Leah Barros and Jazmin Hicks are going to take you through a healing session to relieve stress, reconnect and restore balance as we recuperate from one of the most stressful periods in modern history. They will also provide information on wellness practices and how to build capacity in your life for your own healing and emotional and spiritual vitality. We have created an episode to give you a taste of what meditation and healing looks like alongside some instruction on how to create a practice for yourself. We are so fortunate to have two amazing women of color who are creating more visibility for Black people in the healing industry and who are promoting wellness within the BIPOC communities.

We invited Aja Davis and Molly Ola Pinney, co-founders of the Facebook group White People. Doing Something. The interracial couple began the group to engage white people in productive conversations around race and engagement after the George Floyd murder, and it has grown into a very robust group of 40,000 doing daily actions around engaging white people in difficult conversations and giving them the tools to create change in their communities. They discuss their philosophy with host Tre Borden in this week’s episode that gives us some food for thought about the many approaches that are necessary to create a world where racism does not exist.

Trans people are some of the strongest, most generous, most hilarious and aware people there are, and I think it is a fitting time to give them the floor to explain how they are interpreting the world right now. Qween Amor, Omega Chuckii, and Ebony Harper represent the best of activism, indomitability, humor and the knowledge of real shit that allows people to take care of themselves and others. This is the best episode we have produced, and I encourage you to listen to the ENTIRE EPISODE and get your life.

Featured Guests: Bill Borden - US Air Force Pilot and Vietnam Veteran, Tre’s Dad Dr. Marsha Hirano - Nakanishi - Retired Vice Chancellor for CSU System, Second generation Japanese-American. 2020 has tested us to the breaking point. Many of us have suffered greatly as a result of the pandemic, and for people of color that suffering has compounded an already cumbersome daily reality that comes with living in a society built upon racism and exploitation. The upcoming election offers some comfort, but also comes with the knowledge that even if the election results in a new president, there is so much work to do to create a society that acknowledges and attempts to correct the moral wrongs that have led to our present calamity. It is exhausting! It is in times like this that we need to truly summon our resilience and ask our elders how they have managed to make it this far and perhaps give us a bit of perspective and context for what’s to come. To do that we talked to two incredible people who have seen and experienced so much of the best and worst of America and lived to tell the tale. The first is Bill Borden, host Tre Borden’s father, who is a 77 year old Vietnam vet, former Air Force pilot who has a lot to say about this country, why what is happening now is necessary, and why America is still the greatest country on earth; the second is Dr. Marsha Hirano-Nakanishi, the child of Japanese parents who went through internment, who went on to go to Stanford and Harvard on her way to becoming a long-time education administrator as Vice-Chancellor of the CSU system. She is also the mother of Tommy Nakanishi, friend of the podcast and dear friend and social justice warrior based in LA. Both Bill and Marsha have gone through many cycles of progress and chaos in this country, they have both endured the death of their soulmates, and yet, they still have an indomitable and joyful spirit that carries them and offers us a lot to think about as a new generation takes the mantle of building a world that can work for everyone. Join us and please subscribe to the podcast: https://www.youtube.com/redirect?event=video_descriptionandv=cEkEjZXoY7oandq=http%3A%2F%2Fwhatwegondo.captivate.fm%2Fandredir_token=QUFFLUhqbE1QSE1kWnB2UV9Bc1ZWTktwT1EtYkdSbWs5d3xBQ3Jtc0tsMUJ0NFQ3QlBnZExPYjNvX1Q5OTFNRHZWNzh0cFBadFd5NGw2MUJnRFRvUUxRTTFjdTlTOTZNdS1HRGNXTWtobWxRRFdDc1VnVVM5Vi1SVjIyWUJGc2ZlNVU5YWUwbm15WnNPM0ZxcUpRV1czRGNtSQ%3D%3D (http://whatwegondo.captivate.fm/)

The death of RBG is the tragic culmination of an administration that has overseen a reign of disrespect, misogyny and policies aiming to pull back many of the protections and rights guaranteeing women’s autonomy in this country. We invited two extremely impressive and experienced women to discuss how to interpret our present and how to prepare for our future. Adama, a lobbyist and now activist, landed herself on the cover of Time Magazine’s Person of the Year cover in 2017 for her work exposing sexual assault and harassment in the California State Capitol; Jodi, also a lobbyist, has taken the helm of California’s Planned Parenthood Affiliates at one of the most pivotal and perilous times for women’s reproductive health in a generation. Together they paint a compelling picture for why the threats cannot be underestimated but also why a new era for women is within reach if we work together and encourage a new, inclusive, and fearless generation of female leaders.

A silver lining of this catastrophe is that what was once considered an abstract theory that only scientists understood or cared about is something is now extremely tangible, and this provides a moment for dramatic action especially when we consider the potential economic opportunities that would come with a green revolution to fight climate change. It is also a time to reexamine the systems we use to dispense relief so that communities are able to handle the immense resources necessary for fundamental change and allow for truly equitably driven solutions. To paint a picture for what this new world could look like, and how we might get there I invited two guests whose whole world is understanding the impact of climate change and how we can create resilient communities. Brandy Bones is our first repeat guest, and this time she discusses her expertise as Vice President of Disaster Management for ICF, and the coordination between federal and local governments to rebuild and measure risk. Dr. Peter Schultz, Vice President of Climate and Resilience for ICF, brings decades of modeling experience as well as an understanding of how large a role economics and the private sector play in our ability to create an opportunity for change that can bring prosperity and sustainability to many communities.

On the heels of the disappointing (and expected) miscarriage of justice for Breonna Taylor, and our ongoing racial justice movement, calls to defund the police and acknowledge the white supremacy inherent in law enforcement are deafening and deserved. This week we spoke to the current Chief of Charlottesville, VA (a Black woman), the former chief of Burlington, VT (a white man who was also a precinct chief in the NYPD) and a police officer in Northern California (a Black man). Their perspectives and insights into the problems in law enforcement were a welcome reprieve from the hostile and delusional sentiments we are used to hearing from law enforcement representatives and the politicians who give them cover. Featured Guests: RaShall Brackney - Chief of Police for Charlottesville, Va Brandon del Pozo - Retired Chief of Police for Burlington, VT; Former Precinct Chief NYPD; Currently a drug policy and substance abuse researcher at Brown University. Julius Lewis - Active Police officer in Northern California

As we take calls to Defund Police and ICE and reform our needlessly punitive and racist criminal justice system it is also clear how much these movements overlap with immigration and asylum reform. To discuss how we got here and what we’re up against, we invited attorneys Lauren Cusitello, Legal Director Immigration Justice Project, American Bar Association (ABA); and Grisel Ruiz, Supervising Attorney, Immigrant Legal Resource Center to discuss being on the front lines of the crisis advocating for immigrants ensnared in the system as well as the policy changes and community mobilization efforts that are key to reforming this terrible and in humane system.

Taylor Brandon, Founder of No Neutral Alliance; Curator/Artist Jova Lynne Johnson, Founder of MoCAD Resistance; and Curator Faith McKinnie, Founder of Black Artists Fund, speak to host Tre Borden about their experiences fighting intransigent museums. They discuss what it takes to build movements that can hold the museum to account while also providing space to empower BIPOC artists and communities.

On August 4, 2020 a neglected hoard of highly explosive sodium nitrate exploded in the port of Beirut. In an instant over 100 people died with thousands more injured with tens of thousands of people displaced and a central city destroyed. To outline the crisis and take us through some visions for the present and future we invited Beiruti resident and activist Poliana Geha as well as Los Angeles-based Beiruti diasporan Natalie Samarjian. They step us through how Lebanon arrived at its present predicament before the explosion, the chaos and devastation that it wrought, and what a path forward may look like for a new Lebanon.