← We Can Do Hard Things
Loading summary
Transcript55 lines
- [00:00]
Glennon Doyle
Welcome to We Can Do Hard Things. This is a crucial conversation with one of the most important activists, organizers and thinkers of our time, Brittany Packnett Cunningham. She is with us for this hour to help us look at Minnesota and understand the infrastructure and circumstances that have allowed Minnesota to become the beacon that it is for all of us right now. Brittany's going to talk to us about what we need to do right now to not just sit and stare and marvel at Minnesota, but to become Minnesota in our own places. So that when our moment comes, and it will, we will be ready like they were. And also, Brittany's gonna talk to us a lot about how for a lot of people, none of this is a surprise and how we might be able to rebuild now in a way that this does not happen again. How we break patterns, American patterns that keep us repeating the same old story in this country, how we write a new one, finally, by acknowledging the truth of the beginning. This is a gift. Brittany Packnet Cunningham is an absolute gift. Let's get to her.
- [01:23]
Brittany Packnett Cunningham
Brittany Packnett Cunningham is a leader at the intersection of culture, justice and policy. Brittany is the founder of the social impact agency Love and Power Works, host and executive producer of the news and justice podcast Undistracted. A St. Louis native, Brittany was instrumental in the coordination of the Ferguson protest following the 2014 police murder of 18 year old Michael Brown. After George Floyd was murdered by police In Minneapolis in 2020, Brittany became one of the most visible national movement voices for policy, budget and electoral change as the world watched the executions of Renee Good and alex Preddy by ice, both within 2.2 miles of where George Floyd was murdered, as well as the execution of Keith Porter Jr. By Ice in California. Brittany is leading us in connecting this police state violence, including the killings of Geraldo Lunas Campos, Luis Gustavo Nunez Caceras and Luis Beltran Yanez Cruz and more than 50 other deaths in ICE detention. Toward a Collective Liberation Britney, you are so generous in sharing your voice today. You are the voice we are looking to, as well as those voices on the ground in Minnesota right now, to help us to understand and connect this moment to decades and centuries of violence that we're experiencing in this country. We are recording this on Monday, January 26th. This episode will go up on Wednesday the 28th. Where would you situate us in this moment where people will be hearing this on Wednesday? What do you most want people to know right now?
- [03:04]
The thing I want people to know right now and always is that there's something for everybody to do. And I probably Sound like a broken record about that if you engage with me on any platform. But that is so critically important to me that everybody understands that. Because it is easy to look on in horror from afar. It doesn't feel good, but it's easier to do that than to decide to be incensed enough to take action. And we all have to be filled with enough rage or love or some mix of the two to do something and to do something every day. This is a moment where we have to understand that a singular act on a singular day is not enough. This requires consistent action, consistent education, consistent community building because we have to build momentum. Momentum is necessary to actually grow the kind of force we need to reverse what we're dealing with now. And so, yeah, yeah, I want people to know that they can take action on pushing Governor Walz to institute a statewide eviction moratorium so that people who've had to shelter in place and hide out from ice are not thrown out from their houses on February 1, thereby putting them at even more risk, both in sub zero temperatures and of being abducted by ice. I want people to know that they can take action by calling their senators and making sure that they refuse to fund ICE through the DHS appropriations bill, that they call for Kristi Noem to be impeached, that they call for investigations of the murders of Renee Good, of Keith Porter Jr. Of Alex Preddy, and of all of those who have died both in protest of ICE and in detention centers. I want people to take action in following the organizers and leaders and organizations on the ground in Minneapolis, like natives, like the Indigenous Food Lab Minnesota 50:51, like Georgia Fort, who's an incredible independent journalist who is on the ground. And from there, like Nekimah Armstrong, who her and Chantel were arrested for the protest of the church being led by an ICE officer, the Sahan Journal, Hazen Fairbanks. And then following what those folks say to do, right, don't just puff up the follower numbers, right. Those people are giving you stuff on their stories, on their posts all the time. They're giving you things to share, places to donate things to donate, supplies that are needed, information that needs to be shared out so that we can get in front of the lives of this regime. There is something for everybody to do. And I don't care where you are, we need you to do it.
- [05:40]
Glennon Doyle
My sister and I were talking yesterday about how one of the things that you and so many of others have been trying to teach us for so long is that what's happening in Minnesota doesn't just happen. It's the result of years and decades of groups who are meeting and working and organizing. It's not just that those massive protests just occur. Every city and state is not prepared like Minnesota was prepared, because they have not been doing the everyday work of being parts of these groups so that when the call comes, people are trained, people are disciplined, people are connected, people know where to meet, people know where to go. This is the result of the work that's day in and day out, not just. There's not some huge megaphone that somebody gets on and says, everybody go now. Right? So, Brittany, talk to us about what people mean when they say this is not just about posting and it's not just about protesting. This is about getting involved with your local organizations who will prepare you for the moments like we're seeing in Minnesota.
- [06:51]
Brittany Packnett Cunningham
I'm so glad you asked that. There are a million hot takes in this moment, right? I tend to not be in the mood for hot takes when people need to get active. One of the hot takes we keep saying is, wow, I can't believe the revolution is happening in Minnesota. Right? Like, I thought that was just a place, you know, of, like, you know, like, people are nice, they go sledding, right? Is, you know, Midwestern charm. The other hot take that I see a bunch of people giving is, well, they built the infrastructure in 2020. Both of those things are incorrect. Number one, Minnesota itself is an indigenous word. Indigenous people on the land that is now called Minnesota have been resisting for hundreds of years. This is the 250th birthday, rather, of America, the country. But it is not the 250th birthday of turtle Island. There were people here. There were strategies here. There were communities here, and those communities stood up. The land holds that memory. The people hold that memory. The language holds that memory. And indigenous people in what is now called Minnesota have been passing that on for generations. And so many of them are the ones holding the line right now. We're. Which is one of the reasons why we know that this was never about immigration. Because why is ice raiding indigenous spaces? Why is ice detaining people who were here before, the people who ice hired and their ancestors? The same is true with black people, right? We know Nikima's name because she had been an organizer in that space for a long time. Robin Wansley, who's one of the city councilors in the Twin Cities, who has been one of the main ones pushing for this eviction moratorium she's been organizing for years. It is Ahistorical to say that folks have just been doing this for the last three, four, five, six years. And when people bring that up, they're not being contrarian, they're not being rude, they're not being mean. They are doing the work of reminding us that if our fights are not inclusive, our solutions will not be inclusive. If we are not intersectional now, then the world making we are doing that world won't be inclusive either. We actually have to practice that stuff now. We have to build the muscle of intersectionality and inclusivity now. So when people tell you, hey, don't just remember Renee Goode and Alex Preddy, remember all of the other names that Amanda named and then some. They're not doing it to get on your nerves. They're doing it because they wanna make sure that all of us are included in the world that we have to build. Because when something's destroyed, something is built in its place. And we'll either do it by happenstance or we'll do it intentionally. The other thing, though, Glennon, that your question is bringing to mind that I really, really want people to understand is that this is worse. And I actually don't think people are getting that. I think it is convenient to have nostalgia about what you say you were doing in 2014 or 2015 or what you say you were doing in 2020. Whether you were actually doing that is a different conversation. But it's easy to have nostalgia about it and feel your activist adrenaline rising again and think that we're dealing with the same thing as I've been reminding people. When we were on the streets in 2014 in Ferguson, we did not have a friendly local government, but we had a warm federal government. We had in President Obama somebody who wanted to assemble people to talk solutions. Now, they might not have been the solutions that everybody agreed with, but there was an open door, there was a curiosity, there was a question to say, how can we figure this out? And how can we figure it out together? Dealing with a warm Democratic government is very different than dealing with authoritarians. I would venture to say that dealing with George Bush, dealing with early 2000s Republicans, is very different than what we're dealing with now. So if your activist adrenaline is raising up because of what you did to push back against the Iraq war, I need you to understand that it's different right now. Let me just share with you some of the things that I'm hearing from people that I know and that I've been connected to in Minnesota. I want us all to put ourselves in the mind of folks who were born into immigrant families who cannot see their parents, not because their parents are halfway across the world, but because their parents are across town. And neither of them can come out of the house because it's unsafe. You cannot go out of the house to go grocery shopping, to go check on your elders, to go get a cup of coffee. I want us to think about those same immigrant families and the parents of those immigrant families who came to America looking for a better life, Some of them leaving war torn countries who are comparing this experience not to 2020, but to the war that they escaped. That's the comparison that they're drawing. I want us to understand that people are being pulled from their cars as they're driving to drop their kids off to school or driving from, dropping their kids off from school, indiscriminate of who those people are, because plenty of those people have been US Citizens. Plenty of those people have been green card holders. And I want to be really clear, even if those people aren't documented, nobody should be terrorized like this. I want us to understand that ICE is tracking the license plates of anybody engaged in any kind of activity. So if you are dropping off hot meals, they're tracking your license plate. If you are walking children to and from school to make sure that they do not end up like five year old Liam, they are tracking your license plate. If you are showing up at a meeting of clergy members and faith leaders, they are tracking your license plate. And they are doing this while driving around in vehicles that do not have license plates. ICE's vehicles are unmarked, but everyday citizens of Minnesota, because it's happening across the entire state, their license plates are being tracked. Philando Castile was murdered after being pulled over for supposedly having a light bulb out on his car. But ICE gets to drive around with masks on, no badges, no identification, and no license plates. Meanwhile, they're tracking activists and organizers at parents license plates. We're talking in Minneapolis about a city of 300,000 people. And what's been reported is that 10,000 of those people have been disappeared. 10,000 of those people have Been kidnapped. 10,000 families who just woke up one day and. And their family was gone, who went to work and who came back and the family was broken, who dropped their child off from school and they could not pick them up. That's a lot of people. In a city of 300,000. At least 3,000 of those people were sent to other places. Some of those people were taken to a detention facility in Minneapolis in Minnesota, a place called Whipple and then released. At least 3,000 of those people had been sent to other states, many of them Texas. So 3,000 people disappeared, sent halfway across the country where they know no one, have no family, can't connect to anybody, where they need help. And Minnesota has about 150 lawyers in the state who are capable, who have the proper licensing and who have the proper authority to file what is needed to get those people back home from Texas to Minneapolis. 3,000 people, 150 lawyers. What we're talking about is wholesale warfare from America's government against her people. This is not 2014, it's not 2015, it's not 2020, it's not Occupy Wall street. It's not anti Iraq, it's not anti Vietnam. There are parallels. There are necessary lessons. There is courage that we need to borrow from those moments for now. And this moment is calling for way more courage from all of us. Activists are not just fearful for their jobs, they're fearful for their lives because they could go outside and end up like Alex Preddy or Renee Good or Keith Porter and not come home.
- [14:31]
You're talking about this is not 2014 and sounds like the 1700s and the 1800s in the slave patrols. And I know that a lot of people are making that connection. But I think it's really important in this moment because there is what you said at the top where about, you know, saying all the people's names and including all of those people in what we're talking about is so important. And I would love to like stay there for a second because to me this feels like the foundation on which we build our next steps. I've read a lot of what you've said about it and Austin Channing Brown about, you know, the reason it's important to be able to truly hear what black people are saying, the deep disappointment and grief when they hear white people say, how did we just suddenly arrive? What is happening here is because it reveals that we have not acknowledged and heard and grieved what black people have been saying that they have been experiencing and what they have been experiencing for generations. That is the extrajudicial, the state sponsored and endorsed killing of their people. And then the COVID up like we saw with Renee and with Alex and with Keith of well, they were bad with. Oh, they had this was. There was a reason that we killed them and get on our side real quick that that has been happening for generations. It's so important that we just stay there for a second because it is grief that we have to acknowledge and it is also so fundamental because if we don't tie this moment to all of those moments, the solution that we come to the other side with, a proposed solution that only helps us, the white people who have just recently found themselves to be disturbed by this and doesn't help everyone. And it's actually not going to be a solution because we're going to need all of us to do it together. So can we just talk about that right now? And then can we talk about the parallels and the state sponsored killings over the history of our nation? Because it is what this is about. This is not new. And the comparing it to Nazi Germany is not correct. Because Nazi Germany actually studied the US south and to create their Nuremberg Laws, they based it on Jim Crow. They based it on, you know, one drop and our Asian Exclusion act and our miscegenation laws, that was based on us. So if you're, if you're talking about that, you're talking about us. And until we're talking about the right thing, we can't solve the right thing.
- [17:13]
That's right. If we don't make the proper comparison now, if we don't properly historicize what's happening, then we will be here again. That's not the world I'm interested in building for my children or yalls. The Nazis had a blueprint and that blueprint was the Jim Crow South. The other reason why it's improper to compare it though is because Germany thereafter did its work. They did not put up statues of Nazi Germany war heroes. They did not lionize Hitler. They did not pick up a symbol like the swastika of oppression and make it cool and hip again like they did the Confederate flag here in the 60s and 70s, right? Their bands weren't playing in front of that, in front of the swastika like Leonard Skynyrd was playing in front of the Confederate flag. They did their work. They made sure that the history was taught to every single child who came through their educational systems. If you spent any time being educated in that country, you knew so that never again was not a wish, but a plan. And in this country, we've erased the history. We've ignored the history, we've told the people that knew the history that they were overdoing it, that they were doing too much. We have perverted the history. We've taught the history intentionally, incorrectly. We've been told that the history makes people feel bad. So we can't say it anymore, we can't teach it anymore. We gotta get the books out of there and if you think that you're gonna be a librarian or a teacher who conveys that information, then say goodbye to your job. That's what we've done. And we were doing that before Trump. I wanna be really clear. He made it real obvious. But the proper people's history of the United States, to borrow Zen's phrase, has rarely been taught to most people. That's why a place like TikTok is ripe to be overtaken. Because suddenly people are learning that real history. Because in that more democratic space, suddenly, to your fyp, comes a professor of Africana studies and African American studies who's there to tell you the truth that you never knew. There's somebody who, I don't know, picked up the people's history in the United States and read a page to you on TikTok, and suddenly you want to go buy that book too. There are people who bought Michael Herriot's Black AF History, right, and said, oh, this is interesting. Let me talk to my audience about it. And then that thing keeps hitting the New York Times list. That's why people want to squash that particular platform. And now the algorithm doesn't work. We can't compare ourselves to the people who got an A on the group project when we keep being determined to not even complete the group project. That lets us off the hook as a country in a way that is deeply violent and problematic, because all it does is open the door for us to do this again in another 50 years. For people to say, this is not the America I know. This is not the America I have ever known. When did we become this country? And then once again, black people have to raise their hands and say, hi, we've always been this country. Once again, US and indigenous people have to exhaust ourselves to say, have you picked up a book? If you've been following any of us for any amount of time, we told you this. The hard thing for people to realize is that if we had listened to black people in the first place, we wouldn't be here. And this is actually what I want people to sit with, because a whole lot of people bought a whole lot of listened to black women totes in 2015 and in 2020 and wore them and then didn't do it. And I mean that very literally. I mean, if everybody had listened to the 92% of black women who voted for Kamala Harris, we literally wouldn't be in this situation. And you can have critique of her. That's fine. We should all have critique of politicians. But what we can't do is allow the flattening that happened across the public square that said that they were both the same. Continue. Because this woman is not sending ice to pull people out of their cars. She's not sending a paramilitary force in the streets to kill a Veterans affairs nurse. She's not doing it right. So very literally, had we listened to black people and been willing to vote for the black woman, instead of walking around and saying, america will never elect a black woman, becoming somebody who made America elect a black woman because you voted for her and you got your neighbors to vote for her. You got your friends to vote for her. If you had done that, we wouldn't be here. And now I'm watching people do the same thing to Jasmine Crockett. We say, we need the Democrats to win back the Senate. We say, well, Jasmine can't win because Beto didn't win. And Beto is a friend of mine who. But people are then simultaneously comparing James Talarico to Beto. But Beto didn't win. So what makes you think that James is going to be Jasmine? But because you lack the political and social imagination to see a black woman win a statewide seat in the state of Texas, you have now become the obstruction. You have now become the thing that has declared the self fulfilling prophecy. Because once you say a black woman can't win, then other people say, well, then there's no point in me trying to. And now you've created the future that you determined was impossible. And you've proven your own point, even though your point didn't have to be proven that way. So we're making the same mistakes again because we're not even willing to learn from recent history. If we had listened to black people, confederates would have been tried for treason. If we had listened to black people, people who redline communities would not have been allowed to own future property. If we had listened to black people, reconstruction would have led to a flourishing of the land and of the economy for everybody. Instead of getting what we got with Jim Crow, which killed the economy in the south because half the people couldn't participate in it. If we had listened to black people, we would never have elected a wannabe dictator the first time, let alone the second time. And people don't wanna sit with that reality because they say, I got black friends, I got black coworkers. I invited her to dinner the other day. I exercised next to a black woman in my yoga class. There's a black woman who lives down the street. I don't belong to the kkk. I don't belong to the White Citizens Council. But you didn't listen. And if you did listen, you kept the truth to yourself and didn't see it as your job to go and recruit anybody else. Had we listened to black people, had we listened to indigenous people, we very literally would not be here. That's not me bemoaning the past or complaining about where we are. That is me issuing a warning that if you make the same mistake again, we're going to end up in the same hell again. If insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result, then we're being clinically insane.
- [23:44]
That's right. It is insane. And it's a question of logic for me at this point. There's a lot of issues of repair that need to be done for a lot of us who have been just fine and been fine thinking things were just fine for a lot of time. So that exists in a parallel plane and that work needs to be done. And at this point, it is a question of logic and survival. This is the image I keep thinking. If you found yourself suddenly lost in the woods, who would you ask to help lead you out? The people who also just suddenly found themselves lost in the woods or the people who have spent generations living, surviving and who know the woods like the back of their hand? You would. You would beg respectfully and humbly for those people who know the woods like the back of their hand to please help you survive. And that is what it feels like. It feels like.
- [24:53]
Here's what you would. Here's. I'm sorry to interrupt. Here's what you do even better though. You'd simply watch what they are doing to survive themselves and adapt it right? Because the thing about it is you're not just lost in the woods by happenstance. I'm lost in the woods because you got in front of me in line and made sure that I was in the back and can't find my way. We have to understand when black people are like, no, I don't wanna go, leave. Cause we've been back here trying to survive this entire time. It would be better if you listened to all of the things that we've been saying to each other about how to survive. And the fact that you can do that freely with this thing called the Internet means that you actually don't even have to request more labor than anybody's ever offered. We've written the books, we've made the films we've made, the documentaries we host, the podcasts we opened, the nonprofit organizations we lead the congregations, which we did, the other translations of all of the faith texts we've cooked, the food we've sung, the songs we've written, the songs we've composed, the songs we've done, all of the things. All you gotta do is join the choir. It already exists. But instead, you wanna suddenly beg the people that you've been putting behind you for generations to lead you. Because we know the way out. But if you just follow what we're doing, if you fund what we're doing, if you support what we're doing, if you amplify what we're doing, it'll get done. Because we already have to survive ourselves. And I think that's the point a lot of people miss. And they say, well, I don't know where to start. And I'm like, there are just so many openings, so many invitations. You don't have to follow me. You can follow Nikole Hannah Jones. You don't have to follow Nicole Hannah Jones. You can follow Ashley Woodard Henderson. You don't have to follow Ashley Woodard Henderson. You can follow Maurice Mitchell, the head of the working families party. You don't have to follow Maurice Mitchell. There are too many open doors for people to be confused as to what time choir rehearsal is. It's time to join the mass choir. I don't care if you can't carry a tune. It's time to lift your voice. And it should be very clear to you what time rehearsal is.
- [27:11]
Doordash Advertiser
Parenting already asks everything of you, and then somehow life decides to test your limits even more. I've had those days where it all piles up at once. The kids need you, work won't slow down. Something unexpected pops up and suddenly you're just in survival mode, trying to hold it all together. That's honestly why I use doordash. When life happens, doordash is there. I love how simple doordash has made it to cover meals sometimes. Because here and there, taking one task off the list is everything. So you can focus on what matters most instead of sprinting to the next thing. Oh, and when someone in the family gets sick, don't even get me started. I'm getting chicken noodle delivered straight to my front door immediately. And maybe some birria tacos too. Can't hurt. Real life needs real relief. And doordash is there for whatever you need whenever you need it.
- [28:13]
Alma/NetSuite/Indeed Advertiser
This show is brought to you by Alma. When I first tried to find a therapist, it felt like a scavenger hunt with no map, pages of names, long wait, lists, voicemails that never got returned. I remember thinking, if this is what it takes just to talk to someone, no wonder people give up. So when I found Alma, it felt like someone finally turned the lights on. Alma A L M A is this beautifully simple way to find licensed in network therapists without all the runaround. You can browse without even making an account and you can filter for what actually matters, the therapist's approach, background, specialty, lived, experience, whatever helps you feel understood. Nearly everyone who finds a therapist through Alma, 97% say they felt genuinely seen and heard. Better with people, better with Alma. Visit hello Alma.com we can to schedule a free consultation today. That's hello a l m a.com w e c A N.
- [29:20]
Glennon Doyle
Foreign.
- [29:26]
Brittany Packnett Cunningham
We look at Minnesota, we are so amazed at what they're able to do. And I think, we think that if ICE invaded any of our communities, that might just spontaneously happen, that we might have. And I'm thankful. I'm thankful. I think it was like, it was a beautiful thing for the world to see this in Minnesota, to see the rising up, to see what is possible, to expand our imaginations of what could be. And yet they're very differently situated than a lot of communities may be if that happens. So I mean, I'm just thinking about the history of Minnesota in terms of the kind of intersectional groups and the different working groups that have been literally hundreds of years in the making in that area with their history of, you know, the, the strikes that led to where, you know, 67 people died in their general strikes that led to the new era progressive improvements that we have. The way that the aim started, you know, that the indigenous groups started in Minnesota, they've always had a very, very big overlap between workers rights and immigrants rights. They had so many Italians and Slavics that helped that they all came together in those movements and it's been existing for forever. So can you talk a little bit about how all of those groups work together? Because you can't just have a pro democracy group that comes up and leads if you don't have another ecosystem of all of these groups that are working together. So it's really important to have a very healthy crop of all of these groups that are there to all work together. Can you just speak to that?
- [31:20]
Yeah. I mean, so much of what really builds organizing infrastructure is not the sexy stuff. Right. Is not what is happening when national news cameras come to town. It is when your neighborhood is coming together to talk about your tax base because you want to be able to pay for some improvements. Are you trying to figure out how to pay for a new park and a new playground and more trash pickup? Organizing Infrastructure is built when people in their houses of faith are choosing to pick their heads up out of whatever book is their guide and look out on the world and act the things out that are in the book for the sake of the world. Those are the spaces in which real infrastructure is built. So that when the crisis comes, the labor crisis, the climate crisis, the racial crisis, the policing crisis, the military crisis, the authoritarian crisis, when those things come, you all have infrastructure, you have trust, you have processes, you have clarity on skill sets, and people go and play their position. And that is especially important when more is being asked of people than ever before. Which is why I wanted to really be clear with people that in our modern lifetime, this is worse than what we have seen in America. Not what we've seen across the world, but what we've seen in America. That infrastructure helps give people the literal space and container for courage to grow when it's necessary. And I think it's easy to look at a place like Minnesota and say, well, it took them decades and years to build that. We don't have any time. And that would be unwise because a, everybody gonna have to get prepared. That was my St. Louis coming out. Everybody is going to have to get prepared. Ferguson was a test. Baltimore was a test. Cleveland was a test. Louisiana was a test. New York was a test. Minneapolis was a test in 2020. Kentucky was a test in 2020. This is a test in 2026. They're trying to see just how much they can get away with, right? Who exactly can they murder? Who exactly can they disappear? Who exactly can they intimidate? Which elected officials can they put the screws to? Right? And exactly how they can do all of those things. How should the Attorney General word the ransom letter that is masquerading as official communication? Because telling me if you give me your SNAP rolls and your voter rolls and you comply with ice, I maybe might one day think about getting ICE out of your town as extortion. That's a test.
- [34:01]
In case people missed that PM Bondi did send a letter to Governor Walls saying we can basically negotiate a surrender in which you stand down, right? And you give us all of your data about all of your people, including all of your voter rolls, which, by the way, it's reported. I don't know, Brittany, if you've seen a confirmation of this, that Texas has already handed over all of their voter rolls, that who knows how many people how many friendly states have already given the government the voter rolls of all of their people so that they can not, if they will interfere and. And block and take over the election, but how they will, because I can't believe that anyone saying, will they mess with the midterms. What are you literally talking about this man?
- [34:54]
I mean, as long as we have them, he did it the last time.
- [34:57]
Why the hell wouldn't he do it this time when he has that much more to lose and that many more felonies to attend to?
- [35:02]
That's right.
- [35:03]
That letter did come to the governor.
- [35:06]
So all of that is happening now, and this testing ground is going to be assigned to them of what they can get away with, how much they can get away with it, and where they can get away with it, and against whom. Which is why it's important for us to be on it now, both in supporting Minnesota as they push back and in preparing ourselves for not if, but when it comes to our backyards. So you're thinking it took Minnesota decades to build what they've built. The good news is that I guarantee you, if you start asking around, if you start doing some research, if you start doing some reading, there are organizations just like that in your own backyard. Maybe they don't have the funding, maybe they don't have the volunteers. Maybe they don't have the support. Well, that's where you come in, right? Maybe they're not connected to the other organization that they need to be connected to. Maybe that coalition table has not been built. If that's the gap that you're seeing, you're seeing it because you were meant to fill it. That's where you come in, right? If you know that you live across the street or next door or down the block from people that ICE would target, that's where you come in. Do I have your phone number? Are we on the email chain? A text chain, a signal chain? Do we have a plan for if you can't come outside? Who's going to cover your rent? Who's going to make sure your bills are paid? Who's going to drop off groceries to you? Who's going to walk your children to school? That's not us asking you as an individual person to create an entire ecosystem of change. That is me asking you to go knock on your neighbor's door. We are capable of doing that when there's a hurricane, when there's a tornado, when there's a snowstorm. My neighbor from across the street just called us, right? And when my husband went outside to shovel the snow. He went and shoveled the snow in front of their houses, too. He already had the shovel in his hand. What's the problem? If you're already at Trader Joe's, go ahead and pick up some extra groceries. We did that when SNAP benefits were threatened. Right? We know how to do that in times of crisis. And then we throw up our hands when the crisis is political and say, I have no idea what to do. Yes, you do. We know what to do. And guess what? All of those other crises were political, too. The climate crises are political. We have the state stuff that we need to survive this moment. We have the stuff that we need in ourselves and in one another if we are willing to do the very simple tasks of connecting those dots with each other. And that is really clear and decisive action that nobody has to wait to take.
- [37:46]
Glennon Doyle
I think that the ethos of whiteness being individual and disembodied and out of community, means that a lot of people listening, they're not going to tell you what to do right now. Like, there are leaders and there are artists, and we are listening to them and we are taking in there. But we have to go to the park. Yesterday we did all of our calls and all of our Instagram activism, right? That was not the important part of the day. The important part of the day was meeting with the group that we meet with in a park for three hours while kids played around us, while people came and reminded us, this is how we're going to look out for our neighbors. This is how it was. A group of people who get together. There's not going to be like a who down in Whoville moment where there's a huge megaphone and everyone says all the who's come out. It's more of a like a spider web underneath of all of these who now trust each other. And if you. If you feel like you're getting all of your to do next from Instagram, that is not how this is happening. Like, this is meeting in person. You're not constantly politically confused about what the hot take is because you're listening to your community leaders and how they're thinking and talking all the time. You are not stunned all the time. And this isn't something that happens once in a while and bubbles up. It's. It's a constant relationship when you are in body, in person, with people in your community. There are the artists and there are the speakers, and then there are community leaders in every single neighborhood. But you have to find it. Listen, I know white Women, you gotta look like you'd look to find the new pillow on the couch that you. You gotta. We know how to find shit when we really want something, right? And sometimes you just show up for the first thing. If you go. A lot of these people I just found by going to little protests and you are standing next to someone and they're like, here's a thing to put your name on. Have you been? And then you get on these text sheets and then it just happens, it's like, woo, woo, body of Christ, shit. Okay? It just starts happening if you step in the current.
- [39:55]
Brittany Packnett Cunningham
You're absolutely right. I don't know. Notes 10 out of 10. And I think that distilling it for people, that clearly is so necessary. You know, we talked about this the last time I was on my D wall about the individualism that is, I won't even just say pervasive, right? That is like, that is a feature of whiteness. I ain't talking big W, I always have to do this for people. I'm talking big W, whiteness, Not individual white people or even white supremacy. I'm talking about the thing that was constructed to be whiteness as a sociopolitical and economic class of people. If you read the condemnation of blackness by Khalil Muhammad, he talks about how each European immigrant group took a generation or two to be pulled into the umbrella that is whiteness, right? So when you first came here, you were Polish, you were not white, you were Polish. And the good white folk in the community, the wealthy white people, the well heeled white people, the educated white people, they weren't messing with you, right? They had all types of names for you. But a generation or two later, the Polish people were white because joining up together and increasing those numbers created political power and protection which then protected their economies and their families. And that's why anti miscegenation laws come up. Because I don't want you to mess up the whiteness by having a brown baby that's gonna destroy our political protection. So it happened for the polls and it happened for the Germans and it happened for the Italians. And it had like. This keeps happening, right? So when I talk about whiteness, I'm talking about big W, whiteness, the umbrella that is a political, social and economic protected class. That whiteness has a culture that dominates everything. And I know you all have heard, you all are taking this class already. We've had this conversation many times that white dominant culture is connected with patriarchal dominant culture, heteronormative dominant culture, cisgender dominant culture. Judeo Christian dominant culture. I would say specifically Christian nationalist dominant culture. Right. Ableist dominant culture. All of those things operate. And it's like a smog that we all breathe in. We're all breathing in that smog. And that smog is telling us how to be, what to think, how to feel, what to wear, what's cool, what's not cool, what's trendy, what's not trendy. It's culture, which means it's in and on everything. One of the most pervasive elements of that culture is individualism. It is whiteness selling all of us. The idea that I'm gonna go get mine and you go get yours and whatever will be will be, and that if you don't get yours, like I got mine, it's because you weren't fast enough, you weren't pretty enough, you weren't smart enough, you weren't wealthy enough, you weren't educated enough, you weren't cool enough, you weren't dope enough, you weren't skinny enough to make it happen. Instead of saying, well, what are the systems that made it so that this entire group of people who have an immutable characteristic in common can't get the thing I got. Why is it that none of the black people can live in this neighborhood? Why is it that none of the women can come to this school? I don't, actually. Let me stop being so obsessed with this individualism piece that I think about collectivism and community. But collectivism and community, those are traditions of cultures and peoples that whiteness seeks to oppress. So collectivism and community is not welcome in white dominant culture. It's a threat. Right? Because if we start working together, then we're gonna realize actually we got a whole lot in common because none of these billionaires care about any of us. But you're so busy hating me because I don't look like you that you don't realize our war is against the same person. Right? So that whiteness has been destructive to all of us, including white people, because it's got y' all convinced you don't need anybody else. It's got y' all uneducated in the ways of building something collective. It means that y', all, you. You all's muscles have atrophied if they were ever developed in the first place about how to link arm in arm with somebody and move together. We expect white women to vote in a particular way and then forget that they weren't taught sisterhood the same way we were. Which we Talked about last time. So suddenly I'm like, well, you betrayed me. Well, they were never. You were never on my team in the first place because you don't know how to be on a team. Nobody ever taught you that. Nobody ever socialized you to that. I'm not blaming you for it. I'm saying that's your conditioning. You have to be a traitor to that conditioning. Renee Goode was murdered because she was a traitor to that conditioning. Alex Preddy was murdered very literally. When you watch the video, as a white man, he put himself in the way of a woman who had been shoved by ice. So he was, in that moment, being a traitor to patriarchy, to heteronormativity, to toxic masculinity, to whiteness, to individualism, by saying, you are me, and I am you, and if they hit you, they hit me, so I got to get in the way. I know that asking you to be a traitor to the thing that raised you is hard. I know that expecting you to be traitorous to the thing that has made you feel warm and fuzzy inside for your entire life feels like an impossibility. And yet you are going to keep dying from the same cancer of systemic oppression that I am if you don't. You might not die as fast as me. You may not die as. As. As painfully as me, but it's coming for you, too. And Minneapolis has shown a lot of people that it's coming for white people, too. And in the end, we should be building a world where it does not take people being disappeared and abducted and kidnapped and murdered on camera for us to get that and for us to stop choosing individualism when the only way we're going to get free is together. A lot of white people don't realize that they're not free, which is why.
- [46:17]
Why the surprise and then the surprise at the surprise, like, that's. What's. That is something that is happening right now.
- [46:24]
Yes. Yes. A lot of people thought that was cool. A lot of people. If I'm standing next to you at the protest, they coming for me. They are coming for me. You usually know they might come for you, too. That's a hard thing to swallow. I'm gonna need people to go ahead and, like, not spend too much time. So much time being surprised that they don't get to work. Yeah.
- [46:40]
Yeah, exactly. I mean, it's kind of a liberatory thing when you're like, okay, the veil is opening, and you can actually see it. There's so much work that has gone in generations and generations. You know, when we started, when white people started aligning with black people in the, you know, this is like in pre Civil War times when they were like, wait, what the hell's going on here? And that is when whiteness started being doled out. That is when the privileges started being doled out to be like, oh wait, wait, we don't want you to acknowledge that. So let's give you a differentiator, let's.
- [47:16]
Give you a reward, a cookie for staying over here with us. Yes, right.
- [47:19]
So there's a been so much tremendous work over and over to make that happen that it's kind of this moment where you can see, you can see it for what it is. And a lot of people are seeing that and it's confusing and it's shocking and that is insulting to a lot of people who have been saying it over and over. And yet here we are. And so where do we go from here? And I think that kind of joining in community, joining together with people is the answer. And I just love the fact that it literally doesn't matter where or with whom or what group. It doesn't matter if you're going to support your local one little store protest because you don't like what they're doing, or if it's with your church or if it's. It literally doesn't matter. Because that group quilt of groups is what makes the whole. If you're a business owner who knows.
- [48:25]
Alma/NetSuite/Indeed Advertiser
Nothing about AI and feels really out of the loop, you're not alone in today's data driven world. You really need to understand your customers. And NetSuite can deliver those insights with zero fuss. No more waiting. With NetSuite you can integrate AI into your operations. Today, NetSuite is the number one AI Cloud ERP trusted by over 43,000 businesses. It brings your financials, inventory, commerce, HR and CRM into one single source of truth. And now with NetSuite AI connector, you can use the AI of your choice and connect it to your actual business data so you can finally ask every question you've ever had. Who are key customers? What's our cash on hand? What's trending in our inventory?
- [49:06]
Glennon Doyle
And.
- [49:07]
Alma/NetSuite/Indeed Advertiser
And you can automate all those manual processes no one wants to do right now. Get our free business guide demystifying AI at netsuite.com hardthings the guide is free to you at netsuite.com hardThings netsuite.com hardthings.
- [49:26]
Doordash Advertiser
Hiring isn't just about finding someone willing to take the job. It's about finding the right person with the right experience who can actually move your business forward. And that's why when it comes to hiring, I'd trust Indeed Sponsored Jobs. With Sponsored Jobs, your post gets boosted to reach quality candidates who actually meet your criteria. Skills, experience, location, all of it. So if you're hiring, stop spending time searching and start spending more time actually interviewing candidates who check all your boxes. Less stress, less time, and more results with Indeed Sponsored Jobs. And listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsored job credit to help get your job the premium status it deserves@ Indeed.com podcast just go to Indeed.com podcast right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com/podcast terms and conditions apply. Hiring do it the Right Way with Indeed. Disclaimer this is a paid endorsement.
- [50:40]
Glennon Doyle
I want to say to anyone who's thinking about doing this, just I'll give you a little bit of my experience. I think that we're used to showing up places and people just tell us things to do. That is not my experience here. Okay? It's less of a list of things to do and more of a place and people to be with. And then it's like slow and then suddenly you become part of it and then the directions get clearer and clearer, but you have to go and just be.
- [51:10]
Brittany Packnett Cunningham
But it's worth it, though.
- [51:12]
Glennon Doyle
It's all that's worth it. It's the only thing that feels. It's the only thing. It's the only place in the world where I feel alive.
- [51:18]
Doordash Advertiser
To me, that's where I feel like I power up when I go into these communities and be with people, when we go to protests. And I'm feeling less alone because my algorithm is freaking me out and I'm, I'm. I want to pull my hair out and when I go and I see other people also feeling the same way, that actually empowers like it, it literally like I can feel my energy get stronger.
- [51:47]
Brittany Packnett Cunningham
I think all the time of Heather McGee's book the Sum of Us, which everybody should read. And she talks about what she's dubbed drained pool politics. And it's for me one of the most clear examples of why we all have to be in this together. She talks about the social investments that the American government was making mid 20th century in neighborhoods, right? We're talking about recreational centers, school improvements, library system improvements. And one of the major things were these big, bright, gleaming Olympic sized pools and that these free community pools were opening in regular neighborhoods all around the country. And we're not talking about, like, a little dinky pool, right? We're talking about, like, the pool. You remember the movie the Sandlot?
- [52:42]
Glennon Doyle
Yeah.
- [52:43]
Brittany Packnett Cunningham
And everybody goes. My brother and I watch that movie every single Christmas Eve. The pool, right where Wendy Peppercorn is the lifeguard. Like, the pool. Everybody is there. Now, the Sandlot is, you know, a children's movie. It's a Disney movie. So the one black kid on the team is at the pool with them. In most communities, the black kid is not in the pool. Right. The black kid is on the other side of the gate watching everybody else swim in the nice pool. And they gotta go swim in the dirty pool. If their community has a pool at all. Because it probably doesn't. Part of the reason why a number of black people for generations did not know how to swim, because the places where everybody else learned to swim, we were not allowed. So these big, bright, gleaming pools, the pool is built in your community. And that's where you spend your days every single summer. That's where you build your friendships. That's where you learn how to swim. That's where you learn how to lead. Those are some of your greatest memories. And then one day your mom tells you, you're not going to the pool this summer. Well, why not? The pool is shut down. Oh, is it shut down for temporary maintenance? No, no, the pool is shut down permanently. But why is the pool shut down? Because we don't want black people swimming in. So you would rather drain the entire community's pool, shut down everybody's favorite spot on a hot summer day that you got to use for free, then have black people swim next to you? Well, now everybody hot. Now everybody's bored. Now nobody has any place to go. This is what I mean when I say white people thought they were free. But the scourge of systemic oppression harms you too, even though it benefits you. But the benefit is temporary because that house of cards will come crumbling down on you, too. Especially when you have to look at your kid and say, you can't swim in the pool because the whole thing is closed. That drain pool politics is how we are. Where we are is why we are where we are now. Deciding that we're going to build a pool, keep it free, that everybody can come and swim in it. Right? And if you need a free bus route or. Or a free swimming lesson in order to avail yourself of it, that will do that too. That's the kind of world building I'm interested in. And we practice that world building now by how we fight together, by how we build together, by how we push back together, by how we make sure that the people with the most privilege are at the front of the line. Not to tell other people what to do, but to protect the most vulnerable. That's what being with each other helps us do. If we were together at the pool, maybe we wouldn't be here right now if we knew how to be together. And that's not no kumbaya. Let's all hold our hands and sing together. That is me and all of us understanding that there are real life consequences for structural choices. And the consequence for us is that we don't know how to fight to win because we've been divided from each other and we've accepted that division.
- [55:47]
Glennon Doyle
That's blowing my mind because that's what when I say in these spaces, it's kind of just like you're being together. It's the time and the being together that then makes it a no brainer for the people of privilege to go up front. That makes it a no brainer to show up for each other because you've been at the pool together. And so you become family and you become, it becomes second nature to protect each other instead of it being foreign and scary to protect each other because you don't know each other in the first place.
- [56:20]
Brittany Packnett Cunningham
And of course that's why, I mean the, the people who are trying to enforce these structures of course know that is true. And so of course that is the, the same way in the US south, the same way in apartheid South Africa. That's why the same separateness was absolutely everything. That is why you have to convince your church, your community, your whatever that you can't be next to that person. It's not because they didn't want you next to that person. It's because they know what happens when you get next to that person is that you both get yourself free. Like, and they can't have that. They need it to be separate because they need to keep an underclass and an overclass in order to maintain the systems that they need to be maintained for the benefit of a handful of people. It is in us. And also what is in us is the thing that makes it inevitable that if we actually do connect, we will do what needs to be done.
- [57:23]
Glennon Doyle
So, Brittany, when you're, I mean, I, I know what your days look like, actually. I watch. But when you're laying in bed at night, not sleeping. You're dreaming.
- [57:35]
Brittany Packnett Cunningham
Yeah.
- [57:35]
Glennon Doyle
Not sleeping.
- [57:36]
Brittany Packnett Cunningham
Some of that is like, some of that is because of Life. Some of that is perimenopause, but keep going.
- [57:41]
Glennon Doyle
Oh, listen, that's a whole nother. I just, I just saw this thing that said that like the HRT is backed up. And I thought if I were the government, if I were this fucking government, that's the first thing I would fix.
- [57:52]
Brittany Packnett Cunningham
You do not want a bunch of hostile, angry women coming at you.
- [57:55]
Glennon Doyle
We are also don't have our estrogen. I mean, good luck anyway. Good fucking luck. Brittany. When you're laying in bed at night, what are you dreaming happens next? I mean, we were talking about, okay, the huge national general strike. And my sister's like, that's why we have to be organized constantly. You can't just have a general strike without the infrastructures that will protect the businesses that will go down first and.
- [58:22]
Brittany Packnett Cunningham
The people and their lost wages and all that. Yes, all the things.
- [58:25]
Glennon Doyle
So, like, what are you dreaming next happens.
- [58:31]
Brittany Packnett Cunningham
I do dream when I get to sleep. But let me, let me tell you what I'm praying for. I used to be a teacher, which y' all know. And so I'm a backwards planner. I always think of the end first and then I think about how we plot a path to the ultimate goal. And I'm really glad for that part of my professional background because it matches very much my spiritual and ancestral background around understanding the importance of radical imagination. I understand that my existence is because enslaved Africans in this country envisioned a freedom that did not exist for them. That is very literally the only reason why I'm here. Because they envisioned that, they imagined it, they prayed for it and then they worked for it. And they plotted a path backwards from that goal to where they were and they rebelled and they protected and they kept safe. And they passed the word and they passed the story and they passed the song and they passed the faith. That is why I am here. I am here because two of my ancestors, James and Ebenezer, fought in the Civil War in the US Colored Troops to free themselves. And then when both of them died before seeing emancipation, one of them who was captured and re enslaved, one of them who was killed on the field of battle. When both of them died, it was their pension from the US Colored Troops that went back to the Dixon family on my mother's side that helped three generations that my four time great grandmother Joanna managed to keep together through enslavement and into emancipation. That pension is what funded them. So I am very clear on the power of seeing what is not as though it is. And then matching my works with my faith and so everything I get up and do every day, everything I get up and pray about, when I ask God to tell me and show me what to do that day, who to talk to, what to pray about, what to not do, what to not say, when I have that conversation, I'm always trying to make sure that it is in service of the thing I can most radically dream. And that is us building a world that protects and respects and is so grateful to be enriched by the genius and the joy of my children. I'm raising two black boys until and unless they tell me otherwise. And I look at them every day. I mean, we're snowed in right now, right? I got an 11 month old and a fresh 4 year old Jesus. And it's chaotic around here, but they look at the snow and they're just like enamored. They're like, this is the most amazing. You mean it comes from the sky and then it coats the ground? Then I get to go make a snow angel. I get to put. What is this soft stuff? I don't. What? This is incredible. That wonder, that innocence, that joy is so pure. And I want a world that sees that and knows it's made richer by that. Not a world that wants to crush it. Not a world that sees its task as extracting from that, but a world that sees its task as enriching. That when my child, my 4 year old makes up a song about snow, I want to build a world that sees that as like literary genius, right? And musical beauty. It sounds so far fetched, it sounds so ridiculous, it sounds so loosey goosey woo woo, whatever. But if I'm not daring enough to build that world, then I will not act in ways that rise to that expectation. I will act in ways that rise to a middling expectation. If I dream a world that just doesn't pull my sons over when they turn 16, if I dream a world that doesn't just make my sons afraid to read in front of the class. If I build a world that just says, hey, I don't want them to end up in the same place that Philando Castile did, so make sure your tail lights are always fixed. If that's all I dream of, then that's all I'll ever act towards. And I want more for them. My ancestors wanted more for me because they were daring enough to dream that I'd be free. And then they worked toward it. They didn't say they want me to be on a plantation with a nicer massa. They didn't say they wanted Me to, you know, maybe be able to marry somebody of my choice. They said they wanted me to be free. I have to be that daring all the time, every day. I have to be deliberate about it. I have to be strategic about it. I have to be thoughtful about it. I have to be consistent about it. Because that's what my children deserve. That's what my dreams deserve. That's what the abundance that my ancestors inherited for me means. That's what the freedom they earn me means. And so that's what I dream about, that's what I pray about. And people can tell me it's far fetched and impossible, and I will tell them it always seems impossible until it's done. Because that's what Nelson Mandela said. And look what happened in South Africa.
- [64:01]
Glennon Doyle
Oh, Brittney.
- [64:03]
Brittany Packnett Cunningham
Oh, Glamon. I want to just say this. You all have been. How am I trying to say this? I've known you all for a little while and I've seen the evolution. I've also seen a lot of the things you do in the very quiet moments. And I really appreciate the consistency of community that you all have been building. Because we all know a whole lot of people said they got woke six, seven, eight, nine, 10 years ago and then they went right back to sleep happily. And the shock that some people are feeling now is not because they never woke up, but because they didn't dare to stay up, they didn't dare to stay woke. And I know we've all got work to do on ourselves and with each other, but I am glad that we can do hard things. There's always a place where y' all are willing to have this conversation. And not for nothing, I can do hard things is one of my favorite things for that our, that our four year old says to himself when he's struggling with something. So he's gonna be very excited to read the name of the podcast and know that's what I was up here spending my time doing.
- [65:11]
Glennon Doyle
Well, that makes me very happy. Thank you. Brittany, we know in our bones that you are one of the most crucial organizers and voices in this nation. And we do not take for granted this. I mean, I'm just watching you and the energy that you have just given us, the wisdom you have just given us, the gift you have just given us. I do not take it lightly. I know what it means and I'm so grateful for you always.
- [65:41]
Brittany Packnett Cunningham
I mean, I come as one. I stand as 10,000, and I'm grateful for the 10,000 who are out in the streets making it happen every day. So thank you.
- [65:51]
Glennon Doyle
Thank you, Brittany. All right, y', all, we'll see you next time. We Can Do Hard Things is an independent production podcast brought to you by Treat Media. Treat Media Media makes art for humans who want to stay human. And you can follow us. We can do hard things on Instagram, and we can do hard things show on TikTok.