Ai-jen Poo on caregiving: “We take for granted that women will just figure it out”
Please note: This transcript has been automatically generated.
Brittany Packnett Cunningham Hey, it’s me, and I feel like DJ Khaled right now because it’s our 50th. Show me up here. You’re the best. All right. No, that was corny because I am corny. But in all seriousness, thank y’all. Thank y’all for 50 whole episodes. Oh my gosh. When Cindi Leive and I first started talking about this project all the way back in 2019, if you can remember that far, it was just a figment of our very active imagination. And now, because of each of you, we got a whole podcast out here like, people are actually listening. Y’all really stay in my DMs talking about how the conversations with the Nap Minister changed your life or how you never really thought about climate justice as feminism until you listened in. And I can’t always respond, but I do see them, and it trips me out every time in the best way possible. I know this may sound wild to y’all, but I know each of you know that feeling. The one where you have an idea and you’re just not sure how it’ll be received when you birth it into the world. I am so proud of our whole team for building this ongoing dialog, not just about how we view the world differently, but about how we can build the world that we deserve. And I’m thankful to each of you for being the reason why we don’t just have listeners. We have a community. Y’all even stuck with us through this Spotify transition, and you’ve been telling us that it’s not an imposition because that matters to y’all, that we stick to our values. I can’t tell you how much it means to the entire undistracted family that you are here, that you’re sharing these conversations online with your loved ones and those opponents that you’re hoping to finally get it. I don’t take it for granted, and I promise you, I promise you, we are just getting started. We are UNDISTRACTED.
On the show today, Ai-jen Poo. I’ll be talking to the director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance about the care economy and why parents and caregivers are feeling underpaid and overworked. That’s not on you. That’s coming up. But first, it’s your UnTrending news.
This past weekend was Super Bowl 56, a face off between the Bengals of Cincinnati and the Rams of Los Angeles. Now I’m not going to spend time shading the Rams for leaving my hometown of St. Louis, even though they deserve it. But, to be honest, I was really not pressed about the Super Bowl. I spent it in my Colin Kaepernick T-shirt, rooting for the real winners Mary J. Blige and Mickey Guyton. OK.
Mickey Guyton Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there. O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave.
Brittany Packnett Cunningham I mean, it was really the key change for me. And besides Mickey and Mary, the NFL showcased Black performers and athletes throughout—with Jhené Aiko singing “America the Beautiful,” Mary Mary, who sang the Black national anthem, and Kendrick Lamar crushed that halftime show. Even the lead referee, Ronald Torbert, was Black. I mean, it is Black History Month, but my spidey senses were going off on just how much Black folks were being spotlighted. I’ll never take anything away from the immense Black talent we saw. But if you listened to Jemele Hill and Cari Champion on last week’s episode, nothing and I mean nothing comes before the almighty dollar for the NFL, and the NFL clearly wanted us to forget about that pesky little discrimination suit from Brian Flores. Part of the theatricality and the peak Blackness of the Super Bowl was to distract from that reality. So here’s more reality for you: huge sporting events like this also increase police presence and displace unhoused folks in the cities that host. And the Rams relocation to L.A. sent housing prices soaring in the historically Black neighborhood of Inglewood, making it unsustainable for many who live there. And Colin Kaepernick still ain’t got no job. So let’s not forget what’s really good.
And now onto another sports story. I know that’s not how we usually roll here on UNDISTRACTED, but it was just that kind of week. Olympic medals will not be awarded for women’s team figure skating until Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva’s doping case is resolved. That could take months. The limbo about whether or not Kamila’s medal will be reversed because of a positive drug test doesn’t compare to what Sha’Carri Richardson has been through. Sha’Carri was dragged through the mud after she was barred from competing in the 100 meters in the 2021 Summer Olympics. Sha’Carri’s ban, of course, came when she tested positive for THC, what the rest of us would call weed. After learning that her biological mother died, she smoked in Oregon, where cannabis is legal. And while weed may help some of us cope with grief, what it is not, is a performance enhancing drug. Unlike trimetazidine, the drug found in Kamila’s system and I ain’t never known weed to make you go faster. Part of why these two cases played out so differently is the double standard at play. I mean, according to the ACLU, Black people are still over three times more likely to be arrested for cannabis possession than white people in the U.S., which also means we’re being systematically locked out of the legal weed business where white founders are making some serious bank while Black folks languish in prison. Even the nomenclature marijuana, it was popularized in the early 20th century to essentially lay blame at the feet of Latine people and southern border immigration for America’s drug problem. As Sha’Carri tweeted on Tuesday, it’s all in the skin.
Finally, we got to talk about the crack pipe panic. I don’t know what it is about this Black History Month, but people are wilding. Let me explain. Back in December, the Biden administration announced that they would provide $30 million in grant funding to harm reduction programs across the country to help address the nation’s substance abuse and overdose epidemic. Those are programs that, yes, reduce harm. Meeting people who use drugs where they are and providing safer alternatives. It saves lives. Here’s Kassandra Frederique, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, speaking on the policy.
Kassandra Frederique: This is really about giving resources to overburdened, under-resourced nonprofits that are working with people who use drugs to get access to resources that we know will lower the incidence of drug use.
Brittany Packnett Cunningham Then came the disinformation brigade and in particular right wing agitators who have claimed that the government was going to be handing out crack pipes. And your boy Ted Cruz tweeted some nonsense like: Biden crime policy crack pipe for all. What could go wrong? Some people took it a step further, claiming that the crack pipes were going to, you guessed it, Black folks as Biden’s racial equity policy. Now, besides the fact that that fallacious connection is racist AF, it is very clearly a lie. But it really breaks my heart to see writers on sites meant to serve Black folks also buying into and boosting these narratives without any interrogation. Sites like The Shade Room. I mean, it’s not just dismissive of harm reduction, which is an evidence based tool, it also plays to the ways in which communities of color, who are justifiably suspicious of government institutions, are disproportionately targeted by disinformation campaigns. Reading is fundamental, y’all. We are all responsible to arm ourselves with the truth.
Coming up, I’ll be talking to Ai-jen Poo about how the U.S. is failing parents and caregivers, and why she thinks Build Back Better actually isn’t dead right after this short break.
Brittany Packnett Cunningham And we are back last week, the U.S. Department of Labor released January employment numbers, and despite Omicron, they don’t actually look that bad. The economy added nearly half a million jobs, but and it’s a big but, underneath the good news was the cold reality that our economy is not recovering for everyone. And I will happily be a broken record on this until it is fixed. Because while the report showed the male workforce is regaining jobs, there are still a million fewer women in the workforce than before the pandemic. And you guessed it, it is worse for BIPOC women and women with disabilities. This shouldn’t come as a surprise, and you’ve been listening for long enough to know that our system is trash. The more than three million people in the United States who work in the home care economy make, on average, just $27,000 a year. And then there’s all the unpaid care work mainly done by the women in our families who are looking after children and aging parents, also while trying to keep up with our jobs and the pandemic, of course, made this all way worse. It all adds up to a system that doesn’t add up. The caregiving situation in this country is, in a word, unsustainable. The solution, according to my guest today, is to treat care work as essential infrastructure for our economy and society. Maybe because that’s what it is. Ai-jen Poo is the executive director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance. She’s also, no big deal, a MacArthur genius, the author of The Age of Dignity: Preparing for the Elder Boom in a Changing America, and she was Meryl Streep’s 2018 date to the Golden Globes. Ai-jen, is one of the big reasons so many people in Washington are talking about here right now, because she’s made it her mission.
Brittany Packnett Cunningham Thank you so much for joining us.
Ai-jen Poo Thank you.
Brittany Packnett Cunningham I want to just jump right in and would love for you to really just set the scene for us. So the pandemic, it has certainly brought to surface a lot of inequalities and inequities and underlying crises that people wanted to ignore for a long time. And now, frankly, many people can’t. What has the past couple of years revealed, specifically about the burdens placed on caregivers in this country?
Ai-jen Poo Well, I think we all kind of felt it right, like whether we had our kids home from school kind of figure out online learning all of the sudden or we had our parents on lockdown in nursing homes or like thousands of miles away, and we weren’t sure who was going to take care of them. I think we were all freaking out a little bit about how we were going to take care of the people that we love. And I think what it helped us realize is that we take so much for granted when it comes to caring for our loved ones. And a lot of what we take for granted is that women will just figure it out and handle it in our families behind closed doors or underpaid, overworked, undervalued women of color who work in our care economy will just handle it. And we have never really with any kind of intention invested in our programs that support caregiving or our caregivers. And so it was kind of a house of cards already. And then when the pandemic happened, it literally brought the whole thing down, and it forced literally millions of women to leave the workforce because of caregiving responsibilities. And a lot of them haven’t been able to come back because here we are in and out of this crisis, it’s like constant. The new variant happens. Schools, daycares opening and closing, we’re all still so in it, Brittany. It’s still happening.
Brittany Packnett Cunningham And just to be really clear, you talk about that House of cards, that is the entire system that is not functioning right. It is unaffordable child care, unaffordable elder care, minimal, if any, family, medical or parental leave and then folks who are actively participating in the care economy, caregivers are getting poverty wages. This is all working together to create the perfect storm you describe.
Ai-jen Poo That’s right. Let me talk for a second about care workers because, you know, we’ve been uplifting essential workers throughout this pandemic. But to this day, most care workers are still earning less than a living wage. We have people who have been paying out of pocket for safer modes of transportation, so they’re not exposed to the risk, paying out of pocket for PPE, figuring out every which way to get to their clients so that they can keep their clients safe, so their clients have food, have the care that they need. Meanwhile, they bring home poverty wages. And they’re constantly having to navigate, do I put gas in my car so I can get to work or do I put food on the table for the week? And it’s just it’s so painful the impossible choices that our caregivers are in, and it’s because we’ve never really valued our entire care economy and we’re paying the price for it and so many ways that are so beyond the cost of care.
Brittany Packnett Cunningham I want to put this in perspective, too, because I think we take for granted stateside that just because this is the way that it is, is the way that it has to be. How does America compare to other similar nations when it comes to policies surrounding caregiving?
Ai-jen Poo We are very, very far behind. We are one of a few countries in the entire world that doesn’t have any paid family and medical leave policy. Most countries have three months, six months, and we’ve got nothing.
Brittany Packnett Cunningham I feel like folks like you have been talking about this for forever, and lots of people finally got hip about two years ago. To what extent do you think the pandemic has actually awakened people to this crisis?
Ai-jen Poo I think that there are so many people out there who are screaming in pain and in rage right now because of what they’re having to manage and struggle through, and they feel incredibly alone. And I think that it’s up to us to help them make the connection between what they are struggling with is not a personal failure. It’s not because they did something wrong, but it’s because we don’t have the policies, the programs in place in our country to provide this basic and fundamental support that should be considered public infrastructure. It is a public good to be able to offer the care that our families need so that we can go to work in a sustainable way every day. We don’t have that infrastructure in place, and that is why it is such a struggle right now. It’s not because you have the wrong job or you failed as a parent or as a daughter. It’s because we don’t have the policies in place and we’re in this together and we have to build it together.
Brittany Packnett Cunningham You’re, you know, you talked about the number of women in particular who are pushed out of the workforce. In March and April of 2020 alone, there were three point five million women who had to leave the workforce because of these caregiving challenges. And what I hear you so rightfully saying is instead of taking on the guilt, the blame, the shame for that, to recognize that much of the Great Resignation is not necessarily about people saying, I can’t do this anymore, but really recognizing the systems are not set up for me to be successful in this way.
Ai-jen Poo That’s right. I mean, I think this whole idea of the Great Resignation, I’d love to unpack this with you Brittany, because I’ve been thinking about this a lot. I think it is true that people are assessing what is important and what they want to do, how they want to spend their time. And then there’s all this talk about labor shortages and blaming workers for not wanting to come back to work because they’re getting government support and all of this kind of strange blame game that’s happening on workers in this country. And the truth is, is like two things. One is that there just aren’t enough good jobs in our economy. There’s not a labor shortage. There’s plenty of workers. There’s just a shortage of good jobs, number one. And if you can’t make enough to support yourself and your family, and to pay for the care that you need, why and how are you going to go to work every day? And so the reason why we’re seeing slower return among women and women of color in particular to work in this pandemic, and the reason why we’re dealing with shortages, is because there’s a shortage of good jobs that allows for women and women of color to live and work with dignity, and to take care of the people that they love.
Brittany Packnett Cunningham I want to dig a little bit into this policy because in terms of what needs to change, right? What could a better model look like? What’s your big picture vision for caregiving in this country?
Ai-jen Poo We should have a system where at every stage of life we are able to take care of the people that we love, especially while we’re working. There’s no excuse for us in this country with so many resources, so much creativity, so much brilliance that we don’t have that. Caring for loved ones is the most fundamental human need. And we have not supported it for the people of this country, and it’s created and exacerbated every single inequality. And so there’s a vision that I call Universal Family Care. The idea that one day we should have one fund that we all contribute to that we can all benefit from, like Social Security, that helps us pay for child care, paid leave, elder care, support for loved ones with disabilities, all of the things that we need. And there’s enough money in the program so that every single job in the care economy, from early childhood educators to pre-K teachers to home care workers, becomes a living wage job with dignity and benefits and economic mobility and security. And it’s not a pipe dream. It’s totally within reach that we could achieve that. And that’s why we were fighting and are fighting so hard for Build Back Better because Build ack better fundamentally puts the building blocks in place for us to move towards that long term vision for care in our country. In the meantime, employers have a huge role to play here.
Brittany Packnett Cunningham Yeah.
Ai-jen Poo Employers should take this opportunity of a reset in our economy to actually reset the quality of jobs that they’re offering. And I can guarantee you it means you’re going to have less turnover, which is expensive. It’s going to mean you can recruit the talent that you need, and it’s going to mean greater productivity and better for your business. This is the thing that people, I think in the 21st century are starting to realize is that when we take care of each other, it’s better for everyone involved. It’s better for our economy. It’s better for our democracy. That fundamentally, care is such an important ingredient to any of our systems working for human beings because care is so fundamental to being human.
Brittany Packnett Cunningham I mean, you’ve been making this point about the essential nature of care, both to human life and to our collective good for like two decades, right? You’ve been doing this work for a long time alongside many other people, and you all’s collective work has really finally started to push politicians to pay closer attention to the care crisis. I mean, we heard when Speaker Nancy Pelosi gave you that nice shout out talking about the Build Back Better agenda in November. How will Build Back Better, impact everyday people, working class people. And to your point, how does it set the stage for more? Right? Because Build Back Better can’t be the end all, be all. To your point, it has to be just the beginning.
Ai-jen Poo That’s right, it is the beginning, but it’s a huge step forward. We’re basically going from zero to three quarters of the way there really quickly or maybe half of the way there really, really quickly. And that is a huge, huge historic generational leap forward. And the concrete difference that it will make to your question is that if you are a parent of a young child who needs child care, Build Back Better will make sure that you’re not paying more than seven percent of your income on child care. It makes access to preschool universal. It makes access to home and community based care for aging loved ones, loved ones with disabilities, much more accessible through the Medicaid program. Right now, there’s like 800,000 people on waiting lists who are eligible for Medicaid but can’t get access to these services because these programs are so underfunded. And so it would eliminate all of the waiting lists. And it would raise wages for child care workers and for home care workers so that they could earn living wages, sustain in those jobs, and take care of themselves and their own families, too. It’s really a game changer. And four weeks paid family and medical leave is a huge step forward from zero. I’ve heard so many stories of people who give birth and have to go back to work in two weeks after they’ve given birth because they don’t have paid family medical leave. Can you imagine?
Brittany Packnett Cunningham Yeah. The terrifying part of all of this is it’s been happening for so long, and it’s like this level of crisis for people to finally hear what you’ve been saying. And still, we know that in the political process of compromise and drafting and redrafting, we may still not get everything that we’ve been looking for. We know that Build Back Better originally called for $400 billion in funding for home and community based services, but it’s been pared down since then, significantly, to about $150 Billion, particularly from concerns from that duo that we referred to as Manchinema. What is the status of the bill now, and when do you think the Senate is finally going to vote on it? What do the next steps look like?
Ai-jen Poo Oh, I’m so glad you asked this question, because some of the media have declared Build Back Better, no longer in existence, it’s actually not true. It’s a very live conversation and negotiation that’s happening in the Senate right now, and there is a ton of support for most of-actually consensus around most of the provisions in Build Back Better among the Democratic caucus in the Senate. And so I think that we just need to keep pushing and we need to keep reminding our senators that there is a public demand and a nation of caregivers who are waiting for these policies to be enacted and we’re struggling out here. This Omicron thing has everybody, right, schools, daycares still closing, opening. It’s really- We need this more than ever. And so we’re-right now, we kind of reigniting the campaign to pass Build Back Better. Conversations are going live every day in the month of February, where we’re going to have senators and their constituents talking about what’s at stake and how we’re going to get this done. And so I’m very hopeful that you’re going to see some major progress in the negotiations in the course of the month of February. The President’s State of the Union address is March 1st. I’m, fingers crossed, we’re going to hear some good news at the State of the Union if we do our jobs right as people and push for this thing. And if not, I do believe that no matter what happens, the movement for caregiving policies is growing by the minute, and we’re going to get this done one way or the other. And I believe that with every, every cell in my body.
Brittany Packnett Cunningham Why does it actually make economic sense to invest in care infrastructure the same way that we hear about highways and bridges and toll roads? We should be hearing about investments in the care economy. Break that down for us, especially for the folks who think that the cost is too high.
Ai-jen Poo Mmm. Do you know, Brittany, that the proposed investments and care jobs and Build Back Better is the largest direct investment in the creation of good jobs that will benefit women and women of color in the history of the United States?
Brittany Packnett Cunningham Wow.
Ai-jen Poo The biggest investment in creating good jobs that will go to the people who’ve been hardest hit in the pandemic, right? And arguably like the people who’ve benefited the least from our economic model throughout the history of this country. So, in terms of the win, win, win, just to lay it out really plainly, it’s like when you invest in care jobs, these are jobs that are job-enabling jobs. So, the child care workers, the home care workers, they make it possible for the rest of us to actually go to work, and do what we do in all sectors of the economy. So they’re enabling us to go to work. Senator Casey, who’s the champion of home care in the Senate, says some people need a bridge or a tunnel to get to work and other people need care. Right? A lot of people need child care to get to work, and that’s the definition of infrastructure. What are the things that we need to put into place and to invest in as a society in order for our economy and our society to function? And that is care.
Brittany Packnett Cunningham It’s always fascinating to me to hear people who think that these investments are too costly, because I want to just stare them in the face and say, Do you understand how much it’s going to cost us not to do this, right? Do you understand what the risk is? Like, flip the coin for us. Help us understand what the cost of not investing in our care infrastructure is and how high that is.
Ai-jen Poo Oh, well, first of all, the average cost of a private room in a nursing home is more than $90,000 per year. The average cost of child care is more than $9,000 per year, and 60 percent of the American workforce earns less than $50,000 per year. So the numbers actually don’t add up. They actually just don’t work, which is why everybody feels like they’re at the end of their rope. And that’s been kind of like a slow and simmering crisis because people have just been like, Wait a minute, I must be doing something wrong because this is not possible. This is not sustainable, and it ends up that women and women of color are bearing the brunt of how unsustainable it is. We are bearing the emotional, the physical, the spiritual cost of holding this responsibility for a society that has kind of failed us.
Brittany Packnett Cunningham I mean, you talk about the numbers not adding up. We will face some massive problems in the very near future if we don’t take care of this, right? We know that by 2060 there will be nearly 95 million adults over the age of 65.
Ai-jen Poo That’s right, because the baby boomers are aging every eight seconds, someone turned 65, and we’re all living longer because of advances in health care and technology. It also means the proliferation of chronic illnesses like Alzheimer’s and dementias. It means we as a country need more care than ever before. And right now, it is costing individual families absurd amounts, and it’s also costing states absurd amounts. A state like Maine, which is the oldest state in the nation, pays a third of its budget to nursing homes. Because we haven’t built the infrastructure in the state to support home and community based care, which is so much more affordable and cost effective. The average cost of keeping somebody at home and in the community, which is where most people prefer to age and, and receive care, is a third of the cost of nursing home care. So I’m not saying we should do away with nursing homes—we’ll always need that level of care, and we need to dramatically expand our ability to care for people in the home and community, which is definitely one of the best investments we can make.
Brittany Packnett Cunningham You know, we had Heather McGhee on a couple of weeks ago, and I’m sure you’ve read The Sum of Us. She talks about the fact that the main reason why this country doesn’t provide more of a social safety net is racism, and this kind of zero-sum racism that will create fear of sharing, wealth sharing, public services, sharing resources. And this ends up hurting everyone, irrespective of race, country of origin. What do you think of that? It really just seems—it is—so illogical to deny ourselves these basic benefits simply because some people don’t want to unclench their fists.
Ai-jen Poo Oh, it’s so clear in the care economy how that plays out. One of two groups of workers who were excluded from the original New Deal was home care workers, domestic workers, because of racism and the fact that southern Dixiecrats did not want Black women, Black workers to have equal protections under our labor law frameworks. They started a long history of exclusion of this work, from being treated as equal and as real work. To this day, we still call it “help” as if it’s not an actual profession for millions of women, which it is, right? Because of that legacy and that history. And you know what that means? On the other side, my friend Franklin Leonard often talks about the genius of the film “Hidden Figures” that you follow these women, these Black women who worked for NASA and they faced every form of structural oppression. They faced structural racism, this kind of sexism that devalued their worth, their contributions, and they still managed to take us to the Moon. Imagine if those barriers did not exist, what kind of talent and creativity and brilliance and solutions we would have unleashed as a society, right? He says we’d be flying around in carbon neutral jetpacks.
Brittany Packnett Cunningham Yeah. So we’d be living in the Jetsons by now. Like, come on. Yeah
Ai-jen Poo Oh my God, we would all have dignified, beautiful care. We would have the ability to- I mean, who knows what would be possible? And that’s the question that we all need to grapple with. I think that Heather’s book really calls us to.
Brittany Packnett Cunningham That is the question we need to grapple with, right? And that’s the imagination that we owe ourselves, right? To say, Who knows? Let’s go design it right. Let’s go create that massive fund that you’re talking about. Let’s actually build a care infrastructure. What do you think it will take for us as a society to really make that paradigm shift in how we think about caregivers and their work, not as help, but as essential, and for us to truly value what caregivers provide?
Ai-jen Poo You know, it’s so within reach to me. I mean, every room that I’m in, whenever we start a meeting or I start talking about this vision, I ask people to turn to the person sitting next to them and share a story about someone in their life who’s cared for them and the value of that relationship. And everyone has a story; like there’s not a single room that I’ve been in that hasn’t completely lit up with people talking from such a place of gratitude about those relationships. So it’s all in us. We just have to tap into it and then collectivize, like, allow that energy and that sense of possibility to help us imagine a different paradigm where we actually valued collectively, we valued care as a society, as an economy, we not only made it visible, but we invested in it as if it was among the most essential things in our economy.
Brittany Packnett Cunningham Yeah, because it is, because it is. Thank you so much for spending this time with us. And most importantly, thank you for the work that you do. I have full confidence that we will get to this beautiful place you describe because you and so many others are engaged in the work and we got your back.
Ai-jen Poo Thank you so much.
Brittany Packnett Cunningham Ai-Jen Poo is the executive director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance and the author of The Age of Dignity: Preparing for the Elder Boom in a Changing America.
Ai-Jen said something that is fundamental to remember here. It’s not a pipe dream. It is totally within reach. I like to remind myself that the things we’re doing can actually be done. And what is more worth doing than caring for one another? If the pandemic has taught us anything, it’s that we cannot survive without community, which means we can’t survive without care. It’s the most natural, most important human need to care and be cared for. And the people who do it for us, paid and unpaid, deserve the dignity conferred upon them because they choose to love, despite the many barriers. What does it say about us that the people who choose to do the hardest work—the activists, the organizers, the caregivers are paid the least, the most undervalued? Taking care should never mean a vow of poverty because eventually, we’ll all need care. So don’t let anybody tell you it’s too expensive. It’s our current system that we can’t afford.
That’s it for today, but never, ever for tomorrow. UNDISTRACTED is a production of The Meteor and Pineapple Street Studios.
Our lead producer is Rachel Ward.
Our associate producer is Alexis Moore.
Thanks also to Treasure Brooks and Hannis Brown.
Our executive producers at The Meteor are Cindi Leive and myself, and our executive producers at Pineapple are Jenna Weiss-Berman and Max Linsky.
Happy 50 episodes y’all. You can follow me at @MsPackyetti on all social media, and our team @TheMeteor.
Subscribe to UNDISTRACTED and rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or wherever you check out your favorite podcasts.
Thanks for listening. Thanks for being and thanks for doing. I’m Brittany Packnett Cunningham. Let’s go get free.
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“You Can’t Win if You Don’t Start”: Rep. Cori Bush on Running for Office—and Making a Difference
UNDISTRACTED: September 29, 2022
Derecka Purnell on Living (and Loving) Outside the Police State
UNDISTRACTED: September 22, 2022
The Queen Died. Now What? Three Brilliant Women on Colonialism and the Future
UNDISTRACTED: September 15, 2022
The Hidden Latinx Stories We Don’t Hear, with Julissa Natzely Acre Raya
UNDISTRACTED: September 1, 2022
The Kids Are All Right. The Adults Are F***ing Up!
UNDISTRACTED: August 25, 2022
Will We Be Smarter About the Next Epidemic? Two Experts Break it Down.
UNDISTRACTED: August 18, 2022
A Future Without Police? Andrea Ritchie on Crime and Abolition
UNDISTRACTED: August 11, 2022
“People’s Kids Are the Center of Their World” - Caitlin Dickerson on the Horrors of Family Separation
UNDISTRACTED: August 4, 2022
Beyoncé’s Renaissance, According to Four Brilliant Black Women
UNDISTRACTED: July 28, 2022
“The System Works For Those Who Occupy It”: María Teresa Kumar on Voting Rights
UNDISTRACTED: July 21, 2022
Phoebe Robinson is Writing Her Own Rules (on TV and in Life)
UNDISTRACTED: July 14, 2022
“Covering the End of the World”: A Reporter on Gun Violence
UNDISTRACTED: July 7, 2022
Tiffany Cross on Roe, Resistance and What Comes Next
UNDISTRACTED: June 30, 2022
Michelle Colón is Living Through The Last Days of Legal Abortion in Mississippi
UNDISTRACTED: June 25, 2022
The Roe v. Wade News—and Finding Hope
UNDISTRACTED: June 23, 2022
Having a Baby While Black: Martina Abraham and Gabrielle Horton Know *All* The Stories
UNDISTRACTED: June 16, 2022
You Can Be Successful Where You Are: Majora Carter on Reclaiming Communities
UNDISTRACTED: June 2, 2022
God is Big Enough for Our Questions:” Candice Benbow on Faith, Feminism, and Lipstick
UNDISTRACTED: May 26, 2022
During a Dark Time, A Little Light with Bevy Smith
UNDISTRACTED: May 19, 2022
“Tell the Truth to Set Us Free”: Kimberlé Crenshaw on White Supremacy, CRT and Lies
UNDISTRACTED: May 12, 2022
WTF, TEXAS?! Cisneros, Crockett and O’Rourke on The Madness (and Promise) of The Lone Star State
UNDISTRACTED: May 5, 2022
What Happens Now? Gloria Steinem and Renee Bracey Sherman on the Future of Abortion
UNDISTRACTED: April 28, 2022
The Senator of TikTok: Morgan Harper’s Run for Office (and Our Hearts)
UNDISTRACTED: April 21, 2022
Motherhood, Love and the “Trayvon Generation,” with Elizabeth Alexander
UNDISTRACTED: April 7, 2022
“I’ve Been Proud So Many Times”: A Texas Family Fights the Anti-Trans Laws
UNDISTRACTED: March 31, 2022
“We See Who Pays the Price”: Muzoon Almellehan on War and Refugees
UNDISTRACTED: March 24, 2022
“You Deserve to Be Safe”: Nicole Chung on Parenting in a Wave of Anti-AAPI Violence
UNDISTRACTED: March 17, 2022
“Buckle Up:” Senator Elizabeth Warren still has a plan for change
UNDISTRACTED: March 10, 2022
“I don’t believe in the guilt:” Real climate talk, with Mary Annaïse Heglar
UNDISTRACTED: March 3, 2022
Anita Hill on the Supreme Court’s future—and its past
UNDISTRACTED: February 24, 2022
“We are here to fight disinformation”: Sara Lomax-Reese and Akoto Ofori-Atta build the future
UNDISTRACTED: February 10, 2022
Jemele Hill and Cari Champion on racism (and liberation) in sports
UNDISTRACTED: February 3, 2022
Dr. Uché Blackstock on pandemic fatigue—And the new COVID normal
UNDISTRACTED: January 27, 2022
Elaine Welteroth on the “Great Resignation” and rewriting your own definition of success.
UNDISTRACTED: January 20, 2022
“This big old lie:” Heather McGhee on the real cost of racism
UNDISTRACTED: January 13, 2022
LaTosha Brown on our “Moment of Reckoning”
UNDISTRACTED: January 6, 2022
One Year Later: “The Next Coup is Already Happening”
UNDISTRACTED: December 17, 2021
Nikole Hannah-Jones on America’s “400-Year Racial Pandemic”
UNDISTRACTED: December 9, 2021
Beyond Roe: Gloria Steinem and Renee Bracey Sherman on How We Got Here and What Happens Next
UNDISTRACTED: December 2, 2021
From SCOTUS to white womanhood: Dr. Brittney Cooper decodes our world
UNDISTRACTED: August 19, 2021
Bonus: Your UNDISTRACTED Highlights Reel
UNDISTRACTED: August 12, 2021
Tarana Burke on her powerful new memoir — and the future of #MeToo
UNDISTRACTED: August 5, 2021
Pleasure activist adrienne maree brown on conflict, canceling, and community
UNDISTRACTED: July 29, 2021
Jemele Hill on “The Cursed Olympics”—and Simone Biles choosing her peace
UNDISTRACTED: July 22, 2021
The billionaire space race and patriarchy in physics, with Dr. Chanda Prescod-Weinstein
UNDISTRACTED: July 15, 2021
Connie Walker on covering the crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous women
UNDISTRACTED: July 1, 2021
Professor Kimberlé Crenshaw on the truth about Critical Race Theory
UNDISTRACTED: June 24, 2021
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand on finally fixing the military’s sexual assault problem
UNDISTRACTED: June 17, 2021
The “grandmother of Juneteenth” on the holiday’s past, present, and future
UNDISTRACTED: June 10, 2021
Lawyer Chase Strangio on “genocidal” anti-trans laws—and resistance
UNDISTRACTED: June 3, 2021
Amani on why this moment “feels different” for Palestinians
UNDISTRACTED: May 27, 2021
"Queen Sugar" author Natalie Baszile on the new black farming revolution
UNDISTRACTED: May 20, 2021
Travon Free wants to flip the script on masculinity
UNDISTRACTED: May 13, 2021
Nikole Hannah-Jones wants us to confront the truth of who we are
UNDISTRACTED: May 6, 2021
Insecure's Yvonne Orji on Black joy...and her "homie" Jesus
UNDISTRACTED: April 29, 2021
Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson on the "feminist climate renaissance"
UNDISTRACTED: April 22, 2021
Andra Day on the tragedy and triumph of Billie Holiday
UNDISTRACTED: April 15, 2021
Sophia Bush on surviving "relentless" harassment in Hollywood
UNDISTRACTED: April 8, 2021
Alexis McGill Johnson on the “Dire” Landscape for Abortion Rights
UNDISTRACTED: April 1, 2021
Shannon Watts Believes We're at a Tipping Point for Gun Reform
UNDISTRACTED: March 18, 2021
Rep. Cori Bush Is What "Keeping It Real" Looks Like
UNDISTRACTED: March 25, 2021
Comedian Amber Ruffin Wants to "De-Gaslight" America
UNDISTRACTED: March 11, 2021
Lisa Ling on Anti-Asian Violence—And the Rising Movement Against It
UNDISTRACTED: March 4, 2021
Padma Lakshmi on the New Food Revolution
UNDISTRACTED: February 25, 2021
The Squad is Big, Y’all: Rep. Ayanna Pressley on the Power of the People
UNDISTRACTED: February 18, 2021
What Would a Future Without Prisons Look Like?
UNDISTRACTED: February 11, 2021
Opal Tometi on the Righteous Rise of Black Lives Matter
UNDISTRACTED: February 4, 2021
Raquel Willis Believes in Black Trans Power
UNDISTRACTED: January 27, 2021
Want A Safer Internet? Listen To Black Women
UNDISTRACTED: January 18, 2021
A Historic Day… And Why The ‘Nap Bishop’ Believes Rest Is Radical
UNDISTRACTED: January 14, 2021
Valerie Jarrett on Impeachment...And the Next 100 Days
UNDISTRACTED: January 7, 2021
America Ferrera Is Talking ‘Bout a Cultural Revolution
UNDISTRACTED: December 24, 2020
Jenna Wortham and Kimberly Drew Are Building Black Futures
UNDISTRACTED: December 17, 2020
Flattening the Curve of Inequality
UNDISTRACTED: December 10, 2020
Sue Bird Won't Shut Up and Dribble
UNDISTRACTED: December 3, 2020
Tracee Ellis Ross Is The Lead in Her Own Life
UNDISTRACTED: November 26, 2020
Nikki Giovanni Believes Your Dreams Are Worth It
UNDISTRACTED: November 19, 2020
Rebecca Traister Is Still Good and Mad
UNDISTRACTED: November 12, 2020
LaTosha Brown Is Betting On the South
UNDISTRACTED: November 5, 2020
Soledad O’Brien Is Calling It Like It Is
UNDISTRACTED: October 29, 2020
Cecile Richards Is Ready for the Uprising