This week, Roqayah and Kumars are joined by returning guest Shaun Scott, organizer, filmmaker, and author of “Millennials and the Moments That Made Us: A Cultural History of the U.S. from 1982—Present”. Shaun joins us for the start of the show for a little pop culture talk before getting into a special announcement: his candidacy for City Council in Seattle’s 4th district.
Shaun explains his platform, and highlights some of his policy positions as well as the solutions to the issues facing Seattle's most vulnerable communities. We hear about the steps Shaun would take to address climate change and how he would confront corporate polluters who are destroying our environment and wrecking our climate. Shaun also discusses several proposals to address Seattle's housing crisis, and highlights how housing, transportation, and climate change are inextricably linked.
Shaun, a member of Seattle DSA, also talks about how he is going about building his campaign and remaining accountable to the organizers that will be necessary to get him elected. We discuss how one can build a winning coalition made up of a broad range of working-class constituents while not compromising one's principles for the sake of expediency.
Follow Shaun at @eyesonthestorm and follow his campaign at @ElectScott2019. Learn how to support his campaign here.
A transcript for this episode will be provided upon request. Please send an email to deleteuracct @ gmail to get a copy sent to you when it is completed.
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This week, Kumars is joined by Maya Little, an anti-racist organizer and PhD student-worker at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, for a conversation about the ongoing TA and faculty strike to prevent the reinstatement of a Confederate monument on that campus. Maya describes in detail the openly racist origins of “Silent Sam,” the statue of a soldier dedicated under Jim Crow in 1913 to honor UNC students who fought for the Confederacy, and its continuing function as a gathering place for white supremacists and symbol of the racial hierarchies that persist on campus and in the broader community.
Maya explains the #StrikeDownSam campaign’s demands, and how it came together to block the UNC leadership’s proposal to reconstruct the statue after direct actions, including her unique own unique protest, finally resulted in its toppling on August 20th. As she once more faces charges for protesting in the wake of the university’s proposal, Maya describes how the backlash she’s experienced from the university has outstripped the legal ramifications of her protest, and how the UNC administration’s tacit support for open fascists points to the work of dismantling white supremacy that will remain to be done after the last statue falls.
Follow Maya on Twitter @readkropotkin and the Strike Down Sam campaign @strikedownsam. You can donate to the legal and strike fund for Maya and other TAs facing charges here.
A transcript for this episode will be provided upon request. Please send an email to deleteuracct @ gmail to get a copy sent to you when it is completed.
If you want to support the show and receive access to tons of bonus content, subscribe on our Patreon for as little as $5 a month. Also, don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review the show on iTunes. We can't do this show without your support!!!
This week, Roqayah and Kumars are joined by Adam Johnson. Adam is a media analyst with Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting or fair.org. He is also the co-host of the media criticism podcast Citations Needed alongside Nima Shirazi.
Adam joins us for an in-depth discussion of a number of important media-related topics. We start out dissecting the recent case of academic Marc Lamont Hill who was fired from his position at CNN for his remarks before the United Nations about the Palestinian struggle against occupation. We also discuss the oversaturated media coverage of the death of George H.W. Bush as well as the larger issue of American attitudes towards deceased domestic political figures, and how appeals to civility undermine conversations we must have regarding the human rights abuses these figures have had a part in.
Adam also takes us through the article by New York Times opinion writer Bari Weiss and Eve Peyser of VICE (intentionally not linking), where they examine how they became friends despite political differences, a superficial and conciliatory attitude that exposes extreme privilege and more common political ground than either Bari or Eve might like to admit. We also talk Russiagate, the migrant caravan, and more.
Follow Adam on twitter @AdamJohnsonNYC.
A transcript for this episode will be provided upon request. Please send an email to deleteuracct @ gmail to get a copy sent to you when it is completed.
If you want to support the show and receive access to tons of bonus content, subscribe on our Patreon page for as little as $5 a month. Also, don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review the show on iTunes. We can't do this show without your support!!!