Podcast appearances and mentions of Walidah Imarisha

And here we are. Episode 100. What a journey! Thank you so much for being a part of it with me. I could not be more delighted by today's guest, who I have wanted on this podcast since its inception. It's the wonderful writer, educator and poet Walidah Imarisha, one of my great she-roes. I really hope you are going to love the conversation that we had. And this episode starts with a couple of BIG announcements which I won't spoil, I'll leave you to dive into them.

*This episode was originally published on January 11, 2023.  Time and again, guests on this season of Rethinking Humanitarianism have called for systemic changes to the humanitarian system and global governance – from alternatives to the UN to revolutionised global climate financing. But how can you imagine something you've never seen before, while being grounded in the realities of today? In many ways, this is the domain of science fiction. The writer and activist Walidah Imarisha once said: “Any time we try to envision a different world – without poverty, prisons, capitalism, war – we are engaging in science fiction.” With science fiction, she added, we can start with the question “What do we want?” rather than the question “What is realistic?” In this first episode of the New Year, host Heba Aly looks to the future to explore how science fiction can bring about paradigmatic change by helping us believe a better world is possible. She is joined by sci-fi authors whose work speaks directly to the future of global governance and how to better address crises. Kim Stanley Robinson is the acclaimed science fiction writer behind the Mars trilogy, and, more recently, The Ministry for the Future. Malka Older is the author of Infomocracy and The New Humanitarian short story Earthquake Relief. Mexico City. 2051. ————— If you've got thoughts on this episode, write to us or send us a voice note at podcast@thenewhumanitarian.org.  SHOW NOTES Disaster response 2.0: What aid might look like in 30 years time (by Malka Older, for The New Humanitarian) Decolonising Aid: A reading and resource list Why Science Fiction Is a Fabulous Tool in the Fight for Social Justice | The Nation Kim Stanley Robinson: Remembering climate change ... a message from the year 2071 | TED Countdown   BOOKS AND AUTHORS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE Kim Stanley Robinson, The Ministry for the Future (2020) Malka Older, Infomocracy (2016) Octavia Butler, Parable of the Sower (1993) Edward Bellamy, Looking Backward: 2000–1887 (1888) H. G. Wells, A Modern Utopia (1905)  Ursula K. Le Guin (see The Dispossessed, 1974) Walidah Imarisha (see Octavia's Brood, 2015) Joanna Russ (see The Female Man, 1975) Cory Doctorow, Walkaway (2017) Neon Yang, The Tensorate series (2017-19) Martha Wells, The Murderbot Diaries series (2017-21)

Time and again, guests on this season of Rethinking Humanitarianism have called for systemic changes to the humanitarian system and global governance – from alternatives to the UN to revolutionised global climate financing. But how can you imagine something you've never seen before, while being grounded in the realities of today? In many ways, this is the domain of science fiction. The writer and activist Walidah Imarisha once said: “Any time we try to envision a different world – without poverty, prisons, capitalism, war – we are engaging in science fiction.” With science fiction, she added, we can start with the question “What do we want?” rather than the question “What is realistic?” In this first episode of the New Year, host Heba Aly looks to the future to explore how science fiction can bring about paradigmatic change by helping us believe a better world is possible. She is joined by sci-fi authors whose work speaks directly to the future of global governance and how to better address crises. Kim Stanley Robinson is the acclaimed science fiction writer behind the Mars trilogy, and, more recently, The Ministry for the Future. Malka Older is the author of Infomocracy and The New Humanitarian short story Earthquake Relief. Mexico City. 2051. ————— If you've got thoughts on this episode, write to us or send us a voice note at podcast@thenewhumanitarian.org.  SHOW NOTES Disaster response 2.0: What aid might look like in 30 years time (by Malka Older, for The New Humanitarian) Decolonising Aid: A reading and resource list Why Science Fiction Is a Fabulous Tool in the Fight for Social Justice | The Nation Kim Stanley Robinson: Remembering climate change ... a message from the year 2071 | TED Countdown   BOOKS AND AUTHORS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE Kim Stanley Robinson, The Ministry for the Future (2020) Malka Older, Infomocracy (2016) Octavia Butler, Parable of the Sower (1993) Edward Bellamy, Looking Backward: 2000–1887 (1888) H. G. Wells, A Modern Utopia (1905)  Ursula K. Le Guin (see The Dispossessed, 1974) Walidah Imarisha (see Octavia's Brood, 2015) Joanna Russ (see The Female Man, 1975) Cory Doctorow, Walkaway (2017) Neon Yang, The Tensorate series (2017-19) Martha Wells, The Murderbot Diaries series (2017-21)

Situated within the current context of police brutality, for-profit prisons, and excessive incarceration rates, Am Johal sits down with educator, writer, and public scholar, Walidah Imarisha. Walidah describes her creative works involving ideas and futures of police and prison abolition, including her book Angels with Dirty Faces, and her current work developing Space to Breathe – a film that looks back on our present moment of the abolitionist movement from a future where police and prisons have been abolished. She also shares her collaboration with adrienne maree brown in the creating the Octavia's Brood, an anthology inspired out of their desire to push movement organizers beyond ideas if “realistic” change. Throughout the interview Walidah also speaks about science fiction as an avenue to inspire greater imaginings for social change, and discusses white supremacy, imperial colonialism, and white “progressiveness” within the past and present histories of Oregon and The United States. Full episode details: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/185-walidah-imarisha.html Read the transcript: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/transcripts/185-walidah-imarisha.html Resources: Octavia's Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements: https://www.akpress.org/octavia-s-brood.html Walida's website: https://www.walidah.com/ Below the Radar with adrienne maree brown: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/166-adrienne-maree-brown/ Space to Breath film: https://www.walidah.com/blog/2021/3/24/grant-recipient-for-sci-fi-documentary-film Angels with Dirty Faces: https://www.akpress.org/angelswithdirtyfaces.html What a City Is For by Matt Hern: https://www.akpress.org/angelswithdirtyfaces.html Bio: Walidah Imarisha is an educator, writer, public scholar and spoken word artist. She has co-edited two anthologies, Octavia's Brood: Science Fiction Stories From Social Justice Movements and Another World is Possible. Imarisha's nonfiction book Angels with Dirty Faces: Three Stories of Crime, Prison, and Redemption won a 2017 Oregon Book Award. She is also the author of the poetry collection Scars/Stars, and in 2015, she received a Tiptree Fellowship for her science fiction writing. Imarisha is currently an Assistant Professor in the Black Studies Department and Director of the Center for Black Studies at Portland State University. In the past, she has taught at Stanford University, Pacific Northwest College of the Arts and Oregon State University. For six years, she presented statewide as a public scholar with Oregon Humanities' Conversation Project on several topics, including Oregon Black history. She was one of the founders and first editor of the political hip hop magazine AWOL. She has toured the country many times performing, lecturing and challenging, and has shared the stage with folks as different as Angela Davis, Cornel West, Amiri Baraka, Nikki Giovanni, Kenny Muhammad of the Roots, Chuck D, Michael Franti and Spearhead, Robin D.G. Kelley, Umar bin Hassan from The Last Poets, Boots Riley, Saul Williams, Ani DiFranco, John Irving, dead prez, Rebecca Solnit, and Yuri Kochiyama. Cite this episode: Chicago Style Johal, Am. “Science Fiction & Social Justice — with Walidah Imarisha.” Below the Radar, SFU's Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Podcast audio, September 13, 2022. https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/185-walidah-imarisha.html.

In this episode Liz Darrow talks with Aline Prata from the Whatcom Peace and Justice Center about the the International Day of Peace, which coincides this year with the center's 20th anniversary celebration. Learn more about the celebration and register here.View the entire conversation with Walidah Imarisha and Aaron Dixon referenced in this episode here.Songs in this episode:Canto Das Três Raças by Clara NunesAsa Branca by Luiz GonzagaPido la Paz by Rosa Martha Zarate MacíasSupport the show

Original Air Date 5/8/2021 Today we take a look at the culture that Disney has helped create and how they did it, using cuteness as a weapon to push ideas from racist stereotypes and segregation to the masterful use of hollow nods toward progressivism while reinforcing the ethics of individualism in order to give systemic injustice a pass. Be part of the show! Leave us a message at 202-999-3991 or email Jay@BestOfTheLeft.com  Transcript MEMBERSHIP, Gift Memberships and Donations! (Get AD FREE Shows & Bonus Content) SHOW NOTES Ch. 1: The Racial Politics of Disney Animals Part 1 - Popaganda from @BitchMedia - Air Date 8-28-15 Scholar, writer, and activist Walidah Imarisha is someone who's been thinking hard about what stories Disney tells and why. She teaches a class on race and Disney films at Portland State University. Ch. 2: 40 Acres and a Movie - Still Processing - Air Date 4-8-21 Disney owns a piece of every living person's childhood. Now it owns Marvel Studios, too. Jenna and Wesley look at depictions of racist tropes and stereotypes in Disney's ever-expanding catalog. The company has made recent attempts to atone for its past. Ch. 3: The Racial Politics of Disney Animals Part 2 - Popaganda from @BitchMedia - Air Date 8-28-15 Ch. 4: Woke Disney - Lindsay Ellis - Air Date 9-30-21 Nodding to progressive ideas while just proping up capitalism is just marketing. Ch. 5: Disneyfication of American History - American Hysteria - Air Date 1-25-21 Disney has been presenting a fairytale reality within a reality since the 1920s, a far cuter reality that mimics our reality until reality is no longer reality at all. Make sense? Ch. 6: How Disney Ruined Culture - Wisecrack - Air Date 11-9-20 It's no surprise that Disney has an absolute stranglehold on the culture we consume today. But the joys of the Magic Kingdom aside, what if it's actually kind of really bad for art? We'll explain in this Wisecrack Edition: How Disney Ruined Culture. Ch. 7: The (Not So) Wonderful World of Disney - It's Been a Minute with Sam Sanders - Air Date 2-16-18 Sam talks to filmmaker and activist Abigail Disney, daughter of Roy E. Disney, about her views on inequality in the U.S., corporate greed and why, despite her last name, she's become one of the more vocal and prominent critics of The Walt Disney empire. Ch. 8: DED Talks: Why Walt Disney is Nothing Like You Think He Was - Cracked - Air Date 1-19-15 Disney tell's his story MEMBERS-ONLY BONUS CLIP(S) Ch. 9: Disneyfication Of Cuteness - American Hysteria - Air Date 1-25-21 Disney has been presenting a fairytale reality within a reality since the 1920s, a far cuter reality that mimics our reality until reality is no longer reality at all. Make sense? Ch. 10: Copyright: Why We Can't Have Nice Things - Wisecrack - Air Date 4-23-21 This video, like everything else in the world, is copyrighted. But what does that really mean? Copyright laws started out as a way to protect creators from having their hard work stolen, but it's turned into something else entirely. VOICEMAILS Ch. 11: Ableism in the show - Alyson from Colorado FINAL COMMENTS Ch. 12: Final comments on Woke Disney and Ableist language MUSIC (Blue Dot Sessions): Opening Theme: Loving Acoustic Instrumental by John Douglas Orr  Voicemail Music: Low Key Lost Feeling Electro by Alex Stinnent Activism Music: This Fickle World by Theo Bard Closing Music: Upbeat Laid Back Indie Rock by Alex Stinnent   Produced by Jay! Tomlinson Visit us at BestOfTheLeft.com SUPPORT THE SHOW Listen Anywhere! Check out the BotL iOS/Android App in the App Stores! Follow at Twitter.com/BestOfTheLeft Like at Facebook.com/BestOfTheLeft Contact me directly at Jay@BestOfTheLeft.com

In this episode Stephanie Toliver, Assistant Professor of Literacy and and Secondary Humanities at University of Colorado Boulder and lifelong sci-fi nerd chats with Henry and Colin about her experience writing her hybrid PhD dissertation. As part of her PhD, Stephanie got the opportunity to work with the DEEP Center's Block to Block Program teaching middle-school age black girls how to write science fiction. Her now published dissertation combines the stories written by those girls with theory and methodology to outline how Stephanie centers Black girls in her academic research. In this conversation they discuss how Stephanie's leading style during the workshop was informed by the girls' own interests and their storytelling instincts rather than the typical teacher-student model. As a group they engaged with afrofuturist stories from Black authors like Octavia Butler, Sherri L. Smith, Tracie Baptiste, and Nnedi Okorafor and used those stories to inform their own work. In detailing her own process, she explores with the hosts how academia should encourage storytelling, especially for scholars of color, rather than enforcing that they write in a more standard voice and tone. As a professor she encourages educators to use young adult literature to bridge the gap between learning and storytelling and more information about that can be found on her blog readingblackfutures.com. A full transcript of this episode will be available soon!Here are some of the references from this episode, for those who want to dig a little deeper:Documentary on the DEEP Center's Block by Block Program: Block by Block's Guide to Resilience 21-22USC Annenberg's Civic Media FellowshipHenry's Civic Imagination ProjectOn Spiritual Strivings, Cynthia Dillard's Book that inspired Toliver's teaching methodsStephanie's Blog Post Defining AfrofuturismAfrofuturism Defined Elsewhere:Afrofuturism: From the Past to the Living Present | UCLAA Beginner's Guide To Afrofuturism: 7 Titles To Watch And Read (Essence)How Afrofuturism Can Help the World Mend | WIREDAfrofuturism: From Books to Blockbusters | It's Lit! (PBS)Afrofuturist Texts Mentioned in the Episode: Orleans by Sherri L. Smith Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler The Jumbies by Tracie Baptiste Octavia's Brood edited by Adrienne Maree Brown and Walidah Imarisha “Sera” by Nicola Yoon from Because You Love to Hate Me edited by Amerie For more visit Stephanie's blog here: https://readingblackfutures.com/black-girl-sffh/, https://readingblackfutures.com/black-boy-sffh/, https://readingblackfutures.com/black-sffh-anthologies/Raymond Williams, “Culture is Ordinary”Share your thoughts via Twitter with Henry, Colin and the How Do You Like It So Far? account! You can also email us at howdoyoulikeitsofarpodcast@gmail.com.Music:“In Time” by Dylan Emmett and “Spaceship” by Lesion X.––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––In Time (Instrumental) by Dylan Emmet  https://soundcloud.com/dylanemmetSpaceship by Lesion X https://soundcloud.com/lesionxbeatsCreative Commons — Attribution 3.0 Unported — CC BY 3.0Free Download / Stream: https://bit.ly/in-time-instrumentalFree Download / Stream: https://bit.ly/lesion-x-spaceshipMusic promoted by Audio Library https://youtu.be/AzYoVrMLa1Q––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

On this episode, Daniela talks about the essay she wrote, “on heartbreak and longing and hope”.  We talk about how being an activist means getting your heart broken over and over, and having to recognise and tend to the heartbreak in order to create a sustainable movement. We discuss the value of political homes, how we practice hope, and the importance of having boundaries and allowing ourselves to takes breaks and rest from political work.Daniela Tejas Miguez (she/her): Runner, embroiderer, chingona, and bisexual. Feminist against fascism, racism, and transphobia. Proud abortionist creating networks for sexual and reproductive justice. In eternal search for pleasure, joy, magic and good tea. Corredora, bordadora, chingona y bisexual. Feminista contra el fascismo, el racismo, y la transphobia. Orgullosamente abortista tejiendo redes para lograr la justicia sexual y reproductiva. En eterna búsqueda del placer, el goce, la magia y el buen té.Links and Resources:"On Heartbreak and longing and hope" by Daniela Tejas MiguezOctavia's Brood, edited by adrienne maree brown and Walidah Imarisha “What's an Abortion Anyway” by Carly Manes & Emulsify

Social Justice meets sci-fi meets songwriting in this panel discussion between musician, composer, and curator Toshi Reagon; cultural producer & sacred artivist Hanifa Nayo Washington; and writer, activist, educator, and spoken word artist Walidah Imarisha. In partnership with the Yale Schwarzman Center, these award-winning luminaries will touch on themes of Afrofuturism, Octavia Butler, and bringing a creative approach to our understanding of what social justice initiatives of the future might look like.LISTEN ON APPLE PODCASTSThis event is presented in partnership with the Yale Schwarzman Center.

Air Date 5/8/2021 Today we take a look at the culture that Disney has helped create and how they did it, using cuteness as a weapon to push ideas from racist stereotypes and segregation to the masterful use of hollow nods toward progressivism while reinforcing the ethics of individualism in order to give systemic injustice a pass.  Be part of the show! Leave us a message at 202-999-3991 or email Jay@BestOfTheLeft.com  Transcript MEMBERSHIP, Gift Memberships and Donations! (Get AD FREE Shows & Bonus Content) MERCHANDISE! REFER-O-MATIC! Sign up, share widely, get rewards. It's that easy! CHECK OUT OUR BOOKSHOP! Want to advertise/sponsor the show? Details -> advertisecast.com/BestoftheLeft SHOW NOTES Ch. 1: The Racial Politics of Disney Animals Part 1 - Popaganda from @BitchMedia - Air Date 8-28-15 Scholar, writer, and activist Walidah Imarisha is someone who’s been thinking hard about what stories Disney tells and why. She teaches a class on race and Disney films at Portland State University. Ch. 2: 40 Acres and a Movie - Still Processing - Air Date 4-8-21 Disney owns a piece of every living person’s childhood. Now it owns Marvel Studios, too. Jenna and Wesley look at depictions of racist tropes and stereotypes in Disney’s ever-expanding catalog. The company has made recent attempts to atone for its past. Ch. 3: The Racial Politics of Disney Animals Part 2 - Popaganda from @BitchMedia - Air Date 8-28-15 Ch. 4: Woke Disney - Lindsay Ellis - Air Date 9-30-21 Nodding to progressive ideas while just proping up capitalism is just marketing. Ch. 5: Disneyfication of American History - American Hysteria - Air Date 1-25-21 Disney has been presenting a fairytale reality within a reality since the 1920s, a far cuter reality that mimics our reality until reality is no longer reality at all. Make sense? Ch. 6: How Disney Ruined Culture - Wisecrack - Air Date 11-9-20 It's no surprise that Disney has an absolute stranglehold on the culture we consume today. But the joys of the Magic Kingdom aside, what if it's actually kind of really bad for art? We'll explain in this Wisecrack Edition: How Disney Ruined Culture. Ch. 7: The (Not So) Wonderful World of Disney - It's Been a Minute with Sam Sanders - Air Date 2-16-18 Sam talks to filmmaker and activist Abigail Disney, daughter of Roy E. Disney, about her views on inequality in the U.S., corporate greed and why, despite her last name, she's become one of the more vocal and prominent critics of The Walt Disney empire. Ch. 8: DED Talks: Why Walt Disney is Nothing Like You Think He Was - Cracked - Air Date 1-19-15 Disney tell's his story MEMBERS-ONLY BONUS CLIP(S) Ch. 9: Disneyfication Of Cuteness - American Hysteria - Air Date 1-25-21 Disney has been presenting a fairytale reality within a reality since the 1920s, a far cuter reality that mimics our reality until reality is no longer reality at all. Make sense? Ch. 10: Copyright: Why We Can't Have Nice Things - Wisecrack - Air Date 4-23-21 This video, like everything else in the world, is copyrighted. But what does that really mean? Copyright laws started out as a way to protect creators from having their hard work stolen, but it's turned into something else entirely. VOICEMAILS Ch. 11: Ableism in the show - Alyson from Colorado FINAL COMMENTS Ch. 12: Final comments on Woke Disney and Ableist language MUSIC (Blue Dot Sessions): Opening Theme: Loving Acoustic Instrumental by John Douglas Orr  Voicemail Music: Low Key Lost Feeling Electro by Alex Stinnent Activism Music: This Fickle World by Theo Bard Closing Music: Upbeat Laid Back Indie Rock by Alex Stinnent   Produced by Jay! Tomlinson Visit us at BestOfTheLeft.com SUPPORT THE SHOW Listen Anywhere! Check out the BotL iOS/Android App in the App Stores! Follow at Twitter.com/BestOfTheLeft Like at Facebook.com/BestOfTheLeft Contact me directly at Jay@BestOfTheLeft.com

"How do we start from building our own worlds and envisioning them rather than try to adapt what we've been given by some else?" Walidah Imarisha, writer and dreamer with Calvin Williams of Wakanda Dream Lab join host, adrienne maree brown, for this Emergent Strategy episode. The only requirement: your imagination.

Dave starts the episode telling Bob a scary and wild story of how he almost lost his wedding ring (hint: think hamburg).  The Crew then discusses COVID-related issues including some ethical questions related to vaccination.     The topic of the show is a look back on season 5.  The Crew harvest some take-home messages from the season on avoidance with the focus on how we can strengthen our confronting muscles.    The brothers end with a baseball question.  And to you listeners, let us know if you want to join our fantasy league.  Spots available!   Dystopian Rainbow Octavia’s Brood: Science Fiction from Social Justice Movements edited by adrienne maree brown and Walidah Imarisha.  But don’t take our word for it….   Contact info Email - davepeachtree@gmail.com Twitter - @BMaze19 IG - Thriving_In_Dystopia Website - https://thrivingindystopia.com/ TikTok - @davepeachtree   Deep appreciation to In Heaven by Drake Stafford for our intro song, Bashful by Ketza is the new outro, the prolific and enigmatic Joe Shine for the thumbnail art.   Big thank you to Nadir Čajić for editing this week’s show.   Finally, we are indebted to the wonderful Chris Sawyer for funding and creating our new website.  Thank you, Mix.  

This week’s guest, Warren Hedges, teaches a course at the Southern Oregon University on how speculative genres such as science fiction and fantasy help us imagine more inclusive cultures, societies, and worlds. He shared some thoughts on Facebook about Jacob Chansley, the so-called “Q Shaman” who participated in the January 6 insurrection in the U.S. Capital and the ways his dress and tattoos reflected long-standing nationalist and racist themes in High Fantasy. Across this conversation, Hedges traces out some of the links, including the connection between fantasy and representations of national character, the ways these ideas about race shape modern gaming, what it means for white supremacists to “play Indian,” the Greek and Roman iconography of the U.S. Capital and how it means different things for the North and the South, the way Birth of a Nation and The Clansman built on Sir Walter Scott’s fantasies regarding Scottish history, and the ways contemporary fantasy writers of color are expanding the genre’s relationship to mythology and nostalgia, among other topics. This far-reaching discussion explores the relationship between genre fiction and far-right politics, helping to make sense of some of the images associated with the January 6 insurrection.A full transcript of this conversation will be available soon!Here are some of the references from this episode, for those who want to dig a little deeper:Right Wing Politics and Iconography: Q-Shaman Jacob Chansley Right wing appropriates Viking cultureCharlottesville shieldTea Party MovementQAnonA Second American RevolutionRight Wing cosplayersFlags of the InsurrectionThe High Fantasy TraditionJ.R.R. Tolkien -- translation of BeowulfWorm Tongue in Lord of the RingsReDiscovery of BeowulfBrothers GrimmJohann Gottfried von HerderHigh FantasyGame of ThronesOrcs, Klingons as African-AmericanFurther Reading on FantasyBrian Atteberry, Stories About Stories Michael Saler, As If: Modern Enchantment and the Literary Prehistory of Virtual RealityHenry on the need to rethink genreGames and GamingRoots of Dungeons and Dragons Assassin's Creed: ValhallaSkyrim – Warren’s Videos on Racial Coding and Gender Coding in SkyrimStranger ThingsRewriting the Fantasy GenreSylvia Moreno-Garcia, Gods of Jade and Shadow Marlon James, Black Leopard, Red WolfGrace L. Dillon, Walking the Clouds: An Anthology of Indigenous Science FictionAdrienne Maree Brown and Walidah Imarisha, Octavia’s Brood: Science Fiction Stories fromSocial Justice MovementsGrimdarkWakandaScottish Nationalism and the Klu Klux KlanD.W. Griffith, Birth of A Nation and crossburningThomas Dixon, The ClansmanMartin Luther King on white supremacySir Walter Scott and nationalismMark Twain -- Sir Walter Scott caused Civil War Native American Imagery“Playing Indian”Grace L. Dillon, Walking the Clouds: An Anthology of Indigenous Science FictionLydia Maria ChildBoston Tea Party -- Indian imageryThe Iconography of the American CapitalTrump’s 1776 Commission and the New York Time’s 1619 seriesGreek and Roman Imagery in CapitalGeorge Washington as Roman HeroGreek RevivalWilliam Faulkner on the pastLincoln and PericlesCity Beautiful movementThomas Jefferson’s changing views on slavery’Benjamin Franklin discusses the “lovely white”Hamilton and Diverse AmericaOregon as haven for white peopleSvetlana Boym on NostalgiaSuperhero MythologyDonald Trump as Captain America The Punisher and Blue Lives MatterShare your thoughts via Twitter with Henry, Colin and the How Do You Like It So Far? account! You can also email us at howdoyoulikeitsofarpodcast@gmail.com.Music:“In Time” by Dylan Emmett and “Spaceship” by Lesion X.––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––In Time (Instrumental) by Dylan Emmet  https://soundcloud.com/dylanemmetSpaceship by Lesion X https://soundcloud.com/lesionxbeatsCreative Commons — Attribution 3.0 Unported — CC BY 3.0Free Download / Stream: https://bit.ly/in-time-instrumentalFree Download / Stream: https://bit.ly/lesion-x-spaceshipMusic promoted by Audio Library https://youtu.be/AzYoVrMLa1Q––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Episode Notes The guest adrienne maree brown can be found on twitter @adriennemaree and instagram @adriennemareebrown. The book we are discussing the most is Emergent Strategy. The host Margaret Killjoy can be found on twitter @magpiekilljoy or instagram at @margaretkilljoy. You can support her and this show on Patreon at patreon.com/margaretkilljoy. Transcript Margaret 00:14 Hello, and welcome to Live Like the World is Dying, your podcast for what feels like the end times. I'm your host, Margaret Killjoy. I use she or they pronouns—and I'm sorry that it's been a minute since an episode has come out and it'll probably stay a little bit slowed down for a little while, it might be an episode a month for a little while. It's not that I've run out of people to interview or subjects that I want to cover, it's that it's hard for me to get anything done right now, which I think might be something that might—you might identify with, as well. I've kind of said that the only thing I've managed to accomplish so far in 2021 is talk shit on the internet and not die. And I'm doing very good at both of those things. I've have honed my talking shit skills, and I'm reasonably good at not dying. One thing that people don't talk about enough with off-grid life and things like that, I spend an awful lot of my time just maintaining the systems that sustain me. I spend a lot of my time trying to fix broken water pumps and learning that—the thing is, when you do everything DIY and you're not particularly skilled, the first time you do something you probably do it good enough, but good enough often means that it will fall apart before before too long. So I've rewired my electrical system probably seven or eight times. It seems to be holding good now. My plumbing system, I'm going to be crawling under my house and rewiring my plumbing system a lot. I've had a lot of things freeze and break. And there's just a lot of—a lot of uphill learning curve, especially to do alone. This week's guest is Adrienne Maree Brown and I'm very excited to have her on the show. We talk a lot about—well, about Emergent Strategy which is a conception of strategy, of political strategy, that embraces change and embraces the fact that, well, you can't have one strategy now can you? And we also talk a little bit about her work as a podcaster with the podcast How to Survive the End of the World, which is, yeah, as she points out that maybe the closest thing there is to a direct sister podcast or sibling podcast to this show. This podcast is a proud member of Channel Zero Network of Anarchists Podcasts, and here's a jingle from another show on the network. Jingle 02:48 One two one two, tune in for another episode of MaroonCast. MaroonCast is a down to earth black radical podcast for the people. Our host, hip hop anarchist "Sima Lee The RBG" and sex educator and crochet artists "KLC" share their reflections on maroons, rebellion, womanism, life, culture, community, trap liberation & everyday ratchetness! They deliver fresh commentary with a queer, TGNC, fierce, funny, Southern Guhls, anti-imperialist, anti-oppression approach. "Poli (Ed.) & Bullshit". Check out episodes of MaroonCast on Channel Zero Network, Buzzsprout, Soundcloud, Google, Apple, and Spotify. All power to the people, all pleasure. Margaret 03:40 Okay, so if you want to introduce yourself with your name, your pronouns, and then I guess kind of a brief introduction to you and your work, especially around Emergent Strategy. Adrienne 03:51 Okay, my name is Adriennne Maree Brown, I use she and they pronouns. I am based in Detroit and I'm the author of five books including Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds, and almost everything I've written is in some way inspired by Octavia Butler or in touch with Octavia Butler, including Emergent Strategy. So, yeah. Margaret 04:18 Yeah, that was one of the—one of the many reasons I wanted to have you on this show was that if there's one book that keeps coming up over and over again on this show—and pretty much anyone vaguely on the left who cares about what's going on in the world—it's a Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler. And one of the things that really struck me about your work with Emergent Strategy the—not just the book, but the kind of the concept of emergent strategy that I want to talk to you about—is basically, the thing that I loved—I mean, I loved a lot about Parable of the Sower and Parable of Talents. But the idea of creating this essentially religious way of interacting with chaos and change and like embracing those things and learning to use them as our strengths, whether because it's nicer or because it's our only choice, it really appealed to me. And then learning that someone was taking that out and developing it further into essentially a strategy both for like political change, but also personal development. I got really excited about it. So I was wondering if you could kind of introduce the basic concepts to listeners who might not know what the hell I'm talking about. Adrienne 05:31 That's great. Yeah, so Emergent Strategy is, it's rooted in many, many things, I think it's the way that the world works. I feel like it's strategies for getting in right relationship with change. And once you understand that change is constant, and that you can either be thrown about by change and see it as a, you know, wild chaos that you can never get your footing in. Or that you can partner with change, you can begin to shape the changes that happen in your life or in the era that you live in. Emergent Strategy is for people who are ready to be responsible for shaping change around them. And some of the key lineages of it are the scientific concepts of emergence. So emergence is the way patterns and the way—like basically all these patterns arise out of relatively simple interactions. And they're very complex patterns, but each of the interactions or each of the relationships are relatively simple. So I think of like a flock of birds, a huge murmuration of birds, moving through the air, avoiding predation. And it looks like the most complex, choreographed, beautiful thing. But it's actually this simple system where each bird is paying attention to the five to seven birds right around it and following the subtle cues that they're sending each other: it's time to move, left, dip, rise, move, right. One of the core questions of Emergent Strategy was, what would it look like if our movements and our species could move in that way? What would it look like if we could murmur it together? How would we have to trust each other? So adaptation is a big part of that, is what does it look like to adapt with intention. Not just react to the chaos, but really adapt in ways that keep moving us where we want to get to. And then there's a lot about interdependence: what is the quality of relationships between each of the parts of our systems? Between you and my, between the people in our communities? How do we attend to the relationships? How do we think about decentralization? And I feel like one of the big lessons I've had, both in recent years and in looking back at movements throughout history, is that those that centralize are those that are not able to live as long as they need to live in order to do their best work. The centralization—something about gathering everything around one mind, one idea, one way of being—actually weakens us as a species. And nature shows us the biodiversity and creating more possibilities is actually the way to survive. And so now I think that's a lot of my work is, what does it mean for us to be biodiverse in a fucund and world? What does it mean for us to decentralize how we hold power and how we hold responsibility for what happens in our communities? How do we adapt well? Margaret 08:28 I love all of it. I just eat up all this stuff. I've been thinking a lot about what you're saying about murmurations and the way that—the way that animals move in nature and the way that, you know, flocks move, and things like that, I was thinking about—I've been having some conversations with a couple people around the riot or the insurrection or whatever the hell people call it on January 6 at the Capitol, and the way that the rightwing crowd moved. And it's so funny to me, because like, there's like jokes on Twitter where it was like, we know it wasn't Antifa because there wasn't, like, a group of gay folks handing out sandwiches. And like, there wasn't a medic tent set up and stuff. And people present it kind of as a joke, but I realized I was looking at it and I was like, I've been terrified of people being trampled at demonstrations. I've been in militant demonstrations a lot of times, and I've never seen it happen. And watching that happen, I was trying to figure out what it was. And I think it has to do with what you're talking about, about our side at its best embraces interdependence and chaos and change and, like, and isn't there as a group of individuals. Like people talk about—sorry, this is something I think about way too much recently— Adrienne 09:40 Yeah, no, go off. Margaret 09:42 People have been talking about—I grew up being told the left is like The Mob. It's like the big mass action where everyone loses their individuality and it's bad chaos and everyone gets hurt. And then that just hasn't been my experience at all in large demonstrations. And then I look at what the right wing does when they all gather to go try and do this thing, and that's what I see. So I don't know. Yeah, I just, I've been thinking about that emergence stuff a lot as relates to that. Adrienne 10:10 Yeah, I think that your—what you're speaking to is, like, extremely important distinctions which is, when a group comes together who have all been deeply socialized and have bought into their own supremacy, right? Supremacy is a disconnecting energy. It's like you can belong, as long as you play along by these rules, which are that we are better than everyone else and we're constantly reinforcing that betterness. But better, you're—then you have to constantly be reinforcing and finding new ways to be better than, better than, better than—even to the point that like, I've got to get to the Capitol door before you do, even if that means stepping over your body in the street. And you pair that with capitalism which is also the constant growth, constant bettering, constant one-upping, right? Constant showing what you have. There's so much—trying to think if you have—what the word is—like that sense of, like, this is just ours. This is mine, this is—you know? And I feel like when you go to spaces that the left has organized, there's such a care at the center of it. Like we're there not because we're just, like, I'm here to fight somebody, or I'm here to dominate, but we don't even necessarily believe it's like our way is "the right way." It's more like, we want to find a way to be loving and caring with each other. We don't think we've ever gotten the chance to experiment with that at scale, as a species. At the current scale that we're at, everything we're doing is constantly trying to defend ourselves and care for ourselves under the conditions of oppression. And it means that when we come together—I always see the same thing. I'm like, are we going to be safe? But then people are taking such care of each other, from the street medics, to the people who are watching after the kids, to people who are like, I brought for extra signs so everyone would have something to carry. People—I always notice is that people bring extra water and extra food and, like, one of my favorite things, and one of the reasons why I've always been such a stan for direct action is that those spaces tend to be such active spaces of love and care and precision and, like, let's attend to each other and attend to the work we're up to. And, you know, we can go overboard with how attentive we are to everything. Because I think is part of our responding to the trauma of living in a society that's so actively does not care for us. And so watching those people who actively don't care try to come together and assert themselves as victims and, you know, it's not funny. It's actually quite sad, you know. It's just sort of like, you have so much power, you abuse it—so much so that you end up abusing yourselves and you're you're continuously cutting yourself off from what is the best part of being alive, which is the nature of togetherness. That's what I want to study is like the scholar—I've called myself a scholar of belonging. What does it actually look like to belong, to be part of something larger than yourself, of ourselves? And in that belonging, to take responsibility for our survival, for how we do—how we be with each other? Margaret 13:20 I'm so glad I brought this up, then because you just managed to finally articulate this thing that me and my friends have been trying to wrap our head around for—since we saw it happen on January 6th. So you mentioned trying to—trying to do this at scale, and how that's something that's somewhat unprecedented by human society and that—go ahead. I just want—how do we—how do we do that? And one of the things that really interests me about your work and about the work that I care about, is that it's embracing diverse strategies, rather than saying, like, this is the one way that we do it. So obviously when I say, how do we do that? I don't mean because you are our leader, but you know, instead—yeah, like, how do we—how do we learn to weave different strategies, different ethical systems, different ideas about how to change things? How do we weave that into a coherent force? Adrienne 14:17 Yeah, I mean, this is the question of our lifetimes, I think, you know, is like, how do we do this thing? This is why I'm, you know—when Walidah Imarisha created that term visionary fiction I was like, "Yes, that's what I'm about is trying to figure out how we do everything that we've never really experienced in our lifetimes." The best I have so far is what I witnessed when bringing people together for the Emergent Strategy immersions, or bringing people together for a process of, like, how do we do community together? Beloved community. Like, what does it actually look like to practice that? And some of the elements of that are that people are really invited to bring their whole selves into wherever they are. That there is a sense of organized care. That we don't just leave it up to, you know, hoping everybody just figures it out. But there's a—there's a real ability to name, here are the needs in this community: the access needs, the food needs, the water needs, the timing needs—we need breaks, we need gender-liberated bathrooms—here's all the things that we need in order to fully be here. And then we have to let people unleash what they have to bring to the table. And this is where I think, you know, when I started writing Emergent Strategy I was onto something that I'm not sure I even had articulated fully to myself. But it was my critique of how movements and Nonprofit Industrial Complex was playing out, which is, we were often trying to bring people into space where only a portion of them was welcome. And where we weren't asking them to truly bring their offer. Like we were like, "Can you just come be a number in the strategy that we've already figured out? Or can you come play your position?" Like you show up in the debate exactly as we expect you to, and we'll say what we expect to say and we'll move forward with the lowest common denominator of a solution, which no one's actually passionate about, and like, nothing will actually change. Philanthropy will keep paying us. It'll go on and on forever and ever. And for me, I was like, I'm really not interested in playing the game anymore. I really want to see what happens when you unleash people to come together. And what I see is—what I've witnessed is people very quickly are like, how do we hold really authentic, effective accountability processes in real time together? How do we offer each other the rituals we need to really relinquish harm and trauma that has built up in our community? Here, we have tons of ways to care for each other. We created this exercise—and when I say we, it was one of the groups that was participating created this exercise that became something we did at everything else we ever did. And it was healing stations, where we just said, everyone gets 10 minutes. Go to your bag and pull out whatever you find to be healing, and create a healing station with your small group. And 10 minutes later, the room would have transformed into this place that felt like we can do anything, because we've got vibrators and cigarettes and Tarot decks and incense and medicines and tinctures. And like, anything, you know—and I was like, y'all just walk around with everything you need. So many books, you know, so many ways that people are like, this is how I care for myself and I want to offer it, I want to leave it here for other people to access and have contact with. That kind of—those moves, watching how quickly community did know, not only how to take care of itself, but how to hold each other accountable, and how to stay together. I was blown away. So I think a lot of the answers, we need to actually be willing to get into smaller formations and really practice being with each other. And let that proliferate, right? I think so often we're oriented around, like, how do we build a mass movement that's all thinking the same way to strike and to have this impact. I really love the idea of united fronts where people are all in their political homes united around some common organizing principles, but allowed to be their own weird, magical way of being and care for themselves where they need to. So that's why I identify as a post nationalist because I do think that the American experiment is literally at a scale that doesn't function. Like there's, it's—the scale is too big for there to be any kind of real, you know, something that's not just a brand of togetherness, but that's an actual practice of togetherness. You know, 70 million people or whatever are committed to voting for white supremacy in the country. Margaret 18:50 Yeah. Adrienne 18:50 Like, that's not, you know, that's not a viable strategy for how we move forward at this point. I love the idea of secession radical secessions. I love the idea of the Zapatistas claiming territory within territory with indigenous leadership would be like, a dream come true to me. I love, you know, people who are living off the grid and finding ways to divest from the American experiment already. So, you know, I think all of those are some of the ways. Margaret 19:21 Yeah. Adrienne 19:21 And I think right now with the pandemic unfolding, I think a lot more of us are like, "Oh, I do need, like, literal community." Not social media community, not conference community, but I need, like, literal people I can call on, that I could walk to their house, that I can count on to hold boundaries around safety. Like, we need those things. And I think that's the answer. I always think community is the answer. Margaret 19:47 No that—that makes sense. And that's one of the main focuses on like, the—one of the main points of this show is to talk about how preparedness is more of a community thing than an individual thing. Adrienne 19:56 Absolutely. Margaret 19:56 So one of the things you were saying about— Adrienne 19:58 Yeah, cuz individually, we just hoard. Margaret 20:00 Yeah no, totally. Yeah. One of the things you're saying about—because earlier pointing out that direct action is a really good way to create a sense of belonging. And that's something that I've been watching happen in a lot of people who've been kind of radicalized to the left within the last year, since the uprisings last summer started. And what you're talking about, about creating these moments of belonging, I definitely, I think for my own experience, it has been those moments of, you know, facing down a very powerful force together and the way that—the way that you figure out who has your back when, like, literally—just to tell a random bullshit story, at one point I was, like, part of some march and, you know, the cops wanted to arrest me because I may or may not have been burning an American flag and things like that. And I thought all my like—yeah, I thought all my, like, punk friends were going to protect me. And then half of them were just gone. And then all of these people I'd kind of written off as like—this is a while ago, I was young—I'd kind of written off as hippies. Like some of the, like, older—I was like, oh, they're probably liberals or whatever—just surrounded me and were like, "Hey, just so you know, we're here to physically protect you from the police arresting you. They're definitely talking about arresting you." And it was just this nice moment of, like, realizing that in moments of conflict or even not unnecessary conflict, but moments of tension, you find out what community looks like. And maybe that's what COVID is unfortunately doing for all of us about how we have to suddenly develop mutual aid networks at a scale that we never did previously in the United States. Adrienne 21:40 Absolutely. I absolutely agree with that. And I think that Octavia Butler taught us this. In all of her works it was like, you'd never know who you're going to be in the apocalypse with. Like, you have plans, you think you know what they look like and feel like, but you really don't know who's going to have your back under that pressure. And in some ways, I think it's because people don't even know themselves if the—what they'll be capable of under the pressure. And, you know, this pandemic has revealed for people so much about what they're like under pressure, because some people under pressure have really turned inward and disconnected from community and are, you know, really in a deep, lonely, isolated place. And I see that happening with people that I didn't expect it from, you know. And then I see other people who are really finding ways to weave themselves into community. And there's not a right or wrong here. It's just very fascinating to see who turns towards others and who doesn't. And what we need, right? I thought—I was like, I'm a loner, I like to be by myself you know, I'm a—that part of Octavia Butler's life always appealed to me because she just was by herself, like, just chillin and writing sci fi. But I spent a few months all alone. And I was like, I don't like this, I want to be with the love of my life, I want to be with my friends, I want to be with my parents, I want to, like, be with people who can lay hands on me when I'm sick. And, like, have my back, you know, physically rub my back. Margaret 23:08 Yeah. Adrienne 23:09 I just was like, I—that part, physical touch felt so important to me. And I'm watching our communities now. I'm like, there's mutual aid but there's also just, like, the need of being a body alive in this time. And like, what do we—what are the very fundamental needs? Which I also love about Octavia's is writing. Like, what—there are some very fundamental human needs that we share. And then there are beliefs, destinies that pull us forward. And what you're looking for in your community is the folks who can balance those two things, who are like, we can find ways to attend to the very non-negotiable physical needs. And we can align ourselves around a destiny. And it doesn't have to be a perfect alignment where we all say the same words and we're all coated out. But there has to be substance of like, oh, I want to be in communities that hold each other accountable. I want to be in communities that are abolitionists where we're not trying to dispose of or lock anyone away. I want to be in communities that really love the earth, like, at a primal, this is home level, you know? And so on and so forth. And I'm like, I meet those kinds of people, actually, more often than you think. And writing books has been my way of, you know, go "Hoo de hoo!" Like, who is out there that is potentially my people? I feel very excited right now by, like, just—I'll say this: the other day was Valentine's Day. And I often, like, ignore that completely, capitalism, whatever. But this time I was, like, you know, there's a lot of lonely people out there. Let me just try something. And I had a dream about it that was like posting a "looking for love" post but it was basically like for Emergent Strategists anP pleasure Activists and people who, like, really are like riding on this like Octavia way, right? And it was like over 1000 people wrote in and they're like, "I'm looking for love and those are the kind of principles I want at the center of it." And it made me so excited because I was like, this is what we—there's enough people now that are at least looking at each other, like, I may not, you know, stamp Emergent Strategy on my forehead, but I do want to be in right relationship with change, and I want to be in accountable relationship with pleasure, I want to claim, you know, my power in this lifetime, I want to take responsiblity for community. I'm like, there's enough of us now that we can fall in love with each other and, like, have, you know, radical families, and like, all that kind of stuff. Just, you know, we are a generation too. Like, we come from generations that held the ground for something outside of capitalism, something outside of nationalism, something outside of colonialism, militarism, all those things. And now we're that generation. It's just articulating ourselves again, and again, and again. Like, we're here, we love each other, we're taking care of each other. And as this added—you know, I think our folks are so brilliant, because they're like, this is not the first pandemic. This is not the last pandemic. You know, like, we have our folks who came through the HIV AIDS pandemic and are now here and teaching us inside of this moment, and we will teach people the next one and— Margaret 26:12 Yeah. Adrienne 26:13 Right? Like, we keep going. Margaret 26:16 Yeah, one of the things that people I've talked to have brought up a lot that I've been really excited about is—excited about is the wrong word—but the fact that, like, the apocalypse isn't an event as much as like this cycle, ongoing process, thing that comes and goes, like, you know—and actually, I mean, even just to talk about Octavia Butler's work again from a fangirly point of view, like, one of the reasons that her work was so important was, in my experience, I'm not incredibly well read, it was the first slow apocalypse in the kind of still recognizably an apocalyptic story of people leave their homes and go on the road and figure out how to start a new society. But it was a slow apocalypse. And that's something that I think we need more of just out of—one of the hardest things that I've struggled with, in my personal life is—and this is awful, because I sound like Chicken Little—but it's trying to convince people that we are in an apocalypse. Like we are in a slow apocalypse right now. Adrienne 27:17 Exactly. We're in it. Margaret 27:18 Yeah. And people are waiting for the bomb to drop. So they're like, "Oh, it's not the apocalypse." And I'm like, well, but what—what do you need? Like, failed infrastructure? You know? Adrienne 27:31 How badly does it have to be? Yeah. Margaret 27:33 And I'm actually curious. Adrienne 27:35 Yeah. Margaret 27:35 I've been meaning to try and ask people—well, actually, no, I want to bring it back to the Octavia Butler stuff and then—you also write fiction, and you also focus on—I've seen a lot of your work around trying to present visionary fiction and present futures. And that's something and‚I'd like to hear more about. I'm just always trying to ask people about—because obviously it's very close to me personally—but how do you— Adrienne 28:03 Well you write them. Margaret 28:04 [Chuckling] Yeah. What it—like, what is the—what is the importance of writing futures? Like, what is the importance of imagining futures? Adrienne 28:15 Yes. You know, I just listened to—I got to read a bunch of Octavia Butler's work for this NPR Throughline podcast. And they include a lot of interview with her. And she's talking about how important it was for her to write herself in. She was like, "I wanted to write myself into the narrative, into the story." And I think for so many of us, when we look back, we can see either stories of our trauma or stories—or like the gaps, the erasure, where our story should be, and they're not. And I live in Detroit, and Detroit, you drive around and if you know what you're looking at, right, if you've seen like maps or pictures of what it looked like 40 years ago to now, you can see that it's a city full of gaps, full of spaces where there used to be homes. Like literally on a block it'll be like, "Huh, this is kind of random. There's just two houses on this block." It used to be seven, right? But time and the economic crisis and other things disappeared those homes and I feel like history can look like that for those of us who are queer or trans, Black or Latino, Indigenous, etc. can look back and be like, "Where were we? Where were we?" And white supremacy and nationalism, other things, errased the full story of us so that we are left with just the trauma that we've been able to unveil. And so writing futures—writing ourselves into the future—is to me a way that we go ahead and stake a claim. Like, we are here now imagining ourselves. And in the imagining, we are creating room for something different to exist. And whenever I am engaging in fiction writing as a practice, I really feel like I am up to something that—the biggest thing maybe that I'm ever up to, is understanding that the whole world that we currently live in came out of someone's imagination. All of the constructs, the way that I experience my own gender, the way that I experience my skin, the way that I experience my size, the way that I experience my desirability, my worthfull—worthiness, you know—there's so many fundamental aspects of myself that are just miraculous, because that's what everyone is. But they've been so complicated, and I've had to fight to feel like I deserve to exist. And that fight is because someone imagined that I did not. And they imagine that, you know—I was this morning thinking about all the Black children that we've lost to police violence, and like, they're all dead because someone imagined that they were dangerous, you know. Imagination is a very, very powerful drug, a very powerful practice. And, to me, I'm like, if we want something new, we have to actually imagine, what does it look like? When I say defund the police, what am I imagining happens when there's a domestic violence incident on the street? And does that mean—am I imagining myself willing to go down and intervene? Am I imagining myself calling community mediators to come on over right now, something's going on? You know, what do I imagine happens? Because if I can't imagine it, I'm definitely not going to be able to invite tons of people who are used to the putative system to come join me on another path. The imagination to me is how we create the future that we want to be, and how we make sure that we're not absent from it. So—and I have to give a lot of props here to Disability Justice communities because I feel like I've just now starting to understand how much I learned from Disability Justice communities around this. But they're like, if we're not in the room and y'all plan something and it doesn't have a wheelchair ramp, and it doesn't have an accessible bathroom, and it's like chemical scent overload or whatever, it's because we weren't in the room. So you didn't even imagine us there. You didn't not imagine us, you just didn't think about us at all. We were just not part of it. And as a facilitator, the number of times that happened was like, "Oh, I'm sorry, like, I just didn't." And it's like, no, that's not acceptable. Like, now I'm like, how do I make sure that people are in the room where imagination happens? How do I make sure that they're in the pages where imagination happens? And because then you end up with a future that is accessible, that is equitable, that is pleasurable, and is sustainable, right? Because we're all there dreaming it. Margaret 32:37 Yeah, the—this happens sometimes when I interview guests and I'm like, instead of having like a good—especially my year of reasonable isolation, I've lost some of my social skills. So people say things, and I'm just like, thinking about it. You know? Instead of having like, an immediate response. Adrienne 32:52 I'm like—I would love to do a study on the social skills we've all lost. Margaret 32:56 Yeah. Adrienne 32:57 Because I just like, yeah. Margaret 33:00 Yeah. [Laughing] Adrienne 33:01 I'm also having—I have that experience all the time these days where I'm just like, everything moves slower now. Margaret 33:06 Yeah. Adrienne 33:06 And I'm thinking about it. Margaret 33:07 Yeah. And then, you know, in some ways I'm, like, glad because I'm like, well, I don't have an immediate response to what you're saying, because I'm just thinking about it. I'm like, I just want to sit with that. Like that's, you know, that touches on something that I've thought about before, but I haven't—and I've tried to address in my own work, but I haven't succeeded at yet. And I haven't given enough attention to. Adrienne 33:28 Yeah. Margaret 33:28 To talk about something else. I very embarrassingly, after I named my podcast Live Like the World is Dying, googled—I was like, "Well, what if I called it something like How—" Because I always do things that are like "how to" or like, you know, whatever. Yeah. Adrienne 33:42 How To... [Laughing] Margaret 33:42 And um, do you want to talk about your own podcast with a very similar title? Adrienne 33:47 Yes. I mean, our podcasts are definitely siblings in the territory of content. Margaret 33:51 Yeah. Adrienne 33:53 Yeah. So I have a—I have two podcasts. Actually now I have three podcasts. Margaret 33:56 Oh wow, okay! Adrienne 33:57 I'm an unstoppable podcast machine. So I really love the art of podcasting. You know, there's something beautiful about just sitting and having a conversation, listening to a conversation. So my first podcast, my longest running one, is called How to Survive the End of the World. And it's with my sister Autumn. And we're both just obsessed with Octaviam obsessed with apocalypse and like how do we turn and face the fact that we are in apocalypse, and that we have been through many, and that apocalypse is actually a moment you can harness for change. And it's actually quite a powerful portal if we harness it that way. So there's a lot of philosophy and theoretical conversations mixed in with, like, hard skill offers. So that one is is kind of a blast, you know. It—for me it felt very liberating to just turn directly and face apocalypse and just get to be in conversations that are all, like, related to what is. And then I do the Octavia's Parables podcast with Toshi Reagon where we're reading the Parable of the Sower chapter by chapter. We just finished that first season. Now we're going to head into the Parable of the Talents, and then we'll keep going with Octavia's work just—we're like, even though only two of her books are called parables, they're all parables in a way so. And then Emergent Strategy Ideation Institute just last week launched our podcast, which is the three kind of core collective members take turns interviewing different people who are, what we see is like living Emergent Strategy in the world. And we're just examining, like, building basically a set of audio case studies for people to listen to. Like, what does it look like to practice Emergent Strategy and all these different realms of movements? Margaret 35:46 Okay. I admit the How to Survive the End of the World one—people have been, you know, that—more and more, I think, people—for some strange reason everyone's really into prepping right now. It's hard to figure out why. But I actually— Adrienne 36:04 No idea why. Mysterious. Margaret 36:07 And I like that there is—that there is other stuff out there. And I was wondering if you had— Adrienne 36:13 Oh, yeah. Margaret 36:14 —your own thoughts about, like, where people can find stuff about whether individual community or social preparation? Or like, how else people can get— Adrienne 36:23 So we have brought on a series of guests. Last year, I was away on sabbatical and my sister did, I think, the best episodes of the entire podcast without me, which were—it was apocalypse of survival series. And each of the guests are people who have their own work and their own lives. But there's a group called Queer Survival—Queer Nature. They basically blew our minds. Blew our minds. And it was just very tangible stuff on, like, how do you think under the pressure of crisis? And they do trainings, they do offerings. And then Leah Penniman came on from Soul Fire Farm and was really talking about, like, how do we reorient our relationship to food? Because, you know, what happened when the pandemic went down. Everybody was like, run to the store, buy everything frozen and canned, stick that in your house. And like—I'm like, so basically, you're prepared to give up even having access to any organic, fresh food. And that's your plan for how you're going to survive. Like, what does that mean? Right. And I feel like, listening to someone like Leah Penniman, it's like, what is it instead look like to begin to organize ourselves around farms, around food growth, around the cycles of planting and gardening and growing. I'm hoping that that becomes one of the next iterations that emerges from this pandemic crisis is that people are like, okay, we were not fully ready to actually be growing and thinking about food as a community. That's something we want to be orienting ourselves towards. I know that for me that's something I'm thinking about is, do I have the first clue about how to grow my own food if I wanted to? [Laughing, inaudible] How would I do that? You know? So I just started, I'm now growing cilantro and lavender, which is not something I could survive on but it is, like, a move in the right direction. And I have aloe and I have other things. But I'm like, what does it look like to actually, like, think about a season and put things in the ground? And how much food would it take for me and my partner to live? How much will we be able to contribute? One of the things I love, that I feel like I learned from the conversations with Leah, but with other farmers, Black farmers—Derek Cooper, other folks—is like, everything that we grow is actually immediately abundant. If you're doing it, if you're in right relationship with whatever it is you're growing, you end up with more than you could ever need. And that's why so many farmers end up doing all kinds of cooperative efforts of sharing their food out to other people, because you get so much. I love that as a problem and as a challenge for us. It's like, could we deal with the abundance that would come if we actually all gave a portion of our time and attention to growing food directly from land? So that's one of the things I'm—that's like one of my next horizons is, like, inspired by this Soul Fire Farms community is, like, what does it look like to actually get our hands dirty in a different way. Margaret 39:23 Cool. Yeah, I um—when all this happened I was like, I live on land that is technically a farm. And I consider myself to not have a green thumb at all. And— Adrienne 39:36 Yeah. Margaret 39:37 —and I've like, you know, the few times I've tried to grow food, it's failed. So I've convinced myself that I will never successfully grow food. And so— Adrienne 39:43 You're like, see, I can't. [Laughing] Margaret 39:44 Yeah, exactly. Which is funny because I think that I'm capable of, like, almost anything because I'm so obsessively DIY that I like—I'm, you know, in a house I built and I've learned plumbing and electrical since the pandemic started so that I could make my house meet my needs and, and all of these things. But I'm like, I'm convinced that growing food is entirely just magic that is beyond me. And what I've decided to do personally is I'm going to start mushroom cultivation because I'm like, well, this fits my like, "I live in the forest." Everyone else lives in, like, you know, elsewhere in the sun. And I'm like, "I'm in the forest, everything is dark and rainy." And, you know, trying to play to my strengths while still—but then there's the thing where it's like, I don't even envision—as much as I talked about my isolation, I still live with land mates, right? I'm, and I imagine that, come crisis, we continue to help each other. And so I'm like, well, I live with people who know how to grow food. So— I will focus on learning how to fix the rainwater catchment and things like that. Adrienne 40:36 Exactly. Exactly. Like there's a way to be of use. And I mean—well, two things are happening right now. One is, I have my first mushroom log out on my deck. So we, you and I are mycelium familia. And I'm very excited about it. But same thinking is just like, I can grow mushrooms, like, I'm in a place where, like, there's enough condition for mushroom growing. And then I feel the same way, right? That I'm like, even if I never get great at growing food, if I'm in community with people who do grow food, but I have other skills to bring to the table, then that's great. And one of the things I'm always worried about is like, is my only skill talking? Like, do I still do I have other—you know, like—and then, you know, like, no, facilitation is a skill. Mediation is a skill. That's something you can offer to a community. I do doula work, that's a skill. But I'm always looking at like, you know, I'm of value in the current conditions, how would I be a value in future conditions. And I want to make sure that whatever I'm developing myself, I would be a community member that people would be like, "you're of value to us." Margaret 40:44 Yeah. Yeah. Adrienne 41:47 And not just because of what you do, but how you show up how you are, right? Margaret 41:50 Yeah. Adrienne 41:51 Like, I would love to have such value to my community that even if I can't do anything—because I have arthritis that it's just getting worse and worse and worse and worse—so Toshi and I talked about this often that, like, if the community all had to run for it, we wouldn't be running for it. So we would be like, okay, we'll sit and hold down the fort and, like, distract them and point them in another direction and that'll be our usefulness. Or whatever it is, like, you know—but be—I think everyone should be thinking about that question. How can I be of use in community? How do I understand my usefulness? How do I understand the relationships I'm in? Not transactionally, but in a sense of mutual aid and a sense of, we all need, we all have to give, how do we do that well with elegance, with grace? Yeah. Margaret 42:34 Yeah, the usefulness question, it comes up so much when we talk about disability and the apocalypse, like you're talking about, and I really liked the way that you phrased—you phrased it, how you come to interactions is also part of our usefulness. And, you know, and—and then there's even stuff around like, you know, I've friends who, through like, sort of, like no fault of their own, or whatever, have... let's go spiky personalities. Right? And yet, we—I think it's like, partly it's a challenge to figure out how we can be useful, but it's also partly a challenge to figure out the usefulness—like, what people around you bring to you. And so like, for me, it's like, okay, my friends who are, like, maybe really hard to get along in a facilitated consensus meetings because they're opinionated and angry. And like, often because the world has done horrible things to them. And yet, like, for me, I kind of secretly enjoy, like, learning to help those people point themselves. Be like, ah, you have all of this anger. Here's this institution that needs destruction. How would you go about destroying it? You know. Adrienne 43:09 Like, how would you do it? I love that, Margaret, because I—I just turned in the final draft of my next book, which is called Holding Change, the Way of Emergent Strategy Facilitation and Mediation. And there's a whole section on there, like, quote/unquote problem participants. And one of the things I was noting in there is like, every single person who shows up in the space as a problem—whatever kind of problem they are—if you can harness the energy that they're bringing in, they're often the most effective people. They're coming to the space. Right? You should be able to harness and move that energy somewhere. But particularly the grumpy, grouchy, curmudgeonly, flat, you know, this isn't working. Often those are the most visionary people in the room. And what's happening is that they are hurt by how it's all going down. You know, they're like, why are we not free yet? Why is it going like this? Like, why aren't we doing a better job? And like, harnessing that energy could free and save the world, right? So I always keep a couple of curmudgeonly, grumpy people close by. [Chuckling] Just keep me honest and to keep me like motivated. Margaret 44:47 I think we're running up on time. How can people find out more about your work? Adrienne 44:55 You know, go to akpress.org to buy the books there. I prefer people buy them straight from AK, which is an amazing people's press. And I'm on Instagram, that's where I'm like a person, you know, on social—the place where I—I mostly put pictures of things that I think are beautiful or cool. And then I have a website, adriennemareebrown.net, where I blog and I keep an archive of the interviews I do. So this will eventually live there. Yeah. Margaret 45:31 Thank you so much for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, or any of the other episodes, please tell people about it. Like, first and foremost, the way to help the show is to tell people about it in person or online. And, you know, I always go on about the algorithms that run the world and how we can influence them. And, you know, and that's kind of shitty to just sit around and try and influence algorithms. But if you like, or subscribe, or post about this, or review it, or whatever, on whatever platforms you listen to it, it helps far more than it should. It helps bring it up into other people's feeds and it helps people more find—more people find out about it. And all the support that I've been getting for the show, especially seeing people post about it on social media and things like that. And, you know, people I know telling me that they like it is kind of the reason that I'm continuing going with it right now. I'm very low energy these days, and that'll swing back around, I'm sure. But hearing that it's useful to people is—matters to me and it makes me feel like I'm not wasting my time. So thank you all. And also you can support the podcast more directly by supporting me on Patreon. My Patreon is patreon.com/margaretkilljoy. There's not a ton of stuff that you get, like, that exclusive, except that I do ostensibly a monthly scene that I mail out to people. It's also very far behind. I point to, you know, the world, and hold that up as my excuse which is getting kind of old for myself, but so it goes. And I do try and post up there as much as I can and also try and send out presents to my Patreon supporters as much as I can. In particular though I would like to thank Hugh and Dana and Chelsea and Eleanor, Mike Satara, Cat J, The Compound, Shane, Christopher, Sam, Natalie, Willow, Kirk, Hoss the dog, Nora, and Chris. I—I'm overwhelmed by the amount of support that I've been getting. And I've been able to use that to hire a transcriptionist. And now also potentially get more help, like the show might end up collectivizing, who knows, we'll see how it goes. In which case, me having bad mental health times won't be as much of a hold up. And that'll be good for everyone. And so thank you to my supporters for helping that make—helping that look like it might become a possibility. Anyway, I hope you all are doing as well as you can with everything that's going on and I'll talk to you soon.

În episodul de azi vorbim cu Carolina Vozian despre antologia de proză queer-feministă speculativă Lumile noastre posibile. În prima parte a episodului discutăm despre ce reprezintă termenii de science-fiction, ficțiune speculativă și ficțiune vizionară, și despre cum autoare ca Ursula K Le Guin și Octavia Butler au împins frontierele acestor categorii. În a doua parte vorbim despre antologie, despre procesul lung care a culminat în apariție ei și toate muncile vizibile și invizibile care au contribui la aceasta, despre autoare, despre format și cum lucruri mici ca acesta pot fi și ele politice și despre multe alte lucruri. ====== Re(Surse) Literatură și feminism https://literaturasifeminism.wordpress.com/ Lumile noastre posibile: Antologie de proză speculativă queer-feministă https://literaturasifeminism.wordpress.com/2020/01/28/e-book-lumile-noastre-posibile-antologie-de-proza-speculativa-queer-feminista/ Octavia’s Brood, Ed. adrienne maree brown & Walidah Imarisha, AK press (2015). https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23129839-octavia-s-brood The Dispossessed, Ursula K Le Guin, Harper and Row books (1974). https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13651.The_Dispossessed Against Creativity, Oli Mould, Verso books (2018). https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/39728820-against-creativity Ecology of Everyday Life, Chaia Heller, Black Rose Books (1999). https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2695947-ecology-of-everyday-life Kim TallBear, The Critical Polyamorist (blog) http://www.criticalpolyamorist.com/ Sylvia Marcos, Femeile indigene și cosmoviziunea decolonială, trad. Ovidiu Țichindeleanu, Ed. Idea (2014). https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/50514334-femeile-indigene-i-cosmoviziunea-decolonial The Parable of the Sower, Octavia Butler, Four Walls Eight Windows (1993). https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/52397.Parable_of_the_Sower The Parable of the Talents, Octavia Butler, Seven Stories Press (1998). https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/60932.Parable_of_the_Talents The Word for World is Forest, Ursula K Le Guin, Berkley Books (1976). https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/276767.The_Word_for_World_is_Forest Lilith’s Brood, Octavia Butler, Grand Central Publishing (1987-89). https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/60926.Lilith_s_Brood The Broken Earth Trilogy, N.K. Jemisin, Orbit Books (2015-17). https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38496769-the-broken-earth-trilogy Ammonite, Nicola Griffith, Del Rey Books (1992). https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/180270.Ammonite Arta de Alex Horghidan instagram.com/0sens sloth metal riffs de Zomfi Piesa de intro/outro: Healing Spells, de Sofia Zadar https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1ZJV5hHhv4

This week on The Final Straw, we feature a conversation between our occasional host, Scott, and adrienne maree brown. For the hour, Scott and adrienne speak about “We Will Not Cancel Us and Other Dreams of Transformative Justice”, her latest booklet available through AK Press, as well as sci-fi, abolition, harm, accountability and healing. adrienne maree brown is the writer-in-residence at the Emergent Strategy Ideation Institute, and author of Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good, Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds and the co-editor of Octavia's Brood: Science Fiction from Social Justice Movements and How to Get Stupid White Men Out of Office. She is the cohost of the How to Survive the End of the World and Octavia's Parables podcasts. adrienne is rooted in Detroit. More of their work can be found at adriennemareebrown.net Transcription PDF (Unimposed) Zine (Imposed PDF) If you like Scott's interview style, check out their interviews with Kristian Williams on Oscar Wilde and Eli Meyerhoff on higher education and recuperation. Also, to hear an interview with Walidah Imarisha, who co-authored "Octavia's Brood" with adrienne. Transcription and Support So much heartfelt thanks to the folks continuing to send us donations or pick up our merch. We're almost at our goal of sustainability, but still not quite there, but the one-time donations have definitely cushioned that need. If you've got extra dough, check out our Donate/Merch page. As an update on the transcription side of things, we're still rolling forward, comrades have gotten each episode so far this year out and we've imported the text into our blog posts and imported links into our podcast after the fact about a week after the audio release! Also kind soul has done the immense work of making zines and downloadable pdf's of almost all of our already transcribed interviews up until last week! Those posts are updated and linked up to the text and you can find more by checking out the zine category on our site.

Episode Notes The guest Walidah Imarisha can be found online at walidah.com. Her books referenced in this episode are Angels With Dirty Faces and Octavia's Brood, both published by AK Press. The host Margaret Killjoy can be found on twitter @magpiekilljoy and on instagram @margaretkilljoy. You can support her and this podcast through her patreon. Transcription: LLWD - 22 - Walidah on Envisioning the Future 1:21:45 SPEAKERS Margaret, Walidah Imarisha Margaret 00:14 Hello, and welcome to Live Like the World is Dying, your podcast for what feels like the end times. I'm your host, Margaret Killjoy, and this week I'll be talking to an author and activist and poet and just a historian—I'll be talking to will Walidah Imarisha who is, just, I think is absolutely wonderful. And that'll probably come across way too much in this episode. But I'm talking to her because I'm interested in talking about—well, this week is a little bit of a departure from usual, instead of just talking about the end of all things, right, we'll be talking about envisioning better things. And we'll be talking about how important—how necessary it is—to be able to imagine better things in order to make those better things real. And so we'll be talking about the importance of fiction, but we'll also be talking about what it means to envision a world, say for example, without police and prisons and how we can move towards that. And, yeah, I'm just really excited for y'all to hear this episode. This podcast is a proud member of the Channel Zero Network of anarchist podcasts. And here's a jingle from another show on the network. Duh da duh daaa... Jingle Speaker 1 01:28 Kite Line is a weekly 30 minute radio program focusing on issues in the prison system. You'll hear news along with stories from prisoners and former prisoners as well as their loved ones. You'll learn what prison is, how it functions, and how it impacts all of us. Jingle Speaker 2 01:39 Behind the prison walls a message is called a kite—whispered words, a note passed hand to hand, a request submitted to the guards for medical care. Illicit or not, sending a cadence trusting that other people will bear it farther along until it reaches its destination. Here on Kite Line we hope to share these words across the prison walls. Jingle Speaker 1 01:55 You can hear us on the Channel Zero Network and find out more at kitelineradio.noblogs.org Margaret 02:06 Okay, so if you could introduce yourself with your name, your pronouns, and then like political or organizational affiliations that kind of concern what you're going to be talking about, or maybe like the books that you've written that are about what we're going to be talking about. Walidah 02:22 My name is Walidah Imarisha, she and her pronouns. I am a writer and an educator. I have done a lot of work on science fiction and social change, culminating in co-editing Octavius Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements. I've also written the creative nonfiction book Angels with Dirty Faces: Three Stories of Crime, Prison, and Redemption. Margaret 02:46 Oh, the fact—I've been telling people for years that my favorite book against prison is Angels with Dirty Faces. And I actually have a really hard time reading nonfiction, which is kind of embarrassing because I'm an author. And the fact that you describe it as creative nonfiction really helps explain part of why. For anyone who hasn't read it yet Angels with Dirty Faces is like, um... it's talking about prisons, but it's talking about prisons from the point of view of, like, several specific people who are in prison and, well, your interactions with them. So the reason I have you on this, like, community and individual preparation podcast is—the important—I kind of want to talk to you about the importance of actually, like, envisioning something better. And because it's this kind of cliché that, like, we know what we're against, but do we know what we're for? And sometimes I kind of hate when people ask—I actually almost always hate when people ask that—because my argument is that if you're being hit with a baseball bat, you don't actually have to articulate what you would like society to be like without someone hitting you with a baseball bat before you can get someone to stop hitting you with a baseball bat. But yet at the same time I do personally want a much better society and I know that you've done this work also, yeah, with Octavius Brood, which is just labeled visionary fiction. Is that right? Walidah 04:13 Yeah. Margaret 04:14 Um, could you talk about visionary fiction? And could you talk about what draws you to that? And what draws you to painting better worlds and resistance? Walidah 04:24 Sure. Yeah. I mean, I feel—I agree with you. And I think it's a, you know, it's yes/and. And so, I also think it's really important who's asking these questions, right? Are we asking these questions of each other or people from outside being like, "Well, what do you want then?" Like, I don't really owe you anything if you're coming with that tone. Um, you know, for me, "visionary fiction," I started using that term to refer to the intersection of science fiction or imaginative fiction, fantastical art, and social change. It's deeply steeped in, you know, radical organizing, in thinking and building liberated futures. It's not a utopian project, it's really more about how can we imagine the futures we want to figure out new ways to build them into existence. So we're never going to get to those perfect futures because as science fiction writer Octavia E. Butler said, we're not going to have a utopia until we have a few perfect humans and that seems unlikely. So we won't reach utopia. But I think the practice of utopia is the useful one. And really, I mean, that is what organizing is, is thinking about this world around us and how we actually want it to be and, you know, that's the foundation of Octavia's Brood, which I co edited with Adrienne Maree Brown. The premise is all organizing is science fiction. And we believe that anytime you imagine a world without the ills we fight against, without borders, without prisons without police, that is science fiction because we haven't seen that world. But we can't build what we can't imagine. And so Octavia's Brood is fantastical writing, visionary fiction, specifically written by organizers, activists, and change-makers, the folks who are, you know, in the world trying to make it a better place. And I think that intersection of imaginative spaces and social change is not just useful, but it's absolutely imperative for us to build something other than this world around us. Margaret 06:50 No, that makes sense. I really like the quote that you just had of, we can't build what we can imagine. That—I don't know. I like that a lot. It ties into a lot of what I what I think about with my own writing. And so this is a weird tangent, but okay, so like, so you're saying it's not a utopian project, right, even though it's sort of in some ways about envisioning utopia. And utopia has this like really mixed reputation, right? And I think some of your work, you've talked about how Oregon was developed as a white utopia, for example. And, you know, I remember doing a talk—I think I've even said this on the podcast before, I'm not sure—I was doing a talk about A Country of Ghosts, an anarchist utopian novel that I wrote. And I was doing it at Táala Hooghan, an Indigenous info shop. And someone who was there was like, "Yeah, you know, that white people with utopian ideas destroyed everything, right?" And I was like, "Yeah, no, you're just right. I don't have a counter argument. Like, you're just correct." And so I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit about that, about like the idea—maybe the difference between like utopia as a thing that you're specifically trying to create versus utopia as like a direction to walk or something like that? I don't know. I don't know how to phrase this. Walidah 08:21 No, I think that's I think that's a really useful differentiation. I think the idea—the sort of arrogance and audacity to think that we could create a perfect society, I think is rooted in, you know, everything that is against what we are wanting to build. It's, you know, it does result in, you know, in these projects, I mean, you know, Adrienne often quotes Terry Marshall talking about, you know, that we are in an imagination battle, that we are living in someone else's—specifically as black people—living in other people's imaginations. And this is the result of that— of us, you know, the world being manifested through this white supremacist imagination. And I do think it's important to talk about utopias because, I mean, so much of the goal of white supremacist hetero patriarchal, you know, capitalism has been to create their vision of utopia and to, you know, impress upon it, and press it upon the rest of the world. And so I think it's important to talk about that as utopia because it complicates the notion of utopias you're talking about, but I do think the sort of thought exercise of utopia is useful. I often quote, Eduardo Galeano and his quote of saying, "What is the purpose of utopia then, it is to cause us to advance." Margaret 10:03 Yeah. Walidah 10:05 Yeah, I think if we frame it in that way it becomes incredibly useful. Because as a thought experiment, to me, it roots very much in, you know, in Ursula K LeGuin's The Dispossessed, the subtitle of which is "An Ambiguous Utopia." The foundation of that ideas is these folks think they have built the perfect, you know, anarchist society and then realize, you know, the liberation we want is not a destination. And if we ever think we have reached perfection, that is the very moment that we begin to replicate the very systems of dystopian domination that we fought and give our lives for. And so I think it's important to continually think of this as, you know, as a process and a practice rather than a destination. And to continually get to ask the question, "What is our ideal world?" knowing that we won't reach it, but we will continually not only better ourselves and society, but we will create space to reimagine what we consider to be utopia. I mean, we're all growing. I'm growing. We're all messing up every day. We're all learning how to do better every day, hopefully. And, you know, so to imagine that the destination that we set at some fixed point in the past is the destination we want to go to today is—it actually does a disservice to ourselves, because it stops us from being able to grow and to continue to imagine beyond what we're told as possible. Margaret 11:52 Wait, I thought we were just following the blueprints that Bakunin laid out. Is that not? Like? Yeah, no, I really like that. I really like this idea of that—I mean, for me, it's one of the reasons why, you know, personally, I'm an anarchist but I'm—just in general anti authoritarianism appeals to me is because to me it's this, it's a little bit clear to say like, no, no, no, no, there's not a "perfect." There's not a like, a system that you create, and then enforce on everyone, you know? It's a—instead it's always gonna be messy, it's always gonna be this process. Walidah 12:31 Yeah. I mean, it's rebelling against the tyranny even of our past selves really. Right? Like, the plan that I laid out for myself when I was 20, you know, is certainly not the plan, you know—And even if the destination of this—even if I'm heading the same way on the horizon, certainly the lessons that I've learned along the way have deeply impacted, shifted, and changed. And if I don't allow myself the space to do that, then I've locked myself into a moment that has then become just my life. Margaret 13:06 Yeah. Walidah 13:07 But we do that with our movements every day. Margaret 13:11 I like this idea. So—because it's like, we need the plans. We just—to even think of it like in terms of the individual, like you were saying, like the plan of what you were going to do when you were 20. It's like, we always need to have these plans so that we can do anything, right, otherwise—like, if I didn't have an idea of like, what I want it to be and what I wanted to do, I wouldn't make any progress. But yeah, no, that makes sense to be able to, like completely readdress it at any point. Walidah 13:39 Well and just recognize that, you know, I mean, that the world is so much larger than we imagined, that the sky seems vast. And one point on the horizon that seems like the end point, when we reach it we recognize, oh, there is a whole infinity of sky beyond that. So why would we just stop when we've reached that point if our goal was to just continue exploring and seeing and experiencing and doing as much as possible. Margaret 14:10 That's so good. I like, I love all that shit so much. Okay, so why then fiction? Why choosing to express that specifically through fiction, as you all did with Octavius Brood? Walidah 14:31 Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, I think again, for me, visionary fiction is about creating possibilities and as many entry points. So, you know, I think fiction is one way to do it. I think you can do it in any genre and whatever messy intersections between genres, the infinite intersections of

In this episode Scott shares about what he learned in the History of the Black Panther Party course at Portland State University taught by professor Walidah Imarisha, ten years ago. The Black Panther Party for Self Defense was founded on October 15, 1966 by Bobby Seale & Huey P. Newton for the primary purpose of stopping police brutality in African American neighborhoods. In our media we are given a lot of stereotypes about The Black Party, but they were made up mostly of women, they had free breakfast programs for children, literacy programs & free healthcare clinics. They also formed coalitions with other social justice activists groups with many people who were not black. The Black Panther Party existed from 1966 to 1982. Some of the leaders of The Black Panther Party are imprisoned for crimes they did not commit. Along with gushing about his favorite professor Walidah Imarisha, Scott talks a lot about Angela Davis the last person & only woman to lead The Black Panther Party. Angela Davis is one of Scott's biggest inspirations & a powerful activist for the abolition of the prison industrial complex. "All Power to the People." Huey P. Newton --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/scott-clapson/support

DJ Cole and MC Stoll are joined by Sandra Hernández-Lomelí, director of Latinos Unidos Siempre to discuss the advocacy of youth in Salem, OR to hold the Salem-Keizer school district accountable and eliminate KKKops for Kids.The track title includes a nod to Ice Cube's AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted and Salem-Keizer school board member, Marty Hine's alleged ties to white supremacist organizations. In the Remix, DJ Cole and MC Stoll explore the connections from Florida to Oregon, between Gov. Jeb Bush, Andy Tuck, the Florida Virtual School and Betsy DeVos, and Oregon Right to Life, Marty Hine and the Salem-Keizer School. Track 3 is set to the music of "They School" by Dead Prez, and includes a sample of "Picture me Rolling" by 2Pac. References include:Walidah Imarisha, Abolitionist Teaching Network, and our "lil" homies, Jen Ansbach, Shana V. White, Peter Jauhiainen and Joanne Barkan Take action with LUS. Connect with LUS on Instagram and Facebook People of Colour and Free Soul Force OnesEnter promo code - SOULFORCEONES - to receive two free pairs of Soul Force Ones (while supplies last), and 10% off your purchase at www.peopleofcolourclothing.com.Intro/Outro Music produced by OJ The Producer

This week we got to sit down with two members of the Portland General Defense Committee, AC (they them) and Raoul (they he), about the ongoing Uprising in Portland OR in the months since the murder of George Floyd. We get to touch on a lot of topics in this interview; the neo-liberal whitewashing of the image of the city of Portland which masks a lot of ultra racist and colonial tendencies, personal timelines of engagement in the Uprising, and a lot of tips and tricks for newer and older anarchists and radicals for dealing with and anticipating state repression and violence. Here are some notes and links to the topics that our guests spoke on: -One note on the group Riot Ribs that AC mentions, I think that the group has disbanded for now but have seemingly regrouped as Revolution Ribs, you can find them @RevRibs on Twitter and their Cashapp is $RevolutionRibs. This group does not have a verified Instagram presence as far as I know. -Walidah Imarisha on Oregon's racist, anti-Black history: Walidah Imarisha - Why Aren't There More Black People in Oregon? (YouTube link) approx 1.5 hours long -You can learn more about the Portland General Defense Committee and donate to their efforts at https://pdxgdc.com/ -Rosehip Medics in Portland : All Fundraising Platforms (rosehipmedics.org) -Indigenous Mutual Aid is a platform that started up at the start of pandemic and has a very thorough list of Indigenous led and centered projects in their directory (indigenousmutualaid.org) -Portland Freedom Fund which is a general fund that bails out BIPOC (portlandfreedomfund.org) -Twitter folks to follow for otg news on the PDX Uprising: Economy Breakfast Sergio Olmos Robert Evans -Anti-Repression Resources: Sprout Distro on Instagram National Lawyers Guild on Insta Civil Liberties Defense Center also in Insta -And finally, there are too many autonomous local bail funds around the country to all name here, but if you do a search for “mutual aid bail fund in [name of town/city]” then that should give you a pretty solid clue about how to support places that haven't made it into the news as much. You can also do searches for Black Mamas Bail Out in your area to help fund efforts to bail out Black mothers and caregivers. . ... . .. Music for this episode: Run DMC - Peter Piper (instrumental) RANGEEN - BeatByShaheed

In this podcast episode, we are glad to have the Walidah Imarisha, a writer, educator, poet, and the artist who coined the term “visionary fiction.” We are also glad to have Lisa Yancey, an entrepreneurial strategist, president of Yancey Consulting, and author of the Thrivability Report which discusses sustainability versus thrivability for historically disinvested arts and culture organizations! We are glad to have them joining us. In this episode we will discuss ways to radically build towards a new normal, how to think differently about the future, and ways to put it these ideas into action.

Episode 14: We Are Visionaries - This podcast has been stirring a while and the words, the research, the titles were on paper and kept spinning around. Freedom and Fear. Facts and Fiction. And like always and with the moon, the right women, the left support we all need speaks through, hands on, share down - Walidah Imarisha on "decolonizing the imagination" soared through on soundcloud. How our true liberation lies in the connection between science-fiction and social change to arm ourselves with the "visionary fiction" - the real danger to the evil that wants to keep us enslaved - is to imagine, "create the change we write about" and bring the healing we need into our lived experience. Right the hell now. So when do we realize that the medical system is another corrupted, owned and operated by corporations industry similar to all the other industries that we are so aware of and critical of? - capitalism, the economy, the education system and our HIStories. At what point do we absorb all this knowledge and map out all the moving parts to retract our compliance with a narrative based on fear and attempting to control and dominate us and reset ourselves in truth and awakening of the 1% larger agenda of deep control of so many states of our livelihoods? At this point. This is the fucking point in time when we pray together and reflect from spaces of sovereign people who own our bodies, who have rights to our health and how our family's choose to spiritually and medicinally engage in healing, who know and feel larger atrocities at play, who awaken to our calling of truth and protection for the health freedoms and sovereignty of our children's bodies as healing for those of our kūpuna who we could not protect, who look upward, inward and to the land for answers, who bring to light the causes of the co-morbidities and health inequities putting so many of our community at risk for sickness, who resonate with and bring forth the new earth and healed honua that is already here, waiting for you to step out barefoot, breathing deeply and fully aware and ready for this transformation of generations, of soul, of our minds and bodies, all of our interwoven stories of truth, peace, wealth, health, healing and justice.... Mahalo nui everyone for your connection, inspiration, activation and purpose. We have the tools, we've been groomed, trust in your stories, your intuition, the voice of Creator. Lock in to your power, bridge all the gaps as we continue to stay focused, aware and always creating our freedom beyond anything we've ever been allowed to imagine. Realizing the visionary fiction of our freedom is their undoing, is our unleashing the ultimate salvation for ourselves, our children, the world. It is happening. I love you and thank you. Kū I Ke Aloha.... Support this work www.patreon.com/kuikealoha and learn more at kuikealoha.com

Walidah Imarisha, organizer, public scholar, and writer, talks with Sabina about the many forces at play during the dual pandemics of coronavirus and white supremacy, conceptualization of crises and disasters, and the power of imagination. Technical Level: 2/5 Fear Factor: 1/5

Wade in the Water is a spoken word piece about Hurricane Katrina written and performed by Walidah Imarisha. It is part of her book of poetry Scars/Stars. This is released in advance of Episode 10 of Seismic Airwaves, which will be a conversation with Walidah about narratives of disaster and imagining the impossible as a tool to fight oppression.

As Covid-19 sweeps the world, life feels too much like science fiction. On this episode of Radical Imagination, we explore an idea that’s tailor-made for this distressing moment. It’s called visionary fiction, and it uses sci-fi and fantasy to imagine not a dystopian future, but a better world — without poverty, prisons and inequality. It’s more than a literary genre; it’s a movement of people of color working to create the change they write about. Host Angela Glover Blackwell speaks with writer, artist, educator and organizer Walidah Imarisha about the idea and the organizing it has inspired.

Building an Ever Wider Circle features Gwen Trice from the Maxville Heritage Interpretive Center in Wallowa County. Gwen is creating accessible ways for people to grapple with racism in Oregon through learning about the experiences of multicultural loggers who have called Wallowa County home for generations. If you are interested in connecting with rural Oregonians who are grappling with racism in your area, head to www.rop.org to learn more about Rural Organizing Project (ROP) and how you can get involved.Download this episode’s transcription www.RuralRootsRising.org.More on what you hear in this episode:To learn more about Gwen’s work, check out the Maxville Heritage Interpretive Center and watch the OPB documentary: The Loggers Daughter. The Maxville Heritage Interpretive Center website also has more information about ongoing programs including ones that can bring Maxville to your home town such as the Timber Culture Traveling Exhibit. To learn more about the founding of Oregon as a white utopia, we encourage everyone to watch author and educator Walidah Imarisha’s 2016 presentation “Why Aren’t There More Black People in Oregon?” The presentation leads viewers through a timeline of Black history in Oregon and discusses how this history continues to shape our social and political landscape. You can also check out this article by Walidah, which includes a timeline of Black history in addition to her reflections on the presentations she has done around the state.Are you part of a rural museum or heritage organization that is interested in rural social equity? H.O.R.S.E (Heritage Organizations for Rural Social Equity) has resources that can help! Check out the website to learn more.Did you like the music in this episode? Listen to more Oregon-made music by The Road Sodas, Gene Burnett and Plz Responder.Rural Roots Rising is a production of the Rural Organizing Project. Thank you for listening!Support the show (https://rop.z2systems.com/np/clients/rop/donation.jsp?campaign=21&)

Bonus content from episode 1 with Asher Freeman. Become a patron QFP at patreon.com/queerfitnesspod to get more bloopers and bonus content like this!Find Asher on Instagram @nonnormativebodyclub and follow the podcast @queerfitnesspod. TranscriptYou’re listening to a bonus episode of the queer fitness podcast. This first bonus episode is available to everyone, but all other bonus content is available to patrons who support the podcast on patron.com/queerfitnesspod for a dollar a month or more. Go support to enjoy more bonus content! These are a couple extra moments I had with personal trainer Asher Freeman that didn’t make it into the first episode. - intro music -Elise: Do you have any hobbies outside of fitness? Asher: Yeah! Well recently I’ve been really into reading science fiction. Elise: Cool. Asher: Yeah. It started with, I mean it started with reading Octavia’s Brood. Which is like, Walidah Imarisha and Adrienne Maree Brown collaborated to make this book of like, short science fiction stories -Elise: Yeah. Asher: That are written in like. Looks like you’re nodding. You’re aware of it? Elise: Yeah. Asher: Written by activist and um, they really talk about how science fiction is, um, or I should say how all organizing work is really science fiction. And so yeah, that got me into reading. And I’ve been in a science fiction rabbit hole and it’s been really fun. Elise: That’s cool!Asher: How’d you get into the podcast? Elise: Um, like, I have been wanting to start a podcast for something for a while, but I couldn’t figure out what exactly that was going to be. Whether it was going to be about, because I’m a musician too. Um, yeah. Asher: Uh-huh. Elise: - Gardener, baker, all of the hobbies. Uh, but yeah, I sort of ran into this niche from your, the New York Times article, that like sort of started it in my head. Asher: Oh wow. Elise: And then I was going down like a YouTube rabbit hole. Asher: Yeah. There’s great rabbit holes there. Elise: And, like, looking at female fitness YouTubers and seeing a discrepancy in what I wanted to be working on in terms of fitness and what, what was already out there in the world. But now I’ve found other people on Instagram so it’s been really cool to just, you know, see that there is a community. Asher: Uh-huh. Elise: And now that I’ve started looking for it, yeah. Asher: Yeah, yeah. Instagram has been awesome. I don’t, I haven’t spent much time on YouTube, but I feel like all of the queers are on Instagram. Elise: Yeah!- outro music -Support the show (http://patreon.com/queerfitnesspod)

In this episode Caitlin connects and speaks with organizer, researcher and lawyer Andrea Ritchie. Andrea Ritchie is a Black lesbian immigrant and police misconduct attorney and organizer who has engaged in extensive research, writing, and advocacy around criminalization of women and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people of color over the past two decades. She recently published Invisible No More: Police Violence Against Black Women and Women of Color now available from Beacon Press.  Ritchie is a nationally recognized expert and sought after commentator on policing issues. She is currently Researcher-in-Residence on Race, Gender, Sexuality and Criminalization at the Social Justice Institute of the Barnard Center for Research on Women. In 2014 she was awarded a Senior Soros Justice Fellowship to engage in documentation and advocacy around profiling and policing of women of color – trans and not trans, queer and not queer.  Referenced in this episode:  Andrea's Books: Invisible No More & Queer Injustice Say Her Name: Resisting Police Brutality against Black Women by Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw and Andrea J. Ritchie adrienne maree brown Mariame Kaba The Mandate by Mary Hooks Octavia's Brood by Walidah Imarisha and adrienne maree brown Alexis Pauline Gumbs intro music by Abhimanyu Janamanchi. production by Nora Rasman.

On the eleventh episode of The Activist Files, host Ian Head talks with writer and educator Walidah Imarisha and musician and teaching artist Gabriel Teodros about the relationship between fantastical writing and social justice work. As Walidah says, we are all doing science fiction when we imagine a different world. Science and visionary fiction, says Gabriel, is a useful tool for imagining a different future. When we do social justice work, we are so often reactive, so often fighting against something, it is easy to forget the importance of envisioning the world we want to see. Listen to this inspiring episode on how to imagine new futures, even while we fight against oppressive systems. Walidah is the co-editor of the collection 'Octavia's Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements,' published in 2015, to which Gabriel is a contributor. She is also the author of ‘Angels with Dirty Faces: Three Stories of Crime, Prison and Redemption,' which won the Oregon Book Award in 2017. Gabriel has put out over ten albums, including his latest, ‘History Rhymes If It Doesn't Repeat (A Southend Healing Ritual),' and performed and taught in classrooms and stages around the world.

It’s all about perspective. Does anything ever really change, or do we — the observers — merely shift our thinking? On this week’s show, we examine how Oregon’s artists, historians and public employees are rewriting our collective story. From pioneer history to contemporary arts policy, big changes are underway.

Walidah Imarisha on Angels With Dirty Faces (rebroadcast) This week we are rebroadcasting an interview that William and Disembodied Voice conducted with Walidah Imarisha, who is an Oregon based writer, educator, public scholar and spoken word artist about her book Angels With Dirty Faces: Three Stories of Crime, Prison, and Redemption, her 2016 book out from AK Press and IAS, which highlights three distinct experiences that are all in different degrees tangential to the realities inherent to the prison industrial complex. This book won the Creative Non-Fiction Award in the state of Oregon earlier on in 2017. In this interview we got to touch on a wide array of topics, mostly centered on Angels With Dirty Faces but also on accountability processes and what might have to change in order for them to feel more effective, her relationship to anarchism, and some upcoming projects and appearances. We also get to touch on the book Octavia's Brood, a compilation of speculative fiction that Imarisha co edited with Adrienne Maree Brown, who also wrote the book Emergent Strategy. More about Imarisha, her work, and upcoming events can be found at http://www.walidah.com/ Announcements New York Anarchist Mental Health Conference 2019 First tho, for all of you who enjoyed our interview with Mango and Marin about anarchist approaches to psychiatry and mental health, there is going to be an Anarchist Mental Health Conference in New York City on Saturday February 23rd 2019 at Judson Memorial Church at 55 Washington Square South, New York NY 10012 The call for proposals reads as follows: “1. Are you an anarchist (or other leftist anti-capitalist anti-authoritarian)? 2. Are you a mental health provider (psychotherapist, counselor, peer specialist, or psychopharm prescriber)? 3. Do you have something to share with anarchist mental health workers? (a critique of the field, a skill you have, or a resource we need to know about)? If the answer to these questions is yes, please email an accessible language abstract of 100 or so words to nycamhc@protonmail.com describing what you want to share, why it's important, and what conference participants will take away from the presentation. Separate from the abstract, please also specify how much time you need (45 minutes max) and what format you'll be using (lecture, workshop, roundtable, longtable, etc) Please submit proposals to nycamhc@protonmail.com by December 31st 2018.” Thanks to everyone who reached out to us about the interview about anarchist mental health, your comments and feedback were truly wonderful to hear! Keep an eye out for further interviews with Mango and Marin, on this and other anarchist and anti authoritarian media platforms.   Support The Vaughn Prisoners! We also would like to report on a very concerning and terrible event which took place recently. For the second time this month, someone connected with the James T. Vaughn prison uprising trials has died. For a bit of context, from a support flyer at It's Going Down, “On February 1st, 2017, inmates at the Vaughn Correctional Center in Delaware took control of their unit and held staff hostage in an uprising that lasted 18 hours. They called the media, released a list of demands, and explained their actions as motivated by their conditions of confinement as well as the election of Donald Trump as President. One prison guard, Steven Floyd, was killed by inmates during the uprising.” The remaining prisoners are still facing charges associated with the riot. Kelly Gibbs, the man who passed, was not a defendant in the first trial, but his name was mentioned during that time in connection with the uprising. The implications of these two deaths are all too apparent; prison workers and wardens often take matters into their own hands in retaliation for acts of prison rebellion. Now it's important to support the Vaughn uprising! We will link to an updated flyer that includes all the names and addresses of the remaining people, as well as to articles for further reading. From the Philly ABC, calling for court support of the Vaughn 17 back in October: In many ways the demands of the Vaughn 17 anticipated the 2018 National Prison Strike, calling for increased wages for their mandatory labor, and the introduction of rehabilitation and education programs. These comrades positioned their struggle inside against the threat posed by Trump's election, which has now been realized in the increasing detention of immigrants and the rise of fascism on the outside. Since the occupation's end, they have been subjected to extreme repression and violence, including beatings and the denial of basic necessities, including having their water shut off. Yet in the face of these hardships and the betrayal, 17 of the defendants are standing together, unwavering in their solidarity. Here is an updated resource on the Vaughn prisoners and how to support. Here is an article on the recent passing of Kelly Gibbs. . … . .. Playlist here.

Educator, writer, public scholar and spoken word artist Walidah Imarisha explores the history of sci-fi and social change, sharing tools for using science fiction as a practice ground for social justice strategizing and vision. Imarisha is co-author with adrienne maree brown of Octavia's Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements. This lecture was delivered at UMass Amherst on November 13, 2018 as part of the UMass History Department's 2018 Feinberg Family Distinguished Lecture Series, "Another World Is Possible: Revolutionary Visions, Past and Present."

An interplanetary tale about those who take flight, and those who do not. Recorded on the LeVar Burton Reads LIVE! tour. This story appears in Le Guin's collection THE UNREAL AND THE REAL: SELECTED STORIES, VOLUME TWO: OUTER SPACE, INNER LANDS. With musical accompaniment by Marisa Anderson, and featuring a conversation with writer and activist Walidah Imarisha about social justice and the legacy of Ursula K. Le Guin. This episode is brought to you by KiwiCo (www.kiwico.com/LEVAR) and Hungryroot (www.hungryroot.com code: LEVAR).

As we go to press, anti-police protests are ongoing over the police killing of Stephon Clark, students at Howard University in DC are still occupying the recently re-named Kwame Ture Student Center, and teachers in Kentucky and Oklahoma are on strike. This week we interview Uri Gordon, an anarchist from Israel, about the deadly repression in Gaza. We also reflect on the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Plus announcements for upcoming bookfairs, gatherings, and protest mobilizations. {April 4, 2018}   -------SHOW NOTES------   Table of Contents: Introduction {0:00} Headlines {1:45} Remembering Paul Z. Simons {5:07} Interview about deadly repression in Gaza {6:34} Teachers strike in Kentucky and Oklahoma {11:05} 50th anniversary of the assassination of MLK {13:25} Repression Roundup {26:15} Next Week's News {32:00} Download 29:30 minutes long version   There's a day of solidarity with J20 defendants called for April 10. The next trial is coming up April 17! Use this poster to spread awareness about the case, or call those responsible for the repression themselves and tell them to drop ALL the charges. J20 support resources: J20 Legal Defense Fund Twitter Fed book An Open Letter to Former J20 Defendants, with useful “do”s and “don't”s  Teen Vogue: The J20 Arrests and Trials, Explained Resources for the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Reflection On Doctor King by Black anarchist and former Black Panther Lorenzo Kom'boa Ervin This nonviolent stuff'll get you killed - Charles Cobb Dixie Be Damned: 300 years of insurrection in the American South - Neal Shirley and Saralee Stafford “It's a Police State Mentality” — J20 and the Racist Origins of Criminalizing Protest – Sam Adler-Bell Dr. King's Long Assassination – Paul Street The Ex-Worker #53: “Anti-Globalization” Walking Tour of Washington, D.C. features some history on the uprising in DC after Dr. King's assassination, including an interview with one of the more militant participants. Events this weekend: April 6–8: Anti-Colonial & Anti-Fascist Community Defense Gathering in Flagstaff, Arizona. Registration IS required, which you can fill out here. April 6–8: The Opening Space for the Radical Imagination at Oregon State University in Corvallis. More than a few anarchist-sympathetic speakers, like Walidah Imarisha and Hillary Lazar are speaking. April 6–8: The fourteenth Zagreb Anarchist Bookfair in Croatia. For more info in Croatian and English, go to ask-zagreb.org. April 7: The Liverpool Anarchist Bookfair in England. Anarchist texts mentioned in this Hotwire: We Don't Need Gun Control, We Need To Take Control Remembering Paul Z. Simons An Unyielding Anarchist, Author, and Rebel Anarchists Against the Wall: Direct Action and Solidarity with the Palestinian Popular Struggle Dixie Be Damned: 300 years of insurrection in the American South Rojava: Democracy and Commune From Democracy to Freedom Start gearing up for a summer of anarchy in Quebec! The anarchist film festival (May 17–20 in Montreal) The Montreal International Anarchist Theatre Festival (May 22–23 in Montreal) The Montreal Anarchist Bookfair (May 26–27 in Montreal) The North American Anarchist Studies Network Conference (June 1–3 in Montreal) Anti-G7 mobilization (June 7–9 in Quebec City) The Southeast Trans and/or Women Action Camp, taking place April 26–29 in Western North Carolina, has had their donation page shut down twice, so if you have some bucks to spare you can donate at PayPal.me/setwac2018. Mutual Aid Disaster Relief tour April 4 @ 7 PM at Glitter Box Theater 460 Melwood Ave, Pittsburgh, PA 15213: Giving Our Best, Ready For The Worst: Community Organizing as Disaster Preparedness April 6 @ 6 PM at Guide to Kulchur 5222 Lorain Ave, Cleveland, OH 44102: Protectors v. Profiteers: Communities in Resistance to Disaster Capitalism April 7 @ 12 noon at Guide to Kulchur 5222 Lorain Ave, Cleveland, OH 44102: Giving Our Best, Ready For The Worst: Community Organizing as Disaster Preparedness April 8 at 2 PM at Off Center 64 N. Huron Street, Ypsilanti, MI 48197: Giving Our Best, Ready For The Worst: Community Organizing as Disaster Preparedness April 9 at 6:30 PM at Capital Area District Library – Downtown 401 S Capitol Ave, Lansing, MI 48933: Protectors v. Profiteers: Communities in Resistance to Disaster Capitalism April 11 at 6:30 PM at First Presbyterian Church 510 W Ottawa St Lansing, MI 48933: Giving Our Best, Ready For The Worst: Community Organizing as Disaster Preparedness   Use this straightforward guide to writing prisoners from New York City Anarchist Black Cross to write birthday greetings to political prisoner Romaine ‘Chip' Fitzgerald. Romaine ‘Chip' Fitzgerald #B–27527 California State Prison - LAC Post Office Box 4490 B–4–150 Lancaster, California 93539 Address envelope to Romaine Fitzgerald, address card to Chip {Birthday: April 11} Herman Bell still needs help to secure his release from prison: 1) CALL New York State Governor Cuomo's Office NOW: 518–474–8390 2) EMAIL New York State Governor Cuomo's Office          3) TWEET at Governor Cuomo: use the following sample tweet: “@NYGovCuomo: stand by the Parole Board's lawful & just decision to release Herman Bell. At 70 years old and after more than 40 years of incarceration, his release is overdue. #BringHermanHome.” Use this script for phone calls and emails:  “Governor Cuomo, my name is __________and I am a resident of [New York State/other state/other country]. I support the Parole Board's decision to release Herman Bell and urge you and the Board to stand by the decision. I also support the recent appointment of new Parole Board Commissioners, and the direction of the new parole regulations, which base release decisions more on who a person is today than on the nature of their crime committed years ago. Returning Herman to his friends and family will help heal the many harms caused by crime and decades of incarceration. The Board's decision was just, merciful and lawful, and it will benefit our communities and New York State as a whole.”  Robert Seth Hayes, one of the longest-held political prisoners in the U.S., who was active in the Black Panther Party and, later on, formed the Black Liberation Army, is in the infirmary and is need of support. The Jericho Movement calls on people to call the superintendent at Sullivan Correctional Facility and demand that Robert Seth Hayes be taken immediately to the Albany Medical Center. Superintendent Keyser's number is 845–434–2080.    

Anarchy Anarchy and Person X discussed current events including a student occupation happening at Howard University (#studentpowerHU), Oklahoma Teachers strike, March for Our Lives and an anarchist perspective on gun reform, and the Burgerville Workers Union filing for a union election. We also interviewed a local organizer, Micknai Arefaine (VP of Social Justice for the Coalition of Graduate Employees and coordinator for the AYA Womxn of Color Initiative) about her role in organizing the upcoming conference, Opening Space for the Radical Imagination. The Radical Imagination conference takes place in Corvallis, Oregon April 6-8 and will feature keynote speakers Walidah Imarisha, Arun Gupta, Zoé Samudzi, Raj Patel, Hillary Lazar, Kristian Williams, and Kevin Van Meter. Tickets are available at www.oregonimagines.com Further Resources for this Episode: Crimethinc "Youth Liberation" https://crimethinc.com/2018/03/20/gun-control-no-youth-liberation-mass-shootings-school-walkouts-getting-free Oklahoma Teachers Strike www.twitter.com/okea Burgerville Workers Union http://www.burgervilleworkersunion.org/ Student Power at Howard University www.twitter.com/HUResist LabourWave is an exploration of culture, politics, rebellion, and alternatives to capitalism recorded in Corvallis, Oregon. We want to hear your ideas for all things anti-capitalist! Contact us at corvallislabourwave@gmail.com

This week William and Disembodied Voice had the chance to interview Walidah Imarisha, who is an Oregon based writer, educator, public scholar and spoken word artist about her book Angels With Dirty Faces: Three Stories of Crime, Prison, and Redemption, her 2016 book out from AK Press and IAS, which highlights three distinct experiences that are all in different degrees tangential to the realities inherent to the prison industrial complex. This book just won the Creative Non-Fiction Award in the state of Oregon earlier in 2017. In this interview we got to touch on a wide array of topics, mostly centered on Angels With Dirty Faces but also on accountability processes and what might have to change in order for them to feel more effective, her relationship to anarchism, and some upcoming projects and appearances. We also get to touch on the book Octavia's Brood, a compilation of speculative fiction that Imarisha co edited with Adrienne Maree Brown, who also wrote the book Emergent Strategy. More about Imarisha, her work, and upcoming events can be found at http://www.walidah.com/ Resist Package Restrictions for Those Incarcerated in New York State! The thugs who run the NYS prison system (NYS DOCCS) has issued a new directive (4911A) that describes new, draconian package rules that they are testing in 3 facilities as a ‘pilot program'. Currently, at most facilities, family and friends can drop off packages at the front desk when visiting- packages that include fresh fruit and vegetables that supplement the high carb/sugar, meager diet provided by DOCCS. These new rules are problematic in a lot of ways including: 1) Packages can be ordered only from approved vendors. 2) Fresh fruit and vegetables are not allowed. 3) Family and friends cannot drop off packages while visiting. All packages must be shipped through the vendor. 4) Each person is limited to ordering three packages a month for him or herself and receiving three packages a month from others. Each package cannot be more than 30 pounds. Of the 30 pounds per package, only 8 pounds can be food. 5) Allowable items will be the same in all facilities. (No more local permits.) 6) There are far fewer items allowed than before and of the items that are allowed, far less variety. This includes additional restrictions on clothing. 7) The pilot rules are not clear about how books, media, religious items and literature, or other items subject to First Amendment protection will be treated. This could mean that groups like NYC Books through Bars will not be able to send free books to the 52,000 people in the prison system. The pilot program implements an “approved venders only” package system. This means that only packages from approved vendors will be accepted. The vendors appear to be companies that specialize in shipping into prisons and jails. There are currently five approved vendors identified on the DOCCS website. This amounts to a cash grab for these companies. The pilot program is starting at three facilities: Taconic, Greene, and Green Haven. Those facilities will stop accepting packages from non-approved vendors on January 2, 2018. We have to make this package directive unworkable. These new rules are cruel- eliminating fresh fruit and vegetables and creating massive profits for the vampire companies that will fill the niche. WE CAN ORGANIZE TO ROLL THESE RULES BACK. Some ideas how: 1-Sign the petition- share it with your address book, share it on twitter, share it on Facebook. It takes two seconds. https://diy.rootsaction.org/…/no-package-restrictions-for-n… 2-Get in touch with your people in NYS Prisons and let them know about this. Inform them, send them the info. Massive non-cooperation on the part of NYS prisoners will play a huge role in this. 3- Flood the electeds with postcards. Send one to Governor Cuomo and one to Anthony Annucci, the acting commissioner of DOCCS. It costs 34 cents. Andrew M. Cuomo Governor of New York State NYS State Capitol Building Albany, NY 12224 Acting Commissioner Anthony Annucci NYS DOCCS Building 2, State Campus Albany, NY 12226 Some sample text: Dear Governor Cuomo, This holiday season is about giving, not taking away. I object to the new DOCCS package rules. From, (Your Name) (Your relationship to people in prison, if applicable) Dear Acting Commissioner Annucci, The new DOCCS package pilot punishes innocent families. Having a loved one in prison is already expensive and difficult—the new rules make it worse. Rescind the package pilot! From, (Your Name) (Your relationship to people in prison, if applicable) 4) Write a letter to both of these people (address above) 5)Call Cuomo's office and leave a message about it. You won't have to talk to anyone. Just leave your message. 518-474-8390 6) Email Cuomo: http://www.governor.ny.gov/content/governor-contact-form Annuci anthony.annucci@doccs.ny.gov 7) Tweet at Cuomo @NYGovCuomo 8) Write your NYS Senate and Assembly reps as well: 9) Get media to cover it especially outfits like Democracy Now and the Marshall Project. stories@democracynow.org pitches@themarshallproject.org ——- Show playlist here.

In Octavia's Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements, co-edited by adrienne maree brown and Walidah Imarisha, we are gifted twenty short stories exploring the connections between radical speculative fiction and movements for social change. ​For this episode, Monica and Page sat down with Chicago-based playwright, dramaturge, and ceramic artist Tanuja Jagernauth to discuss one of her favorite books.

anarchy (1)......... jesus Holding in the light the family of hero Heather Heyer as well as all of the brave people who went out in Charlottesville to oppose fascism knowing how dangerous those people are. Please donate to their medical funds, more info here: https://fundly.com/defendcville Anarchist media starter pack: It's Going Down, Submedia, Idavox "All social activism, all organizing, is science fiction." Spoke to Imaginactivism scholar Joan Haran about sci-fi, writers including Octavia Butler, Starhawk, Marge Piercy, and Ursula K LeGuin, Octavia's Brood, independent publishing & the power of crowdfunding, the G20 in Hamburg, authoritarian sci-fi, the power of stories, the enlightenment, utopias & dystopias, imagining new forms of governance & social technologies, indigenous & afro futurism, the Handmaid's Tale, the war on drugs, and media repression. Referenced: Ava Duvernay adapting Octavia Butler for the screen: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/ava-duvernay-octavia-butler-dawn_us_598b5f2ee4b0449ed5078015?section=us_arts It's Going Down article on the G20 in Hamburg: https://itsgoingdown.org/g20-battle-hamburg-full-account-analysis/ The Center for Applied Non Violent Action and Strategies (CANVAS): http://canvasopedia.org/ "But anarchism is not compelled to outline a complete organisation of a free society. To do so with any assumption of authority would be to place another barrier in the way of coming generations. The best thought of today may become the useless vagary of tomorrow, and to crystallise it into a creed is to make it unwieldy." - Lucy Parsons (from http://www.blackrosefed.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Black-Anarchism-A-Reader-4.pdf) The Rise of Antifa by Peter Beinart of the Atlantic: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/09/the-rise-of-the-violent-left/534192/ Also a rebuttal: http://idavox.com/index.php/2017/08/09/newly-re-vamped-atlantic-magazine-calls-for-the-violent-suppression-of-anti-fascist-activists-in-major-editorial/ And here's a reading list given to me by Joan: -Octavia's Brood – ed. Walidah Imarisha and Adrienne Maree Brown -The Fifth Sacred Thing – Starhawk -Donna Haraway – “A Manifesto for Cyborgs” (collected in Manifestly Haraway) -"Emergent Strategy" - Adrienne Maree Brown -"Half-life" - Shelley Jackson -The Highest Frontier. College out in space—Invaded by undocumented aliens. Tor/Macmillan, September, 2011. -Brain Plague. Intelligent microbes invade human brains, offering limitless powers--at a price. Tor Books, August, 2000; Science Fiction Book of the Month Club, Alternate Selection. -The Children Star. A planet with biochemistry so alien that only children can be genetically engineered to survive there. And what unique alien intelligence is watching in secret? Analog serial, April, 1998; Tor Books, September, 1998. -Daughter of Elysium. In the far future, biologists engineer humans to live for thousands of years, then face a revolt by the machines that made it possible. Avon, 1993; Easton Press signed first edition, 1993; Avon pbk, 1994. -The Wall around Eden. Quaker teen-agers face the environmental consequences of nuclear war. William Morrow, 1989; Avon pbk, 1990; Italian translation, Editrice Nord, 1991. -A Door into Ocean. Women biologists genetically engineer fantastic creatures on a planet covered entirely by ocean. Science Fiction Book of the Month Club Main Selection, 1986; Arbor House, 1986; Avon pbk, 1987; Italian translation, Editrice Nord, 1988. -Still Forms on Foxfield. Quakers colonize a planet with bizarre alien inhabitants. Del Rey Books, 1980. -Anything by Nnedi Okorafor (start with the Binti novellas)

In this future there are no more human police officers. Is that even possible?    The future of policing is a really really complicated topic. And it’s also, and this might be the understatement of the year, a controversial one. On this episode we’re not going to try and give you a full picture of what the future of policing might be. That would take hours. Instead, we’re going to focus on two really specific pieces of this topic.    First we talk to Madeline Ashby, futurist and science fiction writer, about robots, and what it might be like if we replaced human law enforcement with robotic law enforcement. Then, we talk to historian and writer Walidah Imarisha, about a future with no cops at all. We also hear from Doug Wyllie, the Editor at Large for PoliceOne, who, perhaps unsurprisingly, doesn't like either proposal.     Further reading:    Disrupt Tha Police by Madeline Ashby  Bomb Robots: What Makes Killing In Dallas Different And What Happens Next?  Robocop Delivers Pizza, Prevents Suicide  11 Police Robots Patrolling Around the World  Machine Bias   Hard Truths: Law Enforcement and Race   Angels with Dirty Faces   Wrestling With Angels: Walidah Imarisha on Harm and Accountability  Audre Lord Safe Outside the System Collective    Flash Forward is produced by me, Rose Eveleth. The intro music is by Asura and the outtro music is by Hussalonia. Special thanks this week to Brent Rose. The episode art is by Matt Lubchansky.     If you want to suggest a future we should take on, send us a note on Twitter, Facebook or by email at info@flashforwardpod.com. We love hearing your ideas! And if you think you’ve spotted one of the little references I’ve hidden in the episode, email us there too. If you’re right, I’ll send you something cool.     And if you want to support the show, there are a few ways you can do that too! We have a Patreon page, where you can donate to the show. But if that’s not in the cards for you, you can head to iTunes and leave us a nice review or just tell your friends about us. Those things really do help. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Join Bridget, James, and Thanasis as we are joined by Dr. Moya Bailey. Dr. Moya Bailey is an assistant professor in the Department of Cultures, Societies, and Global Studies and the program in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Northeastern University. Her work focuses on Black women’s use of digital media to promote social justice as acts of self-affirmation and health promotion. She is interested in how race, gender, and sexuality are represented in media and medicine. She currently curates the #transformDH Tumblr initiative in Digital Humanities (DH). She is a monthly sustainer of the Allied Media Conference, through which she is able to bridge her passion for social justice and her work in DH. She is a graduate of the Emory University Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Department. She is the founder and co-conspirator of Quirky Black Girls, a network for strange and different black girls and now serves at the digital alchemist for the Octavia E. Butler Legacy Network. She attended Spelman College where she initially endeavored to become a physician. She fell in love with Women’s Studies and activism, ultimately driving her to graduate school in lieu of medicine. As an undergrad she received national attention for her involvement in the “Nelly Protest” at Spelman, a moment that solidified her deep commitment to examining representations of Black women in popular culture. We talk about the role of the academic in social change, DH and intersectional social change, the Allied Media Conference, the story of Quirky Black Girls, the Octavia E. Butler Legacy Network, the concept of "Misogynoir". We touch on Dr. Bailey's dissertation on how representations in medical school curriculums shape how doctors see different marginalized groups and how the Nelly protest shaped her research and activism, how problematic portrayals become international, and dismantling binaries. Dr. Bailey talks about the possibilities of linking activists, academics, and scifi writers at the Black To The Future conference. Octavia E. Butler Legacy Network: http://octaviabutlerlegacy.com/ The Allied Media Conference: https://www.alliedmedia.org/amc Black To The Future Conference: https://blacktothefuture.princeton.edu/ Books mentioned by Dr. Bailey: Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/52397.Parable_of_the_Sower Octavia's Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements, edited by Walidah Imarisha, adrienne maree brown https://www.akpress.org/octavia-s-brood.html News item mentioned: Students at Spelman College protest Nelly's video "Tip Drill." http://www.alternet.org/story/18760/dilemma Credits: Brought to you by the Northeastern Graduate History Association Sound editing: Beka Bryer Produced: Dan Squizzero Music by Kieran Legg Rate, review, and subscribe on iTunes! Feedback/love/hate/comments/concerns/suggestions: breakinghistorypodcast@gmail.com Facebook page: www.facebook.com/breakhist/ breakinghistorypodcast.com/

In this episode we discuss Space Opera and all the endless tangents. This is a LONG conversation (we almost split it in two, but we’re trying to catch up episodes to our current reading topic). We talk about losing our solid footing on genre definitions, defining the term “worldbuilding”, when re-reading books from your youth goes horribly wrong, wondering just what is up with those TV and movie tie-ins, misogyny infecting Sci-Fi classics (Oh, hello there Sad Puppies), the delight of scientists reading Sci-Fi, and so much more. Your Hosts This Episode Anna Ferri | Meghan Whyte | Matthew Murray | Amanda Wanner Space Opera We Read (or kinda): Recommended Retribution Falls by Chris Wooding (lukewarm recommendation by a reader who is deeply ambivalent about anything speculative, Sci-Fi, or Fantasy in nature) Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke (not spectacular but a slow-burn, exploratory read) Diving into the Wreck by Kristine Kathryn Rusch (difficult to like narrator warning) Ancillary Mercy (and the entire Ancillary Justice series) (HIGHLY recommended series) Accessing the Future: A Disability-Themed Anthology of Speculative Fiction edited by Kathryn Allan Lightless by C.A. Higgins Read Sassinak by Anne McCaffrey and Elizabeth Moon Knights of Sidonia, Vol. 1 by Tsutomu Nihei, translated by Kumar Sivasubramanian Space Opera edited by Brian W. Aldiss (Features stories from 1900 (!) - 1972. Most are from the 1950s) More Adventures on Other Planets edited by Donald A. Wollheim Stitching Snow by R. C. Lewis (Not so much Space Opera and not enough girl mechanic) The Year’s Best Military SF & Space Opera 2015 edited by David Afsharirad Did Not Finish Armada by Ernest Cline (read this Wikipedia article about a video game urban legend instead) Red Rising by Pierce Brown Use of Weapons by Iain M. Banks (would try another one by this author) The Star Dancers by Spider Robinson and Jeanne Robinson The Sheriff of Yrnameer by Michael Rubens  A Deepness in the Sky by Vernor Vinge (so long - for 900+ pages, would prefer to try the better known A Fire Upon the Deep, which was recommended by another group member) The Warrior’s Apprentice by Lois McMaster Bujold (recommended to us - ran out of time this month; try it as an audiobook?) Koko the Mighty by Kieran Shea (really enjoyed Koko Takes a Holiday) Other titles and media mentioned Mass Effect video games are totally Space Opera, especially if you read all the internal game encyclopedia entries like Matthew. The Mote in God’s Eye by Larry Niven, and Jerry Pournelle The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin (not exactly Space Opera but totally recommended) Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card Starship Troopers by Robert A. Heinlein - Military Sci-Fi or Space Opera?? Space Opera by Jack Vance - An opera troupe in Space Red Spider White Web by Misha Nogha The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams (Have you not read this yet? It’s short - go read it!) District 9 movie Firefly TV series & Serenity movie & the Firefly comics (pretty much all recommended highly) Please skip Sassinak and read Elizabeth Moon’s excellent connected series set in the world of Paksenarrion (Fantasy not Sci-Fi), or at least read the three books of The Deed of Paksenarrion. All those zillion Pern books (Science Fantasy series) by Anne McCaffrey Dune by Frank Herbert (hefty but worth a read - recommended) The Martian by Andy Weir (about space but not Space Opera and definitely recommended) Transformers: More than Meets the Eye, Vol. 1 (comic book series) (recommended even if you don't care about Transformers. Really! ) Ascension (Tangled Axon, #1) by Jacqueline Koyanagi (Meghan mis-spoke and called this book “Ascendent”) After Man by Dougal Dixon (so cool!) Octavia’s Brood edited by Walidah Imarisha, and Adrienne Maree Brown Samuel Delaney  - We discuss Dhalgren which is not space focused, but Delaney has a few space books to try. Illuminae by Amie Kaufman, and Jay Kristoff (YA Space Opera - read before the month, recommended) A Confusion of Princes by Garth Nix (read after the episode, recommended) Links etc. OK Go Upside Down & Inside Out (music video shot in zero gravity) The review of Ancillary Justice Anna tried to read without being spoiled for the book The Wikipedia article on Space Opera bring up many aspects of the definition we discussed and is worth a skim, at least. Scientists read sci-fi and have opinions about it Read some stuff (here, here, and here are a few to start with) about Sad Puppies if you care about issues of diversity in publishing, book awards, and media more generally. Check it out: Afro futurism Book Riot sympathises with Sci-Fi fans Xenoanthropology Questions What (the heck) is space opera? (We thought we knew! We were so naive.) What is Worldbuilding? Any suggestions of your favourite instances of worldbuilding? Is bug punk real? Who else wants a “Ten Rules to Break When Dating a Space Pirate” from Sarah MacLean? Are Star Trek tie-in novels Space Opera? What’s the relationship between Space Opera/space-based Sci-Fi and the history of Colonialism? Check out our Pinterest board and Tumblr posts for all the Space Opera people in our club read (or tried to read), and follow us on Twitter!

This week, we had the opportunity to sit down with part of the creative team behind the award-winning science fiction anthology, Octavia's Brood. The anthology features visionary, speculative fiction written by activists and organizers. We spoke with co-editors Walidah Imarisha and adrienne maree brown about the inspiration for the book: the legendary sci-fi writer Octavia Butler. We also discussed how science fiction/speculative fiction can help us both diagnose the structures and institutions that perpetuate injustice, and envision a better way forward together. Contributor David Walker joins us to speculate on why "The Walking Dead" doesn't have more black people in it (despite taking place outside of Atlanta) and why Portland, Oregon may have even fewer black folks than the whitewashed zombie show does. An insightful, eye-opening conversation with some amazing activists and artists.

Walidah Imarisha is the guest on this week's episode of The Chauncey DeVega Show. Walidah is an activist, writer, and historian whose work focuses on the history of black Americans in the Pacific Northwest, the power of speculative fiction, and how storytelling, organizing, and dreaming are essential tools for social change work. I discovered her work on the website Gizmodo as referenced in a story about black migration to the Northwest. While there may not have been black folks in the game Oregon Trail, there most certainly were black Americans in every part of the United States and its territories. Walidah's work is so exciting because she exposes that important "hidden history", while also using it to discuss the realities of white supremacy and racism in supposedly white "liberal" communities today. In this episode of The Chauncey DeVega Show, Walidah and Chauncey talk about race, history, and migration; have some ghetto nerd sci-fi mind meld moments; laugh about "Black Peoples Employment Month", and reflect on Imarisha's various experiences with presenting the truth and reality of so-called white liberal America at museums, schools, and other venues. Walidah Imarish is the real deal--smart, quick, funny, and insightful. This was a fun and rich conversation at the virtual bar known as The Chauncey DeVega Show. In this episode of the podcast, Chauncey also shares some stories about his journey back to Connecticut last week, ponders the eccentricities of aging parents, the realities of "dry begging", opens up his hands to try to cobble together some monies to fix his mother's washing machine, and talks about last weekend's WWE Summerslam event while also sharing a story about (quite literally) almost bumping into the great George Lucas at a local movie theater for the second time.

Walidah Imarisha and adrienne maree brown talk about editing the new anthology of speculative fiction with a social justice lens.

This week's crop of wonders finds the fantastic in familiar things, and the inspiration in the extraordinary: 1:00 - Karen Karbo is railbound! She's one of 24 writers out of 16,000 to score the first round of the Amtrak writers' residency. 3:00 - Walidah Imarisha and Adrienne Marée Brown on editing the sci-fi anthology "Octavia's Brood." 10:14 - Oregon Ballet announces that it's found a new home: the South Waterfront. 11:44 - What Are You Looking At? Namita Gupta Wiggers reviews work by Ai Weiwei at the Portland Art Museum. 19:19 - We remember Alvin Josephy, who laid the groundwork for Wallowa County's thriving cultural scene. 23:20 - KPAI's Morning Host Larry Duckworth introduces us to his favorite spins. 28:32 - From the Literary Arts Archives: Poet Mark Doty. 37:36 - opbmusic session with one of Portland's most dynamic new transplants, Robin Bacior. 44:30 - "Oregon Art Beat" introduces us to painter Gabe Fernandez.To read more, visit our site: http://www.opb.org/radio/programs/stateofwonder/segment/state-of-wonder-may-30-2015/

Many people know of Mumia Abu-Jamal as a journalist and political prisoner. But did you know he's also a Star Trek fan? That's one of the many revelations in the new book Octavia's Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements, a collection of visionary fiction from Walidah Imarisha and Adrienne Maree Brown. Adrienne Maree Brown is a writer, organizational healer, facilitator, pleasure activist, and Science Fiction scholar, among many other roles. Walidah Imarisha is an educator, writer, organizer, filmmaker, spoken word artist, prison abolitionist and activist. In addition to editing Octavia's Brood, she has written two books of poetry, Scars/Stars and the upcoming Angels with Dirty Faces: Dreaming Beyond Bars. They explain that for them, social change and science fiction are the same thing. Also in this episode: journalist and US political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal calls in via Prison Radio to read his essay for Octavia's Brood about what the film Star Wars has to say about US empire. Also, Laura discusses the Age of Acquiescence.

Hi I'm Laura Flanders of GRITtv. A new book just out on the Gilded Age, calls ours an Age of Acquiescence. We've become a nation of accepters, its author argues, wiling to tolerate corporate crime and public poverty as inevitable outcomes of a system that's just rigged. The current public debate, author Steven Frazer suggests, reflects a resignation that market capitalism is bedrock, unchangeable. Simply the way things are. A century after the Gilded Age and the rise of corporate power, we've become wussies, by comparison. Back then, wealth was just as condensed. The richest 1 percent owned over half of it while the bottom 44 shared just 1.1 percent of it all. But theirs was an age of sit down strikes and rebellion. Troops not just cops, routinely hit the streets. What happened? As followers of our program know, at the Laura Flanders Show we don't believe there's so much resignation. There's more rising going on than our money media show. Still, there's truth in Frazer's case that 19th unrest was fuelled in part by a different frame of reference. To 19th century factory workers, the age of alienation was new. Descendants of subsistence farmers and self employed craftsmen, they remembered as we do not, an alternative and they chafed at logging-in and logging out. “Wage slavery” they called it. When I asked a class of college students what they understood that term to mean, a room of blank faces stared back at me not long ago. “We live in capitalism, its power seems inescapable” science fiction writer Ursula Le Guin said upon receiving a National Book Award for literature last fall. But then, she continued, “so did the divine right of kings.” In hard times, she said, we need fiction - “writers who can remember freedom – poets, visionaries – realists of a larger reality.” Which is why there's so much to celebrate in the publication of a new book: Octavia's Brood, an anthology of visionary science fiction written by social justice organizers and activists. Can we rely on memory to imagine alternatives? Not in the way the 19th century rabble could. But we have radical sci-fiction as the editors put it, to help us “decolonize” our brains. You can watch my interview with Walidah Imarisha and Adrienne Maree Brown the editors of Octavia's Brood as well as our report on the Incite Conference in Chicago, this week on The Laura Flanders Show on KCET/LINKtv and TeleSUR, and find all my interviews and reports at GRITtv.org. To tell me what you think, write to: Laura@GRITtv.org.

Educator & Writer Walidah Imarisha @WalidahImarisha parallels social justice movements to works of science fiction, speaks to the international support of #Ferguson, #BlackLivesMatter & #ICantBreathe and encourages a reshaping of our notion of justice. She and Amanda agree that sexism, racism & homophobia stack up in America's long-standing system of repression. 

Walidah Imarisha reads from her new collection, Scars/Stars, and talks about the intersection of poetry and politics.

Walidah Imarisha examines social issues and racial tension through poetry, and "Art Behind Barbed Wire" features arts and crafts made in WWII internment camps.