Justice Begins with Imagination (Ruha Benjamin)
How To Citizen with Baratunde
iHeartPodcasts
4.4 • 2.2K Ratings
🗓️ 23 March 2023
⏱️ 55 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
According to Ruha Benjamin, we’re living inside someone else’s imagination. An imagination that limits our ability to build a more just, liberated world. So, how do we take back our agency and begin to seed something different? Baratunde talks with Princeton professor and founding director of the Just Data Lab, Ruha Benjamin to find out.
SHOW ACTIONS
Internally Reflect - Bear witness and create a ripple
This one is inspired from Ruha’s book Viral Justice: How We Grow the World We Want which says: “…bear witness to the weight of individual and communal protective acts and consider how all of us can be involved in sheltering one another from the rain and sun by cultivating relationships, skills, accountability, and healing.”
Think about when you witnessed someone near you perform an act of justice or kindness or protection for another. Was it a big or small act? Did it require courage? How did witnessing that make you feel about the world? Is it something you could repeat and further the impact?
Become More Informed - Learn about racial justice
Ruha recommends Rest is Resistance: A Manifesto by Tricia Hersey and The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander both of which you can find on our Bookshop page.
Publicly Participate - Invest in your community using your time & skills
Check out ways to invest and get to know your community using your existing skills and experience. If you’re 60+ check out Thirdact.org and Cogenerate.org. If you’re 25-59 check out Volunteermatch.org and Catchafire.org. If you're 16-24 check out Civicsunplugged.org and Youthclimatelobby.org.
SHOW NOTES
Walk through Breonna’s Garden and check out Lady Phoenix’s IG for more.
Find How To Citizen on Instagram or visit howtocitizen.com to join our mailing list and find ways to citizen besides listening to this podcast!
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How To Citizen is hosted by Baratunde Thurston. He’s also host and executive producer of the PBS series, America Outdoors as well as a founding partner and writer at Puck. You can find him all over the internet.
CREDITS
How To Citizen with Baratunde is a production of iHeartRadio Podcasts and Rowhome Productions. Our Executive Producers are Baratunde Thurston and Elizabeth Stewart. Allie Graham is our Lead Producer and Danya AbdelHameid is our Associate Producer. Alex Lewis is our Managing Producer. John Myers is our Executive Editor and Mix Engineer. Original Music by Andrew Eapen and Blue Dot Sessions. Our Audience Engagement Fellows are Jasmine Lewis and Gabby Rodriguez. Special thanks to Joelle Smith from iHeartRadio.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Horrifying monsters, dangerous gods and heroes, and incredible underrepresented women. |
| 0:06.9 | From the truth about Medusa, she never actually heard anyone, to the horrors of Theseus. |
| 0:12.3 | He was basically a serial predator. |
| 0:14.5 | I am Liv Albert, and let's talk about Midsphabie is the Greek and Roman mythology podcast |
| 0:19.7 | here with all the dirty details and then some. |
| 0:23.3 | Listen to Let's Talk About Midsphabie on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever |
| 0:29.0 | you get your podcasts. |
| 0:33.3 | We can talk about the hardware and software all day, but social technologies like trust, |
| 0:39.0 | like mutuality. |
| 0:40.4 | We have to invest as much intellectual and emotional energy into honing those, building |
| 0:45.6 | those, practicing those. |
| 0:47.2 | It doesn't come natural. |
| 0:48.6 | And so part of what we're doing is trying to prototype new relationships amongst ourselves. |
| 0:54.7 | We're our tagline within the lab is be careful with each other so we can be dangerous together. |
| 1:01.7 | Welcome to How to Citizen with Baratunde, a podcast that reimagined citizen as a verb, not |
| 1:09.6 | a legal status. |
| 1:11.0 | This season is all about how we practice democracy. |
| 1:14.4 | What can we get rid of? |
| 1:15.7 | What can we invent? |
| 1:16.9 | And how do we change the culture of democracy itself? |
| 1:19.7 | We're leaving the theoretical clouds and hitting the ground with inspiring examples of |
| 1:24.1 | people and institutions that are showing us new ways to govern ourselves. |
... |
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