Inequalities in the education system affect more than just students’ grades. These inequalities impact every aspect of the lives of many black students attending their government-zoned schools. But new efforts around the country to turn school choice into a cultural movement are bringing hope to many families, students, and black entrepreneurs.

On this episode of the Civil Squared podcast, host Jennifer Thompson is joined by Denisha Merriweather, Director of Public Relations and Content Marketing at the American Federation for Children and Founder of Black Minds Matter. Denisha helps bust the myth that school choice is racist as she shares her deeply personal story about how it changed the trajectory of her life.

From living in poverty and going from one failing school to the next, Denisha thought she was destined to follow in the same steps of so many other black children in her community: become a teen parent, dropout from school, walk around aimlessly, and live in poverty. But things dramatically changed when she was given the chance to apply to a school choice program in Florida.

Denisha is now one of the country’s leading advocates for school choice. She discusses her journey and the efforts she is involved in to help bring more attention to this life-changing public policy issue.

During the conversation, she talks about her work with Black Minds Matter, and how it is championing a new generation of black educational entrepreneurs.

She shares her unique perspective on things like inequalities in education, the freedom that comes with school choice, and the how many of her efforts are being thwarted by teachers unions.

Denisha also discusses ways to reduce the academic gap between white and black students and the history of redlining, and she offers practical tips for people to make a difference in their communities.

At Civil Squared, we’re optimists, and we’re looking forward to 2022!

In order to make 2022 a better year, we revisited some of the best ideas we heard in 2021 because we think you’ll be able to apply them in the new year and beyond.

Through the course of last year, we talked to interesting and thoughtful guests on several topics, including, among others: how to handle bigots and snowflakes, the wide-reaching impacts of education policy, internet censorship, race and diversity, what it means to be American, why it’s ok to speak your mind, healthcare innovation and policy reform, immigration, factors that make college so expensive, ideological diversity and the importance of having conversations with those who are different than you, political polarization, criminal justice reform and the need for compassion toward formerly incarcerated individuals, the high costs of incarceration, transitional justice theory, tools to understand and navigate media bias, bridging divides, and the importance of preserving the ability for America to self-govern.

And in every conversation, it kept coming back to the importance and power of local-level involvement and individuals improving their own communities. We’d love to see more of that in 2022, and we hope you’ll find inspiration for the new year in this episode!

While extreme polarization is on everyone’s mind these days, what if that is just a distraction keeping people from seeing the real problem: that Americans are losing our ability to self-govern. And we don’t even realize it’s happening.

On this episode of the Civil Squared podcast, host Jennifer Thompson is joined by Tony Woodlief, Author of the new book I, Citizen: A Blueprint for Reclaiming American Self-Governance. During the conversation, Tony shares stories from his book and discusses political polarization, incentives of the political class, and practical tips for people to make a difference in their communities.

Each side of the political class is incentivized to change the rules, Tony believes, so they can create a permanent advantage. This keeps them in control longer and lowers the ability of citizens to exercise power and make decisions. He discusses how this impacts everything from regulations that affect local libraries to where and how our country’s troops are deployed.

And while he frames up the conversation around the analogy of a big con that’s taking place, ultimately, this is the story of hope. America is more united than divided, Tony says, and the conversation focuses on what we can do to reclaim authority over our lives and communities.

Stressful and contentious conversations can ruin the holidays. That is why so many people intentionally avoid engaging in real conversation altogether and instead just stick to making small talk. And while that may be okay for a while, it can cause us to miss out on new perspectives, new points of view, and new opportunities for more meaningful relationships and connections.

On this episode of the Civil Squared podcast, host Jennifer Thompson shares some of her favorite clips from previous episodes that can help you approach your holiday conversations in a more productive and enriching way.

From Episode 51: Bridging divides and disagreeing well, Liz Joyner, founder and CEO of The Village Square, talks about how opposing points of view can enrich your perspective and can eliminate blindspots this holiday season.

From Episode 35: Unity, conversation, and being American, Samar Ali, Vanderbilt University research professor and Co-Chair of the Vanderbilt Project on Unity and American Democracy, talks about unity and how it doesn’t mean that we all have to be on the same page, but instead that we all have a common purpose that we are working towards.

From Episode 42: How to have better conversations about race, Erec Smith, Associate Professor of Rhetoric at York College of Pennsylvania, shares the number one tip for preparing for holidays with family and friends: pack lightly. And he’s not referring to the number of outfits and pairs of shoes you bring. Listen to learn about the pitfalls of bringing too much baggage into holiday conversations.

Happy Holidays from Civil Squared!

When it comes to leaving prison, there are two phases: reentry – which is simply leaving prison; and reintegration – which involves a community-wide approach to helping the formerly incarcerated have true mental freedom.

On this episode of the Civil Squared podcast, host Jennifer Thompson is joined by Tony Kitchens, a board member of Georgia Center for Opportunity. During the conversation, Tony shares his personal experience about the “second prison” many formerly incarcerated individuals face while on the outside: a mental prison created on their own.

Tony has a depth of experience on the topic. In addition to being a board member at Georgia Center for Opportunity, he works with Prison Fellowship; and in the past he’s worked in Georgia with the Governor’s Office of Reentry, the Department of Community Supervision, and the Department of Corrections.

According to the Justice Department, more than 10,000 men and women are released each week from our country’s state and federal prisons. Those reentering society face many challenges, and finding sustainable employment is one of the most urgent.

Tony talks about the work he and others are doing to change the way communities think about prisoner reentry. As he puts it, someone can be successful in prisoner reentry by living under a bridge. Community reintegration, on the other hand, involves a more holistic approach where the individual works within the community to build up their emotional intelligence and undertakes a holistic process of self-edification that can lead to mental freedom.

Tony wants us to start talking more about “reintegration” and less about “reentry.” He believes if we can change the conversation and think less about “getting out” and more about well-being and supporting individuals’ pursuit of mental freedom, lives will be changed, and all of our communities will be better off.

Bridging divides is not about being on the same page; it’s about being able to disagree well. And it all relies on one very important foundation: a trusting relationship.

On this episode of the Civil Squared podcast, host Jennifer Thompson is joined by founder and CEO of The Village Square, Liz Joyner, to discuss the importance of building trust before you try and build out bridges between disagreements on contentious issues.

Liz discusses how our relationships with each other across ideological differences are the foundation of our democracy. She’s spent the past 15 years working to facilitate a flourishing civil society in Tallahassee, Florida where she regularly holds events that bring the community together across differences to build trust and understanding.

You’ll hear her talk about how our democracy is designed to work because of our differences and not in-spite of them. And how coming together to bridge divides is not about being on the same page, but about disagreeing well, so that we can all help each other see our blind spots and avoid problems.

Credible news can inform individuals and help bring communities together. But faith in the media is at one of the lowest levels of all time. The Factual is doing something about it.

On this episode of the Civil Squared podcast, host Jennifer Thompson is joined by co-founder and CEO of The Factual, Arjun Moorthy, to discuss the topics of media bias, news outlet credibility ratings, and the overall crisis of confidence Americans are having with the institution of journalism.

From delivering papers as a young child to now being the co-founder and CEO of The Factual, Arjun has always been interested in the news and in helping people be informed. A computer engineer with an MBA from Stanford, he applied his technical skills and entrepreneurship to use machine learning to rate the news. The Factual assigns a credibility score to tens of thousands of articles analyzed every day. That score is based on site quality, the author’s expertise, quality and diversity of sources cited in the article, and the tone of the article.

Use this link to subscribe to a free two-week subscription of The Factual.

The impetus to look forward is an American mode of dealing with ugly truths. It’s part of the optimism of America. But we won’t be able to move forward if we don’t deal with the past in the present.  

On this episode of the Civil Squared podcast, host Jennifer Thompson is joined by Dr. Colleen Murphy to discuss the topic of transitional justice theory. Dr. Murphy is the University of Illinois Roger and Stephany Joslin Professor of Law, Professor of Philosophy and Political Science, and Director of Women and Gender in Global Perspectives Program.  

She discusses how transitional justice theory is the process of dealing with widespread wrongdoing and shares several of the key steps of the theory.  

The conversation includes background on how transitional justice theory is a practice that has grown outside of the United States in places like Bosnia and Herzegovina and South Africa but presents many opportunities for America to learn from and apply the theory in order for us to move forward on issues of racism and slavery.  

Professor Colleen Murphy is also the Faculty Fellow/Director for the Legal Humanities Research Group at the Humanities Research Institute (HRI) at the University of Illinois. In this capacity she pursues research projects and participates in all activities of the Mellon Legal Humanities Research Group. The Mellon Research Group is funded by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to HRI to support the development of emerging areas in the humanities. 

The high economic and human costs of incarceration affect families and communities across America.

In this episode of the Civil Squared podcast our guests Grant Callen, founder and CEO of Empower Mississippi, and Rebecca Painter, vice president of State Policy Network, discuss several efforts from across the ideological spectrum addressing sky-high incarceration rates.

Hear about how sentencing and parole reform efforts in Grant’s state of Mississippi are improving lives and communities. And hear from Rebecca about her work with several other solution centers around the country attempting to bring reform and awareness to this critical issue.

When someone commits a crime, serves their time, and gets out of prison, they face a daunting statistic: within 3 years of their release, 2 out of 3 people are rearrested and more than 50% are incarcerated again. Michelle Cirocco is doing something about it.

Our guest, Michelle Cirocco, Chief Social Responsibility Officer for Televerde, joins this episode of the Civil Squared podcast. She discusses her own story and how she became involved with Televerde while incarcerated. She also shares how she works to ensure that Televerde’s business is a “force for good” and how programs like Televerde’s reentry program can give people an opportunity for a better life while still providing exceptional value to customers.