Hey everyone. This is a special episode for me.

To be fully transparent, many years ago, Malquia Cyril, who is today's guest, was my boss at Media Justice, an organization that they founded and led for over 10 years. It's an organization that is working on issues of racial justice, rights, and dignity, and the

digital age.

Malquia is still a leader in the realm of media talking about technology and race and they've

always been someone that I look to and rely on for their discernment and their

political clarity.

Their work lately has taken on a more emotionally evocative tone

and a really timely turn, I think.

They really started to work on collective grief and articulating the

social and political and movement implications of understanding collective grief.

In this episode they really ask us to grapple seriously with loss, the loss we experience in our lives, the loss that's

inherent to living, and the outsized and increasing loss I think that many are experiencing around the world.

Some of you who've read my book and gotten to the last chapter might recognize Malquia's name.

I quote Malquia talking about grief and their journey with their

work around love and their work around love and our need to practice love

and that's so much of our conversation today.

I really hope you enjoy this episode. You know, Malquia has this way of making such precise and profound connections

between our very human emotional experiences and also the structural barriers that really try to shape how and what we feel.

I do want to offer a disclaimer for this episode which is that there's very open talk of death and dying so if

Loss is really acute for you right now perhaps perhaps more than other episodes, you might want to be resourced

in listening to this and maybe take your time.

There is also a lot of joy, a lot of laughter, a lot of love, and really, really incredible and helpful

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