“You Can’t Win if You Don’t Start”: Rep Congresswoman Bush on Running for Office—and Making a Difference
Please note: This transcript has been automatically generated.
Brittany Packnett Cunningham: Hey y’all. It’s Brittany. So here’s a question for you. Is it better to fix a social problem from inside the system or to push it all from the outside? Now, this of course, is the eternal question of social change, and it’s often presented as an inquiry with a binary answer, but y’all know we hate binaries and this ain’t true.
Like we live in the both-and, not that sad little either-or you may be surprised to learn that there’s actually a great deal of scholarship that suggests that either-or thinking in general is really a central element of white dominant culture. If you study Jones and Okun’s famous work Dismantling Racism, which is a text that I impart taught from at Harvard’s Institute of Politics, you come to learn that either-or thinking is something that helps preserve the status quo because it leaves absolutely no room for nuance.
Complex things are oversimplified, so poverty then must be a result of poor personal choices, for example, because either you work hard and earn. Or you’re lazy and you don’t beryle me this, Oh, wise one. What social movement has ever won anything based on an either-or philosophy for Martin Luther King Jr. and the entirety of the Civil Rights movement?
It wasn’t ‘either’ meet with the White House ‘or’ March in the Streets to get the 1965 Voting Rights Act passed. Both were necessary to get the job done, protest and politics. That’s what we’re gonna need, and we’re gonna need players on the inside and the outside and everywhere in between in order to win.
And sometimes those will be the exact same people. Trust me, the folks who get all sides of the game are some of our most valuable players, and we are UNDISTRACTED.
Brittany: On the show today, we welcome back Congresswoman Congresswoman Bush. She’s been in Washington for almost two years now, and we ask her what she’s learned about how to fix the system.
Congresswoman Cori Bush: We don’t want people to have to go through trauma, but for those of us that have, you can still be somebody that contributes to society in such a way to where transformative change happens on the municipal level, on the state level, on the federal level.
Brittany: That’s coming up. But first, it’s the news.
And our first story up is the Supreme Court SCOTUS. You remember them? Those black-robed vigilantes responsible for the legal terror streak that we all experienced this summer from the overturning of Roe to the legalization of concealed carry in New York. Well, they’re back. On Monday, the Supreme Court began its new term.
First of all, welcome Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. The Black girl Justice is here, y’all, and it was her first day on the bench and it was absolutely joyous to see, especially while she was reading Alabama the riot act because they’re definitely trying to gerrymander us to hill. Anyway, here’s what’s important to know.
This new term of SCOTUS is likely to be as consequential as the last one, and that’s saying a lot. Number one, the court will rule on affirmative action. In cases from both Harvard University and the University of North Carolina, the Supreme Court could effectively end the consideration of race and college admissions processes.
There have been past cases involving Michigan and Texas where the courts ultimately ruled to protect affirmative action, but we now have a much more conservative court, so we are definitely weary. I’m nervous, y’all. Number two, water safety. SCOTUS is being asked to discard a previous ruling that regulated properties in an effort to combat water contamination.
The case they’re hearing involves a couple from Idaho who won a high court bid to build property on a lake without a permit under the Clean Water Act. The outcome of their case could impact water safety everywhere and not just on their little plot of land. And as we’ve seen in recent weeks from the Dakota Access Pipeline to Flint to Jackson, Mississippi, water safety continues to be a critical issue for vulnerable Americans across the country.
And here is the big one, the case that affects all our other rights. This term, SCOTUS will be hearing a major case from North Carolina Republicans that would change the way elections are conducted. If the court rules in their favor, it would mean handing more election oversight. To state legislatures and allowing state courts to order actual changes to federal elections.
This is honestly like an existential threat to all of our voting rights, and you’re gonna be hearing about it a lot this year, especially on this podcast. So you can find out more about it along with the court’s upcoming cases on the LGBTQ community, the immigrant community, and Native American adoption access in our show notes.
For our next story, we are headed to New York. Over the past six months, Texas lawmakers had decided to pull a very interesting stunt by sending thousands of asylum seekers to New York. It’s a very painful stunt, a very hurtful stunt, and the idea, of course, is to show the Northeastern liberal states what it’s like to experience an influx of migrants with nowhere to go.
The reason this shuttling managed to take place is that Texas officials found a loophole in New York law, which states that anyone without a place to stay must be granted one. As of now, around 14,600 asylum seekers have been brought to New York City’s shelter system. Of that number, about 11,000 people still remain in need of almost everything. Now, y’all, it takes a lot for me to agree with Mayor Eric Adams about literally anything, but he very aptly called the situation a humanitarian crisis, cuz it is. In efforts to address it, they’ve constructed enormous tents with temporary sleeping arrangements in empty parking lots.
Some of those tents, like the one in the Bronx, are very much not user friendly, especially as we approach the winter months.
Crystal Hudson: It’s tough. We need both immediate solutions and long term solutions. We need, you know, more housing, permanent housing, deeply affordable housing. And also we need, you know, immediate places to house people now that keep arriving on these buses.
Brittany: That was Brooklyn City Council member Crystal Hudson. The situation is alarming on a lot of levels, but here’s two in particular. First, this situation has been largely invisible compared to other humanitarian crises like the response to Hurricane Sandy, which involved a huge awareness campaign and response.
Barely anyone has been talking about the asylum seekers, and we haven’t seen any corporate philanthropy directed that way. Second, by making asylum seekers everyone else’s problem, Texas lawmakers are reducing the real lives of real people who are already traumatized to a political gimmick and they’re doing nothing to help.
So for ways you can help asylum seekers in New York right now, see our show notes. Finally, I hope all of our Southeastern listeners are staying dry. Like, are y’all okay? It’s been wild down there.
Lester Holt: Early estimates suggest the damage from Ian could cost as much as $47 billion. That would make it the costliest storm in Florida since Hurricane Andrew 30 years ago. Entire families are displaced.
Brittany: We’ve all been watching the way Hurricane Ian has ravaged parts of Florida and South Carolina. Not to mention the current death toll is up to at least a hundred people. And here’s the point that you usually don’t hear on the news. Like most climate crises, Hurricane Ian’s impact only deepens the financial and racial inequity that already exists.
Actually, as NBC reports, climate change is now becoming a leading cause of inequality, not just a complication. For starters, disaster aid often favors white people. Black communities tend to receive less FEMA aid than white communities and in places that receive more FEMA aid, the inequity gap only seems to grow with each crisis.
NBC also explains that Black families tend to see their homes lose significantly more property value in the wake of a disaster than white families do. This can then leave homeowners at the risk of foreclosure, which then makes borrowing money in the future more difficult, which then makes putting your children through school harder since home equity is a common way to finance college and on and on and on we go.
It’s a terrible domino effect and it makes these flood pictures even more tragic to look at. We’re going to be getting into all of this and more on the pod next week, but for now, stay dry and y’all support your neighbors.
Coming up, I’ll be talking to pastor, nurse, organizer, Congresswoman Congresswoman Bush right after this short break.
And we are back. We talk a lot about the wisdom of lived experience here on UNDISTRACTED. It’s a cornerstone of intersectionality. Our identities and experiences give us critical insights into how power works and how to do it better. My guest today, she has lived. Congresswoman Bush is a congresswoman from Missouri.
She’s also a nurse and a pastor, a mother, a survivor of sexual assault. All that life has given her the tools she needs to be a champion for her district. My home district. And to be a powerful voice for change. It especially mattered when she used her protest background to sleep on the steps of the U.S. capitol building, a direct action that helped extend the federal eviction moratorium during Covid. I wanted to sit down with her before her new book, The Forerunner: A Story of Pain and Perseverance in America, hits the shelves to talk about what it’s been like to drive change from the inside and why more people like her should think about joining her.
Congresswoman, it’s so good to see you.
Congresswoman Bush: You too, Brittany.
Brittany: Thanks for coming back and hanging out with us at UNDISTRACTED. I’m really excited because you are coming up on two years in Congress. You have a memoir coming out that really gets into so much of what you have faced and really triumphed over in your life to get to this point, right?
Congresswoman Bush: Yes.
Brittany: One of the things you said was: If telling my story helps others in positions of power better understand how their decision-making affects regular everyday people, people like me. Then my own self exposure is worth it.
Congresswoman Bush: Yes.
Brittany: I’m curious because you’ve been so transparent from day one, what is that self exposure? What are some of those things that you really feel like power brokers, decision-makers need to understand and hear through your story?
Congresswoman Bush: Yeah, so first of all that you know, you can’t just throw us away. We aren’t people that you can talk about to help further your career or to help you look like you’re providing for your community or you’re listening to the people.
But then we also can’t be those that help lead. We can’t be, we can’t speak for ourselves. No. We are just as valuable. We are just as worthy.
Brittany: That’s right.
Congresswoman Bush: Anyone can advocate for someone and not have gone what they went through. But there is a difference when you’re coming from a place of lived experience.
Brittany: That’s right.
Congresswoman Bush: And I think that that should be acknowledged. And so I wanted people to see like, hey, if this is not a progressive talking point, this is not something to be just divisive or get me on tv.
Brittany: Right.
Congresswoman Bush: No, this is my life and this is what I know. So many are still going through around this country that we haven’t fixed yet.
This is policy violence. And so it should be policy that helps to correct.
Brittany: Yeah. For those who don’t know as much of your story and who are gonna pick up this book and maybe read some things that they didn’t know about you, what are some of those pieces of lived experience that are gonna come through this memoir and that you hope decision makers are listening to?
Congresswoman Bush: I’m a big proponent for Medicare for all since 2015 when I made my first run US Senate, and then again, 2018 US House, and then 2020 US House. That was something that kept being like thrown at me was that, Oh, you’re just using this progressive talking point, you know, because Bernie Sanders said it. And for me it was like, no, you know, I know what it’s like to live without health insurance and need healthcare services, but also I know what it’s like for that to attack my credit, you know?
And what that does to Black women who are already, there’s already this racial wealth gap. There’s this gender wealth gap that we face, you know? And then on top of all of that, you know, when you add jacking up our credit because we went to the hospital because we had a toothache, I wanted to highlight that and so just thinking about so many of my patients working as a nurse, you know, I’ve had patients die because they were rationing their insulin and why are people dying when this is the United States of America?
All they needed was insulin. So like that’s one of those things that people will see in the book is this is why I fight so hard for these things. A lot of what I speak about or stand up for is through my own lived experience.
Brittany: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, part of what you’re saying, right, is that the people in power are often not aware of the ripple effects of these decisions because they don’t have to actually live them, right?
Congresswoman Bush: Exactly.
Brittany: I’m curious now that you’ve spent two years in one of the most powerful buildings in the world, do you think that your colleagues are better wrapping their arms around just how much their decisions impact everyday people, or is there still a massive learning curve?
Congresswoman Bush: There is still a massive learning curve. There really is, and it’s gonna take us continuing to push, push, push, push, push, push, push. You know, they’re already sick of us, you know, especially when we talk about quote unquote squat.
You know, they’re sick of hearing about, you know, our issues, but I know that if Rashida Tlaib gets a microphone, you’re going to hear about water. I know that if Ayanna Presley gets the microphone, she’s going to talk about college debt or Black maternal health. She’s going to talk about the Green New Deal and these are things that we just keep, keep, keep driving, but people are still like incremental change.
Brittany: Yeah.
Congresswoman Bush: What? I don’t give a freak what it looks like. I don’t care what people call it, because it was policy violence that started it, that caused it. So you need to fix it.
Brittany: Yeah. So Congresswoman, you just won a very important primary. You can’t say it, so I’m gonna say it, you beat the breaks off of your opponent who shall remain nameless. I’m just, I mean. Woo wee, right? I mean, it was a very decisive victory.
Congresswoman Bush: Yes.
Brittany: There was a Democrat who’s far less progressive who challenged you, but you continued to persevere as you always have. I’m curious what such a clear victory tells you about what the folks in the first district of Missouri, my home district, want to see from their politicians.
What are you hearing that they want you to convey to your colleagues and to the White House?
Congresswoman Bush: One thing that I heard that night when the numbers came out was that this was a mandate, you know. You have a mandate to continue to govern the way that you’ve done over the last, you know, year and a half.
So that meant so much because at first it was like the little engine that could, it was like, okay, just trying to get, you know, trying to, you know, make it work. You know, I hope people understand why I’m doing this. And now it’s like I don’t have to feel like I’m trying to get people to understand why I’m doing it now.
It is, we see you, we know what you’re trying to do, and we want you to keep doing it. We want you to keep standing up the way that you stood up. So now you know, I’m walking into Congress this next session, you know, with my shoulders back a different way than I had the last time.
Brittany: Okay?
Congresswoman Bush: And then people that folks said, Oh, they won’t support her again because it was like, Oh, buyer’s remorse.
People didn’t know what they were voting for. They said, Oh, you won’t have the Jewish community vote for you. Well, that was wrong. You won’t have police officers vote for you. That was wrong. You won’t have business leaders. That was totally wrong.
Brittany: What do you feel like, I mean, you talked about this squad earlier because really when you were first elected, you came in with a class of legislators that has continued to grow and you all have been intentionally challenging all the status quos, including the status quo in the Democratic Party. I’m curious what you feel like you’ve achieved in terms of changing the larger Democratic Party’s agenda and what’s still left on your all’s agenda.
Congresswoman Bush: Going back to when we were on the steps of the capitol during that protest, I had some of my colleagues that didn’t actually show up and that weren’t publicly supportive. Some folks came to me and said, like that was so amazing what you did. Like, I’m with you. Keep doing that. I also heard, Now I get it. I didn’t understand it, but I listened to what you said, you know, in an interview and now I get it. And for instance, when I was living in the car with my two babies and my partner, people would just say, Just go to the food pantry.
You don’t even have to spend money on food. You know, like, that’ll help you to save some money so you can get you a place like, you know, just go to a food pantry. If you’re living in your car or you’re living on the street, where are you keeping the milk? Or when I talked about getting this eviction notice on your door and like, Hey, once you get that notice, then that means you have accrued lawyer’s fees.
Which means if I owe $1,500 in back rent and late fees, now I probably owe $3,500 because they added on lawyer fees.
Brittany: Right?
Congresswoman Bush: And so now I really can’t pay it, you know? And people were like, Huh? So when we speak up and speak out, it helps people to see the things that they don’t know are barriers to help them be able to legislate better.
Brittany: Yeah. I mean we talk about helping them to legislate better and then we have bills like police funding bills that we know you continuously voted to try to make sure would never actually come up to the floor. We continue to see our community deal with so much police violence. Your constituents, our friends and family in St. Louis are continuing to deal with that. And then congress, Democrats in Congress drop $60 million in the laps of the police, like. When you think about all of the work that is left to do, how do you want to see the Institution of Congress change?
Congresswoman Bush: One thing is the institution of Congress has to listen to more folks than the ones that they think are valuable.
They have to respect all the voices, especially when you know that there are people who are coming with a different perspective because they walked hrough it. You know, that’s the part that I have talked about quite a bit lately is, you know, now that we’re about to move into this next session, do this thing differently.
You know, we’re gonna have new chairs of committees, so like, let’s do congress differently this time. Let’s make sure that those that are coming from a lived experience that should be brought and seated at the table with a voice as equal as the others. And so that’s something that I think that Congress needs to pay attention to.
There are folks that are dealing with stuff that you aren’t. You know, there’s a lot of folk in Congress who are wealthy. We can’t do the same things that some of them do. And nobody cares about that. Like, do you know, I spent the last year and a half looking for a second job.
Brittany: Whoa.
Congresswoman Bush: Because I need to make more money to be able to take care of all the bills that I have because I have to live in two places.
But other folks that don’t have that problem don’t care about that. So us continuing to push to say, Hey, there are people that are part of this Congress that don’t have the same experience as you, and you need to value that.
Brittany: When we talk about the institution changing, to your point, the institution itself creates a barrier for people with more lived experience from entering it. Right? Because if you didn’t go to law school, if you’re not so called independently wealthy and can afford to live in two places and travel back and forth between the two of them, if you don’t have the pedigree that gives you the connections to help you fundraise in a particular way.
Congresswoman Bush: Right.
Brittany: Then it’s very, very hard to gain entry into a so-called Democratic institution. And yet I think we have all witnessed the power of what it means to have people like yourself with lived experience, who are willing to be honest and transparent about it in those seats of power. I’m thinking specifically about issues of gender violence and abortion.
Congresswoman Bush: Yes.
Brittany: You gave incredible testimony last year alongside several other members of Congress about your own abortion and the circumstances surrounding it.
Congresswoman Bush: Before the procedure, I remember going in for counseling and being told that if I move forward with this pregnancy, my baby would be jacked up because the fetus was already malnourished and underweight.
Being told that if I had this baby, I would wind up on food stamps and welfare. I was being talked to like trash. And it worsened my shame afterwards while in the changing area, I heard some girls, all white, talking about how they were told how bright their futures were, how loved their babies would be if they adopted, and that their options and their opportunities were limitless.
Brittany:We need people like you in position to tell those stories and to also be the people who cast the votes.
Congresswoman Bush: That’s right.
Brittany: Why do you think it. It was so important for you to tell that story because you didn’t have to, right? You did not have to reveal that if you had chosen not to.
Congresswoman Bush: Yeah. So when SBA, when that Texas bill passed, I had to think about what do I have in my toolbox, you know, that I could use to help do something at this time?
Because I knew also that if Texas did, then Missouri was coming right behind them.
Brittany: And here we are.
Congresswoman Bush: And here we are with abortion ban in Missouri and I felt like this is what I have to give. And because I’ve been vulnerable about different situations in my life, I felt like, Okay, I can do this. But what I realized was, and I talk about this in the book, is that I had not told that story.
I hadn’t even thought about that since it happened. And it wasn’t until I started, I was in an interview walking through what happened, and it was in that interview. I’m like, Oh my God. that was coercion and rape. And the reason why I spoke about it and put it in the book is because there are so many people like me.
And there are so many that, we are cast aside. You know, we are cast aside, you’re stigmatized if you have an abortion. So we keep it to ourselves and it’s okay to keep your stuff to yourself. Like you don’t have to tell people your stuff. But, for me, it’s like I’m in a position of power. I gotta use it as best I can because otherwise, why am I here?
Otherwise, why not the person that was here before me, like what makes us different? You know, this is something that is different.
Brittany: I will tell you. You know, when I first met Tarana Burke, founder of the Me Too movement, I hugged her and I thanked her for making space for so many of us who were not ready to tell our stories. And I owe you the same debt of gratitude because I have talked since about being a survivor of sexual assault. But like you, it took me a very long time to realize that’s what happened to me. I did not understand that I had been coerced. I did not understand that I had said no and I didn’t have to keep saying no a million times for that no to be enough, right?
And so being able to watch someone like you who comes from where I come from and who has dealt with some of what I have dealt with, be so willing to give of yourself in that way. It does a lot for so many of us. This, I hope you know that it does a lot for so many of us.
Congresswoman Bush: Thank you.
Brittany: And it is violence of so many different kinds, right? We’re talking about physical violence, sexual violence, gender violence, and policy violence. When you think about the work that you want to do since that testimony, what are the policies that you want to see come to fruition to end this thing we call sexual violence, especially as we come up on the fifth anniversary of what many people recognize to be the Me Too movement?
Congresswoman Bush: Yeah. There’s so, so many pieces to it. I think that now conversations are opening up to where people are learning. Believe women, the push is there, the advocacy is there, but being able to get stuff across in Congress. To be able to do that because it is so prevalent, whether celebrities or politicians. So for people to wanna stand up and be a part of tearing down those structures is going to take a lot.
But what it’s going to take is the push from the community. And so for us, for me, one thing I wanna tackle, and I know there has been work already in this area, is rape kits. Like that was one of my issues. My rape kits sat on the shelf for over four months. But also something that stuck with me when I went to court for the fourth time just to get an order of protection I even hired the best St. Louis process server. I hired that person, paid that person.
Four months, he couldn’t get it. So much so to work he said, I’m giving you your money back cuz this has never happened before. So that is another thing that I wanna fix, is I was left unprotected just because of the way that the system is set up.
Also, adding more crime victim support. You know, I jumped through so many hoops to get crime victim support because I couldn’t work for four months. I almost lost my home, almost lost my car. So those are some of the things, policy wise that will be working on.
Brittany: Well, we’re grateful for that work. We’re grateful for you. Before I let you go, we are in this season, election season. Right? A reminder to people that they do not, depending on where you live, you do not have to wait till November 8th to cast your ballot, make your voice heard this entire election season. But we’re in this season where we’re telling people, Vote, vote, vote, vote, vote.
And midterms matter so much. Right? You are, of course, a personal witness to this, and yet, for as much as we’re saying vote, some people need to hear. Run, run, run. Some people who have never considered it before, some people who feel like they don’t belong. Some people who’ve been told time and again that is not their place.
What do you have to say to our folks who are listening right now who maybe have never thought of it, but are precisely the kind of voice we need to hear in positions like yours?
Congresswoman Bush: You know, we don’t want people to have to go through trauma. But for those of us that absolutely have, you can still be somebody that contributes to society in such a way to where transformative change happens on the municipal level, on the state level, on the federal level. You can be somebody that speaks in a way that those that have felt left out and pushed aside for so long feels seen and feel heard, you know, feel finally represented.
And I’ll never forget, Elizabeth Warren said this to me one day. It was the day after we won the eviction moratorium. I was standing outside doing an interview and as soon as the interview finished, I just saw this flash of someone running towards me.
And I looked up and it was Senator Elizabeth Warren, and she put her hands on my shoulders and she said, I’ve always wondered this ever since I’ve been in this seat. She said, Does it matter that I’m in the seat? She said she just really didn’t have the answer year after year. She said When we won the eviction moratorium, she got her answer and she said, Cori, It matters that you are in the seat.
It matters who’s in the seat. So Brittany, like you said, we are saying vote, vote, vote. Yes. We need you to vote because it matters who’s in the seat. We have insurrectionists that are trying to take these seats. We have people who have hatred and venom for Black folk, hatred and venom for Palestinians and LGBTQIA, for trans kids. We have people who have venom in their veins. We have people who are fighting against children having free lunches. And if you don’t vote, then we get people who will do those things. But if you don’t run, then those people get in even easier because nobody was challenging them that had a heart to really stay with it and push forward for the mission.
So if you feel it, if you feel compelled, if you feel that tug, even if you don’t understand how I’m gonna do it and all of that, you can’t win if you don’t start.
Brittany: And that’s it. You can’t win if you don’t start. And I do believe that we will win. So let’s get started. Cori Bush, it is always an absolute honor to talk to you.
Congresswoman Bush: You too, Brittany.
Brittany: Thank you for being the congresswoman of our hearts.
Congresswoman Bush: Thank you. All right. Have a great one.
Brittany: Y’all, Congresswoman Bush is so brilliant and she laid it all out here, but I can’t stop thinking about what she said. She had to spend time looking for a second job as a member of Congress, and I know what you may be thinking members of Congress make a good salary. One plenty of people wish they were making and that is true, but like everything is complicated.
Maintaining living expenses in two major cities is not cheap, especially for a mother with two children. The average rent in St. Louis is nearly two grand a month, and the average cost of living for a family of four in DC will, that’s 6K a month. Then consider this, Cori, who has been transparent and upfront about dealing with the financial hardships that many of our fellow Americans share.
She’s only been making that good salary since 2020, for two years. Many of us know what it’s like to climb out of medical, housing or legal debt, and two years of a salary split between two cities can only make
a dent in that debt. A lot of members of Congress might not be able to relate, but I definitely can, and I bet you can too.
When you then take into account that it costs Cori Bush’s campaign over $3 million across three congressional races to finally win in a country where Black women candidates are funded the least, it all starts adding up. And the math ain’t mathing because for many members of Congress, that’s not much of an issue.
They come from generational wealth and way too many of them make questionable money on lucrative stock deals, which is a whole nother episode. But meanwhile, the exact kind of people we need in Congress, people like Cori, they can’t even afford to be. They can’t afford to run and they can barely afford to win.
So how in the hell is that true representation? Something has gotta change. The barriers have gotta get removed, and in the meantime, support the candidates who are figuring out how to make it happen anyway, so this thing called democracy can actually reflect us all.
That’s it for today, y’all, but never for tomorrow. UNDISTRACTED is a production of The Meteor and Pineapple Street Studios.
Our lead producer is Rachel Ward.
Our associate producer is Marialexa Kavenaugh.
Thanks also to Treasure Brooks, Hannis Brown, Raj Makhija, and Davy Sumner.
Our executive producers at The Meteor are Cindi Leive and myself, and our executive producers at Pineapple are Jenna Weiss-Berman and Max Linsky.
You can follow me at @MsPackyetti on all social media and our incredible team @TheMeteor.
Subscribe to UNDISTRACTED and rate and review us y’all on Apple podcasts or most places 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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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 17, 2022
Ai-jen Poo on caregiving: “We take for granted that women will just figure it out”
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