Melissa Saenz Gordon, Soft Power Vote, Part I: Who is running in NYC’s Chaotic June 2021 Primary and What We Think of Them

Melissa Saenz Gordon is a cultural worker, photographer, artist, cultural producer, writer, San Francisco native and self described “CivicArt BAE” with a background in geography and urban planning. She is also the co-founder of Soft Power Vote, a voting initiative in New York City that produces voter guides and content that illuminates the connectivity between art, pop-culture, and local politics. Soft Power Vote produces voter guides and online resources for New Yorkers to level up on voting in NYC by demystifying local politics, decoding voting information, and providing the resources necessary to make everyone’s voice heard. SVP was born out of Melissa’s and her co-founders’ frustration with the lack of transparency and resources available to NYC residents to make voting accessible and informed. In this episode, Melissa shares the genesis of Soft Power Vote, Soft Power Vote’s ethos and its criteria for endorsement and what people can expect to find in their Voter Guide. Melissa also shares SVP’s endorsements and recommendations for each race and who they recommend NOT RANKING in this June’s primaries. She also informs us about what other races are on the ballot and import info like what a comptroller actually does. She also shares information about voter rights and accessibility, essential election day info and how the heck Ranked Choice Voting works. Alexis and Melissa also get into conversations about how the media perpetuates the Yang narrative, Beyonce, Lebron James, Cardi B, Tony Soprano’s frustration with Dr. Melfi’s painting and East vs West Coast hip hop.

This is one of two conversations with Melissa in our feed today. In the other part, you will hear Melissa discuss her relationship with New York, what brought her here after 31 years in the Bay Area, what it means to be a cultural worker and how she manages to sustain it, defining our careers for ourselves and the essential connection between art and politics. 

Places on the Internet to Learn More:

• Soft Power Vote website and Instagram and their June 2021 Primary Voter Guide and their Candidate Criteria

• Ranked Choice Voting Info and where to find your poll site and sample ballot

• Dianne Morales’ Campaign Woes

• Rebecca Traister on Maya Wiley and New York Magazine’s feature on Andrew Yang

• New York Nico interviews the Mayoral Candidates

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Kelsey Jones and Gabriela Tejedor: Brooklyn Independent Middle School

Kelsey Jones and Gabriela Tejedor, are the founders and Co-Heads of School and the respective Math and ELA teachers at Brooklyn Independent. Brooklyn Independent is a private middle school with a sliding scale tuition model located in Fort Greene. BKI names diversity and inclusion as keys to effective learning, and the school’s goal is to cultivate a community that sincerely reflects the racial and socioeconomic diversity of Brooklyn. Gaby and Kelsey started BKI as a response to the stark segregation and inequity that plagues New York City’s school system, two things they witnessed and felt in their decade-long careers as educators. Gaby and Kelsey opened the doors of BKI to their first class of 6th graders in the fall of 2019 after years of intense, and at times disheartening, planning. BKI is now in its second year of operation, serving 6th and 7th graders, with plans to expand in the coming years.

In this episode, Gaby and Kelsey discuss their protective, stubborn relationships with New York City, how to fundraise and recruit for a school with a social justice mission and different tuition tiers, the ugly truth about remote learning, and running a school during a pandemic and last summer’s uprising. They also reflect on the email they sent out last June in support of Black Lives Matter and the many iterations the school’s systems have gone through to most accurately actualize their mission and to better serve all of the students and families in their community. Alexis, Kelsey and Gaby also all share details about their own uncomfortable reckonings with how they have shown up (and not shown up) as educators in the past, and how to do it with more awareness. 

Places on the Internet to Learn More:

• Brooklyn Independent’s Website and Instagram

• Initiate Equity

• Teaching Tolerance’s Social Justice Standards

• MCOD: Multicultural Organization Development Framework

Brittany Owens Micek, Meditating for Black Lives, Part 2: Parks, Permits and White Psychology

Brittany Owens Micek is the founder and lead organizer of Meditating for Black Lives, a community organization that uses the principles and practices of various meditation traditions to support community efforts to heal oppression. Brittany started Meditating for Black Lives last summer with hopes to create a space for attendees to sit in contemplation together to process our absorbed trauma and breathe for the lives of Black and Brown people, and for all people, throughout the world. On Saturdays and Sundays from June 2020 lasting through the fall, Brittany or other intentionally selected guides led up to 2,000 attendees through 30 minute guided meditations in both Bed Stuy and Brownsville that focused on the privilege and precarity of breath. 

This is part two of our conversation with Brittany. Topics include, how the wellness industrial complex has co-opted the ancient practice of meditation, leaving it falsely synonymous with whiteness and money… and also how Meditating for Black Lives is an attempt to counteract that. Brittany explains why she chose to move the meditations to Lincoln Terrace Park from a park in a gentrifying Bed Stuy, how she intentionally chose the meditation leaders and how the local NYPD precincts chose to behave when she applied for a park permit with “Meditating for Black Lives” in the title. We also talk about the psychology of whiteness and why nobody ever talks about it, Alexis’ honest journey with yoga and we somehow manage to stumble on conversations about Jay-Z, NoName, Atlanta, Robin D’Angelo, Solange, DMX and the Goonies. 

Meditating for Black Lives is also back for its second season! They will hold three meditations every Saturday and Sunday in May at Swivel Gallery in Bed Stuy. Visit the links for MFBL anf Swivel Gallery below to check the times and sign up in advance.

Places on the Internet to Learn More:

• Visit Meditating for Black Lives’ Website and Instagram to sign up for a meditation and donate if you are able

• You can also sign up for a meditation on Swivel Gallery’s website

• “Corporate Mindfulness Programs Are an Abomination”, Thom James Carter for Current Affairs 

• Yoga is Dead Podcast

Brittany Owens Micek, Meditating for Black Lives, Part I: Finding Purpose Riding in a Red Convertible

Brittany Owens Micek is the founder and lead organizer of Meditating for Black Lives, a community organization that uses the principles and practices of various meditation traditions to support community efforts to heal oppression. Brittany started Meditating for Black Lives last summer with hopes to create a space for attendees to sit in contemplation together to process our absorbed trauma and breathe for the lives of Black and Brown people, and for all people, throughout the world. On Saturdays and Sundays from June 2020 lasting through the fall, Brittany or other intentionally selected guides led up to 2,000 attendees through 30 minute guided meditations in both Bed Stuy and Brownsville that focused on the privilege and precarity of breath. 

You will hear my conversation with Brittany in two parts. And they are both damn good, if we do say so ourselves.

This is part one. In this episode, Brittany and Alexis talk about their spiritual relationships with New York City and its often overlooked natural beauty, how an image  of three of her selves in a red convertible in the wake of a pandemic related lay off led Brittany to start Meditating for Black Lives, and how listening to music can be both comforting and also emotionally manipulative (word to Brandy on that one). Brittany also tells us some foundational things to know about meditation and about her experience at a silent retreat at a Buddhist monastery and its impact on her- including altering her relationship to New York’s infamous and indomitable cockroach population. You will hear the beginnings of the genesis of Meditating for Black Lives, but we leave you on an intentional cliff hanger. So tune in to part two!

Meditating for Black Lives is also back for its second season! They will hold three meditations every Saturday and Sunday in May at Swivel Gallery in Bed Stuy. Visit the links for MFBL anf Swivel Gallery below to check the times and sign up in advance.

Places on the Internet to Learn More:

• Visit Meditating for Black Lives’ Website and Instagram to sign up for a meditation and donate if you are able

• You can also sign up for a meditation on Swivel Gallery’s website

• Stella Bugbee on hyperlocal NYC fashion for New York Magazine 

• Empty Cloud Monastery

Reverend Amanda Hambrick Ashcraft, Part II: The Complications of Activism and Spirituality as Protest

Today, we bring you part II of Alexis’ conversation with Rev. Amanda Hambrick Ashcraft. In part II, Alexis and Amanda discuss: the tension of being a white person in the anti-racist movement and how they wrestle with that tension, how anti-racism needs to show up in day to day life beyond Instagram, the complicated relationship between the Black Lives Matter movement and capitalist institutions like the Grammys, the danger of white feminism and the off base assumptions progressive white people make. Alexis also explains why this moment in time feels, to her, like one long episode of Atlanta. Amanda also shares the story behind her controversial decision to appear on Fox News, twice, the relationship between spirituality and protest, and her own decision to go to seminary. She also discusses the history of Middle Church as a progressive spiritual haven and it’s future after a devastating fire burnt it’s Second Avenue sanctuary to the ground last December. 

If you missed Part I, Amanda Hambrick Ashcraft is a white mother raising three white kids, a 5 year old daughter and 7 year old twin boys, in the East Village of NYC. She was born and raised in a small town in Kentucky, went to college in Birmingham, AL and to seminary in Richmond, VA. She has lived in NYC for 13 years. Amanda is a movement builder and leader who writes, speaks and studies at the intersection of race, faith, politics, feminism, and parenting. Amanda is also the Executive Minister for Justice, Education & Movement Building at Middle Church, a historic, multicultural inclusive church in the East Village. 

Places on The Internet to Learn More:

• Middle Church and the fire that destroyed it’s sanctuary

• “Anti-Racist Reading Lists, What Are They For?”, Lauren Michele Jackson for Vulture

• Minor Feelings, Cathy Park Hong

• The atrocities of Peter Stuyvesant

• Amanda on Fox News

• Tamika Mallory on the Grammys

• Stand Your Ground, Kelly Brown Douglas

Reverend Amanda Hambrick Ashcraft, Part I: Anti-Racist Parenting

Amanda Hambrick Ashcraft is a white mother raising three white kids, a 5 year old daughter and 7 year old twin boys, in the East Village of NYC. She was born and raised in a small town in Kentucky, went to college in Birmingham, AL and to seminary in Richmond, VA. She has lived in NYC for 13 years. Amanda is a movement builder and leader who writes, speaks and studies at the intersection of race, faith, politics, feminism, and parenting. Amanda is the founder of Raising Imagination, an online movement platform that looks at the evolution of social issues through the lens of imagination. Her platform is largely dedicated to the necessary work white parents must undergo to raise their white kids as anti-racist and how to involve kids in advocacy. Her work has been cited in CNN, Refinery29, the Wall Street Journal, WNBC, and Crooked Media. Amanda is also the Executive Minister for Justice, Education & Movement Building at Middle Church, a historic, multicultural inclusive church in the East Village. 

In today’s conversation, Amanda and Alexis discuss our perceptions of the REAL differences between the American South and NYC, early conversations we had (or didn’t have) about race in our childhood homes, and our definitions of activism. Amanda shares why she brings her own kids to protests, what anti-racist parenting looks and feels like in everyday life (including breaking down the importance of J.Lo and Shakira’s 2019 superbowl halftime performance and discussing the wonders of Dolly Parton with her children), why it is the responsibility of all white parents to talk to their kids about race and why parenting is inherently political. 

Today’s episode is the first of two conversations featuring Amanda. Look out for the release of part two in the coming days!

Places on the Internet to Learn More:

• Raising Imagination on Instagram 

• Amanda’s essay about watching the J.Lo and Shakira halftime show with her kids

• White Too Long: The History of White Supremacy in American Christianity, Robert P. Jones

• Seeing White podcast series

• The teachings of Dr. Katie Cannon, Monique Melton, June Jordan, Tabitha St Bernard-Jacobs

• Raising White Kids, Jennifer Harvey

• Middle Church

Nattalyee Runs for Justice

Nattalyee Randall is an actor, singer and voice over artist based in Manhattan. She is also the founder and leader of the 50 Mile Run for Justice Protest, a national initiative to use running as a means to fight for and celebrate the lives of Black people who have lost their lives because of police brutality. In November of 2020, she ran a 50 mile route that spanned the five boroughs honoring 50 Black lives lost to police violence. She is currently training to run 100 miles for 100 lives lost on Juneteenth 2021. These impressive feats, along with Nattalyee’s personal running journey, will be documented in her upcoming documentary The Race Against Race. Nattalyee lost her mother Tinnie Randall to Covid-19 in December of 2020. Nattalyee and her sisters have organized a commemorative scholarship, dedicated to their mother, that will be awarded to two 6-12 grade students who have lost a parent or parent figure to the coronavirus. The link to apply by May 1st, 2021 is below.

In this episode Nattalyee discusses being an actor during the pandemic, her own personal running journey, the link between running and activism, normalizing Black runners, the inspiration behind and making of her documentary, the power of singing in the streets and her love for Law and Order SVU. We also discuss the delight of the ferry ride to the Rockaways and the majesty of Tina Turner. 

Photo Credit: Gary Dean Clarke

Places on the Internet to Learn More:

• Follow the 50 Mile Run for Justice on Instagram to get involved and hear updates about The Race Against Race

• Nattalyee’s Personal IG

• Sobriety Clubhouse

• Apply to the Tinnie Randall Scholarship

Michael is Here for Bike Protests and Community

Michael Shelton is 28, from Washington Heights, a music lover, biker, software engineer and activist currently living in Williamsburg. Michael is also an organizer and member of Riders 4 Rights, a community organization that organizes bike protests, leads educational rides and provides mutual aid to New Yorkers across the city, all in the fight for Black Liberation with the intention of building community and keeping its members safe. In this episode, Michael fills Alexis in on how life in the NYC of his childhood compares to the NYC of today, what drew him into organizing , the beauty of the bike protests, the agony and ecstasy of summer 2020, the power of organizing in community and what it means to be an LCD Sound system groupie. 

Places on the Internet to Learn More:

• Follow Riders 4 Rights on Instagram to stay up to date on their work

• Why Passive Voice in Journalism is so dangerous

• The Black Led Groups Biking Against Racism, The Guardian, July 2nd, 2020

Marcus the Person is Marcus the Activist

Marcus Alston is 18 years old. A Bushwick native. An activist. A Fashion Killa. A 2020 graduate of Pace High School in lower Manhattan and current freshman at Lafayette College in Easton, PA. Marcus is an activist who is in love with activism and his people. He has spent the last four years fighting for a more equitable city, with a specific focus on school suspension reform and integrating New York City’s very segregated schools. In this episode, Marcus shares with Alexis his experience growing up in Bushwick, its gentrification, his history as an activist, his experience protesting last summer, being a Black person at a PWI and living outside of NYC for the first time in his life. We also hear his take on the impact of a year of protests, the power of his generation and his hopes for our city moving forward. Oh, and how much he loves thrifting and Pop Smoke.

Marcus’s interview is the first of our second season, which is a love letter to New York City after a year of sickness, sadness, and tragedy that was also  filled with love, solidarity and triumph. Many of this season’s episodes will be dedicated to the activists and organizers who have been holding us down over the past year. Listen on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

Places on the Internet to learn more:

• Ok Boomer, Teen Vogue

• Inside New York’s Suspension Schools, Chalkbeat

• Marcus on New York Times’ The Weekly: The Fight to Desegregate New York City’s Schools

• What Black Schools Mean to Black Kids (Jemilah Lemieux,The Nation)

• Teens Take Charge