The National B.L.A.C.K Cooperative Podcast: Recent Episodes
The National B.L.A.C.K Cooperative
At the National B.L.A.C.K. (Black Liberation Association for Change and Kinship) Cooperative, we are young community organizers from around Connecticut working with local community organizations. Our cooperative is led by Black women and supported by Black men, non-Black people of color, the LGBTQ+ community, the special needs community, and white allies. Our mission is to fight anti-blackness, systemic racism and social injustice through education, advocacy and community engagement so that BIPOC cannot just merely survive but flourish.
In this episode, we revisit our IG Live were we celebrated teachers and the extraordinary impact they have had on us personally, and shaping the world!
In this reinstalment of our IG Live Series Reimagine: Visualizing a New World and Actualizing Justice we a joined by Castella Copeland !
- Third-year doctoral student at Liberty University Online program with a concentration in Educational Leadership.
- MA in educational psychology with a concentration in cognition instruction and learning technology also from the University of Connecticut class of 2019.
- 3 BA in political science, human rights, women's gender and sexuality with a minor in urban and community studies from the University of Connecticut class of 2017
- Teacher/ Educator
- Coach
- Commissioner for the Town Human Relations Windsor
In this episode we bring you our Instagram live where we discuss state and local politics and its impact on out lives.
Today, we bring you our virtual event from October 18 were we interrogate federal politics- legislative branch, how it functions, why its important to be involved and the real life impacts it has on our day-to-day lives. The ultimate goal is to build awareness, engagement and accessibility around policy & politics.
In today’s podcast, we will take a look back at Juneteenth! Juneteenth has been a nationally federally recognized holiday for a year now, and here in Connecticut, it will become a state holiday on June 19th, 2023. We thought it would be a good idea to check back in and identify what has changed, what that means for Black people both tangible and metaphorically, and how this has shaped and/or affected us and our greater community.
Today we will embark on this journey by reclaiming the knowledge of the GREAT India.Arie. We talk how her music contributes to the Black Feminist Cannon, how her music has had power in our lives and much more!
In today’s podcast, we will be discussing why student debt cancellation is important, and why it is not only an economic issue but a RACIAL JUSTICE issue.
References
https://heller.brandeis.edu/iere/pdfs/racial-wealth-equity/racial-wealth-gap/stallingdreams-how-student-debt-is-disrupting-lifechances.pdf
Education Trust 2020, in partnership with Jalil B. Mustaffa, Ph.D., we launched the National Black Student Loan Debt Study https://edtrust.org/resource/jim-crow-debt/ ‘That’s The Point’: Why student loan debt cancellation is about racial justice https://thegrio.com/2022/04/21/thats-the-point-why-student-loan-debt-cancellation-is-about-racial-justice/
Student Debt is a Racial Justice Issue. Here’s What President Biden Can Do to Help. https://www.aclu.org/news/racial-justice/student-debt-is-a-racial-justice-issue-heres-what-president-biden-can-do-to-help
https://heller.brandeis.edu/news/items/releases/2021/impact-report-iere-student-debt.html
https://www.vox.com/23059038/student-loan-debt-forgiveness-cancellation-scenarios
https://thegrio.com/2022/05/04/student-loan-forgiveness-is-a-step-towards-racial-justice/
https://tcf.org/content/report/bridging-progressive-policy-debates-student-debt-racial-wealth-gap-reinforce/?session=1
https://educationdata.org/student-loan-debt-statistics
https://equitablegrowth.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/hamilton-zwede.pdf
https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2018/09/why-is-college-so-expensive-in-america/569884/
https://www.americanprogress.org/article/5-things-to-know-about-debt-cancellation/
https://www.businessinsider.com/student-loan-debt-forgiveness-expected-from-biden-august-education-2022-8
This is the first installment in our Black Women Voices IG Live Series, previously recorded 3/14/22 . I hope you enjoy. We apologize for any audio issues in advance!
“ ‘People do not throw their geniuses away’ and that ‘if they are thrown away, it is our duty as artists, scholars, and witnesses for the future to collect them again for the sake of our children… if necessary, bone by bone’” (Walker 1983,92) in Collins 2009,5) Black Feminist Thought
The Black Women Voices:
Reclaiming our Knowledge Series was sparked by this Alice Walker quote cited in Patricia Hill Collins’ Black Feminist Thought. In this section of the book Collins details how the suppression of Black women’s knowledge production is another tool of oppression.
The act of suppression via:
- Exploitation of Black women’s labor essential to US capitalism
- Political dimension of oppression has denied African American women the rights and privileges routinely extended to White males citizens
- Controlling images applied to Black women’s
She also details how the identity of being a Black woman creates an intersectional identity where the realities of sexism and racism are inextricably linked, which provides Black women with a very unique and powerful lens on the world, humanity and social injustice.
In an act to counter the suppression of Black women voices, Black Women Voices: Reclaiming Our Knowledge is a series TNBC is starting to reclaim the knowledge of Black Women throughout time to both decolonize history and begin to curate our own collective history.
Self, community, society
Today we will embark on this journey by reclaiming the knowledge of Ms. Lauryn Hill.
Previously recorded 2-17-22 Today we are continuing our discussion about radical rest, finding your identity and protecting your peace. In this episode we are tackling how the internet, technology and social media plays a role in our ability to rest, shape our identity and protect our peace. In the last episode we meditated on how divesting from the capitalist structure is vital to achieving rest. We plan to build on that by identifying how capitalism and productivity have shaped the social media environment. According to the Pew Research Center, 69% of adults and 81% of teens in the U.S. use social media. Social media’s designed to be addictive as it activates the brain’s reward center by releasing dopamine, a “feel-good chemical” linked to pleasurable activities. The use of social media, especially heavy use, has been linked to depression, anxiety, and feelings of isolation, according to Medical News Today. So today in this podcast we are tackling…
How do we disengage? Electronic unwinding Collective Power, Collective History, Interconnectedness Community Racism-related trauma or intersectional oppression related trauma Stress and Freedom & Wholeness
Previously recorded on 1/17/22.
Today we are talking about all things radical rest, finding your identity and protecting your peace. In the wake of the “Great Resignation” or more like the “Great Realization” people are leaving their jobs in droves.
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that 4.3 million Americans, or 2.9% of the entire workforce, quit their jobs in August 2021.
So it begs the question why?
For many of us the answer is clear. After two years of sustaining and surviving in a pandemic people have had the time to be reflective and introspective about life and what that means to them. In doing that internal work people are realizing that they do not want to keep feeding into a capitalist system that never feeds back into them.
When we are living in a world where every time you step outside your door death is a real risk because of a deadly virus mutating and looming in the wake, it seems people have started to ask themselves, “is this as good as life can get for me”?
- And if the numbers I cited above are any indication, the realization is NO!
It's evident that people, by and large, are done with just merely surviving, and that if they are going to live, they want to live a flourishing and fulfilling life. One they have taken agency over.
So today in this podcast we are tackling…
- Capitalism
- Radical Rest
- Social Media
- Productivity
- Finding Oneself
- Collective Power
Resources:
Undistracted: A Historic Day and Why the ‘Nap Bishop” Believes Rest is Radical
https://open.spotify.com/episode/4mXYn8pvd4Fp3E1I4opk6C?si=2b1bfb2c2c8042e9
Into America: A Word from the Nap Bishop
https://open.spotify.com/episode/49K5uJBfsJV7bUfWVAt4D6?si=1b169ff493764624
Meet the Congressman pushing a 4-day work week law: 'I care about making capitalism sustainable and more humane'
https://www.businessinsider.com/4-day-work-week-law-california-congressman-mark-takano-author-2022-1
Small Doses
https://open.spotify.com/episode/59P87DwUfEF2GIzTkpi66b?si=4650503d12d74579
BLS
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/jolts.nr0.htm?utm_source=npr_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20211018&utm_term=5879628&utm_campaign=money&utm_id=4858467&orgid=&utm_att1=money
NPR
https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2021/10/19/1047032996/why-are-so-many-americans-quitting-their-jobs#:~:text=Last%20week%2C%20the%20U.S.%20Bureau,seen%20across%20virtually%20all%20industries.
previously recorded Nov 10,2021
Today we will be beginning a new series called Joe Biden and down ballot accountability. Seeing that Black and Brown people are a major reason for Joe Biden’s presidency and the Democrat wave in 2020, we believe that it is time to check back in and assess what they have been able to achieve and the things that we are still owed.
Disclaimer: Do not fear, even as we begin to focus on political accountability we will still continue to cover a variety of topics that center the Black experience from Black joy, current topics, music, sports, and academia, with the ground lens of health justice. But as the weeks and months progress, we will occasionally take the time to highlight specific promises/issues we believe our elected officials need to act on or already have and have a discourse on what that means for justice. By continuing our ethos of visualizing justice via a health justice lens, we will interrogate how we can achieve a more just and humane society than the one we live in.
Previously recorded July 20, 2021.
In today's episode, we discuss the intersections of race, gender, sports and journalism. Particularly we talk about the 2021 Summer Olympics, NBA Finals an much more.
TNBC we be starting a To Be Black series on our podcast, where we will highlight how existing as a Black person shapes the way you are treated, navigate and are perceived in the world and the potentially affects that has on Black folk both socially, psychologically and biologically. We will interrogate the systems and structure that perpetrate this harm and allow is to persist. We will also discuss how Black people resist, fight and thrive amongst that adversity. Lastly, we will meditate on the magic that is Blackness and that even though Black people always find a way to grow roses in concrete, they should not be expected to be resilient but be given the fertile soil to grow.
Authors and Books Mentioned:
Patricia Hill Collins - Black Feminist Thought
Octavia E. Butler
Kimberle Crenshaw
Dana-Ain Davis
June 19 1865 commemorates the day the last enslaved people were notified by union troops in Galveston Texas that they had been emancipated 2.5 years earlier. In this podcast, that was recorded June 22, 2021, we talk about the historical significance of this day, key figures that fought to make Juneteenth a federal holiday and ponder on questions like:
- Is it gaslighting making Juneteenth a federal holiday?
- What does the celebration of Juneteenth mean to you?
- How should white people engage in this holiday?
- How do you want vs expect Juneteenth being a federal holiday to help to shift and/or transform culture? What does it do for the movement?
We hope you enjoy the episode and feel free to join our community and engage in future discussions about race, equity, and justice! Also we will be posting Saige and Adriana's speeches from the Town of Windsor Juneteenth Celebration of Freedom Event.
IG: @the.national.black.cooperative FB: @TheNationalBLACKCoop Website: https://thenationalblackco.wixsite.com/nationalblackcoop
In today's episode, on our one year anniversary, we reflect on our evolution as an organization over the year with just a few of our E-board members Adriana, Castella, Jacai, Zach, Nic and Saige. We discuss how TNBC was formed, major challenges and successes, what we have learned and what we hope to do in the future. We hope you enjoy our first episode that has been launched on our one year anniversary of The National B.L.A.C.K Cooperative (TNBC)! Please follow us on Instagram @the.national.black.cooperative, on facebook @TheNationalBLACKCoop, and on our website https://thenationalblackco.wixsite.com/nationalblackcoop.
There are some minor audio issues toward the middle of the podcast, sorry for the inconvenience in advance.