Speaking Out of Place

In February, a New York assemblyman little known outside New York City was polling at 1% in his bid for mayor of NYC.  This Tuesday, he became mayor-elect, after running a remarkable and inspiring campaign that drew 100,000 volunteers to knock on two million doors. Largely centering on making NYC affordable for everyone, Zohran Mamdani toppled a political dynasty by weaving together a broad constituency with his charisma, intelligence, compassion and energy. We talk to Liza Featherstone and Doug Henwood, who have covered Mamdani from the start. They talk about what went into the campaign, what he needs to do once in office to start to make good on his promises, and the national significance of his victory. Liza Featherstone is the author of Divining Desire: Focus Groups and the Culture of Consultation, published by O/R Books in 2018, as well as Selling Women Short: the Landmark Battle for Workers’ Rights at Walmart (Basic Books, 2004).  She co-authored Students Against Sweatshops (Verso, 2002) and is editor of False Choices: the Faux Feminism of Hillary Rodham Clinton (Verso, 2016). She's currently editing a collection of Alexandra Kollontai 's work for O/R Books and International Publishers and writing the introduction to that volume.Featherstone's work has been published in Lux, TV Guide, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Ms., the American Prospect, Columbia Journalism Review, Glamour, Teen Vogue, Dissent, the Guardian, In These Times, and many other publications. Liza teachers at NYU 's Literary Reportage Program as well as at Columbia University School for International and Public Affairs. She is proud to be an active member of the New York City Democratic Socialists of America and of UAW local 7902.Doug Henwood is a Brooklyn-based journalist and broadcaster specializing in economics and politics. He edited Left Business Observer, a newsletter, from 1986–2013, and has been host of Behind the News, a weekly radio show/podcast that originates on KPFA, Berkeley, since 1995. He is the author of Wall Street: How It Works and for Whom (Verso, 1997), After the New Economy (New Press, 2004), and My Turn: Hillary Clinton Targets the Presidency (OR Books, 2016). He’s written for numerous periodicals including Harper’s, The New Republic, The Nation, The Baffler, and Jacobin. He’s been working on a book about the rot of the US ruling class for way too long and needs to acquire the self-discipline to finish it. 

Today I have the pleasure of talking with Dean Spade about his new book, Love in a Fucked-up World: how to build relationships, hook up, and raise hell together. This book builds on all of Dean’s previous books, and shares their commitment to finding ways to build better movements for better worlds. Like all of his work, Love in a Fucked Up World homes in on the obstacles we face not only from repressive states and destructive ideologies, but also from our own very human weaknesses and blindspots.  This new book focuses on what Spade calls the “romance myth,” which shares so many features with, among other things, capitalism—ideas like a property, scarcity, ownership, status, power.  While showing how when romance is brought into activist spaces it can cause great harm, Dean Spade also shows that, if converted into a form which includes patience, kindness, and generosity, romance can complement and strengthen our activism at a time when it is needed the most.Dean Spade has been working in movements for queer and trans liberation, anti-militarism, and police and prison abolition for the past 25 years. He’s the author of Normal Life: Administrative Violence, Critical Trans Politics, and the Limits of Law, and Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity During This Crisis (and the Next) the director of the documentary “Pinkwashing Exposed: Seattle Fights Back!.” His new book is Love in a Fucked Up World: How to Build Relationships, Hook Up and Raise Hell Together, and he is the host of a new podcast with the same name.

In 2017, activist-scholar Robyn Maynard published her groundbreaking study, Policing Black Lives: State Violence in Canada from Slavery to the Present.  Today, I have the privilege of talking with her about the second edition of this study, which has just been published by Duke University Press. Robyn tells us what has happened since 2017 that compelled her to revise the book and add important new materials to address the challenges of the present. At the core of this new edition is a powerful argument against reform and for abolition—Maynard details the numerous failures of police reform, and explains why precious time, resources, and lives have been spent trying to bring about authentic change via reform.  Her vision for abolition is bold, and expansive, reaching beyond Canada to examine both transnational apparatuses of surveillance, policing, and punishment, and vital global forms of resistance and solidarity.Robyn Maynard is an author and an assistant professor at the University of Toronto. Her writing on borders, policing, abolition and Black feminism is taught widely in universities across Canada, the United States and Europe. The first edition of Policing Black Lives: State violence in Canada from Slavery to the Present, published in 2017, is a national bestseller, designated as one of the “best 100 books of 2017” by the Hill Times, listed in The Walrus‘s “best books of 2018,” shortlisted for an Atlantic Book Award, the Concordia University First Book Prize and the Mavis Gallant Prize for Non-fiction, and the winner of the 2017 Errol Sharpe Book Prize. In 2018 the book was published in French, titled NoirEs sous surveillance. Esclavage, répression et violence d’État au Canada, and won the 2019 Prix de libraires. Her second book, Rehearsals for Living, co-authored with Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, is a Toronto Star, Globe and Mail, and CBC national bestseller and was shortlisted for a Governor General’s Award for literary non-fiction, a Toronto Heritage Award, and designated one of CBC’s “best Canadian non-fiction books of 2022” and the “best 100 books of 2022” by the Hill Times. Other awards include “2018 Author of the Year” from Montreal’s Black History Month and the Writers’ Trust Dayne Ogilvie Prize for LGBTQI* Emerging Writers. Her public scholarship is available at www.robynmaynard.com

Today I talk with Professor Nisrin Elamin about the situation in Sudan, where we find both a war between rival factions and these same factions continuing counter-revolutionary campaign against pro-democracy forces. We discuss how regional actors such as the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia have contributed to the repression of democracy, and not only the ineffectiveness of NGOs and the United Nations in quelling the violence, but their roles in exacerbating it.  In the midst of forced famine and war, we find the remarkable and heroic efforts of mutual aid groups and resistance organizations in civil society that have made life possible. Elamin explains how this ethos of obligation reaches far back in Sudanese history and culture. We end by talking about the Sudanese Solidarity Collective, a group that Nisrin helped found, which provides a vital conduit of aid to Sudan from its diasporic communities and others.For resources on Sudan, please see our blog for this episode.Nisrin Elamin is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology and African Studies at the University of Toronto. She is currently writing a book tentatively titled: Stratified Enclosures: Land, Capital and Empire-making in Central Sudan which focuses on Saudi and Emirati investments in land and community resistance to land dispossession in the agricultural Gezira region. In addition to scholarly articles, Nisrin has published and co-written several op-eds for Al Jazeera, The Washington Post, Okay Africa, Hammer and Hope and The Egypt Independent. Before pursuing her Ph.D., Nisrin spent over a decade working as an educator, organizer and researcher in the US and Tanzania. She is also a co-founding member of the Sudan Solidarity Collective which formed in the aftermath of the current war to support local emergency response rooms (ERRs) and other mutual aid networks and unions leading relief efforts in the face of a largely absent international aid community and civilian state.

How have young people in rural areas of the Democratic Republic of Congo invented new forms of radicalism in response to the impact of new flows of foreign investment and the inability of normal national and international politics to serve their needs and interests? Zachariah Mampilly explains how rural and urban spaces have seen a complex transit of peoples and funds that complicate politics, and emergent forms of radical activism have taken root and spread in many African countries. These forms display important re-imaginings of power sharing and revolutionary praxis.Zachariah Mampilly is the Marxe Endowed Chair of International Affairs at the Marxe School of Public and International Affairs, CUNY and a member of the doctoral faculty in the Department of Political Science at the Graduate Center, CUNY. He is the Co-Founder of the Program on African Social Research. Previously, he was Professor of Political Science and Director of the Africana Studies Program at Vassar College. In 2012/2013, he was a Visiting Professor at the University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. He is the author of Rebel Rulers: Insurgent Governance and Civilian Life during War  (Cornell U. Press 2011) and with Adam Branch, Africa Uprising: Popular Protest and Political Change (African Arguments, Zed Press 2015).  He is the co-editor of Rebel Governance in Civil Wars  (Cambridge U. Press 2015) with Ana Arjona and Nelson Kasfir; and Peacemaking: From Practice to Theory (Praeger 2011) with Andrea Bartoli and Susan Allen Nan. His writing has also appeared in Foreign Affairs, Jacobin, The Hindu, Africa's a Country, N+1, Dissent, Al Jazeera, Noema, The Washington Post and elsewhere. 

Today I have the pleasure of talking with Supriya Khandelwal and Koa Tran, two members of the South Bay Youth Changemakers, and one of its co-directors, Amulya Mandava. This Asian American organization, located at the heart of Silicon Valley, seeks to both challenge and expand the label, Asian American. The SBYC directs its energy into projects that go far beyond the stereotypes of wealth, acquisition, and status associated with its location, and focuses on empowerment and social justice.  Crucially, the organization recognizes the multi-ethnic, multi-racial, and multi-class components of its community. We hear about the kinds of events and activities that characterize this important and vital organization.Koa is a former youth member and summer fellow of South Bay Youth Changemakers. They are currently an undergraduate student in their senior year at UCSD. A special interest of theirs is disability justice and intersectional health. Supriya is a former youth member of South Bay Youth Changemakers. She is a freshman in college majoring in Psychology. They’re a fan of internet art culture, and are interested in fair accommodations at school and work, and in labor justice—she believes people shouldn’t have to work their lives away.Amulya is co-Director of South Bay Youth Changemakers. Her background is in labor organizing with the UAW, and in organizing against gender-based violence in higher ed.

Today I have the honor and the pleasure of speaking with legal scholar Mary Anne Franks, about her book, Fearless Speech: Breaking Free from the First Amendment.  As the title of the book indicates, this is a fearless and iconoclastic critique of the ways that the First Amendment has been interpreted and mobilized in ways that protect and extend racism, misogyny, religious fundamentalism, and corporate self-interest. Among other topics, we talk about Amber Heard case and the limitations of groups like the ACLU and the misleading ways “cancel culture” is portrayed, along with the efforts to stifle speech that documents the promotion of misinformation, and the federal government’s extortion of media conglomerates to censor and remove satirists like Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel.  This promulgation of what Franks calls “reckless speech” does not have to persist. Franks calls on us to foster and practice “fearless speech” and to multiply counter-publics that take inspiration from the historical cases she presents. This is an especially timely and important episode of Speaking Out of Place.Dr. Mary Anne Franks is the Eugene L. and Barbara A. Bernard Professor in Intellectual Property, Technology, and Civil Rights Law at George Washington Law School. An internationally recognized expert on the intersection of civil rights, free speech, and technology, Dr. Franks also serves as the President and Legislative & Tech Policy Director of the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative, the leading U.S.-based nonprofit organization focused on image-based sexual abuse. Her model legislation on the nonconsensual distribution of intimate images (NDII, sometimes referred to as “revenge porn”) has served as the template for multiple state and federal laws, and she regularly advises lawmakers and tech companies on privacy, free expression, and safety issues. She is the author of two books: Fearless Speech (Bold Type Books, 2024) and The Cult of the Constitution (Stanford Press, 2019). She holds a J.D. from Harvard Law School as well as a doctorate and a master’s degree from Oxford University, where she studied as a Rhodes Scholar. She is an Affiliate Fellow of the Yale Law School Information Society Project and is admitted to practice in the U.S. Supreme Court and the District of Columbia.

Today I am delighted to speak with primatologist Christine Webb about her new book, The Arrogant Ape: The Myth of Human Exceptionalism and Why it Matters.  The title of the book itself is a concise and precise description of its two constituent halves.  First, Webb tells us how science itself, from premodern times onward, has operated with an assumption it keeps reconfirming constantly--that humans are not only exceptional, but also superior to other forms of life.  Webb convincingly debunks this science over and over again.  And most importantly, she explains how this myth has devastating political, cultural, and environmental consequences.  Combining scientific and humanistic studies, we go into some detail about what this arrogance produces, and why we desperately need a much more humble sense of ourselves.Christine Webb is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Environmental Studies at New York University, where she is part of the Animal Studies program. Her research is driven by growing awareness that the ecological crisis demands a profound shift in how we understand other animals and our place among them, leading to two intersecting lines of inquiry. First, her work seeks to elucidate the complex dynamics of animal social life, and to apply this knowledge to foundational questions in animal ethics and conservation. Second, she is interested in how prevailing societal norms, values, and institutions shape contemporary scientific knowledge of other animals and the environment, with a critical emphasis on human exceptionalism. Her debut book, The Arrogant Ape: The Myth of Human Exceptionalism and Why it Matters, was recently published with Avery (Penguin Random House) and is being translated into 17 languages. 

Today I have the honor of speaking with longtime activist Silky Shah, Executive Director of the Detention Watch Network, about her new, and extremely important book, Unbuild Walls: Why Immigrant Justice Needs Abolition. Shah provides a critical discussion about the intersection between detention, the prison industrial complex, and anti-immigrant racism. She explains how this relationship is hardly new, but stretches back at least to the Reagan presidency and through Clinton, Bush, Obama, and Biden.  Given the durability of this connection, Shah makes an altogether convincing case that reform does not work, and that abolition is called for. Her book and her activism give us inspirating examples of such work in the past and present, and for the future.Silky Shah is the Executive Director of Detention Watch Network, a national coalition building power to abolish immigration detention in the United States. She has worked as an organizer on issues related to immigration detention, the prison industrial complex, and racial and migrant justice for nearly 20 years. 

Today I have the real pleasure of speaking with Maytha Alhassen and Halah Ahmad, two prominent feminist activists, writers, and scholars deeply committed to exploring the connections between the Arabic language, storytelling, and political agency, from the historical past to the present. We talk about the continuity of storytelling forms and techniques that bridge generations and support and convey a durable set of values and beliefs that resist western appropriation and distortion. These phenomena have everything to do with continuing and advancing the struggle for Palestinian rights and the celebration of Palestinian life.Halah Ahmad is a Harvard and Cambridge-trained writer, researcher, and political strategist whose work has appeared in multiple outlets from The Hill to Vox and the New York Times. She writes for Al-Shabaka, The Palestinian Policy Network and provides research and communications services to Palestinian and economic rights organizations across the country. Much of her work focuses on narrative change through storytelling in organizing and media. At a recent Stanford event, Halah discussed the historic forms of Palestinian storytelling, the Hakawati tradition, and the ways it has evolved and continued to be relevant amid the ongoing genocide. As a practitioner in the world of policy and politics, she grapples with the limitations of present avenues for Palestinian storytelling.Maytha Alhassen is a journalist, poet, community organizer, and scholar whose work bridges media, justice advocacy, research, and artistic expression. She’s a Co-Executive Producer on Hulu’s award-winning Ramy, Executive Producer of the award-nominated PBS docu-series American Muslims: A History Revealed, a Pop Culture Collaborative Pluralist Visionaries Fellow, TED Resident, and Harvard Religion and Public Life Art and Pop Culture Fellow (2021–2024), lectures at Stanford University’s Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity, and is currenlty a Research Fellow at the Center for Scholars and Storytellers at UCLA. As a journalist, she has hosted on Al Jazeera English, reported for CNN, Huffington Post, Mic, and The Baffler, and written for Boston Review and LA Review of Books. Her work explores how storytelling shapes cultural and political belonging, with a focus on Muslim representation and equity in popular culture. She co-edited Demanding Dignity: Young Voices from the Front Lines of the Arab Revolutions, authored Haqq and Hollywood: Illuminating 100 Years of Muslim Tropes and Traps and How to Transform Them, and has published widely in academic journals. She earned her Ph.D. in American Studies & Ethnicity from USC, an M.A. in Anthropology from Columbia, and a B.A. in Political Science and Arabic & Islamic Studies from UCLA.