Bonus: Your UNDISTRACTED Highlights Reel
Please note: This transcript has been automatically generated.
Brittany Packnett Cunningham: There have been so many incredible guests and so many words of wisdom shared on this very first season of UNDISTRACTED. So before we take a brief hiatus, my team and I wanted to look back and share some of our favorite moments with y’all.
Taylor Hosking: Hey, guys, I’m Taylor Hosking, associate producer here on UNDISTRACTED, and I think my favorite moment of the season is when Congresswoman/Ferguson activist Cori Bush came on, and she was talking about the January 6th Insurrection and she’s like, if they even touch my door, I was ready to start fighting. And it was just so funny to me because, you know, so many people were really scared that day, but not Cori, because she is just a new kind of congresswoman.
Cori Bush: At not one point did I feel like I was about to die, or my staff would. But what I felt like was, if you touch these doors and if you come in this place trying to get at my staff, like we bangin’ and we bangin’ until the end. And I didn’t even mean my staff, I was talking about me because we did it on the streets.
Ayesha Johnson: Hi, my name is Ayesha Johnson, I’m director of operations at The Meteor. I was really inspired by this conversation between Brittany and Tricia. I’ve been following The Nap Ministry and found it to be so empowering to be grounded in the idea of rest, to facilitate my purpose and my day to day living and taking care of myself.
Tricia Hersey: I refuse to let capitalism own my body and try to control it when they still owe a debt to my ancestors. You can’t have my body. Sorry you not, I’m not going to willingly give and donate my body to a system that is so wicked and corrupt, and that is so evil, and that doesn’t see me as a full, divine human being. So what I do is I try to let people understand that rest is your divine right, it’s a human right.
Rachel Matlow: Hey, it’s Rachel Matlow here, and one of my favorite moments from the season was when the incredible Black trans activist Raquel Willis talked about the complexity of gender and identity and what the future hopefully holds for all of us.
Raquel Willis: One of the things that I am particularly, I guess, hungry and thirsty for in these next few decades is for more and more people to understand that we’re all gender nonconforming, that in essence, there is no trans experience, there is no cis experience, because we have crafted some new binaries, right? When really we’re all just individual colors existing in this larger tapestry of life.
Brittany Packnett Cunningham: Hi, it’s Brittany my favorite moment from this season was when 1619 project creator Nikole Hannah-Jones talked about Black folks, yes, holding this country accountable and moving it to where we hope it can be, but also really taking ownership and pride of the country we built and are still building.
Nikole Hannah-Jones: Black Americans are different in many ways than other Black people across the Americas, because we ended slavery as a tiny minority in a white country. Jamaicans are very proud to be Jamaican, they fly their flag, they have that Jamaican identity. We’ve had to have this completely conflicted relationship with our country, like we’re not flying that flag. And that leaves us a people without a nation, in some ways. And I want Black folks to know that no one has the right to deprive us of a legacy of the ownership of a country that we built not just with our sweat, but with our minds and with our freedom fighting as the primary democratizing force in this country. So that is what I hope Black people do, that we can let go of that sense of shame that so many of us have that we don’t really feel like we have a real country or a real origin, that we do. And we built this country and we have a right to claim it.
Cindi Leive: Hi, it’s Cindi Leive, and my favorite moment in this season of UNDISTRACTED happened our third episode in. Our guest was LaTosha Brown, who as one of the founders of Black Voters Matter, had essentially helped win the election by registering so many Black Americans to vote. When Brittany asked her to think about some of the ancestors who had led her and guided her through this moment, she started to sing and it was just incredible.
LaTosha Brown: Oh, freedom, oh, freedom, freedom over me, over me and before I be a slave, I’ll be buried in my grave, and go home to my Lord and be free.
Brittany Packnett Cunningham: Amen and Amen. That was Cori Bush, Tricia Hersey, Connie Walker, Raquel Willis, Nikole Hannah-Jones, and LaTosha Brown. As we take a break before season two, now is a fabulous time for you to catch up on all 40 episodes of UNDISTRACTED. There are so many amazing guests and inspirational conversations for you to check out. So happy listening.
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