AirGo

As Chicago's municipal election approaches at the end of February, Dame and Kiss chop it up with mayoral candidate and liberation movement member Brandon Johnson. A longtime organizer and public servant, Brandon has been running a campaign championing many of the policies and campaigns that our movements have been pushing for, and has coalesced the support of grassroots organizations and progressive organized labor behind him as he elbows through the crowd of mayoral candidates. We talk with him about his understanding of what Chicago needs, his relationship to the movements that have elevated him, and much more. SHOW NOTES Find your voting locations and info - https://chicagoelections.gov/en/your-voter-information.html Learn about the candidates with the Girl, I Guess voter guide - https://www.stephanieskora.com/voter-guide Plan your ballot with BallotReady - https://www.ballotready.org/ Listen to our first conversation with Brandon from back in 2018 - https://airgoradio.com/airgo/2018/4/11/episode-132-brandon-johnson Subscribe to AirGo - podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/airgo/id1016530091

The guys are joined by Alec Karakatsanis, a lawyer by training who creates impactful, detailed, and thoughtful critiques of the ways that carceral sentiments and ideologies pervade corporate newsrooms. His twitter threads breaking down the work of the NY Times, among others, have helped popularize the language of "copaganda," and challenged reporters to understand and account for the ways their work feeds incarceration and structural violence. He breaks down the importance of these connections, the pathways to repair that he engages journalists in, and much more. SHOW NOTES Follow Alec on Twitter - https://twitter.com/equalityalec Listen to AirGo's convos about journalism in our Middle Suite - https://soundcloud.com/airgoradio/sets/the-middle-suite Subscribe to AirGo - podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/airgo/id1016530091

AirGo kicks off the year with the brilliant and wonderful Lisa Lee, a communal creative spacemaker who has fought for a public square for decades. Lisa is the Executive Director of the National Public Housing Museum, and is also an Associate Professor in Art History and Gender and Women's Studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago, teaching faculty with the Prison Neighborhood Art Project, and a member of the Chicago Torture Justice Memorials. She talks with the guys about her journey to Chicago with a brief foray into the world of the 1%, what a public square is so pivotal for social movements, and how housing lives at the nexus of all battles against structural violence. SHOW NOTES Learn about the National Public Housing Museum - https://www.nphm.org/ International Sites of Conscience - https://www.sitesofconscience.org/ Listen to AirGo's convos with spacemakers in the Spacemaker Suite - https://soundcloud.com/airgoradio/sets/spacemakers-suite Subscribe to AirGo - podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/airgo/id1016530091

AirGo ends the year with the illustrious creators of South Side! Dame and Kiss talk with Bashir Salahuddin, Sultan Salahuddin, and Diallo Riddle, who have birthed a truly hilarious and visionary TV comedy that shows the rich fabric that is the south side of Chicago. The three co-creators talk about legibility and illegibility of Chicago-specific jokes, how the show focuses on the funny, and how their neighbors and loved ones have both contributed to and responded to the show. SHOW NOTES Check out Season 3 of South Side on HBO Max - https://www.hbomax.com/series/urn:hbo:series:GYEaaAgS0AV9_ZwEAAAAC Hear AirGo talking with comedians in the LOL Suite - https://soundcloud.com/airgoradio/sets/the-lol-suite Subscribe to AirGo - http://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/airgo/id1016530091

What if we told you that we had a thoughtful, insightful, informed conversation about the relationship between American Black folks and American Jews, in the midst of the Kanye Kyrie Kerfuffle? Would you believe it? This episode is the proof that it is possible and in fact pivotally important. The guys are joined by repeat guest and friend of the show Dr. Jared Ball. Dr. Ball is a Professor of Communication and Africana Studies at Morgan State University in Baltimore and author of The Myth and Propaganda of Black Buying Power. He is also host of the podcast “iMiXWHATiLiKE!”, co-founder of Black Power Media which can be found at http://BlackPowerMedia.org, and his decades of journalism, media, writing, and political work can be found at http://imixwhatilike.org. SHOW NOTES Glenn Ford - https://blackagendareport.com/glen-fords-irreplaceable-journalism Black Power Media - https://www.blackpowermedia.org/ Sam Cornish - https://www.nyhistory.org/web/africanfreeschool/bios/samuel-cornish.html John Russwurm - https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/russwurm-john-1799-1851/ Freedom’s Journal - https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/freedom-s-journal-1827-1829/ Negro World - https://www.unia-aclgovernment.com/history/the-negro-world/ Black Panther Newspaper - https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/black-panther/index.htm Jamilah Lemieux - https://airgoradio.com/airgo/2021/1/21/episode-271-the-notebook-suite-vol-4-jamilah-lemieux dream hampton - https://www.dreamhampton.com/ I Got the Light of Freedom by Charles Payne - https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520251762/ive-got-the-light-of-freedom This Nonviolent Stuff'll Get You Killed: How Guns Made the Civil Rights Movement Possible by Charles Cobb - https://www.dukeupress.edu/this-nonviolent-stuffll-get-you-killed Hammer and Hoe by Robin DG Kelley - https://airgoradio.com/airgo/2020/7/19/episode-255-the-abolition-suite-vol-4-robin-dg-kelley Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement by Barbara Ransby - https://uncpress.org/book/9780807856161/ella-baker-and-the-black-freedom-movement/ David Gilbert - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Gilbert_(activist) Edgar Bronfman Jr. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_Bronfman_Jr. Annie Levin on the history of zionism - https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/isr-iso/2002/no24/levin.html Subscribe to AirGo - http://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/airgo/id1016530091

AirGo is joined by Treatment Not Trauma organizers Asha Ransby-Sporn of DefundCPD and Cheryl Miller from STOP to break down the blowout win of the Treatment Not Trauma referendum on Election Day 2022. They talk about what they learned across months of conversations with thousands of residents in the 6th, 20th, and 33rd wards, and break down how the fight for mental health is a frontier in the battle against privatization and divestment. Support the work of the Defund CPD - https://twitter.com/defundcpdchi?lang=en Support the work of STOP - https://www.stopchicago.org/ Subscribe to AirGo - podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/airgo/id1016530091

With a trip to the ballot box just around the corner on November 8, AirGo hops on the line to discuss an impactful referendum that several Chicago wards will have the chance to vote on next week. As a result of organizing from the Treatment Not Trauma coalition, Chicagoans in the 6th, 20th, and 33rd wards will be asked whether Chicago should reopen the mental health clinics that were shuttered over a decade ago, and whether funds from CPD should be used to fund a non-police mental health crisis response program. We break down the referendum and its importance with Delaine Powerful, who has been central to the campaign in the 20th ward. SHOW NOTES Find your polling location - https://chicagoelections.gov/en/your-voter-information.html Volunteer with the campaign - https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdFQV6pQyVaMkxYozDVuMX1Zy8ffcQP8Ka6duvhvkuoWKBCEw/viewform Subscribe to AirGo - http://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/airgo/id1016530091

On the final episode of Season 1, the 1ME crew talks with two of the leaders of the remarkable Chicago Torture Justice Center, an experiment born from the first police torture reparations victory in the history of the United States. Survivors and their families fought for decades for access to the trauma-informed resources and politicized healing support that the Center now offers. CTJC Community Organizer Mark Clements and Co-Executive Director Aislinn Pulley discuss the birth of the center, expanding definitions of repair and reparation, and what healing looks like for survivors of torture by the Chicago Police Department. SHOW NOTES Support the Survivor Repair Fund - https://www.chicagotorturejustice.org/repairfund Listen to CTJC Event Series from May 2021 - https://soundcloud.com/airgoradio/sets/chicago-torture-justice-center Learn more about CTJC - https://www.chicagotorturejustice.org/ We Charge Genocide - http://wechargegenocide.org/ Damo Day - http://www.usprisonculture.com/blog/2015/05/20/we-do-this-for-damo/ Rekia Boyd - https://exhibits.stanford.edu/saytheirnames/feature/rekia-boyd Chairman Fred Hampton Jr. - https://twitter.com/chairmanfredjr1?lang=en People’s Law Office - https://peopleslawoffice.com/ Jane Elliot - https://janeelliott.com/ Prentis Hemphill - https://prentishemphill.com/ Generative Somatics - https://generativesomatics.org/about-us/ Subscribe to 1ME - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/one-million-experiments/id1589966282

From time to time, a Chicago artist drops a new project that the AirGo crew is vibing with–when that happens, we get them on the line for a special listening party episode! Using a few of the project's tracks as jumping off points for the conversation, we dive deep into process, creativity, and growth. This listening party reconnects us with AirGo fam and emerging superstar Ravyn Lenae. Ravyn, who first appeared on the show back in October of 2015 on Episode 14, just dropped her debut full-length Hypnos. We break down the types of growth that led to the sounds of the project, how she's learned to trust her voice, and the ways she is interested in contributing to community beyond her music. SHOW NOTES Listen to Hypnos - https://ravynlenae.lnk.to/Hypnos Follow Ravyn - https://www.instagram.com/ravynlenae/ Hear all of AirGo's listening party episodes - https://soundcloud.com/airgoradio/sets/airgo-listening-parties @ravynlenaesounds

Through the Portal is a podcast from the Social Justice Portal Project, a national collaborative think tank hosted by the Social Justice Initiative at the University of Illinois Chicago. Each month, grassroots activists and radical scholars will give voice to community struggles, national strategies and sustainable alternatives for the future. The guest speakers, who are also Portal Project participants, explore what it means to walk through the portal of the current moment by centering racial and social justice issues. On the final episode of the series, Dame and Teresa are joined by the brilliant Leah Penniman. A leading voice in the fight for food and land sovereignty for Black farmers and community, Leah is the Co-Director and Farm Manager of Soul Fire Farm, an Afro-Indigenous centered community farm in upstate New York. She talks about the deeply rooted connections between our food systems and incarceration, how Afro-Indigenous planting practices protect and rejuvenate the land, and how the organization has grown from dropping off carrots to hungry neighbors to leading the fight to reimagine our food systems (while still dropping off carrots to neighbors). SHOW NOTES Tiffany LaShae - https://www.soulfirefarm.org/food-sovereignty-education/3d/tiffany-lashae/ Soul Fire farm - https://www.soulfirefarm.org Farming While Black - https://www.soulfirefarm.org/media/farming-while-black/ Baba Curtis Muhammad - https://snccdigital.org/people/curtis-hayes/ Freedom Food Alliance - https://freedomfoodalliance.wordpress.com/ Rev Garrison Frazier - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garrison_Frazier Greenwood food blockade - https://www.southernfoodways.org/the-greenwood-food-blockade/ Dr Gail Myers - https://www.drgailmyers.com/ Rhythms of the Land - https://www.rhythmsoftheland.com/ Booker T Whatley - https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/you-can-thank-black-horticulturist-booker-t-whatley-your-csa-180977771/ Kombit (Haitian Work Parties) - http://www.haitiobserver.com/blog/the-agricultural-system-of-kombit-in-haiti.html Phytoremediation - https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2015-04/documents/a_citizens_guide_to_phytoremediation.pdf Hazel Johnson - https://www.peopleforcommunityrecovery.org/ Karen Washington - https://www.karenthefarmer.com/about All We Can Save - https://www.allwecansave.earth/ Working the Roots - https://bookshop.org/books/working-the-roots-over-400-years-of-traditional-african-american-healing/9780692857878 Freedom Farmers - https://uncpress.org/book/9781469643700/freedom-farmers/ Black Nature - https://ugapress.org/book/9780820334318/black-nature/ Highlander Center - https://highlandercenter.org/ Reparations map - https://www.soulfirefarm.org/get-involved/reparations/ Learn more about the Portal Project - sjiportalproject.com/ Subscribe to AirGo - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/airgo/id1016530091