How To Citizen with Baratunde

We all know that voting alone won’t save democracy. But it does help…a lot. No one understands that better than voting rights organizer Nsé Ufot. She’s the former CEO of the New Georgia Project, where she leveraged technology and culture to register 600,000+ new voters. Nsé and Baratunde talk about why voting still matters and how we can bring love into the ways we citizen together. 

SHOW ACTIONS

Internal Reflection - What Do You Love?

Take a moment to reflect on what you LOVE about your city, your county, or your country. 

Now pause and breathe while visualizing those things for a few minutes. What do you feel in your body when you put your attention on what you love? How might this feeling help you citizen better?  

Become Informed - Read bell hooks

Nsé mentioned this idea of a “love ethic” which she got from Black feminist author and activist bell hooks. Learn more by reading her book All About Love: New Visions (A Love Song to the Nation)

If you’ve only got time for a shorter read: we’ve found a beautiful blogpost that summarizes bell hooks’ love ethic. 

Publicly Participate - Find Your People

There’s only ONE New Georgia Project, so if you live in Georgia, get involved with that organization. For those of us not blessed to live in the peach state,  every region of the U.S. has similar groups focused on relational organizing work. Check out The Center For Popular Democracy for a great listing of affiliate organizations all around the U.S. you can get involved with. 

You can also put relational organizing to work when it’s time to vote with organizations like CircleVoting or VoteForce. 

SHOW NOTES

Check out our episode with Angela Lang to learn more about how we mobilize folks to politically engage in their community. 

Find How To Citizen on Instagram or visit howtocitizen.com to join our mailing list and find ways to citizen besides listening to this podcast! 

Please show your support for the show by reviewing and rating. It makes a huge difference with the algorithmic overlords and helps others like you find the show!

How To Citizen is hosted by Baratunde Thurston. He’s also host and executive producer of the PBS series, America Outdoors as well as a founding partner and writer at Puck. You can find him all over the internet. 

CREDITS

How To Citizen with Baratunde is a production of iHeartRadio Podcasts and Rowhome Productions. Our Executive Producers are Baratunde Thurston and Elizabeth Stewart. Allie Graham is our Lead Producer and Danya AbdelHameid is our Associate Producer. Alex Lewis is our Managing Producer. John Myers is our Executive Editor. Original Music by Andrew Eapen and Blue Dot Sessions. Our Audience Engagement Fellows are Jasmine Lewis and Gabby Rodriguez. Special thanks to Joelle Smith from iHeartRadio and Layla Bina.

Additional thanks to our live audience voices Janine D., Diane H, Paula C. and Beatrice S.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The stories we’re told & tell about ourselves shape the ways we act and how we citizen. And the story we’ve been living in for decades now is one of consumerism and self-interest. Baratunde talks with reformed ad-man and author of CITIZENS: Why the Key to Fixing Everything is All of Us Jon Alexander about how we can tell a new story rooted in community and interdependence. 

SHOW ACTIONS 

Internally Reflect - Tell a new story 

Think about the three stories – Subject, Consumer, and Citizen. Where do they show up in your life? Maybe you’re a subject with your parents or a consumer in your neighborhood. In what spaces, communities or realms are you already living the Citizen Story? Where else could you show up that way?  

Become Informed - Learn about the Citizen Story

Check out Jon’s book CITIZENS: Why the Key to Fixing Everything is All of Us and this BBC article. Also, check out The New Citizenship Project to find out how you or your organization can learn to tell a different story. 

Publicly Participate - Practice asking for help
Think about Jon’s question: What are you trying to do in the world that’s so big, you actually need other people to do it with you? It can actually be small, but just too big for you alone. It could be fixing the fence around your yard, organizing a fundraiser at your school, or envisioning a future for your company. Ask someone to help you do it! We know asking for help can be hard, so start by asking those in your sphere, “is there something you’re trying to do that I can help you with?”

SHOW NOTES 

Check out our episode with Audrey Tang to hear more about how we can leverage tech & digital tools to strengthen democracy. 

Listen to the podcast episode where Baratunde and Jon first connected: From What If To What Next hosted by Rob Hopkins.

Read this New York Times article to learn more about the America In One Room experiment.

Find How To Citizen on Instagram or visit howtocitizen.com to join our mailing list and find ways to citizen besides listening to this podcast! 

Please show your support for the show by reviewing and rating. It makes a huge difference with the algorithmic overlords and helps others like you find the show!

How To Citizen is hosted by Baratunde Thurston. He’s also host and executive producer of the PBS series, America Outdoors as well as a founding partner and writer at Puck. You can find him all over the internet. 

CREDITS

How To Citizen with Baratunde is a production of iHeartRadio Podcasts and Rowhome Productions. Our Executive Producers are Baratunde Thurston and Elizabeth Stewart. Allie Graham is our Lead Producer and Danya AbdelHameid is our Associate Producer. Alex Lewis is our Managing Producer. John Myers is our Executive Editor. Original Music by Andrew Eapen and Blue Dot Sessions. Our Audience Engagement Fellows are Jasmine Lewis and Gabby Rodriguez. Special thanks to Joelle Smith from iHeartRadio and Layla Bina.

Additional thanks to our live audience voices Janine D., Martha T., Ray K., and Jonathan F. 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Saving our democracy isn’t just about registering people to vote, ending gerrymandering, and so on. It’s about getting back to the basics of living together well through micro, everyday moments. To kick off season four of the show, Baratunde talks with writer, activist, and fellow Virgo adrienne maree brown about how we can learn to practice democracy in every space we’re in and how our small, civically-minded behaviors in society create a culture that isn’t easy to shake. Stay till the end to hear questions from our live audience. 

SHOW ACTIONS

Internally Reflect - Make a plan to share your power

What communities are you a part of right now, from the smallest to the largest, the most local to the most global? Build that list in your mind. In which of these communities do you play some role in decision-making and resource allocation? Can you think of ways to bring others into those decisions more? In other words, can you think of ways, even and especially small ways, to bring more democracy to your existing communities?

Become Informed - Study the work of Grace Lee Boggs & Octavia Butler

adrienne was mentored by Chinese American philosopher, writer and activist Grace Lee Boggs. Learn more about Boggs in the documentary American Revolutionary: The Evolution of Grace Lee Boggs. 

Explore the power of fiction to affect our vision of what’s possible by reading adrienne’s book, Octavia’s Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements. And her newest book, Fables and Spells. You should also read the Parable Series by Octavia Butler to see why adrienne is so obsessed with this writer. Most books cited in the show are available on our Bookshop.org page. 

Publicly Participate - Practice collaborative ideation

Return to the communities you identified in the personal reflection. It could be your household, classroom, office department, or group chat. Within one of these groups, have members identify some challenge you feel is hurting or impeding the group. Then ask folks to imagine what things would be like years out if this challenge were fully resolved. How would they feel? What would they be able to accomplish? Write this down in short form, perhaps a corny movie trailer to make it fun. “In a world, where none of us carries student debt…” or “In a world, where everyone in this house is able to access the bathroom for as long as they need without preventing others from doing the same…” It doesn’t have to be super serious. The point is to try, with others, to imagine a better future. If you don’t have someone to play with, try this by yourself but look for ways to share your ideation with others, maybe in an email to a friend or a post on social media. 

SHOW NOTES 

Read the poem Home by Warsan Shire and check out the book Brave Community: Teaching for a Post-Racist Imagination by Janine de Novais. 

Find How To Citizen on Instagram or visit howtocitizen.com to join our mailing list and find ways to citizen besides listening to this podcast! 

Please show your support for the show by reviewing and rating. It makes a huge difference with the algorithmic overlords and helps others like you find the show!

How To Citizen is hosted by Baratunde Thurston. He’s also host and executive producer of the PBS series, America Outdoors as well as a founding partner and writer at Puck. You can find him all over the internet. 

CREDITS

How To Citizen with Baratunde is a production of iHeartRadio Podcasts and Rowhome Productions. Our Executive Producers are Baratunde Thurston and Elizabeth Stewart. Allie Graham is our Lead Producer and Danya AbdelHameid is our Associate Producer. Alex Lewis is our Managing Producer. John Myers is our Executive Editor. Our Mix Engineer is Justin Berger. Original Music by Andrew Eapen and Blue Dot Sessions. Our Audience Engagement Fellows are Jasmine Lewis and Gabby Rodriguez. Special thanks to Joelle Smith from iHeartRadio and Layla Bina. 

Additional thanks to our live audience voices Allison M., Janine D., and Carole W. 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The podcast for people tired of tuning into bad news is back with a fourth season and brand new ways to interpret the word “citizen” as a verb! This season we’re asking, how can the practice of “citizening,” in ways big and small, create a dope culture of democracy? 

We’re getting practical, sharing things you can try in your community, in your workplace, in your home, and within yourself. To help us, we’ll hear from people like adrienne maree brown, Steve Kerr, Priya Parker, Nsé Ufot, and you! Our guests and live audience will help us find inspiration in everything from sports and birthday parties to climate action and web3. 

Cause we need to prioritize the culture we create around our democracy as much as the systems that make it function!

SHOW NOTES

Find How To Citizen on Instagram or visit howtocitizen.com to join our mailing list and find ways to citizen besides listening to this podcast! 

Please show your support for the show by reviewing and rating. It makes a huge difference with the algorithmic overlords and helps others like you find the show!

How To Citizen is hosted by Baratunde Thurston. He’s also host and executive producer of the PBS series, America Outdoors as well as a founding partner and writer at Puck. You can find him all over the internet. 

CREDITS

How To Citizen with Baratunde is a production of iHeartRadio Podcasts and Rowhome Productions. Our Executive Producers are Baratunde Thurston and Elizabeth Stewart. Allie Graham is our Lead Producer and Danya AbdelHameid is our Associate Producer. Alex Lewis is our Managing Producer. John Myers is our Executive Editor. Original Music by Andrew Eapen and Blue Dot Sessions. Jasmine Lewis and Gabby Rodriguez  are our Audience Engagement Fellows. Special thanks to Joelle Smith from iHeartRadio and Layla Bina.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this bonus episode, Baratunde learns how data, well-defined goals, and a sense of collective ownership are helping those at the front lines of America’s housing crisis work to solve, not manage, homelessness. His partner in conversation is Aras Jizan, the Portfolio Lead for Data and Technology for the Built for Zero initiative at Community Solutions.  

Guest: Aras Jizan

Bio: Portfolio Lead for Data and Technology for the Built for Zero initiative at Community Solutions 

Online: Community Solutions website, Twitter @cmtysolutions, and Instagram @cmtysolutions

Go to howtocitizen.com for transcripts, our email newsletter, and your citizen practice.

ACTIONS

- PERSONALLY REFLECT 

Say these aloud to yourself

Inspired by Aras's recommendations, repeat these: I believe that homelessness is solvable. I understand that we must fix systems, not people. I consider people experiencing homelessness in my community to be my neighbors. 

- BECOME INFORMED

Hear stories of homelessness from those experiencing it

Visit InvisiblePeople.tv which uses storytelling, education, news, and activism to change the narrative on homelessness. Their videos are compelling and tell a whole story we often don't see. They are on YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.

- PUBLICLY PARTICIPATE

Follow the Community Solutions Playbook

Aras's organization, Community Solutions, has an entire page literally devoted to citizen action. It's a whole playbook to learn more, connect locally, and hold our communities accountable for ending homelessness.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Baratunde asks how can we citizen with tech when we disconnect millions from technology and from society as a whole by incarcerating them? He closes the season in conversation with two people who’ve served time for felony convictions and are now working in tech to expand opportunities for all: Shaka Senghor, author and head of DEI for TripActions, and Teresa Hodge, president of Mission: Launch and co-founder of R3 Score which changes how employers use background checks.

Guest: Shaka Senghor

Bio: Bestselling author and speaker; Head of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at TripActions 

Online: Shaka’s website, Twitter @shakasenghor, and Instagram @shakasenghor

Guest: Teresa Hodge

Bio: President of Mission: Launch, co-founder of R3 Score

Online: Mission: Launch website; R3 Score website; Teresa’s Twitter @teresayhodge 

Go to howtocitizen.com for transcripts, our email newsletter, and your citizen practice.

ACTIONS

- PERSONALLY REFLECT 

Are we that bad?

The United States has five percent of the world’s population and 25 percent of the world’s prison population. Ask yourself the question Teresa wants us all to ask: are we that bad? 

- BECOME INFORMED

Who is leading the spaces you spend time in?

Take stock of the companies whose products and services you use the most and the non-profits you may be supporting. Now go take a look at their boards and senior leadership. Do they reflect the experiences of the communities they serve? 

While you’re in a learning mode, check out Shaka’s TED Talk, Why Your Words Deeds Don’t Define You

- PUBLICLY PARTICIPATE

Citizen with those who have felony convictions

The Last Mile is an incredibly effective organization that prepares incarcerated individuals for successful reentry through business and technology training. Support their work through donation, volunteering, or better yet, hire their graduates!

Redeemed Sole, an organization Shaka founded, highlights a number of organizations helping people avoid or return from incarceration. Find an initiative there, and donate, amplify, or join in some way. 

Find out if your workplace, school, or even landlord uses traditional criminal background checks to determine someone’s suitability. If they do, encourage them to join Teresa’s Bank on 100 Million initiative, and take the pledge yourself. 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Baratunde is reminded that “tech companies” are really just people and asks what it would mean for tech employees to think critically about their work and its impact and use that power to remake the industry from the ground up? He talks with Xiaowei Wang, whose work at Logic School helps workers answer those questions. They also discuss blockchain, rice farming in rural China, and tarot. It’s all connected. 

Guest: Xiaowei Wang

Bio: Lead steward of Logic School, author of Blockchain Chicken Farm 

Online: Logic School website; Xiaowei on Twitter @xrw

Go to howtocitizen.com for transcripts, our email newsletter, and your citizen practice.

ACTIONS

- PERSONALLY REFLECT 

Consider consent and care

Think of what consent and care mean to you, and think of what consent-ful and careful tech would look like, function like, feel like. What relationships would be strengthened? Shattered?

- BECOME INFORMED

Learn about critiques and better ways

Read this explainer on Platform Co-ops, which are digital platforms collectively owned and governed by the people who depend on and participate in them. And follow the work of The Gig Worker’s Collective which is shining a light on and advocating for the people who work at the other end of our smartphone taps and swipes. 

- PUBLICLY PARTICIPATE

Support the alternatives and whistleblowers

Support community internet and technology groups like the Detroit Community Technology Project, NYC Mesh, and Oakland Mesh. And check out The Tech Worker Handbook, a collection of resources to better prepare and support tech workers considering whether to speak out on issues that are in the public interest. Recommend it to a tech worker near you, but don’t send it to their work email!

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Baratunde continues his journey to discover how we can embed more justice into the data driving our increasingly automated lives and focuses on the most intimate data there is: our DNA. He talks with Krystal Tsosie, an indigenous geneticist, and bioethicist who fights for data sovereignty and the rights of indigenous peoples to have agency over their personhood and knowledge.

Guest: Krystal Tsosie

Bio: Indigenous (Diné/Navajo) geneticist-ethicist at Vanderbilt University and incoming faculty at Arizona State. Co-Founder of the Native BioData Consortium. 

Online: Native BioData Consortium website; Krystal’s TED talk and Twitter @kstsosie

Go to howtocitizen.com for transcripts, our email newsletter, and your citizen practice.

ACTIONS

- PERSONALLY REFLECT 

What’s your data worth?

Ask yourself, “how much is my data privacy worth to me, and how do I feel about nonconsensual surveillance based on my data?” Now add in the element of genetic information. How would you feel if any of your biological kin donated genetic information that was tied to information about you that can be bought and sold?

- BECOME INFORMED 

Learn about nonconsensual data collection

Read this NY Times article about Indigenous tribes in the Amazon who felt “duped, lied to, exploited” when they realized their donated blood samples were being sold for $75 a vial while the medicines they were promised in exchange never arrived. Or learn about Henrietta Lacks, a Black woman whose cervical cancer cells (“HeLa”) changed the field of biology and have been commodified by laboratories, but without the knowledge of her or her family. Now let’s make it more personal. Find out what Big Tech knows about you with some of the suggestions in this article.

- PUBLICLY PARTICIPATE 

Support ethical data practices

Empower science led by Indigenous scientists working with tribal communities to ensure that the benefits of biomedicine and public health benefit Indigenous peoples. Consider making a donation to the Native BioData Consortium. And help protect yourself and slow the market for selling our data by installing the Global Privacy Control. This is a feature of certain web browsers that lets you signal to a site not to trade information about you, and it’s backed by law! 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Baratunde knows what is healthy to eat or not, thanks to the required nutrition labels on our food. But how do we know the ingredients in the algorithms and AI we depend on are safe to use? Baratunde speaks with Kasia Chmielinksi about the Data Nutrition Project, which helps data scientists, developers, and product managers assess the viability, health, and quality of the data that feeds their algorithms and influences our decisions daily. 

Guest: Kasia Chmielinski

Bio: Co-Founder of the Data Nutrition Project, an affiliate at Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society, senior research advisor at the Partnership on AI

Online: The Data Nutrition Project website; Kasia on Twitter @kaschm

Show Notes + Links

Go to howtocitizen.com to sign up for show news, AND (coming soon!) to start your How to Citizen Practice.

Please show your support for the show in the form of a review and rating. It makes a huge difference with the algorithmic overlords!

We are grateful to Kasia Chmielinski for joining us! Follow them at @kaschm on Twitter, or find more of their work at datanutrition.org.

ACTIONS

- PERSONALLY REFLECT 

Like people, machines are shaped by the context in which they were created. So if we think of machines and algorithmic systems as children who are learning from us - their parents - what kind of parents do we want to be? How do we want to raise our machines to be considerate, fair, and to build a better world than the one we are in today?

- BECOME INFORMED

Watch: Coded Bias

Listen: Radical AI Podcast

Read: Race after Technology, Weapons of Math Destruction, Data Feminism

Make Choices: *privacy not included (consumer guide for buying technologies)

- PUBLICLY PARTICIPATE

Donate to these groups on the front lines ensuring the future of AI is human and just: Algorithmic Justice League, ACLU, Electronic Frontier Foundation

Discuss: Host a book club! The books above are really great platforms to gather folks who want to learn from the literature and each other.

Attend a lecture or event: Data & Society, AI Now

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Can we inoculate ourselves against misinformation and conspiracy theories in the way we do for infectious diseases? Instead of debunking, can we “pre-bunk?” Sander van der Linden, co-founder of Inoculation Science, has created games that offer to do just that. Baratunde plays one of them and speaks with Sander about online misinformation campaigns, polarization, and how we can better protect ourselves.

Guest: Sander van der Linden

Bio: Professor of Social Psychology in Society at the University of Cambridge, co-founder Inoculation Science, author of The Truth Vaccine (writing)  

Online: Inoculation Science website; Sander’s website and Twitter @Sander_vdLinden

Show Notes + Links

Go to howtocitizen.com to sign up for show news, AND (coming soon!) to start your How to Citizen Practice.

Please show your support for the show in the form of a review and rating. It makes a huge difference with the algorithmic overlords!

We are grateful to Sander for joining us! Follow Sander at @Sander_vdLinden on Twitter, or find more of his work at inoculation.science. 

ACTIONS

- PERSONALLY REFLECT

Reflect on the game. 

After you play the game at https://inoculation.science and watch a few videos, reflect on how they made you feel. Are there online experiences you’ve had that make more sense once you consider you might have been intentionally manipulated? How do you think these games will affect your future online experiences?

- BECOME INFORMED

Play the game. 

Point your browser over to https://inoculation.science and play their set of inoculation games. In addition to Breaking Harmony Square, which we featured in this episode, they offer games to help you limit the harm of fake news and COVID misinformation. 

- PUBLICLY PARTICIPATE

Share the game. 

Finally, share the games with people you care about. Friends don’t let friends spread misinformation. 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.