Into the Mix: Recent Episodes
Ben & Jerry's and Vox Creative
Introducing Into the Mix — a Ben & Jerry’s podcast about joy and justice, produced with Vox Creative. Join host Ashley C. Ford as she talks with the artists, activists, cultural leaders, and all-around amazing people who are working to build a better world. The struggle, the wins, the thrill of making change and forging a fairer future — it’s all in here. So get into it. On a related topic — if you want to hear episodes about how our country's history of systemic racism still has a major impact today, check out Who We Are, another collaboration between Ben & Jerry's and Vox Creative.
Most kids in the U.S. go to a school that’s patrolled by police officers. They’re supposed to keep students safe, but after decades of increased surveillance, in-school arrests have skyrocketed for kids of all ages. And most of the kids arrested at school are students of color. A group of students in Des Moines, Iowa didn’t need data to know that police in their school district were harmful, so they set out to do something about it. Here’s how they worked with their community to build a greater movement to protect students, and especially students of color. Learn more about the Advancement Project’s Opportunity to Learn campaign here, the effectiveness of restorative justice in schools (5:09), how Des Moines Public Schools have updated their policies (16:53), and how Endi, Lyric and Kai made change in Des Moines. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
We’ll be back in August with more episodes! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
In January 2021, Zahra Shaheer had to get out of Afghanistan… fast. So when she had the rare opportunity to secure safe passage for herself and her two children, she made the heartbreaking decision to flee, even though it meant leaving her mother behind. Now, Zahra and her mother remain separated by thousands of miles, and insurmountable policies that are designed to prevent her mother from reuniting with her family in the new home in the UK. David Miliband from the International Rescue Committee joins us to look at the history of global refugee policy, and the importance of safe routes as more displaced people seek safety around the globe than ever before. To learn more and take action, click here, and join Ben & Jerry's in calling for safe routes here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Erika Alexander started out as a child actor in Philadelphia before landing the iconic role of Maxine Shaw, Attorney at Law on the hit sitcom Living Single. Today, the veteran of screen and stage uses her storytelling skills to advocate for reparations for Black Americans. Host Ashley C. Ford interviews Erika Alexander about her career, family, and efforts to uplift Black voices. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Laci Jordan was always a very serious student. When the time came to choose a career path, she decided to study criminal justice. But she soon found that her calling was not in law enforcement, but art. Host Ashley C. Ford interviews Laci about her journey from interning at the FBI, to using her art to envision a world free of police brutality. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
From the beginning, Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield wanted their company to be about more than just ice cream; they knew they could leverage their popularity to advance progressive causes. Host Ashley C. Ford talks to them about their decades-long friendship, how they found early success combining ice cream with social values, and what they’re working on today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Phil Agnew first became an activist in 2006, after learning about a Black teenager who had been killed by guards in a Florida youth detention center. He became an organizer a few years later when he co-founded the Dream Defenders, a grassroots movement for prison abolition and more. In this episode, Phil talks with Ashley C. Ford about the nuances of activism and organizing, as well as the wins and losses he’s experienced on his journey toward a better future. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Tackling climate change can feel so overwhelming, but the featured guests in this episode approach their climate justice work one event at a time. Punk icon Patti Smith, along with her friend, writer and activist Bill McKibben, stage inspiring events that use music, poetry and letter-writing (yes, letter-writing, in the middle of rock concerts) to mobilize against climate change. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
The online civil rights organization, Color of Change, has used many different tools to push for change: ads targeted to corporate leadership, fax machines sent to lawmakers, Twitter hashtags, and online petitions. Ashley C. Ford sits down with the head of the organization, Rashad Robinson, to talk about their innovative approach to improving Black lives. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
In this episode of Into the Mix, Ashley C. Ford talks to Jeffery Robinson, who has spent the last decade trying to correct the history books. Jeffery is a criminal defense lawyer and founder of the Who We Are Project, an effort that aims to uncover the hidden history of America’s anti-Black racism, the deep roots of white supremacy in our country, and how this impacts so many aspects of our society today—from book banning in schools, to housing segregation, to who is allowed to enter the highest halls of our government. If you think you know your country’s history, think again — Jeffery wants you to know more about this country’s past, so we can better decide where we want to go from here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
In this episode of Into the Mix, Ashley C. Ford talks to Big Freedia, the performer who brought bounce music from the streets of New Orleans to the world. Join Freedia as she tells us how she got her start, how she faced personal tragedy — and how she’s continuing to show up for her community, using her platform to speak out against, and help reduce gun violence in New Orleans. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Join host Ashley C. Ford in conversation with political aide Andrew Aydin, whose idea for a thrilling new retelling of Congressman John Lewis' life and role in the Civil Rights struggle is helping a whole new generation of students and activists connect with their past. Dive into the power of writing, of storytelling — and the magic that happens when you shine a light on the ongoing struggle for justice. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
In this episode of Into the Mix, host Ashley C. Ford talks with artist Favianna Rodriguez — maker of bold, energetic murals, prints, and sculptures — about how her work both names, and helps transcend, the pain of systemic racism. She’ll share how her work explores the themes of racial and economic injustice through a “yes” framework that embodies how we want to live in the world. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
In the debut episode of Into the Mix, join host Ashley C. Ford for a deep discussion with John Legend on his art, his activism, and how he’s blending the two to spearhead a movement for a more equitable world. His newest venture? Igniting systemic change where it all begins — locally. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Introducing Into the Mix — a Ben & Jerry’s podcast about joy and justice, produced with Vox Creative. Join host Ashley C. Ford as she talks with the artists, activists, and all-around amazing people who are working to build a better world. The struggle, the wins, the thrill of making change and forging a fairer future — it’s all in here. So get into it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
In 1865, General William T. Sherman issued Special Field Order No. 15— a promise to redistribute 40 acres of once Confederate-owned land in coastal South Carolina and Florida to each formerly enslaved adult to begin mending the seemingly unmendable. It never came to pass. H.R. 40, also known as the Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans Act, has been brought to Congress repeatedly since 1989, first by the late Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich), now by Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Tex). Hear Jeffery Robinson, founder of the Who We Are Project and deputy director of the ACLU take on the past, present and future of reparations with veteran political activist Dr. Ron Daniels and legal expert and reparations advocate Nkechi Taifa.
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
Baldwin, James.The Fire Next Time. Vintage, 1992
Coates, Ta-Nehisi. “The Case for Reparations.” The Atlantic. June, 2014.
Du Bois, W.E.B.Black Reconstruction in America 1860 - 1880. Free Press, 1999
Foner, Eric. Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863 - 1877. Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2014.
H.R.40 - Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African-Americans Act
Lockhart, P.R. The 2020 Democratic Primary Debate Over Reparations, Explained. Vox.com, June 19, 2019
Marable, Manning. Beyond Boundaries: The Manning Marable Reader. Routledge, 2011.
National African American Reparations Commission (NAARC) 10-Point Reparations Plan
Taifa, Nkechi. Black Power, Black Lawyer. House of Songhay II, 2020.
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From slavery to sharecropping to mass incarceration, American institutions have reproduced cycles of social rupture and exploitation by design. Is it even possible to imagine true equity as long as the current carceral system stands? Carvell Wallace and Jeffery Robinson begin with Bill Clinton’s 1994 Crime Bill before turning to the ways in which incarceration ripples through questions of voting, health, wealth, and state violence. With final words from Afro-futurist author Sheree Renee Thomas, we’ll explore how we might dream a new America into being and the possibilities of Black liberation.
Additional information and resources related to this episode are available on our show page.
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What does it mean to be well in America? Who is seen as deserving of healthcare? Racism has plagued the American medical system since its inception and continues to produce disparities in health and life expectancy to this day. In this episode, Carvell Wallace and Jeffery Robinson trace the decades-long epidemic of sharply higher mortality rates among both Black people giving birth and their babies. In conversation with OB/GYN and maternal/infant health advocate Dr. Joia Crear-Perry, as well as SéSé Doula Services founder Nicole JeanBaptiste, we’ll examine the way the healthcare system was designed to fail Black people, with a focus on Black maternal and infant health.
Additional information and resources related to this episode are available on our show page.
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“To pull oneself up by one’s bootstraps” was originally a metaphor for the impossible. It’s now one of the most American of American idioms — encapsulating a belief that one’s fortunes and failures hinge on individual responsibility alone. It simultaneously obscures the systemic economic theft of Black people and other people of color in the US by state and commercial interests, as well as the systemic economic enrichment of white populations by those same forces. In this episode, Carvell Wallace and Jeffery Robinson explore how Black wealth has been routinely destroyed, using the example of a 1919 massacre in Elaine, Arkansas, where Black sharecroppers organizing for better financial conditions were killed by a white mob. We’ll also hear from law professor and scholar of banking history Dr. Mehrsa Baradaran on how discriminatory housing policies, unequal access to credit, and predatory banking continue to hinder attempts at wealth-building, even among the Black middle class.
Additional information and resources related to this episode are available on our show page.
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Black bodies have always been on the line in America, whether on the auction block or in a parking lot in Minneapolis. American law has enshrined the state’s ability to enact violence with almost total impunity. And, going back to as far as the Colonial Marines in 1808, reclaiming one’s body from this system has required fearless acts of rebellion. In this episode, Carvell and Jeffery trace the evolution of slave patrols into modern policing, exploring the consequences of that origin story with activist and lead of Black Visions Collective Miski Noor and Dr. Kellie Carter Jackson, an historian of Black resistance and rebellion in the US. Collectively, they make the case that protest is vital to American progress and racial justice—and that we must keep taking to the streets.
Third stanza of “The Star Spangled Banner” arranged and sung by Sandra Lawson-Ndu
Additional information and resources related to this episode are available on our show page.
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The right to vote is the right to help define the future of the country. It’s at the heart of our democracy. But for much of US history, only property-owning white men had access to this right. Suffrage for Black men was hard won and enshrined by the 15th amendment after the Civil War. But, even that limited enfranchisement was quickly stymied by campaigns of terror and voter suppression that were then codified by the creation of the Electoral College — amplifying the power of white Southern voters and essentially bringing an end to Reconstruction in 1877. In this episode, host Carvell Wallace explores the history of, and ongoing battle for, total Black enfranchisement in conversation with formerly incarcerated Florida-based voting rights activists Betty Riddle and Marq Mitchell, as well as historian Dr. Yohuru Williams.
For more on what you can do to protect voting rights in the US, visit the ACLU’s Voting Rights page.
Additional information and resources related to this episode are available on our show page.
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Far from promising the fruits of equality and justice for all, the United States was founded on white supremacist ideals. Given this legacy, how do Black parents decipher and explain American history to their children? Or, even what it means to be Black in the US? These are questions that host and writer Carvell Wallace and ACLU Legal Deputy Director and attorney Jeffery Robinson have had to confront. Their answer has been to look more closely at the past and at the laws that continue to enshrine and reinforce racial inequity. This is how we both make sense of the present and shape a more equitable future for generations to come. Hear them start this journey into some of the lesser-known moments in America’s history which will reckon with the state of voting rights, the wealth gap, healthcare, policing, and the carceral state.
Featuring the performance of a new work by city of Boston poet laureate Porsha Olayiwola.
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