The Next Move
A People's Action podcast hosted by George Goehl
In The Next Move, we’re talking about building the future we want out of this moment of darkness. Our host, George Goehl is one of the nation’s leading progressive organizers. Since COVID-19 hit, George found there was no shortage of people who could tell him just how screwed we are. But he wanted to talk with people focused on solutions and action.
Across the eight-episode series, George Goehl will interview eight experts on transforming our social contract to build the future we want. This podcast will describe the society we want to build out of the wreckage–and map out how we’ll build it together.
Find us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and anywhere you listen.
Episode Guide
Episode 1: Making Meaning with Maurice Mitchell
Summary
The pandemic has merged with this incredible moment of uprising, which is opening the opportunity to win real structural change for Black lives now. There’s nowhere to hide from a conversation about racism in America, and our collective agitation is a really good thing. Maurice Mitchell, the National Director of The Working Families Party and a leader in the Movement for Black Lives, shares more about this opportunity for mass education, the multi-racial coalition against white supremacy, the fight against cynicism, and the winning math of adding rather than subtracting.
Guest bio
Maurice Mitchell (@mauricewfp) is the National Director of The Working Families Party and the co-founder of Blackbird, an anchor organization within the Movement for Black Lives.
Take Action
Learn More
- The Combahee River Collective Statement, written by Black feminist lesbians in 1977, remains vital to the work of ensuring that all Black lives matter.
- In The New Yorker, Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor writes that “the quest to transform this country cannot be limited to challenging its brutal police.”
- Ta-Nehisi Coates elaborates on his own hope in this moment -- and why 2020 is different from 1968.
Episode 2: The Care Economy, Employment and a Living Wage with Ai-jen Poo
Summary
Overnight essential work has become part of the global lexicon. Ai-jen Poo, founder and Executive Director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance, talks to George about forging a new common sense out of this vocabulary--and the opportunity we have to re-examine how we think about work and what work we value.
Guest bio
Ai-jen is the executive director of National Domestic Workers Alliance, director of Caring Across Generations, and co-host of Sunstorm (@sunstormpod).
Take Action
- Donate to the National Domestic Workers Alliance’s Coronavirus Care Fund, which provides $400 in emergency assistance for domestic workers who are experiencing financial hardship due to the coronavirus pandemic.
- It’s time to get justice, dignity, and respect for domestic workers. Sign on to help Ai-jen and her team and help us pass the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights.
Learn More
- “What will we remember about this pandemic?” asks Ai-Jen Poo in Time. “How we took care of one another.”
- Here’s the draft of the Essential Workers Bill of Rights introduced by Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif.
- Notes from the Storm: Black Immigrant Domestic Workers in the Time of COVID-19, a report from the Institute for Policy Studies' Black Worker Initiative in partnership with the National Domestic Workers Alliance's We Dream in Black program.
Episode 3: A Homes Guarantee with Tara Raghuveer
Summary
Rent is due and sheltering in place becomes infinitely more difficult if you can’t make rent. In this episode, George talks about our national housing crisis with Tara Raguvheer, Director of KC Tenants and the Housing Campaign Director for People’s Action–and what our world can look like if we detach profit motives from the provisioning of basic needs, like a place to call to home.
Guest bio
Tara Raguvheer is the Director of KC Tenants and the Housing Campaign Director for People’s Action.
- Twitter: @taraghuveer
- Facebook: @taraghuveer
Take Action
Join our weekly organizing call for a Homes Guarantee.
Learn More
- Read our briefing book, "A National Homes Guarantee," a vision straight from the people impacted by the nation's housing crisis.
- Watch our Homes Guarantee intro video.
- "The mismatch between housing need and costs has been a constant feature of the U.S. economy," Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor in The New Yorker. "The dynamic is especially acute for African-Americans."
- Read more about Tara's work and the work of the Homes Guarantee team in The New York Times as they re-imagine organizing in an age of social distancing.
Episode 4: Merging Race and Class with Ian Haney Lopez
Summary
Dog whistle politics is a long held strategy of American politics. George talks to Ian Haney Lopez, Professor of Public Law at UC Berkeley, about how the rich and powerful use racism as a weapon to sow a divide between race and class. This divide has only been made clearer during the pandemic and the weeks of uprisings around racial justice. But if we name this strategy, perhaps we can merge race and class and build the country we want. A multiracial democracy that works for all of us.
Guest bio
Ian Haney Lopez is Chief Justice Earl Warren Professor of Public Law at UC Berkeley and Director of the Racial Politics Project at the Haas Institute for a Fair and Inclusive Society. His latest book is Merge Left: Fusing Race and Class, Winning Elections, and Saving America.
Learn More
- Get your copy of Merge Left, Ian's most recent book.
- Check out this recent Follow the Money video from Ian.
- Learn about the history of Dog Whistle Politics as a political strategy.