Arena Talks

In this episode, Arena’s co-founder and Managing Partner, Ravi Gupta gives his thoughts on recent events from around the country. He then interviews Stacey Shells, a long-time Arena community member and educator. Stacey shares her experiences facing down discrimination and her thoughts on where this protest movement should go.

Majora Carter is a visionary civic activist and entrepreneur from the South Bronx. She’s won recognition far and wide, including a MacArthur 'genius' Grant, a Peabody Award, and a Ted Talk with over 2.6 million views. In this episode, we talk about how to truly empower local communities to be self sufficient — and why the government and non-profits often get economic development wrong.

Yale Law School professor Daniel Markovits joins us to discuss The Meritocracy Trap, his book about an under-appreciated driver of inequality in this country -- and how the 1% includes more people than we commonly acknowledge.

In April, Arena hosted a conversation about how to campaign in the era of COVID-19. The conversation featured Hillary Clinton, Addisu Demissie (former campaign manager of Booker 2020 and Newsom for CA), and Swati Mylavarapu (Arena and Incite.org co-founder). We’ve shared the audio from this conversation.

In this podcast, we hear from two political leaders at the center of the fight against COVID-19 and who are both widely acknowledged to be two of the most likely successors to Bill de Blasio as Mayor. First up is Scott Stringer, who is NYC’s Comptroller -- which is an office that serves both as the chief financial officer of the city and the city’s chief auditor. We then hear from Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, who gives us an on-the-ground account of how COVID-19 is impacting Brooklyn. Eric served for 22 years as a NYC Transit and NYPD officer, and offers his perspective on how we can best support first responders and other essential employees.

Ben Wikler, Chair of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, is one of the leading progressive voices in the country today. Fresh off an historic electoral victory (historic for the obstacles candidates and voters faced), he joins us to talk about what Wisconsin's election can teach us about what’s to come in November.