AirGo

AirGo is excited to present The Education Suite, a collection of episodes focusing on the liberatory histories and futures of education. This suite is co-curated by AirGo fam and general genius Eve Ewing, a professor and poet whose work is at the forefront of public conversation around the ways our education system has harmed Black and Brown young people, and the ways that our school buildings connect to larger systems of inequity across the country. On this episode, we go into the classroom at Uplift High School, a social justice CPS school in Uptown that Dame and Kiss taught a 10-week block at in the spring of 2019. Hear from the students of Uplift about what freedom means, what they want to learn about, how they know when to lead and when to follow, and much more.

SHOW NOTES

HUGE thanks to Justin Barnes for his work editing the audio from our sessions at Uplift!

Thanks to Zain Bullie for hosting us in his class. Check out our On the Line episode with him: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep-237-on-the-line-with-zain-bullie/id1016530091

Support amazing organization Kuumba Lynx: https://www.kuumbalynx.com/

Subscribe, rate, and review AirGo on Apple Podcasts: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/airgo/id1016530091

Donate to AirGo: airgoradio.com/donate

AirGo is excited to launch The Education Suite, a collection of episodes focusing on the liberatory histories and futures of education. This suite is co-curated by AirGo fam and general genius Eve Ewing, a professor and poet whose work is at the forefront of public conversation around the ways our education system has harmed Black and Brown young people, and the ways that our school buildings connect to larger systems of inequity across the country. On this first volume, Eve joins Dame and Kiss to pose some questions they should ask the guests over the next few weeks, and to share her reflections on the fork in the road our country has reached in regard to education and so much else.

SHOW NOTES

Follow Eve on Twitter: https://twitter.com/eveewing

Buy her book Ghosts in the Schoolyard: https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/G/bo27506579.html

Subscribe, rate, and review AirGo on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/airgo/id1016530091

Donate to AirGo: https://airgoradio.com/donate

The Chicago Community Bond Fund (CCBF) pays bond for people charged with crimes in Cook County, Illinois. Through a revolving fund, CCBF supports individuals whose communities cannot afford to pay the bonds themselves and who have been impacted by structural violence. They have been remarkable contributors to Chicago's abolitionist movement since their inception, creating programming and policy that works to render the fund obsolete. They recently hosted a teach-in called Welcome to the Movement, which they were kind enough to share with us for re-release.

Learn more and support: https://chicagobond.org/

Each month this year, we're going to revisit an episode from the 200+ episodes in the AirGo Archives and bring that conversation back to the forefront. This month, we're returning to our conversation with poet, artist, and filmmaker Fatimah Asghar from March 2016. Fati has since moved deeper into the film world, cocreating hit web series Brown Girls, and published the brilliant poetry collection If They Should Come for Us.

Follow Fati on Twitter: https://twitter.com/asgharthegrouch

NOTE: Rate and review AirGo on Apple Podcasts! https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/airgo/id1016530091

NOTE: This bonus episode is audio from a virtual event on 7/29, presented by the Black Abolitionist Network, Chicago Teachers Union, National Nurses United, Physicians for a National Health Program Illinois, Haymarket Books, and SEIU 73.

COVID-19 has shone a spotlight on the intersection of racism and healthcare in this country. Chronic racist inequity has produced terrifying outcomes in terms of the disproportionate effect the virus is having on African-Americans and Latinx people.

The protest movement that erupted after the murder of George Floyd sharpened a national conversation about racism in this country. Many have demanded that institutions which hurt people be defunded, and that this money be redirected towards healing communities.

Join a conversation of labor and community activists who will be discussing work they and their organizations are doing as it relates to this topic.

STACY DAVIS GATES is the Vice President of the CTU and the Executive Vice President of the IFT. This past fall, she helped to lead a 15-day strike and to negotiate an historic contract that provides for smaller class sizes, ensures a nurse and social worker in every Chicago public school, secures sanctuary protections for immigrant families, and supports students and families experiencing homelessness.

DENISE MERCHERSON is a Medical Social Worker at John H. Stroger Hospital, and is an active member of SEIU Local 73. She has worked as a licensed, clinical social worker since 2017, and before that, worked in employment and labor law.

LINDA RAE MURRAY, MD, MPH has been a voice for social justice and health as a basic human right for over 50 years. In the Cook County Health System she previously served as Chief Medical Officer for primary care, and is speaking as a member of Physicians for a National Health Program.

DAMON WILLIAMS is a movement builder, organizer, educator and media maker. Damon is the co-founder of The #LetUsBreathe Collective and AirGo Media, and is speaking as a member of the Black Abolitionist Network.

ELAINE MISTER will be moderating the event. She is a nurse case manager at UCMC, and was a leader in organizing her fellow nurses to become members of NNU.

This is the audio from the 8/5/20 episode of the Hoodoisie, a radical talk show hosted by Ricardo Gamboa. Dame and Kiss were featured guests, alongside:

Laura Ramirez, El Foro Del Pueblo - https://edlibrising.com/2017/04/02/our-power-is-in-our-people-dr-laura-ramirez/

Hils Franco, Educator/Organizer - https://airgoradio.com/airgo/2018/5/9/episode-136-hilda-franco

Janie Pochel, Chi-Nations Youth Council - https://chinationsyouth.weebly.com/advisor.html

Amika "Tree" Tendaji, Black Lives Matter Chicago - https://airgoradio.com/airgo/2017/2/15/episode-78-amika-tendaji

Co-hosted by Ricardo Gamboa and Charles Alexander Preston

in collaboration with South Side Weekly

Follow the Hoodoisie: https://www.facebook.com/thehoodoisie/

NOTE: Rate and review AirGo on Apple Podcasts! https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/airgo/id1016530091

AirGo hosts the second volume of Unelectable, our live podcast series with Black Youth Project exploring electoral politics and radical imagination, as part of Allied Media Conference 2020! The live virtual event's focus is Feminism, and features Unelectable cohost Asha Ransby-Sporn, environmental justice organizer Siwatu-Salama Ra, and Detroit movement legend Tawana Petty.

Check out the illustration of the event by Emily Simons on our IG, and learn more about Emily's work here: https://www.pittsburghposterproject.org/emily-simons

SHOW NOTES:

http://Freesiwatu.org

https://www.honeycombthepoet.org

Check out video of many of the conference's amazing sessions and learn more about this remarkable gathering: https://amc.alliedmedia.org/

Recorded 7/26/20

Each month this year, we're going to revisit an episode from the 200+ episodes in the AirGo Archives and bring that conversation back to the forefront. This month, we're celebrating the 4-year anniversary of Freedom Square, a 41-day encampment led by the #LetUsBreathe Collective across from the Homan Square CPD blacksite. Recorded during the second or third week of the encampment, Kiss talks with organizers and young people about the beauty, challenge, and radical potential that became so visible and present in August 2016. This past weekend, more than 500 people returned to the lot on Homan and Fillmore to remember this occupation, recreate some of its magic, and demand the defunding of the Chicago Police Department.

photo by Sarah-Ji Rhee: http://www.loveandstrugglephotos.com/

Learn more about this past week's action: https://blockclubchicago.org/2020/07/25/freedom-square-activists-imagine-public-safety-without-police-near-homan-square-black-site/

Join the #DefundCPD campaign: http://bit.ly/DemandDefundCPD

Recorded July 2016 at Freedom Square in Chicago

We bookend this set of episodes in the Abolition suite by giving some updates on upcoming opportunities to be involved, detailing some Chicago-based wins that emerged over the last couple days to help us all balance the weight of this moment, and sharing the 14 principles that Chicago-based abolition movement workers have developed to guide the work, as recorded at a #DefundCPD training on 51st St. in Chicago.

UPCOMING OPPORTUNITIES TO PLUG IN!

7/24 - Freedom Square Anniversary Rally to #DefundCPD: bit.ly/DemandDefundCPD

7/26 - Unelectable Live @ AMC2020!

https://amc2020.sched.com/event/239801344c34675d0be5749cab48fb6b

7/28 - #DefundCPD Virtual Training: bit.ly/virtualdefundcpd

Share the whole Abolition Suite with a friend!: https://soundcloud.com/airgoradio/sets/the-abolition-suite

Rate, comment, and review AirGo on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/airgo/id1016530091

Donate to AirGo: http://airgoradio.com/donate

Music from this week's show:

Song 33 - Noname

Off That - Jay Z

We want to introduce y'all to “Under the Tree,” a new podcast hosted by the legendary Bill Ayers that focuses on freedom—a complex, layered, dynamic, and often contradictory idea—and takes you on a journey each week to fundamentally reimagine how we can bring freedom and liberation to life in relation to schools and schooling, equality and justice, and learning to live together in peace.

Make sure you subscribe to Under the Tree on your preferred podcast app!