracy.
Speaker 1: H Jamila, thank you so much for joining. How are you.
Speaker 1: I'm doing well, Thanks for having me, Thank you for
Speaker 1: agreeing to sit with me and with us. And I
Speaker 1: want to start with you introducing yourself. My name is
Speaker 1: Jamila Medley. I'm executive director of the Philadelphia Area co
Speaker 1: Operative Alliance, otherwise known as PACA PACA. I was like,
Speaker 1: I was so glad you said it, because I'm like,
Speaker 1: as a PACA, is it? Paca? Tell me something about
Speaker 1: yourself that might not be in an online bio, something
Speaker 1: a lot of people don't know. Dang, this is a
Speaker 1: big one. I can wrap the books of the Bible.
Speaker 1: I mean, you need to tell me a little bit
Speaker 1: more about this, so as I meagine, I'm from Brooklyn
Speaker 1: and I went to Saint Paul's Community Baptist Church growing
Speaker 1: up where the steam Johnny Ray young Blood was pastor
Speaker 1: minister of music Eli Wilson, and we did things in
Speaker 1: children's choir like learn how to wrap the books of
Speaker 1: the Bible. And it has never left my mind. It's
Speaker 1: pretty dope. I mean, I'm not gonna do it. You
Speaker 1: know what's next? Care? I mean, show, don't tell what's uh,
Speaker 1: give me a little taste. All right, Listen, everybody, as
Speaker 1: we talked to you about the books of the Bible,
Speaker 1: the older than new. There are sixty six books if
Speaker 1: you take a long look, thirty nine and an old
Speaker 1: and a new. Pay attention. Tell you what we're gonna do.
Speaker 1: We're gonna rock to you thought the books that unfold.
Speaker 1: Then I'm gonna stop because I don't forgot that is
Speaker 1: a special, special skill. That is a spectacular answer. I
Speaker 1: did not see that coming. Thank you so much, um so, So,
Speaker 1: tell me more about growing up in Brooklyn. Describe your
Speaker 1: neighborhood and what the community felt like to you as
Speaker 1: a kid. Sure So grew up by East New York,
Speaker 1: last stop on the Number three train. Do a lots
Speaker 1: of Avenue, East New York at that time and still
Speaker 1: is known as a struggling um neighborhood. It was, it
Speaker 1: was the hoodood. Give me some sense of timing of
Speaker 1: years that you're talking about in terms of your childhood there.
Speaker 1: Sure So, I was born in seventies seven, so I'm
Speaker 1: talking about the eighties nineties and East York had crack,
Speaker 1: had prostitution, and had murder. It's got a documentary about
Speaker 1: the worst police district in New York City. That I
Speaker 1: mean the government literally sent anything that they considered unworthy
Speaker 1: of a good life to East New York, institutionalizing people, um,
Speaker 1: throwing throwing away humans. It was a poor and working
Speaker 1: class neighborhood. My grandparents had moved there in the nineteen
Speaker 1: sixties um, one of the first black families to move
Speaker 1: into a new high rise apartment when the neighborhood was
Speaker 1: still white. From where from where did they move? They
Speaker 1: moved from Brownsville. So this was their Jefferson story of
Speaker 1: moving up from the projects into this newly constructed apartment
Speaker 1: high rise and uh subsequently white flight ensued, and the
Speaker 1: narrative of disinvestment, as is very typical in communities like this,
Speaker 1: came to be. But um, I think one of the
Speaker 1: unfortunate realities is that beauty and joy aren't always um
Speaker 1: the stories that come out of this kind of neighborhood.
Speaker 1: But my family was there for three generations living. You know,
Speaker 1: my grandparents, I don't know, we're in that apartment. I
Speaker 1: grew up in that apartment. My mom grew up in
Speaker 1: that apartment. My first daughter was born. She had years
Speaker 1: in that apartment. And uh, the church that I went
Speaker 1: to had a school, and went to the school there
Speaker 1: second to sixth grade. I was nurtured and loved by
Speaker 1: black women educators who affirmed my blackness, my womanness, my girlhood,
Speaker 1: so that by the time I was ready to go
Speaker 1: into middle school and really leave my neighborhood in that
Speaker 1: kind of like all black life for the first time,
Speaker 1: I was well prepared and uh, coming up again. I
Speaker 1: went to a Quaker school, um middle school through high
Speaker 1: school Brooklyn Friends School, but I was affirmed, so we
Speaker 1: share a decent amount of biography. Um. I went to
Speaker 1: a very local community public school through sixth grade and
Speaker 1: then starting in seventh grade a friends School. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: grew up in Washington, d c uh in, you know,
Speaker 1: those same years, and I went to the Sidwall Friends
Speaker 1: School from seventh through twelfth grade. And I was also
Speaker 1: nurtured and loved and had a lot of joy. Um,
Speaker 1: what did your church community look and feel like during
Speaker 1: this childhood because it sounds like the church was a
Speaker 1: big part of your experience of community. Yeah, I was
Speaker 1: probably in first second grade when we started going there.
Speaker 1: I went to church school, I did karate, I did
Speaker 1: dance classes, I took piano lessons, we had Sunday school,
Speaker 1: Bible school, summer camp. Everything was there. It was the
Speaker 1: entire community, and it was a church that also kind
Speaker 1: of I think understood it's it's social and political relevance
Speaker 1: in the neighborhood like that, and really thinking about ways
Speaker 1: of creating community pride and self determination through the congregation
Speaker 1: that really resonates. Like when I started working at co Ops,
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, shoot, this was like a whole
Speaker 1: thing happening when I was a kid around what has
Speaker 1: always historically been true, and I think the Black American
Speaker 1: tradition of how black folks have practiced mutual aid and
Speaker 1: cooperative economics, right, and that the church has often been
Speaker 1: a central place where people congregate to to build wealth,
Speaker 1: to share their wealth, to create community good. And it
Speaker 1: begs the question what's a co op? And where do
Speaker 1: you see in your childhood some semblance of cooperatives? So
Speaker 1: a co op has two components. One is the association
Speaker 1: of people who come together. They identified that they have
Speaker 1: a shared need economic, social, cultural, and they determine that
Speaker 1: they want to democratically own an enterprise together, and so
Speaker 1: they create that business to fulfill the need that they have.
Speaker 1: And that's the simple version of what a co op
Speaker 1: is in the sense that is the association of people.
Speaker 1: Democracy is in the at all in the enterprise is
Speaker 1: holding it all together. I'm not gonna say that my
Speaker 1: church was democratically organized. I don't know that that was true,
Speaker 1: but there was definitely an association of people who were
Speaker 1: organized um within their religious community, also having an understanding
Speaker 1: of their political power. I think the biggest thing that
Speaker 1: I remember seeing is like the creation of near Mayah houses, right.
Speaker 1: So it's this entire housing development that congregations throughout Brooklyn
Speaker 1: organized to bring resources from you know, minicipal funds with
Speaker 1: their church, community and other investment strategies to create new homes.
Speaker 1: This was a struggle, This was organizing. This was the
Speaker 1: success of an association of people coming together to meet
Speaker 1: their needs. How did what you experience as a child
Speaker 1: with this community level of organizing affect your later work
Speaker 1: and your educational path? So I think there's this continuity
Speaker 1: of values that I've always been grounded in. Everyone is
Speaker 1: worthy inherently, we all deserve good to happen. I think
Speaker 1: I understood having to work hard, you needed to serve,
Speaker 1: you had to help others, You had to find a
Speaker 1: way to to give back, to contribute to make something better.
Speaker 1: And then in school, when I was in middle one
Speaker 1: high school, I think there was a lot of that
Speaker 1: kind of activity just in terms of like taking care
Speaker 1: of our own neighborhood. And like you know, there was
Speaker 1: really Cede Park right behind where my high school was.
Speaker 1: And I'm gonna tell you in the nineteen nineties, Brooklyn
Speaker 1: Friends was the Ratchet Independent Friends School. Um, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: leave it at that, but Ratchet Independent Friends School. I
Speaker 1: never heard those words ratchet rage. Yes, it was the
Speaker 1: Megan d Stallion of fend schools. But we had to
Speaker 1: go to that park, right, But there were people who
Speaker 1: um use drugs there, people who um were in gauging
Speaker 1: in solicited sexual encounters in that park, and we found
Speaker 1: their refuse and we cleaned it up as a part
Speaker 1: of our Earth Day experience. Right, It's just like, this
Speaker 1: is our community, this is our responsibility. Um So, I
Speaker 1: think those threats certainly carried, you know, into my work
Speaker 1: of really just seeing the power of collaboration and people
Speaker 1: coming together and people caring about each other, and just
Speaker 1: like ultimately just really believing fundamentally that everybody has light,
Speaker 1: right that we should be seeking that in one another,
Speaker 1: and when we do, it makes it easier to work together.
Speaker 1: That's all. Just that's total life summation. That's perfect. I
Speaker 1: think that the Quakers would be proud we brought you
Speaker 1: to Philadelphia. Well, my first job here was in a
Speaker 1: cancer research organization based in Philly, and after that I
Speaker 1: went to grad school. And upon completing grad school, I
Speaker 1: realized I can't keep not working. This isn't going to
Speaker 1: be a good story for too long for my husband
Speaker 1: if I don't use this degree of how and so
Speaker 1: I found a membership coordinator rule actually at Mariposa Food
Speaker 1: Co op and I got hired to be the membership
Speaker 1: coordinator there and so that was a realm in And
Speaker 1: that was my first exposure to co ops formally. So
Speaker 1: I have an image of co ops from my childhood
Speaker 1: of going up to the co op into Coma Park,
Speaker 1: Maryland Food co Op had a certain smell to it,
Speaker 1: you know, I describe it as earthy. Made me think
Speaker 1: of that scene from Broad City. I'm sorry, but are
Speaker 1: you breastfeeding? The power of co op produce has made
Speaker 1: me fertile into my fifties. Beyond it so amazing. So,
Speaker 1: so what was it like for you working at the
Speaker 1: Mariposa Food co Op And is it anything like my experience? Yes?
Speaker 1: Very earthy, Yes, I mean it was. It was my
Speaker 1: first adult experience really being around radicalized white people. What
Speaker 1: made them radical? They are? I've worked with a bunch
Speaker 1: of anarchists and socialists and people who you know, had
Speaker 1: very far left leaning politics, had very unconventional, you know,
Speaker 1: ways of of living their lives that were in my
Speaker 1: perspective at that time, I was like, oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: you are like the freest people I've ever encountered. How
Speaker 1: did that express itself? What does that look like? You know,
Speaker 1: it showed up. I also came from I think my
Speaker 1: church that I grew up in. I think in many
Speaker 1: ways in that era was about respectability. Right. So it's
Speaker 1: like the best thing that you could do is find
Speaker 1: a corporate job, right, And where for me as a woman,
Speaker 1: put some stockings on, don't wear red and like, you know,
Speaker 1: do your thing, don't show as much as you can
Speaker 1: how black you are. Just make your money, get your success.
Speaker 1: Being in this food co op world was the antithesis
Speaker 1: of everything I had learned was true to have a
Speaker 1: good life, right, that you had to button up, that
Speaker 1: you had to conform, that you had to invisibilize yourself
Speaker 1: to some degree. So when I got to the food
Speaker 1: co op, it was, you know, the first community where
Speaker 1: I personally met trans folks and had trans car workers,
Speaker 1: and I learned about pronouns, and I learned about just
Speaker 1: like a lot of things. You know, people just wore
Speaker 1: t shirts and jeans and ripped up clothes and had
Speaker 1: piercings and tattoos and all kinds of colored hair. And
Speaker 1: for me it was just like it was great, but
Speaker 1: it was also work, and I was not familiar with
Speaker 1: seeing those expressions of one's humanity being okay in the
Speaker 1: work environment. Um So that was a real shift for me,
Speaker 1: I think, in being able to understand that, oh, there
Speaker 1: there are other ways, and people have found them. What
Speaker 1: did that discovery feel like for you? In many ways,
Speaker 1: it was somewhat liberating from me because I had the
Speaker 1: opportunity to experiment. So there was a lot of opportunity
Speaker 1: for creativity and really just like making our way, creating
Speaker 1: new things to make this grocery store a success, and
Speaker 1: so I really loved that aspect of it. I think
Speaker 1: one of the challenges of the space, though, that I experienced,
Speaker 1: was I wasn't as free as some of those people
Speaker 1: were because I was still a black woman and most
Speaker 1: of my co workers were white folks who I think
Speaker 1: we're just able to show up as fully as they
Speaker 1: wanted to. But I think there were a lot of
Speaker 1: experiences that that time for black women that we could
Speaker 1: not show up as fully as ourselves without appearing threatening,
Speaker 1: without appearing too upset, if we were too loud, to ratchet,
Speaker 1: too angry, too emotional. It all just kind of like
Speaker 1: came back to to kind of haunt you. So I
Speaker 1: also learned in that space that radicalized white people are
Speaker 1: also very racist sometimes without even knowing it, and that
Speaker 1: there's this duality and just like this work, right, I
Speaker 1: thought that maybe I had found like my anti racist
Speaker 1: home and like my place and belonging, But I also
Speaker 1: realized there was still a lot of work to do
Speaker 1: in that space, and it was also a space where
Speaker 1: my radicalization was starting to show up in terms of
Speaker 1: who I wanted to be and how I wanted to
Speaker 1: engage in blackness as a result of that that workplace experience,
Speaker 1: what was the experience, you know, what was the behavior
Speaker 1: or the words of the radicalized white co workers that
Speaker 1: put you in a place where you felt like you
Speaker 1: had to manage how you showed up. Oh now, I'm
Speaker 1: just putting these people's business all out here in these streets.
Speaker 1: But I think we understand that this is a time
Speaker 1: when we talk about these things. But I think one
Speaker 1: of the struggles in that community, prior to my coming there,
Speaker 1: there had been other black women that that worked there
Speaker 1: and that we're working there when I worked there, But
Speaker 1: I think when there were conflicts between those women and
Speaker 1: other white folks, sometimes there was a way in which
Speaker 1: black women were pushed out from the organization I think
Speaker 1: often rooted in conflicts, right, and that you just showed
Speaker 1: up a little bit too loud and self expressing, dear
Speaker 1: black of lady, for the comfortability of these white folks
Speaker 1: who now see that part of you and maybe don't
Speaker 1: feel as safe as they used to. They don't want
Speaker 1: to ever see that side of you again. Right, So
Speaker 1: so there's this this tension me while like white folks
Speaker 1: was yelling and could cry and emote and do all
Speaker 1: the things that they needed to do to express themselves,
Speaker 1: but there wasn't an acceptance I think, for for black
Speaker 1: women to be able to show up in the same vein.
Speaker 1: And I saw that happen to other people, and so
Speaker 1: I became very aware about how I needed to present
Speaker 1: in order for that not to happen to me. Mariposa
Speaker 1: Food co Op is historically, you know, one of the
Speaker 1: food co ops that is gotten it right in so
Speaker 1: many instances. Right. So the institution, I think, in many ways,
Speaker 1: is at the forefront of trying to navigate some of
Speaker 1: the harms that structural racism can perpetuate in any business.
Speaker 1: I think the opportunity is that there's more accountability in
Speaker 1: those places to address that stuff right, and to expect
Speaker 1: better and to expect more from how our white allies
Speaker 1: in those spaces, they're going to show up. After the break,
Speaker 1: Jamila goes all in on the world of co ops.
Speaker 1: So you're the executive director of PACA. How did you
Speaker 1: first come to have a role um at this cooperative
Speaker 1: of cooperatives? So PACAB was actually being founded around the
Speaker 1: same time when I started working at Mariposa. The first
Speaker 1: group of people have started talking about, you know, answering
Speaker 1: this question of you know, there's a lot of mature
Speaker 1: cooperatives in the Philadelphia region. There's food co ops, housing
Speaker 1: co ops, credit unions, energy co ops, work or co ops.
Speaker 1: We got a lot of co ops here, but they
Speaker 1: don't really do a lot together. What would happen if
Speaker 1: there was a way to organize the co ops sector
Speaker 1: to help grow the co operative economy? So what would
Speaker 1: happen if cooperatives cooperated? Yes, So that became a launching
Speaker 1: pad for you know, a number of activities that invited
Speaker 1: co operators to come together to to muse and to
Speaker 1: think about what this this new organization could be. So
Speaker 1: I decided to go to one of those convenings and
Speaker 1: they were looking for volunteers, and I thought that I
Speaker 1: should volunteer because I didn't know anything about co ops
Speaker 1: and my job was to recruit people to join the
Speaker 1: co op. So SA's like, let me go over here
Speaker 1: and see what I could learn. Um, I learned so much.
Speaker 1: I learned about an entire economy, an entire what some
Speaker 1: people would identify as a lifestyle. I learned about a
Speaker 1: network of activity and effort that I had no idea
Speaker 1: what was happening. And I stayed involved with PACK as
Speaker 1: a volunteer on their steering committee, and then as the
Speaker 1: organization formalized and became a nonprofit organization, I got elected
Speaker 1: to serve on paca's board and then by team. When
Speaker 1: our first executive director was ready to UM step down,
Speaker 1: I was invited to be his replacement, and I said yes,
Speaker 1: And you lived happily ever after, and that was it.
Speaker 1: What is the Philadelphia Area Cooperative Alliance so pacas a
Speaker 1: nonprofit and a co op of co ops, and we
Speaker 1: aim to improve the cooperative economy in our region by
Speaker 1: providing education and training, providing direct technical assistance to groups
Speaker 1: of people forming co ops, and to uplift opportunities to
Speaker 1: promote co ops through advocacy and political engagement. And when
Speaker 1: I when any of us thinks about what a business is,
Speaker 1: we are taught that businesses seek to maximize profits, that
Speaker 1: businesses are designed to maximize shareholder value, even in the
Speaker 1: in the current incarnation that we are a capitalist society.
Speaker 1: So what is a co op business? How is it
Speaker 1: operating differently from UH and off the shelf capitalist business? Okay?
Speaker 1: Can I make a caveat before I answer that question?
Speaker 1: Co ops can be co opted by capitalism to the
Speaker 1: plot thickens. Okay, So cooperatives are an economic tool, right,
Speaker 1: people can have a lot of different motives for why
Speaker 1: they want to use it. So I think you know,
Speaker 1: from the vantage point that I have and the motivations
Speaker 1: that PACA and others in our networks have for four
Speaker 1: cooperative businesses, is that we believe that, you know, we
Speaker 1: should prioritize people and planet over profit. We believe that
Speaker 1: people have a right to self determination, including in how
Speaker 1: wealth is accumulated and distributed within their communities. We believe
Speaker 1: that people deserve and have the right to own assets
Speaker 1: in their own communities. Right. And I think this broader
Speaker 1: sense that in incooperatively owned businesses. A distinguishing factor of
Speaker 1: it from traditional businesses is democracy, right, and there are
Speaker 1: a lot of different ways in which businesses can practice democracy,
Speaker 1: but the difference in in co ops is that if
Speaker 1: you're an owner, you have one vote. Everybody has one
Speaker 1: vote as an owner in a co op. So when
Speaker 1: it's time to make these important decisions for how this
Speaker 1: co op business is going to move forward. Are we
Speaker 1: going to expand, are we going to up close? Are
Speaker 1: we going to hire more people? Whatever the decision points
Speaker 1: are that the owners need to come together. Each owner
Speaker 1: has one vote. There isn't a fifty one percent owner
Speaker 1: who gets to wield the power because they have that
Speaker 1: extra ownership stake. And this is true even as co
Speaker 1: op owners might have different equity stakes, right, So people
Speaker 1: can invest different amounts of money into their coop, but
Speaker 1: the vote stays the same. One member, one vote. What
Speaker 1: do you think the benefits are two people for participating
Speaker 1: in a cooperative business model. I think you can think
Speaker 1: about it from the individual level and from the community level.
Speaker 1: So as an individual, if you're a member owner or
Speaker 1: an owner of a co op, there's a financial benefit
Speaker 1: that you can get um you're an owner, so if
Speaker 1: the company is doing While the business is doing well,
Speaker 1: you get to eat, you get a diffidend, you get
Speaker 1: patronage rebate, you get some money back on your return.
Speaker 1: It's also true that if it's not doing so great,
Speaker 1: you absorb the risk along with your fellow co owners.
Speaker 1: I think co ops often offer community. They offer a
Speaker 1: place where you can find people who have the same
Speaker 1: need that you do and work together to try to
Speaker 1: fulfill that. Co Ops bring potentially wealth into communities. They're
Speaker 1: locally owned, so they're not some distant you know, there's
Speaker 1: not a distant owner out there somewhere trying to figure
Speaker 1: out when to cut out and sell the business right
Speaker 1: when they can make enough money, so the dollars tend
Speaker 1: to circulate in the community for a longer period of time.
Speaker 1: Co Ops tend to provide better working environments for UM
Speaker 1: employees UM because in many of in worker co ops,
Speaker 1: for example, people are actually controlling and owning their own labor,
Speaker 1: so they can, you know, collectively decide what hours they're
Speaker 1: gonna work, how much they're gonna pay each other or themselves.
Speaker 1: And you know, even during a time like this where
Speaker 1: we have this financial crisis, cooperatives have a chance of
Speaker 1: surviving because of the democratic participation of their owners and
Speaker 1: their ability to say that we're going to decide to
Speaker 1: ride this out together. It occurs to me hearing you
Speaker 1: talk about the benefits of co ops, we've heard a
Speaker 1: different story from the traditional business model. The reason CEOs
Speaker 1: get paid so much because they're so smart, they're exceptional
Speaker 1: operators and exceptional managers, and they've earned that money. And
Speaker 1: it sounds like you're saying you're putting your faith elsewhere,
Speaker 1: you know, in terms of the management of the operation
Speaker 1: or the ownership of a business and the piece of
Speaker 1: our economy, your model is trusting a larger group of
Speaker 1: people with the fate of this enterprise. Is that Is
Speaker 1: that a fair characterization that could be true? It's it's
Speaker 1: not gonna it's certainly not going to be one person.
Speaker 1: The co ops come in all different kinds of ownership
Speaker 1: structures and sizes, right, so anywhere from the thousands of
Speaker 1: people who own the grocery store together to the small,
Speaker 1: workout owned daycare center. So the principles, though, are are
Speaker 1: such that they can work throughout a variety of structures
Speaker 1: and um different numbers of people. But it doesn't have
Speaker 1: to depend on a singular person to make or breaking
Speaker 1: after the break. What does it mean to make a
Speaker 1: co op of other co ops? It seems like for
Speaker 1: your organization to exist, you've got to have a lot
Speaker 1: of co ops in filling. Is there something in the
Speaker 1: water in Philly that tends towards co ops? What's the
Speaker 1: nature of the city and the existence of so many
Speaker 1: co ops that your organization can exist? Yeah, well, I'll
Speaker 1: say we're also a nonprofit, so we are funded through
Speaker 1: philanthropic dollars, primarily UM. And some say that Ben Franklin
Speaker 1: was the first person to organize a cooperative in the
Speaker 1: United States. What was that? What you talking abou? It
Speaker 1: was called the Philadelphia Contributionship and it was a mutual
Speaker 1: insurance company to protect businesses and homeowners against fire. It's
Speaker 1: lost from fire. And this was in seventeen fifty two.
Speaker 1: So in seventeen fifty two, Ben Franklin set up a
Speaker 1: co op fire insurance company. That's the story. It still exists.
Speaker 1: It still exists. I did not learn that in history class,
Speaker 1: but I think you know, for black folks in Philadelphia,
Speaker 1: cooperative economic and mutual aid practices have been essential to
Speaker 1: survival so we can think back to periods when black
Speaker 1: folks were enslaved, and you know, there were free blacks
Speaker 1: in Philadelphia, and there were people who were running away
Speaker 1: from slavery who came to Philadelphia and created a rich
Speaker 1: and robust community of black folks here. But they survived
Speaker 1: in many ways through operative economic practices. Right. So we
Speaker 1: think about in seventeen eighty seven, the leaders who founded
Speaker 1: the AMI Church also founded like the second black owned
Speaker 1: mutual aid society in Philadelphia. Well it's the second in
Speaker 1: the country, but they were organizing for survival because they
Speaker 1: were locked out there at the traditionally established white environments
Speaker 1: to be able to get things like education, to get
Speaker 1: things like insurance if you were a widow. Right, the
Speaker 1: mutual Aid Society was taking care of widows and orphans.
Speaker 1: The Mutual Aid Society was paying tuition for UM students.
Speaker 1: So there's this rich tradition of these kinds of practices
Speaker 1: in the city of Philadelphia. And I think in this
Speaker 1: environment where there are so many different ethnic groups and
Speaker 1: and also a city with a high rate of poverty, UM,
Speaker 1: we see communities turning back to these practices over and
Speaker 1: over again as a way to survive I think we
Speaker 1: we've certainly seen, for for Black Americans, a long tradition
Speaker 1: of cooperative economic practice. You know, we look at things
Speaker 1: that Ella Baker was doing, if Annie Lou Hamer, when
Speaker 1: we look at a lot of what was happening in
Speaker 1: the civil rights movement around a lot of that effort
Speaker 1: around civil rights was also connected to economic power and
Speaker 1: leaders that during that time we're also practicing cooperative economics
Speaker 1: and trying to really think about how that connects back
Speaker 1: into the political power that also needed to be gained.
Speaker 1: And so when we have times like we have now
Speaker 1: where things are just on edge and nobody is coming
Speaker 1: to save us, people organized to save themselves. And that's
Speaker 1: one of the reasons why we're seeing such a rise
Speaker 1: in co op creation and strengthening of ecosystems in Philadelphia,
Speaker 1: but other places around the country too. So with this
Speaker 1: long history of co ops and cooperative economics more broadly
Speaker 1: in the black community, why is the pop cultural image
Speaker 1: of a co op a white lady with an NPR
Speaker 1: bag buying some granola? How did that happen? I think
Speaker 1: there's a mythology for sure that co ops like are
Speaker 1: things that white people do and nobody else does them,
Speaker 1: And you know, I've already started to explain that's not true.
Speaker 1: I think it got to that in some ways. Jessica
Speaker 1: Gordon Demhart, who is a researcher cooperator extraordinaire, wrote this
Speaker 1: book called A Collective Courage, which tells the history of
Speaker 1: African American cooperative practices. And along with these stories of
Speaker 1: all of the starts right and in the ways in
Speaker 1: which black communities thrived, we also know that some of
Speaker 1: those stories were impacted by white terror, right, and that
Speaker 1: there were just so many times when black folks get
Speaker 1: too successful and white folks decided, you can't have this anymore.
Speaker 1: And there are ways in which that has happened, you know,
Speaker 1: at the neighborhood level, when we think about people's grocery.
Speaker 1: I think it was in Tennessee or Kentucky, which was
Speaker 1: a co op owned by black folks, and the men
Speaker 1: who were the leaders in that co op community were
Speaker 1: lynched by a group of white men who didn't like
Speaker 1: that these black folks had gotten this much power and
Speaker 1: we're competing. This was in the late nineteenth century. I
Speaker 1: think we've seen how the Black Panther Party certainly was
Speaker 1: practicing cooperative economics right, and we're infiltrated by the government
Speaker 1: right too, to disrupt, you know, the things that they
Speaker 1: were doing to see black power emerge. So there were
Speaker 1: all of these ways I think in which white supremacy
Speaker 1: has also threatened black communities and other communities of color
Speaker 1: through structural racism, through the faults even of capitalism. It's
Speaker 1: hard to try to operate collectively owned businesses in capitalism
Speaker 1: because the structures themselves aren't set up to see these
Speaker 1: kinds of enterprises succeed. So there's a lot of fits
Speaker 1: and starts, I think. And I think we're just like
Speaker 1: all of us, whoever we are, whatever communities we come from,
Speaker 1: where contending with the society that tells us that the
Speaker 1: individual is more important than the collective, that says that
Speaker 1: going for mind is more important than making sure that
Speaker 1: we all get to benefit. And so we're all struggling
Speaker 1: to kind of really counter um that narrative in our
Speaker 1: variety of communities that we live and work in. Resting,
Speaker 1: I'm thinking about a set of statistics which remind us
Speaker 1: that just having a job is not enough. And you know,
Speaker 1: the roughly half of people in the United States who
Speaker 1: would not be able to afford a four or five emergency,
Speaker 1: don't have access to that cash. The number of multiple
Speaker 1: jobs people have but don't carry benefits the working poor
Speaker 1: broadly speaking, do you think that collective entrepreneurship, as you
Speaker 1: put it, do you think that cooperatives are in part
Speaker 1: and answer to the challenge and existence of a category
Speaker 1: of people known as the working poor in the United States. Absolutely.
Speaker 1: I think when people are empowered to make choices for
Speaker 1: themselves and for one another, they'll make better choices than
Speaker 1: somebody who's really just thinking about the bottom line for themselves.
Speaker 1: And I think this is what we are seeing in
Speaker 1: the worker co ops sector. We see a lot of
Speaker 1: who you're categorizing is the working poor, turn to this
Speaker 1: business model as a way to accumulate wealth, right to
Speaker 1: to say that I'm gonna work and create a business
Speaker 1: along with these other people, and we're going to do better.
Speaker 1: Like worker co op wages tend to be higher than
Speaker 1: traditional businesses, employees tend to have greater job satisfaction in
Speaker 1: that sector. Those businesses thrive and are able to kind
Speaker 1: of take the terms of economic difficulty better because of
Speaker 1: that democratic nature and shared decision making model. So the
Speaker 1: opportunities for wealth creation and and dignity right that comes
Speaker 1: with ownership, and there are aspects of that that can
Speaker 1: be reinvested in community. I think are are really compelling
Speaker 1: components of why this model could could do so much
Speaker 1: more with scalability. Yeah, given what we've been talking about,
Speaker 1: this cooperative business model in a different way of interacting
Speaker 1: with the economy, but also under the auspices of a
Speaker 1: show called How to Citizen Like, we're interested in people
Speaker 1: showing up in our democracy. What to you is the
Speaker 1: connection between a cooperatively run business or entity and the
Speaker 1: health of our democracy. This is where it gets really
Speaker 1: duty and where I think it comes back to that
Speaker 1: sense of lifestyle. For some folks, I think there's an
Speaker 1: opportunity to learn and practice democracy and co ops that
Speaker 1: we don't get in many other spaces. So for most
Speaker 1: of us in the United States, we think of democracy
Speaker 1: and we think of voting at the ballot box, and
Speaker 1: maybe that happens once a year and once every few years, etcetera.
Speaker 1: And that's our participation in democracy, or we think about
Speaker 1: it as political democracy and how we engage with our
Speaker 1: elected leaders. But there's also direct democracy that we could
Speaker 1: take experience in our neighborhoods and through our own civic
Speaker 1: engagement and practices, as we're thinking about how to participate
Speaker 1: as a citizen, as a neighbor, as a resident at home,
Speaker 1: and I think it gets deepened with the co op
Speaker 1: experience because people are learning how to listen right, people
Speaker 1: are learning how to collaborate, their learning how to make
Speaker 1: decisions together without power over one another, but power with
Speaker 1: one another or conceding power to others when that's appropriate
Speaker 1: as well. I think that these are practices that help
Speaker 1: build up the democracy muscle. Right When we find opportunities
Speaker 1: to plug into decision making, when we find opportunities to
Speaker 1: plug into organizing, these are practices of democracy. Whether we're
Speaker 1: we're organizing, you know, for political power, economic power, to
Speaker 1: to get basic needs met. This is the activity of democracy.
Speaker 1: And cooperatives provide opportunities to gain skills and doing some
Speaker 1: of at work. Whether you're an employee, you're a member
Speaker 1: owner who shows up to your membership meetings, you've got
Speaker 1: power in that place and and democracy is the pathway
Speaker 1: for practicing and utilizing that power. In co ops, that
Speaker 1: was extraordinary and the crowd goes wild woo co ops
Speaker 1: is where we can practice democracy, and we are in
Speaker 1: desperate need of more practice. Jamila, thank you so much
Speaker 1: for spending this time with me. Thank you for listening
Speaker 1: to me and letting me go on and on. Uh,
Speaker 1: it was my pleasure. When we started making this show,
Speaker 1: I knew one of the reasons was to expand the
Speaker 1: idea of what it meant to citizen as a verb,
Speaker 1: well beyond voting, that we could express our power, flex
Speaker 1: that power in all kinds of parts of our lives.
Speaker 1: And Jamila talking about co ops, Oh, that just brings
Speaker 1: it home, this idea of democracy in our economic relationships
Speaker 1: and the governing structure of our businesses and who they
Speaker 1: actually serve. I don't think she could have dropped the
Speaker 1: mike any harder than that. Plus there was a bonus
Speaker 1: Bible rap who knew who knew she had that in
Speaker 1: her and who knew the world of co ops didn't
Speaker 1: have to be so white. Next week, I'm speaking with
Speaker 1: someone who believes so much in investing in her local community.
Speaker 1: She advocates for just giving people money, no strings attached.
Speaker 1: You know, we call this show how to Citizen. So
Speaker 1: here's some of the how to parts from our producer Allen,
Speaker 1: how do you co op it? Just like Jamila experience
Speaker 1: growing up, cooperatives don't always have to be formal organizations.
Speaker 1: What are some informal ways you have participated in collective stewardship,
Speaker 1: Perhaps a community garden, local part cleanup, or maybe in church.
Speaker 1: Think about the ways you cooperate with your community, local
Speaker 1: and global. Next up, we've got some homework for you.
Speaker 1: Per Jamila's suggestions. Start with reading the book Collective Courage,
Speaker 1: a History of African American cooperative economic thought and practice,
Speaker 1: by Jessica Gordon Nemhard. Collective Courage chronicles Black cooperative business
Speaker 1: ownership and its placed in the Civil rights movement, a
Speaker 1: history that's often forgotten when discussing co ops. Purchase it
Speaker 1: from our online bookstore and support local bookshops in the process.
Speaker 1: Visit bookshop dot Org, Backslash Shop Backslash How to Citizen,
Speaker 1: And last, but not least, check out the co ops
Speaker 1: in your neck of the woods. You'd be surprised time
Speaker 1: many cooperatives are operating right around you. Look into either
Speaker 1: buying from a local farm or grocery co op, joining
Speaker 1: a local credit union which is a financial co op,
Speaker 1: or even consider getting your power from an electric co op.
Speaker 1: The best way to find them is to just do
Speaker 1: a quick online search with the name of your city
Speaker 1: or state and the word cooperative. You can find a
Speaker 1: directory of co ops around the country at us worker
Speaker 1: dot co op backslash directory. If you're take any of
Speaker 1: these actions, please brag about yourself online using the hashtag
Speaker 1: how to citizen and send us general feedback or ideas
Speaker 1: for the show to comments at how to citizen dot com.
Speaker 1: Speaking of that domain name, we have one and we're
Speaker 1: using it. Visit how to citizen dot com to sign
Speaker 1: up for our newsletter or learn about upcoming events or
Speaker 1: even more stuff than that. And if you like the show,
Speaker 1: spread the word tell somebody. If you don't, definitely just
Speaker 1: keep it to yourself. Appreciate you. How does Citizen with
Speaker 1: barrettune Day is a production of I Heart Radio Podcasts
Speaker 1: and Dust Like Productions. Our executive producers are Me, barrettun Day, Thurston,
Speaker 1: Elizabeth Stewart, and Misha Usa. Our producers are Stephanie Cone
Speaker 1: and Ali Kilton. Kelly Prime is our editor, Valentino Rivera
Speaker 1: is our engineer, and Sam Paulson is our apprentice. Original
Speaker 1: music by Andrew eapon. This episode was produced and sound
Speaker 1: designed by Ali Kilts. Special thanks to Joel Smith from
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio.