Conversations From The Frontlines: Real Talk, Real Change
Justice takes many forms, and Liberty Hill’s work is rooted in the belief that justice requires enabling those closest to the problems to speak on them and to help formulate, and implement, the solutions. So, how are activists seeking to make our society more just? And how are those in power responding? This season will feature three sets of paired episodes, six total, each pair featuring an Grass-Roots Leader (an activist/community member) and an Insider (an elected or appointed official or other more establishment figure) who are each working on this issue.
Conversations From The Frontlines: Real Talk, Real Change
Narratives, Movements, and the Future We Build
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Award-winning author and journalist Sonali Kolhatkar joins the show to discuss race, democracy, and the power of storytelling. We examine how grassroots movements challenge dominant narratives to build a more just and inclusive future. Discover why reshaping our future requires rewriting the stories we tell about what is possible.
Why do things happen the way they happen? Whose homeland, who defines homeland, it is a Hitlerian term. This was a term that the Nazis kind of popularized because if you can get people excited about where their borders the borders of their country lie and decide that this is the group that it belongs to, then you can by that define who is who doesn't belong, who is the outsider. When you say, why aren't the police stopping ICE? It reveals ignorance. We have to do something about inequality. Billionaires shouldn't exist. Literally, we are the victims of the class war waged by billionaires against the rest of us.
SPEAKER_00Justice takes many forms and many hands. I'm Shane Murphy Goldsmith, president and CEO of Liberty Hill Foundation. And I'd like to welcome you to season five of Conversations from the Front Lines, where we tackle some of the most challenging social justice issues of the day with heart and honesty. As Liberty Hill marks its 50th anniversary, we're reflecting on a simple but powerful truth. Lasting change doesn't happen overnight. It's built over generations by organizers, storytellers, and communities working together to challenge injustice and expand what's possible. Throughout our history, Liberty Hill has stood alongside movements that many once saw as impossible or improbable. We've witnessed how people power can reshape public understanding and transform communities. But change doesn't happen on its own. It requires people willing to challenge dominant narratives and help us imagine a different future. Today's guest has spent her career doing exactly that. Sonali Kolhatkar is an award-winning journalist, author, broadcaster, and movement storyteller whose work has explored some of the most pressing issues of our time. In books like Rising Up, The Power of Narrative in Pursuing Racial Justice, and her long-running show Rising Up with Sonali, she's elevated the voices of frontline communities, grassroots organizers, and advocates as they work to create change. In this episode, we'll discuss the power of narrative, the role of media in social change, and what today's movements can teach us about resilience and building a more inclusive future. So let's get started. Well, thank you so much for being with us today, Somali. Thank you. It's my pleasure, Shane. Such an honor to meet you, as you now know. I'm a huge fan going back to my, oh, let's see, early 20s when September 11th happened. And as horrific as that was, it gave me an opportunity to get to know you on KPFK. And you you were my guiding light in terms of understanding what was going on at the time and taking what I understood about civil rights and social justice movements and putting it in a global context and um really just helping to politicize me in my early years. So thank you for that.
SPEAKER_01That's terrifying considering I was in my mid-20s at the time. So like, okay.
SPEAKER_00Oh wow. I was in my early 20s. So that's very impressive. Awesome. Well, it is such a joy to have you on today. Um, you've written three books uh so far, which we'll go into, and um just have had an incredible career in journalism. And really, I feel like you're sort of like the the journalistic version of Liberty Hill, where you're really going to the front lines, talking to the people who are who are most impacted by the injustices of our world and who are the the bravest, most powerful leaders for justice, and you bring their stories out and send them far and wide, and that's what Liberty Hills tries to do. So thank you for that.
SPEAKER_01Thank you. I'm I'm all definitely, you know, followed Liberty Hills work and uh We need more of this sort of thing.
SPEAKER_00Yes, thank you. And we need more of the Vier sort of thing. Yes. So yeah, so let's dig in. So before we get into the the meaty stuff, I want to hear just a little bit about your background. And I understand you studied astronomy um in got your master's degree in Hawaii. Yes. Um, and now you're this, you're who you are now. So tell us about that journey. I have an unusual path to journalism.
SPEAKER_01Very few people go the way I did. Um, I was born and raised in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates to Indian parents. So I was an Indian citizen. I, you know, was brought up in a country that did not have birthright citizenship. And um was so literally born an immigrant, lived an immigrant, and came to the United States starry-eyed with hopes of getting a degree in physics. Uh, I don't ask why, but physics made me smile and got me excited, even though I was always also into art. And I landed at the University of Texas at Austin at age 16, pursuing a degree in physics.
SPEAKER_00Wow.
SPEAKER_01Ended up adding a second degree, astronomy, because I realized that that was the most beautiful application of physics that I could come across. Went to the University of Hawaii, got my master's in astrophysics, along the way, started really kind of being affected by the world, you know, and my interactions with people, realizing I was seen as an other, as an immigrant before they even knew me. I would always, you know, just even being a woman in STEM, I understood firsthand what it was like to be in spaces where I wasn't expected to be. Um, and then I got a job at Caltech. I took a break and decided to take a break from getting the PhD, which is the general path of astronomers. Got a job at Caltech where I knew some folks. I'd had a summer job there. And along the way, I started really questioning why I was doing what I was doing and thinking about what it takes to live a meaningful life and whether what I was doing was actually giving my life meaning. You know, it was interesting enough sitting in front of the computer all day and I was writing code for one of uh NASA's space uh telescope uh projects. Wow. Um, and getting bored by it, but also seeing what was happening in the world. I got involved with Afghan feminists because I found their website and I started writing to them. And um, there was the early 2000s, the US began a war in Yugoslavia. I started attending protests, I started reading, and one day I just quit. I just quit my job at Caltech, which you know you can do when you're in your early 20s, you don't have kids, the economy isn't as horrible as it is now, and your mortgage isn't very high. So I quit my job and I started looking for something more meaningful. And um, this was around that time, right before that the September 11th attacks had happened, and I was giving talks about Afghanistan because I was one of the few people locally who had really been studying it before the attacks. And a friend of mine casually joked to me that, ah, you should be on KPFK. And I thought it was hilarious and and and ridiculous. Why? But uh because, you know, I didn't have any journalism background, but the she planted a seed, and then I thought about it and thought, well, why not? And I uh reconfigured my resume. I walked into KPFK, I'd like recorded a pilot interview with a friend. I thought they'd give me a little time slot in an afternoon, and they were like, well, you know, our morning show host is leaving by the end of the week. Would you like to try out? So this was John Beaupre, and I'm ever grateful to John Beaupre. And I tried out, they tried out a couple other people. They liked me. I stayed, and I taught myself how to be a journalist. And I realized that the same things that I had been trained to do as an astronomer, which was to ask questions about the universe, ask questions about the physical world, why do things happen the way they happen, and how do we interrogate them, find the causes of it? You can apply that to the social world, to the political world, to the human world. And what's more meaningful than, you know, removing my focus from the heavens into down here on earth where we have not figured anything out? Yeah. And so that was really my path. And along the way, you know, it didn't matter, luckily, at KPFK, that I hadn't gone to journalism school, that I hadn't ever been on live radio. All that mattered was that I had the gumption and I looked around and I said, uh, let me see what Amy Goodman do when she gets on Democracy Now. How hard can this be? You know, uh, wrote, copied, researched, I knew how to research, and I just learned by doing. And that is literally what has marked my entire career. I am your ultimate do-it-yourselfer. I have learned by doing. I have not let barriers, artificial barriers, stop me because I have realized that my biggest asset is my desire to keep learning, to know more about the world, and to say, well, if that person can figure it out, probably I can.
SPEAKER_00I love it. That's like the organizer spirit. Exactly. That's perfect. And so your new book, um, this is talking about abolition, this is your second book, but your third book, which is not out in print copy, but I got an advanced copy to read, is Breaking Ice.
SPEAKER_01So I actually have four books out if you count that. In 2006, uh, I wrote with my partner uh a deep treatise on the US war in Afghanistan called Bleeding Afghanistan, Washington Warlords and the Propaganda of Silence. That came out in 2006. That was my first book, and it was an intense, huge book that is, I think, still relevant today. And then I had children and stopped writing books till 2023 when I my second book came out. So it's a long break. But yeah. So the fourth one is forthcoming in uh as of now, as of you and I talking in late August, which is the ICE book.
SPEAKER_00And so interestingly, I mean, you've you've covered a million topics, every topic, and I have a million questions about all of those topics, but I'm I'm particularly interested in the sort of bookend of, you know, you've your entire life has been as an immigrant. All the sort of research and reporting around 9-11 was about this agency that now has taken over the the or has become the sort of fascist regime's enforcement mechanism. And so, you know, and I think some people who don't do this every day for a living like you and I do, or who don't live it every day, um, just kind of it's it's as if ICE sort of came on the scene recently and is and is this horrific thing that's been weaponized by this particular president. But you have a much longer story to tell about how we got here, which I think I I want to hear about. And I think it's so important not only to understand how we got here, but to understand how we get out of this. And I if you think it just sort of happened because of this president, you might think, okay, let's get the next president and then we won't have this problem anymore. But the reality is this has been building for a long time. And so tell us about the long history that that that brought us to this moment and what what the current ICE tactics tell us about our democracy.
SPEAKER_01I mean, we think about the term Department of Homeland Security right now, and we've taken it for granted. But that term itself is so Orwellian, homeland. Who's homeland, who defines homeland, it is a Hitlerian term. This was a term that the Nazis kind of popularized because if you can get people excited about where their borders the borders of their country lie and decide that this is the group that it belongs to, then you can by that define who is who doesn't belong, who is the outsider. So when that term homeland security first came about in the United States, it was right after September 11th. It was from the mouth of George W. Bush, who, of course, compared to Trump now looks like a progressive, which is so shocking. But he, you know, it it came out of his administration. And when that Department of Homeland Security was founded, people were shocked and thought this is not the kind of terminology we should normalize. But 26 years later, it has been normalized, right? 25 years later, it's been normalized. And uh, so DHS was formed, and in that the department, the agency that was going to become the enforcement agency, ICE, was formed. Before that, it used to be called INS, Immigration and Naturalization Services. And I was intimately familiar with that, having been in the US on a student visa, then having to adjust my status, having to get a work permit, and then when I got married to your citizen green card, I've been through that process. The the you know, the come here legally process, I've been through it. And it is soul sucking, it's painful, it's endless. I had to sue the government to get my citizenship, which you're free to ask me about that later. So I have I basically was the lead plaintiff in a class action lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security in 2008. Almost 2008. They wouldn't give me my citizenship because I was one of thousands of people who had to have a quote unquote FBI background check, which was just a shorthand way of saying, oh, we don't want to let a bunch of people in. Because what was happening around the time that DHS was formed was the United States was becoming more diverse. So to kind of circle back to your question about that history, the enforcement of immigration and uh of immigration laws was a direct reaction to the United States diversifying. Um, record numbers of immigrants from the global south were coming into the United States through legal means, through the processes that were set out through refugee asylums and claims and student visas and green cards. And so, and and there, you know, the the census at that time shows this. And there were lots of discussions in Congress around this. This was when they were those uh enactments of the Sensenbrenner uh law, these laws that were basically starting to be enacted by Congress to prevent immigrants, whether they were undocumented or in some cases even documented, from accessing, you know, benefits and stuff. So uh September 11th was a big gift to the anti-immigrant uh movement, to white supremacy, because it was the perfect excuse, the perfect storm to then push through this idea that we have a homeland and these are the people that belong, and everybody else doesn't belong, and we're gonna pour resources into enforcing those borders. And we've lived with it now for decades, and it still wasn't enough for white supremacists who elected Trump and who is now pushing it even further and further. So that history is and at the same time that yes, it's been 25 years, but that's not in the grand scheme of things. You know, the United States is now 250 years old. This is still a new agency. It can be undone, it needs to be undone because it has caused so much harm.
SPEAKER_00Yes. So let's talk about the undoing. Uh, your book before this one that I have here is talking about abolition. Uh, police free world is possible. And um, along the way, you've talked about how these two agencies, you know, police and ICE, I mean, it's one enforcement mechanism in this country rooted in deeply in racism and colonialism. So tell us about the the connection between the two and and how do we undo the whole thing?
SPEAKER_01This is for me where culture shaping and shifting is so important because our minds are very malleable, unfortunately, and susceptible to the prevailing culture of the time. In 2020, it was an incredible moment when people who were moved by the murder of George Floyd took to the streets, more white people than non-white people took to the streets in city after city around the country, shoulder to shoulder with black people and uh immigrants, to say um we need to stop police violence, racist and race racialized police violence, and uh section boldly saying we need to defund the police. Um, we need to move money out of policing into the things that truly keep us safe. And immediately there was pushback from the corporate media, from the politicians at the time. Joe Biden was lead among them, wanting to push back against this idea to defund the police. And then uh a few years later, you also saw when Trump came in, uh his bashing of immigrants fueled anti-immigrant rage and anger, literally two or three years after people marching in the streets about family separation. Right. So we are so malleable to and so susceptible to what politicians say to the prevailing narratives of the time. Now, here we are in 2025 and 26, where you've had a similar uh egregious police force, a police force that is brutal, that does not respect laws, then that's ICE that has, and you see public opinion shifting away from ICE. You know, literally within two years, you saw this massive sea change. You know, probably there's got to be an overlap between those people who said yes enforcement to no ICE, abolish ICE, because they saw what it could do. Our memories are short. So there's a very direct line between 2020 and 2026, between the anti-police uh brutality movements, the anti-ICE movements, and the resulting backlash. And I what I want to figure out, the nut that I try to crack is what is it that can get Americans of conscience to see these systems in a broad way, in a in a way that it makes them uh immune to politicized propaganda, right? Government propaganda, corporate media propaganda. Uh it's very easy to tell stories that make you angry about things. Rage goes a fur further distance than envisioning a better place and a better time. So this book talking about abolition was about police brutality and the work that abolitionists were doing on the ground to take money out of policing and into the things that really keep us safe. My next book, Breaking ICE, deliberately interviews and has interviews with black abolitionists who've been active in the anti-ICE movement. And by the way, of course, we have to keep reminding ourselves, there are many black immigrants. So there's a huge overlap between the immigrant rights movement and the black abolitionist movement. And I deliberately interviewed black abolitionists who work on police to apply their lens to ICE and to remind us these are two sides of the same coin. When you say, why aren't the police stopping ICE? It reveals ignorance. But the ICE is the police, right? They're just a different federal agency as opposed to a city-based agency. The uniforms are slightly different, their tactics are the same. And just as the same time that ICE is killing immigrants, police are killing black people. They're still killing black people. It is still in the news if you look. And we need to look and stop looking away. So that I think is really important. The flip side of that, which I'm much more interested in, is what could we do with all the money that could be freed up once we stop funding police and ICE the way we do?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So what could we do with all that money?
SPEAKER_01We do the things that keep us safe. I have given talks, my favorite kind of talks to give are to young school children. And I will explain to them, I'll say to them, all right, so say there's an unhoused person on the street, and there's a cop who wants to push that unhoused person away, but you as a taxpayer, you have $10,000. You could pay the cop to take that unhoused person, lock them up, throw away the key, put, you know, pay the cop to do all of this processing and the paperwork and and and and take, you know, just brutalize that that unhoused person. Or you could do all of those things, or you could literally say to that unhoused person, what do you need? And what if we use this $10,000 of taxpayer money to get you a housing, to get you the to to get you help, to help you get a job? What if we don't, what would you choose? What do you think would be the best choice? I mean, of course I set them up for this so that little kids raise their hands and go, we give the money to help the unhoused person. I mean, but the reason I bring this up is because if little kids get this, why don't adults that if we use the money that's freed up from ICE, which you know, the so-called big beautiful one big beautiful bill gave ICE tens of billions of our tax dollars, and city budgets spend anywhere between a fifth to a third of city budgets on police. If we took that, if we started pouring that into the things that uh sh gave people the wraparound services they need, we'd go a long way. And then, of course, in the long term, we have to do something about inequality. Billionaires shouldn't exist. Literally, the minute they start becoming billionaires, we take every uh extra cent they make and pour it back into the things that help protect us from billionaires and their agenda. I mean, it's not complicated, right? It's such a simple idea. It's an elegant idea. And the reason why there's such a backlash to this idea is because it's so powerful and it's so simple and it's so strategic and elegant. And the solution is so obvious that people who uh espouse it are dismissed as pie in the sky, you know, looking at the world through rose-colored glasses. They we conservative billionaire, pro-billionaire forces want us to believe the worst of humanity because that suspicion leads us to cling to our purse strings and go, This is mine, not yours, right? The borders, the borders of my home, the borders of my wallet, the borders of my country. And and whoever doesn't, you know, whoever I deem as the other doesn't get to have these things. And that's a mindset we have to break.
SPEAKER_00On this topic, you wrote, today's battle over belonging is playing out on the streets of American cities between well-armed government forces and networks of ordinary people. Whoever wins will not just determine the nature of national demographics, but whether America remains a democracy or becomes a fascist police state.
SPEAKER_01Yes, those are literally our choices right now, right? Because the paper version of the United States is oh, we're land of immigrants. The Constitution applies to all everybody has equal rights. That's the paper version, that's a theoretical United States. And then the actual United States is the white supremacist nation that was born out of dispossession and slavery and enslavement. Um, uh, there are uh some wonderful activists um who I follow who who Often bring up this term. It's a country built on stolen lands by stolen hands, right? So that is the history, the overarching history that remains true today. This entire country's history has been marked by the struggle between those two. Can the United States ever live up to its stated ideals of democracy, which by nature of its stated ideals must include every kind of person, not just white people? So therefore a multiracial democracy. We shouldn't have to say multiracial, but we kind of do because, right? Like the democracy, any people, because you know, we shouldn't have to remind folks that people of color are the same as non-wise as white people. Will it be that or will it uh stay that uh you know truer to the to the unjust origins of this country? Will it stay true to this idea where only a few people have you know power and the rest of us struggle to get by? And and I think one of our big challenges is to remind or to figure out how to make the case to white Americans who are not billionaires that they will be better off in a multiracial democracy, right? They will be better off in a multiracial democracy. They will be happier when their neighbor isn't being carted off and when both their neighbor and they have taxpayer-funded health care so they can change jobs without worrying about health insurance or if they can afford to pay their rent.
SPEAKER_00So let's talk about that. That is something I'm I just think so much about about how do we how do we get people to see that we are all better off when nobody is oppressed? And I think that's, you know, I grew up very poor. So I'm I'm, you know, I came to this through through that lens, which on the one hand means I innately, you know, relate to folks who are marginalized and disadvantaged by this country. I can't retrace my steps in my own mind to figure out why I see it that way and how to get other people to see it that way. Otherwise, it becomes a sort of us and them, which by the way, I have gotten decades of deep gratification out of. I mean, it feels really good to feel like it's us against you and we're the right ones and we're the underdogs, but we're right. And, you know, I think that's true, but also ultimately it doesn't that mentality is sort of the same as the other side's mentality. So how do we break through that?
SPEAKER_01Well, on the us versus them aspect, the rich have been waging a class war against the rest of us for a very long time, right? So I think we should we need to be very like clear about that. Literally, we are the victims of the class war waged by billionaires against the rest of us. But I think what we have to push against is this quintessential American individualism idea. The the nation, while also being, you know, the the the origins of this nation being built by stolen uh hands on stolen lands is a nation that has always had this dream that has, you know, it's it's it's the it's the dream that sells America to the world, which is every individual can make their own way. It's the American dream. That is a nightmare. And I know that sounds harsh, but if any one of us starts to constantly buy into the fact that we alone make our own destiny, that is exactly the path. That is the starting point of the path that will lead us toward the this is mine and not yours. And the idea of collectivism and collective liberation is antithetical to the American do it your do-it-alone idea, the um, you know, uh pure meritocracy. I I pulled myself up from my bootstraps. No, you didn't. Somebody bought you those boots. Taxpayers paid for the road that you drove on, uh, the infrastructure that you rely on was a collective effort, but we never want to acknowledge the collective effort that went into enabling our collective success. And so this continuous mythmaking and propaganda around individuals who go it alone. And anybody who fails, it's your fault if you failed. If you succeed, it's your um, you know, it's your brilliance. That's why billionaires are revered in this in our society. They're interviewed, they're on panels, they're given awards just for being rich, right? Meanwhile, it actually turns out once you're rich, you don't actually have to work to stay rich. Your riches keep multiplying, even if you don't want them to. So this idea of individual go it your loan, go it go it alone, do it, you know. Um I don't you know rely on anybody but me and everybody else who fails is their fault. This is the problem. Zoran Mamdani, mayor of New York, just uh recently said some something really clever that I thought was so interesting. He's such a master of narrative, by the way. Uh he said something to the effect of today, if we started talking about uh building where taxpayers paid for people to come and get free books, there would be a whole bunch of people saying, uh, socialism, but we have our public libraries and we love them and revere them. So we actually have had moments in our history where we have decided collectivism benefits everybody by definition, literally. Um, and we keep forgetting it because far too many people who are the wrong sort of people benefit from that collectivism and the white supremacists can't have that. So we need to think about ways in which we start thinking about how our liberation is bound up in the liberation of everybody else. And that when you win at the expense of other people, that is not a win for you unless you literally want to live and die alone. But if you want to live and die in a society surrounded by social forces where you have, where you thrive, you need other people. And then their well-being is important to your well-being, right? So we we are we are constantly addressing our well-being through like how can we get individuals to change their behavior instead of how can we create the conditions where everybody thrives.
SPEAKER_00And you believe that narrative is a huge part of creating those conditions and have made a career out of it. Uh, wrote a book about it, and you talk about you know, the sort of rise of the sort of abolitionist narrative around 2020 and then the fall of that, and now there's this rise of the um abolish ice narrative. So tell us how how I mean, well, and also in in our in our work in organizing and philanthropy, there's a lot of talk about narrative change. And I confess to being somewhat skeptical about it, not because I I mean, of course, I understand the role that narrative plays and how powerful it is. What I question is, you know, are there really strategies that can reliably shift narrative for the long term versus all these kind of up and down, sort of backlash, react. So, how does it work?
SPEAKER_01If narrative wasn't powerful and important, the right would not fund their right-wing hosts and media empires the way they do. If narrative wasn't important, Trump would not be the Fox News president. If narrative wasn't important, then Rupert Murdoch would not have built his empire and used it to great effect. If narrative wasn't important, Elon Musk wouldn't have bought Twitter and renamed it X, and Trump wouldn't have bought TikTok and completely undermined it. Okay? If we look at every social media platform briefly, even when Facebook was the face of the Arab Spring. The Arab Spring succeeded in large part because of Facebook. Mark Zuckerberg, uh, you know, and also Facebook was uh helpful to the rise of Bernie Sanders' first candidacy. So they changed the algorithm. And then you saw, you know, Hong Kong and TikTok. So they changed that. Then you've seen Twitter and and Black Twitter and and uh the 2020 racial justice uprising. Elon Musk took it and and and undermined that. And now I've I'm doing prep work right now for the massive protests in India that took place where young people were protesting for weeks because uh uh over education reform, and that was the Instagram uh heavy protest movement. They're gonna take Instagram away too. If narrative shifting and the ability to communicate and shape messaging wasn't important, the billionaires wouldn't be rushing to shut down every avenue. And so the challenge for left philanthropy, liberal philanthropy has to be what will it take for us to fund our vision, our narrative shifters, our change makers? What will it take for us to realize the importance? Because what we've done so far is we've thought, oh, journalism is about objective reporting and factual reporting. And so the New York Times will surely do that. No, the New York Times, there's a reason there's media watchdog groups aimed like fairness and accuracy in reporting, who will point out the New York Times. I mean, the Atlantic just did a terrible story calling the Democratic Socialists of America parasites. I saw that. They are just as invested in defeating liberalism and collectivism and those things, you know, the defund movement, as the right is, they just use sophisticated ways to do it. And, you know, they use different ways to their political pundits are use different ways to do it. So narrative is so important when we don't have that infrastructure to enable people, whether it's the platforms, whether it's the talent, whether it's the, you know, just uh having people be able to focus on on storytelling, when we don't have that, we we lose, we we are disparate, we are disconnected from one another. We need to remain connected and we need to be able to shape our messaging. And when I say we, for me, I am first and foremost a journalist, but I am also always a journalist, deeply interested in social justice, not just interested, that is my value system. I am biased towards social justice. My bias is that all people are equal, my bias is that every human being deserves to live and that borders shouldn't exist and billionaires shouldn't exist. That is my bias. And I'm I wear it on my sleeve. And it is not just perfectly possible to have journalistic ethos within those biases, but they actually go hand in hand. A journalist has to lie to convince themselves that a Haitian does not have the same rights as a white American with a passport, right? So I think that it's it's so powerful and so important for us to understand the importance of narrative. Narrative by itself is not enough, obviously. We don't just need messaging, we need messaging and action. But if we have action and no messaging, it's like that, you know, if a tree falls in the forest, did anybody and nobody heard it, did it even fall? If a protest happened on the street and nobody covered it, did it even happen, right? We need narrative-shifting shapers, creators working in tandem with organizers in service of a better world for us all. And I think philanthropists need to understand that. And and before it's too late. Yes. It's getting too late.
SPEAKER_02Yes.
SPEAKER_01Outlets are shutting down incredible, brilliant, independent media outlets that have decades of experience. I know because the magazine that I worked for last year shut down. Yes Magazine, the pioneer in social justice uh solutions journalism, shut down for lack of funding because a few funders pulled their funds, and now that beautiful collective history is gone. I mean, the archives are still there, so please check it out. Yesmagazine.org. But, you know, it's gone. And so because philanthropy didn't support it. And we've now we're putting our energy into rebuilding them instead of into expanding them.
SPEAKER_00Yes Magazine was a form of solutions journalism. Uh so talk about that a little bit. Liberty Hill, we um we call it building the good. And we sort of were looking at what was happening in Los Angeles and noticing that there, you know, my entire life in this work has been defined by what we now call kind of fighting the bad, right? Sort of like anti-all the bad things. And as I said earlier, that is gives me a great sense of purpose and a place to put my rage. Um, but we've but we've what we've noticed is that while there's lots of bad things and we still have to fight all of them, that there are some really brilliant, innovative organizers on the ground coming up with real solutions and doing it with their hands, with the resources they have, not waiting around for someone else to fund it or say it's a good idea. And that seems to be kind of what you're talking about, where you want to report on not just the negative things, but the the positive things, the solutions, the things that are taking us closer to our vision. Yeah. So talk a little bit about that approach.
SPEAKER_01I, you know, I'm in this for the long haul. I want my journalism to not just be about, I don't want to be a stenographer, right? I don't want to just report on here's what's happening. Uh, how bad do you feel now? Right? Like, here's another report on how climate change is gonna destroy our future within five years, not 10 years. Now I'm gonna go about my day and, you know, hope that I don't fall into a pit of depression like my readers have. So I have seen the effect of left rage baiting, factual rage baiting, on the left, right? Our journalists have done a stellar job of telling us how crappy things are, how awful they are, the sky is falling, because the sky is falling, right? It has been for decades, for generations, and we have gotten very good at reporting on them. But my question always has been to what end? If our reporting is fueling apathy, cynicism, disengagement, depression, despair, what is the point? If we want to change things, what if we focused on how one tiny group of people here is changing their one tiny corner of the world and ask the question of how can that apply to this other corner of the world and be amplified and shift our mindset and grow and amplify. Uh, and so it's still extremely, you know, factual journalism, ethical journalism, uh journalism based on the what, when, how, why? But instead of beginning with the problem of this is what's awful, and at the very end, having a footnote of here's what someone's doing about it, we start with a here's what someone's doing about this awful problem that you can find out uh more about by, you know, Googling. And we're not gonna focus on what the problem is because we know there is a problem. Do we need to know the nuances of the problem? Maybe, but what would be more useful in how this group of people has, through sheer grit and determination, tackled it, solved it? That is solutions journalism. And the reason, so it's not looking at the world through rose-colored glasses, it's not good news journalism. It is nuts and bolts, practical figuring out how people are solving problems in the world so that we can apply them everywhere else. If New Mexico was able to fund universal childcare, which should have been the headlines of our news, so that other states could go and people in other states could well if they have a why don't we? You know, if if New Mexico could do it, why can't other states, right? If New York City can have city-run grocery stores, why can't we? If people in Chicago figured out how to keep ice away through whistles, maybe people in North Carolina can do some of that as well. So, you know, if Hawaii could figure out how to make Citizens United's null and void in its state, which should have been front page news, why can't others? That's the people of Hawaii, their representatives passed a law just a few months ago that redefines state charters, that we're that the corporate charters that the state defines as an entity that cannot interfere in elections, cannot spend money in elections. They didn't even try touching the Supreme Court decision. They just said from the front end, we get to define, as per the Supreme Court, and as the Supreme Court has said many times over 200 years, the state gets to define what a corporation is. What if we just redefine a corporation? They did it. They did it. Now Montana's figuring out how, well, Montana was the first to try to do it, and they're putting it on the ballot. Hawaii was inspired by Montana. That story didn't get it got so little press. Why? Because those ideas are really inspiring and catching like that, can catch, like wildfire. That is solutions journalism. If people understood how possible it was to achieve the things that we all want, they just might do it. Right? Yes. And so why not? Yes. Why do we need yet another detail of how terrible the world is?
SPEAKER_00So that's one of the things that I find so beautiful about the uprising against the ICE enforcement. And I, you know, goes without saying how horrific it all is, as you've said. But but what's extraordinary is these networks of just human-to-humans who have figured out how to defend, to protect, to fight against, to raise up the issue to get more public, you know, awareness and sympathy. Um, and you know, whether it's mutual aid, which we started seeing in COVID more, um, just to all the sort of DIY ways, brilliant ways that that regular folks are finding, you know, building a life amidst this threat and standing up against it. And you've written a whole book about it. I've your podcast, which we haven't mentioned, is also brilliant and digs deep into all these kind of solutions. So tell us what you see in the fight against ice that is inspiring you.
SPEAKER_01It is so beautiful because that thing that I was saying earlier about us realizing that our liberation is bound up in the liberation of all of us, the the anti-ICE movement, the grassroots community self-defense mechanisms that people have come up with are exactly that. That is the people, that is the that is the kind of action that can remind us, oh, I do need to rely on my neighbor because my neighbor just warned me that ice was around the corner and told me to go inside so that my undocumented parent can be safe. I do care about the fact that the person up the street was taken away by ice. Now their child doesn't have uh, you know, can't get picked up from high school. Uh uh that person can't pay their rent because their breadwinner was locked up and we're gonna crowdfund because I know that person. And and what I think it has done is it has been this wonderful reminder of how our fates are bound up with one another. And I'm always drawn to the slogan that the Day Labor's Organizing Network, National Day Labor's Organizing Network, always keeps at the forefront, which is uh that the National Day Labor Organizing Network always keeps at the forefront, which is solo el pueblo, salva al pueblo. Only the people can save the people. It is such a beautiful um message of power, but it's the people, us, we the people, right? And so uh I think that that to me is the most powerful, brilliant, and important aspect of it. I mean, it seems sad to say this, but actually it's important. Our biggest challenge is reminding ourselves we're all human. Our biggest challenge is reminding ourselves that the same struggle that we go through is what our neighbor goes through and what the person up the street goes through. And that I think is what is going to hopefully come out of this movement where people are going to hopefully realize the papers that you have do not define your rights, do not define your dignity, do not define whether you deserve to thrive and live because you are just like me. And it doesn't matter whether you, you know, uh crossed the border, came on a plane, overstated your visa, did all the right things, were applying for asylum, showed up to your court date. It doesn't, none of that matters. We're born here, we're citizen, none of that matters. It matters that you're a human being and you're one of us by virtue of being a human being. That's it. And our court's constitution, after being amended, was, you know, trying to lift that up, right? And um this idea that everybody deserves due process, not just citizens. Because by asking the question, are you a citizen or not? So I can decide whether you have due process, you have violated due process, literally, right? So that is so important to keep reminding ourselves of that, that our faiths are bound up with one another, and we have to stop having such short memories because the first Trump administration was marked by the Muslim ban, by family separation. People rose up, they screamed and shouted, then they brought Biden and they thought, ah, great, now we're okay. And then they forgot all about everything, and Trump came back like a recurring nightmare to say immigrants are your enemies again, not billionaires, and people far too many people bought it again because not because they're stupid, but because Biden didn't give them enough to believe in and did not change their circumstances enough. And so many people just got desperate and said, All right, let's throw out the baby with the bathwater and see what happens.
SPEAKER_00And you know, folks who are fighting against ICE enforcement are literally saving our democracy because that's, you know, that that, and I read this in your book, that, you know, some of the experts know that when you start brutalizing, locking up children, letting them die in jail, that that's when you know fascism is here. And so while that may seem like an issue in this in the US, you know, ICE going after undocumented immigrants, we know that's not all of who they target, but that may seem like a small slice of the population, but really that is the just a symptom of the complete undermining of democracy. And, you know, looking at the last election, and I mean, every election, you know, the sort of story that gets told in most recently, it's apparently the Democrats keep losing elections because of people standing up for their rights, right? Like whether it's trans folks or immigrants, it, you know, they get blamed. And it's as if they care more about sort of the Democrats than democracy. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01And I'm so glad you brought this up because you have the fascists on the right, and then you have the enablers of the fascists in the middle. And actually, they're really to the right, but they would like to distinguish themselves from the fascists by claiming centrism. We have a situation now where the Democrats are the conservatives and the Republicans are the extremists. As Nazis. Conservative literally means to conserve, to keep things the way they are, which is what the Democrats keep promising us over and over again. And they call it centrism or being moderate as a way to say, look, we're not the extreme fringe left who want to tear it all down. Except when you're saying that everything is fine, let's keep it the way it is, you're literally showing the m mass of people suffering, how out of touch you are, and that you literally don't see them. You don't see their suffering. You don't see how much they are going into debt for healthcare and education and can't afford housing and groceries, et cetera. So the Democrats have painted themselves into a corner if they have decided that centrism is the way forward, because centrism, by definition, is to stay in the same place, not the way forward. There is no forward. Forward is breaking out of where we are now and fixing things and making them better. Um, and I think that that's really important. I mean, I just look at our governor's race here, right? Javier Becerra, great, you know, experience in Sacramento and in the federal government. And his main ad that he puts out is him facing off against Trump. We're gonna stand up to Trump. And I look at that, and some people look at that and say, okay, the story comes from that I'm getting from that is here's a brave guy willing to stand up to fascism. The story that I get from that is do better. Do better. Guess what? Hillary Clinton said she would stand up to Trump. That was her entire election strategy, was standing up to Trump. And people said, that's not enough. What are you gonna do to make things better? And it goes back to the similar thing about uh media and media coverage. Is it enough to just focus on all the things that are going bad, or can we talk about how we can, how people are making things better? If you want to take people on a journey for for to you know somewhere positive, somewhere, some some place that you're going to say, electing me will make your lives better. Tell them how you're gonna make their lives better. I don't want to see Trump in an ad for a Democrat anymore. Enough of that. Forget about Trump. Look at what Mamdani did and how he won. He barely talked about Trump. He he every time people asked him about Trump, he would change the subject and say, I serve the people of the United States, and here's my agenda for making things better for them. And he went on a cruise to, you know, a crusade to fix potholes and and and you know, open up swimming pools, community swimming pools, and et cetera. Talk about what, how you're gonna make life better for Californians, Javier Barra, if you're listening, stop telling us about how you're gonna stand up to Trump. Tell us how you are going to protect immigrants and make their lives better, regardless of whether it's Trump or Biden. Tell us about how you are going to fix the broken housing system in California, how you are gonna make billionaires pay their fair share in taxes, how you are gonna take on the billionaires who are always let off the hook and are invisible, not Trump, because Trump is the tool of the billionaires. So if you're looking at fighting the tool of the billionaires, you become the tool of the billionaires. You're fighting to be the tool of the billionaires. You're saying to the billionaires, pick me, and not Trump. And same goes for Gavin Newsom, same goes, you know, who has aspirations for the federal race. You know, California can and should do so much better when it comes to politicians, because we have the most, the largest population of the country, and we are the left coast, the west coast, et cetera, the best coast, whatever you want to call it. And we keep, and we have some amazing people, by the way. They don't get as much uh media coverage. Um, and Angela Gonzalez Torres, who's running to be Jimmy Gomez here in uh Los Angeles, great democratic socialist standing up to, you know, corporate forces, standing up to the state of Israel, which you know, we need someone to talk about that too. So there's so many things that we so that's what I want, is that's where storytelling comes in again. Paint the picture of the vision that you're promising to us. Take us on the journey with you to better healthcare, to better outcomes, to better life. That's and and don't talk about trying to appease this voter or that voter. Just tell us how you're gonna make all our lives better. Forget about the fascists because the fascists are sucking up the oxygen in the room for a very important reason. It is it is a distra, not to say that their methods are distractions, but the fascism has been enabled by well-meaning Democrats looking to take on fascism. Such a painful But it's not that complicated, right? Like the here's the thing again. We get political pundits, and we're gonna get them between now and the midterms and between now and the presidential election. All of these pundits talking about viability and who's gonna be here and you know who's who's electable. Oh my God, stop with the electable, right? Like we have to stop. Like with these pundits need to shut up, you know, shut up and tell us, tell us what people should demand from their politicians because ultimately they're public servants. They answer to us. And and and don't tell us who we should get behind, tell us how they should win us over. Yeah. Change that dynamic, right?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And in my many years of doing this work, I mean, I having worked in City Hall and having worked, you know, around and with electeds and government, um, and but most of my career has been on the outside, you know, it's just so clear to me that that whatever electeds do, it's gonna be in response to whatever's happening.
SPEAKER_01And unless we demand better from them.
SPEAKER_00Right, but still, but still they'll respond to the demand. And which makes me see so clearly how the work that that the folks at Liberty Hill funds, the folks that you interview on your podcast and in your books, those are the ones really who have the lived experience to know what's wrong and what can change it. And they're the ones with the innovation. They're the ones who are imagining a better world and trying to build it themselves. And, you know, I I hope and pray that that all of our organizing and and power building can can exert the kind of power that those demands require in order for government to concede and to do what's right. But, you know, I don't know. I don't I haven't seen a lot of of that at a big scale. And so I, you know, I continue to focus on what folks are doing in the on the ground and the brilliance of that and lifting that up, understanding that elected are always gonna be kind of like you said, they're always gonna be stuck in electeds and all the apparatus around them, you know, is gonna be consultants. Right, exactly. Uh is gonna be stuck in this sort of problem framework, the world as it is today.
SPEAKER_01Because their goal is to get elected. Right. That is their goal, right? And that's it. That's what it's like if someone interviewing for a job. They're gonna say what they can to get the job. But the people who they're working for are the ones who have to decide whether that person is doing their job, how to hold them accountable, yearly reviews, salary, whatever you want, you know what I mean. Um, that is like we have to keep reminding ourselves, these are people who work for us. So what are we demanding from them? The election is our interview. It's the final like do you pass the interview or not? Do you pass the, are you gonna are you gonna say and say, are you gonna promise the right things so that we'll give you a chance? And then while you're in power, are you gonna enact the things that you said so we might give you another chance? If you didn't pass your your four-yearly review, you're up. We're gonna hire somebody else.
SPEAKER_00That's it. Yeah. And so what are you seeing in Los Angeles that you feel like those are those are the solutions that need more attention?
SPEAKER_01Well, definitely the work that the day laborers do has always been inspiring, right? Because one of the things that I think has often worked um well is when the news cameras go away, when the sexy, you know, things uh fade, when the when the fires literally die down. The day-to-day struggle of people is what matters. And so, you know, 20 plus years ago, the day laborers set up the job center, their job center in Pasadena. This was such an innovative thing. A job center. Why would that be a political thing? Well, day laborers who are largely undocumented, who work really, really hard, who are exploited and vulnerable and often underpaid, needed a safe way to work and to be able to share their talents with the people who wanted to hire them. And what better way to set it up than to have a hub, which is what this job center is. I'm not uh, you know, I don't I work, I I've I've covered them as a journalist. But so from what I know from the outside, it's this it's a job uh center where people can go and uh get jobs through. And whoever hires day laborers have to abide by certain basic rules, which is the minimum pay, you know, which is you know, uh clearly outlining what the uh job is gonna be, making sure they pay well. And if there's any problem, the job center will step in and be uh advocate for that day labor, right? Like that's a kind of very practical sort of thing that people are doing. There's an organization in uh North Carolina, uh Siembra and C, that I covered in my Breaking Ice book, where when they're not fighting ice, they're helping immigrants with wage theft. And, you know, those are the kinds of things that have to be going on an ongoing basis. And then when something extreme happens, they mobilize. And and I love that there are these networks that exist throughout LA. Um, you know, we have Black Lives Matter grassroots that is doing some important work. We have um organiz the Korea Town, you know, workers, we've got Hunger Action LA. We've got, we've got, I mean, you know, Liberty funds so many of these organizations. These organizations that are meeting people's needs on a day-to-day uh basis, but also having a vision for how to respond when stuff goes sideways and have a vision for a better world. They're combining their on-the-ground tactics with long-term vision. That is incredible. And it's not just LA, people do it everywhere because we have this, you know, great human desire to keep fighting the good fight. It's what makes us human. We won't give up. Yes. So, yeah, LA is LA is amazing. And you scratch the surface in any corner of the city and you'll discover something powerful and inspiring. You know, people come visit LA, but you know, don't stay in Airbnb. No, definitely not.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean, I love that story. And I, you know, it Liberty Hill's been funding day labor organizing and worker centers for since their beginning. And it's incredible to see how that network built, you know, like you said, I mean, a lot of it's just getting, make sure day laborers can get jobs that and they're not competing with each other for wages. And it's it's a basic worker center function. Meanwhile, though, they're building community, they're building mutual aid networks, they're building political consciousness to understand what's happening. And then, you know, when something like this moment in time with ICE invading, they're ready. They're ready. They're ready because they've built this infrastructure, this very human infrastructure that very quickly, I mean, whether it's the big organizations like Cheerla or the smaller ones like the you know, Hollywood Day Labor Center, you know, they built this network and were able to very quickly notify people that they're coming, notify them about their rights, go with them to court.
SPEAKER_01And I think it's important for that, you know, you see they have uh emphasis on narrative shifting as well, right? Why does a day labor organizing network have a band? Yes. Oh, because song helps shift consciousness, helps bring you in. Why, you know, why do we have independent filmmakers who care about storytelling who are also working for many of these organizations, right? I think Chirla put out a movie, right? Like, why did they do that? Because they understand the power of story. But I think it's also really important for us to have that radical like mindset. I don't know, you know, I don't I don't want to speak for any of these organizations. I'm a journalist, but what I am hoping is that they and many groups who work in organizing work with this idea of I want to do this work so that the work that I'm doing now, so that we can achieve a world where the work I'm doing now is no longer needed. I'm in a housing rights organization because we need housing rights, and I want a world where we don't have the need for this organization, where people have what they need. Yes. How do I make my work obsolete? I would rather be writing fiction than doing journalism. Oh, I would like to live in a world where I didn't need to be spending or feel the need to like shine a light on these issues because the media, as it was, was would be fully funded and covering all of the topics that I want them to cover.
SPEAKER_00In community organizing, there's just sort of you know, Talmudic debate about, you know, is it about building the base or is it about winning the campaign? And you know, most organizers say it's both, and most organizations lean toward one or the other, and then they criticize each other for however they lean.
SPEAKER_01You've been doing this a long time, I can tell.
SPEAKER_00Exactly. My ideology and my kind of what I've learned from living has has diverged. Um, and I think, you know, I love policy change. I love campaign, and Liberty Hill funds a lot of that campaigns that actually change policy that can change material conditions. And that feels so concrete and so real, and it is, and the vict the victories are extraordinary against you know all kinds of opposition. But what I'm seeing the beauty of more and more is that those really are just ways to build that community, to build that solidarity, to build a pu an awareness, to build a story, to create joy. And you know, I think about philanthropy, and and philanthropy is so outcomes-oriented, which one part of me loves because that's accountability and it's change and it's real. And but I'm just starting to see how twisted that can become. And if the outcome you're looking for is the policy change, then whole organizations can can devote themselves to policy change, but if and win, at least in LA. Um, but if they're not building that community and changing those narratives and creating those stories, then lasting change isn't really happening. It doesn't stick. It doesn't stick. And then it just comes, it's sort of policy to policy, election to election, and nothing really changes. Exactly.
SPEAKER_01I'm so glad you brought that up because this has been my, you know, constant struggle to realize that culture shifting has to happen in tandem with policy shifting so that it sticks. And all culture shifting is is public buy-in. Public buy-in for the changes that you are enacting and that you have even succeeded in enacting and want to preserve. Is there public buy-in, right? Again, look at Mamdani and the master class in narrative shifting. He's already in power, right? He doesn't need to keep convincing the public that he's doing good, yet he does. He continuously convinces the public that, yes, it makes sense for us to spend tax dollars on grocery stores so that everybody has here's, you know, he keeps reminding us why people elected him and what they elected him for, to ensure public buy-in for his policies. Now he's doing it, and we're, you know, New Yorkers are lucky that the politician is the storyteller. Most of the case that doesn't happen. But the rest of, you know, so some of the more traditional outcome is that you have the politician who makes promises. The grassroots organizations endorse them because they think, all right, this is our best shot of enacting them. And those are grassroots organizations shine a light on the good deeds and keep reminding the community look, this is why we need to keep having this sort of stuff, you know, these sort of people in office so that we can get the sort of thing done. And isn't it great that we have them and have achieved them? Now, how can we build on them, right? So I think that that storytelling aspect is to have the public buy-in so that change sticks. The Democrats aren't just like bad at marketing. The Democrats choose not to market the things that are part of their platform. Their platform is a lot more progressive than they actually enact, but even when they do fulfill parts of that platform, they don't want to talk about it. They don't really like to talk about it. Then they start talking in wonkish numbers about how this and that outcome has gotten better. And, you know, Obama was master at talking about outcomes and about the numbers. And people are like, okay, okay, he's really like eloquent and smart and handsome, and like, you know, he's not Trump great. Only so many people will say he's not Trump, that's good enough. Most everybody else will say, but what is what how is my life getting better?
SPEAKER_00So you mentioned earlier that you would love to not have to write journalism, do journalism on all this stuff, there's just write fiction. So say more about that.
SPEAKER_01Oh my goodness. Um, so because I wrote my 2023 book was about narrative shifting, rising up the power of narrative and pursuing racial justice. And I the book was basically about critiquing Hollywood's storylines and mainstream media's coverage and how their narrative shifting fuels racism generally instead of racial justice. And then how independent media makers and how independent filmmakers are pushing back to reshape story, to reshape ideas and to emphasize racial justice by putting people of color in the forefront, by, you know, by by reminding us they're human. Um, and it really uh planted a seed in my head where I thought, you know, God, we I would say things like, we need more stories by people of color about people of color, we need more stories about economic justice, we need more stories about how the world can change. I love speculative fiction because it shows us what's possible in a world, it helps push the boundaries of our imagination, right? And so I was like, I should. I used, and I I have children, I used to tell to make up stories when I would, you know, instead of reading, my husband's a reader, he'll read to them. I would often, I read too, but I like to, I would like to make up stories and I would just spin them. And often they would be these, you know, very sort of sweet stories with some heroic adventure. And so it got me thinking, like, well, if I want more of these sorts of things in the world, why don't I just do it? Why don't I see if I can do it? And I started too. And uh two years ago, when my husband and I uh celebrated our 25th anniversary, congratulations. Thank you. We went to France. We had this epic trip. We don't get to travel very much. Kids were old enough. We planned two and a half weeks, we were gonna travel through France, saved up money, first five days in Paris, and then hopping around the rest of the country. We landed, he got sick, he got the flu. No, so I was trapped in the world's most romantic city without a romantic partner. And all I had was a notebook and a pen. And I thought I was gonna like, you know, journal. Instead, a story started pouring out of me, and and I couldn't stop, and I kept having to buy more books every step of the way. He got better, and then he just was like, Okay, I guess while we're having a glass of wine here, she's gonna be writing. My pens ran out of ink. I kept buying more pens and books, and I came home after two and a half weeks with several notebooks filled with a handwritten story that I then transcribed, that I then finished a manuscript of, and then I then realized I know nothing about writing fiction. So I started reading all the craft books, taking the workshops, conferences, podcasts, hiring editors and editing myself. 20 editions later, revisions later, I started sending it out to indie publishers, got one offer, used it to leverage another offer with my dream publisher, Red Hand Press.
SPEAKER_02Yes.
SPEAKER_01And started writing my second novel, um, finished the first manuscript, first draft of that manuscript. And in June 2025, exactly a year after I started writing that first novel, I signed a contract for uh with Red Hand Press to have it published. It'll be out next fall. I'm in the finishing stages of um the second novel and I'm drafting the third. And then I spent six months converting that first novel story into a screenplay. I joined a screenwriting uh program that's this nonprofit screenwriting program, and I wrote a five-episode mini-series ARC based on this story because I'm like, if I want to start shifting narratives about how we build a better world, maybe I should just do it myself. And so my stories are epic quests. Um, and so yeah, Queen of Arohi, which is the title of the first uh novel, will be out in the fall. And I will find out within a few weeks whether my screenplay was any good and whether the organization that I'm working uh with will help me option it and sell it and stuff. And so, yeah, I would love to write fiction because it brings me so much more joy. Wait, so it's called Queen of Arohi, A-A-R-O-H-I. Arohi is a Hindi word that means rising or ascending and lifting up. And so it's infused with my heritage, my ethnic background. And it's uh, I mean, I don't know if you really want me to tell you the story.
SPEAKER_00Tell it to me like I'm your child laying in bed.
SPEAKER_01Totally. Um it is a story. The log line is that uh it is about a an economist who struggles with imposter syndrome, who goes into a monarchy thinking that she's gonna help an authoritarian king enact liberal reforms, finds out he's a tyrant, falls in love with her bodyguard, who is the leader of the underground resistance, working to overthrow said king and transform the country from a monarchist authoritarian state into a liberal socialist democracy. Wow. And she finds herself in the center of this mess, finds herself imprisoned. So I have some abolitionist ideals baked into it, where she in prison, you know, yes, I read Malcolm X's biography, in prison, starts to rethink her ideas about reforming capitalism and understands that instead of spending all this money into imprisoning people, then this place that I'm held, what if we start to redistribute money? And you know, see she's there's elections, there's a there's a there's a rebel movement, there's the there's uh political assassinations, there's a love triangle, there's a courtroom drama, there's and because I'm a romantic, for me, the beating heart of the story always comes down to whether people have the freedom and right and uh joy to love one another, to fall in love, to to to to get there happily ever after while they're struggling for a better world. So there's all of that, it's this epic story. Oh my God. It's set in a fictitious South Asian island monarchy that's loosely based on, you know, I grew up in Dubai, which was this, you know, the veneer of the modern liberalism with the skyscrapers and the ancient history and the undercurrent of this uh authoritarian state and the secret police who could be listening to your any conversation and deporting you if you're not from there, et cetera. So that has informed how I, you know, and and Trump wants to remake the United States in the image of the UAE with birthright citizenship, with a golden visa. The Dubai has a golden visa, and Trump created this gold card, all the cryptocurrency ties between the two countries. He has his eye on the UAE. So this to me was a way to say, what if we could just picture ourselves overthrowing the system and be part of this, you know, yes, messy revolution with the idea that things can change.
SPEAKER_00Oh my gosh, I just felt my body relax imagining that.
SPEAKER_01All right, story time's over. Yes. Wow.
SPEAKER_00I'm ready for my nap.
SPEAKER_01I mean, I've been known as a journalist for 25 years, and it's hard to sort of, you know, I'm not the kind of person that doors open for easily. I know it may seem to some people that I have just had a lot of opportunities my way, but the truth is I've had more doors slammed in my face than the ones that I've clawed open. And I've had to claw my way into spaces, prove myself over and over and over again that I, you know, have the right to be there, have the right to tell the stories that I want to tell. And it's not easy, but I also know that if I don't do it, nobody will do it for me. So I have pushed my way into spaces. And um, you know, and I and I just for me, the most important thing is to figure out how to live a joyful life in a joyful world with other people who have the right to experience joy.
SPEAKER_00Well, you shouldn't have had to claw your way in, but I'm so glad you did. Well, we live in this world, we live in this crazy world, right?
SPEAKER_01Where like I am a foreigner and I am always gonna be identified as a foreigner. My name, my whatever. You name it. Your name is the best name.
unknownThank you.
SPEAKER_00Well, thank you for being here with us and sharing all this. And in our last couple of minutes, if you could talk to our listeners who are, you know, they're Angelinos, they they care about everyday folks, they care about making the world a better place. They may be philanthropists, they may be organizers, um, they may work at big foundations, um, they may be day laborers. Tell, give our listeners a call to action. What what and let's uh let's actually focus on people who who like to make a difference through their, through giving, through giving of their resources, through donors. What's your call to action to donors?
SPEAKER_01Oh, I'm gonna be so self-interested and shamelessly tell people that if you are shifting your donations, say you make a slew of donations and you're shifting your donations away from organizers and your favorite left-end media outlets into funding the Democrats for the midterms. Please stop. Stop, stop, stop. Double down on the donations to the people who are actually doing the work. The Democrats don't need your money, no matter how nicely they ask and how persistently they ask, and how many times they blow up your phone, begging you for money, and will you give one more dollar, et cetera, et cetera? Stop succumbing to that fear-mongering because that is all it is. It's all they want to do is be the, you know, they're auditioning for the role of the billionaire tools. So give money to your favorite organizers. I have a subscription-based uh media outlet. You know, I lost my job at uh Yes Magazine because Yes shut down last year because we don't fund media. And so I pivoted like I always do. And I uh my my show continues and is airing on dozens of radio stations, airing on free speech TV, and is on a Substack like um platform where people for four bucks a month. I mean, that's a freaking four bucks a month, get three to four interviews a week: radio, audio, video, um, uh, and transcript. And let me tell you, I don't have a team. It's me. What? I do not have a team. I book my interviews, I write my uh research and copy, I run my own teleprompter, I record myself live to tape, pulling in lower thirds and b-roll. I edit, I mix, I upload, I do social media, I post to the website, I manage the subscriptions. And when I'm not doing that, I am writing freelance for three or four outlets like TruthAt so that I can make ends meet. And then one day a week I'm writing fiction. So for four bucks a month, you can support an independent journalist. Please do so.
SPEAKER_00Oh my God. And in that time, you've also, let me see, writ you've published three books, but you've written it sounds like five or six.
SPEAKER_01I've written four nonfiction books, two fiction, one of which is going to get published, the other one I'm trying to get an agent. Um, and uh, and then a third one in the drafting stage. Um, but yeah, four four books in uh total that are nonfiction that are, you know, actually on you know one coming out, about to come out. Wow, four dollars a month for all that. Well, that's yeah, and you know, I have kids, I take care of my parents, they live in my backyard, I live a very full life, and I am just extremely efficient at what I do. And I'm telling you, there's no substitute for choosing a meaningful life to give you the inspiration that you need to do lots of things. Try to live a meaningful life. I did a TED talk about that. It's my TEDx talk about how I moved from astrophysics into radio journalism or how I found meaning in my life, which is a subtitle. It is literally like it is what has helped me be efficient and do lots of things.
SPEAKER_00I love it. Well, thanks for being with us today and uh go forth and tell good stories. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Thank you, Sonali Kalhakar, and thank you for watching or listening. The show has expanded to video this season, so make sure to find us at Liberty Hill Foundation on YouTube to enjoy the gorgeous visuals we've added. Hit subscribe so you don't miss an episode.
