Commonwealth Club of California Podcast

African Americans currently make up 5 percent of San Francisco's population but also comprise nearly 40 percent of its homeless residents. African Americans are also reported to have the city's highest mortality rates and lowest median household incomes, along with a disproportionately high percentage of police use-of-force incidents.To improve these conditions, based on recommendations from a community engagement process led by the San Francisco Human Rights Commission, San Francisco Mayor London Breed and Board of Supervisors President Shamann Walton have proposed a budget that will enact "transformative change" and spur investment in the AfrIcan-American community. The budget will redirect $120 million from law enforcement agencies and into programs that support the city’s Black community. These funds would go toward initiatives expanding mental health and wellness and reducing homelessness in the Black community; supporting education, youth development and economic opportunities; and developing a plan to replace police officers with social workers as the main responders to noncriminal calls involving the homeless and mentally ill.Join an important discussion about the current state and future of San Francisco's African-American community.Held in association with INFORUM.SPEAKERSLondon BreedMayor of San FranciscoShamann WaltonPresident, San Francisco Board of SupervisorsFred BlackwellCEO, The San Francisco Foundation—ModeratorIn response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we are currently hosting all of our live programming via YouTube live stream. This program was recorded via video conference on March 5th, 2021 by the Commonwealth Club of California. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Join us for a virtual discussion with Fatima Shaik about New Orleans' vibrant and singular French-speaking Creole culture.Statistics show that for the first four decades of the 19th century, almost half of the city’s Black people were free. This compares to only 14 percent nationwide prior to 1865. In the face of an oppressive white society, though, members of the Société d'Economie et d'Assistance Mutuelle built a community and held it together throughout the era of slavery, the Civil War, Reconstruction, and Jim Crow terrorism. Shaik reconstructs the Economy Hall culture by following Ludger Boguille, and his family and friends, through landmark events—from the Haitian Revolution to the birth of jazz—that helped shape New Orleans and the United States.Based on a century's worth of handwritten journals, which Shaik's father rescued from a trash hauler's pickup truck, the story that emerges from those journals' pages reveals one of the most important multiethnic, intellectual communities in the U.S. South: educators, world-traveling merchants, soldiers, tradesmen, and poets. Although Louisiana law classified them as men of color, Negroes, or Blacks, the Economie brothers rejected these racial distinctions, and their implied racism and colorism, to fight for suffrage and education rights for all.Shaik, a direct descendant of an Economy Hall member, has constructed a meticulously detailed narrative of New Orleans' unique history.MLF ORGANIZERGeorge HammondNOTESMLF: HumanitiesSPEAKERSFatima ShaikAuthor, Economy Hall: The Hidden History of a Free, Black BrotherhoodIn Conversation with George HammondAuthor, Conversations With SocratesIn response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we are currently hosting all of our live programming via YouTube live stream. This program was recorded via video conference on March 11th, 2021 by the Commonwealth Club of California. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Anti-Asian crimes have spiked since the pandemic started, with more than 3,000 incidents occurring all across the country. What is behind this increase in hate crimes, what is being done about it, and what still needs to be done to stop it?Join us for a discussion with three Asian American leaders about addressing anti-Asian violence in America.Nikki Fortunato Bas is president of the Oakland City Council and represents District 2, one of the most diverse districts in the city. Since taking office in 2019, she led the passage of the strongest COVID-19 eviction moratorium in the state of California and a COVID-19 grocery worker hazard pay $5 wage bonus covering 2,000 workers in Oakland’s largest grocery stores. Russell Jeung is a professor of Asian American Studies at San Francisco State University. In 2020, Dr. Jeung launched Stop AAPI Hate, a project of Chinese for Affirmative Action, the Asian Pacific Policy and Planning Council, and San Francisco State Asian American Studies. It tracks COVID-19 related discrimination in order to develop community resources and policy interventions to fight racism.Michelle Kim is a queer immigrant Korean American woman writer, speaker and entrepreneur challenging the status quo in tech and beyond. She is the CEO of Awaken, a leading provider of interactive equity and inclusion education programs facilitated by majority BIPOC educators, where she has consulted hundreds of organizations and top executives from Fortune 500, tech giants, nonprofits and government agencies to spark change. NOTESThe Commonwealth Club thanks Gilead Sciences, Inc. for its generous support of The Michelle Meow Show. The Michelle Meow Show thanks Kaiser Permanente for its support of independent LGBTQ media producers. SPEAKERSNikki Fortunato BasPresident, Oakland City CouncilRussell JeungProfessor of Asian American Studies, San Francisco State University; Author, Family Sacrifices: The Worldviews and Ethics of Chinese AmericansMichelle KimCEO, Awaken; Author,The Wake Up: Closing the Gap Between Good Intentions and Real Change (Forthcoming)Michelle MeowProducer and Host, "The Michelle Meow Show" on KBCW/KPIX TV and Podcast; Member, Commonwealth Club Board of Governors; Twitter @msmichellemeow—HostIn response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we are currently hosting all of our live programming via YouTube live stream. This program was recorded via video conference on March 11th, 2021 by the Commonwealth Club of California. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Guests:Céline Cousteau, Explorer and FilmmakerDavis Guggenheim, Director, An Inconvenient Truth; Founder, Concordia Studio Cristina Mittermeier, National Geographic Photographer; Co-Founder, SeaLegacyWhile IPCC risk assessments and emission projections can help us understand climate change, they don’t exactly inspire the imagination or provoke a personal response to the crisis. But a growing league of storytellers is using photographs, films and the human experience to breathe life into the cerebral science of climate change and conservation. So how can films, photographs, and the human experience convey the urgency of the climate story? “15 years ago we needed to convince people that it was real,” notes director and producer Davis Guggenheim, “and then we need to convince people that humans are causing it. And then you want to convince people that this is the most urgent story of our time.”Guggenheim’s documentaries include He Named Me Malala, Waiting for Superman, and a certain Academy award-winning film with former Vice-President Al Gore. Over the years he’s learned that good climate storytelling requires a delicate balance between a compelling character and a path to action.“We always thought the An Inconvenient Truth was a redemption story about a politician who lost an election,” he says, “and it was his mission in life to tell this truth that he knew.”Sometimes the compelling character in a climate narrative is the filmmaker herself. In Tribes on the Edge, a new documentary that explores the threats to the land, rights, and health of the Indigenous Peoples of the Javari Valley in the Brazilian Amazon, explorer and filmmaker Céline Cousteau reluctantly made herself part of the story. “I did place myself in front of the camera so that I would create a bridge,” Cousteau says, “so that the audience would follow me as somebody perhaps more familiar, more accessible, the neighbor, and follow me into this adventure.”Other visual artists, like photographer Cristina Mittermeier, try to let the images speak for themselves. “I don't like photographing indigenous people as if they were encapsulated in the past in a romanticized way that no longer exist,” she says, “they live and walk amongst us and they look like us.”Whatever their methods, these storytellers share a goal of trying to create a more equitable relationship with nature through images and sound.“Do not ever forget that one of your main focus and goals is to shift consciousness,” explains Céline Cousteau, “and you may never know exactly what your films or stories have done, but you need to believe in what you're doing.”RELATED LINKS:He Named Me MalalaMy Octopus TeacherSeaLegacyTribes on the Edge Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is your Commonwealth Club week in review. Hear what you missed this week, and what we’ve got lined up for you next week.We’re always adding new programs - check out commonwealthclub.org/online for all of our upcoming events.If you haven’t already - please consider becoming a member of the Club. Enjoy exclusive discounts and access to special programs all while knowing your contributions directly support our many public programs and civic initiatives.Visit commonwealthclub.org/special, for special rates on memberships.Thanks for your support and as always - thanks for listening! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As the world concludes a a full year under the COVID-19 pandemic, many people and communities around the globe have felt a sense of doom and unrest. In the United States particularly, political and social divisions fueled a sense of societal darkness and sadness. However, there are signs of hope, particularly among a group of prominent spiritual and religious leaders, poets and thinkers, singers and writers brought together by Tim Shriver, longtime chairman of the Special Olympics.At the start of 2020, despite the challenging times, Shriver saw an opportunity for those hungry for community to answer a call to heal, a call to hope, a call to unite. He asked monks and nuns, artists and activists, nurses and doctors, ex-presidents and ex-cons to come together to share messages of inspiration, transformation and love. The result? His new book, The Call to Unite—featuring stories and insights from Bishop TD Jakes, Elizabeth Gilbert, Van Jones, Amy Grant, Dr. Rheeda Walker, Pastor Rick Warren, Rev. Jacqui Lewis, Jewel, Deepak Chopra and many others—offers readers a book of wisdom to turn to in hard times. It is filled with prayers, poems, spiritual insights and lessons to live by that will stand the test of time.In this conversation, Shriver and inspirational author Simon Sinek will offer those seeking affirmation, solace and inspiration guidance for finding the light at this challenging time. Please join us for a special program about coming together so we can we be our happiest—and our best.SPEAKERSTim ShriverFounder, UNITE; Chair, Special Olympics; Author, The Call to Unite: Voices of Hope and AwakeningSimon SinekAuthor, Start with Why—ModeratorIn response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we are currently hosting all of our live programming via YouTube live stream. This program was recorded via video conference on March 17th, 2021 by the Commonwealth Club of California. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, equity issues have shaped our understanding of the pandemic and its disparate impacts. Since early 2020, African Americans, Latinos and Native Americans have been disproportionately impacted by the coronavirus, shining a light on a range of socio-eonomic issues and disparities in housing, employment and access to public health services. Now, as the Bay Area begins to slowly re-open with the increasing availability of vaccines, the region is facing challenges in ensuring that vaccination rollout efforts are equitable.Dr. Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo, professor and chair of the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the University of California, San Francisco, has been a significant voice on COVID equity issues regionally and nationally throughout the pandemic. She is currently working to ensure that shots reach not only the most impacted communities, but that leaders address what caused the stark pandemic inequities to begin with.Please join us for an important conversation on the road ahead for vaccination equity, and the race to ensure all communities are protected in the weeks and months ahead.NOTESThis important community program is made free to the public thanks to Salesforce.SPEAKERSDr. Kirsten Bibbins-DomingoProfessor and Chair, Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, University of California, San FranciscoPaula GoldmanVice President, Chief Ethical and Humane Use Officer, Salesforce—ModeratorIn response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we are currently hosting all of our live programming via YouTube live stream. This program was recorded via video conference on March 17th, 2021 by the Commonwealth Club of California. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dr. Choucair will describe the Biden administration's national vaccination campaign to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States.The challenges ahead are enormous, but Dr Choucair is known as an innovator, and his previous work has set him up to handle this project. He is used to planning for large numbers of people. Prior to joining the administration, Dr. Choucair served as senior vice president and chief health officer at Kaiser Permanente. He oversaw the organization’s efforts focused on addressing the social health of its 12.2 million members and the 68 million people who live in the communities it serves. This work included the creation of the nation’s largest social health network to meet the housing, food and transportation needs of its members. He also managed Kaiser Permanente’s community health portfolio, including $3.4 billion dedicated to supporting medical financial assistance and charitable care as well as grants and community health initiatives. Before his time at Kaiser Permanente, Dr. Choucair was the commissioner of the Chicago Department of Public Health for five years before serving as senior vice president of Safety Net and Community Health at Trinity Health. He has been named by Modern Healthcare as one of the 50 Most Influential Health Executives in the U.S., one of the Most Influential People in Healthcare and as one of the Top 25 Innovators in Healthcare.MLF ORGANIZERRobert Lee KilpatrickNOTESMLF: Health & MedicineSPEAKERSBechara ChoucairM.D., Vaccinations Coordinator, White House COVID Response TeamRobert Lee KilpatrickPh.D., Chair, Health and Medicine MLF; General Advisor, Berkeley SkyDeck incubator and Accelerator; Advisor, Columbia University Master of Science Program in Bioethics; CEO, Health Innovation for People, Inc. (HIP)—ModeratorIn response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we are currently hosting all of our live programming via YouTube live stream. This program was recorded via video conference on March 17th, 2021 by the Commonwealth Club of California. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Join us for a virtual discussion with law professors Michael Heller and James Salzman to discuss the hidden set of rules that reveals how things become "mine"—the favorite word of every two-year-old.As adults, of course, the idea of ownership feels natural, whether we are buying a cup of coffee or a house. But who controls the space behind your airplane seat: your reclining self or the squished laptop user seated behind you? And why is plagiarism wrong, but it's okay to knock-off a recipe or a dress design? After a snowstorm, why does a chair in the street hold your parking space in Chicago, but in New York you lose both the space and the chair?Heller and Salzman explain these puzzles and many more using six simple stories that almost everyone uses to claim almost everything. And although choosing which story to use is often based on our most obvious legal rights, we can always pick a different story to use. This is true not just for airplane seats, but also for battles over digital privacy, climate change and wealth inequality. As Heller and Salzman demonstrate with stories that are eye-opening, mind-bending and sometimes infuriating, ownership is always up for grabs.MLF ORGANIZERGeorge HammondNOTESMLF: HumanitiesSPEAKERSMichael HellerLawrence A. Wien Professor of Real Estate Law, Columbia Law School; Co-Author, Mine!: How the Hidden Rules of Ownership Control Our LivesJames SalzmanDonald Bren Distinguished Professor of Environmental Law, with Joint Appointments at the UCLA School of Law and the UCSB Bren School of the Environment; Co-Author, Mine!: How the Hidden Rules of Ownership Control Our LivesIn Conversation with George HammondAttorney; Author, Conversations With SocratesIn response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we are currently hosting all of our live programming via YouTube live stream. This program was recorded via video conference on March 16th, 2021 by the Commonwealth Club of California. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In his debut novel, renowned China expert Orville Schell delves into the complexities of people whose lives have been historically upended by the tumult of political change, the pain of migration, and the separations of the Cold War that made it impossible to live in both worlds.In moving from non-fiction to fiction, Schell's sweeping historical novel takes us on a journey from the rise of Mao Zedong in 1949 to the Tiananmen Square uprising in 1989, as a classical musician and his son are swept away by a relentless series of devastating events. Through their lives, we follow the fault line between the United States and China—a divide that at times has been narrow and easily crossed, while at other times perilously wide. At a time when the U.S.-China divide is once again widening, Schell’s fictional characters speak volumes about the agonies of separation that may yet again become a reality.Join a unique discussion on U.S.-China relations (focusing on culture, music, religion and art as well as policy) with Schell and his longtime friend Ambassador Winston Lord, who served as Henry Kissinger’s main aide on his game-changing trip to China with President Richard Nixon in 1972 and subsequently became U.S. ambassador to China under President Reagan.Part of our Good Lit Series, underwritten by the Bernard Osher Foundation.SPEAKERSWinston LordFormer U.S. Ambassador to China; Former President, Council on Foreign RelationsOrville SchellArthur Ross Director, Center on U.S.-China Relations, Asia Society; Former Professor and Dean, University of California, Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism; Author, My Old Home: A Novel of ExileIn conversation with James FallowsNational Correspondent, The AtlanticIn response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we are currently hosting all of our live programming via YouTube live stream. This program was recorded via video conference on February 16th, 2021 by the Commonwealth Club of California. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices