0:04

This is a word, a podcast from Slee.

0:06

I'm your host, Jason Johnson. Many of us

0:08

start out our careers with the hopes of

0:10

changing the world, but you know, the world

0:12

and its problems can feel enormous.

0:15

So how can activists and ordinary

0:17

people confront injustice and still find

0:19

room for joy and hope? Younger

0:23

people now, we have been having a

0:25

lot more conversations about our own healing,

0:27

about community, and it's kind of pulling

0:29

people a little bit sooner into this

0:31

important work, and it's becoming a part

0:33

of the work. The new book,

0:35

Be a Revolution, coming up on a

0:37

word with me, Jason Johnson. Stay with

0:39

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0:41

a big difference between talking and reporting,

0:43

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to start listening today. Welcome

1:45

to a word or podcast about race and

1:47

politics and everything else. I'm your host, Jason

1:49

Johnson. It's Black History Month, the only time

1:51

of year when America's ugly racial history and

1:53

the folks who are fighting to change the

1:55

future get natural attention. But

1:58

the work of challenging racism is happening 12 months a

2:01

year, and it's being done by

2:03

professional activists and by those of us who

2:05

are pushing for progress in our community, schools,

2:07

and workplaces. So how could

2:09

each of us find a way

2:11

to confront injustice without losing hope

2:14

or losing ourselves in the process?

2:16

Our next guest has dedicated her

2:18

career to finding the answers. Ijeoma

2:20

Oluo is an activist, self-described internet

2:22

yeller, and bestselling author. Her books,

2:25

so you want to talk about

2:27

race and mediocre, the dangerous legacy

2:29

of white male America, are staples

2:31

of anti-racist reading lists. Her

2:33

new book is Be a Revolution, how

2:36

everyday people are fighting oppression and changing

2:38

the world, and how you can too.

2:41

And she joins us now. Ijeoma Oluo, welcome

2:43

to a word. Hi, thanks for having me. I

2:46

have to ask, and I was kind of racking my brain as I

2:48

was going through this, what

2:50

inspired you to write this book

2:53

now? You know, it really

2:55

actually started from a place of like deep

2:57

exhaustion, like psychic and emotional exhaustion. I had

2:59

been writing about violent white supremacy for a

3:01

very long time, and I was kind of done.

3:03

It had taken a lot out of me as

3:06

a black woman. And then

3:08

I realized if I was going to take this break that

3:10

I desperately needed, I didn't want to quite go out

3:12

like that. I wanted to make

3:14

sure that the work I left people

3:16

with was one filled with community

3:18

and joy. The events

3:20

around 2020 and the pandemic that we are

3:22

still in really underscored

3:25

how important community is, and community

3:27

activism and community movement work. And

3:30

it is what kept me and my

3:32

family going, and I wanted to celebrate

3:35

that. And I wanted to give people

3:37

hope and inspiration

3:39

for action, because we really desperately

3:42

need action. I think people spend a lot of time

3:44

reading, a lot of time studying. It's

3:46

time for people to act and to see what

3:48

people have been doing to really keep us going.

3:51

There's something to be said for, I

3:54

think, a newer generation of

3:57

writers and academics and public

3:59

intellectuals activists who

4:02

have been out on the ground

4:04

doing the work for decades. But

4:07

I think the sort of public

4:09

scrutiny and levels of

4:12

harassment and white supremacist violence against

4:14

people who engage in your kind of

4:16

work really kicked off after the

4:18

Ferguson uprising. I'm curious if in sort of

4:20

your work history and in some of the

4:22

work history of the people you spoke to,

4:24

if they point to a

4:26

critical moment, if they say, you know what, it

4:28

was after Trump, it was

4:31

after Ferguson, it was during the pandemic

4:33

when this work reached a

4:35

point where it's like, okay, I'm

4:37

struggling to get up every day. Yes,

4:39

I would say especially for black

4:41

women, black women have been uniquely

4:43

targeted in these years. And I

4:45

think part of it is because your black women, especially

4:47

black women have really been at the forefront of

4:50

a lot of our movements for a very long

4:52

time. And for a long time, they were doing

4:54

this work really in obscurity, really unappreciated for what

4:56

they've been doing. But once attention,

4:58

national attention really started focusing on this work

5:00

in your right in 2014, 2015,

5:03

black women were really, really targeted in this specifically violent

5:05

way. So yes, when I was talking to black

5:07

women who've been doing this work, a lot of

5:09

what you'll see is around that time and

5:11

then around, you know, Trump getting elected

5:13

especially, they

5:15

were finding it hard to leave their home. The

5:17

fear that this hate that they were seeing online,

5:20

it was spilling over into their lives, into their

5:22

homes. You know, there were people talking of like,

5:24

yeah, I had to find a way to do

5:26

this work that protected my mental

5:28

and physical health as well. So

5:31

you profile more than 30 activists

5:33

and change makers for this book. What was

5:35

sort of the range of issues you tried

5:37

to cover? Like, how did you even choose

5:40

the sort of universe? Right? How

5:42

did you, I mean, because I know a lot of times with things like this, you

5:44

start with the people that you know, right? And then

5:46

you may go to those references, but most scholars know,

5:48

okay, I got, I got to get people who I

5:50

don't know, who I had no connection to. So

5:54

how did you choose these people? What kind of things you talk about?

5:56

That's a great question. And you're absolutely right. You know,

5:59

from the beginning, there were some people that I knew

6:01

because I had worked with them or had been long

6:03

time fans of the work that they've been doing that

6:05

I wanted to profile them in the book. But then

6:08

it was about research and saying you know where is

6:10

the really exciting kind of work that people aren't hearing

6:12

about that's being done in community across

6:15

the country and so I did a lot of research.

6:17

There's so many topics that of course I couldn't put into

6:19

the book because it would have been the world's longest

6:21

book. And then it was really once I

6:23

sat down and talking with people and saying you

6:25

know I'm really inspired by what you're doing this

6:27

is really amazing asking who would you want to

6:29

see in this book you know who inspires you

6:31

who keeps you going and it led in some

6:34

really surprising directions you know of connections that I

6:36

didn't know existed that brought me to movement work

6:38

in places that I didn't know it was being

6:40

done and so I ended up grouping it in

6:42

kind of these broader categories at first I thought

6:45

it was going to be very specific but the

6:47

intersectional nature of this work of course means

6:49

that people are working in multiple spaces

6:51

at once but we have people

6:53

doing work around environmental justice gender

6:55

justice we have people you know doing

6:58

work in the arts sectors all of these

7:00

different places that are all

7:02

touched by systemic oppression and systemic racism

7:05

and people are doing amazing work that

7:07

is really helping people every day. What

7:10

are some of the common threads you heard

7:12

in the story we've already talked about you

7:14

know concerns about physical safety what were threads

7:16

that you heard as you talked a lot

7:19

of these activists and A

7:21

lot of people I talked to were long-term activists and

7:23

organizers and some people were newer to this work and

7:25

I found that a lot of the long almost

7:28

every long-term organizer went through different phases

7:30

in their work right they had they're

7:32

very fired up young I can do

7:34

everything phase and then they're burnt out

7:36

heartbroken you know I can't do anything phase

7:38

and then moving through it and figuring out

7:40

how this work can really stay with them

7:43

for their lifetime and so it does take

7:45

time to realize you need community you need

7:47

support and that came up time and time

7:49

again. Where people would get into

7:51

this space where they were very isolated and

7:54

feeling very alone and really burned out and

7:56

then if they stay in the work what

7:58

brings them back is recognized. that

8:01

they need community, that they need

8:03

to prioritize community, they need to prioritize their

8:05

own mental health. And so I heard that

8:07

a lot. So I heard, you know, younger

8:09

people in that space of, I don't know

8:12

if I can do this anymore. I'm not

8:14

sleeping, you know, I'm exhausted. And then people

8:16

who had moved through that space saying, I

8:18

was there and I had to realize I

8:21

needed my people. And I needed to go

8:23

to therapy twice a week, you know, all

8:25

of these things that keep people going. And

8:27

then I would also say, the need for

8:30

conflict resolution came up time and time again,

8:32

where all people were all traumatized people doing

8:34

work that can further traumatize us.

8:37

And if you don't have good skills

8:39

in resolving conflict that comes up in

8:41

movements, that can push people out

8:43

of movement work faster than anything else. Obviously,

8:46

the people you spoke to are still active and still

8:49

organizing. Did any of them talk about people who stepped

8:51

off the path? Did any of them say, you know,

8:53

I started it was three of us and we were

8:55

tight and we were going to change the world together.

8:57

But such and such decided they

8:59

were going to go be a corporate lawyer

9:01

such and such decided they just sold out

9:03

and join some particular organization. Did people talk

9:05

about those who left the path?

9:08

And it was that part of some

9:10

of the isolation that they felt now still being

9:12

in this fight, when they've seen others just go

9:14

by the wayside. It's one thing to retire is

9:16

one thing to step into another lane. Yes,

9:19

it did come up in conversations where a few

9:21

people who had been in like groups that had

9:23

meant a lot to them, right? And so often

9:25

found that that would be the thing that would

9:28

sometimes break a group apart. If that group started

9:30

to get a lot of attention, and then you

9:32

had people saying, hey, come join this think tank

9:34

or come, you know, have this

9:36

HR position somewhere or come do

9:38

this thing that is outside of

9:40

that work, especially I'd say abolitionist work,

9:43

which really needs to work outside of

9:45

systems. And yeah, there was I think

9:47

some sadness in that loss of community.

9:49

The questioning of were they really there with us

9:51

in in the first place. And then some people

9:53

saying, you know what, I get it. This is

9:55

very hard work. And people are trying to do

9:57

what's best for them. And maybe this is as

10:00

they need to be in. But a lot of people

10:02

were very clear like that isn't necessarily the work.

10:04

It's work that can do good. It's work

10:06

that can make it easier for some people

10:08

to do the work. It's not the work.

10:10

It has value, but we have to be really

10:12

clear about the difference. We're

10:16

going to take a short break and we

10:18

come back more with Ijeoma Oluo on her

10:20

new book, Be a Revolution. This

10:22

is a word with Jason Johnson. Stay

10:24

tuned. This

10:28

is Jason Johnson, host of a word,

10:31

Slate's podcast about race and politics and

10:33

everything else. I want to

10:35

take a moment to welcome our new listeners.

10:37

If you've discovered a word and like what

10:39

you hear, please subscribe, rate and review wherever

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you listen to podcasts and let us know

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what you think by writing us at a

10:46

word at slate.com. Thank you. This

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episode is brought to you by Wondering. In

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POD. We're

12:35

listening to a word with Jason Johnson.

12:37

We're talking with writer and activist Ijeoma

12:39

Oluo about her new book, Be a

12:41

Revolution. So you

12:44

say in this book that white supremacy

12:46

is among other things, a

12:48

war on imagination. What do you mean by

12:50

that? I mean a couple of

12:52

things. I think one, when we think about

12:54

the way in which the story of who

12:56

we are as black people, as populations of

12:59

color, the imagination has been taken from that, right?

13:01

It's very limited. What we can accomplish, what

13:03

we can do, what we have done. People

13:06

really think of us as these flat, one-dimensional

13:08

monoliths. But also when it comes to our

13:10

systems, we are told time and time again,

13:12

if we want to make change, that it's

13:14

very limited what we can do. That there's

13:17

no way we could come up with something

13:19

better than what we have. The most we

13:21

could do is tweak it. And white people

13:23

will be white people forever. They can't grow,

13:26

they can't change. Our systems will exist forever.

13:28

We could never create anything better. And

13:30

as populations of color, as black

13:33

people, we could never create

13:35

something bigger and better. We could never

13:37

rise this far above. So don't even

13:39

try. And when we look at the

13:42

conversations around it, everything is incremental and

13:44

it's telling us, don't dig deeper. Don't

13:46

think that we could have radical

13:48

change. Don't even dream about it because

13:51

then you risk what we

13:53

have already, as if what we

13:55

have already is

13:57

wonderful. And that really harms us.

14:00

It really puts us in this space

14:02

where we are doing

14:04

our part to actually help codify this real harm

14:06

by saying, we can, you know, this has to

14:09

stay, but what if we just tweaked it, put

14:11

a new coat of paint on it, instead of

14:13

saying, we could really do a lot more than

14:15

this. What

14:18

happens when imagination

14:21

is stifled? What

14:23

is actually the harm that can

14:25

happen when an organization or

14:27

a group's leadership or

14:29

maybe even sort of the foot soldiers lack

14:32

that imagination? A couple of

14:34

things happen. One is, you know,

14:37

we start accepting

14:39

change that isn't real change and we

14:41

start calling it real change and it

14:44

further strengthens actual systems of oppression. We

14:47

have that. But then also what we

14:49

have is that incremental change that isn't

14:51

really changed that people worked for

14:53

and fought for, they didn't fight to

14:55

protect and they end up fighting people

14:57

who are asking for more. And so I see

14:59

that a lot where we see people going, no,

15:01

we worked so hard for this one

15:04

thing. We worked so hard for body cameras and

15:06

now you want to go further? Oh, no. But

15:08

then what if we lose that? What if we

15:10

lose the body cameras? Right. And then you end

15:12

up with people actually fighting real

15:14

revolutionary change because they

15:16

are so caught up in those

15:18

little bits and pieces that they

15:20

were made to fight so hard

15:22

for. And they really think

15:25

that's it because there's ego involved,

15:27

there's effort involved, there's time involved. They're still

15:29

going to make you fight super hard for

15:31

this change that doesn't really change. Right. And

15:34

so then we end up with all of

15:37

this infighting. Right. And we end up with

15:39

what people often see are generational gaps. We

15:41

see people turning on each other. We see

15:43

people directing funds that could be really on

15:46

the ground, helping people doing really important change,

15:48

instead going to people doing the most, you

15:50

know, the incremental surface

15:53

level change. It is deeply harmful

15:55

and it also is really discouraging, right,

15:57

because people put all this effort in. people

16:00

work so hard. If we look at the aftermath of the

16:02

2020 uprising for Black lives, and

16:04

we see all this incremental change that people

16:06

fought really hard for, and we see how

16:08

quickly it's called back, we have people go,

16:10

well, why even try? Why even bother? Everything

16:12

we did, it doesn't matter. It does

16:15

matter, of course, but we were really

16:17

convinced that these tiny changes

16:20

were huge, you know, and

16:22

it was treated like, you know, the 2% of

16:24

police funding taken from one

16:26

department and given to another was taking every

16:28

penny from cops, right? And we were like,

16:30

yay, we got this instead of being really

16:33

critical of it. And so then, of

16:35

course, when policing stays the same, or is even

16:37

strengthened, we think that our

16:39

activism is pointless. And it's not. It's

16:42

just we weren't asking for the

16:44

right things. We were being sold,

16:47

incremental changes revolution, and we weren't

16:49

able to build our demands in

16:51

a way that really had true

16:53

accountability for the powers that be. A

16:56

lot of people who want to work in

16:59

racial justice, want to focus in one particular

17:01

area, like they'll look in housing, or they're

17:03

looking environmental justice, or they'll look at prisons

17:05

or food in schools, that

17:07

sort of thing. But one

17:09

of the things you talk about in your book is you

17:12

suggest that sort of being that issue focused can

17:14

be a bit of a mistake. Talk a little bit about

17:16

that. So I would say

17:18

you can absolutely find the space that has

17:20

your interest, your skill set, and live and

17:23

work in that space and do great work.

17:25

But you have to have a systemic analysis

17:27

of that space. Because if

17:29

you don't, the work you do can actually

17:31

cause harm, not only to the work you're

17:33

doing, but to the work other people are

17:35

doing as well. And so if you say,

17:38

what are the systems of play? Who benefits

17:40

from this? How does this work on this

17:42

systemic level? How is it impacting these populations?

17:44

What else are they impacted by? Then you

17:46

can actually do really effective work even in

17:48

just one space so that when other people

17:50

come to you and say, hey, can you

17:52

support us? Or did you know this is

17:54

connected to this issue? You won't say, no,

17:56

I only do this, or no, that's not

17:58

related. You will insta- that have that

18:01

real intersectional, you know,

18:03

deeply rooted systemic analysis that will

18:05

enable you to do really important

18:07

work. It's when people say, you

18:09

know, I only care about the environment. If

18:11

it's not environment, I don't want to hear

18:14

it. And it blocks them from hearing all

18:16

of these other things that interact with it

18:18

that can actually make it so that not

18:20

only are they harming other movements, but they're

18:22

not even doing effective environmental justice work. One

18:25

of the things that you talk about also, and one

18:28

of the overall themes is

18:30

like finding joy, finding space

18:32

in what is sometimes

18:34

really depressing, really frustrating and very difficult work. I know

18:36

people who do this kind of act as work, so

18:38

I hear the different ways that people sort of find

18:40

joy. But what I'm curious about is how has that

18:42

changed? Because one of the things you do in the

18:44

book is you talk to people who've been doing this

18:46

for five years, you talk to some people who've been

18:48

doing this for 30, right? How

18:51

does finding joy for sort of

18:53

older organizers and activists differ from

18:55

the joy that's being found by

18:57

people who have just sort of gotten into these sorts

18:59

of movements? It's interesting. I think

19:01

that almost everyone I talked to went

19:03

through this kind of this

19:05

stage where joy was not a part of

19:07

the work. It was you better eat, drink,

19:09

sleep, movement work all of the time or

19:11

you're not doing the work, right? And I

19:13

think it's kind of that stereotype that we

19:15

have of movement workers where you can't have

19:17

a conversation with them about anything that's not

19:19

movement work. And then they

19:22

find that that's not sustainable and it's super harmful. Now

19:24

some people find that a little bit earlier and some

19:26

people find it after a lot of real serious

19:29

harm and they should do a lot of healing around

19:31

that. So I actually find for a lot of

19:33

older movement workers, because we've long had

19:35

this popular idea that movement work is

19:37

all sacrifice, you know, that if you're

19:39

not, you know, putting your body down

19:41

on the line every day, you're not

19:43

doing the work, it has taken some

19:45

people a few decades to realize how

19:47

deeply harm they are, how incomplete their

19:49

whole lives are and how much that

19:51

impacts their work and their ability to keep doing

19:54

it. And so they're having to do a lot of recovery

19:56

and a lot of healing. But I find that younger people

19:58

now we have been having a lot more conversations,

20:00

right, about our own

20:02

healing, about community, about

20:04

self-care and community care.

20:07

And it's kind of pulling people a little bit sooner

20:09

into this important work and it's becoming a part of

20:11

the work. So it's no longer a thing that you

20:13

have to do separately. Say, I'm going to go do

20:16

movement work and then I'm going to try to heal.

20:18

I'm going to find joy. Joy is part of movement

20:21

work. So we're having this event and this event

20:23

might be a little brutal. It might hurt. How

20:26

are we uplifting people? How are we connecting people?

20:28

How are we keeping them going at the same

20:30

time? And I think that that's a really beautiful

20:32

thing to see. I worry a

20:34

little bit about the commodification of it

20:36

that can happen, right? I don't like

20:39

the way in which some people sell

20:41

this as if you're just

20:43

caring for your own happiness, your revolution,

20:45

because it doesn't begin and end within

20:48

us, right? It is

20:50

about community. It is about systems.

20:52

And there are ways in which we can

20:54

do that, that strengthen community, you know, and

20:57

make it so that we can collectively continue

20:59

to do this work. We're

21:02

going to take a short break and we

21:04

come back more about the new book, Be

21:07

a Revolution with Ejio Maluo. This is a

21:09

word with Jason Johnson. Stay tuned. When

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21:44

The history of HIV and AIDS is the

21:46

history of people who were told to stay

21:48

out of sight and who refused. Gay

21:51

men, but also injection drug users,

21:53

women, and yes, children who contracted

21:55

the virus. Join us

21:57

for the series, Blind Spot, the playing. in

22:00

the shadows. How much pain

22:02

could have been avoided had we

22:04

paid attention sooner and what lessons

22:06

could we have learned from History

22:09

Channel and WNYC Studios? Listen wherever

22:11

you get podcasts. You're

22:17

listening to a word with Jason Johnson.

22:19

Today we're talking with Ijeoma Aluo about

22:21

her new book, Be a Revolution. In

22:23

your 2018 book, So You Want

22:25

to Talk About Race, it

22:27

climbed back to being a bestseller

22:30

after George Floyd was murdered. And

22:33

here we are. We're four years from

22:35

2024. I know you have this conversation.

22:37

I have this conversation. And

22:40

the people who you talk to, is

22:42

there sort of a sense of accomplishment

22:45

now? Do people look back

22:47

at the last four years and say, wow,

22:49

that was really rough, but at least we kind of got

22:51

this? Or is there a sense now that

22:54

we've seen such grotesque retrenchment

22:57

that people may be hitting

22:59

that low spot that you've talked about before

23:01

because of how much pushback

23:04

we've seen since the quote unquote gains

23:06

of 2020? I

23:08

would say to mix, I would say

23:10

that for people who got into this

23:12

work in 2020, oh, they're feeling dejected.

23:14

They are feeling beaten down. They are

23:16

feeling like, you know, what they did

23:19

didn't matter. For people who were

23:21

doing this work when Trayvon Martin was

23:23

murdered, for people who were starting then

23:25

and moving through all of these movements,

23:27

who've been quietly plugging away in community

23:30

doing this work when there was no

23:32

news cameras. They recognize these patterns as

23:34

part of what happens. Anytime we get

23:36

any progress, even if it's just symbolic,

23:38

that pushback is always so brutal. And

23:41

we see white supremacist systems trying to

23:43

re-entrench themselves even harder. And that's where

23:45

we're at right now. And it is

23:47

a particularly dangerous place that we're in.

23:49

It is when historically, of course, as

23:52

a people, we have been in multiple

23:54

times and we have worked our

23:56

way through and supported each other through.

23:58

But if you just came into this work, on this high point

24:00

when you were seeing millions of people marching

24:02

for Black lives, and now here

24:04

we are, you know, heading to

24:06

the next election that doesn't look great across

24:09

the board and wondering where did this

24:11

progress go, it can feel really disheartening. And

24:13

that's part of actually what I hoped

24:15

to address with the book. I wanted to

24:17

show people what this kind of quieter, everyday

24:20

work looks like, what the people behind

24:22

the scenes keeping us going looks like. Because

24:24

the thing I have to remind myself

24:26

as a Black woman is my existence today

24:29

is owed to the continuous work

24:31

of multiple generations of Black people, right?

24:33

We exist because of it, because we're in a

24:35

country that wants us dead, you know, that wants

24:37

to grind us to dust, and we are here

24:39

because of that through hard times. And

24:42

so knowing that, I can't help but

24:44

have hope, but I get where people

24:46

are disheartened, you know, and

24:49

it's absolutely a thing that now, you know, I in

24:51

my 40s, you know, I remember I think

24:53

my climactic moment was probably the reelection of

24:56

George W. Bush. Like that was my moment.

24:58

I remember being in my 20s and being

25:00

like, how, why, how did we get here?

25:02

This is, you know, I've never felt more

25:04

disillusioned in my life. And you

25:06

know, now when I'm talking to young people, I want to be like,

25:08

buckle up. I want to talk a little

25:10

bit about sort of your life and

25:12

background. So your father's from Nigeria, your mother's

25:15

from Kansas, you and your brother

25:17

grew up a lot in Seattle, correct. So

25:19

sort of the Pacific Northwest. How

25:22

do you think your own

25:24

sort of upbringing influenced how

25:26

you approached activism? I

25:28

don't think I would be the writer I am today had I not grown

25:30

up in Seattle. And that's not necessarily

25:33

speaking highly of Seattle. You

25:35

know, Seattle is an incredibly

25:37

white, it's one of the widest major cities in

25:39

the country, very wealthy, you

25:42

know, kind of crunchy to

25:45

have the right bumper stickers, the

25:47

right windows signs up, and

25:49

yet consistently ignores the

25:51

incredibly big gaps in

25:54

education for populations of color,

25:56

homelessness rates, it loves to act

25:59

like it's Poor population doesn't

26:01

exist. It's black population doesn't

26:03

exist. And I grew up in that.

26:05

And so where I say I wouldn't

26:07

be the writer I am today if I hadn't

26:10

grown up here, it's because I had to be

26:12

so observant. This is not a space

26:14

that's gonna tell you to your face what they think

26:16

of you. This is a space where you

26:18

have to learn and watch what people do. Because

26:21

everyone says they voted for Obama. Everyone

26:23

recycles, but they will pass you over

26:25

for a job. They will cross the

26:27

street to avoid you. They will call

26:29

you angry the moment that you have

26:31

an opinion that people don't agree with. And

26:34

I had to be like, what's going on here?

26:36

Because people are saying one thing and they're doing

26:38

another. And so for my own

26:41

survival, being the only black kid in almost

26:43

every class I was in until sixth grade,

26:45

being cold, angry, more times than I could

26:48

count for just having an opinion, all

26:50

of these sorts of things, I had

26:52

to be very observant to

26:54

learn. And it helped

26:56

me realize the real danger. And

26:59

not being a friend honest, not

27:01

having these conversations, how much danger

27:03

it really puts black people and other populations of

27:05

color in, and how easy it

27:07

enables white people to be able to be

27:10

a part of harm and not know it.

27:12

They could just easily say, I did this

27:14

thing. I don't have to do anything else.

27:16

And anything that makes me uncomfortable is an

27:19

act of violence against me, right? And Seattle

27:21

really has that ethos. And so for

27:23

me, my general frustration, why I

27:26

started writing was when Trayvon Martin

27:29

was murdered, I was watching people go, oh,

27:31

that's so sad. Aren't you glad you don't

27:33

live in Florida? And not recognizing how

27:35

unsafe I felt every day, how much I

27:38

didn't wanna send my kids off to school,

27:40

how worried I was for my brother, who's a

27:42

six foot four black man who was on tour

27:44

at the time, and being handcuffed by police, and

27:46

things like that. And being like, don't

27:49

you understand that this place

27:51

is no safer and every day, it's

27:53

big or small, part of my life is being

27:56

chipped away by the white supremacy here. And that's

27:58

really what I was trying to communicate. And that's

28:00

really why I started writing. You

28:03

mentioned this before with some of the activists and organizers.

28:05

Here we are. We're in 2024. There's

28:08

a real tension in a lot

28:10

of the organizing and activist communities, certainly

28:13

with black and brown folks, about voting,

28:16

whether or not it matters, whether or

28:18

not you should put your time and

28:20

effort into it, whether or not you

28:22

are voting to get something or you're

28:24

just voting to reduce harm. What

28:26

are some of the sentiments that you

28:28

got from the people you spoke to

28:30

in the book about the value or

28:32

purpose of voting? Because I think for

28:35

people coming out of a generation when

28:37

you couldn't, they obviously view it differently

28:39

than Gen X or even Zoomers today.

28:41

I would say it was a mix. But the

28:43

one consensus, I will say, is when I ask

28:46

people, what advice would you give people if no

28:48

one said vote? It just didn't come up. People

28:50

weren't saying don't vote. But when they were thinking

28:52

about priorities and what was making a difference in

28:54

communities, people would say,

28:56

show up at a school board meeting. And

28:58

I think that is a difference. There is

29:00

a local national split. I think that right

29:03

now, I think everyone kind of can see

29:05

clearly that if you're looking at national politics

29:07

and think that you're going to change the world on

29:09

that level, it's probably not happening. And at

29:11

most, you're trying to do some harm reduction.

29:14

On a local level, it's a mix. There

29:16

is some definite harm reduction that needs to

29:18

happen because a lot of our more oppressive

29:21

laws are tested on a local level first

29:23

before they're brought nationally. And we have to

29:25

be aware and we have to be fighting

29:27

that. But also, there are some real progressive

29:30

pieces of legislation that can be passed. And

29:32

they need support. And you may need to

29:35

look for those. And so looking at who's

29:37

in your school boards, who's in your city

29:39

council, looking at these local initiatives, looking at

29:41

things where we're trying to sneak in police

29:44

funding, all of these sorts

29:46

of things, being aware really does matter.

29:48

But also, knowing that the real work,

29:50

where we're going to find new ways,

29:52

where we're going to support real solutions,

29:55

and where we're going to really keep

29:57

people alive and thriving is being done

29:59

out. side of that system. So we really

30:01

have to do both. And people thinking just vote

30:03

is going to fix it. How many times have

30:05

we heard that? If somebody's

30:08

reading your book, right, when they get to the end

30:10

of it, let's say they're not an

30:12

activist, right? Let's say if a person's like, look,

30:14

I've been to one, you know, I

30:17

went to one school board meeting because my

30:19

13 year old was mad about school lunches,

30:21

right? Or, you know, I went

30:23

to one protest once, you know, back in

30:26

2014, because my church youth group was talking about this, that

30:28

the other for the vast

30:30

majority of Americans who are

30:33

essentially bowling alone, right? And don't do this kind of

30:35

engagement. What do you want them to take from your

30:37

book? Because that's going to be a, it's going to

30:39

be a different experience for them than the organizers like,

30:41

Oh, God, thank you, because I was figuring out how

30:43

I was going to deal with my depression. What do

30:45

you want regular people to take from your book? One,

30:48

I want them to recognize themselves in some of the

30:50

movement workers in here. There are a lot of people

30:53

who really never thought they would be doing what they're

30:55

doing, right? But also recognizing that

30:57

there are a lot of people doing this

30:59

work that would just love your support, that

31:01

would love for you to come out to

31:03

an event. And at those events, you'll find

31:05

community, you'll find people who share your values,

31:07

you'll know you're safe, you know, you have

31:10

a lot to build off of. So for

31:12

a lot of people, if you're not ready,

31:14

trust me, there is a space for you

31:16

to support this work, if you want

31:18

to meet it there. And people need your

31:20

support. A lot of the people profiled are

31:22

some of the most underfunded and yet vital

31:24

movement workers we have. And they would just

31:26

love for you to share what they're doing.

31:28

They would love for you to show up

31:30

at a community event they're hosting, you know,

31:32

they would love any of this support, and

31:34

it would mean so much. And in fact,

31:36

it would mean more than throwing some money

31:39

to these big national orgs, because people on

31:41

the ground would feel it. These are the

31:43

people going to people's homes and making change,

31:45

right? Working with people one on one and

31:47

making a real difference. You can support

31:49

them, you can find community around them. And there's

31:51

always a place for you. And I really hope

31:53

that people get that, that you know, you don't

31:55

have to have a particular degree. You don't have

31:57

to be willing to be out in the street.

31:59

streets every single day. There is always space

32:02

for you in this work if you want to do

32:07

it. Ejio Ma'aluo is a speaker, activist,

32:09

and author. Her latest book is Be

32:11

a Revolution, how everyday people are fighting

32:13

oppression and changing the world. Thank you

32:15

so much. I really, really enjoyed this

32:18

conversation. Thanks for having me. And

32:21

that's a word for this week.

32:23

The show's email is a word

32:25

at slate.com. This episode was produced

32:28

by Chrissy Tywoh MacKendula. Ben

32:31

Richmond is Slate's Senior Director of

32:33

Podcast Operations. Alicia Montgomery is the

32:35

Vice President of Slate Audio. Our

32:37

theme music was produced by Don Will.

32:39

I'm Jason Johnson. Tune in next week

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33:51

Today is the beginning of a new year and

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a new decade. The nation and the world says

33:55

goodbye to the 1980s and looks to the 90s.

33:58

Cowabunga. I'm Josh

34:01

Levine. You can't touch this. And

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for the next season of Slice

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Podcast, one year, we're

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slipping on some incredibly baggy pants

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and taking you back to 1990. You'll

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hear about the single dad who fought

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back against big tobacco, all while hiding

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behind a secret identity. I'm

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looking around like people were at the

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bus stop looking at us, like, oh

34:25

my God, and here comes a police

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car. In Cincinnati, an

34:29

art exhibit became a battleground over the

34:32

First Amendment. I remember one

34:34

of my board members said, so what's this?

34:36

And I said, well, it's called testing. And

34:38

she said, oh, testing, what's

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that all about? One

34:42

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