Activist Theology Podcast

Having just passed the Sunday where the U.S. celebrates mothers (birth and chosen), the understanding many have about family can be conflicting. As kin and chosen family, Nikki Young and Dr. Robyn have a relationship that is beautiful to watch. This episode is full of heart, laughter, and a little bit of tea-spilling.

Thelathia "Nikki" Young, Ph.D. research focuses on the intersectionality of gender, sexuality and race, and the ways in which various identities are connected to larger systems of power and privilege. She is currently working on two manuscripts: “Home Free: A Transnational Ethics of Black Queer Liberation” and “In Tongues of Mortals and Angels: A De-Constructive Theology of God-Talk in Acts and Paul” in collaboration with Jake Myers and Eric Barreto.

Young’s focus on narratives of injustice and inequality has equipped her with the knowledge to launch an anti-racism task force that will identify opportunities for systemic change.

You can reach out to Dr. Young via email or find her on Instagram.

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To support this podcast, please visit www.kindful.activistheology.com.

To follow Activist Theology on Twitter: @activistheology

To follow Activist Theology on Instagram: @activistheology

To follow Activist Theology on Facebook: @activistheology

To be in touch with Dr. Robyn: [email protected] or @irobyn

To be in touch with Rev. Anna: [email protected] or @unholyhairetic

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Dr. Robyn is heading off on sabbatical for the month so it's a great episode to talk about the politics of rest and spaciousness. Some of us are really good at creating time in our day to rest (er, Robyn). Some of us are absolute shit (uh, Anna). We are part of a society that prioritizes production over people, money over self-care. How do we make rest a practice that is both fulfilling and possible? Dr. Robyn and Rev. Anna explore that very question.

And, not to worry, their sabbatical won't keep us from still posting weekly episodes!

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To support this podcast, please visit www.kindful.activistheology.com.

To follow Activist Theology on Twitter: @activistheology

To follow Activist Theology on Instagram: @activistheology

To follow Activist Theology on Facebook: @activistheology

To be in touch with Dr. Robyn: [email protected] or @irobyn

To be in touch with Rev. Anna: [email protected] or @unholyhairetic

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It's been a few weeks since Dr. Robyn and Rev. Anna have bantered about the state of the country and our role in cleaning up the mess. This week we will take about the Derek Chauvin verdict, trans rights, the military industrial complex, gun control, and sex workers. Don't miss this robust conversation.

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To support this podcast, please visit www.kindful.activistheology.com.

To follow Activist Theology on Twitter: @activistheology

To follow Activist Theology on Instagram: @activistheology

To follow Activist Theology on Facebook: @activistheology

To be in touch with Dr. Robyn: [email protected] or @irobyn

To be in touch with Rev. Anna: [email protected] or @unholyhairetic

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Yuki (she/they) Schwartz is a Louisville Postdoctoral Fellowship Scholar serving as the assistant professor of constructive and political theologies at Claremont School of Theology at Willamette University, and an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ. Their research interests are the politics of shame within systems of colonization and imperialism, effects of resistance, and theological deimperial world-building. 

Follow Dr. Schwartz on Twitter: FOLLOW

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To support this podcast, please visit www.kindful.activistheology.com.

To follow Activist Theology on Twitter: @activistheology

To follow Activist Theology on Instagram: @activistheology

To follow Activist Theology on Facebook: @activistheology

To be in touch with Dr. Robyn: [email protected] or @irobyn

To be in touch with Rev. Anna: [email protected] or @unholyhairetic

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Dr. Laura Emiko Soltis serves as the Executive Director at Freedom University, an underground school for undocumented students in Atlanta. Born in rural Minnesota, Emiko was raised in a biracial Japanese/Slovak household and developed passions for working-class politics and music performance in equal measure. Emiko's early work experiences in low-wage industries alongside diverse immigrants in restaurant work, janitorial services, and farm labor inspired her to study interracial labor movements and human rights.

Emiko graduated from the University of Georgia in 2006 and received her Ph.D. in 2012 from Emory University, where she wrote her dissertation on an interracial migrant farmworker movement led by the Coalition of Immokalee Workers in South Florida. After the closing of Freedom University in Athens by its founding faculty, Emiko re-opened Freedom University in Atlanta in September 2014. As the organization's first Executive Director, Emiko introduced the human rights framework to the center of its mission, expanded the curriculum to include the arts and social justice leadership training, and began connecting undocumented youth to veterans of the Black Freedom Movement. Emiko works to advance the undocumented student movement by educating and mentoring a new generation of undocumented freedom fighters and advocating for fair admissions policies in higher education across the United States.

At Freedom University, Emiko continues to serve as the Professor of Human Rights, teaching classes in international human rights, social movement theory, and immigration history. As an organizer, Emiko has engaged in numerous direct actions for workers’ rights and immigrant justice, and has been arrested four times in the Kingian tradition of nonviolent civil disobedience. Emiko is also an accomplished violinist, photographer, and sings with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Chamber Chorus.

Follow Emiko on Twitter. Follow the work of Freedom University.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

To support this podcast, please visit www.kindful.activistheology.com.

To follow Activist Theology on Twitter: @activistheology

To follow Activist Theology on Instagram: @activistheology

To follow Activist Theology on Facebook: @activistheology

To be in touch with Dr. Robyn: [email protected] or @irobyn

To be in touch with Rev. Anna: [email protected] or @unholyhairetic

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Sarah Bouse is a skilled anti-racism facilitator, strategist, trainer. She has developed organizational equity policies/practices, facilitated anti-racism initiatives, and led authentic community engagement strategies to best serve those most harmed by systemic racism and oppression.

Having worked alongside large and small organizations, nonprofits and businesses throughout Middle Tennessee, she have taught systemic racism and racial equity workshops, facilitated strategic and action planning processes rooted in racial equity, and provided coaching support in anti-racism efforts for these organizations. Her work primarily focuses on internal efforts to institutionalize and operationalize racial equity and anti-racism efforts within institutions.

She volunteers as the co-lead for the National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum’s Nashville chapter and as a member on Metro Nashville Arts Commission’s Committee for Anti-Racism and Equity.

You can find more about Sarah at www.sarahbounse.com.

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To support this podcast, please visit www.kindful.activistheology.com.

To follow Activist Theology on Twitter: @activistheology

To follow Activist Theology on Instagram: @activistheology

To follow Activist Theology on Facebook: @activistheology

To be in touch with Dr. Robyn: [email protected] or @irobyn

To be in touch with Rev. Anna: [email protected] or @unholyhairetic

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jackie Shao is a life coach for creative entrepreneurs and impact-driven creatives. Through coaching, she helps people fully express themselves so that they can be the creative, innovative, brilliant people they are in all aspects of their lives. In 2020, she founded a community for creatives to reimagine their work and lives through the lens of coaching called The Reimaginary. Jackie supports visionaries in moving through their challenges and having clarity to create thoughtful work and build confident, innovative brands. She also supports people in creating healthier, more meaningful lifestyles so that they can do the work they do with ease and passion. 

Most of her experience in the last decade has been working as a graphic designer, where she strategized, art directed, and designed for more than 50 brands, including The Advertising Council, Bloomberg Philanthropies, Poppin and Moët Hennessy. After experiencing burnout and navigating her way through difficult personal transitions, she built and ran Social Tea House, a program for social entrepreneurs centered around tea and conversations on pain points in life and work, in various co-working spaces. This became the blueprint for The Reimaginary. Since June 2020, Jackie has created and hosted monthly "Being Asian American" events, a gathering for Asian Americans to talk about race and bring a richer dimension to the national and global conversation on race. Jackie is a native New Yorker and is always dreaming up ways to positively impact this vibrant city.

jackieshao.com

linkedin.com/in/jshao

IG: @_jackieshao_

Being Asian American

To be placed on the newsletter: [email protected]

IG: @beingaapi

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To support this podcast, please visit www.kindful.activistheology.com.

To follow Activist Theology on Twitter: @activistheology

To follow Activist Theology on Instagram: @activistheology

To follow Activist Theology on Facebook: @activistheology

To be in touch with Dr. Robyn: [email protected] or @irobyn

To be in touch with Rev. Anna: [email protected] or @unholyhairetic

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sahar Alsahlani is an interfaith peace activist with a background in television and radio broadcast media and entertainment. Amplifying the voices, and sharing the stories of, individuals and communities who champion for justice inspired by their moral or religious convictions is her passion. This Iraqi-American Muslim has always been active in pursuing the studies and correlations of communications as it relates to engagement in faith-based advocacy, inter-religious dialogue, peace-building, and the theory and practice of nonviolence. 

Determined to pursue a path for social good, Sahar made a life-changing decision to move to New York City and leave behind a successful career in Los Angeles. Having worked for many years as a television writer, producer and editor, her various projects included productions for USA Broadcasting, Warner Bros. Entertainment, FOX, Paramount, the American Forces Network, and Discovery ID. 

Sahar’s constant quest for social justice has led her to become active with Islamic and interfaith advocacy organizations. Intersectional, faith and moral based, movement and coalition building for peace, conflict resolution, reconciliation, and justice, is where Sahar feels most at home.

Relaying this work, through the media, to the masses and inspiring others to join in her goal.

Sahar’s field work has taken to her various parts of the country with regards to various rapid response initiatives in solidarity with other US faith leaders.

Along with serving on the board of the North American Interfaith Network, Sahar is a member of the Executive Council of Religions for Peace, USA; the Board of the Council on American-Islamic Relations-NY; and has contributed to the faith-based outreach of the revived Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival. Sahar is a Fellow at GreenFaith, and serves on the Steering Committee for the Interfaith Moral Action on Climate Change, both interfaith organizations dedicated to climate justice. Sahar has also served as a former Co-Chair of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, USA. Sahar is currently part of an international multifaith community, the Community of Living Traditions, which is geared towards the study of, practice and principles of peacebuilding and nonviolence.

A sought-after speaker and media commenter, Sahar has appeared on MSNBC, “The Today Show”, National Public Radio among other platforms, To have Sahar come speak, lead a workshop, or consult for your project or media event, please contact us at [email protected]

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

To support this podcast, please visit www.kindful.activistheology.com.

To follow Activist Theology on Twitter: @activistheology

To follow Activist Theology on Instagram: @activistheology

To follow Activist Theology on Facebook: @activistheology

To be in touch with Dr. Robyn: [email protected] or @irobyn

To be in touch with Rev. Anna: [email protected] or @unholyhairetic

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Only a day after the horrific shootings in greater Atlanta, we begin our series on anti-Asian racism. When a gunman violently assaulted and killed eight humans, six of whom were Asian women, in a matter of an hour, wounding countless others, we must look critically at the interlocking realities of sexism, misogyny, harmful sexual stereotypes, and supremacy cultures. These realities continue to accelerate manifold harm against communities of color resulting in not only material consequences but also the devastating loss of jobs, housing, livelihoods, the literal lives of our loved ones, and the spaces and places that should be safe for each of us.

Alex Wong is a Latin GRAMMY-nominated artist/producer who makes music to help people remember who they are and show themselves to the world. He has produced records with Delta Rae (Big Machine), Ari Hest (Columbia), Vienna Teng (Universal), and Morgxn (Hollywood), among others. His music has been featured in movies The Last Song and The Lincoln Lawyer, TV shows True Blood, Ray Donovan, and One Tree Hill, and commercials for Google and Aquafina. Alex has performed at festivals like Coachella and Outside Lands, and NPR’s Mountain Stage. He was a songwriting finalist in the NewSong competition and Kerrville Newfolk competition. In 2020 he released an EP Kivalina inspired by stories of climate change, and his second solo album The Elephant and the Seahorse on Tone Tree records. In 2021 Alex created The Quiet Voice Fund around the belief that our voice does not need to be loud to be strong. The fund supports organizations working to redefine power in our culture toward authenticity, empathy and actualization and away from aggression, selfishness and domination.

You can find Alex at AlexWongSounds.com

Support the tour at Show Yourself: A Virtual Tour. 100% of ticket sales go to: Sunrise Movement, Black Emotional & Mental Health Collective, and Hate Is A Virus.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

To support this podcast, please visit www.kindful.activistheology.com.

To follow Activist Theology on Twitter: @activistheology

To follow Activist Theology on Instagram: @activistheology

To follow Activist Theology on Facebook: @activistheology

To be in touch with Dr. Robyn: [email protected] or @irobyn

To be in touch with Rev. Anna: [email protected] or @unholyhairetic

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Join Dr. Robyn and Rev. Anna as they dive into the recent release, Judas & the Black Messiah.

To support the Save the Hampton House GoFundMe, click here:

To support this podcast, please visit www.kindful.activistheology.com.

To follow Activist Theology on Twitter: @activistheology

To follow Activist Theology on Instagram: @activistheology

To follow Activist Theology on Facebook: @activistheology

To be in touch with Dr. Robyn: [email protected] or @irobyn

To be in touch with Rev. Anna: [email protected] or @unholyhairetic

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices