Speaker 1: Because we're trying to change the culture of democracy, changed
Speaker 1: the culture of citizen participation. People roll their eyes and
Speaker 1: grown when they think about like having to show up
Speaker 1: and vote, Like its election season again, right, and we
Speaker 1: wanted to change that. Welcome to How the Citizen with
Speaker 1: Baritune Day, a podcast that reimagined citizen as a verb,
Speaker 1: not a legal status. This season is all about how
Speaker 1: we practice democracy, what can we get rid of, what
Speaker 1: can we invent, and how do we change the culture
Speaker 1: of democracy itself. We're leaving the theoretical clouds and hitting
Speaker 1: the ground with inspiring examples of people and institutions that
Speaker 1: are showing us new ways to govern ourselves. The first
Speaker 1: time I remember really getting involved in electoral politics was
Speaker 1: as a resident of Somerville, Massachusetts. I had just graduated
Speaker 1: from college and this guy named Ivy Green was running
Speaker 1: for state Assembly. I liked what he was hoping to
Speaker 1: do an office, and one day he was outdoor knocking
Speaker 1: and asked me, would you join me in walking your neighborhood.
Speaker 1: Now I had been asked to canvas, I'd been asked
Speaker 1: to phone bank, I'd been asked to put stickers and
Speaker 1: signs in the windows for candidates. I had never been
Speaker 1: invited to campaign with them, so I said yes. Going
Speaker 1: door to door with him. It felt like running for
Speaker 1: office without all the responsibility of actually being the candidate,
Speaker 1: and it made me see my neighborhood differently. I learned
Speaker 1: more about how people on my block experienced our city
Speaker 1: and what and who they cared about. And I also
Speaker 1: learned that I was living down the street from a
Speaker 1: literal Confederate flag waving Nazi. Trust me, we walked away
Speaker 1: from that house real quick. But despite that ugliness, what
Speaker 1: stuck with me twenty years later is A's invitation, the
Speaker 1: invitation for me to get to know my neighbors and
Speaker 1: to get a sense of the issues and realities that
Speaker 1: influence how each of us vote. If we do at
Speaker 1: all to build a healthier culture of democracy, we need
Speaker 1: to address our collective role in deciding who operates it. Specifically,
Speaker 1: we've got to talk about how it feels to vote.
Speaker 1: I'll say it. The culture of voting is trash. It's
Speaker 1: text messages from unknown numbers, people begging you for money.
Speaker 1: It's folks selling your email address. I mean, come on,
Speaker 1: it's people only showing up when they want something from you,
Speaker 1: and never offering something in return, or if they do us,
Speaker 1: not being able to trust that they'll follow through once
Speaker 1: they're in office. And I could go on, because there's
Speaker 1: a lot about voting in this country that feels bad,
Speaker 1: But there's opportunity here too. We can create a culture
Speaker 1: around voting that's inspired, one that highlights these pillars of
Speaker 1: citizening as a verb, showing up and participating, investing in relationships,
Speaker 1: understanding power, and valuing the collective. And I know it's
Speaker 1: possible because there are people already building it. Voting rights
Speaker 1: organizer and strategist in say Oufat is one of those people.
Speaker 1: In our first two episodes of this season, Adrian Marie
Speaker 1: Brown and John Alexander emphasized joy as necessary to infuse
Speaker 1: into our practice and democracy, especially the practices that feel
Speaker 1: like work. Well, what could feel more like work than voting?
Speaker 1: For eight years, Insay served as the CEO of the
Speaker 1: New Georgia Project in GP. This is a non partisan
Speaker 1: organization founded by Stacy Abrams. Now Abrams you might remember
Speaker 1: the former minority leader of the Georgia State Senate and
Speaker 1: two time candidate for the Governor of Georgia, or you
Speaker 1: might remember her as the most famous Star Trek fan
Speaker 1: you've ever heard of. Either way, n GP is dedicated
Speaker 1: to registering and engaging the growing majority of people of
Speaker 1: color and young people all across the state. For the
Speaker 1: better part of the last decade, in Say worked tirelessly
Speaker 1: to build this New Georgia, engaging and registering hundreds of
Speaker 1: thousands of eligible voters, and in twenty twenty, her mobilization
Speaker 1: efforts helped turn Georgia blue for the first time since
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety two. I had to figure out how she
Speaker 1: did it, so I spoke with her via zoom and
Speaker 1: while we were talking, a get out the Vote volunteer
Speaker 1: from the New Georgia Project knocked on one of our
Speaker 1: live audience members doors. I'm not kidding you. Gotta stick
Speaker 1: around for that magic moment after the break in Say
Speaker 1: Oofat on what it takes to build a better, more welcoming,
Speaker 1: and fun voting culture. Our guest today is the former
Speaker 1: CEO of the New Georgia Project Action Fund and the
Speaker 1: New Georgia Project, which he describes as a statewide, multi racial,
Speaker 1: multi ethnic, cross class, intergenerational movement that is breathing, inspiring,
Speaker 1: and organizing a New Georgia and a New South into existence,
Speaker 1: who welcome voting rights organizers, strategist and all around badass
Speaker 1: and say oofat what's up and say hello Barrens today,
Speaker 1: I'm so excited to be here. I'm excited too, Thank
Speaker 1: you so much for being here with me. Now, the
Speaker 1: premise of our show is that citizen is a verb,
Speaker 1: not a sort of immigration legalistic now, but it's a
Speaker 1: verb in that there's many ways for all of us
Speaker 1: to shape our communities. And we tend to stress that
Speaker 1: this goes beyond voting, especially because so many people legally can.
Speaker 1: But most of us know you because of your almost
Speaker 1: singular focus on voting. So can you tell me what
Speaker 1: does voting mean to you in the context of ensuring
Speaker 1: that we actually practice this thing called democracy and self governance? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I would be if I'm going to be
Speaker 1: a great parents with you in your audience. Voting is
Speaker 1: a tactic. Right. We are at our core a power
Speaker 1: building organization, right, And when we think about power and
Speaker 1: the working definition in this sort of Georgia context, the
Speaker 1: New Georgia Project context is the ability to stop bad
Speaker 1: things from happening, but also ability to sort of shape
Speaker 1: the world, shape the policy environment, shape laws, shape the
Speaker 1: context in which we are living and loving and learning
Speaker 1: and raising ourselves and our families. And so who has
Speaker 1: power who doesn't, Who makes decisions for our communities, Who
Speaker 1: decides where my money is right and how much of
Speaker 1: my money is being taken out. I used to be
Speaker 1: a union rep long long time ago and a union lawyer,
Speaker 1: and one of the unions I worked for was asked
Speaker 1: me the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.
Speaker 1: So I represented the lunch ladies and custodio staff in
Speaker 1: public schools, and people would often be like, well, what's
Speaker 1: asked me? This tax that I'm paying? Right? And so
Speaker 1: again the people taking money out of our checks, and
Speaker 1: you have no idea what they are for. They are
Speaker 1: decisions that are made, wars that are being fought, Climate
Speaker 1: science as being ignored in our name, and so voting
Speaker 1: gives us the ability to hire and fire these people
Speaker 1: who are making decisions about the city, the county, the
Speaker 1: country that we live in. And as an employer, I
Speaker 1: take that responsibility very seriously, and as a citizen, I
Speaker 1: take that responsibility very seriously. And so do I think
Speaker 1: it's a magic bullet. No, there are people who we
Speaker 1: organize with. There are family members that we contemplate when
Speaker 1: we think about the America that we want to live
Speaker 1: in that don't have the ability to vote. Right, But
Speaker 1: the under eighteen right, the currently or formally incarcerated, the
Speaker 1: new Americans or people who have yet to become citizens
Speaker 1: are a part of our communities, are a part of
Speaker 1: our decision making. And so again, voting is but one
Speaker 1: tactic in our overall quest to build power, to build
Speaker 1: powerful communities where we make decisions that are in the
Speaker 1: best interest of the whole tactic. Yes, seeing ourselves as
Speaker 1: employers much more empowering perspective on what voting actually is
Speaker 1: hiring and firing. So thank you for that. And especially
Speaker 1: when you actually meet these jokers. Can you have a
Speaker 1: meta state legislator like exactly? And I think what comes
Speaker 1: across already and say, and I've seen you on a
Speaker 1: thousand zooms and I've met you in person at least once.
Speaker 1: Your vibe, your energy, your smile. Even if someone listening
Speaker 1: to this can't see you, I think they can feel
Speaker 1: and hear it, and it helps that message go down.
Speaker 1: So let's keep that good energy going, you know, m GP.
Speaker 1: By our research registered, over six hundred thousand people registered
Speaker 1: to vote, and I want some context, said, you don't
Speaker 1: have to spend a lot of time on this, but
Speaker 1: just the origins of New Georgia Project and your origin
Speaker 1: story within the organization. What are those two tales. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so there's a woman in Georgia. Her name is Stacy
Speaker 1: Abram oh from Star Trek. Yeah. Absolutely, you might know
Speaker 1: from Star Trek. I know her from being best friends
Speaker 1: with Common and Kerry Washington. Right. Stacy Abrams was the
Speaker 1: minority leader of the Georgia State Legislature at the time.
Speaker 1: We were introduced by a dear, dear, dear friend, a
Speaker 1: mutual friend who was working with a Georgia Democratic Party.
Speaker 1: I'm living in Canada at the time. I'm living in Ottawa.
Speaker 1: You got out, I did keep bringing back in. Okay,
Speaker 1: It's so funny because you are the King of the
Speaker 1: Nurse and so you have been around interneting for quite
Speaker 1: some time, and I know that you're familiar with the
Speaker 1: threat that when things didn't go well, people would always
Speaker 1: threaten to move to Canada. I actually did it and
Speaker 1: was living and working and organizing in Ottawa for a
Speaker 1: number of years. A very good friend came to visit
Speaker 1: me and said, are you coming home for the holidays?
Speaker 1: Are you coming home for Christmas? Like you've met Mama Ufat.
Speaker 1: Of course I'm coming home for Rusus. That's really not
Speaker 1: an option. And she says, well, I would love to
Speaker 1: introduce you to a state legislator. And I was such
Speaker 1: a jerk at the time. I was like, I'm really
Speaker 1: just coming to Atlanta to hang out and do irresponsible
Speaker 1: things with my college friends. And She's like, but you
Speaker 1: should have brunch and I was like, well, that's a
Speaker 1: favorite pastime of mine, so of course you should have
Speaker 1: led with that. So I have brunch with Stacy. On
Speaker 1: New Year's Day twenty fourteen, she lays out this really
Speaker 1: powerful vision of the New Georgia project. At the time,
Speaker 1: there were one point two million African Americans, Latinos, and
Speaker 1: unmarried white women in the state of Georgia who were
Speaker 1: eligible to vote and completely unregistered. Why that number mattered
Speaker 1: is that also at the same time, the successful Republican
Speaker 1: was beating the losing Democrat over and over and over
Speaker 1: again a decade by a margin between two hundred and
Speaker 1: three hundred thousand votes. So there were five times the
Speaker 1: number of people of color, young folks, and unmarried women.
Speaker 1: Then what was necessary to swing any election in Georgia, period,
Speaker 1: full stop. But they weren't even eligible to participate because
Speaker 1: they weren't registered to vote. And there are a lot
Speaker 1: of organizations and leaders who were claiming that that was
Speaker 1: their work, but nobody was doing this work at scale,
Speaker 1: nobody was being really intentional about it, and people didn't
Speaker 1: understand why folks kept falling off the voter rolls. So
Speaker 1: she says, yes, let's register a million black people to vote.
Speaker 1: And I was like, oh, that's adorable, and I gave
Speaker 1: her like thirty reasons why it would not work. I
Speaker 1: grew up in the Georgia Democratic Party, grew up in Atlanta,
Speaker 1: have dealt with the Georgia Democratic Party of the eighties
Speaker 1: and nineties. The Dixiecrats baratun Day here with a quick
Speaker 1: explainer tunday for those who haven't heard the term or
Speaker 1: don't understand the term. Dixiecrats refers to Southerners who seceded
Speaker 1: from the Democratic Party in nineteen forty eight. They were
Speaker 1: against the party ending racial segregation and extending civil rights
Speaker 1: to black Americans. Thousands of Confederate flag waiving X Democrats
Speaker 1: formed a right wing splinter group called the States Rights
Speaker 1: Democratic Party. This group pushed a white supremacist, segregationist agenda
Speaker 1: and even ran a candidate in the nineteen forty eight
Speaker 1: presidential election. While this failed third party officially dissolved that
Speaker 1: same year, the Dixiecrats influence on the Democratic Party, especially
Speaker 1: in the South, has been lasting all right back to
Speaker 1: Insa now with the Georgia Democratic Party of the eighties
Speaker 1: and nineties. The Dixiecrats the sort of small c conservative
Speaker 1: approach to building power, the gentleman's agreements between the Democratic
Speaker 1: leaders and the Republican leaders that spoke to the needs
Speaker 1: and priorities of a business class, and the elite fictions
Speaker 1: and narratives about Atlanta being the city too busy to
Speaker 1: hate while also being the city in the country with
Speaker 1: like the worst income equality, particularly racial income in equality.
Speaker 1: So like, there's these narratives that are like really really
Speaker 1: difficult to challenge, and a status quo and way to
Speaker 1: do Southern politics and a way to do black politics.
Speaker 1: So I hit her with all of that, and if
Speaker 1: you know, Stacy, she had like thirty five reasons why
Speaker 1: this absolutely could work. So we go back and forth,
Speaker 1: we're doing back up the napkin math. I'm like, this
Speaker 1: lady is brilliant but also delusional. Also, you're doing math
Speaker 1: at brunch, which is not my idea of a great pleasure,
Speaker 1: right listen, and our blurred status is certified. So we
Speaker 1: have brunch, we go our separate ways. I get back
Speaker 1: on a plane and I got back to Canada and
Speaker 1: I was like, that was nice. And then a couple
Speaker 1: of months later, she calls me and she says it's time.
Speaker 1: It's time to come home. There's music and it's like
Speaker 1: a Wakonda esque vibe to it. It is time, my child,
Speaker 1: It's time. I was ready. I packed up my truck
Speaker 1: and drove twenty four hours from Ottawa back to my
Speaker 1: childhood bedroom in Atlanta. Wow. And started as the executive director,
Speaker 1: eventually becoming the CEO of the New Georgia Project. Literally
Speaker 1: like the next day, it's a dramatic move back. And
Speaker 1: in the twenty four hour drive what pulled you? Was
Speaker 1: it the pangs of nostalgia? Was it Stacy's math plus charisma?
Speaker 1: Was the healthcare in Canada not all it was cracked
Speaker 1: up to be. No healthcare in Canada was amazing and
Speaker 1: I was trying to get my whole family to move
Speaker 1: with me. But you know what it was. So I'm
Speaker 1: I was born in Nigeria and emigrated to the US
Speaker 1: with my family when I was a young wom when
Speaker 1: I was in elementary school, Okay, And you know, I
Speaker 1: became a US citizen with my mom in high school,
Speaker 1: and my mom got a third job so that she
Speaker 1: could hire an immigration attorney. And I was responsible for
Speaker 1: making sure that we passed the citizenship exam, and having
Speaker 1: studied the Constitution, studied this country's foundational documents, swore an
Speaker 1: oath of allegiance. I'm a patriot. I love this country.
Speaker 1: I am a radical, feminist, mouthy African working class kid
Speaker 1: who grew up in the Deep South. Yeah. The vulnerability
Speaker 1: that I sort of exist with, I think would have
Speaker 1: put me. I would have been in jail if I
Speaker 1: were in Nigeria. With my commitment to free speech, my
Speaker 1: commitment to challenging the status quo, there are very few
Speaker 1: countries in the world where you can challenge leadership, challenge power,
Speaker 1: challenge the government and still live to tell the story
Speaker 1: about it. As we're seeing, you know, in Iran, in
Speaker 1: China and another country by the time someone hears this. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and so when I think about the opportunity to come
Speaker 1: back home right that what I've known for a really
Speaker 1: long time is that Georgia wasn't a red state. George
Speaker 1: isn't dominated by the GOP naturally, when you pull all
Speaker 1: of its citizens, that there were one point two one
Speaker 1: point three million people of color who were foreclosed and
Speaker 1: not participating in the process at all. Why aren't people
Speaker 1: voting when they get registered, Why aren't they making it
Speaker 1: onto the voter rules. Why do people go and vote
Speaker 1: for president and then there's such a drop off on
Speaker 1: the bottom of the ballot. What's happening with these elections
Speaker 1: in Georgia and the opportunity to take my background and
Speaker 1: marry and leverage technology with culture to have a more
Speaker 1: representative democracy and contest for power in my home state.
Speaker 1: Let me only jump in here because it's almost like
Speaker 1: you're adding resolution to a simplistic picture most of us
Speaker 1: have been presented with. And so we see, especially from
Speaker 1: the outside and not the South at all, Georgia read
Speaker 1: Georgia Republican, Georgia racist and people who vote for president
Speaker 1: and don't vote locally was because they don't care you
Speaker 1: know that we just have a very generally simplestic, generally
Speaker 1: binary and so you're coming in with this mathematical, technological,
Speaker 1: but also cultural approach and you're helping people get in
Speaker 1: the game. One of the ways that has stood out
Speaker 1: to me about your work is not just vaguely registering voters,
Speaker 1: as you said, a lot of people claim to be
Speaker 1: doing that, some actually do. But then you have this
Speaker 1: concept of super voters, and you wanted to create supervoters,
Speaker 1: which sounds like some sort of magical serum that you
Speaker 1: take and then your vote counts for three times as much.
Speaker 1: But what is a supervoter? So the way I have
Speaker 1: defined supervoters are people who vote in every election in
Speaker 1: which they're eligible. And you know who are supervoters are
Speaker 1: grandparents are supervoters. So senior citizens are super voters. Many
Speaker 1: black women, African American women in this country are supervoters.
Speaker 1: If there's a ballot measure, there's a special election, there's
Speaker 1: a runoff, is a primary. These are super voters every
Speaker 1: election in which they're eligible. And so we set off
Speaker 1: to study and understand what is it that black women
Speaker 1: know that despite the challenges of racism and sexism and
Speaker 1: classism and how they intersect in this country. They still
Speaker 1: show up and vote, and they vote in every election.
Speaker 1: Right despite the limitations of you know, our elections and
Speaker 1: voting not being a silver bullet, they still show up
Speaker 1: and do it. What do our grandparents know that has
Speaker 1: them showing up and voting in every election? And what
Speaker 1: can we take from that knowing and in part to
Speaker 1: new Americans and to folks as they turn eighteen and
Speaker 1: start wrestling with how they want to make change in
Speaker 1: their lives. So you've also said that super voters are made,
Speaker 1: not born there as how do you make a supervoter
Speaker 1: into You make a super voted by understanding what they
Speaker 1: care about? Right, And so the way that we train
Speaker 1: our organizers is that you have twice as many years
Speaker 1: as you do out and you black Grandma said to me,
Speaker 1: what do you think I got it from? Its very
Speaker 1: clear and so we should be listening. Yeah, And here's
Speaker 1: the thing. People will tell you what their hopes are,
Speaker 1: what their fears are for themselves, for their families, for
Speaker 1: their communities. They will tell you what their ambitions are.
Speaker 1: And people don't often connect the dots between policy politics
Speaker 1: and their personal priorities. The things that they actually care about.
Speaker 1: So you say you're a climate change voter, right, Jeff
Speaker 1: Bezos is not inviting you to travel to the moon.
Speaker 1: Elon Musk is not inviting you to participate in intergalactic
Speaker 1: space travel. There's no Earth to right, And so you
Speaker 1: are deeply concerned about the water that we drink, the
Speaker 1: air that we breathe, and making sure that there is
Speaker 1: a world for future generations to live in. And so yes, like,
Speaker 1: please continue to protest, please continue to write letters, please
Speaker 1: conceive the recycle, and do all of the things that
Speaker 1: you're doing in your personal life. But also, what if
Speaker 1: I told you that Public Service Commissioner is an elected
Speaker 1: official in Georgia that sets energy rates, that sets energy
Speaker 1: policy for the state of Georgia. What if I told
Speaker 1: you that there haven't been any nuclear power plants built
Speaker 1: anywhere in the US in thirty years, and they're two
Speaker 1: being built in Georgia. What if I told you that
Speaker 1: if you're a Georgia power customer that you're paying for it, right,
Speaker 1: that you can actually do something about it. And so
Speaker 1: we start by having meaningful conversations with people about the
Speaker 1: things that they told us that they care about. And
Speaker 1: then you connect that to the power of the vote.
Speaker 1: But why it's effective is because it goes to the
Speaker 1: heart of what someone already cares for, what they already
Speaker 1: going to protest for, what they already give their money to,
Speaker 1: how they already see the world. So you're closing this gap.
Speaker 1: People are already being active in their community. You're trying
Speaker 1: to add voting to the list. There's been such a
Speaker 1: level of poisoning of the collective mindset around the effectiveness
Speaker 1: of voting that I know so many people who care
Speaker 1: super passionately about this, that, and the other, and equally
Speaker 1: dispassionately about voting because they don't think it matters. How
Speaker 1: are you able to overcome the disinformation techniques that deny
Speaker 1: people knowledge of the power of their vote or their
Speaker 1: well earned pessimism that after having voted a few times
Speaker 1: they haven't seen the change that was promised. So how
Speaker 1: do you continue to close that gap in the face
Speaker 1: of those two counter messages that voting doesn't really matter.
Speaker 1: So there's a philosopher, a Mailcar cabravs as we never
Speaker 1: lied to the people, right, And so I think that
Speaker 1: one of the sort of knee jerk reactions and the
Speaker 1: instincts is to overstate the importance of voting as a
Speaker 1: way to combat against this information. And when you elect
Speaker 1: a Barack Obama and black unemployment is still at historic
Speaker 1: levels in the Deep South, then you have to go
Speaker 1: back to those people and be like, I know you
Speaker 1: voted because we said that this person would change things,
Speaker 1: but you know the system is limited, etc. You know
Speaker 1: that he's president, he's not king. And then he starts
Speaker 1: talking to folks about federalism and checks and balances and
Speaker 1: you know the role of the administrative branch versus the
Speaker 1: judicial branch, etc. Leading with what does it take to
Speaker 1: bring about the change? Elections aren't the event, right, and
Speaker 1: so elections are opportunities to test our power and flex
Speaker 1: our power on the way to getting wages that Georgians want, right,
Speaker 1: And so again it is not about the election itself.
Speaker 1: I mean they are events on a campaign timeline where
Speaker 1: the campaign goal is to live a better life. Right,
Speaker 1: is to have the things that we need in order
Speaker 1: to live the life that we deserve to live in
Speaker 1: the communities, the cities, the counties, the states that our
Speaker 1: families deserve to live in. I think that that's why,
Speaker 1: you know, when we focus on polling, and when we
Speaker 1: focus on the horse race, and when there's so much
Speaker 1: obsession about the elections themselves that we're actually doing democracy like,
Speaker 1: we're doing harm to democracy, to the democratic process, and
Speaker 1: to people's understanding about what is actually important. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: I'm glad that you named polling, which often acts as
Speaker 1: a sort of election event pre emptor. Right, if you
Speaker 1: tell me what's going to happen, you ensure that I
Speaker 1: don't have an ability to affect what happens because I've
Speaker 1: already assumed that it's going to happen the way you
Speaker 1: told me. So it can be a subtle way of
Speaker 1: draining people's power. You've been successful at registration, at getting
Speaker 1: people to the polls. I've seen y'all got music, you
Speaker 1: got events, you got good food, you know where it's allowed,
Speaker 1: and using apps in technology, all good things. And I
Speaker 1: think you also have articulated even here that the election
Speaker 1: is a kind of a milestone on a journey. So
Speaker 1: there's work to be done in between these, right, not
Speaker 1: just showing up the week before election day at a
Speaker 1: church with some barbecue. From a results perspective, though, because
Speaker 1: y'all have the benefit and the curse in GP, I
Speaker 1: should say had the benefit and the curse of fame.
Speaker 1: You know, I joked about Stacey Abrams in Star Trek,
Speaker 1: and I think from the outside people will look in
Speaker 1: and say, Stacey Abrams ain't the governor. And Raphael Warnock
Speaker 1: had to face a runoff with an out of state
Speaker 1: football player who consistently cannot weave the correct words together,
Speaker 1: so ergo. Therefore in GP is a failure, Like how
Speaker 1: do you assess the results and consider success or failure
Speaker 1: across these events? Over time, we in this country and
Speaker 1: in our culture love a superhero and a messiahaire. Right,
Speaker 1: And so when we think about Stacy Abrahams and her
Speaker 1: quest to become governor of Georgia, her quest to become
Speaker 1: America's first black woman governor, that it's focused on her narrative. Right,
Speaker 1: when you think about Senator Warnock and like the idea
Speaker 1: that you know he is the pastor of America's civil
Speaker 1: rights church, that there was mer Luther King Jr. Two
Speaker 1: other dudes and then Warnock right to command that pulpit.
Speaker 1: That we focus on them and they are like heroic journey.
Speaker 1: But actually the Georgia's story is the story about people
Speaker 1: doing what they can when they can with what they have,
Speaker 1: that people are showing up to vote in numbers as
Speaker 1: well as protesting, as well as community organizing and power building, etc.
Speaker 1: And so what I will say is that we have
Speaker 1: built infrastructure that is designed to push back against the
Speaker 1: worst instincts of authoritarian leaders, and that is designed to win,
Speaker 1: like actual wins for working people, for working families, and
Speaker 1: then defend those wins beyond one election cycle. We elected
Speaker 1: a thirty three year old Jewish kid from the North
Speaker 1: Atlanta suburbs and Reverend Warnock from Ebenezer Baptist Church to
Speaker 1: the United States Senate right, and then immediately afterwards, because
Speaker 1: there is a near supermajority in the Georgia state legislature,
Speaker 1: they passed Senate Bill two O two, which changed Georgia's
Speaker 1: election laws to make it more difficult for Georgians to vote.
Speaker 1: After we elected us off in Warnock, and that could
Speaker 1: have been the end of the sort of battleground Georgia project.
Speaker 1: But we've been able to hold the line, hundreds of
Speaker 1: thousands of phone calls, millions of quality face to face
Speaker 1: conversations letting Georgians know what's up, creating opportunities for them
Speaker 1: to get involved in their local community. That is a wine.
Speaker 1: That is the thing that's going to keep our voices
Speaker 1: active and in the process, that's going to keep people
Speaker 1: informed and educated over the long haul. And so it's
Speaker 1: not just electoral results that determine our success. It's the
Speaker 1: infrastructure that we've built and the ability to create pathways
Speaker 1: for people to citizen as a regular part of how
Speaker 1: we build the world that we want to live in.
Speaker 1: Boom boom, boom boom. So yes, and using citizen as
Speaker 1: a verb, you're clearly one of us. I am one
Speaker 1: of you. I hinted at this before, but I want
Speaker 1: to make a clearer point of it. I love the
Speaker 1: level of fun and play and sort of sophistication to
Speaker 1: the strategy. You made a video game, you know, you
Speaker 1: turn longlines to vote into block parties, like you take
Speaker 1: what should be considered a weakness and turn it into
Speaker 1: an opportunity and potentially your strength. You got marching bands, yes,
Speaker 1: and Mariachi van mariachis supwalkers, strippers, food trucks. So this
Speaker 1: is culture to the max. It's it's a sophisticated use
Speaker 1: of technology. Why was it important to incorporate these into
Speaker 1: the work because we're trying to change the culture of democracy,
Speaker 1: change the culture of citizen participation. People roll their eyes
Speaker 1: and grown when they think about like having to show
Speaker 1: up and vote, like, oh, it's election season again, right,
Speaker 1: and we wanted to change that, and how else do
Speaker 1: you change culture? But working with culture workers, Right, So,
Speaker 1: I don't know how much your audience knows about Atlanta
Speaker 1: and Atlanta nightlife, but nightlife is a big part of
Speaker 1: youth culture in Atlanta, and so adults entertainment dance. They're
Speaker 1: strippers with like two million followers on Instagram who can
Speaker 1: get out get out the vote message. So if I'm
Speaker 1: trying to target young for example, African American men, I mean,
Speaker 1: I can put up this really well research get out
Speaker 1: the vote message direct to camera, and I'm earnest. I
Speaker 1: mean what I say and I care, and my thirteen
Speaker 1: hundred followers would be like right on and say it
Speaker 1: well stated. But then like, you know miss Cherry and
Speaker 1: her two million followers, and she cares because she's an entrepreneur, yes, right,
Speaker 1: and a citizen. So working with culture workers to help
Speaker 1: us change the culture of democratic participation felt like a
Speaker 1: really important tactic. When I think about music and songs
Speaker 1: when the video games, I mean, we had registered at
Speaker 1: the time half a million young people and people of
Speaker 1: color to vote, and as a part of our work,
Speaker 1: we get their permission and their consent to get their
Speaker 1: phone numbers. So we got half a million phone numbers.
Speaker 1: And so why not take a candy crush or like
Speaker 1: a super popular Match three puzzle game that's sort of
Speaker 1: easy to code, rap it in some Georgia iconography. So
Speaker 1: let's throw some peaches, some peanuts, the Varsity, the Georgia Bulldog,
Speaker 1: and then put it in people's phones that you can
Speaker 1: mindlessly scroll. And then we can do push notifications when
Speaker 1: the voter registration deadline is on its way up, and
Speaker 1: we can ask people for permission to turn on their
Speaker 1: location when they go vote, so that we can know
Speaker 1: where there are long lines at the polls and deploy
Speaker 1: resources if necessary. This speaks to me and I think
Speaker 1: when we were backstage at this event in New York
Speaker 1: where we met in person, the Blurred Fest, because you're
Speaker 1: you're taking this geek culture, this tech culture, but again
Speaker 1: joy fun play to change the culture of democracy, or
Speaker 1: at least the culture of how we practice it. And
Speaker 1: that is that is just a much better on ramp
Speaker 1: than pure facts, well reasoned persuade of arguments, and also
Speaker 1: the alternative which many of us have experienced with, which
Speaker 1: is fear, which is threats. I could show you, but
Speaker 1: I don't need to my inbox from the Democratic Party,
Speaker 1: primarily my text messages, the amount of folks I've had
Speaker 1: to report and block for terrifying me into giving three
Speaker 1: dollars to somebody who I don't know how they got
Speaker 1: my number. I didn't consent to that. It's such an
Speaker 1: opposite approach and it literally turns me off from democracy practice.
Speaker 1: And I host a show called How to Citizen. So
Speaker 1: can you I guess this is a long way of saying,
Speaker 1: can you take over messaging for the whole Democratic Party?
Speaker 1: I'll give you my number. You could text me anytime.
Speaker 1: I think the challenges that it works, right, So like
Speaker 1: Fox News is really not a news organization at all,
Speaker 1: it's a propaganda machine. But they're super effective because fear
Speaker 1: is a powerful motivator. Anger is a powerful motivated The
Speaker 1: problem is that it is not sustainable that people burn
Speaker 1: out and tune out, right, and so that is why
Speaker 1: they send so many emails. Because you've sufficiently scared someone
Speaker 1: and like, give me five dollars now, or the world
Speaker 1: is going to blow up and Trump's going to be
Speaker 1: president again. It works a couple of times until it doesn't,
Speaker 1: and then you got to burn through more citizens, you
Speaker 1: got to burn through more donors. You have to ratchet
Speaker 1: up the rhetoric in order to maintain the same level
Speaker 1: of impact. And it's a cheap drug. It is a
Speaker 1: cheap drug, and what I'm proposing is much more sustainable.
Speaker 1: I say that joy is a renewable resource that we
Speaker 1: can continue to tap back into. That people want to
Speaker 1: come and hang out with us, they want to come
Speaker 1: and volunteer with us, they want to come and donate
Speaker 1: to our efforts because there's a nine foot person walking
Speaker 1: around and like singing show tunes, keeping voters entertained and
Speaker 1: keeping people's spirits high. And you can continue to go
Speaker 1: back to that well. The Second Line Band, the New
Speaker 1: Orleans Natives who live in Georgia now, who came in
Speaker 1: volunteer for us. They loved what they did, and people
Speaker 1: were super grateful and they got new clients from it.
Speaker 1: And so when it came time to go back to
Speaker 1: the well, they were eager and made recommendations right that
Speaker 1: did Miss Cherry get new clients as well? Miss Cherry
Speaker 1: definitely got new followers, and I think that her existing
Speaker 1: customers and we're like, oh, she understands politics too, and
Speaker 1: she gets work. What I'm saying after the break and
Speaker 1: say on what it takes to motivate people to vote
Speaker 1: for what they loved, not just against what they hate.
Speaker 1: What would you say The greatest challenge facing our electoral
Speaker 1: system is, Mmm, there's so many. I'm trying to choose one.
Speaker 1: The insane amount of money that flows through our elections, um,
Speaker 1: the way that wealthy individuals, high net worth individuals, incorporations
Speaker 1: have their thumb on the scale, the way that they
Speaker 1: have elected officials in a chokehold, has made it really,
Speaker 1: really difficult to make progress on the policy priorities that
Speaker 1: Americans actually care about. There was a whole insurrection barrassing day,
Speaker 1: Why are you bringing up a stuff? There was a
Speaker 1: whole cool attempt right and there was a failed murder
Speaker 1: plot to kill the Vice President of the United States,
Speaker 1: and the Speaker of the House tried to steal the
Speaker 1: electoral They identified alternative electors who were on standby, ready
Speaker 1: to supplant the will of the people for their own
Speaker 1: and for a moment, corporations were shamed. A moment they
Speaker 1: all refused to make any pack or corporate contributors, right right,
Speaker 1: that was that was an inspiring seventy two hours, and
Speaker 1: they said, we're not giving money to anyone who voted
Speaker 1: against the electoral college vote, anybody who denied the results
Speaker 1: of the elections. They don't mean us well, they are
Speaker 1: a threat to our country or a threat to democracy,
Speaker 1: We're not going to give them money. And then quietly,
Speaker 1: as we prepared for the twenty two mid terms, they
Speaker 1: turned this bigot back on right and they started giving
Speaker 1: to both sides as if they were equal. They started
Speaker 1: to equivocate. They started to justify, you know, giving money
Speaker 1: to these election deniers. And so, yeah, I think that
Speaker 1: the money as speech, corporations as citizens are one of
Speaker 1: the biggest threats to our democracy, to our election system,
Speaker 1: and no one is interested in unilatterally disarming. So the
Speaker 1: Republicans are not gonna say I'm gonna stop taking corporate money,
Speaker 1: and for the most part, most Democrats won't say, I mean,
Speaker 1: you have some anomalies like Senator Sanders and AOC and
Speaker 1: others who are principled in this particular way, right, but
Speaker 1: no one is interested in unilatterally disarming. Maybe I want
Speaker 1: to see it as an interim. We're kind of between worlds,
Speaker 1: because even we were having a joyful conversation, you and
Speaker 1: I until I ask you about the biggest threat, right,
Speaker 1: and then it was like oh snap, like bubble burst,
Speaker 1: the funding of pro insurrectionists people. And so we see
Speaker 1: a path of twerking the vote and second lining the
Speaker 1: vote and crushing the on our phone and meeting people
Speaker 1: where they are and listening. And then we see fear
Speaker 1: and the cheap drug which still gets you high but
Speaker 1: also kills you know and can kill the body. Politic
Speaker 1: absolutely the way out other than the joy part, which
Speaker 1: you've been so good at talking about. Part of the strategy,
Speaker 1: and what you wrote in your farewell letter is about love,
Speaker 1: and so I want to know this is let me
Speaker 1: just share a little bit of what you said, and
Speaker 1: our work fighting for justice and a new future, love
Speaker 1: can easily get overshadowed by all the things working against it.
Speaker 1: And then you go on to quote Bell Hooks, the
Speaker 1: late black feminist writer. I move with and from a
Speaker 1: love ethic which has guided me, fortified me, and provided
Speaker 1: the load bearing beams that support all that we have built.
Speaker 1: So what do you mean by the love ethic? How
Speaker 1: do we citizen more with love to ensure that the
Speaker 1: forces of love and fun and joy defeat the forces
Speaker 1: of fear and that cheap and unsustainable drug. So it's
Speaker 1: a practice, right. I am so good at telling people
Speaker 1: about all the things that I hate, Right. I tell
Speaker 1: the movies that I hate, the music that I hate,
Speaker 1: the people that I based, and it's at the forefront
Speaker 1: of my cerebral cortexes and my fingertips. It rolls off
Speaker 1: my tongue, right. But when you ask people about what
Speaker 1: they love, right, what they love, what they care deeply about,
Speaker 1: like sometimes it takes folks a minute. I think that
Speaker 1: people are really precious about it. They're really protective about it.
Speaker 1: That people will go to the ends of the earth
Speaker 1: for the ones that they love and the things that
Speaker 1: they love. You've seen the mom lift a car off
Speaker 1: of a toddler, right because of the love that they
Speaker 1: have for that young person. And so focusing on who
Speaker 1: I love, what I love, and what I want for them,
Speaker 1: what I want for us is the load bearing being.
Speaker 1: What I'm building my campaigns on what I'm building my life.
Speaker 1: It was build my career on like who do you
Speaker 1: love and what kind of world do you want for them?
Speaker 1: What kind of country do you want for them? And
Speaker 1: I think that that is what I mean by the
Speaker 1: love ethic, that it is infused in our communications. It's
Speaker 1: infused in our campaign design, who we hire, who we
Speaker 1: partner with, the vendors that we use, like do you
Speaker 1: share our values? Do you share our analysis? Are you fighting?
Speaker 1: I mean it even comes down to like real estate
Speaker 1: choices that we've made, like we've moved offices because found
Speaker 1: out that like the show company that actually is our
Speaker 1: landlord is also like connected to somebody that we're actively
Speaker 1: campaigning and organizing against because they're anti worker or you know,
Speaker 1: they're spending money against the union organizing campaign. And so
Speaker 1: thinking about again who we love, what's important to us,
Speaker 1: what matters, and using that as a lens to make
Speaker 1: decisions and a lens to see the world at the
Speaker 1: very obvious risk of playing into puns. I love this
Speaker 1: part of our conversation and say, yeah, a lot of
Speaker 1: things come together, and I think the the extra step,
Speaker 1: the infusion piece, the lens piece that it's not just
Speaker 1: in who you hire, it's how you employ, it's where
Speaker 1: you put your real estate money, it's how you message
Speaker 1: that if that fuel source can power everything, then it
Speaker 1: can change everything. So that's that's great. What are you
Speaker 1: bringing your love and your love ethic to next? And say,
Speaker 1: I hear you might be writing a book. I am.
Speaker 1: I really wish that like technology advanced to the place
Speaker 1: where the book can write itself. It's almost there. We
Speaker 1: got these little AI learning models. I hate them again.
Speaker 1: Back to it's like I don't sound like that, and
Speaker 1: that real people don't talk like that. But yeah, I
Speaker 1: want to tell the story of people power and how
Speaker 1: it gets built. I won't say too much, but I'm
Speaker 1: excited about a graphic novel that tells a story about
Speaker 1: how we win. We've never had more money than the
Speaker 1: enemies of progress, right, But throughout the history of the world,
Speaker 1: people linking up with folks who share their values and
Speaker 1: fighting next to one another for a world that they
Speaker 1: think that they deserve has been the most consistent way
Speaker 1: that we've won. And so I want to show what
Speaker 1: that looks like in the twenty twenties and inspire a
Speaker 1: next generation of young citizens to take responsibility for building
Speaker 1: the future. And you know, too long didn't read as
Speaker 1: a lifestyle. So let's give some dope pictures. Pictures and
Speaker 1: you know, pictures worth a thousand words. So it's basically
Speaker 1: data impression. Yeah, at see, this is what I mean.
Speaker 1: I've been going hard for a while, and so I think,
Speaker 1: you know, going somewhere and crying in the ocean and
Speaker 1: then writing a book feels like the priority for the
Speaker 1: next couple of months. You deserve that so much. We
Speaker 1: have this belief here and we practice it in the
Speaker 1: title citizen as a verb. It's something we can all do.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna ask you for your definition. If you interpret
Speaker 1: citizen as a verb, what does it mean to you
Speaker 1: to citizen? To citizen means knowing yourself, knowing your priorities,
Speaker 1: and then articulating that to folks who are making decisions
Speaker 1: about the communities that we need to build. And it's
Speaker 1: not an outsourcing thing, right, It's a small d democracy things.
Speaker 1: We are making decisions together and I am being honest
Speaker 1: about my motivations. I'm being honest about my priorities, and
Speaker 1: I'm being honest about how I want my money spent.
Speaker 1: You are these principles in motion, in action. You are
Speaker 1: these beams. Your love ethic shines beautifully through. So so
Speaker 1: thank you for this one on one conversation and say,
Speaker 1: oh fuck, thank you Bir today blur king. I mean again,
Speaker 1: it means so much to me to have this conversation
Speaker 1: with you. One. I remember the early days of Twitter,
Speaker 1: getting on there looking for community and like black immigrant nerd,
Speaker 1: but with you know, a little bit of swag like
Speaker 1: a sprinkle if you will, and coming across your feed,
Speaker 1: coming across like your public scholarship, your public organizing, and
Speaker 1: like finding my people. It was just really really important
Speaker 1: to me in my formative years as I think about
Speaker 1: like how to use technology to build a better world.
Speaker 1: And so this is such a treat and I feel
Speaker 1: so fortunate to be able to sit down and have
Speaker 1: this time with you. So thank you. Is it just
Speaker 1: because I have a fake Nigerian name that you follow
Speaker 1: me on Twitter? I mean that helps. I'm not gonna lie.
Speaker 1: I get a lot of I get another Nigerians that way.
Speaker 1: I am an unofficial census taker of all Nigerian Americans.
Speaker 1: So like if you have a little bit of African
Speaker 1: ancestry DNA result of like he's Nigerians. Good. So we're
Speaker 1: going into phase two to our live audience here, Thank
Speaker 1: you for witnessing this. We've gathered a lot of your questions.
Speaker 1: First up is Janine, say your name and where you're based. Hi,
Speaker 1: Janine from Philadelphia. Thank you so much. This was lovely.
Speaker 1: My question is you all talked a lot about on ramping,
Speaker 1: you know, political education for folks, and you spoke right
Speaker 1: at the beginning that voting is one tactic among tactics,
Speaker 1: and I was wondering, what do you think are your
Speaker 1: top three or maybe four or five tactics for doing
Speaker 1: this work of connecting people to small p politics locally
Speaker 1: all year so that when someone like you and folks
Speaker 1: are trying to do the voting thing, the on ramp
Speaker 1: is a little less steep. Definitely, public scholarship, public and
Speaker 1: popular education is really important too. I think cultural organizing, right,
Speaker 1: and so reimagining what's possible, continuing to challenge stories about
Speaker 1: the status quo, etcetera. You know, I think Adrian Marie
Speaker 1: Brown says that like all organizing is an act of
Speaker 1: science fiction, that we are working to build a world
Speaker 1: that currently only exists in our minds, right, and So
Speaker 1: how do you share that vision of the world. Is
Speaker 1: it through song? Is it through dance? Is it through
Speaker 1: your witty and fire tweets and Instagram posts? Right? And
Speaker 1: then what are other year round tactics? Oh, I think honestly,
Speaker 1: for us, it is the asking of questions. It's the polling,
Speaker 1: It's the knocking on doors and having high quality face
Speaker 1: to face conversations when it's possible that I would argue
Speaker 1: that there's nobody in the state of Georgia that has
Speaker 1: a better sense of where young people are and the
Speaker 1: attitudes of black people and black voters than me, and
Speaker 1: the infrastructure that I've built at the New Georgia Project
Speaker 1: because I invest in it because it's important to me,
Speaker 1: because it's what we do year round. So you can't
Speaker 1: find out what people care about and then connect that
Speaker 1: to the act of voting and then get them to
Speaker 1: understand that voting is important in October before an election,
Speaker 1: that that is something that we are doing day in
Speaker 1: and day out year round, and so meaningful conversations with
Speaker 1: people about things that matter. Thank you for that. And
Speaker 1: as for your answers, the imagination game is very strong.
Speaker 1: We've got an interview in this season coming up with
Speaker 1: Ruha Benjamin, who says, you know, we are living in
Speaker 1: other people's imaginations, just in terms of the reality of
Speaker 1: the world we set and a white supremacist imagination often
Speaker 1: and we have Adrian Marie Brown and lastly on the
Speaker 1: Year Round organizing with Angela Lange from Block Milwaukee in
Speaker 1: an earlier episode. So if folks want to find out
Speaker 1: more of what that can look like, Angela is a
Speaker 1: great resource in our conversation with her. I will now
Speaker 1: call on Diane Hendrix, a regular in the How To
Speaker 1: Citizen World. Now, Diane, welcome back. Say your name and
Speaker 1: where you're calling in from. Hi there, I'm Diane Hendrix
Speaker 1: from Boston. I grew up in Georgia. I was where
Speaker 1: Hot Wanta I was. I went to take some Sensus
Speaker 1: down there, and so I was inspired by Stacey Abrams
Speaker 1: to do some phone banking for Reverend war Orknock and
Speaker 1: that was so wonderful. So the very wooden instructions that
Speaker 1: you get from some of these phone bank people is
Speaker 1: not very inspiring. But I wondered if you have strategies
Speaker 1: like backdoor strategies for phone banking calls because you're not
Speaker 1: supposed to talk about, of course, who you're voting for,
Speaker 1: so you get to hide that. Here's a question, I like,
Speaker 1: what kind of voter are you? And give people examples
Speaker 1: like are you an education voter? Are you a Second
Speaker 1: Amendment voter? Are your climate change voter? Are your women's
Speaker 1: health voter? And you know, give people some examples, but
Speaker 1: then give them an opportunity to answer that open ended question,
Speaker 1: because it'll also give you a sense of what they
Speaker 1: care about and help you talk about the candidate, the
Speaker 1: ballot measure, whatever it is that your phone banking them
Speaker 1: about in a more bespoke way, like in a more narrow,
Speaker 1: more tailored way, because they've already told you what they
Speaker 1: care about. Good question, Diane from Boston and Georgia. Okay,
Speaker 1: Beatrice Sue Blay for chance, All right, right, Sue Blay
Speaker 1: is correct. And I just think it was fortuitous that
Speaker 1: while we were on a person from the New Georgia
Speaker 1: Projects came to my door and here's the door doctor,
Speaker 1: And it was just beautiful and not only well, first
Speaker 1: of all, he was asking telling me that I know
Speaker 1: about the run off, and of course I'm an East
Speaker 1: Point Georgia. I forgot to say that, Hey, Mayhver. Oh good,
Speaker 1: all right, hi baby, and I'm from New Orleans too.
Speaker 1: I came up after Katrina, so if I call you baby,
Speaker 1: don't get your feelings her. I'm familiar. But after I
Speaker 1: told him that I had voted, I knew about I
Speaker 1: voted on Saturday because our senator had sued to get
Speaker 1: that day and I was gonna go out there, baby.
Speaker 1: So anyway, after I thought our conversation might have been
Speaker 1: over and he had given me this wanderful information, he
Speaker 1: began to ask me, what are some of your issues?
Speaker 1: And I thought that was so profound because I was
Speaker 1: able to articulate them, and there was one that I
Speaker 1: had a concern about that he wasn't sure what you know,
Speaker 1: what had happened with the Education committee anyway, But the
Speaker 1: point is it was a wonderful encounter and it was
Speaker 1: not just here take this. We've given rise to the polls.
Speaker 1: Thank you by It was excellent. It was a relationship,
Speaker 1: even in that short time. So it was just for two.
Speaker 1: It's just that we were on and I was so happy.
Speaker 1: I'm happy. Thank you for confirming that I'm not a liar.
Speaker 1: Right that we asked people what they care about it's
Speaker 1: conversational and we don't lie to the people. He didn't
Speaker 1: know about the Education committee thing that you were concerned about,
Speaker 1: and he told you, but he was able to engage
Speaker 1: you on other topics. So I love this. I love that,
Speaker 1: and say you are so organized that you planted a
Speaker 1: New Georgia Project canvas there to hit up one of
Speaker 1: our audience members during this live taping that's with lit
Speaker 1: with the doorhanger. I'm just I'm good. Oh if I'm
Speaker 1: going to ask this question on behalf of a listeners
Speaker 1: from Paula Costa or Costa, how do you peacefully respectfully
Speaker 1: address the issue of gun regulation, especially in communities where
Speaker 1: many people believe not only that gun ownership is an absolute,
Speaker 1: unquestionable right, but part of their identity. I mean, we
Speaker 1: are in a gun's everywhere state, and guns is actually
Speaker 1: particularly challenging in a place like Georgia where marginalized groups
Speaker 1: and a press groups, minority groups have had to hold
Speaker 1: the line and defend themselves and their communities against state
Speaker 1: sanctioned violence. And so it's a conversation that we lean into,
Speaker 1: but it is going to be a cultural conversation, which
Speaker 1: means that like quick hits are not gonna get it
Speaker 1: done because thinking about guns and the culture of guns
Speaker 1: in a place like Chicago versus thinking about guns and
Speaker 1: the culture of guns in a place like Brunswick, Georgia,
Speaker 1: right where you know, a mod Arbrey was running and
Speaker 1: it was murdered by some vigilantes and people who thought
Speaker 1: that they had the color of authority just because they
Speaker 1: were white. It is a very different conversation. And I
Speaker 1: always always always start with listening. It's easy to think
Speaker 1: that like people are clinging to their guns and their
Speaker 1: god because of ignorance and because you know, they've inherited
Speaker 1: a political ideology they've inherited, like the mythology of like
Speaker 1: the frontiersman and what it means to be an American.
Speaker 1: But there are seventy five years black grandmothers in South
Speaker 1: Georgia who've seen some shit. Yeah, and you are not
Speaker 1: going to take her shotgun. You're just not. And so
Speaker 1: who are you talking to? Yeah? Right? And why are
Speaker 1: they so committed to guns? And honestly, if we just
Speaker 1: regulated the corporations who are mass producing these guns and
Speaker 1: who throw money and buy elected officials, like that could
Speaker 1: be the silver bullet to starting us on the path
Speaker 1: to gun controlled and so we could focus on the
Speaker 1: culture wars, We could focus on Bubba or you know,
Speaker 1: Miss Mabel and like why people had their guns, or
Speaker 1: we could go directly to Smith and Weston, we could
Speaker 1: go directly to the NR who have an outside influence
Speaker 1: on gun policy in this country. Yeah, and say, is
Speaker 1: there anything you want to add yourself that is related
Speaker 1: to this topic that we didn't get to or just
Speaker 1: on your mind, totally unrelated, but you have a microphone
Speaker 1: interview and you want to say some things. I am
Speaker 1: even more convinced now that like borders are fake, and
Speaker 1: with the Internet making the world so much smaller, that
Speaker 1: like attacks on information and information sources and democracy is
Speaker 1: really a global phenomenon. And so I think that we
Speaker 1: also need to be looking at what's happening in other
Speaker 1: countries as a little bit of foreshadowing about what happens
Speaker 1: if we lose the ability to hire and fire elected officials.
Speaker 1: And so, you know, I just encouraging people to not
Speaker 1: think about democracy. It's just the voting conversation, but really
Speaker 1: thinking about like it is the way that we make
Speaker 1: decisions about how our world works, and it is actually really,
Speaker 1: really really important and the spillover from failing democracies or
Speaker 1: attacks on democracies could be really, really kind of sequential,
Speaker 1: and I just want us to be mindful of that.
Speaker 1: I love y'all, We love you too, and say thank
Speaker 1: you so much. The way we make decisions, on the
Speaker 1: way our world works. That is a great definition of democracy,
Speaker 1: and your practice of it is inspiring all of us.
Speaker 1: Have a beautiful rest of your day. Let's be real.
Speaker 1: Ideally we wouldn't need carnivals, marching bands and miss Cherry
Speaker 1: post into her page in order to get people out
Speaker 1: to the polls and then wait in long lines once
Speaker 1: they got there. Ideally we wouldn't need hundreds or thousands
Speaker 1: of volunteers on the ground registering people to vote in
Speaker 1: order to have fair representative voter turnout. But we don't
Speaker 1: yet live in that ideal, and in the space between
Speaker 1: the ideal and the real. Thankfully we've got people like
Speaker 1: in Say helping us close the gap. She does this
Speaker 1: using a story of love as both a motivator and
Speaker 1: as a goal, a story that values the culture we
Speaker 1: create around democracy as much as the systems that make
Speaker 1: that democracy function. And now it's time for some actions,
Speaker 1: starting with an internal reflection. I want us to feel
Speaker 1: the love as both a motivator and as a goal.
Speaker 1: Take a moment to reflect on what you love about
Speaker 1: your city, your county, or your country as you're thinking
Speaker 1: of it, pause and breathe while visualizing those things for
Speaker 1: just a few minutes. What do you feel in your
Speaker 1: body when you put your attention on what you love
Speaker 1: and how might this feeling help you citizen better? Now?
Speaker 1: Our next action is in the category of becoming more
Speaker 1: informd and Say mentioned this idea of a love ethic,
Speaker 1: which she got from black feminist author and activist Belle Hooks.
Speaker 1: Learn more about that ethic by reading Hooks's book All
Speaker 1: about Love, New Visions, a love song to the Nation.
Speaker 1: If you've only got time right now For something shorter,
Speaker 1: we found a beautiful blog post that summarizes bell Hooks's
Speaker 1: love ethic. Both the book and the blog are linked
Speaker 1: in the show notes. And last, but not least, let's
Speaker 1: put that love to work in the form of some
Speaker 1: public participation. Now, there's only one new Georgia project, so
Speaker 1: if you live in Georgia, get involved with that organization.
Speaker 1: You've heard all the reasons why in this episode. For
Speaker 1: those of us not blessed to live in the Peach date.
Speaker 1: Every region of the US has similar groups focused on
Speaker 1: relational organizing work. Check out popular democracy dot org for
Speaker 1: a great listing of affiliate organizations all around the US
Speaker 1: that you can get involved with. You can also put
Speaker 1: relational organizing to work with your relationships. When it's time
Speaker 1: to vote, there's organizations like Circle Voting or vote Force.
Speaker 1: Check the show notes for links to everything I just mentioned.
Speaker 1: If you take any of these actions, please brag about
Speaker 1: it online and use the hashtag how to Citizen. Also
Speaker 1: tag our Instagram how to Citizen. I am always online
Speaker 1: and I really do see your messages, so send them.
Speaker 1: You can also visit our website, howard to citizen dot com,
Speaker 1: which has all of our shows, full transcripts, actions, and more. Finally,
Speaker 1: see this episode show notes for resources, actions, and more
Speaker 1: ways to connect. How to Citizen with barrettun Day is
Speaker 1: a production of iHeartRadio Podcasts and Row Home Productions. Our
Speaker 1: executive producers are Me, barrettun Day, Thurston, and Elizabeth Stewart.
Speaker 1: Our lead producer is Ali Graham. Our associate producer is
Speaker 1: Donya abdel Hamid, Alex Lewis is our managing producer and
Speaker 1: John Myers is our executive editor. Our mix engineer is
Speaker 1: Justin Burger. Original music by Andrew Eapan with additional music
Speaker 1: by Blue Dot Sessions, and our audience engagement fellows are
Speaker 1: Jasmine Lewis and Gabbie Rodriguez. Special thanks to Joel Smith
Speaker 1: from iHeartRadio and Layla Bean Next Time on how to
Speaker 1: citizen in say taught us how to get the most
Speaker 1: out of the voting system we've got. But how else
Speaker 1: could civic engagement look if we were invited to do
Speaker 1: more than just choose our representatives? What if we represented ourselves.
Speaker 1: I don't want this to just be some sort of
Speaker 1: politician bashing. I really feel like it's a systemic problem.
Speaker 1: The short termism, the fact that party politics and campaign
Speaker 1: financing and all these things come out on top in
Speaker 1: terms of what are the incentives for the collective public
Speaker 1: decisions we're taking. These are features, not bugs, of the
Speaker 1: system that we have today, and so how do we
Speaker 1: redesign the system and how do we shift power to
Speaker 1: new institutions of citizen participation, representation by law, and deliberation.
Speaker 1: Claudia Phlitts on the movement to put citizens at the
Speaker 1: center of our democracy with citizen assemblies, row home productions