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Our podcasts tell the riveting, previously untold narratives of those working on the periphery of society building the world as it should be.


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God is Democrat
A perplexing and pious series, God is Democrat interrogates the identity and culture of Black Jesus. His religious politics focus on justice for the disregarded, fueling a path to redemption by liberating the poor and marginalized from racial and social issues. While the political agenda of Black Jesus focuses on salvation for those intentionally overlooked by White Jesus, some parishioners in the Black Church remain on the margins without full inclusion in their own fight for the Democrat God to fully love and accept them too.
Pews are empty as church membership declines. Reports say our grandmother's religion doesn’t resonate with our generation. Antonio reconnects with his college pastor, Bishop L. Spenser Smith, to discuss the relevance of the Black church in our community and political process. The candor leads to a long overdue and personal conversation, exploring the politics of Black Jesus and Antonio’s sexuality.
The bible was created by men for men, positioning the role of women in the gospel secondary throughout scripture. In the culminating episode in this series, we depict God as a Black woman made in the image of her creator. Our guest, Rev Yolanda Norton tells us the unfiltered truth about who exactly God is, overcoming the political jockeying to bring God to our side. This is one God, one fight, and one salvation, and she shows us all how to move in that holy direction.
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God is Republican
Portrayed with blue eyes and pale skin instead of the biblical depiction, the savior of this country has strikingly similar attributes and ideologies to our founding fathers. The Republican God’s politics elevates one group as chosen, preserving their heritage. Even with more contemporary ministries and diverse congregations, the aged conflict between “White Jesus” and “Black Jesus” is one of religious, social, and political affiliation. In this series, we examine the political agenda of White Jesus’s issues, love, and ideal candidates to lead our democracy forward.
Set in Chicago, this episode follows an ardent believer attending a prominent bible college and evangelizing to lost souls on the south side of Chicago, when his faith begins to unravel. Torn between his deep conservative theology forged at age 13, and a new awakening to more inclusive worldview, Brandon has to make a decision to remain in seminary or break away from the church to adopt a more radical view of Christianity.
It’s moments before Pastor Michael has to make an announcement to his congregation, after a week of contemplating whether it's the right decision. He’s been following similar decisions from other ministries which resulted in steep declines in membership, forcing some to close their doors. He’s forced to decide what comes first: Church Business or God’s Business.
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Download our conversation guide.
White Work is a paradigm shift. White Work simply means, white people work with their community to end racism and white supremacy.

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White Work
White people are the most responsible for solving racism and white supremacy in our country but the least capable of doing so. We know how this goes. White people wait until social injustices happen to stand in solidarity with communities of color—and we've already been harmed. What would a new paradigm—a new way, a new approach—really look like? One that involves white people holding their own white community accountable for making racial progress? It’s rarely seen or discussed, but where do white people go to do the work that they need to do to make a difference against whiteness? What does it mean when the people who are the most responsible for doing the work, can’t? “White work” is a three-part conversation with separate journeys happening in different contexts: within the community, within the family, and individually. We follow Amy, Debbie, James, and Taylor on three separate journeys to call on their people. What tools will they need? What does it mean for you as a white person to take these tools back into your spheres of influence? What does it mean for you to give up parts of yourself, socially and politically, in order to affect change? Can you do it? Will you do it?
It might be considered one of the more idyllic, utopian, and enlightened settings in America: a white liberal church. Female ministers, social justice ministries, and diverse churchgoers are symbols of racial progress—yet, they have in many cases opted out of the real fight for equality. In this episode, we meet Amy and Debbie as they walk into this church. The mission is to do white work starting with the clergy, to tell those who think they are doing the work that they really aren’t making a difference. How will they respond? Will they step up, or back down?
James’ life is changing rapidly. His white community is choosing to opt out of neighborhood schools, leaving families without the means to navigate the gaps. He wife is expecting their first child soon, and they want to parent in an anti-racist way. He’s an assistant principal at a low-income school that disproportionately suspends boys of color.Our second episode in our series, White Work, is centered around James—a common white man—who now has to engage with his white peers to understand the truths of their community and find solutions where they see there are none. This episode is about a white man, who could easily be your neighbor, your boss, or your landlord, confronting his role in society, both as a man of authority and as a father, to undo the generations of pain imposed on black folks to this day.
This is a story of a man finding what it means to do his White Work.
While onboarding for a new role, Taylor discovers his school district set lower academic targets for Black students than their white peers. He now wants to take steps to address this disparity but doesn’t know to get started. In Part 3 of our series White Work, we’re examining whiteness through the lens of Taylor’s experience: a white educator whose racial epiphanies are coming through a very professional context. As he comes face to face with standards, mindsets, and a web of biases, he talks with our guest host, Laura, about moving from a reactive to proactive place in his whiteness and his White Work.
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Opioid vs Crack
The government bypassed medical treatment for prison inmates. Society followed, offering only contempt for their lifestyle. We turned on the people we loved, made them outcast in our community, adopted policies that destabilized generations, and contributed to mass incarceration as we know it today. We abandoned crack users. In this three-part series, we're headed up to North Carolina to hear first-hand accounts of black people who live through the crack epidemic. We explore what happened to our people who were intentionally targeted and left behind, those not only abandoned by the government and stigmatized by society, but even a mystery to the church. Survivors are now leading organizations and initiatives to provide health care and work towards re-entry into society. It’s not straightforward—they must find loopholes in the system to finally get the same treatment opioid users have been granted.
Crack users had two options: get clean or go to jail. When the government walked away, two dynamic women working in drug harm reduction work, started an underground treatment program deemed illegal—they kept it running by navigating legal loopholes. Thelma and Louise, much like the fictional characters, are two friends who become partners in starting controversial clean needle exchanges to support users instead of telling them to quit. The shift of paradigm made the user the expert with one simple statement: “I can never be clean because I was never dirty.”
Underground drug markets are male-dominated, but women have an advantage in the cartel economy, using their femininity to remain inconspicuous in a variety of situations. As drug lords worked their way from corner boy to Frank Lucas status, women became more involved. In this episode, we meet Margaret, a shy, unassuming girl until she met a guy and fell in love. The cartel ecosystem entangled Margaret, her kids, and her life in a web of street cops, the court system, and child welfare services. Where did 1980s women end up in life? What are they doing now? What do they think about the growing role of women in drug culture?
He was the most revered man in the drug empire. Drug Lords are a necessary evil. They steal to give. In this episode, Eric Gardener is untouchable; he is your typical vigilante who steals and destroys to prosper the weak and vulnerable. White America went into the American dream and locked the door to economic freedom and prosperity, leaving drug lords with the dual roles of destroying the community and saving it at the same time. In this episode we meet Jesse, who is on the run from the police. We follow him as he navigates a world of drugs, crime, imprisonment, and pain.
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across the border
Before dawn, they pack whatever fits into inconspicuous bags and depart without spouses, kids, or even essential belongings. There are no directions, only heavily-patrolled trails where they lurk, signaling to one another when the coast is clear to move. The human remains they encounter serve as stark reminders of their potential fate, but with only one chance for survival, they accept their risk of never making it across the border. In this series, we jump across the US-Mexico borders to examine bureaucracies and bump into all the things we don't typically talk about around immigration. We found out that it is, amongst other things, a parallel to the new Jim Crow system. People stopped by authorities to check their citizenship status are inserted into a legal system where they are bodily, politically, and socially stripped and abused as they wait for any kind of clarification about their status and safety.
Edgardo pulled into his driveway after a routine day on the job, and he noticed police in the driveway. He was detained and appeared before a judge before being deported. In part one of Across The Border we met Edgardo in Mexico City, a man who was separated from his family and life in America and dumped into the immigration morass, and now has to navigate the criminal justice system and a new life in a homeland that is all but foreign to him now. We also met Maggie, the director of the Poucha house, who talked with us about her mission to help deportees land with the dignity and support they need to survive. Through both of these stories, we learned that there are so many factors defeating people, from government malfeasance to language barriers, criminalization, and even corruption.
The gloom and doom at the center of immigration and the life-threatening havoc immigrants face are outstanding and frightening. Luis vows to advocate for and educate people, governments, and other stakeholders on the dangers of immigration. As we begin Part 2, Luis walks us through the devastation of border-crossing at the Arizona-Mexico boundary. What we find as he takes us through what people endure is heart-breaking: deaths in the hundreds, desperation, and devastation. For Luis, who sees immigration as a national issue that existed both before and during the Trump administration, he looks at how his role as an educator needs to be more than that when it comes to this issue. In times of crisis, families don’t just need education, they need and deserve protection. More importantly, we hear from LaLo, who puts all of this into perspective by helping us moving beyond policy into a moral question of our existence: who decides where our home is?
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tHE fIGHT fOR mE
Since childhood, life brought consistent periods of unexpected change and instability, forcing Antonio to become the “the man of the house” after his parents separated. He looked out the window of his childhood home in the notorious Kingston Projects in Birmingham, Alabama, and it was evident his family wasn’t going to make it. He was a poor, black boy who found himself holding his aunt’s crack pipe, going days without sleep, and having standoffs with this mom after refusing to attend school. He kept trying to convince her to move, but they were trapped without any resources. He had a praying grandmother that nurtured his sixth sense, refined his clairvoyance and increased his ability to live by his own divergent ways. Antonio and his mom made a deal to relocate, but life remained unrelenting. From picking glass out of his mom’s face after a near-fatal car accident, to witnessing the death of his uncle, heart surgery at 17 years old, and losing many of his closet relatives to incarceration, his chances of making it were slim. This is the story of a young man who forfeited his childhood to become something he never had. In this series, you'll be in therapy sessions with me, and I’ll take you through some of my life experiences. I want to tell you what really happened to me and my family.
Five years ago, I came into therapy thinking it would be a fleeting exercise in recounting my traumatic childhood and the resulting issues we still navigate today. It became much more, a core ritual to my existence, as I uncovered and reset the unconscious patterns of all the facets of my life. In this episode, I bring you into a routine appointment as I discuss the realities of supporting my family while making more room for me.
The common advice when you are searching for a therapist is “try two or three” to fine one that fits. I had a short list of the attributes I wanted in someone to whom I would eventually reveal all of life's darkest moments, but to my surprise, I got someone I that wouldn’t have made the list. In the episode, my therapist Kelly and I discuss the early days of forming our relationship, the treatments I underwent, and how we show up for each other across many lines of connection and difference.
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