Episode 19: “Women are the Secret Sauce”: Talking Activism with Shannon Watts
Please note: This transcript has been automatically generated.
BRITTANY PACKNETT CUNNINGHAM:
Hey y’all. It’s been a week. Hear me when I say it’s been a week. Hear me in my best tough love mama voice when I say y’all, it has only been a week. We got four more years of this, so we gonna have to buck up, okay? Put on our big kid pants and move forward. I’m not saying to be over it, hell, I’m not over it and not being over it, frankly, is good fuel to the fire. But there’s a difference between being over it and crashing out.
BRITTANY PACKNETT CUNNINGHAM:
I know how tempting it is to doom scroll every single night before you go to bed and then dream about all of the doom, or have nightmares, rather than wake up and do it all over again before you even put your feet on the floor and your slippers in the morning. I understand how tempting it is to wanna keep up with every single headline and send all of those headlines to your loved ones with whom you have these conversations. I understand that it is very, very tempting to want to scream into the void, pull your hair out and light everything around you on fire. Trust me, I get it. I’m eight months pregnant. Do you think in all these hormones, <laugh>, I don’t get it. I do. But what I also know to be true is that shock and awe is the strategy. So we’re gonna have to stop…and be still for long enough to stop being shocked and start getting strategic.
BRITTANY PACKNETT CUNNINGHAM:
The crash outs aren’t helping you friend. Doing what you know adds to your anxiety and fear that’s not healthy, boo. It’s not fair to you. It’s not fair to the people who love you. It’s not fair to the community who needs you to do your work. So let’s try to take some manageable, responsible actions this week that help us funnel all of these feelings into something real. Let’s subscribe to the World Health Organization’s newsletters because just because we can’t get the information from the administration doesn’t mean we don’t still need it, and it doesn’t mean we can’t still access it. Make a list and bookmark your favorite, reliable, credible new sources. I shared online that my imperfect faves are NPR, the Associated Press, BBC, and The 19th. Shout out to our home girl Errin Haines, for reaching five years with that incredible outlet. And for all other sources and internet memes and random “breaking news” tweets that you see. Bookmark snopes.com and politifact.com, and an AI checker on your internet home screen so that you can easily check what’s fact and what’s fiction. And something you can do for your community, your neighbors and yourself bone up on what to do if ICE comes to your door, your workplace, or you encounter them anywhere. You gotta protect yourself and we gotta protect one another. And if you feel like you absolutely must keep up with every single thing that’s going on, make sure you consult the people who are actively tracking these things and making the information easily digestible for you. It’s been one week, we got four years of this, and we have to make sure it’s only four years. So let’s get smart, let’s get strategic. Let’s feel our feelings. But let us never, ever give the opposition and the enemy what they’re looking for from us. They should be looking at us and hearing <singing> “surprise, surprise” because they have no idea what we’re coming with next. That’s how strategic we need to be, and I know we can get there.
BRITTANY PACKNETT CUNNINGHAM:
After last week’s flurry of executive orders that sought to unravel so much of the progress we’ve worked to make for decades, I wanted to talk to someone who knows what it means to get in the fight and build a movement. So I’m grateful to be joined by my friend Shannon Watts, the activist and founder of Moms Demand Action.
SHANNON WATTS:
We have to build in-person communities. The manosphere is all online. We need to be getting together and having conversations. I mean, women are looking for a place. They’re looking for a sense of belonging and empowerment and for conversation.
BRITTANY PACKNETT CUNNINGHAM:
Before I dive into, whew, some deep news this week, I wanna wish a happy lunar New Year to all of you who celebrate. On Wednesday, we officially entered the year of the snake, which is associated with wisdom, charm, elegance, and importantly transformation. Let’s all hope that last one in particular is coming true.
BRITTANY PACKNETT CUNNINGHAM:
Now you all know from a few episodes ago when we talked to our good friend, Reverend Neichelle Guidry, that for years now certain religious leaders have been aligning themselves with Trump. Did you all catch that pastor who spoke of the inauguration and launched his own cryptocurrency later that day? Oh, the grift is gonna grift and given the very un-Christian way in which Agent Orange behaves, it feels like an endless hypocrisy feedback loop, which is why I must say it was so nice to see Trump and Vance get humbled from the pulpit. First, I’m sure that you all saw Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde made a direct plea to Trump and JD Vance last week.
BISHOP MARIANN BUDDE:
The people who pick our crops and clean our office buildings who labor and poultry farms and meet packing plants who wash the dishes after we eat in restaurants and work the night shifts in hospitals, they, they may not be citizens or have the proper documentation, but the vast majority of immigrants are not criminals.
BRITTANY PACKNETT CUNNINGHAM:
But Bishop Budde is not the only person of the cloth calling Trump out. Pope Francis. Yeah, that’s right, JD, your Pope, called the administration’s plans for mass deportation a “disgrace.” Pope Francis is the first Latin American Pope in history and has spoken passionately about the plight of migrants for years. I don’t anticipate that this will sway Trump or Vance either way, but I hope that others of faith and our leaders hear these messages and follow suit. God willing.
BRITTANY PACKNETT CUNNINGHAM:
Okay, so this next item is <laugh>. Fascinating. So background: in the years since Roe was overturned, we’ve watched as states have enacted total abortion bans and bans on IVF treatment based on the idea held by some that life begins at conception. That idea is not held by science, but apparently to them that is besides the point. But now a Democratic state senator in Mississippi is trying to change the dynamic. Senator Bradford Blackmon introduced a bill last week called the Contraception Begins at Erection Act, which would ban men from masturbating or engaging in sexual acts that have no intent to fertilize an embryo. If passed, though, of course it probably won’t ’cause it’s Mississippi and that state legislature eats hypocrisy for breakfast, It would go into effect in July and it would impose fines of up to $10,000 for multiple offenses. The bill is clearly making the point and asking the question, where the hell do we draw the line, y’all?
BRITTANY PACKNETT CUNNINGHAM:
It’s almost as if, I don’t know, making reproductive decisions shouldn’t be legislated. Just, you know, thinking out loud here. One last thing. The Oscar nominations are out. And to be honest with y’all, I basically haven’t watched any of the nominated movies except Wicked, because, I mean, them girls really can sing down. But what I have seen is Roy Wood Jr’s new comedy, special Lonely Flowers. Not only is it full of that classic Roy humor, but he talks about the need for human connection, especially at a time when we may feel more isolated and divided than ever. Roy is my friend, and he is so good at speaking to our need for community, which I know all of you in the UNDISTRACTED audience feel too. So, if you’re looking for your self-care watch this week, you can catch Lonely Flowers on Hulu and have yourself a good laugh. ‘Cause we all need that right now. And no, this isn’t an ad. I just really love Roy and I thought the special was great. And that’s it for the news. We’ll be right back.
BRITTANY PACKNETT CUNNINGHAM:
You know, here at Undistracted we are all about staying undistracted. Finding the balance between being informed and empathetic and open and you know, just basically staying sane. If you love Undistracted, you are going to love the media newsletter three times a week, it lands in your inbox with enlightening, surprising, and occasionally hilarious perspective on news, culture, sports, and the fight for gender and racial justice. You’ll get exclusive interviews with women and non-binary people making news plus elders. We look up to, like Anita Hill and Gloria Steinem. You’ll hear writers like Julianne Escobedo Shepherd, Rebecca Carroll, and Jessica Valenti dissect the news plus a little behind the scenes of what’s happening here at Undistracted. So, if you’re not already subscribed, what are you waiting for? Head to WeareTheMeteor.com/newsletters OR the show notes on this episode. You can thank me later!
BRITTANY PACKNETT CUNNINGHAM:
And we are back. It hasn’t been long since Inauguration Day. I mean like it’s been a week and a half, yet we already have so much to contend with. A flurry of executive orders have come out aiming to impact immigration, birthright citizenship, climate action, trans rights, DEI initiatives, and so many other things. As news of these mandates emerge, it’s all the more evident that if we’re going to push back against them and protect each other, which we must, then we’ll need to work together from the ground up to do it. Activist Shannon Watts knows what it takes to do this work and to do it effectively. A mother who turned her anguish into action. Shannon stepped into her power to found Moms Demand Action, a grassroots anti-gun violence movement, 10 million supporters strong through steadfast lobbying to sweeping community building efforts online and off. She has spent over a decade building collective power among women, cultivating a womansphere, if you will, which we’re definitely in need of today.
BRITTANY PACKNETT CUNNINGHAM:
This is exactly why I wanted to sit down with her and talk about how we can take women’s organizing to the next level and gun violence and take action that will result in real change. So let’s get into the conversation.
BRITTANY PACKNETT CUNNINGHAM:
Shannon, welcome to UNDISTRACTED. I’m so thrilled to have you here. I feel like how are you is a complicated question right now. Like it has been for a while, <laugh>, and I think this is especially true for, you know, our fellow organizers and strategists. Instead of asking, how are you, I’m curious how you’re protecting your piece right now, so you can do that.
SHANNON WATTS:
Yeah, I mean, you’re talking to someone who, who got a text from someone today who’s in the media and said, the things that are happening right now you wouldn’t even believe. And I just, you know, sat in a chair paralyzed by fear. What are the things that I could not believe, you know? And right after the election, I spent time in what I call the sacred pause, right? I’m a Buddhist and there’s this idea of taking a beat, right? Between stimulus and action. There is a sacred space. I was not ready to go right from the election into the fire post-election. I did need that break, and I spent the holidays with my family, and I really did focus on regrouping and recharging. That is really helpful. But my point being, it doesn’t protect me from the day to day fear that I feel when I get input from friends and family or I see something on the news. But for me, the antidote to fear is action. It always has been.
BRITTANY PACKNETT CUNNINGHAM:
Obviously, when we decided to call this podcast UNDISTRACTED, you know, our incredible graphic design team highlighted that act because we always wanted people to come away from these conversations informed and activated and feeling as powerful as possible, right? I want you to feel more powerful, more capable, more able to act on the other side of this podcast than when you began it. And so you’ve been vocal about recent news concerning this nation’s issue with gun violence. I mean, you’ve spent over a decade organizing on that issue alone. And last week, of course we saw a tragic school shooting at Antioch High School in Nashville, Tennessee. Analysis from ProPublica shows that the student responsible for the shooting in Nashville was mutuals with the student who carried out a shooting at a school in Wisconsin over a month ago. And both of these teenagers were active in, in internet subculture, right? That might not be familiar to a lot of us, but deeply entangles a lot of young people that really glorifies mass shooters and encourages young people to commit these attacks. And you know, as a nation, we’ve grappled with school shootings for way longer than we should have, right? It should have ended the first time this happened. So what about this particular story and today’s gun violence culture is different from the situation we’ve seen in years prior, especially given the kind of radicalization that helped lead to Trump 2.0.
SHANNON WATTS:
What does it say about our nation that we have so many school shooters that they have created a network?
BRITTANY PACKNETT CUNNINGHAM:
Mmm. Mmm! There’s a whole group chat for the school shooters.
SHANNON WATTS:
They are communicating with one another. They are inspiring one another to carry out heinous acts. And so look, I think it’s really important that we don’t give these gun men and now gun women and really their gun children notoriety because that is what they want. And so this is a crisis, it’s an epidemic. It is completely senseless, totally preventable, right? Most school shooters are not shadowy figures who walk in off the streets. They’re students. And given that 80% or more of school shooters are students and that the majority of them get access to guns through their parents or their, their homes, their family members, we know that when we put stronger laws in place that hold adults accountable for the way that they store their firearms, that it can prevent these school shootings. We have to keep putting pressure, particularly now in state lawmakers, to do the right thing, right? To, to act, to protect children.
BRITTANY PACKNETT CUNNINGHAM:
I mean, because we are not gonna get it from these federal lawmakers. <laugh>, that much is very clear right now. I mean, we’ve seen numerous executive orders, frankly ad nauseam, over the last week and some change since Trump has been back in office, there hasn’t been anything on guns. That doesn’t mean that there’s not anything on guns coming, right? Because he did, pardon more than 1500 insurrectionists, some of whom after having their sentences commuted, said, Hey, I’m gonna go celebrate and the first thing I wanna go do is buy a gun. Now that they can buy guns again, already one of them was arrested on pending federal gun charges, right? So I mean, this turnabout is really, really quick. The government has let these white nationalists completely off the hook. There really hasn’t been much pushback on this at all. What are the implications of these pardons?
SHANNON WATTS:
Basically the President has said that, you know, you get mercy if you are on my side and you get punished if you’re not. Make no mistake, we have armed militias in our country that serve as this army for the president. This is part of the strategy of how do they take over the country. Now you said that your podcast, that you want it to be a place where people can feel hopeful and act afterward. And so the hope I would give people around the issue of guns in this new administration or this redo of the administration, is that one of the very first things Donald Trump did was roll back gun safety protections. And he invited the CEO of the NRA to sit in on his meetings.
BRITTANY PACKNETT CUNNINGHAM:
Beloved guy, yeah. <laugh>
SHANNON WATTS:
Oh yes. Now who had to resign, um, in disgrace. But you know, Donald Trump in his first administration made it very clear that guns was a priority, that he needed to repay the NRA for their support and their financial support. During the entire first administration. Donald Trump was not able to pass a single piece of gun extremism legislation. They wanted to pass something called concealed carry reciprocity that would’ve made it legal for anyone who had a permit in any state. Like maybe you got it in Alabama online with no training whatsoever. You could take it on the subway in New York City. That was their goal. So wherever you lived in any state, you could take your permit, it would apply anywhere. That failed. They wanted to deregulate silencers because in part, Donald Trump’s son has an investment in silencer companies. They were not able to do that. Why? Because we played such good defense. So he had a Republican Congress, he had, he was beholden to the gun lobby and yet did not pass any gun extremist legislation. So that is just what we’ll have to do again this time, which is to play defense.
BRITTANY PACKNETT CUNNINGHAM:
It’s beautiful that you all across the network of organizers and organizations that have been fighting this for so long, that you all have a successful playbook on this. Right. That there is a recent blueprint to follow, to play that kind of defense, because that’s what we need to be doing across issues right now. Speaking of defense though, I’m curious to get your take on the fact that a number of left-leaning gun groups and firearm sellers who serve a lot of marginalized communities are saying that their enrollment is up, right? That there are folks among Democrats and progressives and leftists who are like, “y’all got guns, we gonna have guns too.” And it’s not like this is a new phenomenon, right? I’m thinking specifically of the Black Panther party for self defense, arming themselves in the state of California, and of course that leading to very strict gun regulations in the state of California. Funny how that works when the Black people get guns, they decided to go a different direction, <laugh>. But I am curious, what do you make of this notion from like brand new gun owners in America who more and more are making up left-leaning politics?
SHANNON WATTS:
Well, fear sells guns regardless of political party. And you know, the NRA has known that for a long time. If you go all the way back to when they started, their extremism was really around Waco. And they started calling, uh, members of the government, “kack-booted thugs.” They figured out it was a really, really good way to raise money to stoke the fires of fear and chaos. Every time there’s a hurricane or a a natural disaster, the solution from the gun manufacturers in the gun lobby is to sell more guns to protect yourself if people try to steal your things.
BRITTANY PACKNETT CUNNINGHAM:
I was like, are you gonna shoot at the tornado? Make it make sense? But keep going, <laugh>.
SHANNON WATTS:
But it’s, it’s this idea of like, stand your ground, right? You’re, you’re in danger. And so what you need to do is to be armed. And they did it during the pandemic. I mean, if you remember, Donald Trump directed the ATF to make curbside gun sales a priority and to let gun businesses stay open.
BRITTANY PACKNETT CUNNINGHAM
Yep.
SHANNON WATTS:
There are nations where there are high levels of gun ownership, not as high as America, where we have 400 million guns and counting for citizens, but there are nations with high levels of gun ownership, but low levels of gun violence. The problem in America is that we have stripped, and I say we, I mean Republicans have stripped all of the responsibilities that go along with gun rights, from background checks to permitting, to training.
BRITTANY PACKNETT CUNNINGHAM:
Yeah. That if you’re going to own this piece of steel, there are requirements that come along with that privilege. And those requirements are there to keep people safe.
SHANNON WATTS:
Yeah. And those are gone. And so we are trying to restore them, but at the same time, you just have gun lobbyists and, and, and extremists who are trying to, to strip them away. And so it’s this, it’s this battle.
BRITTANY PACKNETT CUNNINGHAM:
Mm. You talked a little bit before about the blueprint that you and so many others have created, making incredible strides on the fight against gun violence, including stopping a lot of the NRA’s agenda, which you just talked about. You’ve made inroads at the state level that are critically important from Virginia to Massachusetts and Minnesota. What do you think is still standing in the way of sweeping reform? Why is it such a challenge to get truly bipartisan support nationwide on this issue?
SHANNON WATTS:
Two issues. One is that most Republicans are beholden to the gun lobby now. And two is that there’s still a fear among Democrats that, you know, they will be punished if they protect their constituents. That’s getting less and less. I mean, when I started Moms Man Action in 2012, about a quarter of all Democrats in Congress had an “A” rating from the NRA today. None, not one democrat in Congress has an A rating, but there’s still this very vocal minority of gun extremists who believe that any law whatsoever is an infringement on the Second Amendment. And they have been louder than the Democrats have been for a long time. But that is changing, but it takes a while.
BRITTANY PACKNETT CUNNINGHAM:
Yeah. Is there action that we can be taking on an individual and community level to help move that along, especially over these next four years?
SHANNON WATTS:
Yes. Well, first of all, thanking and shaming your lawmakers is a very effective strategy. And they need to hear from you.
BRITTANY PACKNETT CUNNINGHAM:
People do not like to be embarrassed. <laugh>
SHANNON WATTS:
They do not! And they don’t wanna be held accountable. And so when we start showing up in per first of all, online is great, and you should be tweet, you know, maybe you don’t wanna be on Twitter, but you should be sending out social media messages that either hold lawmakers accountable or, or thank them for, for standing on the right side of this issue. That’s important, but it’s even more important to show up in person. I’ll give you an example. Senator Mark Warner from Virginia had an “A” rating from the NRA when the Sandy Hook School shooting happened. And he had voted for even some of their sponsored legislation. He lives in Virginia. Right. And he was sort of straddling the line. And when moms demand action started, one of the first things our Virginia volunteers did was to start showing up at every single house party that he was at. Right. Lawmakers go to house parties to try to Yeah. Woo voters and to raise money,
BRITTANY PACKNETT CUNNINGHAM:
Raise the dough. Yeah.
SHANNON WATTS:
And these volunteers would show up and make a beeline for Mark Warner and corner him at these house parties and just like, read him.
BRITTANY PACKNETT CUNNINGHAM:
<laugh>
SHANNON WATTS:
Up and down and to say, we will hold you accountable. There’s this army of women in red shirts now and we will not allow you to continue to endanger our families in our communities. And I’m telling you, Mark Warner listened and he immediately got an “F” and he started voting the right way. It works, but you have to show up.
BRITTANY PACKNETT CUNNINGHAM:
Yeah. Funny how holding the people that we employ to represent us accountable can be effective if we keep working that system. But you talk about the power of women, it is notable that 58% of all US adults favor stricter gun laws, but the percentage truly is higher among women. You’ve really been able to bring together thousands of women on the issue across many lines of difference. Right. But there is this burgeoning online culture like the manosphere out here glorifying salivating for panting after gun violence. So what do we do? Like how do we break through that gender divide on this issue and create actual solutions?
SHANNON WATTS:
It, it’s interesting to watch this gender divide get even more stark with each election cycle.
BRITTANY PACKNETT CUNNINGHAM:
Mm-hmm.
SHANNON WATTS:
I really believe that women are the secret sauce to activism. And we’ve been on the front lines forever, particularly Black women. Right. And you know, after prohibition is when white women were allowed to get involved in activism because temperance was seen as a Christian value and they could never really put that toothpaste back in the tube <laugh>.
BRITTANY PACKNETT CUNNINGHAM:
Mm.
SHANNON WATTS:
So, you know, I think it, it’s so incredibly important for women to realize that if we use our voices and our votes, we can make a difference. We only hold about 25% of the 500,000 elected positions in this country. Mm. We only hold about 5% of the Fortune 1,000 CEO positions.
BRITTANY PACKNETT CUNNINGHAM:
Correct.
SHANNON WATTS:So we don’t have the power to make the policies that protect our families and our communities, but we’re the majority of the voting population. And we know that Republican women support the same solutions to gun violence as democratic women do. So it’s really important that we band together and you know, we’ve talked a lot about school shootings, Brittany, but the truth is, mass shootings and school shootings are about 1% of the gun violence in this country. The daily shootings that are killing over 125 people in America and wounding hundreds more are with handguns and they disproportionately impact Black and brown people.
BRITTANY PACKNETT CUNNINGHAM
Mm-hmm
SHANNON WATTS:
And so it is also looking at this as not just my kids and my school, but my state, my country, my community is being impacted.
BRITTANY PACKNETT CUNNINGHAM:
That’s right. And we’re also talking about police violence is gun violence.
SHANNON WATTS:
Yes.
BRITTANY PACKNETT CUNNINGHAM:
We’re talking about domestic violence and intimate partner violence is gun violence. We’re talking about death by suicide is gun violence. Right. Having that kind of broad understanding of what it means to tackle this issue is absolutely necessary. As you talk about this gender divide, I know you’re writing a piece for the media about how to sort of counter this, right. A womansphere, if you will.
SHANNON WATTS:
Yep.
BRITTANY PACKNETT CUNNINGHAM:
And why we’re in dire need of it. What would that woman’s fear look like to you? Like what do you think it’ll take to build not just a strong one, but one that lasts election cycle after election cycle, generation after generation?
SHANNON WATTS:
Look, uh, first of all, I think we have to compete online. There’s so many different women who are online sharing information and educating people. We need more. And we need average everyday women who are online to use their voices to tell people where they stand, to educate people to correct misinformation and disinformation. But also we have to build in-person communities. The Manosphere is all online. And I’ll tell you what, I have tried to organize men for over 12 years. It is like herding cats,
BRITTANY PACKNETT CUNNINGHAM:
<laugh>
SHANNON WATTS (27:44):
I’m married to a man, I have a son. They’re not interested. And I think it’s because their power is not impacted. They’re not necessarily in jeopardy. They feel safe. Right? So I also think women have to create in-person community. Unlike the manosphere, we need to be getting together and having conversations. I mean, we talked about the gender divide, but look at the divide also between Black women and white women or college educated women and non-college educated women. Right. Difference in marital status in education and religion. All of those things divide us.
BRITTANY PACKNETT CUNNINGHAM:
Yeah.
SHANNON WATTS
And I do think community and coming together in person, I mean, I’ve seen this firsthand through Moms Demand Action. Women are looking for a place, they’re looking for a sense of belonging and empowerment and for conversation. And so I actually am in the process right now of having conversations with women and donors about like, how do we replicate these moms Demand Action chapters, but specifically around conversation and empowerment.
BRITTANY PACKNETT CUNNINGHAM:
Yeah. I know that some of the conversations you’re having right now are about your upcoming book Fired Up, which I cannot let us close without talking about. A lot of what you preach really comes alive in the book, which discusses how women can learn to unleash their potential, come alive through activism as you’ve already shared, live a life really following our desires and not just our obligations. You spent months interviewing and writing about more than 70 women for this project. What do you hope is the single greatest lesson that people walk away with after they read this book?
SHANNON WATTS:
You have the right to follow your desires, not just fulfill your obligations. And look, I didn’t figure that out until I was 41 years old after a corporate communications career that I was like selling everything from, you know, corn ethanol to Craisins
BRITTANY PACKNETT CUNNINGHAM:
<laugh>
SHANNON WATTS:
And it wasn’t until I started Moms Demand Action that I figured out what made me come alive. And in my career and, and through Moms in Action, I’ve met so many women who are brilliant and have great ideas or wanna make changes or wanna do things differently, but they’re not sure how to tap into the fire in themselves.
BRITTANY PACKNETT CUNNINGHAM:
Yeah.
SHANNON WATTS:
To make that happen. And look, your fire can help you figure out how to burn things down like the NRA or it can help keep you warm and find your community of people.
BRITTANY PACKNETT CUNNINGHAM:
Yes.
SHANNON WATTS:That will light you up and help you at the end of the day, leave a legacy. And I don’t think women are taught to leave a legacy. Right. It’s not having your name on a hospital. It is about being able to say on your deathbed that you don’t have regrets. That, that you didn’t just fulfill your obligation, that you followed your desires. And that’s what I want to share the formula for. I learned it myself. I saw women do it every day.
BRITTANY PACKNETT CUNNINGHAM:
Yeah. I love that. Before I let you go, is there anything that has you particularly fired up for the future? Because we need to feel that fire right now. <laugh> more than ever.
SHANNON WATTS:
I believe that there will be amazing leaders that we don’t even know about that come out of what we’re going through right now in this political morass. I really do like all the leaders who’ve been leading us. Thanks for getting us here, but we are ready for new people and new blood and those people will rise up. So that is keeping me inspired. I am inspired by watching women like, you know, members of Congress or just women who lead nonprofits really meet the moment. And, and that excites me. And I’m inspired by this idea of how do we create community in ways we’ve never had it before? And how do we have conversations we’ve never had before? Look, I, I was one of the organizers of the “Answer the call for white women” Zoom, Kamala Harris outperformed Joe Biden five points with college educated white women. That is not nothing like baby steps. We cannot give up just because we lost. We have to keep fighting
BRITTANY PACKNETT CUNNINGHAM:
Those gains matter. ‘Cause child, we didn’t know <laugh> if we were gonna make any gains or not. I know we’ve had these conversations. But your point about making community where it didn’t exist before, I think is so critically important. I know that that has been part and parcel to my political education, my faith upbringing, my cultural upbringing as a Black woman. And I wish that that were tangible for everybody right now. We have to make that tangible for everybody right now. We’re not getting through this if we don’t get through together.
SHANNON WATTS:
And I have heard you say, and I think you were on…talking to Glennon about this, which is like, white women have to learn how to build community. And I hope that I can help with that.
BRITTANY PACKNETT CUNNINGHAM:
Well, you’ve certainly been helping with it and I appreciate this conversation so we can keep on doing it. Shannon, I love you. Thank you for joining us on UNDISTRACTED.
SHANNON WATTS:
I love you, Brittany. Thank you.
BRITTANY PACKNETT CUNNINGHAM:
Action is an antidote to fear. There is no better time to hear exactly those words and to think about how we each of us can take disciplined, thoughtful, intentional, communal, strategic action to survive and to thrive.
BRITTANY PACKNETT CUNNINGHAM:
That is it for today, but never for tomorrow. Undistracted is a production of The Meteor and our friends at Wonder Media Network. Our producers are Vanessa Handy, Brittany Martinez and Alyia Yates. Our editors are Grace Lynch and Maddy Foley. Thanks also to Natalia Ramirez and Sarah Culley. Our executive producers at The Meteor are Cindi Leive and myself and our executive producer at Wonder Media Network is Jenny Kaplan. You can follow me at @ MsPackyetti on all social media and our incredible team @theMeteor, subscribe to Undistracted. And y’all don’t forget to rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any place you get your favorite podcast. Thanks for listening. Thanks for being, and thanks for doing. I’m Brittany Packnett Cunningham. Let’s go get free.