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Learn about the principles and practice of nonviolence as an active force for personal, social, and political change. Co-hosted by Stacie Freasier, Robert Tyrone Lilly, and Jim Crosby, the show covers current events, learning opportunities, and nonviolent direct action taking place locally. Airs 1st Thursdays of every month from 1-2 pm CT at KOOP Community Radio 91.7 FM in Austin, Texas, and streaming online at koop.org.
With a song another song by Daniel Belanger, who was born in Montreal, and this song is called Yatain Affair. Geography of sound. Co op Radio.
Speaker 2:KOOP h d one h d three Hornsby.
Speaker 1:Hi, everybody. This is the nonviolent Austin radio hour, and this is Jim Crosby, your cohost along with brother Robert Lilly. Rob, you wanna say hi?
Speaker 3:Peace and blessings to all the listeners out there. It's good to be with you again, Jim.
Speaker 1:Good to be with you and our sister, Stacy, is home nursing a stubborn case of pneumonia. So please, light a candle for Stacy, and we'll start as we always do with a song. This is called Other Folks Shoes, my song about the empathy and compassion. That's what we're all about. She was white haired when I met her, a little bit bent over.
Speaker 1:Know thyself, she told me, and to thine own self be true.
Speaker 4:But I didn't have to know her long to learn the simple lesson that she'd become the self she was wearing other folks shoes. She taught them in their schools, healed them in
Speaker 1:their clinics, fed them bread when they were hungry, and water when they was dry.
Speaker 4:She laughed when they were happy, cried when they were crying, lived right with them in their living, and died a little when they died.
Speaker 1:She'd seen the world when she was young
Speaker 4:with Dickens, Twain, and Shakespeare, Steinbeck, Marx and Chekhov, and Dostoyevsky too. She'd picketed and slept in cells, mourned the dead, loved them well,
Speaker 1:soiled her hands with the stuff
Speaker 4:of life wearing other folks' shoes.
Speaker 5:Well, it's other folks' shoes. It's other
Speaker 4:folks' shoes. It's walking in their moccasins a mile, maybe two. It's knowing yourself, forgetting yourself, seeing what yourself would do. If you walked around this worldwide, other folks shoes.
Speaker 1:She said when I draw
Speaker 4:a tree, you know, or write a
Speaker 1:poem about it, I become that tree a while, else I can't get it right. I lose myself, forget myself, no oneness with that other,
Speaker 4:like walking in the deep forest on the darkest, stillest night. And when I'm with another,
Speaker 1:woman, man, or child, I try to really listen right through the words for truth.
Speaker 4:The kind you see in a narrowed eyes, it blinks back a tear. The kind you know when you feel a pinch of other folks' shoes.
Speaker 5:Let's other folks' shoes, it's other folks' shoes,
Speaker 4:Walking in their moccasins a mile, maybe two. It's knowing yourself, forgetting yourself, seeing what yourself would do if you walked
Speaker 1:around this world a while, other folks should. She's dead now, been dead a while. I'm still left here living. Every time I think of her, I know just what to do. Yeah.
Speaker 1:I'll get down and feel depressed, but then I'll see her smiling. I know it's
Speaker 4:time I spend some time wearing other folks' shoes.
Speaker 5:Well, it's other folks' shoes.
Speaker 4:It's other folks' shoes. Walking in their moccasins of mine, maybe two. It's knowing yourself, forgetting yourself, seeing what yourself would do if you walked
Speaker 1:around this world a while. Other folks shoes, yeah, walk around
Speaker 4:the world a while. Other folks shoes. Try walking
Speaker 1:around this world a while. Other folks shoes.
Speaker 4:Other folks shoes.
Speaker 3:Other folks shoes. Beautiful song. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And our guest today are Soul Praxis and Max Rodriguez. And I'll let them do a little self intro. Soul, works with the with community powered ATX. She'll tell us a little about that. Mainly, we're gonna focus, though, on encampment for citizenship, and Max is a graduate of that.
Speaker 1:And, so we're gonna give them ample opportunity to tell their stories and, like and about, especially, encampment for citizenship. Excuse me. Max, you look like you're ready. You wanna take off?
Speaker 6:Oh, of course.
Speaker 4:Kick us off.
Speaker 6:Thank you so much for having me on the show. Like he said, my name is Max Rodriguez. I am an alumni of the twenty twenty three Encampment for Citizenship, and right now I'm studying at the University of New Mexico to be a psychology major. The thing is though, right, I could not have been on that path without the encampment. They gave me a way to voice all of the concerns I had about the world.
Speaker 6:I learned so many things about like decolonization. I learned about all all of these really cool, like, free mental health services in Austin, which inspired me to try and share some of those resources with some of you. Unfortunately, I didn't come prepared with what they actually were. So I'm sorry for you guys to say that. But anyways, a bit about the encampment.
Speaker 6:We're a youth program that teaches the young folks how to be community organizers and educates them about the issues that have plagued our country and the world for years with an emphasis on community and what we can do together rather than individuals. So I I think this station, like, you're listening to it right now, thank you, because it means that you value community just as much as I do and as and as much as my fellow encampment for citizenship brethren do. So yeah.
Speaker 1:Great. And so you are a community organizer. So tell us a little about your background perspective and your relation to encampment for citizenship and your take on community and community building.
Speaker 7:Yes. Thank you so much. So grateful to be here. I'm Sol Praxis. I organize primarily with community powered ATX, but I have been a staff member.
Speaker 7:I was so so privileged to work with the beautiful, wonderful youth that come to the encampment for citizenship from all over the country and sometimes from different parts of the world. And what the encampment is, as Max talked about, it's really a space where youth come from all different backgrounds, different racial, class, and cultural backgrounds. And they learn to deeply connect with each other, to be heard, to share their own stories and perspectives, what's happening in their community. And by learning from each other, they really grow these deep bonds that, you know, we know that those strong relationships are really at the core of any justice movement and any hope that we have in this country. Right?
Speaker 7:So to have that at such a young age and to open up your understanding and see the patterns and the systems in the world that are really holding holding so many of our folks, so many of our loved ones down, and then to be able to work together and envision a different kind of world. That's really what it is. And you get to experience the youth live together at it's a residential program. They stay at a college for several weeks. They get to know the community deeply.
Speaker 7:My partner, Jesus Salcedo, is the program director and an another incredible organizer here in Austin. Clarence Watson is also working there. And so what they do, they really facilitate this space where the youth get to know the community organizers in whatever city they're at. So last year, it was Montgomery. This year, they're gonna be in the Oxnard and LA area.
Speaker 7:So they'll be mostly focusing on immigration justice and learning from some of the indigenous and Latine, you know, other other folks in the community who have been really on the front lines of fighting against the, you know, punitive immigration system, the carceral systems. And like Max mentioned, there's also a huge emphasis on land justice. And so out there in, the Oxnard area, the Chumash tribe is also in community with the encampment and is gonna be welcoming the youth to learn about their ancestral traditions, their island, Limu. And so the youth really get to be in community. They get to enjoy nature together.
Speaker 7:So, yeah, I'm a big believer in the encampment as a community organizer who wishes that I had that kind of community as a young person. And, you know, personally, when I see the work I do in the housing and justice space, environmental justice, all of this, a lot of what we run into oftentimes is, you know, people really need to have that deep love for each other to do the work. And they need to learn how to be together, how to work together. And if you get that at a young age, that's empowerment for life. That's service to the community for life.
Speaker 7:So that's why the encampment is so important.
Speaker 1:And so it's all relative. You are still a young person. Thank you. Brother Ravi and Soul were talking a little bit before the show about working with young people and working in this space of, social healing. What are you thinking right now?
Speaker 1:What what questions do you have for Soul and Max?
Speaker 3:Well, first of all, I wanna commend you, Max, for taking a stand for the things that you value.
Speaker 6:Thank you.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I think that's imperative, you know, to it took me many, many years to to define for myself what it was that I stood for. And I commend you also, Soul, and for the encampment for citizenship. That's correct. Full title.
Speaker 3:Right? Mhmm. For their value of young people. You know, I'm sitting here. Jim was asking, what am I thinking?
Speaker 3:I'm thinking about all the things I've read about our society and its and its history with youth. You know, youth weren't always valued except for their work, what they could bring to the to the family in terms of their their backs and their hands. And to see that we've progressed away from that to even you know, there was a time we debated whether or not they were even persons with rights. And so today, to have an organization that's centering not just their their bodies and their persons, but also their minds and what they have to bring to the table. So what I wanted the audience can't see what I'm seeing, but I'm I'm reading Soul's shirt.
Speaker 3:She has a shirt on that says, the encampment, and they list three words at the bottom. Actually, there's four words, but one word is conjoined with the other. And I presume that they're the values of the camp. Would you tell the audience, the listening audience, what these values are, what those words are, and what those values mean to the work that you're doing?
Speaker 6:Yeah. Sure. I can. So the first value is community. And how I would define community is a a group of people coming together under a set a set of values or a common goal, and a lot of that can be done with community organizing in the form of protests, social gatherings, stuff like that.
Speaker 3:Mhmm. Mhmm.
Speaker 6:The next value that the encampment places a large amount of importance on is social justice. And that means being able to not only treat people who are different from you with respect, with dignity, and under the guise that you are no better than them and they are no better than you, but also to work in the system and sometimes even outside the system to be able to further the rights of the of the people who might be marginalized. And leadership is the last value which I would honestly just define as being able to take a stand for your values and to be able to organize a community around those values. We couldn't be here in this room without some of the great leaders that I'm talking to and learning from.
Speaker 3:I think that's absolutely amazing. Thank you for your your answer. I'll just say this as I pass it back to Jim in a moment. You know, I'm 54 years of age, and I remember you know, and oftentimes you hear me on this on this show centering my experience as a person that's been justice impacted, formerly incarcerated. And at 54 years of age, I remember I I heard the word community over the course of my years.
Speaker 3:Some of the old folk would come along and say, you're tearing down the community. You're destroying your community. And I would look at them and I would say, quizzically, what community are you talking about? Because I didn't feel a part of the community. I didn't feel like I was I belonged.
Speaker 3:I heard people telling me, children are to be seen, not to be heard. That didn't make me feel like I belonged. And then, oftentimes, I faced so much criticism and scrutiny from the adults around me that I didn't feel like I belonged or that I mattered as much as they were saying I did when they questioned my choices in the public. Right? Whether it was maybe me writing some graffiti on the wall or, you know, sagging my pants or talking loud in public.
Speaker 3:Right? These were the things that they would point to and say I was destroying this community. So at some point, after multiple incarcerations, I had to ask myself, what is community for me? What does it mean for me to belong? Because that was the thing I think at the end of the day, I was grappling with.
Speaker 3:Because either I belonged or I didn't belong. Either I was a part of or I was apart from. And the question was what did I want to be? And so it's good to hear that there's an organization challenging young folk at an early age to to question and to think about what does it mean to be a part of this idea. And and another thing I learned over the years was I I was one time working for this organization called Connecting Caring Communities, and we were we were supposed to be working to build what's called social capital.
Speaker 3:This this this invisible cohesion, right, that could be formed through relationships. And I I remember thinking at first I thought I belonged to one community. And then I I learned as a as a as a as a product of talking to the people in the in the neighborhoods that sometimes you can live next door to someone and still not see them as a part of your community. Right? So this idea of community I think is a very profound word.
Speaker 3:It it's a word we use a lot, but I don't think we give a lot of attention and time to it. So I just really commend you all for that. And I could go on about social justice and leadership, but the one thing I will say about leadership, you know, we're we're in the midst of celebrating two hundred and fifty years of the declaration of independence and its signing here in The United States Of America in 1776. And, you know, at the end of the day, America sees itself as a leader of the world. That's what it sees itself as.
Speaker 3:United States Of America, we see ourselves as a leader of the world. And so I think it's important for us to to scrutinize and question what does leadership mean, first on a on a fundamental level as an individual, and then what are the qualities that we admire in a nation that says it will have leadership for the world. Right? So I just wanna kinda put that out there for folk to think about because at the end of the day, I don't believe that I was born into a station that I must remain in for the rest of my life. Right?
Speaker 3:That's a that's a hint to to the way things used to be. The idea that people would be born into a station. Right? If you were born into the blacksmith trade, you'd be forevermore a blacksmith. If you were born into the tanning community, then you were forevermore a tanner.
Speaker 3:Right? I believe that there's great potential in all of us, and there's no station that I'm born into that will define the remainder of my life. And so leadership is not something that should be inherited or passed on from one generation to another in my view, nor is leadership something that is the the right of those that are wealthy. I think there's great leadership in our youth, and I think it's commendable that there's an organization that's cultivating that leadership. I'll pass it back to you, Jim.
Speaker 1:It's a great book I read a long time ago called Servant Leadership, and I think that idea of wedding those two things, being a leader and being a servant is is, also part of what we're all about. I wanna take a quick break. I've got a couple of questions for Max, and I know Soul is ready to to chime in here, but, I neglected to say we're being engineered today by Michelle Manning Scott. Thank you, Michelle. And if you'll play us our station break here, that'd be great.
Speaker 2:Co op radio and drinks lounge on East Cesar Chavez are joining forces to bring you all vinyl DJ sets on the third Saturday of every month from five until 9PM. Your favorite co op DJs will be spinning high energy tunes to rev up your Saturday evenings. For more information, go to k00p.0rg or follow us on socials at co op radio.
Speaker 1:I also neglected our traditional disclaimer we usually do at the top of the show. So, these are all the opinions of the individuals, that they're expressing, we're expressing, and not necessarily of coop or its board of directors.
Speaker 3:Or of our nor of our employers.
Speaker 1:Correct.
Speaker 3:We are here as individuals, and we are standing as representatives of nonviolence. So you're ready. Go for
Speaker 1:it.
Speaker 7:Yes. I did wanna chime in on that leadership conversation because I remember the year that I was a staff for Max's program, the youth had really deep discussions about leadership and what they kept. They didn't use the word leadership on its own. They would constantly say collective leadership or cooperative leadership, collaborative leadership. That really leadership was about being able to bring the community together to be powerful and for each member of the community to speak and come forward and, share their gifts.
Speaker 7:And so that's something that, you know, I think in this country, which is so unfortunately, you know, founded on individualistic culture, getting back to that cooperative, community care type of leadership, and and relearning how to do that and encourage all those around you to share their gifts, that's really the kind of leader that I know I wanna be. And the youth were really talking about that and going deep. And even just while working together, I remember some of them saying when they were working on a project to share what they had learned about gender and race and other identities that they had to think, okay, I know in school, I'm encouraged to really try to take control or, show everything that I've learned and kind of shine as an individual. But how can I, work with others in a way that they feel respected and that all of us are shining and all of us are a part of it? I So don't know if if you remember Max, but I remember witnessing that.
Speaker 7:And it was really beautiful and healing for me too. I mean, I can't even describe as someone who didn't have that kind of community. And really, in college, I struggled a lot because as a young activist in college, we were just learning as we went. Oftentimes, we didn't treat each other particularly well. We came in with this false idea that organizing is just about getting the work done and not about caring about each other, and we didn't have any elders guiding us.
Speaker 7:And so the encampment is totally different because you're in there, you're invested in each other, you're embracing each other, And you have the guidance of elders because the encampment is a multigenerational community that goes back for decades. It was actually founded, after fascism rose globally in the forties. And people here in this country said, we need to nurture anti fascist, pro democracy, pro justice youth leadership. And it was actually, I've been told, the first integrated youth program in The United States as well. So it really has such a rich history, and and I'm just so grateful that I even came across it and got to be a part of it.
Speaker 7:But go ahead, Max. Anything you wanna share?
Speaker 6:I was just going to say that, yeah, since the encampment was founded partially on the principle of fighting fascism, it's even more important now than it was, like, ten years ago because you know what's going on up there. Alligators, swamps, bad things.
Speaker 3:Yes. We definitely need a clear view of what's happening today. And for the young people to have that view, I think, again, is something to be commended. Jim, did you have any other inquiries you wanted to make?
Speaker 1:Yeah. I wanted to ask Max kind of a double question, about your time and encampment specifically. One, is there one person interaction relationship that really stands out to you as far as being, you know, transformative for you? And same thing then. The second question is, was there a particular term or topic or idea that grabbed you?
Speaker 6:So if I had to pinpoint one of either of those things, it's funny because I actually think that I can answer both of those questions at the same time because our wonderful well, like, I guess I would call him, like, the staff member for the boys cabin, Clarence Watson, and also the organizer that Jim and Saul have talked about, he was the one who I think had like the biggest impact on me individually in terms of growing in my leadership roles. He encouraged me to be like more outspoken. He he encouraged me to use my gifts, and he he showed me how to make stuff like public service announcements and the different kinds of resources that exist in Austin, especially for former incarcerated folks who let me tell you, mental health care in America is not prioritized for formerly incarcerated people at all, And I think that that's horrible and it it needs to change. So meeting someone formerly incarcerated who was just like so sweet, so life giving to everyone around him, that was really an eye opening experience for me. And it's something that I, myself, have have taken to heart and ran with it.
Speaker 3:Shout out to Clarence, my dear brother and friend. He actually you may not know this, but Clarence was my first friend that I met and and really befriended in 2018 when I moved here for the first time. So he is a special person, and I think you accurately captured his personality when you say sweet. He's kind and he's gentle. And, for him to be, you know, a big man, he doesn't carry himself as if he can throw others around.
Speaker 3:He carries himself with compassion. I think he embodies the Kingian principles of nonviolence.
Speaker 6:Oh, you should have seen him on karaoke night.
Speaker 3:Oh, yeah.
Speaker 6:That man can dance.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Jim, did you I see you're lining up a question over there.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I just wanted to follow-up with Max. You you said you're running with it. How are you running with That was where you're headed.
Speaker 6:So so as I said before, I am studying to be a psychologist, but not exactly any usual kind of psychologist. I want to be a therapist for lower income communities such as immigrants, Native Americans, and and also just like people who wouldn't be able to pay for what a therapist could offer most of the time, and that includes just just like like formerly incarcerated people, which unfortunately happens to be a lot of people of color. You're really starting to see how a lot of these issues are connected, aren't aren't you?
Speaker 3:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And and what does that mean as far as the next few years for you in terms of educational pursuit?
Speaker 6:In terms of how I want my education to go, it means forming connections with the people in the community who can help me along that journey, hearing the stories of people who I eventually want to be able to help and just, you know, to gain people's trust because you can't be in like a therapeutic relationship with someone if they don't trust you. You can't give them the care that they need if they don't feel comfortable to open up. And I will acknowledge it's hard for a lot of these people who have been marginalized. They have a lot of trauma that is very real and cannot be ignored. So that makes it just like all the more special to me whenever I was able to hear the stories of like some of the immigrant farm workers who are are living to paycheck to paycheck and like couldn't even really speak English well.
Speaker 6:It the encampment was just a very eye opening experience for me to be able to speak with a lot of the people who had much different perspectives, and it's why I want to be able to help them, like I said.
Speaker 1:Here's a question for either or both of y'all. I got the impression, or I have the impression that ecology is a significant aspect of encampment. Would one or both of y'all want to talk some about that connection?
Speaker 6:So I'll let you talk. I've talked a lot. Take turns.
Speaker 7:Yeah. Either way. So, yeah, really appreciating and enjoying the land is something that the youth get to do together to build community. And sort of jumping off some of what Max shared, I think community is strong community ties and that love and feeling of belonging is so therapeutic in itself. And being able to facilitate those kind of spaces where people from different backgrounds hear each other and make connections even though they may come from very different backgrounds, having the the validation and the affirmation from your peers.
Speaker 7:I think that that that care and support is is so so critical and so healing. And then when you are in a healed place, then you can show up for your community. Right? And so the encampment, it's really good about trying to create a healthy foundation for young people both through that, you know, community of relationships among the youth and elders. But, also, they do go out and get to go on hikes, be in nature, go to the beach and swim.
Speaker 7:They make sure to incorporate rec time into the program so the youth are hanging out. And Max mentioned karaoke. So there's a lot of fun that happens. And I think that that's something that we don't emphasize enough as adults in these organizing spaces. We don't take enough time to actually just have fun together and enjoy life and kind of create the microcosm of the community that we wish, you know, existed everywhere.
Speaker 7:Right? And that's really what I always what I took away from the encampment was this is possible. It's possible to live in a community where people love each other, where when something goes wrong, there's support to work through that harm in a restorative way, where we all come from different backgrounds. You know, myself being multiracial, being white and Latina, I don't feel comfortable if I'm not in a multiracial space in in many ways, or I at least need to be in community with folks from different backgrounds for me to feel whole. And so being there and seeing the youth connect and open up in these deep ways and also just have fun and enjoy, you know, being out in the environment.
Speaker 7:And also, I guess this is probably what your question was getting at in terms of ecology. You know, learning from indigenous communities who have steward the land that we're that we're generations, it really gives young people a completely different perspective if they're, you know, not from an indigenous community already about the kind of relationship that we could have with the land if it was one of care and of stewardship rather than, you know, exploitation, which is unfortunately right now the way that our society and, you know, private interests work and the government facilitates is just extraction, exploitation, and destruction, whether that's of our natural environment or our own communities, you know, the destruction of affordable housing that we're seeing in Austin happening right now. So rather than centering private interests, running the show, running society, we're centering community and and respect for cultural knowledge and for communities who have stewarded the earth for so many generations.
Speaker 3:I wanna do you have something you wanna add, Max?
Speaker 6:Oh, oh, only something very quick. I was I was gonna say the biggest problem, like, with the world at large and how I feel like most people think is kind of what Soul was getting at where we prioritize personal gain over the overall well-being of the community and of our earth. And I think that is something that we can very easily learn and implement from indigenous peoples because they used to live in a way that treated the land as sacred, and they stewarded it. They lived in a sustainable way. So why can't we as well?
Speaker 3:Thank you for that that point you're making. I may not speak directly to that, but I think in in an indirect way, I'm gonna go back to that one point Soul was mentioning about, valuing spaces that have a diversity. And as you all know, we're living in a time where diversity is a dirty word. It's an idea that's being pushed back against in government. It's being pushed back against in corporate America.
Speaker 3:But this country originally lauded the notion that we were comprised of multiple streams of humanity coming in as immigrants. We we talked about this country at some point being a melting pot. Right? We know that there was always a thread of xenophobia that that underlined all of that. But the point I'm trying to bring in is, in my growing up, I remember being in diverse communities.
Speaker 3:I'm from New York City, and I remember being surrounded by diversity. But I think diversity without information and understanding is a recipe for contention. And so, you know, I lived in an environment where I was surrounded by people that were of different backgrounds and different languages. And and generally speaking, there was a there was for for most of us that were communities, we were a community of color. We didn't have Italians in our neighborhood.
Speaker 3:We didn't have Jews in our neighborhood. Those communities were apart from us, and we knew not to go into those neighborhoods at risk of our lives. And so in my community where I might have had Ecuadorians, Haitians, Dominicans, Puerto Ricans, El Salvadorians, right, and people from The Caribbean, You know, we we we were present in the same space, but we didn't understand who this group or who this person represented as a part of a group. And so what I like about the encampment for citizenship is that you are giving words and meaning to experience. And, you know, I was having experiences as a child.
Speaker 3:I heard a minister once say, children are good observers, but they're poor interpreters. So we see what's going on, but we don't understand what's going on. And so I saw a lot of things, but I didn't have language for it. Just one quick illustration of that is I loved to I called it exploring. I would love we had a lot of natural features in in in New York, like mountains.
Speaker 3:And I was so oblivious and very unaware of my environment that I I thought I would quizzically think to myself, how did a mountain get into the city? I I didn't I didn't understand how a mountain I thought the city was always here. And that's that's what happens when you don't have teachers. You don't have guys. You don't have a connection to the past.
Speaker 3:You don't have a you don't have a a continuity that that ties you to what was yesterday and shows you how what yes what happened yesterday is a is a direct in direct relationship to what's happening today. And so, un erroneously, I believe the mountains had somehow mysteriously got placed there after the buildings were there. And, of course, it would take years for me to to realize there was a whole geographical feature to this environment before there were buildings that were placed there. The buildings are the foreign objects in this environment. Right?
Speaker 3:But I knew nothing about that history. And then the other caveat to that point that I'm making is I love to go climb those mountains, climb the trees, smell the dirt, play in the dirt. I didn't know that I was actually expressing a part of myself that was outdoorsman. Didn't even know there was a thing called being a naturalist or, you know, one who had an affinity for nature because there was nobody in my environment that was coaching me or guiding me or helping me to understand. This is a thing.
Speaker 3:This is a phenomenon. So I'll just kinda point out that, to me, it's important for us to give meaning and name to the experiences that we're having, or those experiences could be just as problematic as someone misnaming or mislabeling an experience or an event.
Speaker 7:Yeah. You're talking about, nature and, folks connecting with nature deeply. And I would be remiss to not bring up that, you know, a lot of what we're seeing today and a lot of people, are cons what our folks are concerned about is that, disconnect from nature and plugging into social media and the digital world and our phones and TV and kind of existing in that space instead instead of in the natural world, especially as many of us are are deprived of those resources or deprived of natural spaces. And
Speaker 1:so We don't know what we're missing.
Speaker 7:Right. And, one thing that I remember seeing witnessing at the encampment that was so powerful to me was there were some youth who arrived really attached to their phones as if it was an extension of their bodies. And I don't know if you noticed, Max, but I was, you know, as a staff member noticing these things and that to be away from the phone was like, you know, would create a lot of anxiety
Speaker 3:Deprivation. Young people.
Speaker 7:Right? And so one thing that over time shifted was as these young people started to connect with each other, they didn't even need their phones anymore and just let them go themselves. Right? And I thought that that was so, so powerful because, you know, I can even speak for myself. It's not just youth.
Speaker 7:It impacts adults as well. So many of us, we're looking for information, for connection, for something that we're not getting in our immediate life and from the people around us. And or or we we don't have enough of that community. So we're getting that gratification information, the semblance of connection in the digital world. And it just really made me think more about how instead of sort of trashing people or saying, oh, young people are on their phones, and if only they could just get over that addiction, or, oh, we're you know, society sucks because everybody's in the digital world.
Speaker 7:If we intentionally created spaces of connection, I truly believe people would start setting their phones down and letting those things go because they wouldn't be seeking that out anymore or need that dopamine hit or need, you know, that that as a crutch.
Speaker 3:I just wanna point out one caveat. I remember watching a meme on social media where it showed a party in the, you know, the February, right, versus a party in the nineteen eighties. And in one image, they had everybody standing around looking at the phone, taking selfies, you know, videoing themselves, videoing the vent. And the other one, there was no there were no phones. People were talking to each other.
Speaker 3:And so I bring that up to simply say, I think this era, the revolution is not necessarily so much in the policies that need to change, but it's in the practices that need to change. How we show up in each other's lives and return to that essence of community and relationship. That to me is a profound radical change if we could embrace that and embody that in our work.
Speaker 1:And based on that, we'll be able to change policy as needed. We're gonna take another quick station break and come right back, and I've got another question for you, Max, as you may be ready by now to imagine.
Speaker 6:Cool.
Speaker 8:I don't know, you know. I mean, like, I know Vinnie likes me, like, you know, I don't know.
Speaker 9:Tune in every Friday afternoon from 03:30 to 04:30 for Be Kind Rewind, the show that's all about the eighties. A rotating cast of DJs explores the decade that gave us MTV, college radio, Gregonomics, and, oh my god, that was weak. Don't forget, Be Kind Rewind only on your most excellent community station, Co op Radio.
Speaker 1:I wanted to while I'm thinking about it, acknowledge, let me acknowledge our previous hour, DJ Harris, and Geography of Sound. And the following hour, stay tuned. You're gonna have, Democracy Now. Max, pivoting again, I wanted to ask you, was there, again, specifics and experience at encampment either with the indigenous folks present or with the orientation towards the land and the natural world? Was there an experience or two that you took away that really stand out to you now?
Speaker 6:Oh, absolutely. So the Chumash tribe that Saul mentioned, we hung out with them a lot. And one of the things that we did was we visited their sacred island of Limu, which is better known by most people by its Spanish name, Santa Cruz Island, unfortunately. The thing that I remember the most about Limou was all all of just like the untouched beauty that the nature provided, but specifically when we went on a hike to the top of the mountain during my first year in the encampment, the it was like the craziest, like fog ridden landscape ever. It was it was like Loki an ethereal vibe.
Speaker 6:Like I had found the Lost Woods from Zelda in real life. It was like what is going on? This is amazing. Like, I can't believe that nature like this still exists, and we'd better take care of it. Like, I I would hate it if I never got to be able to go back to that place again and have the those same memories or that future generations won't be able to go up that mountain and feel and feel the whole like awe inspiring experience that I was able to feel by being in tune with nature.
Speaker 6:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Thanks.
Speaker 7:Yeah. So And after that experience, I remember talking with one of the younger folks in the tribe about how he was studying to be an ecologist. And really, he knew everything about the history of the island and how it had changed ecologically after the Spanish forcibly removed the Chumash people and took it over as a cattle ranching you know, enterprise. And so he could describe how it had changed and how they were trying to, you know, bring it back to life, reintroduce the and and nurture the native plants. And he also talked about how, you know, that island is at risk as climate change progresses and as the sea levels rise.
Speaker 7:And, you know, in the future, it's it's losing it's already losing some square footage and could be consumed by the ocean. So we talked about that. And his father was active in the Red Power movement. So just to kind of bring that together that it's really, like, multigenerational and you learn from elders who sadly, heartbreakingly, many folks might not be around for, you know, a super long time and having these young people be in touch with them. I mean, last year, we were in Montgomery, and the youth were meeting foot soldiers of the civil rights movement and hearing their stories and elders who had worked directly with Martin Luther King and founded SNCC.
Speaker 7:And it was just, that's a type of historical perspective that unfortunately, we are not investing enough in honoring that wisdom and bringing these elders in touch with young people. So that's you know, just another reason to to appreciate the program.
Speaker 3:Sadly for me, I wouldn't learn that history until I went to prison. And I grew up in a household with a father that was born in 1924. And so he was an elder, but he was not equipped to pass on that legacy. And so, you know, having folk in our community that train themselves and equip themselves to be the the progenitor of that knowledge and wisdom is, I think, again, commendable and a worthy endeavor. So shout out to the encampment for citizenship and the work that you all are doing to edify the next generation of our leaders because, quite frankly, the world, that we are leaving behind is the world that they're gonna have to deal with.
Speaker 3:And so, as I said a while ago,
Speaker 1:from my perspective, you are still quite young, but you you're an accomplished community organizer, and I wanted to get a sense of, just your story for our our listeners, how you came to do what you're doing.
Speaker 7:Oh, thank you so much. Yes. So I guess the way that I can connect it actually quite clearly with the encampment for citizenship is I was a resident assistant at the program a couple summers ago. And I have to say, the depth of personal exploration of my own story, because I had to model that for the young people. Right?
Speaker 7:Like, when we were in community together, being grounded and present in my emotions, in my history, in the fullness of myself, as a woman, who on on one side of my family, it's sort of white middle class folks who arrived from Sweden and Germany. And on the other side of my family, my father, who is Latine, so he has Spanish ancestry. And he came to The United States as an adolescent. And so and went through the foster care system. And really, a lot of of my story and my experience was trying to, right, understand myself, what what I bring, and and my ancestry that I bring.
Speaker 7:Right? And so unpacking that, of course, as an adult in a youth space, you wanna center the experiences and stories of the youth, and you show up in a different way. But it was so inspiring for me to see the way they connected with each other and deeply cared about each other and were able to work together that I came back to Austin after that summer. And I felt like I was ready to try to nurture a community like that. So around that time, myself and other folks who I had been organizing with over the years in different housing and environmental justice spaces primarily, We started Community Powered ATX.
Speaker 7:So it's a collective of folks that is majority black and brown and a lot of folks from the Eastern Crescent who have lived experience with housing injustice. And I did mention that my my father, he came to The United States as a young person, and he had experienced homelessness throughout his childhood and early years. And so that's something that doesn't leave a person. And for me as a child, you know, brother Rob was talking about how you just observe, but you can't interpret. There was a lot that I observed and a lot that I felt in my household that I later was able to interpret as intergenerational trauma and the legacies that, colonial exploitation and capitalist exploitation create for people of color and for immigrants.
Speaker 7:And so and then, you know, my family were renters. One of the hardest things that I think, you know, as as a renter, as a person who, you know, when you don't own land or have a place to call your own, you have that precarity where you're constantly having to move around. So I think the financial stress and the, you know, having to move every time the rent was increased and the the stress that I saw my family experience and that I was in the midst of, that's something that is, unnecessary suffering. You know, really, all the suffering that working class folks, poor folks, and people of color go through is unnecessary and is the product of a system of power that was put in place by colonialism and white supremacy. And I think once I understood that, that all of it was unnecessary, I was outraged.
Speaker 7:I was angry. I felt deep a deep, deep call that felt spiritual. And, you know, learning that and putting together the history as a young person, I felt called to try to change that and to try to return us to ways of living and of being in community with each other and a relationship with land and housing where we have power to collectively and democratically steward and take care of our own communities and our own housing. So rather than having this model where landlords are extracting money from families every month, and if if you just can't do it, you end up on the streets, You know, that's completely unnecessary. We could have models where the community is collectively taking care of housing and land and looking out for elders and looking out for folks if and when they become disabled so that people don't have to end up in such a precarious situation.
Speaker 7:So, yeah, community part ATX, we're working for Land and Housing Justice, and we're looking directly at the private interests that are behind the housing affordability crisis. And in Austin, some people might not be aware that the implications of Elon Musk and the PayPal mafia moving to Austin has been that they have massively influenced our housing policy at the city level and at the state. And so we're looking at how these profit seeking interests that are kind of this horrific intersection or coming together of real estate and developer interests that have been active in Austin for a long time, plus the tech billionaires that have moved here, the ways that they see themselves as the leaders, if we wanna bring in that word of leaders, who decide and determine for all of us how the city is going to grow and change. And we're saying, we're not gonna allow them to destroy our communities, to take our housing, to destroy affordable housing for profit. We are gonna fight and and instead take our land and housing back for the people.
Speaker 7:So that's sort of what Community Party TX is about.
Speaker 1:And what are the things that you've discovered most effective as far as empowering people?
Speaker 7:Yeah. That's a great question. Well, we did recently have a campaign, with renters at Acacia Cliffs. Some of y'all might have heard about how city council unanimously decided to support a private developer, that is planning to destroy 290 units of deeply affordable housing, and replace it with a 90 foot luxury tower with very, very minimal affordable units that are hundreds of dollars more than the housing that's there right now. So, you know, some of the residents had spoken with the media and were already expressing concerns.
Speaker 7:And so we worked with them, and they organized a tenants association or tenants union. And we were walking the property with them, talking to neighbors, getting folks together. And I actually we had a follow-up meeting on Tuesday. And so, unfortunately, city council, despite validating or expressing that they know that this policy that allows developers to build these 90 foot luxury towers is an axe, in the words of our mayor, Kirk Watson. They still voted to, destroy Acacia Cliffs.
Speaker 7:And so, you know but I will say this property that has a very diverse community of folks, immigrants, black and brown folks, people of all races, they've really come together. And what they're doing now is they don't wanna stop fighting. They wanna demand that other properties, affordable older properties, are protected from this for profit rezoning policy, DB 90. They also wanna demand preservation of affordable housing all over Austin, and they're looking out for each other. So they've already been supporting each other to complete repair requests because oftentimes when a property is gonna be demolished, the landlord just starts neglecting any maintenance.
Speaker 7:And so we've been really on top of that, trying to make sure that it the property is maintained and that people know how to activate their repair rights. And the tenants have all learned how to go about that process so that they can teach each other. So rather than having, like, a social service organization come in and do it all for, you know, individuals as clients, it's the residents learning how to do it so that they can do it for each other and support each other. Same goes with housing navigation. So a lot of the residents, especially, like, elderly and disabled residents, are very concerned that they can be pushed into homelessness when they are evicted in the future.
Speaker 7:And so the residents are regularly curating housing navigation resources and supporting each other to apply for affordable housing. Now, of course, affordable housing is very limited in Austin. There's a lot of barriers. Like, that would be a whole we could talk about those barriers all day.
Speaker 1:We'll get you back.
Speaker 7:Right. But but, yeah. So it's not like this is a total solution that we should displace people and then, oh, it's fine because they can support each other to avoid homelessness. Like, no, we have to deal with the root causes. But the solidarity and resilience of the TENS association has now put them in a position where even though we lost this battle because of this the strength of private interests at city hall, they're now connected to each other and trying to make sure that no one ends up unhoused and that people are able to stay in the community as much as possible and have their needs met.
Speaker 3:Great. I did get a chance to go and be a part of that particular event, and it was quite an experience to see community members. We talk a lot about having a base of people that become empowered. I actually witnessed that that day as folk from the community took the microphone and held court for a substantial amount of time narrating to the audience their experiences with city council. And to me, that is a major victory for any organization who invest time and energy in wanting to see change.
Speaker 3:You can't bring change unless they're people that are change agents. And I saw change agents growing up out of the concrete of that residence. And so, again, shout out to to to
Speaker 7:Community powered ATX.
Speaker 3:Community I always say it backwards. I wanna say it backwards. Community powered ATX. One thing I wanna kind of I know we're getting close to the hour. I wanna kinda just shift and say, as I'm encapsulating this conversation that we've had, I I keep hearing the word, you know, cap I keep hearing the word values.
Speaker 3:And do and my question to you is, do we value humanity, or do we value capital? Do we value human life, or do we value profit? Do we value the richness of the earth, or do we value the the the profits that we can gain through its exploitation and dominance? I think at the end of the day, you know, these are questions that we as adults must continue to grapple with. Some of us have never even really, scrutinized these ideals.
Speaker 3:Right? I know for me, it took me many, many decades to get to a place where I began to, interrogate. What does it mean for me to be a part of this United States Of America experience, an experiment? And so I'm so, again, thankful for the youth that are being challenged to think outside of the box and to and to begin their journey into self discovery and their journey into their identity. I think it's imperative work.
Speaker 3:So commend you once again, so for this for being here, Max, for being here and joining us, and for sharing your young and and you didn't tell us how how old are you, Max?
Speaker 6:Oh, I'm 19.
Speaker 3:You're 19 years old. And how long had you been a part of the encampment?
Speaker 6:I have been an encampment alum for two years, and the first first time I went, I was 16. So I went for two years straight.
Speaker 3:Thank you so much once again.
Speaker 1:Quick community service announcement. On the sixteenth and seventeenth of this month, so less than two weeks from now, we'll be having a two day core training in Kenyan nonviolence at the ACC Highland campus. And, nonviolent Austin will be, co training on that with the folks from Selma Center for Nonviolence Truth and Reconciliation. So check out the Nonviolent Austin Facebook page or, website, and, we'll get you hooked up if you would like to do that. And, Soul, any other events coming up that we need to announce?
Speaker 1:Or Rob or Max? Final words? Yeah.
Speaker 3:So the All of Us and None are gonna be having a march and rally in San Antonio on July. And they will be welcoming people from all around the country to be a part of this wonderful organization's existence. I'll be a part of that as well. I'll be there as a speaker. And so I'm just looking forward to joining all of us or none.
Speaker 3:Go to their web page. You can find more information about their work and their organization.
Speaker 7:Amazing. And next Friday, we will be at city hall rallying against displacement and against the private interests that are controlling and destroying affordable housing. So next Friday at 03:00 for community powered ATX. You can look us up on Instagram, community powered ATX.
Speaker 6:In the meantime, I don't know. Maybe go say hi to someone in your neighborhood that you have that you haven't yet. Community is important.
Speaker 1:Well said. Thank you, man. Let's go out with a little bit of song. Well, gotta stop doing what you're doing to me, Donald. You don't you gonna run me while I mean.
Speaker 1:You gotta stop doing what you're doing to me, Don. I mean, just what I say. You say you're gonna deport 11,000,000 folks. I'm wondering how to poke a stick in your spokes. You gotta stop doing what you're doing to me, Donald.
Speaker 1:You don't you gonna run me while? I mean, you're just about to run me while. I lost where I was on the guitar. You gotta stop doing what you're doing to me, Elon. Don't you gonna run me while?
Speaker 1:Gotta stop doing what you're doing to me.
Speaker 4:I mean, just what I say. If we give up on
Speaker 1:Earth just to colonize Mars, what's upon all them electric cars? You gotta stop doing what you're doing to me, Elon. You don't you gonna run me while I mean,
Speaker 4:you just about to run me while. And you gotta stop doing what you're
Speaker 1:doing to me, Abbott. Don't you gonna run me while mhmm.
Speaker 4:Gotta stop doing what you're doing to me, Greg. I mean, just what I say.
Speaker 1:Operation Lone Star and your school voucher scan. Every care in Texas are gonna pick up and scram. You gotta stop doing what you're doing to me. Greg, I mean just what I say. Gotta stop doing what you're doing to me, Maga.
Speaker 1:You don't you're gonna run me while mhmm. Gotta stop doing what you're doing to me.
Speaker 4:Mean just what I say. You tell me empathy has done gone out of style.
Speaker 1:Jesus tell me it made life worthwhile. You gotta stop doing what you're doing to me, Maga. You don't you gonna run me while I mean you're just about to run me while.
Speaker 4:Bye, everybody.
Speaker 3:KOOP HD one HD three Hornsby.
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