Illumine America

In this episode, after a bit of a hiatus, James Samimi Farr talks with Amanda Ripley, a writer for The Atlantic and the author of many great books, including her latest, High Conflict, which details how people get themselves into damaging and polarizing conflict, and how they can get themselves out. We got to a lot of places in this conversation, but, here a few themes that popped out. What makes unhealthy conflict explode? How is our media system culpable in promoting high conflict? Why does our media sometimes ‘flatten’ our very dynamic world in service of telling a story? And what are the limits of us vs them thinking in solving social problems?

In this episode, we’re back in Durham, North Carolina with our Race Discourse Officers, PJ Andrews and May Lample. If you missed the first part of this two-part interview, we recommend going back and checking it out first. We’ll be hearing more from a team working in Durham to implement a Baha’i-inspired community-building program. They’re going to explore some questions with us. What motivates people to sustain participation in such a program, when forces of apathy and disillusionment can be so strong? How do you build bonds of trust that are stronger than longstanding prejudice? And what does it look like to see an abstract vision slowly become reality, right before your eyes?

This week’s episode, which is the first of two parts, features PJ Andrews and May Lample, our Race Discourse Officers, interviewing a team from Durham, North Carolina that have been working in their neighborhood to sustain a Baha’i-inspired program of community building that works with younger youth to develop their spiritual capacities to serve humanity. This program, which occurs in many places around the country and the world, is called the Junior Youth Spiritual Empowerment Program.

In our sixth episode, our Race Discourse Officers, PJ Andrews and May Lample, have a conversation with Danita Hardin. Born and raised in Washington, DC, Danita Hardin is a community builder, an educator, a teacher and a member of the Bahá’í Faith living in Northern Virginia. PJ and May talk to Danita about her work in the community-building processes of the Baha’i Faith, and her efforts through them to build environments of empowerment and counteract oppression. This is the second of two parts.

In our fifth episode, our Race Discourse Officers, PJ Andrews and May Lample, have a conversation with Danita Hardin. Born and raised in Washington, DC, Danita Hardin is a community builder, an educator, a teacher and a member of the Bahá’í Faith living in Northern Virginia. PJ and May talk to Danita about her work in the community-building processes of the Baha’i Faith, and her efforts through them to build environments of empowerment and counteract oppression. This is the first of two parts.

In our fourth episode, we continue our conversation with Kate Schmidgall, the founder of Bittersweet Monthly, a magazine that tries to present a "counter-narrative" to traditional ways of telling stories about social issues and social change. Bittersweet recently released a manifesto in which it commits itself to three values: refusing cynicism, defying apathy, and celebrating the good. We had such a great conversation with Kate that we decided to split into two parts. This is the second.

In our third episode, we talk to Kate Schmidgall, the founder of Bittersweet Monthly, a magazine that tries to present a "counter-narrative" to traditional ways of telling stories about social issues and social change. Bittersweet recently released a manifesto in which it commits itself to three values: refusing cynicism, defying apathy, and celebrating the good. We had such a great conversation with Kate that we decided to split into two parts. This is the first.

In our second episode of Illumine America, we speak with Jenna Nicholas from Impact Experience. Impact Experience partners with communities to build bridges and deep relationships between impact investors, foundations, entrepreneurs, artists and local leaders to co-create solutions to exclusion and inequality. Working across the country, the Impact Experience team seeks to advance diversity, equity and inclusion in all aspects of the investment process – from who invests the money and who receives it, to how it is used and the impact it has.

In our first episode of Illumine America, we speak with Russell Krumnow and Sharona Shuster from Convergence. Convergence is a non-profit organization that convenes individuals and organizations with divergent views to build trust, identify solutions, and form alliances for action on critical national issues. It just celebrated its 10th anniversary and has worked on projects related to reimagining education, health reform, improving reentry, and developing a better federal budget process, among other issues. Two members of the Convergence team, Russell Krumnow and Sharona Shuster, talk with us in this interview about Convergence’s approach to its work and the “Working Up” dialogue for action to increase economic mobility for low-income workers and households in the United States.