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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Welcome to How to Citizen with Bariton Day, a show
where we reimagine the words citizen as a verb, reclaim
it from those who weaponized it, and remind ourselves how
to wield our collective power. This is a new episode.
I'm Barton Day. Like any healthy democracy, this show is

(00:28):
stronger when you participate, and we have a number of
ways for you to do that. If you're on the
social media, use the hashtag how to Citizen when you
post about the show, and we will lift up as
many as we can. If you want to be more direct,
you could always reach out to us via comments at
how to citizen dot com. We still check email around here,

(00:51):
and if you're doing the actions that we ask you
too at the individual show, let us know what you did.
Send an email to action at how to citizen dot com.
I am loving seeing your reflections the organizations you're starting.
It's really great. Let's keep it up and speaking to
keep it things up. We would be remiss if we

(01:12):
didn't ask you to rate and review this show wherever
you're listening to it. I suggest five stars, but that's
up to you. Citizen. A quick word on how we
make this show. We do most of them live in
zoom with a visible cameras on chat room, fired up audience,
which could include you. You have a chance to ask

(01:34):
our guest questions and literally help make the show. You
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to citizen dot com and joining my email list. And yes,
I love the live audience experience. But you're special because
you're right here. So don't worry. I'm gonna be back
check in with you, certainly at the end of the show,

(01:55):
where I give you particular ways that you can citizen.
Now allow me to pass the mic to myself as
I set up this episode. We're still living with COVID
and we're not living great with it in the United States.

(02:17):
But I've said this for a while that what we
have lacked in national leadership, we have an abundance on
the ground in local and regional cooperation. It's not always
those with the most resources getting the job done, it's
those willing to work hard, use their networks, and step up.

(02:38):
In this episode, we're going to meet two of these individuals,
people who left their comfort zones, tapped into their contact
list and leverage everything and everyone they know to fight
this disease. So that no one has left unprotected. Our
guest Danielle Allen said it best in her Washington Post

(02:58):
OpEd where she wrote, quote, there was only one real
silver bullet. It's called grit. This is a can do country,
and our determination to beat the disease is our ultimate weapon.
We'll get to Danielle later, but first I need to
introduce you to dr Amy. Amen, Larry, I actually know

(03:21):
dr Amy personally because of New York City back in March.
Elizabeth and I have returned from our last trip to
that city this year, it seems, and when we departed,
it was a very different city than when we had landed,
and we knew we were in for a ride, but
our friends in New York were in for a much

(03:42):
worse one, and within a month that city got crushed
by COVID nineteen. One of our friends in Brooklyn, Tricia Wong,
stood up to help and she formed this network of
volunteers to get personal protective equipment PPE directly into the
hands of frontline health workers. Early in the process of

(04:04):
setting that up, knowing that this disease was going to
come for l A and other cities. Later, Tricia reached
out to Elizabeth the same Elizabeth, who was an executive
producer on this show full Disclosure, to help start an
l A version of the network. They would call this
effort Last Mile PPE. Now it's simply known as Last

(04:26):
Mile And you know, I saw our house transformed into
a PPE coordination hub. There were zoom calls and what
SAPs and inspections and vetting of shipping manifest It was wild.
And in the process of running the l A chapter,
Elizabeth met Dr Amy i'm in Lari, a San Diego

(04:46):
doctor who had joined the l A effort but would
eventually create her own in San Diego to meet the
needs of her community. Here's my conversation with Amy m M.
I'm Amy, I'm and Luri. I am an emergency physician

(05:08):
and I'm also a medical director and part owner of
Coastal Family Urgent Care here in Carl's Bad. I am
the founder and lead of Last Mile San Diego. So
I want to start back in the beginning of this
whole COVID nineteen coronavirus pandemic mess, because you're an emergency

(05:29):
medicine doctor and I'd love your take as someone who's
been on the front lines of this battle. What take
me back in time and tell me what that was
like for you in the beginning as a doctor and
just as Amy, well, you know, back in March, it
was very difficult working in the front lines because myself

(05:51):
and my colleagues felt a lot of stress and anxiety
with obviously this pandemic coming out that nobody really knew
much about, and conflicting data, and to make things worse,
we felt kind of unprotected because we felt like these
masks which we used to use daily and toss out

(06:12):
after one, use not think about it. All of a sudden,
we're not readily available and we're really scarce, and it
was difficult to be able to even get one oftentimes.
So that was the beginning of what started my thinking
about how to address this problem that I saw affecting

(06:34):
my peers, affecting colleagues and other hospitals across San Diego.
And it was very real and I could, you know,
I experienced it firsthand. So what ended up happening was
I said, well, what is the most scarce ppe that
we need, and that was masks, and they still are scarce.
I just want to cut in here real quick to

(06:57):
say Amy is an e er doctor and yet took
on more work because she experienced the problem firsthand affecting
her and her peers. She knew there was a lack
of awareness about PPE shortages. So she gets involved and
she starts by simply reaching out to a friend. So
myself and my friend Grace, my good friend Grace, who

(07:21):
also has a lot of family members who are in
emergency medicine frontline providers, She and I decided to undertake
vetting or sourcing. Vetting is like it like the improper term,
but sourcing and trying to find legitimate and nine ourselves.
We decided to just try to take it into our hands,
try to get ninety fives and try to get it

(07:42):
to people that needed them. So that search, what did
that look like? That was crazy? So she has two kids,
I have three, and you know, we have families. So
we would every night after they were all to bed
and everything was done in the house, we would we
would just sit together. They're on the phone and on
the computer and just search and search until like two

(08:04):
or three am every night, looking for you know, legitimate suppliers,
looking for sources, and then really we just got into
the minutia of what is a real and ninety five
and what is a fake one? And we came up
with a protocol on how we would determine this um
and in the end, honestly, what happened was we came

(08:25):
to dead ends because most of the nine out there
were counterfeit, and we decided to kind of think outside
of the box and we thought, well, what and nine
would be legitimate? And we thought, well, why are there
counterfeit and ninety five now to begin with, it's because
of the pandemic. So we reached We're thinking, let's try

(08:47):
to reach the ninety five that were pre pandemic because
there was no motivation to make them counterfeit at that time.
So this was like the seed for a last Mile
San Diego. We started reaching out to the community. We
reached out to surfboard shapers, construction workers, families who had
earthquake kits and emergency kits that they happened to have

(09:08):
a bunch of the nine in their garage and didn't
even realize it. So we really kind of did this
large scale community based mission to gather and nine that
the community had to donate to us. So if you've
got counterfeit and there's no proof that they can filter

(09:29):
the stars Kobe to virus, and there's no proof that
they're actually protecting anyone. So we wanted verified and legitimate masks,
and obviously it's not helping anyone to distribute something that's
not going to protect us against the virus. Did you
set up a phone tree? Did you put up an
ad on Facebook? Like? What did that outreach look like?

(09:50):
And who else was involved? So, honestly, it was a
lot of just interpersonal connections. We reached out because Grace's
family is very involved in surfing and the surf community,
so she reached out to surfboard shapers that were like
prominent in our community. Um, I actually had a banner
in my backyard because my backyard faces the trail. So

(10:12):
we got this huge banner made asking for help, and
people would walk by on the trail and myself or
my husband and would stop by and talk to them
because they would ask me what is this about? And
so we kind of spread things word of mouth through
the community and people that were walking by, and they
actually showed a lot of interest. They would post on
the next door app, they would post on their social media.

(10:34):
We posted on our personal social media because at that
time we hadn't organized our last mile social media, so
that's really how it began. Very grassroots, very community oriented,
and just from that, we went from twenty masks two
hundreds of masks that were like dropped at my doorstep
at all times of the day. And it was very
inspiring to see and like very touching to see that

(10:58):
people really care, even if it was five masks, they
would come and just bring whatever they had. People in
Orange County who saw my Facebook post, you know, offer
their masks and that was really you know, that was
pretty amazing. Did you did you feel a bit like
a drug dealer accepting these packages dropped off at all

(11:19):
hours at your ho It was weird. There would be
like random people parked in front of my house, and yeah,
it was very It was kind of a little weird
because he's un any five that's like they were so
precious and they are so How has this effort evolved
from strangers dropping off unmarked packages in your front yard
to something even more today? What does it look like now?

(11:42):
We realized that we needed to, you know, expand our efforts,
so we started reaching out each of us to our
friends and family and contacts, and eventually one connection after another,
I ended up getting linked to Last Mile at which
I'm so grateful for, and linked to Elizabeth Stewart, prior

(12:05):
lead of Last Mile l A, and that was a
very pivotal connection. She took us under her wing and
was already connected to Last Mile National, Last Mile New York,
New York City, and we became a part of her
group just because of just by talking to friends and

(12:25):
being interconnected. So with Last Mile l A, Elizabeth showed
us what they were doing. We were involved in their
WhatsApp group and zoom meetings, and from there Grace and
I decided that San Diego needed to have a similar chapter.
Their philosophy was to deliver PPE directly into the hands

(12:47):
of providers, because what I was seeing at the hospital
was that hospital administration, for whatever reason, wasn't giving us
PP and even if they were donated, we don't know
what the reasoning us, but we didn't receive them. So
we felt the best way to help was to deliver
directly into the hands of people that needed them. So

(13:07):
we donated to thirteen hospitals and clinics in Tijuana. We've
been doing that for a few months because they have
so little resources and so little PPE, and you know,
we wanted to reach out and help them and we
were able to do that, and we're continuing to do that.
Every week we have batches of donations going to them

(13:28):
UM and we're also focusing on areas near the border. Recently,
I was excited we have open connections to Barrio Logan.
What's Mario Logan. Barrio Logan is the southern portion of
San Diego. It's part of the Promise Zone. I think
there are twenty two Promised Zones in the US which

(13:49):
are identified by the government as the most impoverished in
communities under most arrests, and this area is the most
highly afflicted with co OVID. This area includes parts of
Chula Vista National City and so we have currently been
able to tap into that region and we just actually

(14:09):
hosted and helped to host a drive by donation drive
for the community members. He's of the children. They're homeless,
people are living in their cars, they don't have PPE
when they're going to work. The particular organization we're collaborating
with is called the Good Neighbor Project and it's headed
by John Alvarado, who was born and raised and it's

(14:30):
like he was. I was there last weekend at the
drive and he's like the mayor of Brio Logan. He
was walking around, he knew everybody's name, and you know,
so we're working with him because he's part of the community.
And um he's opening doors to let us try to help,
including Santa Cedro Health Clinic, which is right at the
border and they are a super hot slot with I

(14:51):
think they that area has the highest number of COVID deaths.
The show was about the power that we have as
citizens to help shape our communities, to help each other out,
to put the benefit of the mini ahead of the few.
And so what you just articulated feels very much aligned
with the mission of this show. How do you think

(15:11):
in light of your answer about your power as a citizen. Honestly,
it's been an amazing journey, just like for myself as
a person, but also in the way that I see
the community and people in general. Um. I had never
thought I would be a leader in this capacity and
be able to do what we've done. I think that

(15:33):
people underestimate the power they have as individuals. You know,
I came into this, Oh I didn't mention I don't
think I mentioned that I had COVID. No, that little,
that small detail, you did not say that earlier. Way
to bury the lead. Dr Amy, its servous. That's all right,
you're you're relaxed. Now, let these dramatic facts fly. So also,

(15:55):
I was I was sick with COVID after being in
the e er, and I was sick for two months,
to the point that my pul socks, like you know,
my oxygen level was in the eighties. When I would
walk on the flight of stairs, I thought I had
to go to hospital and be admitted. And this went
on for two months, and I was really worried. And
so that was the time when Grace and I started

(16:18):
our journey and started sourcing and ninety five. But yeah,
that was a huge impetus. Was like I was a
patient and a provider, and I I saw both sides
of it, and you know, I didn't want anyone else
to be at risk for that. That was a huge thing.
I missed that. So you were starting to say that
you think we underestimate the power that we have. Yes, absolutely,

(16:42):
I have no background in being a leader or a
nonprofit organization or anything similar to what I'm doing now,
not even close. And I think that if you believe
in something and you just take the steps to communicate
with people and make connections in relationship ups, I think
that's one of the most important things, saying positive, believing

(17:04):
that you can make a difference and take a whatever
role you want to take it, whether it's leadership or contributions.
I think that everybody can do a lot more than
they realize as a citizen. This is exactly what we did,
and we just found ways that were uncharted and we
were able to do a lot in our time. I mean,

(17:25):
we're just for numbers sake, We've delivered four thousand, seven
sev PPE to nineteen hospitals and two seventeen providers in
San Diego. For someone listening to this who is motivated
by your story and connects with it um and wants
to help their community through this pandemic that some of

(17:47):
us feel somewhat abandoned by, whether it's a hospital administrator
or a layer of our government. But once it happ
into that power they have. What advice would you offer them?
What would you ask them to do to help their communities? Honestly,
I would tell them to look into local groups and
local organizations, close to them, and it depends on their

(18:09):
level of how involved they would want to be, whether
it's financial donations, volunteer work with their expertise or strengths,
or if they want to take a leadership role and
form their own group. I think at any level, if
they reach out and take some kind of action and communication,
and I think that that's really key, and I think

(18:31):
that they will find that they have a lot more
power to affect change than they realized, because that's my experience.
I did not realize that we could do so much
at the outset of this journey, like just one connection
leads to another connection, which leads to important collaborations and

(18:53):
the power to take action on those relationships and what
they have to offer. So I would have us people
to not overlook discussion, joining local groups, reaching out to them,
and not feel that just because you are one individual
in the community that you can't make some kind of difference.
And on top of that, just even more simply as

(19:16):
a citizen, even being a responsible citizen in this time,
taking the proper precautions, you know, adhering to public health
guidelines and just being a responsible person for yourself impacts
a ton of people. You know, masking, etcetera distancing, So
even just that makes a big difference. So that's what

(19:38):
I would say. Well, you have definitely inspired me, Amy,
um and I already knew a bit of your story,
but I learned a lot more just now. Thank you
for sharing your time, Thanks for sharing your story. Really
appreciate absolutely. I think that everybody can make a contribution,
and I definitely believe this from what I've experienced. Yeah, alright,

(20:08):
so I'm back. It's just me and you for a second.
If there is anyone who could have called it a
day in the middle of a pandemic, I think it's
an emergency medicine doctor. I think they've got enough to
be like, I'm gonna take a nap now, I'm on
the front lines, and Dr Amy, I'm in Laurie did
not do that. She kept going, she kept giving, she

(20:31):
kept learning, and pushed herself well out of her comfort zone,
all while she had the rown up. Did you hear
how she almost forgot to tell me that she had
COVID herself. I didn't know that going into that interview.
Amy's not alone. There are so many others out there
who are tapping into their networks valuing the collective over

(20:54):
themselves as individuals. And another such person as Danielle Allen,
an ethicist, a professional ethicist. Now what us doesn't ethicist
have to do with the pandemic? Keep listening and let's
find out. Danielle Allen is the James Bryant Connent University

(21:16):
Professor at Harvard University. I know it sounds fancy, It's fancy.
She's also the director of Harvard's Edmund J. Saffer Center
for Ethics, where she now spearheads their COVID nineteen response initiative.
Her team published the Roadmap to Pandemic Resilience. It was
the nation's first comprehensive operational roadmap from mobilizing and reopening

(21:39):
the U S economy in the midst of the COVID
nineteen crisis. If you saw my Instagram videos on when
can we go out? And how we reopened? They were
powered by this work. As if her expertise on the
Rhona response weren't enough, Danielle served as the co chair
of the Bipartisan Commission on the Practice of Democratic Citizenship

(22:02):
and co authored its report titled Our Common Purpose, Reinventing
American Democracy for the twenty one century. She co shared
that along with our episode one guest Eric Luke, to
take a listen. Danielle is an expert on injustice, citizenship,
and democracy. She's authored several books on all those topics.

(22:24):
She's a contributing columnist to The Washington Post. Basically, her
life's work has made her perfect for how to citizen
and for how to approach this moment, this pandemic moment
from the lens of people Power. Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Danielle,
Thank you very today. It is great to be here.

(22:46):
I am so glad to talk with you. I love
the title of your new podcast. Thank you, thank you,
and it's good to see you again. Um, thank you
for saying yes. And I want to jump right into
it because your work sent on justice, democracy, and equality,
and none of those is the word epidemiology. So what

(23:08):
do justice, democracy and equality have to do with the pandemic. Well,
the pandemic, I think, right from the get go, showed
us that there were these incredibly horrible ruptures or social contract.
We've known that in some ways for a long time,
but I think it just really put it right in
our face. So for me, in the very very beginning,

(23:30):
I was shocked by how quickly some people moved to saying, well,
you know, maybe if older people get it worse, maybe
it's just spare time. Well you know people are incarcerated, Well,
you know they get the punishment. There's just this really
rapid move to abandon parts of our society to this

(23:50):
really terrible disease. And that was very, very shocking to me.
And so as somebody who is the head of an
ethics center, I reached out immediately to people that I
knew who are working on kondemic response to ask a question,
have an ethics center help, because I think we need
to pursue answers that start from the proposition that we
don't abandon anybody. What does it mean when a society,

(24:14):
when a government starts to say that this loss is acceptable,
starts to abandon entire sUAS of society. What does that
do to the legitimacy of the project? From my point
of view, that just it means it's not legitimate, you know,
right at that point. In other words, you know, this
is where I am at some level of deep traditionalist.
I go back to the words of the Declaration of Independence,

(24:37):
and in that text it articulates the theory of revolution,
the right of revolution, but that the right of revolution
is grounded on the idea that human beings build governments
in order to secure the safety and happiness of the people.
That's the language of the decoration, the safety and happiness
of the whole people. And it's not about an individual happiness.
There is that individual moment too, that's not the pres

(25:00):
it to happiness, but it's connected to the idea that
we secure people institutions to secure our safety and happiness.
So when the government's not doing that, when it is
self consciously not pursuing the safety and happiness of the
whole people, it's by definition violated the sort of terms
of its original employment. It's the people, from my point

(25:20):
of view, at that point, need to reorganize, the need
to redesign, rebuild, so that they have institutions that are
actually pursuing and delivering safety and happiness for all. You
use this phrase, you see that I asked myself how
can I help? And then my exposure and experience to you,
like literally a friend sent me a white paper via

(25:41):
text message, which lets you know a little something about
who my friends are big nerds, geek Central. Here we
go and so for clarification and disclosure to the listener.
I read this paper, I was moved, and I reached out,
and someone there reached out and I got roped in
to part of your efforts, Danielle, And if you were

(26:02):
going to fess up to that, I am going I
will confess my my sins of citizenship and civic mindedness.
And and I jumped on video calls with you and
your team and saw drafts of things, and what impressed
me was this coalition that you had assembled. I think
when I heard that someone from an ethics department at

(26:23):
Harvard University had something to say about pandemics, I'm like,
great more Ivory Tower, thinking, how's that going to help
on the ground. But then I looked at the participants
and you had technologists, and you had biologists and public
health officials, you had lawyers, you had economists conservative and liberal,

(26:44):
and so talk to me about the relationships that you
leaned into, forged or built on to be helpful and
what you wanted that form of help to look like. Well,
thank you for sharing all that, and I'm glad that
you did pass up to your own participation. Baritone Day
was critical in the effort of a big network of
people to figure out not just you know, what's the

(27:06):
right answer to the pandemic, but also how do we
communicate broadly to a public and get people on board
for a shared purpose of responding in ways that are
about the safety and well being of everybody. So we
needed Bear Tunity's voice there to help us think through
that project of communication and telling a story about all
of us together. So very today, you were fundamental to

(27:28):
our work. I hope you know that. Thank you for
saying that. I'm going to make that the headline of
this episode. We're done here. Thank you so much. Our
guest today was Danielle Allen. I saved America by very exactly.
But please continue with the part that I'm really interested in,
which is not about me. I love the question, and
I think I canna start from at the end rather
than the beginning, because we did build a huge network

(27:52):
of incredibly varied people, from epidemologists and public health folks
and doctors and clinicians to mayors to county public health officials,
to visual artists to YouTube stars you who have Cervilion
subscribers to their YouTube channel, the whole gamut technologists, and
what I learned from the experience of doing this was

(28:13):
to have great faith, honestly, and all of us, you know,
the people in Americans from all over the place, who
all kind of ran to a fire and said, here
are the specific skills I can bring to bear, how
can I help um? So that was the sort of
what everybody was doing. Why did we start building a
big network? It was in the beginning a very simple reason.

(28:34):
It was just because we heard our elected officials giving
us false choices. They were presenting a situation where it was,
you know, people kept saying over wherever we had a
pick between protecting lives and protecting livelihoods, health or the economy,
that was a false choice. From a very very beginning,
that was a false choice. And in order to be

(28:55):
able to prove that it was a false choice, that
is actually possible to align the objectives of protecting life,
protecting langlagoods, and protecting liberties, we needed people who were
experts across all of those different dimensions. So it wasn't
enough just to have a health conversation or does have
an economists conversation. We needed every kind of piece of
expertise that was being touched by the pandemic, and when

(29:17):
you sort of started to tally up all the different
kinds of expertise that were relevant, it was basically everything.
So we were looking for people who were really smart
and really creative. Um, but we're just across the board
in areas of expertise and so and the messaging and
communication mattered a lot, because at the end of the day,
I think what our fundamental belief came down to was

(29:39):
that the quality of our response would depend on how
strong a sense of mutual commitment we could inspire among
Americans to one another. And at the end of the day,
the people who do build that foundation of mutual commitment
amongst us are our artists, are communicators, are storytellers, um.

(30:00):
So that work is just so important. Mutual commitment is
a great phrase. And it leads to my follow up,
which has to do with what you're seeing that maybe
many of us are not. As I look at the
home pages of major news outlets and listen to the
various feeds, I see a failure and I hear a
negative message. But I'm hoping you have seen this mutuality

(30:24):
you just described, this social contract at work in some
region in some way. Is there good news to share.
On that front, there is good news. I can't say
it's everywhere. I have to agree with you that at
the end of the day, we have to fit um
that as a country we failed. I mean I had
done se many thousand people are dead. This was unnecessary

(30:48):
and preventable, and I do think that the failure UM
falls on the charge accounts of our elected officials, of
leaders of variety of different organizations. And I do actually
think that the country deserves something like this. The nine
eleven Commission UM, that's got a lot of time figure
out what happened, what went wrong that we failed as
badly as we did, So do you think that's important?

(31:10):
At the same time that's true, what are the glimmers
of hope UM? I mean, we have seen communities come
together in remarkable ways, and we have seen mayors who
have called out volunteer organizations and figured out how to
deliver food UM and housing options for people who need
to deal with quarantine and isolation. Can I ask you
to name names? This is the opposite of shame, Like

(31:33):
I'm eager to hear who's doing it right? What can
you share with well? I want to call out mayor
Ceve Benjamin from Columbia, South Carolina. And I mean what
I call out somebody that doesn't necessarily mean that the
case incidents is low in their community, because sometimes they're
struggling against a larger system where they're not getting support.

(31:53):
So Mayor Ceve Benjamin and Columbia, South Carolina has worked
incredibly hard to keep his community safe. He has brought
knowledge for community, he has activated resources, volunteer services, even
though he had a governor who was saying, we're not
shutting down, uh, you know, we're not doing masking, etcetera.
So he was putting out the masking messages all kinds
of things, even though his governor wasn't. M Mayre Cabalden

(32:16):
in West Sacramento, California has been extraordinary. He's somebody who
has a deep understanding of HIV AIDS and how that
devastated communities and how contact tracing in that context to
turn the tide and the fact that it required ownership
by local communities um in order to turn the tide
on the disease, So the people affected by the disease

(32:36):
needed to own the process of contact tracing, for example.
And so he really drove a big project of education
and dissemination around what contact tracing is UM for the
U S Conference of Mayors, And I think you really
transformed the conversation um within his community of municipal leaders
on that point. So those are just two people to start,
and yet I could go on, and I think I've

(32:58):
seen mayors do rem hornkiable things over the course of
this pandemic. There had been calls by you and others
for a while for regional response, you know, in the
absence of an organized federal government response. I even joked
that maybe states could get together and form their own
more perfect union, a sort of federalized system of service delivery.

(33:21):
Is that something you're seeing happen above the level of mayor,
but below the level of say a White House, Pennsylvania Avenue.
It is happening. Um, It's absolutely happening. Um. You know,
states have without capacity. I mean, I'm very fortunate to
live in Massachusetts, which is built up a pretty robust
infrastructure of testing and contact tracing and supported isolation and

(33:41):
actually has COVID under reasonable control at the moment um.
We did also manage to achieve bipartisan legislation introduced in
both the Senate and the House, and to deliver testing
funds to states and funds to support contact tracing. A
compromise amount that I'm a PATS that passed seventy dollars

(34:01):
for this work in May, and then the Senate Republicans
passed sixteen billion in the form of the Heels actually
the Heroes Act and the Heel Is Acting. This bipartisan
legislation introduced in early August is a fifty billion dollar package,
so compromise package, and it rewards regional collaborations, so it's
also incentivizing the sort of further formation obasional collaborations. Um.

(34:26):
And this package has been held up because of negotiations
in Congress and because of the bitterness of our polarization.
In all honesty, so the Democrats, as you know, are
fighting to protect voting and to protect elections. There's also
a fight around employment insurance and so forth, and the
bitterness of that fight and those issues is literally blocking

(34:50):
investment in our public health response. For me, this is
where I have to really just want to sort of
shake our entire country and say like, look, you know
we have that our polaristication gets so bad and it's
like literally killing us and so then there's a long
debate we have and who's responsible that. I understand that,
but we start to recognize the magnitude of the problem.

(35:13):
We have a definition of citizenship at this show, which
is to to see it as a verb, and there's
kind of four components as we've emerged into it. One
is two citizens to show up right. It's to participate
in the process and not just totally outsourced things. Two
citizens to relate to other people and see our interconnectedness

(35:34):
as an essential part of who we are. Two citizen
is to understand power in the different ways that we
can use it and wield it in the society. And
two citizen is to put the benefit of the many
above the interest of just oneself or the few. So
I'm curious, given your work, given your perspective, and given
your years of study, what is your definition of a

(35:59):
citizen or to citizens? But yours is beautiful and it
captures a lot of what I've focused on. So my
definition of the citizen is to contribute to shaping the
decisions of one's community. So to be a co creator.
I like the vocabulary of w ebd Boys who talked
about being a co creator in the kingdom of culture,

(36:20):
and I do think that to be a citizens to
be a co creator in the kingdom of culture, in
our society of law, in our society of social norms
and expectations. So that's for me, the core and the
eddy of co creation. Yeah, what is your day to
day like with all this work? I mean, you have
a couple of jobs, you write these Washington Post columns,

(36:41):
you huddle with mayors apparently, Like, how is your day
shifted throughout this crisis? What does it look like now? Um? Well,
the biggest change is that until about a week ago,
I had a daily meeting nine pm every day for
the first three months of the crisis, eighty five am
every day for the second half with core members of

(37:05):
my broad response network. So that was a different thing
for me. So every day was kind of organized by
what we're trying to move forward. And so our life
in my network has been in I think it's sort
of the alphabet soup of our country's connective tissue. And
what do I mean by that? So we all know
we have a federal government, we've gout the states, we've
got cities, and many of us know we have the

(37:28):
National Governors Association n g A. But did you know
we also have the National Association of State Procurement Officers
and the National Association of City ac County Health Officials,
and the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials and
the Natural Association of County Officials, and it just goes
on and on. This is the alphabet soup of professional

(37:49):
associations that connect elected leaders and appointed officials at all levels.
And it turns out that that world is a beautiful
place because the people in those associations they love this country,
they love their fellow Americans, and they have all been working.
There are hearts out to do the right thing and
to deliver an effective code with response. And so that's

(38:10):
you know, my day has been living in that alphabet suit,
and it has shown me where power is that people
often have not recognized. You know, you don't think about
the National Association of State Procurement Officers as your first
stop when you're trying to citizen, as Baritone Day says,
but it's actually really great place to citizen. In fact, yeah,
I appreciate this shout out to procurement officers. It has

(38:34):
never been a headline I have seen celebrated in any
publication I've ever read. So thank you for recognizing that
semi secret power that we have, this concept of co
creating a kingdom of culture that you cite two boys for,
what does the co creation of our culture look like
in this moment? So I think for me, one of

(38:55):
the most important things there is the concept of power sharing.
Martin's are king in Um. One of his essays said,
at a certain point, you know, everybody thinks that civil
rights about laws changing laws. Actually what we really have
to do is pursue organizational transformation across all the organizations
in our country. And I do think that's true. And
so when I think about what it means to be

(39:17):
a co creator in the kingdom of culture, it's about
art and language and the way in art and language
we share power and learn the vocabulary of power sharing.
And then it's about how we take that vocabulary and
ethical commitment to power sharing into every organization that we're
part of. Power sharing. Yeah, it sounds really great for

(39:38):
those who haven't had it historically and really threatening to
those who have all too often. But that's the thing
is that it needn't be, because there is this incredible
beauty that comes from bringing people together across incredible diversity
and empowering them to work together because you get more,

(39:59):
like human entity gets more from that collaboration across lines
of diversity. And for me, this is sort of how
human potential is realized to its fullest. So it's true,
I know that when people aren't used to power sharing
or where they're where they're used to work in kind
of more homogeneous context, it can be scary, but that's
where for me, and so we're trying to figure out

(40:20):
how to open up people to anticipate the beauty and
the power of the result is critical. Yeah, well, you
know it is a big project and I got some
thoughts on it. This show was one of those thoughts
stretched out over multiple episodes with many talented people trying
to make it happen. And I think it's about writing
a news story of ourselves that expands the opportunity and

(40:43):
doesn't see that expansion as a threat but as like
more riches for us, all everybody rich. Now. As I
said in one of my talks a while back, we
try to keep a promise on this show to give
people action that they can take two be a contributor,
to be a citizen, in the big sense, not the
legal status sense, but the active sense, and in your words,

(41:05):
I guess to co create this new story. So, given
the context of why you're here, giving your expertise, in
your deep knowledge of democracy, justice, and now pandemics, what
would you give someone listening to this to do to
help out with this response to the pandemic specifically or
more broadly, with creating a healthier democracy to live in. Well,

(41:27):
I think I would give people two jobs. If that's okay,
it's plenty. You could give seven, you know, two is
a good number. One of my jobs is thirty one parts, okay,
but one job is just what I'm doing. Inventory in
your mind of the organizations that you're a part of,
that you're already a member of, whether that's a church

(41:48):
or a workplace, or a community organization or an arts society,
theater group, and ask yourself, can you see room for
improvement with regard to how people share power in that
context and space, and take that conversation forward with the
people around you. Um, that would be job number one

(42:09):
and job number two. Can this is my thirty one
part job is? I would love it if you visited
the website our Common Purpose at the American Academy of
Arts and Sciences and think it's just actually our common
purpose that you google that it should show up. And
we have made thirty one recommendations for institutional reforms, for
investment in society, it's capacity to support bridging relationships across

(42:34):
lines of difference, and for transformations to our political a
civic culture. And they're particularly votes on telling a new
story of ourselves, telling a rich story, a complete story,
and accurate story, clear eyed story of ourselves. And look
at those and figure out there's a list of thirty
one recommendations, which is the one that speaks most to you.

(42:54):
And you'll find on the website as well champions organizations
that are working on that particular reform. Reach out to them,
sign up. Maybe they need a volunteer, maybe they could
use a donation, maybe they just need you to spread
the word. There's all kinds of jobs to do, so
think of that website as a job shopping list. Find
the right one for you, and then work on power

(43:16):
sharing in your own organizations. I love it. It's like
a small d democratic task rabbit. Uh what it is?
We are going to transition into questions that have been

(43:38):
coming from our live studio audience. This question is from
Chosina Reeves in Brooklyn. A CBS poll recently revealed that
fifty seven percent of Republicans believe the pandemic has been
handled in an acceptable way. Only ten percent of Democrats do.
How do we co create our culture when we are

(43:59):
so far part on something as fundamental as a pandemic.
I do like to observe when we hear those kinds
of statistics that the Republican Party has been shrinking so well,
it's true that pented Republicans have that view, or maybe
I presume it's true. It is a smaller group of
people than it was a few years ago. It's important

(44:22):
to keep that in mind. And at this point, more
Americans are not affiliated by a party than are in
a party. And so I do think if we focus
on all those folks who are not affiliated with the party, UM,
I think we find that there's a lot of deeper
base for connection with one another than it looks. When
we really focus on the parties and how the parties

(44:44):
are expressing themselves and interacting with each other. NED will
go to you. You can ask your own question in
your own voice. So when there's so much selfishness from
people who are are resisting things like wearing masks or
or pushing things to you know, get back to school.
I don't want to be inconvenience, so I don't want
to be bothered. And if some people die, some people die.

(45:06):
If part of our task is telling that new story,
how do we do that without just yelling at people,
because it's so infuriating to just put into that kind
of self internest. That is a great question. And I
have a friend who is lives in South Carolina and
she's been sending me sort of email snippets for the

(45:27):
last few miles of conversations that she's tried to have
where she's tried to convince people to take the pandemic seriously.
This is where I use the language of social contract.
And I'm not saying that this is what it works.
One is trying to have this conversation, But for me,
it's useful to remind myself what I'm trying to do,
which is to say, I have to recognize that we've

(45:50):
reached a place in the country where at a deep level,
we're not committed to each other um and that is
exhibited in any number of ways, and it's also exhibited
in our kind of idea logical polarization. And so I
tried to make myself my own kind of test case.
UM so that I try to like literally just feel commitment,

(46:10):
which sounds kind of bizarre, but that I say what
I'm feeling infuriated, I try to register that and ask myself, well,
what would commitment feel like? And if this were a
person in my family and I was infuriated about them
for something else, how would I work through that theory
in order to still try to do the right thing
by them in terms of if I need to bring
them along or whatever else it is I need to do.

(46:32):
So I literally do just try to tap into my
own emotional being to find reserves of fellow feeling that
can be hard to tap into, and try to like
think through those feelings to figure out what the right
response would be. See, you answered a question I for
kind of didn't realize I had, or maybe forgot I had,

(46:52):
which is, look, Daniel, my image of you was as
this person who's been trying to save the country, just
the country's unwillingness to be saved. Right, you'd be dropping
these papers, You're all these conference calls, you're rolling with
procurement officers and mayors, You've got plans and maps, and
I know you didn't do all this yourself. I'm not

(47:13):
trying to give you credit for everything, but you're associated
with so much labor on behalf of the many, and
I'm like, how does she keep going? Because I'm seeing
elected officials and budget you know, deciding people saying this
doesn't matter, it's not real, it's a hoax, and yet
you keep going. So can you offer a little bit

(47:35):
more about what keeps you encouraged because you're even more
exposed to the frustration from my perspective than most of us. Well,
I mean, you know, I think it's pretty basic, which
is I think that right now, and then you kind
of encounter something where, yeah, I think the only possible
attitude toward it is failure is not an option. So

(47:57):
you know, it's like, I can't go one way, I'll
go around the failure is not an option. Not much fine,
So you know, the road is long, longer than I
ever imagined or hoped for. But I just, um, from
the bottom of my heart believe failure is not an option.
So you know what I don't know is how long
it will take us till we get to the right place.
But I know there's a right place for us to

(48:18):
get to. Thank you, Danielle Alan from the Edmund J.
Safford Center at Harvard. From the American Academy of Arts
and Sciences, from the Washington Post. From the Society of
State Procurement Officers secret semisecret Zoom Meetings. Thank you for
sharing your way of citizening with us. We look forward

(48:40):
to doing more and looking forward to see what else
you do with us. It's really been a pleasure and
honor to have you here. Likewise, it's been really terrific.
Thank you very day. Hey you, it's me again, and
it's just us again. Amy and Danielle are clearly fighting
COVID with everyone and every thing they know, pushing beyond

(49:02):
their comfort zones, digging into their rolodexes, their networks to
help us all. And I want to tell you we
share these stories now because we're trying to put on
some kind of citizen Olympics where only metal winners get
to show up. It's actually the opposite. We can all
citizen as long as we remember the four elements of

(49:23):
how to citizen that we laid out at the beginning
of this series four parts. Show up and participate, invest
in relationships, recognizing our interconnection to others. Understand power and
use it, and use that power for the benefit of
the many and not just the few. That's it. That's
the formula. Now it's your turn. In every episode we

(49:47):
share things you can do to strengthen your citizen practice,
and you can find the complete guide to what I'm
about to say at how to citizen dot com. So
here are some things you can do. On the internal front.
We've got two things. First, make a list of all
the ways you've helped others during this pandemic since March.

(50:09):
Write it down. I don't want you overlooking what you
think of as the small or the easy things. It
doesn't matter. Take a look at that list and be
proud of your citizenship. Number two, reflect on how else
you can use who and what you know to make
a difference during the pandemic. What kind of knowledge or
people do you have or no that could uniquely benefit

(50:32):
your unique community. And Then, outside of yourself and this
reflective exercise, we've got three things lined up. First, support
the aimys in your community. There is somebody around you
right now who is practicing how to citizen in a
really deep way. Who's organized something. If it's not, you

(50:52):
find out who it is and figure out how to
support them. Number two a little more work here. Start
a civic sir cool. This could be a happy hour group.
This could be a bridge club. This is people you
know and love, but set an intention of gathering with
them on a weekly or every other week basis to
talk about what you're up to. Make it cool. Make

(51:14):
it a part of your check ins about how you
are getting involved during this crisis. If you do it
on Sundays, it can substitute for church or brunch. Trust me,
I miss brunch. Last, check out the report that Danielle
Allen co authored Our Common Purpose. Look at those thirty
one recommendations and commit to helping implement just one of

(51:36):
them in your local community. Again. Visit how to citizen
dot com for links and a bigger explanation of all
of these actions and when you do them. Share them
with the world posted to the social media's hashtag how
to citizen, or you can just tell us. Email us
at action at how to citizen dot com. Help us

(51:59):
out by putting COVID in the subject line, we're collecting
all this cool stuff you're doing. By the way, it's beautiful.
If you like this show, please share it, rate and
review it, and sign up for my newsletter at barrattune
day dot com, where I announced upcoming live tapings and
a lot more. How to Citizen with barratune Day is

(52:19):
a production of I Heart Radio. Podcast executive produced by
Miles Gray, Nick Stump, Elizabeth Stewart and barrattune Day Thurston.
Produced by Joel Smith, edited by Justin Smith. Powered by
you

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