Transcript

Alicia Garza:
Welcome to Sunstorm, where we get real about what’s happening in the world and what we’re doing about it, because we are the light in the storm. Hi, I’m Alicia Garza.

 

Ai-jen Poo:
And I’m Ai-jen Poo. And I cannot believe we’re already wrapping up season three of Sun Storm. What is time?

 

Alicia Garza:
What is time? It’s been a wild spring and it came after a wild winter, which came right after … It’s just been a wild year. Okay. It’s all been wild. And ever since we launched Sun Storm in January of 2020 pre pandemy, it’s been wild.

 

Ai-jen Poo:
And I know we talk about the importance of gratitude all the time, but seriously, I just have to say I’m so truly grateful that we had the show to connect more deeply and to stay in touch and to just process all the craziness that was happening and is happening and do it with so many incredible women and a few men. And we did so much learning and laughing. It’s been incredible.

 

Alicia Garza:
It’s really been so needed. I don’t know how we would have gotten through the last year without a good cackle. And so what we’re going to do right now is do a little recap of the season. Let’s talk about the big themes, what really stuck with us, what we learned and what we’re unlearning and what have we learned to unlearn?

 

Ai-jen Poo:
I think when we set out to do this season, one of the things that we wanted to make sure was that we didn’t just kind of trudge into the future without taking stock. And I’m so glad we did, because I feel like so much has happened and everything has been so concentrated, because we’ve all been kind of trapped in our own homes, in our own little worlds. And I think what we did when we heard from our guests was just kind of expand our worlds a bit.

 

Alicia Garza:
That’s right.

 

Ai-jen Poo:
And I heard some really amazing themes. One just about how people are thinking about their relationships and how they’re relating to their neighbors and their families and their community, and what it looks like to really show up for people. The theme of care came up a bunch. And I’ll just never forget Alice talking about how care is not transactional. That it is really about human connection and relationships that can’t be transactional. And I think that’s going to stay with me. How do we make sure that we’re really investing in that are really truly caring?

 

Alicia Garza:
I love that. And the episode with Alice was so, so good. I think for me, one of the things I’m really taking away from this season that I also thought it was a really big theme was really that what we are doing right now is inherently political. And I was thinking about people who might be listening and feeling like, “Okay, we did all this work leading up to this moment. And now what?” And feeling maybe there was some secret book that nobody got to check out from the library. But talking to Baratunde about moving to a place and really grounding himself in a place. Understanding things like how does the budget work here? Understanding some of the nuances of the place that he lives in as a way to be a citizen. I’m thinking about Tara and how she talked about how she got activated and what it meant for her.

 

To understand that she could actually do something about the things that she didn’t like. I am thinking about Erin, who talked so much about faith as another lens upon which to express your vision and your strategy in the world. And I’m really also thinking about Margaret, who talked a ton about how she got politicized and then how she uses her platform to engage other people in the everyday work of changing our lives. So I was so inspired by that this season, I was really inspired by the notion that again, you don’t have to be somebody who is carrying a picket sign in a protest, that actually our protests can happen in various, various aspects of our lives. And that just our regular engagement and participation can make a huge difference moving forward.

 

Ai-jen Poo:
That’s right. I feel like one of the things that is a huge risk and danger is that now that we’re no longer under this cloud of 2020, is that people think, especially if we get vaccinated and things start to open up that our job is done, that we don’t have to show up anymore. And I think that what our guests gave us was so many different ways that we can and should continue to show up. And that it is true, our work is just beginning. If we’re about building a future and a country that is truly embracing of each of our unique experiences, where there’s a place of belonging and dignity for all of us, that project is a really long-term project. It’s not an election cycle to election cycle project. And it’s rooted in our own homes, in our own communities and in how we continue to engage in the questions that are about getting to the roots of what’s wrong. Getting to the roots of the things that take away our power.

 

Alicia Garza:
One other big theme that I’m taking. I loved our conversation with Tunde. She was so motivating and I liked getting under the hood a little bit to better understand, what keeps you going? I guess I want to call myself an optimistic pessimist. Where I vacillate every day from, “Oh my God, there’s so many things that are possible.” To, “The world’s ending.” So I really needed to hear from Tunde this piece about trust and really trusting ourselves and trusting that we’re going to figure it out. And I’ve been really trying to lean into that ever since we had our conversation, just trusting.

 

And it’s okay to have moments of panic or moments where you feel like, “It’s just not happening or this isn’t what I signed up for, or this wasn’t what I wanted.” But if we trust ourselves to make it through. If we trust that we know how to put one foot in front of the other, then it’s okay if the ground is a little shaky sometimes. It’s okay if there’s pitfalls and crest falls and all the falls. Because we trust each other to get back up again and we trust ourselves to get back up again. Dust off your knees, dust off your elbows, wipe your mouth and let’s go.

 

Ai-jen Poo:
That’s right. No, I love that. And I think trust in self and others is key. I keep thinking that we’re in this giant perpetual trust fall, and that we have to just keep on trusting. But one of the reasons why we should trust ourselves is because of our moms. In all of their complications and grace, moms came up so much the season and I don’t think it’s an accident. I think we really drew on all the things that made us who we are to survive and stay strong through this time. And we had everyone from Tunde, whose mom taught her how to recognize her shine and use her voice, to Erin whose mom helped her make the link between her faith and her sense of justice and fairness.

 

And Baratunde day who spoke at length about his mom and her resilience and what he learned from just meditating on how she taught herself to love herself. I think that that’s so profound the way mothers came up this time. And I know for you, your mom comes up all the time because she has a sun in our storm.

 

Alicia Garza:
That’s right.

 

Ai-jen Poo:
What do you think about why mom’s showed up so much in this season, as we were thinking about what we wanted to carry forward?

 

Alicia Garza:
I love that you brought this up because I did notice that almost everybody talked about their mothers. And I was telling somebody that I love the other day that moms are complicated in so many ways. We are human beings that are imperfect. And we learn how to see the world first through the lenses of our mothers. And then we add our own perspectives in our own experiences. And it’s a lot of the reason why I feel like for a lot of people, they’ll say, “My mom drives me crazy and I love her too at the same time.” Because we’re extensions of ourselves and each other, but we’re not the same being, and it’s supposed to be that way. So I was saying in this conversation that sometimes what can happen is that even as we grow to be different individuals, that what we are doing is helping each other see through each other’s lenses.

 

And what I heard so much from Baratunde day and from Aaron and Tara, was that their moms gave them a lens through which to see the world. And then as they got older, they were still learning about that lens from a different perspective. So I know that’s been true for me in terms of my relationship with my mother. And we could not have been more different, but we were also really similar in that she really taught me how to be in the world. And of course, I added my own flavor as I got older. And through me, she got to see the world differently too. And I think that is so much of the pleasure and joy and excitement about our connections and our relationships. And I wish that for everyone. I know not everybody has the most awesome relationship their families. But in this season, our guests really did hone in on the impact and the influence and the role that their mothers played in their lives.

 

It is so important for us to be thinking about the role that mothers play in our society. I think we miss that a lot. We talk about women, we talk about all these different categories, but mothering is really a whole different arena that I feel is deeply underexplored. Hopefully in our next season, we can have Anna Malaika Tubbs on. She wrote this beautiful book called the Three Mothers. And she really dives into the stories of the mothers of James Baldwin and Martin Luther king Jr and Malcolm X. And she really kind of illuminates these women behind these men who are not even behind them, but who were responsible for these men who became these prolific figures in our societies. And you see the ties in the relationships between them, you see the James Baldwin got his artistry from his mother. You see that Malcolm X got his politics, his drive, his passion from his mother.

 

And you also start to see and think about more clearly, what the world could have been like if our society supported those mothers in a different way. I’m thinking about Malcolm X’s mother who actually ended up being institutionalized by the state. She was poor. She was deeply involved with the United Negro Improvement Association, Marcus Garvey’s organization. She was very much about black self-determination, but she was poor and she was on state programs. And the state really criminalized her. There was no dad in the picture and she was institutionalized and Malcolm ended up raising his siblings and that kind of led to this whole trajectory that Malcolm X was on. And he talks a lot about how that experience impacted him. That he learned about the challenges of systems that organize our lives by living them and by seeing it through the lens of his mother.

 

So I wish there was more attention to that. Like Anna says, she said, “Well, what if Malcolm’s mother’s life had been different? What if she actually had supports instead of punishment for trying to make a way out of no way?” And that just sits with me. And so, as I heard all of our guests kind of talking about their mothers, I was also thinking about what if our world really supported mothers and mothering in such a way that the things that we are passing on, the lenses that we are offering to the people that we’re bringing up in the world have an extra added flavor of what it means to live in your full dignity.

 

Ai-jen Poo:
I’m so glad that you shared that, because I do agree that if we organized our systems around mothers and people who mother and the incredible life force and lens that is that care, it would be so different. And I think about, especially what mothers have been through in the pandemic, I’ve never experienced a rage like the mom rage has just been the surround sound of the pandemic with kids home from school and daycare and the impossible situation and choices that so many people had to make. And actually, we’re now at 1988 workforce participation numbers for women because literally millions of women who are moms and daughters of moms who need care have been pushed out of the workforce in the pandemic, because it was simply too much. And so what we’re talking about in terms of honoring our mothers and what we can learn from them, especially in this time of a pandemic, I do think that so much of what we have to do in the reorganization and rebirth of our society and our economy does have to put them front and center.

 

Alicia Garza:
Yep. I agree. I agree.

 

Ai-jen Poo:
That’s what this whole care infrastructure thing is all about. It’s really about putting the fundamentals in place to support people like Malcolm’s mom who have unique contributions to make to our lives and our communities.

 

Alicia Garza:
Which leads us to the incredible moment of opportunity that we’re in and also the deepening crises. And I often feel stuck between these two places. And I think one of the things I got out of this season is just a sharpening of what’s at stake, and also a clarification of my motivation. What we saw this year is that we found $1.9 trillion to support people. We have on the table, $400 billion for care infrastructure to support people. So it’s not that it cannot be done, it’s not that it cannot be done. It’s really that we’re in a struggle right now, between the way things have always been and the way things can be. And our task as people who care is to push us forward into the future using all of our best tools.

 

So I’m thinking about all the funny moments we have this season too. I’m thinking about plant-based S&M. I think that’s amazing, That Margaret talked about. I’m thinking of that Peppa Pig and what Peppa Pig can give us inspiration for how we move forward and how we lean into our rage and our anger and translate it into something productive, even if it’s just checking out for a second. I’m thinking about giving pep talks to our dogs. You know what I mean? I know I’m giving pep talks to my Charlie because he is so lazy. So lazy. He just wants to eat and frolic, that’s pretty much his entire life. And I want to take motivation from him. And I’m also like, “Dude, Charlie, I need you to get some motivation. Get up, get out there, take advantage of the day.”

 

Ai-jen Poo:
Totally. And did we talk about this yet? Do our listeners know that we both got pandemic dogs?

 

Alicia Garza:
Oh my God. And that they’re both still alive.

 

Ai-jen Poo:
They’re both still alive. We all made it. We all made it.

 

Alicia Garza:
It’s true.

 

Ai-jen Poo:
They’re both incredibly lazy.

 

Alicia Garza:
It’s true.

 

Ai-jen Poo:
And they’re both incredibly adorable.

 

Alicia Garza:
Charlie and Ben are proof that we can do hard things.

 

Ai-jen Poo:
We also got some amazing recipes. I am literally on Baratunde’s fish.

 

Alicia Garza:
Oh yeah. That branzino. I got a trout the other day that I’m planning to do a sheet pan version of with some garlic broccolini. I’m very excited about this. But I am definitely going to try Baratunde’s branzino recipe.

 

Ai-jen Poo:
Me too. So good.

 

Alicia Garza:
So good.

 

Ai-jen Poo:
So one beautiful thing that is starting to happen and is going to continue happening that literally I have no words for how awesome it is are these reunions.

 

Alicia Garza:
That’s right.

 

Ai-jen Poo:
Where you’re going to start to see people that you haven’t seen for over a year. Some of the most important relationships in your life have been mediated through Zoom and phone and FaceTime, and you finally get to hug people again and you get to laugh together and dance together. And Alicia and I got to see each other and do that, literally sat on a bench for hours and hours just cackling, laughing our asses off. And it was the most incredible feeling. It was so good.

 

Alicia Garza:
That’s right. Oh my gosh. And I don’t even know that it like totally hit me, that we have not gotten to do that in person for a year and a half. It almost feels like 2020 in some ways, in some cases was the lost year, you know how like in some societies, they talk about these like massive catastrophes, they talk it as like the lost years? I feel like that’s what 2020 has been.

 

Ai-jen Poo:
That is what it is.

 

Alicia Garza:
It was so lovely to like see you and hug you and not through a screen, but in real life. And it was also really interesting to try to reintegrate into the world in that way. You don’t realize sometimes how much hugs mean. You don’t realize sometimes how precious it is to be able to sit with somebody on a bench and have a conversation.

 

I didn’t know I missed clubs, honey, but I do. I miss clubs. I miss dancing. I miss shaking my booty with you and I miss being able to move freely. And it just made me think about all of the things that are at stake right now. It made me think about the things that we’re facing in this country in a totally different way. It made me think about immigration differently. It made me think about disability differently. It made me think about disability in a whole different way. And it made me think about how needed and necessary our connections are and how truly interdependent we really are. I don’t think I could do another year and a half or five years of no hugs, and not being in contact with the people that you love so dearly. So I hope that one thing we carry forward here is just remembering that preciousness of what it means to be in connection and relationship and not taking that for granted.

 

Ai-jen Poo:
And the ability to share space with people you love and feel their energy and trust strength from it.

 

Alicia Garza:
That’s right.

 

Ai-jen Poo:
I’ll never, ever forget that feeling of that big, strong hug.

 

Alicia Garza:
Oh, yeah.

 

Ai-jen Poo:
So good, so good.

 

Alicia Garza:
Oh yeah.

 

Ai-jen Poo:
And our first in-person belly laugh, sitting on that bench.

 

Alicia Garza:
Yes, yes, yes. It doesn’t get better than that.

 

Ai-jen Poo:
So precious.

 

Alicia Garza:
I wish that for all of you Sun Storm listeners, that you get to hug the people that you love and sit and cackle on a bench and somewhere, get to go shake your booty.

 

Ai-jen Poo:
Yes, exactly.

 

Alicia Garza:
Well, all my love. I’m so glad that we got to do this together and thank you Sun Storm listeners for joining us on this adventure. We appreciate every single one of your comments and your notes and we love, love, love hearing from you, all the many suns in our many storms, or as Alice said, our sun beams. As we wrap up the season, we hope that you A, get vaccinated B, keep going and C, love on each other and care for each other, not as a transaction, but in service of transformation. Stay healthy, stay safe and enjoy every single day of your hopefully Vaxxed girl summer. And stay in touch, please. You can always find us at sun storm pod on all the socials. We love you.

 

Ai-jen Poo:
Thank you all.

 

Alicia Garza:
Sun Storm is a project of the national domestic workers Alliance and collaboration with Participant. Sun Storm is executive produced by Alicia Garza, Ai-jen Poo and Christina Mevzapgar Sun Storm is produced by Amy S Choi and Rebecca Lehrer of the Mash-Up Americans. Producers are Shelby Sandlin, Mary Phillips-Sandy and Mia Warren. Original music composed by Jen Kwok and Jody Shelton.