Me and White Supremacy
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Join a group or deepen your commitment to one.
Individualism is what got us into this situation, and only collective action will create the solutions we need. Now more than ever, we must take action together to force systemic change. Join your local SURJ chapter or other groups in your community that push systems (like the local, state, and federal government) to protect and care for the most vulnerable, especially in these times.
Support efforts in your community to get people out of jails and detention centers
And to stop local police from issuing new citations, incarcerating people pre-trial, and re-incarcerating people for probation/parole violations. Sign up for SURJ’s action updates on how you can take action from your home on these issues. Follow organizations that are leading on this issue, and find the groups in your community such as Color of Change, Dignity and Power Now, Justice LA, and Women on the Rise. If you’re a member of a group that doesn’t usually focus on these issues, bring them to their attention, and encourage them to make these actions a priority. Here’s just one take on why this is so important.
Interrupt racist stories about who is to blame.
Push back on people who use coded or racist language to talk about this moment. Where we get our news is important. It shifts the frame of the issues. Pay attention to progressive-leaning news sources rather than only the corporate news media. Some examples include Democracy Now and the Irresistible Podcast. Seek out articles written by disabled & Queer, Trans, Black, Indigenous, and People of Color activists in your community.
Fight to protect our elections.
Events across the country are being canceled or postponed, and in many locations, governments are implementing “shelter in place” recommendations or requirements. As a result, many states are taking measures to postpone elections rather than finding creative ways, like mail-in ballots, to ensure our democratic freedom while adhering to the public health guidance. Meanwhile, the upcoming election still needs our attention. We still need to mobilize millions of voters across the country to vote against Trump. You can help by getting involved in your local progressive campaigns and/or calling and texting white voters in Georgia and Pennsylvania with SURJ. A simple first step is to take the Collect Our Cousins Pledge. If you are part of a local SURJ chapter, encourage members of your chapter to sign on to the Commitment Form.
Participate in a mutual aid project or fund.
If you are able, donate money to a mutual-aid fund or initiate mutual aid with your immediate neighbors. Mutual-aid funds link people with resources to those who need resources during a crisis. This can help cover costs of rent, medication, food, and other needs for people who lack a safety net. If you have a surplus of food or hygiene supplies, donate to a mutual aid group, food pantry, or a community organization that is distributing goods to vulnerable people in your community. (Please be sure that they NEED what you have — don’t assume!). Practice mutual aid by reaching out to three people on your street. Give them your contact info and let them know you can call each other to ask for help with groceries, prescriptions, etc. Here’s a template if you need a starting point. Join with local grassroots POC-led organizing for mutual aid in your area or follow your local SURJ chapter for ideas.
by Angela Davis is a powerful read of the women’s liberation movement in the US that demonstrates how it has always been hampered by the racist and classist biases of its leaders.
by Angela Davis Revelations about US policies and practices of torture and abuse have captured headlines ever since the breaking of the Abu Graib prison story in April 2004. It is within this context that African-American intellectual Angela Davis gave a series of interviews to discuss resistance and law, institutional sexual coercion, politics, and prison. She talks about her own incarceration as well as her experience as an ‘enemy of the state’ and about having been put on the FBI’s most-wanted list. Davis returns to her critique of a democracy that has been compromised by its racist origins.
by Angela Y. Davis Since the 1980s prison construction and incarceration rates in the U.S. have been rising exponentially, evoking huge public concern about their proliferation, their recent privatization, and their promise of enormous profits. But these prisons house hugely disproportionate numbers of people of color, betraying the racism embedded in the system, while studies show that increasing prison sentences has had no effect on crime. Here, esteemed civil rights activist Angela Davis lays bare the situation and argues for a radical rethinking of our rehabilitation programs.
In these newly collected essays, interviews, and speeches, world-renowned activist and scholar Angela Y. Davis illuminates the connections between struggles against state violence and oppression throughout history and around the world. Reflecting on the importance of black feminism, intersectionality, and prison abolitionism for today’s struggles, Davis discusses the legacies of previous liberation struggles, from the Black Freedom Movement to the South African anti-Apartheid movement. She highlights connections and analyzes today’s struggles against state terror, from Ferguson to Palestine. Facing a world of outrageous injustice, Davis challenges us to imagine and build the movement for human liberation. And in doing so, she reminds us that “Freedom is a constant struggle.”
Michelle Alexander a stunning account of the rebirth of a caste-like system in the United States, one that has resulted in millions of African Americans locked behind bars and then relegated to a permanent second-class status—denied the very rights supposedly won in the Civil Rights Movement.
Patrisse Khan-Cullors and asha bandele as they tell their story. When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir.
Mumia Abu-Jamal This collection of short meditations, written from a prison cell, captures the past two decades of police violence that gave rise to Black Lives Matter while digging deeply into the history of the United States. This is the book we need right now to find our bearings in the chaos.”
Howard Zinn A People’s History of the United States is a 1980 non-fiction book by American historian and political scientist Howard Zinn. In the book, Zinn presented what he considered to be a different side of history from the more traditional “fundamental nationalist glorification of country”
Haymarket Books stands in solidarity with all those resisting police violence, mass incarceration, and the racist carceral system. Haymarket Books Against Policing & Mass Incarceration reading list is currently 30% off. Get a free Ebook (where available) and free shipping on orders over $25 inside the US.
by Audre Lorde is a collection of essays and speeches that discuss sexism, racism, ageism, homophobia, and class.
Mumia Abu-Jamal, Marc Lamont Hill This collection of conversations between celebrity intellectual Marc Lamont Hill and famed political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal is a shining example of African American men speaking for themselves about the many forces impacting their lives. Covering topics such as race, politics, hip-hop culture, education, mass incarceration, and love, their discussions shine a spotlight on some of the most pressing issues in 21st century African American life.
Paul Kivel It provides practical tools and advice on how white people can work as allies for racial justice, directly engaging the reader through questions, exercises.
Witnessing Whiteness invites readers to consider what it means to be white, describes and critiques strategies used to avoid race issues, and identifies the detrimental effect of avoiding race on cross-race collaborations
Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America is a 2016 non-fiction book about race in the United States by Ibram X. Kendi that won the National Book Award for Nonfiction.
Chris Crass calls on all of us to join our values to the power of love and act with courage for a world where Black lives truly matter. A world where the death culture of white supremacy no longer devours the lives of Black people and no longer deforms the hearts and souls of white people.
for activists engaging with dynamic questions of how to create and support effective movements for visionary systemic change. Chris Crass’s collection of essays and interviews presents us with powerful lessons for transformative organizing through offering a firsthand look at the challenges and the opportunities of anti-racist work in white communities, feminist work with men, and bringing women of color feminism into the heart of social movements. Drawing on two decades of personal activist experience and case studies of anti-racist social justice organizations, Crass insightfully explores ways of transforming divisions of race, class, and gender into catalysts for powerful vision, strategy, and movement building in the United States today.
Featuring Radley Balko, Author, Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America’s Police Forces, Senior Writer, Huffington Post; and Mark Lomax, Executive Director, National Association of Tactical Officers; moderated by Laura Odato, Director of Government Affairs, Cato Institute.
by Angela Y. Davis; Robin D. G. Kelley (Introduction by)
In this collection of twelve searing, previously unpublished speeches, Davis confronts the interconnected issues of power, race, gender, class, incarceration, conservatism, and the ongoing need for social change in the United States. With her characteristic brilliance, historical insight, and penetrating analysis, Davis addresses examples of institutional injustice and explores the radical notion of freedom as a collective striving for real democracy—not a thing granted by the state, law, proclamation, or policy, but a participatory social process, rooted in difficult dialogues, that demands new ways of thinking and being.
Angela Y. Davis I want to suggest to you that rape bears a direct relationship to all of the exiting power structures in a given society. This relationship is not a simple mechanical one, but rather involves complex structures reflecting the complex interconnectedness of race, gender, and class oppression which characterizes that society.–Angela Davis
Angela Y. Davis A collection of her speeches and writings which address the political and social changes of the past decade as they are concerned with the struggle for racial, sexual, and economic equality.
The trial of Angela Yvonne Davis in connection with the prisoner revolt by three black prisoners on August 7, 1970 at the Marin County Courthouse will be remembered as one of America’s most historic political trials, and no one can tell the story better than Miss Davis herself. This book is also perhaps the most comprehensive and thorough analysis of that increasingly important symbol — the political prisoner.
by Layla F. Saad originally started as an Instagram challenge, and was officially published as a book this year. Me and White Supremacy “leads readers through a journey of understanding their white privilege and participation in white supremacy, so that they can stop (often unconsciously) inflicting damage on black, indigenous and people of color, and in turn, help other white people do better, too.”
by Ta-Nehisi Coates is written as a letter to the author’s son about being a Black man in America.
by Robin DiAngelo deftly illuminates the phenomenon of white fragility and “allows us to understand racism as a practice not restricted to ‘bad people’” (Claudia Rankine).
by Ibram X. Kendi Ibram X. Kendi’s concept of antiracism reenergizes and reshapes the conversation about racial justice in America–but even more fundamentally, points us toward liberating new ways of thinking about ourselves and each other. Instead of working with the policies and system we have in place, Kendi asks us to think about what an antiracist society might look like, and how we can play an active role in building it.
by Ijeoma Oluo In this New York Times bestseller, Ijeoma Oluo offers a hard-hitting but user-friendly examination of race in America
by Crystal M. Fleming A unique and irreverent take on everything that’s wrong with our “national conversation about race”—and what to do about it
This book explores the importance of visual images in the identities and material conditions of women of color as they relate to social power, oppression, and resistance. The goal of the collection is to rethink the category of visual theory through women of color. It also explores the political and social ramifications of visual imagery for women of color, and the political consciousness that can emerge alongside a critical understanding of the impact of visual imagery. The book begins with a general exploration of what it means to develop a women of color criticism (rather than an analysis of women of color), and goes on to look specifically at topics such as 90s fashion advertisements, the politics of cosmetic surgery, and female fans of East LA rock bands.
“Jazz, it is widely accepted, is the signal original American contribution to world culture. Angela Davis shows us how the roots of that form in the blues must be viewed not only as a musical tradition but as a life-sustaining vehicle for an alternative black working-class collective memory and social consciousness profoundly at odds with mainstream American middle-class values. And she explains how the tradition of black women blues singers – represented by Gertrude “Ma” Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Billie Holiday – embodies not only an artistic triumph and aesthetic dominance over a hostile popular music industry but an unacknowledged proto-feminist consciousness within working-class black communities. Through a close and riveting analysis of these artists’ performances, words, and lives, Davis uncovers the unmistakable assertion and uncompromising celebration of non-middle-class, non-heterosexual social, moral, and sexual values.”
The Angela Y. Davis Reader presents eighteen essays from her writings and interviews which have appeared in If They Come in the Morning, Women, Race, and Class, Women, Culture, and Politics, and Black Women and the Blues as well as articles published in women’s, ethnic/black studies and communist journals, and cultural studies anthologies. In four parts – “Prisons, Repression, and Resistance”, “Marxism, Anti-Racism, and Feminism”, “Aesthetics and Culture”, and recent interviews – Davis examines revolutionary politics and intellectualism.
Other recommended authors: Audre Lorde, bell hooks, Angela Y. Davis, Maya Angelou or Toni Morrison.
This has been a tough week in the United States. SoundGirls is deeply saddened and outraged over the murders of our black citizens, Ahmaud Arbery, Brionna Taylor, George Floyd added to a long list. And we mourn and protest, while rebellions and uprisings happen across the nation. We have been here before
Watts 1965, Detroit 1967, LA 1992, Ferguson 2014.
How many Black lives have to be taken before something is done? We call for an END to the systemic and institutionalized racism that exists in all aspects of the United States.
The Music Industry organized a “Music Industry Blackout” as a response to George Floyd’s murder. It is easy for us to remove ourselves from a story, one that we are all implicated in. You have to choose what side you are going to be on. SoundGirls did not participate in “The Blackout”. Instead, we used the day to share information for protesters, Anti-Racist resources, reading materials, and organizations that are doing the hard work. We hope those working in the music industry will use their platforms every single day, not just one to support Black Artists.
Be safe everyone.
The directory features over 500 people of color who work in audio around the world. You’ll find editors, hosts, writers, producers, sound designers, engineers, project managers, musicians, reporters, and content strategists with varied experience from within the industry and in related fields.
While recruiting diverse candidates is a great first step, it’s not going to be enough if we want the industry to look and sound meaningfully different in the future. Let us be clear: this isn’t about numbers alone. This is about getting the respect that people of color—and people of different faiths, abilities, ages, socioeconomic statuses, educational backgrounds, gender identities, and sexual orientation—deserve.
The official #BlackLivesMatter Global Network builds power to bring justice, healing, and freedom to Black people across the globe.
The 2020 Bail Outs are happening now! In response to the coronavirus outbreak, we’ve been bailing Black mamas and caregivers out of jail since late March …
Consider ordering books from a black-owned bookstore. Find one here
by Angela Davis is a powerful read of the women’s liberation movement in the US that demonstrates how it has always been hampered by the racist and classist biases of its leaders.
by Angela Davis Revelations about US policies and practices of torture and abuse have captured headlines ever since the breaking of the Abu Graib prison story in April 2004. It is within this context that African-American intellectual Angela Davis gave a series of interviews to discuss resistance and law, institutional sexual coercion, politics, and prison. She talks about her own incarceration as well as her experience as an ‘enemy of the state’ and about having been put on the FBI’s most-wanted list. Davis returns to her critique of a democracy that has been compromised by its racist origins.
by Angela Y. Davis Since the 1980s prison construction and incarceration rates in the U.S. have been rising exponentially, evoking huge public concern about their proliferation, their recent privatization, and their promise of enormous profits. But these prisons house hugely disproportionate numbers of people of color, betraying the racism embedded in the system, while studies show that increasing prison sentences has had no effect on crime. Here, esteemed civil rights activist Angela Davis lays bare the situation and argues for a radical rethinking of our rehabilitation programs.
In these newly collected essays, interviews, and speeches, world-renowned activist and scholar Angela Y. Davis illuminates the connections between struggles against state violence and oppression throughout history and around the world. Reflecting on the importance of black feminism, intersectionality, and prison abolitionism for today’s struggles, Davis discusses the legacies of previous liberation struggles, from the Black Freedom Movement to the South African anti-Apartheid movement. She highlights connections and analyzes today’s struggles against state terror, from Ferguson to Palestine. Facing a world of outrageous injustice, Davis challenges us to imagine and build the movement for human liberation. And in doing so, she reminds us that “Freedom is a constant struggle.”
Michelle Alexander a stunning account of the rebirth of a caste-like system in the United States, one that has resulted in millions of African Americans locked behind bars and then relegated to a permanent second-class status—denied the very rights supposedly won in the Civil Rights Movement.
Patrisse Khan-Cullors and asha bandele as they tell their story. When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir.
Mumia Abu-Jamal This collection of short meditations, written from a prison cell, captures the past two decades of police violence that gave rise to Black Lives Matter while digging deeply into the history of the United States. This is the book we need right now to find our bearings in the chaos.”
Haymarket Books stands in solidarity with all those resisting police violence, mass incarceration, and the racist carceral system. Haymarket Books Against Policing & Mass Incarceration reading list is currently 30% off. Get a free Ebook (where available) and free shipping on orders over $25 inside the US.
by Audre Lorde is a collection of essays and speeches that discuss sexism, racism, ageism, homophobia, and class.
Mumia Abu-Jamal, Marc Lamont Hill This collection of conversations between celebrity intellectual Marc Lamont Hill and famed political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal is a shining example of African American men speaking for themselves about the many forces impacting their lives. Covering topics such as race, politics, hip-hop culture, education, mass incarceration, and love, their discussions shine a spotlight on some of the most pressing issues in 21st century African American life.
Paul Kivel It provides practical tools and advice on how white people can work as allies for racial justice, directly engaging the reader through questions, exercises.
Witnessing Whiteness invites readers to consider what it means to be white, describes and critiques strategies used to avoid race issues, and identifies the detrimental effect of avoiding race on cross-race collaborations
Chris Crass calls on all of us to join our values to the power of love and act with courage for a world where Black lives truly matter. A world where the death culture of white supremacy no longer devours the lives of Black people and no longer deforms the hearts and souls of white people.
for activists engaging with dynamic questions of how to create and support effective movements for visionary systemic change. Chris Crass’s collection of essays and interviews presents us with powerful lessons for transformative organizing through offering a firsthand look at the challenges and the opportunities of anti-racist work in white communities, feminist work with men, and bringing women of color feminism into the heart of social movements. Drawing on two decades of personal activist experience and case studies of anti-racist social justice organizations, Crass insightfully explores ways of transforming divisions of race, class, and gender into catalysts for powerful vision, strategy, and movement building in the United States today.
Featuring Radley Balko, Author, Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America’s Police Forces, Senior Writer, Huffington Post; and Mark Lomax, Executive Director, National Association of Tactical Officers; moderated by Laura Odato, Director of Government Affairs, Cato Institute.
by Angela Y. Davis; Robin D. G. Kelley (Introduction by)
In this collection of twelve searing, previously unpublished speeches, Davis confronts the interconnected issues of power, race, gender, class, incarceration, conservatism, and the ongoing need for social change in the United States. With her characteristic brilliance, historical insight, and penetrating analysis, Davis addresses examples of institutional injustice and explores the radical notion of freedom as a collective striving for real democracy—not a thing granted by the state, law, proclamation, or policy, but a participatory social process, rooted in difficult dialogues, that demands new ways of thinking and being.
Angela Y. Davis I want to suggest to you that rape bears a direct relationship to all of the exiting power structures in a given society. This relationship is not a simple mechanical one, but rather involves complex structures reflecting the complex interconnectedness of race, gender, and class oppression which characterizes that society.–Angela Davis
Angela Y. Davis A collection of her speeches and writings which address the political and social changes of the past decade as they are concerned with the struggle for racial, sexual, and economic equality.
The trial of Angela Yvonne Davis in connection with the prisoner revolt by three black prisoners on August 7, 1970 at the Marin County Courthouse will be remembered as one of America’s most historic political trials, and no one can tell the story better than Miss Davis herself. This book is also perhaps the most comprehensive and thorough analysis of that increasingly important symbol — the political prisoner.
by Layla F. Saad originally started as an Instagram challenge, and was officially published as a book this year. Me and White Supremacy “leads readers through a journey of understanding their white privilege and participation in white supremacy, so that they can stop (often unconsciously) inflicting damage on black, indigenous and people of color, and in turn, help other white people do better, too.”
by Ta-Nehisi Coates is written as a letter to the author’s son about being a Black man in America.
by Ibram X. Kendi Ibram X. Kendi’s concept of antiracism reenergizes and reshapes the conversation about racial justice in America–but even more fundamentally, points us toward liberating new ways of thinking about ourselves and each other. Instead of working with the policies and system we have in place, Kendi asks us to think about what an antiracist society might look like, and how we can play an active role in building it.
by Ijeoma Oluo In this New York Times bestseller, Ijeoma Oluo offers a hard-hitting but user-friendly examination of race in America
by Crystal M. Fleming A unique and irreverent take on everything that’s wrong with our “national conversation about race”—and what to do about it
This book explores the importance of visual images in the identities and material conditions of women of color as they relate to social power, oppression, and resistance. The goal of the collection is to rethink the category of visual theory through women of color. It also explores the political and social ramifications of visual imagery for women of color, and the political consciousness that can emerge alongside a critical understanding of the impact of visual imagery. The book begins with a general exploration of what it means to develop a women of color criticism (rather than an analysis of women of color), and goes on to look specifically at topics such as 90s fashion advertisements, the politics of cosmetic surgery, and female fans of East LA rock bands.
“Jazz, it is widely accepted, is the signal original American contribution to world culture. Angela Davis shows us how the roots of that form in the blues must be viewed not only as a musical tradition but as a life-sustaining vehicle for an alternative black working-class collective memory and social consciousness profoundly at odds with mainstream American middle-class values. And she explains how the tradition of black women blues singers – represented by Gertrude “Ma” Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Billie Holiday – embodies not only an artistic triumph and aesthetic dominance over a hostile popular music industry but an unacknowledged proto-feminist consciousness within working-class black communities. Through a close and riveting analysis of these artists’ performances, words, and lives, Davis uncovers the unmistakable assertion and uncompromising celebration of non-middle-class, non-heterosexual social, moral, and sexual values.”
The Angela Y. Davis Reader presents eighteen essays from her writings and interviews which have appeared in If They Come in the Morning, Women, Race, and Class, Women, Culture, and Politics, and Black Women and the Blues as well as articles published in women’s, ethnic/black studies and communist journals, and cultural studies anthologies. In four parts – “Prisons, Repression, and Resistance”, “Marxism, Anti-Racism, and Feminism”, “Aesthetics and Culture”, and recent interviews – Davis examines revolutionary politics and intellectualism.
Other recommended authors: Audre Lorde, bell hooks, Angela Y. Davis, Maya Angelou or Toni Morrison.
An interview-based podcast about the Indigenous experience that is hosted by two Native women, Matika Wilbur and Adrienne Keene, who describe the show as a place to “discuss our relationships as Native peoples—relationships to land, to ancestors, and to each other.” On each episode, Wilbur and Keene talk with their guest(s) about issues that affect Indigenous communities. Launched in February, the show has covered indigenous feminism, food sovereignty, and DNA tests, among other topics. As of this writing, there are eight episodes, so the hosts are just getting started, and I’m excited to see where they go.
Uplifts Black experiences in the U.S. and abroad. I like this one because the hosts Brittany Luse and Eric Eddings truly do tell the type of stories that are not told elsewhere. For example, in episodes over the last couple years, the hosts have told stories about everything from Josephine Baker’s “rainbow tribe” to an oral history of the song “Knuck If You Buck.” Where else have you heard or read those stories? Probably nowhere.
Highlights Blackness by digging deeper into stories that we don’t hear enough about. Hosts Leila Day and Hana Baba discuss what it means to be Black and how we talk about our Black experiences through conversations between the two, as well as experts and Black people across the diaspora. A recent episode examined the word “hotep,”—its meaning and how its use has changed over the years.
In this show, co-hosts Ikhlas Saleem and Makkah Ali talk about race, gender, and Muslim life in the United States. They cover topics ranging from politics to pop culture, inviting guests to discuss issues that affect their lives as Muslims, along with the multiple other identities that intersect with their religion. On pop culture, the hosts recently had filmmaker Nijla Mu’min on as a guest. They discussed Mu’min’s debut feature film Jinn, which is a coming-of-age story about a Black Muslim girl. And more recently, they interviewed Malika Hook Muhammad, a D.C.-based doula who talked about how the medical system fails women of color and what she and others are doing to make better outcomes.
The podcast that brings intersectionality to life
Hosts FavyFav and Babelito discuss issues related to the intersectionality between queer, Latinx, and Spanglish voices. They approach topics that include identity, food, family, and history in a responsible and humorous way. In a recent episode, the hosts talk with Edgar Villanueva (who we’ve also interviewed) about decolonizing wealth, the topic of his book of the same name. In another episode, they discuss fat representation in the media with hosts of the podcast Cabronas y Chingonas.
Long Distance Radio explores what it means to be Filipino outside of the Philippines— if you lived there and left, or if you’ve never been there. Its creator Paola Mardo and co-producer Patrick Epino aim for each episode to “[move] beyond typical immigrant narratives to share thoughtful tales of love, loss, history, and humor.” In its first season, episodes have covered what it means to be unapologetically Filipino American and the history and future of Little Manila in Stockton, California.
Look out for Self Evident, a show that is in the works. Its creators already started reporting and recently wrapped a crowdfunding campaign to support its production. Self-Evident will to tell stories about “what it means to be American, by telling stories by and about Asian Americans.” On the podcast’s Instagram page, the team has been posting episode sneak peeks. They plan to explore the complexity of “Asian American” identity, internalized racism, and the American dream.
Code Switch is a podcast that tackles issues of race head-on. Race and pop culture. Race and sports. Race and politics. Whatever the intersection, hosts Shereen Marisol Meraji and Gene Demby dive into difficult conversations, bringing honesty and nuance to subjects including confronting racism among friends, “mixed-status” families who face deportation, the ban on cockfighting in Puerto Rico, xenophobia against Asian Americans, and a plan for reparations.
Listen: “What Does ‘Hood Feminism’ Mean for a Pandemic?,” a conversation with author Mikki Kendall about what feminism practiced by women of color can teach the mainstream feminist movement.
Amanda Seales tackles serious issues of racism, sexism, police brutality, and addiction, infusing thorny conversations with humanity and wit. Balancing such fare with humor is no easy feat, but Seales, who has a master’s in African American studies from Columbia, does it deftly.
It’s Been a Minute describes itself as “a talk show with a heart”—but it’s a show that also has brains and courage. Hosted by the wildly charismatic Sam Sanders, It’s Been a Minute features lively conversations with celebrities, writers, and other public figures including Samin Nosrat, Nicole Byer, Regina King, Maya Erskine, and Jeremy O. Harris. Sanders also hosts weekly wraps of the news with other journalists, reporting on coronavirus, Capitol Hill, the U.S. census, and more.
Akilah Hughes breaks down the biggest news stories of the day with precision and humor. The hosts of What a Day know that listeners are busy (or just have short attention spans), so they pack reportage, analysis, and often a healthy amount of jokes into 15-minute episodes.
Listen: “Racism Cont’d,” a serious episode that addresses the murder of George Floyd and the confrontation of Christian Cooper this week. It’s an urgent listen that should be followed with a read of Hughes’s accompanying Instagram post.
Wesley Morris and Jenna Wortham—a critic-at-large for the New York Times and a culture writer for the New York Times Magazine, respectively—discuss all things culture, each episode providing a smart exploration of current trends and events. There’s a particular focus on television and film, which will please pop-culture fans who crave dedicated analyses of all their favorites: one episode compares the T.V. show Watchmen to the movie Parasite, while another examines the portrayal of masculinity as mental illness in Joker, Succession, and Fight Club.
Jemele Hill, a former ESPN reporter and SportsCenter anchor, made waves in 2017 when she called President Donald Trump a “white supremacist” on Twitter and was subsequently suspended from her post at the sports network. She brings this same tenacity to her podcast, which is about to launch its second season. Unbothered was born out of Hill’s desire to “have interesting conversations with compelling people,” and the first season’s guests included notable figures such as Stacey Abrams, Soledad O’Brien, Lakeith Stanfield, Trina, Snoop Dogg, Cory Booker, and Larry Wilmore. Honest and unfiltered, Hill applies her interviewing expertise to the realms of news, pop culture, and politics.
Nikole Hannah-Jones recently won a Pulitzer Prize for creating this ongoing initiative, which reexamines the legacy of slavery in the United States (the title refers to the year, 401 years ago, that the first enslaved Africans arrived in America). Rigorously researched, well-written, and artfully produced, the show lays bare the often-overlooked history of black America.
Listen: “The Economy That Slavery Built,” which reveals how the institution of slavery turned America into a financial powerhouse.
Best-selling authors Roxane Gay (Bad Feminist) and Tressie McMillan Cottom (Thick) team up with executive producer Keisha Dutes to bring their incisive cultural commentary to audio, hosting guests who have included Nobel Peace Prize winners, comedians, journalists, politicians, and showrunners alike. The podcast also benefits from the fact that both hosts are college professors, meaning they are experts at facilitating conversations that are directed, yet still feel candid and off the cuff. Listeners should note that this podcast is only available through a subscription to Luminary—however, they can sign up for a seven-day free trial.
focuses on race, gender, and class within the food industry.
Alexandria Perryman is a live broadcast engineer and Emmy winner working at NASA’s Johnson Space Center, where one of her jobs is to run audio for the astronauts on the International Space Station. Every “Mission” is different for her. One day she might be working a spacewalk, making sure the astronauts have a clear connection to mission control the next she might be mixing audio for a video that’s going up on the NASA YouTube channel.
Lately, she’s been working to provide Skype links between astronauts and students. The effort is part of NASA’s “Year of Education on Station” – a program where ISS crew members and teacher Ricky Arnold Skypes in via satellite and performs real-time experiments for kids in classrooms around the country.
Alexandria discovered audio when she was in her high school’s marching band and was put in charge of the on-field sound mixer. This is where she started to fall in love with the idea of live audio mixing. She always had a passion for music and sound and as she got older she became intrigued by how music and sound are created. She remembers seeing Blue Man Group perform when she was in elementary school and being in awe with how they used everyday items to create music. Alexandria would enroll at Full Sail University and study audio engineering and graduate in 2015 with an Associates Degree of Science.
She got her start in audio volunteering at her church, mixing their online broadcast and working part-time as an AV Tech. Early on she learned how important troubleshooting quickly is and learned how to work in fast-paced and high-stress situations. She says “I made many mistakes in those early gigs but I was in an environment where if I could troubleshoot my mistakes quickly then it was not harmful to my career.”
She has been at NASA working as an Audio Engineer and Chief Engineer and Producer of 
Podcast for the last 2 ½ years. Alexandria says there is no typical day at NASA.
“The workday starts for me an hour before my first show which sometimes could be at 3 am. Then there is the podcast that I produce weekly and studio shoots. It is common for me to go day by day.” Staying focused and organized is difficult Alexandria says “I may have a live event then an hour later I am recording a podcast, two different mindsets. Staying focused on the task I am doing at that time is super important.”
Some of Alexandria’s job duties are coordinating Skype signals in space and she is proud that during her time at NASA her team has never lost a Skype signal in space. Mission Planning and Operations works with her team to find optimal windows between satellites and schedule sessions accordingly.
Alexandria also works on archiving and preserving audio for the historical record and the U.S. National Archives. The crew of the ISS rotates every six months and NASA will use this audio for training new crew members and for reference on repeat problems. Alexandria with other engineers monitors the day to day operation recordings and are often the first line of communication between station and NASA. She often works with the astronauts before missions, she is the one mic-ing them up for interviews and trains them on using the audio equipment.
In addition to all of her official duties, Alexandria also serves as the producer of NASA’s official podcast Houston We Have a Podcast. The podcast talks with and interviews astronauts, scientists, and engineers working on furthering space exploration.
Alexandria says she loves that her job allows her to be part of something bigger than herself, but is not a fan of how politics come into play with what she does as a creative. She is awaiting NASA’s return to the moon and hopes to be able to mix the audio. Her long term goals are to mix audio for the Grammys.
On Challenging Projects
One challenge that sticks out the most was the Space X Demo-1 mission. It was 
challenging because it was the first time we ever merged our NASA shows with SpaceX. Learning how to coordinate a show between multiple locations and have it flow easily was definitely difficult. The audio setup was new and extremely complicated but as a team, we managed to put out great shows for that mission. It’s also the same mission I won my first Emmy for.
On Failure
For me looking back the biggest failure, I had happened in college. I had become lazy with class and my grades quickly fell, to the point that I was put on academic probation. That was a big wake up call for me, because if I had failed another class I would have failed out of college. In the next couple of months, I kicked it in gear and studied more, went to my instructors during office hours for extra help, and surrounded myself with positive people. I learned from that experience to never slack off and always do my best. Most importantly I learned that even when the odds are against me that I can overcome anything as long as I never stop trying.
What if any obstacles or barriers have you faced?
I have been fortunate to not have faced many obstacles or barriers in my career. The only thing that was an obstacle was having such an age gap between my coworkers and them being able to trust that I’m mentally capable of the job regardless of my age.
How have you dealt with them?
Earning trust takes time especially in this industry. I was able to do it by constantly giving them my best work and attitude and showing up in big situations.
Advice you have for other women and young women who wish to enter the field?
Don’t be afraid to make mistakes, that’s the only way you can really learn. Some of the biggest mistakes in my career offered me the most valuable lessons.
What is your favorite day off activity?
While I work in live television and not the music industry, I still love creating music in my free time as a way to express my emotions.
Must have skills?
Must be able and willing to be teachable at any level. Also for anything-audio understanding signal flow is key.
Favorite gear?
My favorite gear would have to be my Zoom F8N recorder, it’s perfect for in the fieldwork.
June 22 at 3:30 -5:00 PM EST
This Webinar will be recorded and streamed on Facebook Live. We encourage you to register for this and submit questions you have.
The social, mental, and cultural impact of going through a global pandemic is also causing a psychological trauma pandemic. The stress and fear that have come from this pandemic, along with the global loss and isolation required to combat this are the perfect ingredients for psychological trauma and even Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
When the dust settles from this crisis, almost everyone will be impacted and many in the Live Event Industry are experiencing trauma due to the loss of employment, income, and loss of doing a job we love.
The good news is that there are a lot of therapists out there who are trained in trauma who can help.
Kaprece Stallings, MS is a Registered Mental Health Counselor and will be joining SoundGirls to offer tips, advice, and how to navigate through the trauma our industry is experiencing.
Kaprece Stallings, MS is a Registered Mental Health Counselor (psychotherapist), IMH 17304, in the state of Florida. She has a Master’s Degree in Professional Counseling and a Bachelor of Science in Psychology from Palm Beach Atlantic University. She is a member of the American Counseling Association. Kaprece She specializes in trauma-informed therapy. She has worked with adults, teens, and children with physical, emotional, and sexual abuse issues along with first-responders with PTSD issues. She also has experience working with adults and teens with depression, anxiety, substance abuse, self-esteem issues, broken relationships, and spiritual issues. Kaprece is certified in Accelerated Resolution Therapy (ART) and trained in Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing (EMDR), and Trust-Based Relational Interventions (TBRI). She is also certified to assess temperament/personality through the Arno Profile System.
When you work in live sound, at some point you will find yourself in a similar position to me: mixing monitors in mid-to-large sized venues. You will begin encountering bands that have their own front-of-house engineers but no monitor engineer and manage in-ear monitors in many forms, ranging from tour-ready packages to a hodgepodge of cheap receivers to crappy gaming headphones used with an adapter (yes, that happened). And you will need to adapt your mixing style to the monitor combination of the day. This strange territory in the transition between mixing wedges and mixing IEMs can be tricky to navigate, so I thought I would share a few of the strategies I’ve developed.
Manage expectations. This might be the most important. Chat with the band while you’re setting up – introduce yourself, point out the monitor location, and try to get a feel for mix needs. After testing mix connections with pink noise I like to make an announcement restating my name and explaining that I’ll do my best to get them what they need as quickly as possible. If it’s a rushed soundcheck, I’ll explain that I’ll focus on levels and basic EQ first, to get through the line check quickly, and make higher-level tweaks as they check songs.
Use headphones. Relying on headphones or using a cheap pair of IEMs as your cue mix makes your listening experience much closer to that of the artists on stage. Headphones are especially useful with bands that are only on IEMs, since in this case listening to anything in the cue wedge may affect the mix you’re building onstage.
Ask questions. Don’t be afraid to ask for information you need or double-check things you aren’t sure of. Asking the musicians where they want something in their mix – ears, wedges, side fills – or if they have panning preferences is also useful, as some bands have a template they prefer their mixes to follow. I also like to confirm that everyone has what they need of a certain channel before moving on during soundcheck.
Set vocals first. This includes talkbacks! Ideally, you can set the talkback and vocals at a healthy level and bring the rest of the mix up around that. Keeping the levels at a comfortable volume matters even more now, with the mix going directly into someone’s ears. And from a practical standpoint, setting vocals first is a must so that you can communicate effectively with the band. Don’t forget to put a little of both talkbacks into the side fills so that you can communicate with front-of-house easily.
Watch your levels. Sound going directly to your ears is a much different experience than sound coming at you from a nearby speaker, so be extremely careful when setting and adjusting mix levels (especially if you do not have headphones or your own IEMS available for use). Whenever I adjust the levels of an IEM mix, I take care to go much slower and be extra aware of what dB level I am at.
Befriend front-of-house (if there is one). It’s important to have a good working relationship with the front-of-house engineer. Make sure it is clear who will lead soundcheck, when you’re ready to move on within the soundcheck, etc. Generally, a touring engineer will also be able to give you some tips about the monitor mixes and the general preferences of the artist.
The weeks may be dragging, the weeks may be absolutely flying by. Everything is the same yet everything is different. For everyone! One day it’s all fun and games, others it can seem too overwhelming to stay on top of anything. My plan every weekend for the past few weeks (months) has been to do email outreach for my podcast but life easily finds a way to get in the way!
I find that keeping a diary/agenda, as well as a daily journal and reminders on my phone calendar really makes a difference. Taking each week, one week at a time is also a good way to get through a to-do list that has always seemed never-ending and provides no motivational pull whatsoever. I have also planned to read two books a month, which I am top of at the moment by literally putting in calendar reminders to read! It is so easy to watch TV or be on my phone instead, but I am trying my best to read even just a little bit every night. In general, doing one tiny thing a day that leads towards making something out of your potential side hustle can make a difference.
On another note, I have become obsessed with a songwriting podcast called ‘And The Writer Is…’. It had been on my list for so long due to the Instagram shout-out from Alice Levine at BBC Radio 1, but it has been well worth the wait! I am currently still bingeing the 2017 episodes and have decided that songwriting will be my new venture. My Dad is an unexpected poet, perhaps I can make a move into songwriting? It is a fascinating industry, there is so much to know and learn and I feel like it is such an undercover movement that you wouldn’t know about it unless you were in it.
My plan is to first binge this podcast, then get writing, one song a day is what they recommend, then start on the cold call email reach outs and then see what happens! I will keep you updated. Who knows what could happen.
Best of luck to all your side hustles. Keep going, stay invested, and always try out new ideas! Creativity is the future.