Love is a Renewable Resource (Nsé Ufot)

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Because we're trying to change the culture of democracy, changed
the culture of citizen participation. People roll their eyes and
grown when they think about like having to show up
and vote, Like its election season again, right, and we
wanted to change that. Welcome to How the Citizen with
Baritune Day, a podcast that reimagined citizen as a verb,

(00:25):
not a legal status. This season is all about how
we practice democracy, what can we get rid of, what
can we invent, and how do we change the culture
of democracy itself. We're leaving the theoretical clouds and hitting
the ground with inspiring examples of people and institutions that
are showing us new ways to govern ourselves. The first

(00:50):
time I remember really getting involved in electoral politics was
as a resident of Somerville, Massachusetts. I had just graduated
from college and this guy named Ivy Green was running
for state Assembly. I liked what he was hoping to
do an office, and one day he was outdoor knocking
and asked me, would you join me in walking your neighborhood.

(01:12):
Now I had been asked to canvas, I'd been asked
to phone bank, I'd been asked to put stickers and
signs in the windows for candidates. I had never been
invited to campaign with them, so I said yes. Going
door to door with him. It felt like running for
office without all the responsibility of actually being the candidate,

(01:35):
and it made me see my neighborhood differently. I learned
more about how people on my block experienced our city
and what and who they cared about. And I also
learned that I was living down the street from a
literal Confederate flag waving Nazi. Trust me, we walked away
from that house real quick. But despite that ugliness, what

(01:57):
stuck with me twenty years later is A's invitation, the
invitation for me to get to know my neighbors and
to get a sense of the issues and realities that
influence how each of us vote. If we do at
all to build a healthier culture of democracy, we need
to address our collective role in deciding who operates it. Specifically,

(02:20):
we've got to talk about how it feels to vote.
I'll say it. The culture of voting is trash. It's
text messages from unknown numbers, people begging you for money.
It's folks selling your email address. I mean, come on,
it's people only showing up when they want something from you,

(02:43):
and never offering something in return, or if they do us,
not being able to trust that they'll follow through once
they're in office. And I could go on, because there's
a lot about voting in this country that feels bad,
But there's opportunity here too. We can create a culture

(03:03):
around voting that's inspired, one that highlights these pillars of
citizening as a verb, showing up and participating, investing in relationships,
understanding power, and valuing the collective. And I know it's
possible because there are people already building it. Voting rights
organizer and strategist in say Oufat is one of those people.

(03:31):
In our first two episodes of this season, Adrian Marie
Brown and John Alexander emphasized joy as necessary to infuse
into our practice and democracy, especially the practices that feel
like work. Well, what could feel more like work than voting?
For eight years, Insay served as the CEO of the

(03:51):
New Georgia Project in GP. This is a non partisan
organization founded by Stacy Abrams. Now Abrams you might remember
the former minority leader of the Georgia State Senate and
two time candidate for the Governor of Georgia, or you
might remember her as the most famous Star Trek fan
you've ever heard of. Either way, n GP is dedicated

(04:13):
to registering and engaging the growing majority of people of
color and young people all across the state. For the
better part of the last decade, in Say worked tirelessly
to build this New Georgia, engaging and registering hundreds of
thousands of eligible voters, and in twenty twenty, her mobilization
efforts helped turn Georgia blue for the first time since

(04:35):
nineteen ninety two. I had to figure out how she
did it, so I spoke with her via zoom and
while we were talking, a get out the Vote volunteer
from the New Georgia Project knocked on one of our
live audience members doors. I'm not kidding you. Gotta stick
around for that magic moment after the break in Say

(05:00):
Oofat on what it takes to build a better, more welcoming,
and fun voting culture. Our guest today is the former
CEO of the New Georgia Project Action Fund and the
New Georgia Project, which he describes as a statewide, multi racial,
multi ethnic, cross class, intergenerational movement that is breathing, inspiring,

(05:23):
and organizing a New Georgia and a New South into existence,
who welcome voting rights organizers, strategist and all around badass
and say oofat what's up and say hello Barrens today,
I'm so excited to be here. I'm excited too, Thank
you so much for being here with me. Now, the

(05:44):
premise of our show is that citizen is a verb,
not a sort of immigration legalistic now, but it's a
verb in that there's many ways for all of us
to shape our communities. And we tend to stress that
this goes beyond voting, especially because so many people legally can.
But most of us know you because of your almost

(06:05):
singular focus on voting. So can you tell me what
does voting mean to you in the context of ensuring
that we actually practice this thing called democracy and self governance? Yeah,
I mean I would be if I'm going to be
a great parents with you in your audience. Voting is
a tactic. Right. We are at our core a power

(06:28):
building organization, right, And when we think about power and
the working definition in this sort of Georgia context, the
New Georgia Project context is the ability to stop bad
things from happening, but also ability to sort of shape
the world, shape the policy environment, shape laws, shape the
context in which we are living and loving and learning

(06:49):
and raising ourselves and our families. And so who has
power who doesn't, Who makes decisions for our communities, Who
decides where my money is right and how much of
my money is being taken out. I used to be
a union rep long long time ago and a union lawyer,
and one of the unions I worked for was asked

(07:10):
me the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.
So I represented the lunch ladies and custodio staff in
public schools, and people would often be like, well, what's
asked me? This tax that I'm paying? Right? And so
again the people taking money out of our checks, and
you have no idea what they are for. They are

(07:31):
decisions that are made, wars that are being fought, Climate
science as being ignored in our name, and so voting
gives us the ability to hire and fire these people
who are making decisions about the city, the county, the
country that we live in. And as an employer, I

(07:54):
take that responsibility very seriously, and as a citizen, I
take that responsibility very seriously. And so do I think
it's a magic bullet. No, there are people who we
organize with. There are family members that we contemplate when
we think about the America that we want to live
in that don't have the ability to vote. Right, But
the under eighteen right, the currently or formally incarcerated, the

(08:20):
new Americans or people who have yet to become citizens
are a part of our communities, are a part of
our decision making. And so again, voting is but one
tactic in our overall quest to build power, to build
powerful communities where we make decisions that are in the
best interest of the whole tactic. Yes, seeing ourselves as

(08:44):
employers much more empowering perspective on what voting actually is
hiring and firing. So thank you for that. And especially
when you actually meet these jokers. Can you have a
meta state legislator like exactly? And I think what comes
across already and say, and I've seen you on a

(09:07):
thousand zooms and I've met you in person at least once.
Your vibe, your energy, your smile. Even if someone listening
to this can't see you, I think they can feel
and hear it, and it helps that message go down.
So let's keep that good energy going, you know, m GP.
By our research registered, over six hundred thousand people registered
to vote, and I want some context, said, you don't

(09:29):
have to spend a lot of time on this, but
just the origins of New Georgia Project and your origin
story within the organization. What are those two tales. Yeah,
so there's a woman in Georgia. Her name is Stacy
Abram oh from Star Trek. Yeah. Absolutely, you might know
from Star Trek. I know her from being best friends

(09:49):
with Common and Kerry Washington. Right. Stacy Abrams was the
minority leader of the Georgia State Legislature at the time.
We were introduced by a dear, dear, dear friend, a
mutual friend who was working with a Georgia Democratic Party.
I'm living in Canada at the time. I'm living in Ottawa.

(10:10):
You got out, I did keep bringing back in. Okay,
It's so funny because you are the King of the
Nurse and so you have been around interneting for quite
some time, and I know that you're familiar with the
threat that when things didn't go well, people would always
threaten to move to Canada. I actually did it and

(10:34):
was living and working and organizing in Ottawa for a
number of years. A very good friend came to visit
me and said, are you coming home for the holidays?
Are you coming home for Christmas? Like you've met Mama Ufat.
Of course I'm coming home for Rusus. That's really not
an option. And she says, well, I would love to
introduce you to a state legislator. And I was such
a jerk at the time. I was like, I'm really

(10:55):
just coming to Atlanta to hang out and do irresponsible
things with my college friends. And She's like, but you
should have brunch and I was like, well, that's a
favorite pastime of mine, so of course you should have
led with that. So I have brunch with Stacy. On
New Year's Day twenty fourteen, she lays out this really
powerful vision of the New Georgia project. At the time,

(11:19):
there were one point two million African Americans, Latinos, and
unmarried white women in the state of Georgia who were
eligible to vote and completely unregistered. Why that number mattered
is that also at the same time, the successful Republican
was beating the losing Democrat over and over and over
again a decade by a margin between two hundred and

(11:42):
three hundred thousand votes. So there were five times the
number of people of color, young folks, and unmarried women.
Then what was necessary to swing any election in Georgia, period,
full stop. But they weren't even eligible to participate because
they weren't registered to vote. And there are a lot

(12:03):
of organizations and leaders who were claiming that that was
their work, but nobody was doing this work at scale,
nobody was being really intentional about it, and people didn't
understand why folks kept falling off the voter rolls. So
she says, yes, let's register a million black people to vote.
And I was like, oh, that's adorable, and I gave
her like thirty reasons why it would not work. I
grew up in the Georgia Democratic Party, grew up in Atlanta,

(12:25):
have dealt with the Georgia Democratic Party of the eighties
and nineties. The Dixiecrats baratun Day here with a quick
explainer tunday for those who haven't heard the term or
don't understand the term. Dixiecrats refers to Southerners who seceded
from the Democratic Party in nineteen forty eight. They were

(12:48):
against the party ending racial segregation and extending civil rights
to black Americans. Thousands of Confederate flag waiving X Democrats
formed a right wing splinter group called the States Rights
Democratic Party. This group pushed a white supremacist, segregationist agenda
and even ran a candidate in the nineteen forty eight
presidential election. While this failed third party officially dissolved that

(13:11):
same year, the Dixiecrats influence on the Democratic Party, especially
in the South, has been lasting all right back to
Insa now with the Georgia Democratic Party of the eighties
and nineties. The Dixiecrats the sort of small c conservative
approach to building power, the gentleman's agreements between the Democratic

(13:37):
leaders and the Republican leaders that spoke to the needs
and priorities of a business class, and the elite fictions
and narratives about Atlanta being the city too busy to
hate while also being the city in the country with
like the worst income equality, particularly racial income in equality.
So like, there's these narratives that are like really really
difficult to challenge, and a status quo and way to

(14:00):
do Southern politics and a way to do black politics.
So I hit her with all of that, and if
you know, Stacy, she had like thirty five reasons why
this absolutely could work. So we go back and forth,
we're doing back up the napkin math. I'm like, this
lady is brilliant but also delusional. Also, you're doing math
at brunch, which is not my idea of a great pleasure,

(14:24):
right listen, and our blurred status is certified. So we
have brunch, we go our separate ways. I get back
on a plane and I got back to Canada and
I was like, that was nice. And then a couple
of months later, she calls me and she says it's time.
It's time to come home. There's music and it's like

(14:48):
a Wakonda esque vibe to it. It is time, my child,
It's time. I was ready. I packed up my truck
and drove twenty four hours from Ottawa back to my
childhood bedroom in Atlanta. Wow. And started as the executive director,
eventually becoming the CEO of the New Georgia Project. Literally

(15:08):
like the next day, it's a dramatic move back. And
in the twenty four hour drive what pulled you? Was
it the pangs of nostalgia? Was it Stacy's math plus charisma?
Was the healthcare in Canada not all it was cracked
up to be. No healthcare in Canada was amazing and
I was trying to get my whole family to move

(15:29):
with me. But you know what it was. So I'm
I was born in Nigeria and emigrated to the US
with my family when I was a young wom when
I was in elementary school, Okay, And you know, I
became a US citizen with my mom in high school,
and my mom got a third job so that she

(15:50):
could hire an immigration attorney. And I was responsible for
making sure that we passed the citizenship exam, and having
studied the Constitution, studied this country's foundational documents, swore an
oath of allegiance. I'm a patriot. I love this country.
I am a radical, feminist, mouthy African working class kid

(16:15):
who grew up in the Deep South. Yeah. The vulnerability
that I sort of exist with, I think would have
put me. I would have been in jail if I
were in Nigeria. With my commitment to free speech, my
commitment to challenging the status quo, there are very few
countries in the world where you can challenge leadership, challenge power,

(16:39):
challenge the government and still live to tell the story
about it. As we're seeing, you know, in Iran, in
China and another country by the time someone hears this. Yeah,
and so when I think about the opportunity to come
back home right that what I've known for a really
long time is that Georgia wasn't a red state. George

(17:00):
isn't dominated by the GOP naturally, when you pull all
of its citizens, that there were one point two one
point three million people of color who were foreclosed and
not participating in the process at all. Why aren't people
voting when they get registered, Why aren't they making it
onto the voter rules. Why do people go and vote

(17:22):
for president and then there's such a drop off on
the bottom of the ballot. What's happening with these elections
in Georgia and the opportunity to take my background and
marry and leverage technology with culture to have a more
representative democracy and contest for power in my home state.

(17:46):
Let me only jump in here because it's almost like
you're adding resolution to a simplistic picture most of us
have been presented with. And so we see, especially from
the outside and not the South at all, Georgia read
Georgia Republican, Georgia racist and people who vote for president
and don't vote locally was because they don't care you
know that we just have a very generally simplestic, generally

(18:08):
binary and so you're coming in with this mathematical, technological,
but also cultural approach and you're helping people get in
the game. One of the ways that has stood out
to me about your work is not just vaguely registering voters,
as you said, a lot of people claim to be
doing that, some actually do. But then you have this

(18:29):
concept of super voters, and you wanted to create supervoters,
which sounds like some sort of magical serum that you
take and then your vote counts for three times as much.
But what is a supervoter? So the way I have
defined supervoters are people who vote in every election in
which they're eligible. And you know who are supervoters are
grandparents are supervoters. So senior citizens are super voters. Many

(18:52):
black women, African American women in this country are supervoters.
If there's a ballot measure, there's a special election, there's
a runoff, is a primary. These are super voters every
election in which they're eligible. And so we set off
to study and understand what is it that black women
know that despite the challenges of racism and sexism and

(19:14):
classism and how they intersect in this country. They still
show up and vote, and they vote in every election.
Right despite the limitations of you know, our elections and
voting not being a silver bullet, they still show up
and do it. What do our grandparents know that has
them showing up and voting in every election? And what
can we take from that knowing and in part to

(19:36):
new Americans and to folks as they turn eighteen and
start wrestling with how they want to make change in
their lives. So you've also said that super voters are made,
not born there as how do you make a supervoter
into You make a super voted by understanding what they
care about? Right, And so the way that we train
our organizers is that you have twice as many years

(19:59):
as you do out and you black Grandma said to me,
what do you think I got it from? Its very
clear and so we should be listening. Yeah, And here's
the thing. People will tell you what their hopes are,
what their fears are for themselves, for their families, for

(20:20):
their communities. They will tell you what their ambitions are.
And people don't often connect the dots between policy politics
and their personal priorities. The things that they actually care about.
So you say you're a climate change voter, right, Jeff
Bezos is not inviting you to travel to the moon.
Elon Musk is not inviting you to participate in intergalactic

(20:42):
space travel. There's no Earth to right, And so you
are deeply concerned about the water that we drink, the
air that we breathe, and making sure that there is
a world for future generations to live in. And so yes, like,
please continue to protest, please continue to write letters, please
conceive the recycle, and do all of the things that
you're doing in your personal life. But also, what if

(21:04):
I told you that Public Service Commissioner is an elected
official in Georgia that sets energy rates, that sets energy
policy for the state of Georgia. What if I told
you that there haven't been any nuclear power plants built
anywhere in the US in thirty years, and they're two
being built in Georgia. What if I told you that

(21:26):
if you're a Georgia power customer that you're paying for it, right,
that you can actually do something about it. And so
we start by having meaningful conversations with people about the
things that they told us that they care about. And
then you connect that to the power of the vote.
But why it's effective is because it goes to the

(21:47):
heart of what someone already cares for, what they already
going to protest for, what they already give their money to,
how they already see the world. So you're closing this gap.
People are already being active in their community. You're trying
to add voting to the list. There's been such a
level of poisoning of the collective mindset around the effectiveness
of voting that I know so many people who care

(22:10):
super passionately about this, that, and the other, and equally
dispassionately about voting because they don't think it matters. How
are you able to overcome the disinformation techniques that deny
people knowledge of the power of their vote or their
well earned pessimism that after having voted a few times

(22:30):
they haven't seen the change that was promised. So how
do you continue to close that gap in the face
of those two counter messages that voting doesn't really matter.
So there's a philosopher, a Mailcar cabravs as we never
lied to the people, right, And so I think that
one of the sort of knee jerk reactions and the
instincts is to overstate the importance of voting as a

(22:52):
way to combat against this information. And when you elect
a Barack Obama and black unemployment is still at historic
levels in the Deep South, then you have to go
back to those people and be like, I know you
voted because we said that this person would change things,

(23:13):
but you know the system is limited, etc. You know
that he's president, he's not king. And then he starts
talking to folks about federalism and checks and balances and
you know the role of the administrative branch versus the
judicial branch, etc. Leading with what does it take to
bring about the change? Elections aren't the event, right, and

(23:35):
so elections are opportunities to test our power and flex
our power on the way to getting wages that Georgians want, right,
And so again it is not about the election itself.
I mean they are events on a campaign timeline where

(23:56):
the campaign goal is to live a better life. Right,
is to have the things that we need in order
to live the life that we deserve to live in
the communities, the cities, the counties, the states that our
families deserve to live in. I think that that's why,
you know, when we focus on polling, and when we

(24:16):
focus on the horse race, and when there's so much
obsession about the elections themselves that we're actually doing democracy like,
we're doing harm to democracy, to the democratic process, and
to people's understanding about what is actually important. Yeah, and
I'm glad that you named polling, which often acts as
a sort of election event pre emptor. Right, if you

(24:38):
tell me what's going to happen, you ensure that I
don't have an ability to affect what happens because I've
already assumed that it's going to happen the way you
told me. So it can be a subtle way of
draining people's power. You've been successful at registration, at getting
people to the polls. I've seen y'all got music, you
got events, you got good food, you know where it's allowed,

(25:00):
and using apps in technology, all good things. And I
think you also have articulated even here that the election
is a kind of a milestone on a journey. So
there's work to be done in between these, right, not
just showing up the week before election day at a
church with some barbecue. From a results perspective, though, because
y'all have the benefit and the curse in GP, I

(25:21):
should say had the benefit and the curse of fame.
You know, I joked about Stacey Abrams in Star Trek,
and I think from the outside people will look in
and say, Stacey Abrams ain't the governor. And Raphael Warnock
had to face a runoff with an out of state
football player who consistently cannot weave the correct words together,
so ergo. Therefore in GP is a failure, Like how

(25:46):
do you assess the results and consider success or failure
across these events? Over time, we in this country and
in our culture love a superhero and a messiahaire. Right,
And so when we think about Stacy Abrahams and her
quest to become governor of Georgia, her quest to become

(26:08):
America's first black woman governor, that it's focused on her narrative. Right,
when you think about Senator Warnock and like the idea
that you know he is the pastor of America's civil
rights church, that there was mer Luther King Jr. Two
other dudes and then Warnock right to command that pulpit.
That we focus on them and they are like heroic journey.

(26:31):
But actually the Georgia's story is the story about people
doing what they can when they can with what they have,
that people are showing up to vote in numbers as
well as protesting, as well as community organizing and power building, etc.
And so what I will say is that we have

(26:53):
built infrastructure that is designed to push back against the
worst instincts of authoritarian leaders, and that is designed to win,
like actual wins for working people, for working families, and
then defend those wins beyond one election cycle. We elected

(27:15):
a thirty three year old Jewish kid from the North
Atlanta suburbs and Reverend Warnock from Ebenezer Baptist Church to
the United States Senate right, and then immediately afterwards, because
there is a near supermajority in the Georgia state legislature,
they passed Senate Bill two O two, which changed Georgia's
election laws to make it more difficult for Georgians to vote.

(27:37):
After we elected us off in Warnock, and that could
have been the end of the sort of battleground Georgia project.
But we've been able to hold the line, hundreds of
thousands of phone calls, millions of quality face to face
conversations letting Georgians know what's up, creating opportunities for them

(27:57):
to get involved in their local community. That is a wine.
That is the thing that's going to keep our voices
active and in the process, that's going to keep people
informed and educated over the long haul. And so it's
not just electoral results that determine our success. It's the

(28:19):
infrastructure that we've built and the ability to create pathways
for people to citizen as a regular part of how
we build the world that we want to live in.
Boom boom, boom boom. So yes, and using citizen as
a verb, you're clearly one of us. I am one
of you. I hinted at this before, but I want

(28:41):
to make a clearer point of it. I love the
level of fun and play and sort of sophistication to
the strategy. You made a video game, you know, you
turn longlines to vote into block parties, like you take
what should be considered a weakness and turn it into
an opportunity and potentially your strength. You got marching bands, yes,

(29:01):
and Mariachi van mariachis supwalkers, strippers, food trucks. So this
is culture to the max. It's it's a sophisticated use
of technology. Why was it important to incorporate these into
the work because we're trying to change the culture of democracy,
change the culture of citizen participation. People roll their eyes

(29:25):
and grown when they think about like having to show
up and vote, like, oh, it's election season again, right,
and we wanted to change that, and how else do
you change culture? But working with culture workers, Right, So,
I don't know how much your audience knows about Atlanta
and Atlanta nightlife, but nightlife is a big part of

(29:45):
youth culture in Atlanta, and so adults entertainment dance. They're
strippers with like two million followers on Instagram who can
get out get out the vote message. So if I'm
trying to target young for example, African American men, I mean,
I can put up this really well research get out
the vote message direct to camera, and I'm earnest. I

(30:08):
mean what I say and I care, and my thirteen
hundred followers would be like right on and say it
well stated. But then like, you know miss Cherry and
her two million followers, and she cares because she's an entrepreneur, yes, right,

(30:29):
and a citizen. So working with culture workers to help
us change the culture of democratic participation felt like a
really important tactic. When I think about music and songs
when the video games, I mean, we had registered at
the time half a million young people and people of
color to vote, and as a part of our work,

(30:50):
we get their permission and their consent to get their
phone numbers. So we got half a million phone numbers.
And so why not take a candy crush or like
a super popular Match three puzzle game that's sort of
easy to code, rap it in some Georgia iconography. So
let's throw some peaches, some peanuts, the Varsity, the Georgia Bulldog,

(31:12):
and then put it in people's phones that you can
mindlessly scroll. And then we can do push notifications when
the voter registration deadline is on its way up, and
we can ask people for permission to turn on their
location when they go vote, so that we can know
where there are long lines at the polls and deploy
resources if necessary. This speaks to me and I think

(31:34):
when we were backstage at this event in New York
where we met in person, the Blurred Fest, because you're
you're taking this geek culture, this tech culture, but again
joy fun play to change the culture of democracy, or
at least the culture of how we practice it. And
that is that is just a much better on ramp

(31:55):
than pure facts, well reasoned persuade of arguments, and also
the alternative which many of us have experienced with, which
is fear, which is threats. I could show you, but
I don't need to my inbox from the Democratic Party,
primarily my text messages, the amount of folks I've had

(32:17):
to report and block for terrifying me into giving three
dollars to somebody who I don't know how they got
my number. I didn't consent to that. It's such an
opposite approach and it literally turns me off from democracy practice.
And I host a show called How to Citizen. So
can you I guess this is a long way of saying,

(32:38):
can you take over messaging for the whole Democratic Party?
I'll give you my number. You could text me anytime.
I think the challenges that it works, right, So like
Fox News is really not a news organization at all,
it's a propaganda machine. But they're super effective because fear
is a powerful motivator. Anger is a powerful motivated The

(33:01):
problem is that it is not sustainable that people burn
out and tune out, right, and so that is why
they send so many emails. Because you've sufficiently scared someone
and like, give me five dollars now, or the world
is going to blow up and Trump's going to be
president again. It works a couple of times until it doesn't,
and then you got to burn through more citizens, you

(33:23):
got to burn through more donors. You have to ratchet
up the rhetoric in order to maintain the same level
of impact. And it's a cheap drug. It is a
cheap drug, and what I'm proposing is much more sustainable.
I say that joy is a renewable resource that we
can continue to tap back into. That people want to

(33:44):
come and hang out with us, they want to come
and volunteer with us, they want to come and donate
to our efforts because there's a nine foot person walking
around and like singing show tunes, keeping voters entertained and
keeping people's spirits high. And you can continue to go
back to that well. The Second Line Band, the New

(34:07):
Orleans Natives who live in Georgia now, who came in
volunteer for us. They loved what they did, and people
were super grateful and they got new clients from it.
And so when it came time to go back to
the well, they were eager and made recommendations right that
did Miss Cherry get new clients as well? Miss Cherry
definitely got new followers, and I think that her existing

(34:31):
customers and we're like, oh, she understands politics too, and
she gets work. What I'm saying after the break and
say on what it takes to motivate people to vote
for what they loved, not just against what they hate.

(34:58):
What would you say The greatest challenge facing our electoral
system is, Mmm, there's so many. I'm trying to choose one.
The insane amount of money that flows through our elections, um,

(35:19):
the way that wealthy individuals, high net worth individuals, incorporations
have their thumb on the scale, the way that they
have elected officials in a chokehold, has made it really,
really difficult to make progress on the policy priorities that
Americans actually care about. There was a whole insurrection barrassing day,

(35:45):
Why are you bringing up a stuff? There was a
whole cool attempt right and there was a failed murder
plot to kill the Vice President of the United States,
and the Speaker of the House tried to steal the
electoral They identified alternative electors who were on standby, ready

(36:07):
to supplant the will of the people for their own
and for a moment, corporations were shamed. A moment they
all refused to make any pack or corporate contributors, right right,
that was that was an inspiring seventy two hours, and

(36:29):
they said, we're not giving money to anyone who voted
against the electoral college vote, anybody who denied the results
of the elections. They don't mean us well, they are
a threat to our country or a threat to democracy,
We're not going to give them money. And then quietly,
as we prepared for the twenty two mid terms, they
turned this bigot back on right and they started giving

(36:52):
to both sides as if they were equal. They started
to equivocate. They started to justify, you know, giving money
to these election deniers. And so, yeah, I think that
the money as speech, corporations as citizens are one of
the biggest threats to our democracy, to our election system,

(37:15):
and no one is interested in unilatterally disarming. So the
Republicans are not gonna say I'm gonna stop taking corporate money,
and for the most part, most Democrats won't say, I mean,
you have some anomalies like Senator Sanders and AOC and
others who are principled in this particular way, right, but
no one is interested in unilatterally disarming. Maybe I want

(37:37):
to see it as an interim. We're kind of between worlds,
because even we were having a joyful conversation, you and
I until I ask you about the biggest threat, right,
and then it was like oh snap, like bubble burst,
the funding of pro insurrectionists people. And so we see
a path of twerking the vote and second lining the

(37:58):
vote and crushing the on our phone and meeting people
where they are and listening. And then we see fear
and the cheap drug which still gets you high but
also kills you know and can kill the body. Politic
absolutely the way out other than the joy part, which
you've been so good at talking about. Part of the strategy,
and what you wrote in your farewell letter is about love,

(38:22):
and so I want to know this is let me
just share a little bit of what you said, and
our work fighting for justice and a new future, love
can easily get overshadowed by all the things working against it.
And then you go on to quote Bell Hooks, the
late black feminist writer. I move with and from a
love ethic which has guided me, fortified me, and provided

(38:42):
the load bearing beams that support all that we have built.
So what do you mean by the love ethic? How
do we citizen more with love to ensure that the
forces of love and fun and joy defeat the forces
of fear and that cheap and unsustainable drug. So it's
a practice, right. I am so good at telling people

(39:06):
about all the things that I hate, Right. I tell
the movies that I hate, the music that I hate,
the people that I based, and it's at the forefront
of my cerebral cortexes and my fingertips. It rolls off
my tongue, right. But when you ask people about what
they love, right, what they love, what they care deeply about,
like sometimes it takes folks a minute. I think that

(39:28):
people are really precious about it. They're really protective about it.
That people will go to the ends of the earth
for the ones that they love and the things that
they love. You've seen the mom lift a car off
of a toddler, right because of the love that they
have for that young person. And so focusing on who

(39:49):
I love, what I love, and what I want for them,
what I want for us is the load bearing being.
What I'm building my campaigns on what I'm building my life.
It was build my career on like who do you
love and what kind of world do you want for them?
What kind of country do you want for them? And

(40:11):
I think that that is what I mean by the
love ethic, that it is infused in our communications. It's
infused in our campaign design, who we hire, who we
partner with, the vendors that we use, like do you

(40:32):
share our values? Do you share our analysis? Are you fighting?
I mean it even comes down to like real estate
choices that we've made, like we've moved offices because found
out that like the show company that actually is our
landlord is also like connected to somebody that we're actively
campaigning and organizing against because they're anti worker or you know,

(40:56):
they're spending money against the union organizing campaign. And so
thinking about again who we love, what's important to us,
what matters, and using that as a lens to make
decisions and a lens to see the world at the
very obvious risk of playing into puns. I love this
part of our conversation and say, yeah, a lot of

(41:19):
things come together, and I think the the extra step,
the infusion piece, the lens piece that it's not just
in who you hire, it's how you employ, it's where
you put your real estate money, it's how you message
that if that fuel source can power everything, then it
can change everything. So that's that's great. What are you

(41:42):
bringing your love and your love ethic to next? And say,
I hear you might be writing a book. I am.
I really wish that like technology advanced to the place
where the book can write itself. It's almost there. We
got these little AI learning models. I hate them again.
Back to it's like I don't sound like that, and

(42:03):
that real people don't talk like that. But yeah, I
want to tell the story of people power and how
it gets built. I won't say too much, but I'm
excited about a graphic novel that tells a story about
how we win. We've never had more money than the
enemies of progress, right, But throughout the history of the world,

(42:24):
people linking up with folks who share their values and
fighting next to one another for a world that they
think that they deserve has been the most consistent way
that we've won. And so I want to show what
that looks like in the twenty twenties and inspire a
next generation of young citizens to take responsibility for building

(42:50):
the future. And you know, too long didn't read as
a lifestyle. So let's give some dope pictures. Pictures and
you know, pictures worth a thousand words. So it's basically
data impression. Yeah, at see, this is what I mean.
I've been going hard for a while, and so I think,
you know, going somewhere and crying in the ocean and

(43:11):
then writing a book feels like the priority for the
next couple of months. You deserve that so much. We
have this belief here and we practice it in the
title citizen as a verb. It's something we can all do.
I'm gonna ask you for your definition. If you interpret
citizen as a verb, what does it mean to you

(43:32):
to citizen? To citizen means knowing yourself, knowing your priorities,
and then articulating that to folks who are making decisions
about the communities that we need to build. And it's
not an outsourcing thing, right, It's a small d democracy things.

(43:56):
We are making decisions together and I am being honest
about my motivations. I'm being honest about my priorities, and
I'm being honest about how I want my money spent.
You are these principles in motion, in action. You are
these beams. Your love ethic shines beautifully through. So so

(44:21):
thank you for this one on one conversation and say,
oh fuck, thank you Bir today blur king. I mean again,
it means so much to me to have this conversation
with you. One. I remember the early days of Twitter,
getting on there looking for community and like black immigrant nerd,

(44:45):
but with you know, a little bit of swag like
a sprinkle if you will, and coming across your feed,
coming across like your public scholarship, your public organizing, and
like finding my people. It was just really really important

(45:06):
to me in my formative years as I think about
like how to use technology to build a better world.
And so this is such a treat and I feel
so fortunate to be able to sit down and have
this time with you. So thank you. Is it just
because I have a fake Nigerian name that you follow
me on Twitter? I mean that helps. I'm not gonna lie.

(45:29):
I get a lot of I get another Nigerians that way.
I am an unofficial census taker of all Nigerian Americans.
So like if you have a little bit of African
ancestry DNA result of like he's Nigerians. Good. So we're
going into phase two to our live audience here, Thank
you for witnessing this. We've gathered a lot of your questions.

(45:50):
First up is Janine, say your name and where you're based. Hi,
Janine from Philadelphia. Thank you so much. This was lovely.
My question is you all talked a lot about on ramping,
you know, political education for folks, and you spoke right
at the beginning that voting is one tactic among tactics,

(46:11):
and I was wondering, what do you think are your
top three or maybe four or five tactics for doing
this work of connecting people to small p politics locally
all year so that when someone like you and folks
are trying to do the voting thing, the on ramp
is a little less steep. Definitely, public scholarship, public and

(46:35):
popular education is really important too. I think cultural organizing, right,
and so reimagining what's possible, continuing to challenge stories about
the status quo, etcetera. You know, I think Adrian Marie
Brown says that like all organizing is an act of
science fiction, that we are working to build a world
that currently only exists in our minds, right, and So

(46:58):
how do you share that vision of the world. Is
it through song? Is it through dance? Is it through
your witty and fire tweets and Instagram posts? Right? And
then what are other year round tactics? Oh, I think honestly,
for us, it is the asking of questions. It's the polling,
It's the knocking on doors and having high quality face

(47:19):
to face conversations when it's possible that I would argue
that there's nobody in the state of Georgia that has
a better sense of where young people are and the
attitudes of black people and black voters than me, and
the infrastructure that I've built at the New Georgia Project
because I invest in it because it's important to me,
because it's what we do year round. So you can't

(47:41):
find out what people care about and then connect that
to the act of voting and then get them to
understand that voting is important in October before an election,
that that is something that we are doing day in
and day out year round, and so meaningful conversations with
people about things that matter. Thank you for that. And
as for your answers, the imagination game is very strong.

(48:01):
We've got an interview in this season coming up with
Ruha Benjamin, who says, you know, we are living in
other people's imaginations, just in terms of the reality of
the world we set and a white supremacist imagination often
and we have Adrian Marie Brown and lastly on the
Year Round organizing with Angela Lange from Block Milwaukee in

(48:22):
an earlier episode. So if folks want to find out
more of what that can look like, Angela is a
great resource in our conversation with her. I will now
call on Diane Hendrix, a regular in the How To
Citizen World. Now, Diane, welcome back. Say your name and
where you're calling in from. Hi there, I'm Diane Hendrix
from Boston. I grew up in Georgia. I was where

(48:46):
Hot Wanta I was. I went to take some Sensus
down there, and so I was inspired by Stacey Abrams
to do some phone banking for Reverend war Orknock and
that was so wonderful. So the very wooden instructions that

(49:07):
you get from some of these phone bank people is
not very inspiring. But I wondered if you have strategies
like backdoor strategies for phone banking calls because you're not
supposed to talk about, of course, who you're voting for,
so you get to hide that. Here's a question, I like,

(49:29):
what kind of voter are you? And give people examples
like are you an education voter? Are you a Second
Amendment voter? Are your climate change voter? Are your women's
health voter? And you know, give people some examples, but
then give them an opportunity to answer that open ended question,
because it'll also give you a sense of what they
care about and help you talk about the candidate, the

(49:52):
ballot measure, whatever it is that your phone banking them
about in a more bespoke way, like in a more narrow,
more tailored way, because they've already told you what they
care about. Good question, Diane from Boston and Georgia. Okay,
Beatrice Sue Blay for chance, All right, right, Sue Blay

(50:12):
is correct. And I just think it was fortuitous that
while we were on a person from the New Georgia
Projects came to my door and here's the door doctor,
And it was just beautiful and not only well, first
of all, he was asking telling me that I know
about the run off, and of course I'm an East
Point Georgia. I forgot to say that, Hey, Mayhver. Oh good,

(50:33):
all right, hi baby, and I'm from New Orleans too.
I came up after Katrina, so if I call you baby,
don't get your feelings her. I'm familiar. But after I
told him that I had voted, I knew about I
voted on Saturday because our senator had sued to get
that day and I was gonna go out there, baby.
So anyway, after I thought our conversation might have been
over and he had given me this wanderful information, he

(50:55):
began to ask me, what are some of your issues?
And I thought that was so profound because I was
able to articulate them, and there was one that I
had a concern about that he wasn't sure what you know,
what had happened with the Education committee anyway, But the
point is it was a wonderful encounter and it was
not just here take this. We've given rise to the polls.
Thank you by It was excellent. It was a relationship,

(51:19):
even in that short time. So it was just for two.
It's just that we were on and I was so happy.
I'm happy. Thank you for confirming that I'm not a liar.
Right that we asked people what they care about it's
conversational and we don't lie to the people. He didn't
know about the Education committee thing that you were concerned about,

(51:39):
and he told you, but he was able to engage
you on other topics. So I love this. I love that,
and say you are so organized that you planted a
New Georgia Project canvas there to hit up one of
our audience members during this live taping that's with lit
with the doorhanger. I'm just I'm good. Oh if I'm

(52:02):
going to ask this question on behalf of a listeners
from Paula Costa or Costa, how do you peacefully respectfully
address the issue of gun regulation, especially in communities where
many people believe not only that gun ownership is an absolute,
unquestionable right, but part of their identity. I mean, we

(52:28):
are in a gun's everywhere state, and guns is actually
particularly challenging in a place like Georgia where marginalized groups
and a press groups, minority groups have had to hold
the line and defend themselves and their communities against state

(52:51):
sanctioned violence. And so it's a conversation that we lean into,
but it is going to be a cultural conversation, which
means that like quick hits are not gonna get it
done because thinking about guns and the culture of guns

(53:11):
in a place like Chicago versus thinking about guns and
the culture of guns in a place like Brunswick, Georgia,
right where you know, a mod Arbrey was running and
it was murdered by some vigilantes and people who thought
that they had the color of authority just because they

(53:32):
were white. It is a very different conversation. And I
always always always start with listening. It's easy to think
that like people are clinging to their guns and their
god because of ignorance and because you know, they've inherited
a political ideology they've inherited, like the mythology of like

(53:54):
the frontiersman and what it means to be an American.
But there are seventy five years black grandmothers in South
Georgia who've seen some shit. Yeah, and you are not
going to take her shotgun. You're just not. And so
who are you talking to? Yeah? Right? And why are
they so committed to guns? And honestly, if we just

(54:16):
regulated the corporations who are mass producing these guns and
who throw money and buy elected officials, like that could
be the silver bullet to starting us on the path
to gun controlled and so we could focus on the
culture wars, We could focus on Bubba or you know,

(54:38):
Miss Mabel and like why people had their guns, or
we could go directly to Smith and Weston, we could
go directly to the NR who have an outside influence
on gun policy in this country. Yeah, and say, is
there anything you want to add yourself that is related
to this topic that we didn't get to or just
on your mind, totally unrelated, but you have a microphone

(55:00):
interview and you want to say some things. I am
even more convinced now that like borders are fake, and
with the Internet making the world so much smaller, that
like attacks on information and information sources and democracy is
really a global phenomenon. And so I think that we

(55:21):
also need to be looking at what's happening in other
countries as a little bit of foreshadowing about what happens
if we lose the ability to hire and fire elected officials.
And so, you know, I just encouraging people to not
think about democracy. It's just the voting conversation, but really
thinking about like it is the way that we make

(55:44):
decisions about how our world works, and it is actually really,
really really important and the spillover from failing democracies or
attacks on democracies could be really, really kind of sequential,
and I just want us to be mindful of that.

(56:05):
I love y'all, We love you too, and say thank
you so much. The way we make decisions, on the
way our world works. That is a great definition of democracy,
and your practice of it is inspiring all of us.
Have a beautiful rest of your day. Let's be real.

(56:26):
Ideally we wouldn't need carnivals, marching bands and miss Cherry
post into her page in order to get people out
to the polls and then wait in long lines once
they got there. Ideally we wouldn't need hundreds or thousands
of volunteers on the ground registering people to vote in
order to have fair representative voter turnout. But we don't

(56:51):
yet live in that ideal, and in the space between
the ideal and the real. Thankfully we've got people like
in Say helping us close the gap. She does this
using a story of love as both a motivator and
as a goal, a story that values the culture we
create around democracy as much as the systems that make

(57:13):
that democracy function. And now it's time for some actions,
starting with an internal reflection. I want us to feel
the love as both a motivator and as a goal.
Take a moment to reflect on what you love about

(57:35):
your city, your county, or your country as you're thinking
of it, pause and breathe while visualizing those things for
just a few minutes. What do you feel in your
body when you put your attention on what you love
and how might this feeling help you citizen better? Now?
Our next action is in the category of becoming more

(57:57):
informd and Say mentioned this idea of a love ethic,
which she got from black feminist author and activist Belle Hooks.
Learn more about that ethic by reading Hooks's book All
about Love, New Visions, a love song to the Nation.
If you've only got time right now For something shorter,
we found a beautiful blog post that summarizes bell Hooks's

(58:18):
love ethic. Both the book and the blog are linked
in the show notes. And last, but not least, let's
put that love to work in the form of some
public participation. Now, there's only one new Georgia project, so
if you live in Georgia, get involved with that organization.
You've heard all the reasons why in this episode. For

(58:40):
those of us not blessed to live in the Peach date.
Every region of the US has similar groups focused on
relational organizing work. Check out popular democracy dot org for
a great listing of affiliate organizations all around the US
that you can get involved with. You can also put
relational organizing to work with your relationships. When it's time

(59:00):
to vote, there's organizations like Circle Voting or vote Force.
Check the show notes for links to everything I just mentioned.
If you take any of these actions, please brag about
it online and use the hashtag how to Citizen. Also
tag our Instagram how to Citizen. I am always online
and I really do see your messages, so send them.

(59:21):
You can also visit our website, howard to citizen dot com,
which has all of our shows, full transcripts, actions, and more. Finally,
see this episode show notes for resources, actions, and more
ways to connect. How to Citizen with barrettun Day is
a production of iHeartRadio Podcasts and Row Home Productions. Our

(59:43):
executive producers are Me, barrettun Day, Thurston, and Elizabeth Stewart.
Our lead producer is Ali Graham. Our associate producer is
Donya abdel Hamid, Alex Lewis is our managing producer and
John Myers is our executive editor. Our mix engineer is
Justin Burger. Original music by Andrew Eapan with additional music

(01:00:05):
by Blue Dot Sessions, and our audience engagement fellows are
Jasmine Lewis and Gabbie Rodriguez. Special thanks to Joel Smith
from iHeartRadio and Layla Bean Next Time on how to

(01:00:25):
citizen in say taught us how to get the most
out of the voting system we've got. But how else
could civic engagement look if we were invited to do
more than just choose our representatives? What if we represented ourselves.
I don't want this to just be some sort of
politician bashing. I really feel like it's a systemic problem.
The short termism, the fact that party politics and campaign

(01:00:48):
financing and all these things come out on top in
terms of what are the incentives for the collective public
decisions we're taking. These are features, not bugs, of the
system that we have today, and so how do we
redesign the system and how do we shift power to
new institutions of citizen participation, representation by law, and deliberation.
Claudia Phlitts on the movement to put citizens at the

(01:01:11):
center of our democracy with citizen assemblies, row home productions

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

1. The Podium

2. In The Village

3. iHeartOlympics: The Latest

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Love is a Renewable Resource (Nsé Ufot)

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}1. The Podium

2. In The Village

3. iHeartOlympics: The Latest

All Episodes

Love is a Renewable Resource (Nsé Ufot)

1. The Podium