Dream Nation Love

This is the Second Episode in our Missing and Murdered Indigenous Womxn Series. This podcast is focused on data and what Indigenous activists are doing to help humanize MMIW data.

At the end of the day, data is a collection of stories. Stories about individuals, events, and places. Providing a window into the lives of Missing and Murdered Indigenous People. When it comes to data gathering, a difference exists between the Indigenous and the Western approach. The approaches can have a vast effect on bringing relatives home. On the episode, we’ll hear from people working to decolonize data. As well as how activists are using Tik Tok to create awareness about the crisis and avoid being censored.

Stories determine what percentage of cases are solved by authorities. Or in most cases, not solved. Missing person searches and murder investigations often depend on how well they are tracked and logged by various authority groups. Since 2016 there have been 5,712 reported Missing and Murdered Indigenous People cases. Out of those, only a tiny number — 116 have been opened by the U.S. Department of Justice for investigation. Even when reports are filed, racism still plays a factor in the cases pursued by the authorities. 

On the show you will hear from Navajo Nation Council Delegate Amber Crotty. Delegate Crotty spoke about decolonizing data and how the MMIW crisis is affecting the largest reservation in the US. Annita Lucchesi who is the Founder and Director of Research and Outreach at Sovereign Bodies Institute shared how she put together the first MMIW database in the US. Meghan Leinhauser spoke about Instagram, Tik Tok, and Censorship. Meghan is an ally who recently published an honors thesis at the University of Dayton. It’s titled “TikTok and the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, and Two-Spirit People Movement.” Liz Marin who is the Program Director of Seeding Sovereignty spoke about how Instagram censored her posts on May 5, 2021 which is the National Day of Awareness of MMIW. Dr. Charlene Aqpik Apok joined the discussion from Alaska to talk about her work decolonizing data as the Executive Director and Founder of Data for Indigenous Justice. An Alaskan Native and Womxn led non-profit which is home to a database for missing and murdered Indigenous womxn, girls and relatives data.

Many thanks to everyone for amplifying awareness around the MMIW crisis and indigenous data gathering. The stories are powerful and I am so grateful to Melissa Spence who was the Producer and Editor on the series. It would not exist without her care and meticulous attention to detail. Thank you to Patrick for setting up the interview with Amber Crotty.

Please listen, please share, and please care.

TRANSCRIPT

Yulia Laricheva  00:00

[Strong Woman Song Plays - “Hey, hey, hey yo]. Welcome to the second episode of our Missing And Murdered Indigenous Women series. This podcast is focused on data and what indigenous activists are doing to help humanize that data. At the end of the day, data is a collection of stories, stories about individuals, events and places, providing a window into the lives of the missing and murdered indigenous people. Now, when it comes to data gathering, a difference exists between the indigenous and the Western approach. These approaches can have a vast effect on bringing relatives home. And on this episode, we'll hear from people working to decolonize the data, as well as activists who are using Tik Tok to create awareness about the crisis and prevent people from being censored. You'll hear a little bit more about the censorship. Later on in the podcast, especially how Instagram censored many MMIW activists in 2021 on May 5, which is the National Day of awareness. So these stories, they determine the percentage of cases that are solved by the authorities, or in most cases not solved, and missing person searches and murder investigations often depend on how well they're tracked and logged by various authority groups. Since 2016, there have been 5712 reported missing and murdered indigenous people cases. Out of those only a tiny number 116 have been opened by the US Department of Justice for investigation. Even when reports are filed, racism still plays a factor in the cases pursued by the authorities. In the early colonial era of the United States, genocide has always been synonymous with gender violence and predatory behavior. In the current Western society that we live in now. Native women are still being dehumanized and their accounts of assault often go unreported. Systemic struggles are amplified by jurisdiction issues between the tribal, state and federal authorities. And I'll go into the story a little bit more in Episode Four. It's massively complicated as well. And it definitely needs time to be fully unpacked and to have a whole episode committed to just that topic. It is one of the many reasons why the MMIP crisis is happening and why it hasn't made national news. Now the voice that you're about to hear belongs to Navajo Nation Council delegate Amber Crotty. She was the first person that I interviewed for this episode, and delicate grody spoke about decolonizing data and how the MMIW crisis is affecting the largest reservation in the US. And I want to also thank Patrick for setting up this interview without Patrick this would not have happened. So shout out to Patrick, thank you for making this happen.

Amber Crotty  02:57

“Kiana Nina Slidell Villa Coronavirus, Chien does she need this is Jade though Bellegarde additionally, che Amber can as Bacardi Unisphere Tohatsu. They're not shot.” So I come from Sheep Springs, here on the Navajo Nation. And I'm a council delegate, and I chair the sexual assault prevention subcommittee in the work that we've done, advocating on the ground, and really speaking to our families in 2016, we lost Ashlynn Mike. She was our 12 year old relative who had just returned home. And while she was playing with her brother was persuaded to go into a stranger's van. And unfortunately, he took her and assaulted her and killed her violently. And what happened to Ashton just shook the Navajo Nation like to its core. So as parents as leadership as community members, we all gathered to help support the family. And not only looking for Ashlyn, and that raised issues in terms of the act of amber alert on Navajo Nation and what happens when one of our children go missing and how law enforcement respond and ultimately looks for the child. What we also had to do is help be part of the search teams. And we did recover Ashlyn the next day. And so her family asked that we continue to use her story as an educational tool as an awareness tool. And as a way for us to fight for justice here on the Navajo Nation so that the Amber Alert can be fully developed, and also in that same thread of supporting families who are going and healing through surviving through their violence and how they need the support when one of their relatives go missing. And so, we got together when I say we As the missing and murdered the near relatives team, it's a collective of nonprofits. myself as a council delegate with the support of the Navajo Nation Council. We've partnered with different universities. We work with our Indian Health Service injury prevention program, we have on the ground, advocates who fundraise to be part of the search effort. And we continue to like raise awareness and keep not only our law enforcement, accountable tribal leadership, and our federal partners they have. What's unique about working within Indian country or Native nations, is we do have jurisdiction issues. But we also are a treaty tribe. And so the federal government has an obligation to keep us safe here on our land. And so that's a uniqueness but it also is a challenge, as then we have to deal with different layers of jurisdiction. And so that's what has got us to this point, in terms of other missing and murdered genetic relatives collective. And so we've been able to testify in front of the US Senate Indian Affairs Commission, we've testified at tribal consultations with the Department of Interior with the US Department of Justice, and we're preparing to speak in front of the Secretary of Health and Human Services. So as families speak out, and we create the safe space, as tribal leadership, my role and responsibility then is to carry their songs and carry their stories of sorrow, and up to the federal level, so that they can receive support here on the ground. So that is the work that we've been doing here on Navajo Nation. It's very survivor centered, family focused. But I do want to see, there's also the Navajo Nation government is a parallel but separate initiative. And they have are just starting to organize and understand what the families are going through and providing that support. So we've stepped out to not only provide support to our families here on the Navajo Nation, but as a state task force member on the data subcommittee is providing what information we have learned, and what are some of the best practices. So recently, this last legislative session with New Mexico, one of miski cavity, who's part of missing and murdered and relatives as an A volunteer and founder of Navajo, missing persons updates, made a recommendation of creating a missing persons day. And this would be a day where families could come and receive updates, and give updates and also just create a safe space where they can collectively heal together and take care of one another. So that is some of the work that we've seen that we've heard from the families and then it's been able to scale up to impact federal policies and actions. And at the state level, and we continue to do that work at the tribal Navajo Nation level.

Yulia Laricheva  08:19

What data are you seeing in the Navajo nation come up that you'd love to share with the audience?

Amber Crotty  08:26

So data, data, data data, prior to being a delegate, I'm a policy analyst by trade. That's what that was. That was what I did. But there is a process and there's teachings within our own teachings on Navajo. So I can only speak to Navajo on terms of this data. We have a process on how to collect, gather and analyze information that we receive. And it's not data points, because data points also, we're now we're in this black and white world in we're erased from mainstream approaches on how they collect data, because they don't honor our relations with one another. They don't ask critical questions in terms of how we identify or what what communities we belong to. And other areas that mainstream data may collect is always somehow connected to funding. And when you connect how you collect information for funding, that means it's the funders wanting to ask a question or and then who are these funders and how are they informed how to work with tribal communities. And that takes a lot of work because that's, that's decolonizing that's taking apart systems of power system of structure. And so what we ended up having to do and like I mentioned, when our FBI said, Well, there's no data we just had to turn to to our people and are people's stories and how what they were telling us and their experiences is how we're linking together. And we've been through all of these stories, to understand their experience when it comes to how their prior relationship with law enforcement before having to make this report afterwards, and throughout an end has that has there been closure for them. So in the Navajo frame of mind, there's a process to this. And some can say it's a, it's in our prayers, it's in our stories. But when we silo, this approach, especially during data, you don't get the whole story. And so, at first, what we wanted to do, and when we read the SBI report, is we wanted to like hold that up and say, Look, we found we found them, we found them. And we scrubbed, and we found them, but what we also knew was, there was still families not represented in that report, because they never were part of any existing structure. So our approach is now and we call it a Data Institute. Now thinking, I think I'm going to talk to our elders and, and rename that because what we want is an entity, a collection of individuals to hold those stories as a vessel, and to use those stories. Like, that's the truth, like this is like an all of these other movements, that we are going to believe what this family is telling us. And we're going to believe their experience. And we are going to make policy changes and pivot and be responsible in a trauma informed way. So that we can bring a sense of connection and closure to these families. So NamUs still does not have all of our missing relatives on that database. We met with them last week, with the data with the state taskforce on the data committee. And I had told him, We need a follow up meeting, because you don't have all of our relatives on here, what they now have said in their attempt to again, I don't know who did this was, but their attempt to make sure that their data is correct, is they are not putting individuals in their database until they get confirmation from law enforcement. Now, let me pause there because that is important because we just talked about how inconsistent law enforcement is. And they have their own database. They have the NCIC that only law enforcement can put information in, and they have been able since 2018, to put tribal affiliation. But now knowing they've paused in including individuals, and this is important, because we say every minute matters, can now know that they're pausing to wait for law enforcement, but not knowing, you know, or being accountable or, or doing the follow up, we're back. It's almost like a dysfunction, like we're back in the same place, waiting for law enforcement to put these individuals into the database. Because if there's a hit somewhere, if they're in the system, then someone at least knows they're missing. And so now we're working with former law enforcement, like native search, where they have the technology and working with the private sector to help us. I don't know how much more we could rely on our federal partners. It's either they're not hearing us, or not believing us. And they need to be accountable for that. And anybody who deals with data knows they can put an asterisk, they could put some type of symbol, they could create another, you know, like, we're these individuals are pending, you know, law enforcement review. But it's just disappointing to know that we're back at the same place. And yet, they keep coming to the table saying, we'll partner with you provide these recommendations. And we're, we're back to where we started. And that's why, at this point, we can only rely on our families who continue to show up, who continue to motivate us and continue to drive this conversation. So the way we get federal attention and continue with the data is is the family showing up. And there's no denying when you have a grieving mother, they're trying to find justice for her son, and it continues to show up and says I'm going to keep showing up. And when she shows up, other families show up, and then other families show up. And that's what we have to keep doing but it's exhausting. We need a system that will hear what the families are requesting, and then a system that pivots to provide that rather than the other way around where they Want to continue to, to make us fit? What works for them. And we've demonstrated what they're doing does not work for us.

Yulia Laricheva  15:08

The Navajo Nation was hit by COVID, it was in the news. I wonder if that actually increased the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women rates because of domestic abuse and, and just the stress, have you seen the data go up or stay the same?

Amber Crotty  15:26

So we still had missing relatives during COVID. And in the data from the state and national hotlines are wasn't increased during COVID. What we also saw were then a limitation on because our first responders were responding to the COVID. And so there was a delay in terms of response to some of these situations. So the families who were dealing with missing relatives, at one point, we had a family looking for missing relatives and our local town. So we have what are our small towns surrounding the Navajo Nation, we call them border towns, there was a town, Gallup, New Mexico who's on the list with a high percentage of missing individuals, we had a relative missing in Gallup, and at that time, during COVID, they closed down the city to outsider. So if you were coming in from Navajo Nation, you were not allowed to enter the city. And during that time, the family was struggling to meet the curfew hours, not able to move across these imaginary boundaries of Navajo Nation in the city of Gallup to look for their relative. So it certainly increased a lot of stress and anxiety, we then had to pivot instead of in person searching, like rely on technology. And so we had to do a quick turnaround in terms of getting access to drones, and getting individuals who were trained to use drones, and also then being able to support the family as they tried to navigate the systems. And unfortunately, that was a case where the relative was found, but no longer with us. So it definitely has increased in terms of what it has done is we now can see because our system, our our network is better in supporting families. So we definitely see an uptick, because more cases are being reported. And we're keeping law enforcement accountable. 

Yulia Laricheva  17:34

Right, this is a big issue of it, right, just keeping law enforcement accountable. That's what I hear from a lot of the other interviews as well. And, and I'm speaking to the FBI in a few weeks, and I spoke to state police in Washington. So I'm trying to like speak and get like as many sides of the story to because it's just so complicated. And there's so many issues that are systemic that are involved.

Amber Crotty  17:56

So I hope you could look into what the FBI is to point out where the Attorney General's office is, of the federal response is called, like this tribal community response plan. And so if I could just say that that's where we have seen where the federal agencies and law enforcement agencies are trying to collaborate and create a system where they can communicate with one another, which, you know, we all had assumed that was already enmeshed in their system, because we do have different type of select, for example, if there's a if someone is driving under the influence, those law enforcement entities with tribal beliefs, county state, they have existing agreements. And they say there's no boundary when it comes to an individual driving under the influence, meaning, if they're driving under the influence, and they drive on to Navajo Nation territory, there's agreements where those outside law enforcement can come on to Navajo Nation and continue the pursuit to stop this individual. We want that similar process when it comes to how our been seen relatives cases are being investigated. We do not want you know, these imaginary boundaries of jurisdiction to you know, create. It's just another barrier for the families in terms of where they need to file the case. And then who will be investigating the case. So these tribal community response plans right now for Navajo Nation. It's still at, you know, the the law enforcement working and coordinating with one another, and the opposite end, you know, missing and murdered and relatives we focus on the families and the survivors. And so the challenge here is at some point, this federal tribal community response plan needs to have the community involved. They need to open up and be willing to hear directly from the families and be accountable and Sometimes they're very defensive. We understand lack of funding lack of officers. But then the response is, okay, how can we collectively work together to create a system that breaks apart these silo effects and really just provide that healing for the family? So if there's barriers when it comes to law enforcement, or communication, how can we give a warm handoff to these families for maybe like mental health, or other services as they try to navigate the criminal justice system. And we don't, when I say we missed an emergency relatives, do not think that is like just a law enforcement issue. And do not expect law enforcement to be able to provide those wraparound cares. But what we needed all this time was law enforcement just to show up and be and be open to engage. And so the last six years, that's what we've really worked at is with like trust building, having hard conversations, and just keep coming back to the table. And that's what we want to continue to do. Because the families are hurt the families do not trust the system. And so we're we're having to, to continue to have these conversations on what's expected. What where are we at now? But most importantly, what do we need to do to create the system that will help the families and and our federal partners play a part in that and it's very different. So Navajo Nation also has three different FBI agents, offices that work on Navajo Nation and getting data can be a challenge, but also understanding at what point do FBI get involved. And this has been a challenge, because we talked about amber alert, and that is for children. But what happens when there's a missing relative who's over the age of 18. And so being stream laws have said, individual over the 18 has the right to be missing, basically, they have a right not to notify their family, they have a right not to notify anyone on their whereabouts, but that conflicts and that is counter to our kinship structure that is different from the way that Navajo see one another and our duty and obligation to another. So there is not a Navajo teaching that says, when you're 18, you're there's some type of separation from your family. What our teaching say is at every stage of your life, you have a duty and an obligation. And in one of those obligations, and that's why families had stopped reporting their missing loved ones, because they historically were getting that feedback. Well, they're over 18, unless you can provide some type of evidence that a crime has been committed, then you have to wait 48 hours, and then you could file a missing persons report. But good luck to you. And that had been conveyed in 2019, when we went out to the families and heard from them. And they told their stories, they told us what their experiences were. And so what we're also pushing back as these mainstream ideas of who should be considered missing, at what point what type of evidence is needed, that there's criminal activity. And also why that's important is because then there's not funds available for these families who are in crisis looking for a loved one, unless there's a criminal element to it. That does a disservice to the family members. Because then they have to investigate on their own, they have to fundraise to continue to search. They're trying to learn how to properly you know, what is considered evidence of what type of information do they need to provide, and a lot of information is stored on our phones. And that is one way that some of the families become aware that their loved one, their relative is not communicating through social media, which may have been normal in the past are not answering their phones or communicating. And so we've had to work with our police department, our law enforcement to understand, okay, how do we work with the cell phone providers to get that critical information that's needed in the critical time. And so when we talked about amberleigh, I know I'm talking about a lot but this is this is important, especially if you're going to be talking to FBI, and other state police, you know, our providers here or Navajo Nation, we're not even set up to issue out these alerts. We had to basically petition the FCC to have Apple the iPhone, have, you know, provide these alerts for for iPhone Apple users. And it wasn't until very recently, maybe within the last last update, then that community members here on Navajo Nation, were able to get that update, and then wouldn't be able to have access to alerts. And so there are systemic challenges when it comes to how we address our missing persons, the type of public safety that we have here on Native nations. And again, it all goes back to the our trusty the federal government, as they have all of these agencies, how are they being proactive, and assisting the nation to build up our 911 system? Building up our emergency communication through like, FirstNet? How are they assisting and building up our law enforcement? Because they've kept this stagnant in terms of funding for the last decade? And so how, how can the nation respond to these challenges? When our federal partners are first not acknowledging that it was happening, or providing the support and resources that we need?

Yulia Laricheva  25:58

I was just going to ask you what data you're seeing in regards to missing people in the Navajo Nation or because I know the numbers are coming up for men as well and obviously to spirits, but just people who are going missing and also the people who are perpetrating the crime?

Amber Crotty  26:16

Great question. So, and this is a different story here on Navajo Nation. And we continue to support, you know, the narrative on non native offenders. But what we see on Navajo, because of our size, and our geographic location, and just the high number of interpersonal violence that are happening in our communities and with each other, we continue to see that the perpetrators of violence are either someone who has an intimate relationship, acquaintances, and it's very rare to see maybe a stranger being part of this. And so in some of our prevention work, and we looked at is we really want it to not only boost up like self defense type, so people feel safe or that they can defend themselves, but also looking at what are healthy relationships? And how do we deal with trauma? And if it's taken us so long, and so many generations to start talking about what has happened in our homes and in our communities? How can we be courageous enough to to heal from that pain, and to get the support that we need so that we're not in violent situations or codependent situations. And so there's other approaches. Now, this is, this is all interconnected with the work that we're doing for sexual assault, prevention for domestic violence prevention, you know, what we're seeing when our children are removed from home? What we're seeing when our children are put into the system, and it really goes back to how can we acknowledge what has happened, but also create like healing spaces, because the only resource that we've had in the past, and it's also been, like conflated as a Navajo teaching, I think it was just because it was like a survival teaching was just to forget about it and move on. And for so many generations, that's what families did. They forgot, or they tried to forget that they were forcibly removed from their land, and take into will the or, or the long walk, they tried to forget or get it talk about the assault, sexual assaults that were happening, they didn't want to talk about how their children were taken to boarding school. And you know, the loss that that child felt and the loss of the parent felt. And it's just always, okay, Move on, move on. Don't talk about it, just move on. And so we're, we're now in a situation where we know how trauma stays in our body, in our minds. And, and we can now see how that's manifest into our communities. We're not only reclaiming our relatives who are missing, we're also reclaiming our our communities, and not allowing outsiders to dictate what our communities should look like, or how we should heal and to to help one another. And that also includes our relatives who identify as LGBTQI. And I think in our stories and having these conversations, where maybe there was silence in the past, I always say that silence was so deafening, because physically it manifested, physically, individuals were hurt by that. So that no longer works. And so now we're going to create safe spaces where we can we can learn how to heal, where we can learn to connect with one another, where we could learn to, to understand how, how this system impacts our community, and why we were in such dire need for for all of this healing. And so our land reflects that our animals reflect that how or heavy winds have come in, and how the climate and the seasons have changed. We're now recognizing this. And once you know it, you can no longer unsee it. And so now we have these change agents, fierce and he's in our communities that are willing to come together and activate for our families. And it's, it's beautiful, to be part of this movement. It's painful. But I also know that I want my children and my grandchildren and the next generations to, to live here in their homelands and feel safe.

Yulia Laricheva  30:45

With everyone I spoke with, the same topic of inconsistency came up when dealing with law enforcement be in rural or urban areas. Terrain plays a large part in MMI W cases, a cartographer, but the name of Anita Lucchesi has been compiling indigenous data into an MMI W database. She is the founder of submarine bodies Institute, researching gender and sexual violence against indigenous people. herself, a survivor of domestic and sexual violence and trafficking. And Anita and the Institute work with families to reopen mishandled investigations. I spoke to her about the database and also a nudist, personal experience of being trafficked by someone close to her.

Annita Lucchesi  31:31

So sovereign bodies Institute is a nonprofit research center focused on gender and sexual violence against indigenous peoples. We launched as kind of the new home for the database in January of 2019, the database started as something that I did kind of as a grassroots community member for years, it wasn't funded, it wasn't tied to anything. But as time went on, and it grew, we felt like it really needed a home. And it needed to belong, not just to me, but to indigenous peoples, and especially the families. I think one of the powers of the database is that it has so many teachings and so many stories wrapped up in it, that anybody who works with the data in a deep way, you learn so much about this issue and about our communities through that process. And it's inspired all sorts of community based projects in different parts of Indian country, to address different facets of this issue. So that's really the the root of why we created SBI. But I think it also goes back to this idea of data sovereignty and indigenous data sovereignty, us creating our own research for ourselves, but also survivor sovereignty, and family sovereignty, that's something that's really important to us that I think kind of sets SBI apart is that most of the people who work at SBI, or with SBI, are a family member of someone who's missing or murdered, or a survivor themselves, or in many cases, both. So it's personal to all of us. And I think that's what makes our work so powerful, and how we're able to build relationships with families and communities. There's a lot of statistics out there on violence against native women, I think all of us have heard the one and three will be raped in her lifetime statistic. And none of us know where that came from, who came up with it, what data they use, who they talk to, it came from the federal government. It's, you know, I don't want to knock that statistic too much. But I have an auntie who says, Well, I want to talk to the other two, because we know that the rate is so much higher than that. And in many cases, and interviews we've done with, you know, multiple women of a family, for example, the report mentioned this, they felt like, well, it's everybody. It's everybody I know, every native woman I know has experienced some kind of violence. So I looked at statistics like that, and thought like, what would it mean for us to create our own statistics, our own data that truly represented our experiences and our voices and our stories. And that's, that's kind of how SPI came to be and what what our work is really about.

Yulia Laricheva  34:21

And data is so important, right? Because who controls the data controls the storytelling and controls the narrative? I'm just wondering, if you've seen anything really surprising in the database that you weren't expecting to find in there.

Annita Lucchesi  34:33

The database surprises me in all sorts of ways and is always growing not just in number of cases, but also in the kinds of data points we track because we track whatever the community tells us is important. So we're always adding new things. But I think one of the things that surprised me is that there are quite a few cases of elder violence elders who have been stolen And in the California report we released last week, I think we said 10% of the victims in California were aged 60. And over, I think this issue is often framed as kind of a young women's issue. And it is absolutely. But there's also an issue with violence against our elders that really doesn't get talked about at all. And the other kind of some of the surprising things. The thing that takes me most aback is when I see a story similar to mine, there's been a few cases like that, that have stuck out over the years where I really identified with that person for what they went through, especially in cases where, you know, I was I was trafficked by a native man that I love very much, that was my partner, and was very troubled. And he had all sorts of trauma and mental health problems stemming from his own family's experience of violence. So when I see cases that are similar to that, that's really what strikes me the most, is because I see myself in those women.

Yulia Laricheva  35:59

Definitely. And I want to talk to you about your experience as well. And what I find very interesting with your project is that your data is focused on community based mapping, and use a different approach because the indigenous approach is all about relationships, which is really different from the Western forms of research or just like Western understanding of data. And I was wondering if you can talk to that a little bit?

Annita Lucchesi  36:24

Well, I learned a lot of it from our board member, Dr. DESI RODRIGUEZ, Lone bear, she's Northern Cheyenne, and just finished her dissertation and graduated with her PhD, she actually has two PhDs, she's insane. Her specialty is indigenous data sovereignty. So I've learned a lot from her about what it means to work with indigenous data and how to do it in a good way, through my conversations with her. And I think what's important to know is that indigenous people have always been data gatherers have always been knowledge keepers. That's not something new to us. So what we're doing now is not anything new. And I've my work as an academic is kind of reclaiming mapping in a similar way. Indigenous people have always been mapmakers. There's never been a time where we didn't make art that told stories about the land and our relationships to it. And that's fundamentally what a map is. So I think, you know, a lot of people maybe look at our work and see us as like reclaiming colonial technology of data or mapping to help our people. And the reality is we're continuing things that our ancestors always did, and modifying them to work for the realities that our people live in now. So when we look at data collection on MMI, W, for us, it's been really guided by that knowledge, as well as the ancestral principles of just caring for our people as we do this work and doing it based on community relationships. A big portion of our data comes from families, volunteering information, or from social media, and kind of the tight networks that any country has to raise awareness on this issue. So I would definitely say our relationships make, make the word possible and define how we do this.

Yulia Laricheva  38:22

I also wanted to ask you if the database is like, a digital like tech database that anybody can log into? Or if it's more of like an Excel document, like how, how is this database structured?

Annita Lucchesi  38:37

Right now it's an Excel document. And that's how it started, we were really lucky. We got selected as a pro bono client for hybrid or Harvard, Harvard cyber Law Clinic, they helped us negotiate a pretty what I think is a really great contract for with a software company to develop something custom for us. And actually, what it is, is the same software that a lot of police departments around the country use, like, you know, when you get pulled over, and they have the car in the VM or the laptop in the car. It's the same software that's on that laptop. So it's already built to integrate with existing law enforcement data. It just has been customized to meet our needs as a community. So they've offered to kind of use the existing structure but redefine, like what fields are captured, or there's capacity for us to like kick out monthly reports. So if a tribe wanted to report once a month, or even once a week or every day, on citizens of their tribe who are missing or murdered, they could get that automatically from our system. So I'm excited about the path ahead. But right now, it's just a spreadsheet.

Yulia Laricheva  39:47

There are like three databases that are used right now, which I was like, I wonder if the different agencies have a chance to go in and cross cross pollinate, right? Because right now it feels siloed

Annita Lucchesi  39:58

Yeah, it's definitely siloed. And that was something that we found in the report that SBI released with the Yurok tribal court last week on mm IW. In Northern California, we had compared the federal missing persons database with the National Missing and Exploited Children database, and then the state level missing persons database. And all of them had at least one that the other didn't have. And frequently, they would have cases where a woman was listed as native in one database and as white in another, even when they do have the same case, their information isn't the same. And I'm not entirely sure how that happens. But it is an issue. So I think that speaks to one of the benefits of the work that SBI does, in maintaining our database is that we are able to kind of weed through those bureaucratic errors or bureaucratic cracks that our loved ones are pushed through to better document our loved ones,

Yulia Laricheva  40:58

Right? Because it's almost like “Well, do you have somebody appointed to just manage the missing woman's database and cross reference those things?” But that will like melt your brain. And that won't let different departments communicate with each other because somebody say, like Spokane found something. But that wasn't in, you know, like the Idaho registry or something. And then those two departments can find a way to like fuse the records together. But if each record is in its own silo, then there's like a whole area of information where information is missing,

Annita Lucchesi  41:33

Right. And what's really upsetting is that the tribes don't have an opportunity to correct the information or even access it. So there's, for example, you mentioned Spokane, we've gotten data from the Washington State Patrol, there are 1000s of indigenous girls who have gone missing in Washington in the last couple years. And most of them or a big chunk of them are from tribes that aren't even in Washington, they're from Montana tribes. And those tribes are not notified. Even like that data had a girl that went missing 80 times in three years. And her tribe was never notified that they have this young person that is clearly at risk of violence, or unsafe or unhappy where they are.

Yulia Laricheva  42:18

Wow. Wow. You know, I, I've been through the Spokane airport. And there are a lot of human trafficking signs everywhere going if you are being trafficked, or if you see somebody being trafficked, say something and I travel a lot. And there aren't too many airports, we see that at the levels of trafficking that are happening in the Northwest are large in the US to begin with. But in my head, as I think about all of this, I'm just like, how do we create something where the information flows? Is it like a third database that connects everyone just Pacific for Native women, and then somebody enters that information to something else, but like, you need a hub, because otherwise everything is going to fall out. There's so many women working in tech, I you know, connect with the Harvard Women in Tech Club, and they can create some kind of like a plugin that goes into the other databases, that would be awesome.

Annita Lucchesi  43:14

I think part of the challenge is that like, it's not just data is not just training or new resources. It's also systemic bias in the system, whether it's law enforcement, or we see it also in the foster care system. Like that girl that went missing 80 times in three years, she had like five or six different case files based on different misspellings of her name, because she was being bounced from foster home to foster home and none of them bothered to spell her name, right. So it's just like, it's not only an issue of data systems that don't work. It's human error from racial bias. You know, I was trafficked in Spokane, I know exactly why they have all those signs in the airport. And it's because it's known for being a hub for that, like I was solicited by police officers, I was harassed by police officers. When I left my trafficker, his department of corrections officer called me and begged me to go back to him because he knew I was his source of financial stability. So it's not just that the system isn't designed to gather the information and get it to where it needs to go. It's also that like, no matter how, like how great of a data collection system, we design, no matter how many trainings we do, it doesn't matter if the people there don't actually implement the trainings and those systems in their day to day job. And right now, they're just not doing that because of bias.

Yulia Laricheva  44:37

So wanted to ask you, if you're comfortable talking about your experience when you were trafficked? I want to know if that's okay to bring up you know, or if it's triggering or you know, just just want to be sensitive.

Annita Lucchesi  44:48

Yeah, I'm pretty public. Like I don't share his name or like details, but I have shared about my experience before, so that's fine. I was in my mid 20s. I think there's a lot of stereotypes out there on trafficking. And my story is proof that a lot of them are wrong. I think when people hear trafficking they think of like people being kidnapped from a Walmart parking lot and opiate drips and trailers and things like that. And none of that happened to me. And I think there's stereotypes about who this happens to that it's predominantly people who already are, you know, using drugs, or homeless or come from bad homes. And while all of those things are intersecting issues with trafficking, that wasn't my experience, my experience, I grew up in a loving family, we didn't have substance abuse in the home, we didn't have violence in the home, I did not grow up in poverty, I had a pretty idyllic childhood, all things considered. And what happened to me was, I moved out of state to pursue my master's degree. And I finished all of my coursework, and I ended up moving to a city a little ways away from where my university was, I ended up in a relationship with this person who's a native man. He also was a survivor of horrible violence and trauma that he had gone through with his family, and including childhood sexual exploitation or survival sex work. And I've never really recovered from that. And I didn't know that until it was too late. There wasn't like, there wasn't a time where I was like, kidnapped, or there was never a time when I was on drugs, like it wasn't anything like that. It was just, you know, I really deeply loved him. And we were struggling to survive and struggling to get through. And this is what needed to happen in order for us to get through. And that's my experience. I wasn't in that life for a long time. I was with him for a little over a year. And then I, my family helped me leave him when I was ready. And I moved to start my life over a few states away. So I never, I think it's important to say that I never reported him. I never pursued any charges against him. And to this day, like I don't, I don't have a relationship with him. But I don't wish harm on him. I've seen how much he struggles in life and how much he hurts from the violence that colonialism has done to his family, and the violence that sexual violence has had on his family, that I don't blame him, I just know that I'm not safe around him. That's the way that I looked at it. And I know people have asked me over the years, well, how come you didn't report or like there's even been people who said that they didn't believe that I was a survivor, because I didn't report. And unfortunately, most survivors don't feel safe in reporting. And that was definitely true. For me, I didn't feel like I didn't feel like the system would hold him accountable. Because they had shown me in other ways that they wouldn't. And in the years that I've spent away from him, he's been arrested for all sorts of things, including armed robbery, strangulation, multiple assault charges, attempted murder, and he's been acquitted of all of those. So, you know, it's not, it's not a system that's trustworthy, especially if you've already been violated by being solicited by law enforcement, or, you know, how to department of corrections officer asked you to go back to your abuser. So I just never trusted the system to protect me. And I also never wanted to put another native man behind bars, I didn't feel like that would do anything. If anything, it would piss his family off and make him even more traumatized and angry and volatile. I didn't want him to be punished, I wanted him to have an opportunity to heal. Unfortunately, I think a lot of survivors, especially native survivors, because we know how much intergenerational traumas in our communities, a lot of us are in that position. And there just isn't a path or an opportunity to say, like, like, if there was an option for me to have reported him and say, like, I want him to get help, I want him to be in rehab, I want him to have cultural forms of healing available to him. That wasn't an option. It was press criminal charges, or say nothing. So I said nothing. And that's that's kind of my experience and my journey.

Yulia Laricheva  49:21

And that is just so heartbreaking to because this was such a case where you're close with someone so you know, there are a lot of emotions involved. There's there's love there's caring there all those things and and you just brought up such an amazing point that there is no button there's no you know, there's 911 for help, right, but there's not like a 111 if you want to get help for somebody.

Annita Lucchesi  49:49

Yeah, well, and during this time, like there was times where I was getting beaten in broad daylight and no one sat or did anything or he also has like like stress induced seizures from his trauma. And there was a time where he had a seizure by the side of the road and like I'm kneeling with his head in my lap in the sidewalk, trying to flog cars down for help. And no one stopped no one called 911. Like he was left to die on the sidewalk. And I was supposed to just sit there and watch. And so when you have experiences like that you're taught that you're expendable and invisible. So it definitely does not, there's not a culture of support for victims to come forward.

Yulia Laricheva  50:29

Right. And that's, you know, as we try to change the culture, it's like, how do we establish these things? How do we establish these foundations? How do we find the nonprofits who are doing the work? Who can help with this? You also brought up that you were you had your own experiences with the police department, when it comes to coming forward as a victim as a survivor? And you mentioned that they suggested going back to him? No, would you mind expanding on your experience in that situation?

Annita Lucchesi  51:03

Sure. So when it came time for me to leave, I think it's important to also say that like this kind of relationship, this kind of abuse, it messes with your head so bad, and makes it really hard to leave. And people end up staying much longer than they want to, or than they need to that and that was true for me when I left, it wasn't because I valued myself for my life, or because I thought I deserved better. I left because I didn't want him to go to prison for killing me. And I, I valued his freedom more than I valued our relationship or my life. And the night that I left like he, it was really bad. I had had to call the paramedics for help. He was having kind of a psychotic episode because of his PTSD. And was like laying in the road hoping cars would run over him trying to fight the neighbor's dog fighting his family fighting me, I had to bury all the knives in the yard. He was just out of control. And I knew that I wasn't physically strong enough to hold him back from hurting himself or others, including me. So I called the paramedics for help for him, because he was also having seizures. And the paramedics came, and they strapped him on the gurney. And he snapped out of his episode while they were carrying him in the gurney into the ambulance. And he looked at me like he just hated me, and was saying he was gonna kill me and this and that. And I knew that he's such a master manipulator of the system, because he's been in it for so long that he like, because the paramedics told me Well, they're gonna keep him there for at least 24 to 48 hours, like in the psych ward. And I knew that that wouldn't happen. So as soon as they took him away, I started packing, what I could up into a taxi, and I left to go to an airport motel to hide out because I couldn't think of a place where like, that would be anonymous enough where he couldn't find me. And I was thankful to like at that point, I had no money at all. But I called my parents and they move really quickly to like, you know, pay for the room and pay for the taxi and make sure that I was able to get away. And that's probably a good thing. I did that because a few hours later, he broke out of the psych ward and ran through the city and his socks with no shoes on and a hospital gown looking for me and came home looking for me like that. And I And he, you know, begged me to come back and whatever. And I stayed in the airport motel for a couple days, trying to figure out what I was going to do. And eventually my parents bought a plane ticket and helped me get home. And I'm really lucky that they had those resources to do that, because most survivors don't have those things. But at that point, while it was in the motel room, I got a call from my abusers department of corrections officer because he was still even though he was out. He was under Department of Corrections, supervision. His DLC officer called me and said like, Hey, I like he told me that you left, I know that you are a big source of the stability in his life and his ability to like have housing and, and food and that kind of stuff. And I really want to ask you to come back and see if there's a way that you guys can work this out, because he's going to end up back in the system if you don't come back. And I just said I'm not able to come back at this time. I have a family emergency I need to leave. And I just left it at that. But there was so many times leading up to that where they there was major red flags that they just didn't care about, like they would come into. They would do house visits randomly, one to two times a week and there was times where and this was different officers so it wasn't just one person there one day and it was a woman officer who came that day, there was a person sized hole in the wall. And she looked at him and looked at the wall and asked me what happened. And he intervened and said, Oh, well, you know, things got a hand we like there was a tickle fight, like people were just being silly, and it got out of hand on the DLC officer was like, Okay, that makes sense, no problem. And so there was like, glaring evidence that things were not right. And no one intervened. No one ever talked to me, separately from him, except when, when I left, and that was asked me to come back.

Yulia Laricheva  55:36

It's so interesting that you bring up the fact that, you know, like, no one ever talked to me, they talked to him. And, you know, I No wonder how much you know, the, the patriarch Kikko, Western society plays into that. And maybe that's one of the reasons that there's so many women that are missing, because the system is set up for people to, to not function in it. And, and women's voices are ignored. And this was one of the reasons I wanted to do the podcast that people could listen to our conversation. So they can hear the words from you, from other women, and it can be in their ears, and it can be in their spirit and in their mind. And they can have a little bit of like, an understanding about it. Because I think when you read the news on a piece of paper, or you know, on your iPad, or on your phone, you're seeing these headlines that are like missing women missing Indigenous women, but there's no connection that's being made that these are people and these people have stories, and these people have lives, the humanity is taken away from them, right? Because once you become a statistic there, there's just no humanity left. And in the data, I wanted to try to help add a voice, literally, literally a voice through the podcast to all the missing women. Hopefully, you can cause, you know, some, some updates. But as you say, this is such a huge, huge, complicated topic, you know about this a lot more than I do. But it just seems so complicated, because you have the federal government that's involved here, the local state law, but then when it comes to tribal nations, you also have just res law. So you have local local law on the reservation, which are not obligated to prosecute, I think non natives on the land if I stand corrected, am I correct in that?

Annita Lucchesi  57:39

Yeah, they don't have the capacity or the jurisdiction to prosecute non-native offenders.

Yulia Laricheva  57:44

Which is wild, because it means that somebody can come on to the reservation, and they can cause harm, and they won't be held, held accountable. All of it is just so complicated. And they wonder, when you see as a solution for, I guess, for for solving these cases, but also for preventing them. It's like if the federal law is like, okay, my hands are clean, I like this is on your property, I don't have to deal with it. But if if the local rules laws, and there aren't enough cops, and they can't handle it, and they don't have the resources to do a full investigation, the women go through the cracks. So So what is is there a solution? You know, how, how can this be prevented?

Annita Lucchesi  58:34

I think we have to build on the strengths of our own people, whether that's tribal police or grassroots community members. I think what's really powerful that we've seen in the MMA W movement is that it's grassroots folks who are doing the work, whether it's actively looking for missing persons, or gathering tips and murder investigations, or raising awareness or fundraising to support the families. It's our grassroots community members who are doing all of that. So we already have people with the skills and the knowledge and the integrity to do the work. They just need to be empowered to do it to the best of their ability, whether that means getting additional training or certification, or additional funding, or even just I think the biggest thing is more institutional authority are people have the drive and the will to address this issue come hell or high water. So it's not a matter of like community capacity. I think it's just a matter of power, and making sure that our people whether it's grassroots folks or tribal law enforcement or tribal courts have the power to fully protect their people.

Yulia Laricheva  59:45

Right. And also, these women having the confidence to speak up and the protection, right because if you go back to the local police departments or even the local Trouble police if it's a corrupt department, they don't stand a chance. So who's policing the police?

Annita Lucchesi  1:00:06

Yeah, I think if law enforcement agencies were to have some kind of community review board where there was safe ways for victims, or people who have been neglected or abused by law enforcement to come forward with that, I think that can be really powerful. I think states like California that are appeal to 80 states have a really unique opportunity to do that, and to do some really creative pilot projects, because the tribe has concurrent jurisdiction over the reservation. So what that means is, both the tribe and county sheriff have jurisdiction over the reservation and have to work together in partnership. And of course, most of the time, they don't, because those relationships are broken, and marked by all sorts of institutional failures. But the opportunity is there, the platform is there. It's just a matter of building better relationships and better systems of accountability, so that tribes can take on more responsibility and addressing the issue.

Yulia Laricheva  1:01:05

That's really interesting, too. It's like what systems does one set up in order to do that, and you know, who, who is accountable? That's like the woman have to take it into their hands and hold people accountable. Because if nobody cares about us, then then we have to do it ourselves.

Annita Lucchesi  1:01:22

Well, and that's what we've been doing, not just SBI. But I think the movement as a whole, like, one of the things I tell people is that the movement, the first official MMI W in March happened in February of 1991. I was born in May 1981. So there's never a time in my life, where people haven't been advocating for me, in my view. And this movement is so much older than me. And there's so many women who've been doing it so much longer than me that I've learned from. So I think we've really demonstrated like we can put in this work, whether it's as researchers, as law enforcement, as advocates, as social workers, whatever it is, like we've already demonstrated, we can do it. We just need to be trusted and empowered to do it. 

Yulia Laricheva  1:02:05

And the base, it stretches across the United States, Canada. And I want to say you're also expanding into Latin America as well. Am I correct on that one?

Annita Lucchesi  1:02:15

Yeah, the database started out as US and Canada. And then when we launched SBI. In 2018, we launched a sister database for Latin America.

Yulia Laricheva  1:02:26

That's amazing. So what does database I know the just in July, super recent, the sovereign bodies work together with the Yurok tribal Corps, and you've released a progress report on a project. And I was wondering if that progress report is connected to the database as well Oh, that's, that's a separate project.

Annita Lucchesi  1:02:52

They're kind of two connected but different projects. So the work that we're doing with the Yurok tribal court is largely in due to the leadership of Judge Abbey, Eben auntie, she is the first native woman in California to pass the State Bar. She is the Chief Justice of the York tribal court, and just an all around matriarch and badass, Abby had this idea for a project on missing and murdered native women and children throughout Northern California. And the report that came out in July was kind of the the manifestation of the first year and a half of that project. So the intent was to gather as comprehensive as possible data on MMIW, not just cases that occurred in California, but also any cases that occurred against a California Indian woman, regardless of where they lived. So that was the kind of data set that the court wanted to work with. So we built that based on our existing data in the database, but also through additional research and additional work with the community and with families. So the report is kind of a reflection of all of that data collection, as well as a year and a half of providing direct services to families and survivors in the region, doing some deep dives on cases with them. And then we also piloted a needs assessment with families, court staff, survivors, law enforcement, anybody who might have a hand or a stake in this issue, to try to get a sense of where they think the gaps are. Because I think part of the problem not just in California, but everywhere is that there's so many people involved in this whether it's law enforcement, or people in the foster care system, or people at rehab facilities, there's so many people that have their hands kind of tangentially in it, and they don't talk to each other and they'll have drastically different experiences of the issue and what they think will fix it. So part of this was this report and this project was trying to just figure out okay, what does what what is everybody seeing and thinking and how can we like match it up together to create pilot projects that might not actually work for our women.

Yulia Laricheva  1:05:01

And what did you see in this report that just came out? Did anything pop out at you that you were surprised to see as well,

Annita Lucchesi  1:05:08

I think what was striking for us was just how frequent issues of police violence or negligence were coming up. And that's not unique to this area. We've seen it in other places like Montana too. But it was much more common or, or the people we talked to are much more ready to share that than they maybe are in other areas. As we started working with families and survivors, almost all of them had stories of if not something, they experienced, something a family member experienced. And there was kind of this widespread pattern of sexual abuse at the hands of county sheriff's. And that was something that while I had heard stories kind of here and there, I didn't know that it was really, that widespread. And so that was really shocking and or disturbing for me, especially as somebody who is a survivor, and has also had negative experiences with law enforcement out of the area, it was really jarring for me to see it such a pervasive pattern here even across different generations or across different tribal communities.

Yulia Laricheva  1:06:17

Right? Because, because it's in the report, and it's it's there for everyone to see.

Annita Lucchesi  1:06:22

Yeah, well, I think it goes like, when this issue comes up, a lot of times people will say, we'll kind of treat it like, oh, well, it's one bad apple. Not all cops are like that. And it's true. Not all cops are like that. But unfortunately, this system is designed to allow cops to be like that, and to teach them to be like that. And that's what we're seeing from one generation to the next is generations of young law enforcement learning from older generations, that that kind of stuffs okay, and that there aren't any consequences for it. And then everyone's just going to look the other way. And the example that we gave in the report was an officer who used to work for Humboldt County Sheriff's named Kevin Christie, who was stationed to patrol the Hoopa Valley reservation. And he and his partner would arrest women and girls for things like skipping school or being drunk in public and would take them out to a rural area off the freeway, and sexually abused them. And unfortunately, those cases were never brought to trial, I think in large part because the victims of that violence, never felt safe reporting, because you're reporting to your own rapist, but he was tried for molestation and rape of minors, white girls, and those trials. I mean, even though even those poor white girls were treated horribly, they were expected to testify three times in three separate trials. The first trial was a miss trial, the second he was convicted, and then somehow that was overturned. And by the third trial, those poor girls were so traumatized, they couldn't stand the emotional weight of having to testify again. And so he was acquitted on the third time, because the victims were so traumatized by the process, that is a justice system that is in cahoots with this officer, that is the justice system that does not care about the trauma of children who have been sexually abused, because they care more about the reputation of a law enforcement officer. And that man is not a law enforcement officer anymore. But he is still a member of this community. He's a business owner. He's involved in different local community organizations, and never had any consequences, even though his trial for rape was on the front page in the newspaper. So I no venting. But I think it's an example of just how often even when law enforcement are like, even when there are attempts to hold them accountable, how difficult it is to actually put it into practice.

Yulia Laricheva  1:08:54

And repeat offenders don't stop, they just change their ways, you know. So it's like, just because he's not a cop anymore, doesn't mean he's not figuring out different ways to reach women and terrorize woman. And I'm also wondering if the native girls in the story of our gotta testify if they got to share their voice?

Annita Lucchesi  1:09:14

I don't think so. He was never, as far as I know, was never held, held accountable for the violence that he perpetrated while on the job. And I think in large part because the women were afraid, too afraid to report but also there was, there was a woman who did want to report and she went missing to this day, decades later, she still hasn't been found. So that told all the other victims, hey, look, what will happen to you if you even try to talk?

Yulia Laricheva  1:09:44

Right? We need the system to work with us to have accountability. And I'm wondering, you know, you're you have a car cartography background as well. So as you're putting together this database, are you seeing large spots where women go missing you? Is it correlated to other nearby locations, or if you're seeing any patterns,

Annita Lucchesi  1:10:06

I think there maybe are some patterns or places where it happens more often than others. But what I really try to impress upon people is that there's not a place where this isn't happening. And oftentimes, like, you know, my experience as a survivor is that most people in a city will have no idea that native people who live on the streets have a completely different experience of the city. Or even what we found in the California report that we released in July, we asked the sheriff, do you think there are places that are unsafe for Native women and children? And his response was, No, I think this county is pretty safe. We have good public safety here. Then when we asked women from that county, if there were places where they felt unsafe, they said they couldn't name a place where they did feel safe. So it was the exact opposite of the sheriffs experience. So I think it goes to show that even in places where we feel like, well, that doesn't impact my community, or I, we don't have that problem here. Until you actually talk to native women, you may think that way. But the reality is, there's no place that's really safe for Native women, there's no place where this issue isn't happening.

Yulia Laricheva  1:11:19

Right. I've been doing a little bit of research. And I've been reading different interviews. And they also say that the missing woman are related to, you know, to oil camps, and two different mining camps and two different things.

Annita Lucchesi  1:11:34

I think it's definitely true that extractive industries lead to more violence against native women. I think there are some extreme cases where like, the correlation is very clear, where like, you know, pipeline workers raped and left the scene of woman to die. Yes, that does happen. But I think the bigger issue is that these extractive industries create, like, just like an oil spill, right? When there's an oil spill, the longer you leave it, the harder it is to clean up, and the more it spreads and grows, the harder it is to clean up. The same is true for the social impact of these industries, that becomes kind of like a social version of an oil spill, the longer you leave it, the harder it is to clean up, and the more impact it has on the environment. One example of that is the person who trafficked me is actually from a community that has had the oil industry impact their territories, decades ago, when my when my abuser was a child, or even before he was born. And his mom lived her life experiencing violence because of what extractive industries did to their community. And then that all of that violence trickled down to him. And he was taught that trafficking was normal, or that sexual violence was normal because of that, and he moved to states away, and 30 years later, and did the same thing to me. So I think the issue is that when we have these industries come into our communities, and they bring in an influx of trafficking, rape, drugs, gang violence, it creates this intergenerational ripple effect that gets bigger and bigger and bigger over time, and becomes almost impossible to clean up if you let it fester.

Yulia Laricheva  1:13:17

And there's something to be said, for intergenerational trauma, it doesn't go away, it gets passed down. And unless you break the cycle, it just keeps going.

Annita Lucchesi  1:13:27

You know, and unfortunately, so many of our people don't have the resources to break the cycle.

Yulia Laricheva  1:13:32

And that's, the more I think about it, too, is that the people who are committing these crimes and this violence, they're trapped in their own cycles. So it's just people who are suffering, just creating more suffering onto people. There's no psychological health, there's, there's no support. So it just keeps on going.

Annita Lucchesi  1:13:53

Yeah, I think the other thing that extractive industries do is they create this kind of culture of lawlessness, not just around missing and murdered women, but abusive women, drug use physical altercations. Like there's just so much. And we've seen this historically, even where I live in Northern California, there's been all sorts of resources extraction here. And to this day, and for decades and decades, we've been kind of the hub of the marijuana industry. And the illegal marijuana industry has brought all sorts of violence to the community, whether it's taking too much water from the streams or using harmful herbicides and pesticides. It's really wreaks havoc on the land and the environment, but it's also wreaked havoc on women. There's all sorts of stories of women who go to work as trimmers and are sexually harassed when they're working as trimmers and then at the end of the season, get sold into trafficking instead of getting paid. And so there's this kind of general culture of anything goes the sheriff doesn't care. They're never going to come out. Hear, they're not going to deal with this. Or, you know, I saw 50 other people get away with it. So I know I'm going to get away with it too. All of that kind of collides when you live in a culture that teaches you to take, and that's what resources extraction does, it teaches you that anything is for the taking, and anything goes.

Yulia Laricheva  1:15:18

Which goes back to colonialism and data. All right, like once you own the data, once you create your own systems, then you can start to build up power again.

Annita Lucchesi  1:15:30

Yeah, well, and I think they've been defining the narrative for so long, especially when it comes to violence against our women, like, actually, my academic work is separate from the database separate from all of this, but my academic work is on cartography and how it's been a tool of colonialism, especially with regards to kind of like this armchair exploration of our pupils. And we see that with data on violence against women, too. So one of the things like I talk about statistics, like the one in three and Muskogee Creek scholar, Sarah deer, who's on our board has also written about that one in three statistic and kind of how it doesn't represent the realities in our community. I write about it as a form of data terrorism. And what I mean by that is data that functions as a way of terrorizing a population into submission. data like that is used as a way to terrify our women or girls into behaving in ways the settler state wants. So for example, they'll say, one in three native women are raped in their lifetime. So make sure to not dress revealing or don't drink alcohol, or don't go to parties or go to college or any of those things. And it becomes ways to police native women's bodies and behaviors and scare them into submission. And it scares our tribal nations into submission to by saying, Well, you know, your one in three women in your community are going to be raped, and we have this money to address it, but only if you follow our rules and give us all of your information. And that becomes another way of kind of terrifying our nations into submitting to, or at least live like having to acquiesce to live under colonial occupation. So data like that isn't helpful, it's actually actively harmful. And that's where SPI comes in is by asking, What if we created something different? What if we created data and information that instead of being harmful to our women into our tribes was actually helpful and empowering and mobilized us towards some kind of healing or justice or safety?

Yulia Laricheva  1:17:32

You know, I'm wondering if you've seen success stories come out of the missing woman's database, and maybe seeing success stories is not the right term for it. But if you've seen resolutions come out of it, then if you see in the database, you know, close cases, or help people figure out what happened to their loved ones.

Annita Lucchesi  1:17:52

I've seen cases close, I've seen missing persons located. I like for examples. SBI has a survivor's Leadership Council, Alyssa Yellowbird Chase is a member of that council and her work is just incredible. She locates missing native people. I've seen her do that. And I've seen her work tirelessly at it. And you know, I think that's a success in some ways. Unfortunately, I don't know any family that feels like they've gotten justice, even when a case has led to conviction. I think there's a sense of okay, that part's over with. But there justice is such a complicated thing, with so many pieces to it, that I think holding the perpetrator accountable is just one piece of it. But working to make sure that that doesn't happen to other women and girls is another piece of it, that largely hasn't happened, at least from the justice system. I think the biggest successes are just seeing how this movement has grown, seeing women like Alyssa go out and do this work and be the boots on the ground, and to see their families and survivors really find their voices and their leadership. I think that you know, if SPI has had any successes, that is the that's the biggest one is seeing the families and survivors we work with find their voices.

Yulia Laricheva  1:19:09

And is there a way to spot trafficking victims in public? I think it's such a hard thing to do. Like, I'm just thinking personally, like, Would I notice somebody being trafficked? I don't know what to look for personally, and I'm sure a lot of people don't know what to look forward to. But if you have any advice,

Annita Lucchesi  1:19:28

I think there's a lot of stereotypes out there about like tattoos or you know, kind of like outlandish things to look for. Like I have a tattoo, like it's not immediately visible. And even if you saw it, you wouldn't think like oh, that's a trafficking victim. So I think it's not necessarily things like that. But I think if you see a person not even necessarily a woman or girl because our boys are traffic to if you see a person who is with another person and doesn't seem to have much power over what's happening, for example, like if you see, let's just say a child or a young woman or young man with another older man, my trafficker was like nine years older than me, if you see somebody like that, and that person is visibly stressed, or haggard, or tired, they don't have access, like, they don't have a wallet, or money or ID, and the other person has all of that, or the other person is always speaking for that person, or telling them where to go. And you can tell by the body language, that person is really like the smaller younger person is really following that the lead in the direction of that older person, I think that can be a sign, not necessarily of trafficking, sometimes just like domestic abuse. So there's things like that to look for. I would say also, of course, like if you're, if you're a friend or family member of someone, and you see them really pulling away and becoming distant or having their partner have kind of dominate their life, and their decision making, and you see that person, maybe with suspicious bruises or injuries or things like that, that's also assigned, but I think a lot of traffickers know, to create injuries that aren't visible. For example, my trafficker would, like, do cigarette burns on my legs where people wouldn't see or would like, one time, he dragged me from a vehicle and like I was walking on the street, and he dragged me by my cheek and like, you would have no idea that my mouth is pulling up with what. So there's some stuff that like, you just like, wouldn't necessarily see. But I think the important thing is to look at the power dynamics in any relationship. And if there's a person that visibly doesn't have a lot of power in that relationship, that's a big red flag.

Yulia Laricheva  1:21:48

And I'm also wondering, if there are resources where people want to help and they want to become involved with, say, your organization, or just trying to get resources for someone that they love or themselves, you know, I'd love to create a compilation at the end of this podcast, and also have it as a resources on the page to where they can look, and they can try to find some help.

Annita Lucchesi  1:22:13

Yeah, we actually have an organizing toolkit free for download on our website. It's like 200 pages is giant, but it's narratives from families and survivors, how to guides, worksheets, discussion, activity, guides, quizzes, basically, it's kind of a one stop shop to figure out how your community or how you want to get involved in the MMI W issue, because there's so many different ways to get involved. So we have chapters on data policy, boots on the ground work, support services, community healing, there's all different ways to get involved and all of its in there. So I would definitely recommend checking that out. If there are survivors or families of missing and murdered women, girls or Two Spirit people that are in need of services. SBI does offer some support services. So reach out to us and we can have a conversation with you and see how we can help. The other resource that I think is just phenomenal is the strong hearts native helpline that's a free national helpline for anybody who's experienced domestic violence or sexual assault, and it's an indigenous helpline. So if you call, you're going to get culturally sensitive support. I think that's just absolutely amazing. We haven't had that until they launched a few years ago. So if you're in need of help, or just someone to talk to you about it, SBI is here, strong Hearts is here. If you need help figuring out how to look for your missing loved one lisez organization Sonesh scouts is a great place to start. There are people there's lots of people on Facebook who are involved in this issue and active voices and I think reaching out to some of them would be great. Roxanne White is on our survivors Leadership Council and she's based in Seattle, and she does amazing work with families as an advocate. So there are resources out there, you just got to reach out for help. And if you don't know where to start, and it's really overwhelming. Come to us at SPI and we'll help you figure it out.

Yulia Laricheva  1:24:14

That's amazing. It's it's incredible. You're changing lives and you're changing generations.

Annita Lucchesi  1:24:19

We're trying It's an effort.

Yulia Laricheva  1:24:25

While a need is energy is going into the MMIW database, other activists are creating awareness through social platforms, especially on tick tock for reasons we're about to get into with our next interview. Megan Lynn Houser is an ally at the University of Dayton who recently published an honors thesis on Tik Tok and the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women Girls and Two Spirit people movement. On the show she spoke about how MMIW activists find the amplification on Tik Tok over Instagram. We also delve into the intricacies of social media, free speech and censorship. When we think of Instagram, we don't normally think of shadow bans censorship and limitations on free speech. Yeah, in 2021 on May 5, which is the National Day of awareness of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Relatives, Instagram deleted stories and posts about the crisis and blamed the air on a bug. Now, mind you, this happened both in Canada and then the US. So it must have been some bug censorship and shadow bans are just a few reasons why activists have been turning to tick tock to get their voices out. And this is ironic, since tick tock is a platform owned by bytedance, which are headquartered in Beijing, China, a place run by a communist regime known for censorship. And the more MMIWR data and stories get heard, the more the cases get attention, and the less censorship will exist, it's impossible to silence us all. And I'm really glad we're able to have this discussion about censorship and MMIW on social media.

Meghan Leinhauser  1:26:04

Yeah, I think I saw a quote when that happened. And it was kind of highlighting the irony of your posting about people who have gone missing, and then all of a sudden your posts about that go missing. So it was some pretty sad irony there. And I think a lot of times people don't associate Well, you could kind of argue it either way. I think a lot of people don't associate American media with like, heavy censorship. And I think it's like a lot of free speech, people often associated with that. But then it's just a different kind of censorship. And because it's there is a bit of conversation surrounding like, tick tock, and how does the Chinese company and how there's, they associate a lot of censorship with China, because they do a lot of censorship in general. So people more so think of it when it comes up and tick tock, but you're absolutely right. It's just a different form of censorship. And because it is a US owned company, and people might just not realize it. So they'll maybe be able to write it off and think of it as a fluke. And we'll accept the blanket statement that Instagram put out saying that it was just a bug. But I mean, for the people within the community, or the people that are advocating for this, you you kind of know it's more than that. It's not just something that would randomly happen on such an important day. So yeah, I think that oftentimes, people might not recognize that the censorship is happening. But for those who are using social media as a method of activism, I think they do face a lot more of the censorship than the average person would realize. Because if you're being like shadow banned on Tik Tok, your posts aren't reaching the audience that they could but then you see another video just going absolutely viral, but a totally different topic. There's a lot of frustration that surrounds it. So I think it's something that I found in my research with tick tock advocacy is that there's a lot of loopholes to lots of like, buzzwords that are used in advocacy. So for example, I would see a lot of times were murdered, the ease would be replaced with three. So you could tell that it said, missing and murdered, but then in order to not have the videos taken down, they would do that. So it's a bit of a loophole. So I definitely saw that come up a lot, which I thought to be a super, super powerful tool to kind of like fly under the radar of censorship, because it's allowing videos to be put out there. And it even if you don't interact with activism videos in your day to day, if that pops up on your free page, and you see the word killed with an AI, having an exclamation point, instead of the AI are murdered with the threes, you're going to kind of take a second look at it and be like, Well, what's this video about? So I think it's also an interesting method to have like, it catches your eye normal. So even if you're not someone that typically engages with activism posts, if anything, you'll give it a second look.

Yulia Laricheva  1:28:53

Yeah, I'm definitely shadow banned on Instagram. And I noticed that in the beginning, when I first started out, and it wasn't so like political and, you know, like, I was getting a lot more traffic, but I also don't do anything aesthetic on it. So I know, I'm not like getting into the algorithm. And I'm like, Okay, well, if I went into the algorithm, if I use more reels, I would get more views. But it just doesn't make sense by a post on tick tock, which I rarely even post on tick tock because I just, I don't have time to make content. I can only record your post, but it's like, it's like a full time job. And with a family. I'm like…

Meghan Leinhauser  1:29:26

Yeah, I found it to be so interesting. Because essentially, for my research, I forced to curation, I use the four new page algorithm to I only interacted with the advocacy videos to have it formulate the algorithm to essentially only show me those things. So when I was trying to find videos, like essentially, since I was like curating it myself, I would search up and then IW M and W, G to S and MIP. Like, no more stolen sisters. I was looking at all these videos with the hashtags and there's millions I think, at the time I'm on I did my research was like either to to fats, there's many millions of videos posted with the hashtags. But then I would have the videos pop up on my for you page, and a ton of them didn't have any hashtags. So it just makes you think like how many of these videos are not being pushed to people's pages, because like the algorithms not favoring them, or there's a larger reason. But if there's millions that are being posted, with the hashtags, how many more millions are there that are out there that aren't being posted with the hashtags that, unfortunately, some people will just never see, because they're not being pushed. So it's definitely, it's almost like a game that you have to play to try to get the videos posted and have people actually see them, it's very accessible in the way that tick tock is free. And you can just press record and post, like you said, it takes time, if you want to do like a retake, that also takes time. But then some people that do gain more traction on their videos, they, they have a ring light, or they they record it on a camera, and then they upload it to their phone. And we'll add the text on top of it or edit it. And it is free, and you can just press posts, but then there's also you see those videos that are a bit higher quality getting more traction. And a lot of the time you don't you don't have the time you don't have the means to post or to take all the time to have it go into a post. So there's definitely a wide range of quality. They're all very quality videos because they have a deep message to them. But there's different amounts of lever you could say that go into making videos.

Yulia Laricheva  1:31:41

How people can use Tik Tok, as a means of social advocacy. And like, what did you learn from the thesis that people can really do through Tiktok that they can do through other online social networks?

Meghan Leinhauser  1:31:56

Yeah, I would definitely go to say that almost every social movement nowadays has social media presence. So you can log on Instagram, like you said, and see things about the earthquake, or you can go onto Facebook and see it. And I think Tik Tok in itself, it's very engaging. So you can be regular person and just press post. And then I found it to be a much more like I would say, like casual. It's not, although it's curated in the sense that the videos pop up due to a curated feed. I don't think of it as I guess you could say pretty or aesthetic, as like you said earlier, like Instagram definitely favors the aesthetics, and how things look. And on Tik Tok, they found that you could just be someone talking about something that they cared about, and then pressing post. And then something that I found to be super intriguing about this is that it's so engaging in the sense that there's the duet function and the stitch function. So if someone's already speaking about something, but someone comes across the video that has a larger platform, or maybe gets more engagement on their videos, instead of making another video to talk about it, and kind of clouding up the space, they can use that stitch function or that duet function. And essentially, they don't even have to be saying anything in that video. But then stitching it shows it side by side. And we'll gain traction to the video of the person that's already speaking about their relative who went missing. And instead of speaking over people, you can kind of just allow them to speak but use your platform as a tool to amplify their voice. So that was something that I found to be very unique for Tik Tok. In terms of other social media platforms. It could just be someone who has many 1000s of followers and in their stitch, they're not even saying anything. They're just, it's just their face, or they're just it's just a black screen saying please watch this video that will give exposure to the people that are speaking about this. So that's something that I really enjoyed about Tik Tok activism. I know that social media activism can sometimes get a bad rap, people will talk about it, they'll call it clicktivism or slacktivism, where they think you're just posting something and going about your day. But I think if you're going to use it as a method of social advocacy, you have to take it beyond just the social media, sharing things. And amplifying people's voices is so important. But it's also what you do offline to accompany that, which I think in talking with the Creator that I was able to speak to, she does a lot of work offline. So she posts about cases like MMIW and MMIP cases, but in addition to that she is helping families find their missing family members or giving them the resources is to get private investigators. And although that's not something everyone's going to do, I'm not going to be going and finding private investigators for people. But I was doing research alongside of this. So I think Tik Tok is a great place to learn a lot, and to have a lot of awareness raised. And because there's that viral, I'm gonna say this, the, the virality, or the ability to go viral, I think, is also very unique. Because on Instagram or Facebook, you can just lose a post in the feed, and sometimes it's chronological. But for Tik Tok, there's that boost where if you see a video, then it starts to go viral, then people are stitching it, or people are doing it, and then it kind of just keeps popping up when things go viral. And then because it's getting that engagement, it'll start pushing the other videos from that creators account. So that was something that I found to be also very unique about tick tock. And then in terms of MMW, specifically on tick tock, I really enjoyed learning a lot more about indigenous culture through watching the videos, because in addition to people posting about their loved ones going missing, or someone in their area, or just posting about people who had gone missing, they would also oftentimes just have bits of their culture included throughout. So whether it be traditional music that was playing in the background, or if people had a practice that they were doing, or if they were wearing something, I thought it was a really beautiful way to also intern learn about indigenous culture. while also learning about this, this topic,

Yulia Laricheva  1:36:38

I was gonna ask you what you also learn doing the content analysis of the MMIW  Tik Toks. I know you ran them through a program and there was like an algorithm. And if you can talk a little bit about how how you did that? That'd be great.

Meghan Leinhauser  1:36:53

Yes, so I guess I coded the videos to a bunch of themes and analyze them, the audio and then the text on the screen, and just the video itself. So what I found was that, in the codes that I was using, the majority of the videos were posted to raise awareness. So that makes sense, their advocacy videos, so a lot of it was sharing resources as well. So if someone had posted a video, but then also saying in the caption, so look, in my link, in my bio, I have a collection of things you can sign or where you can donate to places or where you can link to a Facebook page that has more information about this. So I found that people, it will be more than just the one video, a lot of times you would have extra resources to lead you to so that was something that I found when doing that content analysis. And then it was also just interesting to see, like I was saying earlier, like how engaging it could be. As someone who had kind of like forced that curation, I was seeing a lot of different videos that I wasn't expecting, like I said, I was just starting to see videos about indigenous culture, if it would be a dance that they were doing. But then the text on the screen would be about the statistic of missing and murdered indigenous women that are out there. So you're seeing this video, and it's this beautiful dancing video, and you're like appreciating this culture. But then there's that element of the text on the screen is actually raising awareness. So it was very twofold, because I was able to learn a lot more about it. But then also, they were able to raise awareness. So again, there's the people that will post about specific cases and their accounts will be dedicated to updating people about specific cases or sharing information. But then there's also the people if someone is a traditional indigenous dancer, if that's their talent, and they are recognizing that they can get a platform from doing that. Then they think, Okay, well, can I advocate for this using my talent, that was something that I was seeing as well. Also, I know a lot of social movements. As they grow, you kind of have like, growing pains that come along with it. If there's trends within a movement, I don't want to say a trend because it is people's lives and you're posting about it. But something I'd seen was a trend, I guess I could say was going around of people to post their height to post their weight to post their eye color to post identifiers about themselves, essentially to say in the case that I go missing. This is identifiers. At first when I saw it because I was learning about movement. I was like, first it's just very sad that people have to do that. But then, as this trend was growing, it was a lot of like younger women posting some minors. It was people of all ages, but then other people that advocate for this were essentially saying this is more dangerous than it is helpful. You should not be posting your height, your weight, your identifying features, because that's it's more dangerous and it is helpful, like, share this information with your loved ones, your close ones, anyone that could help, because unfortunately, someone on Tik Tok snap into be able to call the police for you kind of deal. So they were actually encouraging people to take down those videos focus more on the people that are missing how amplifying that focusing on those things, because it was also felt like it was perpetrating the idea that indigenous women are inherently victims, which is not true. But saying like, Am I next? Or will I go missing? It almost was perpetuating that. And that is not something that people were wanting to do, because Indigenous women are not inherently victims, they should not be victimized. So it was interesting seeing the rise of that trend and seeing a lot of those videos pop up. But then also seeing people stitching them, do it, do adding them using that tool to say don't do this, I would highly encourage you to share this with your loved ones, your own safety, please do not do this. And maybe if you are going to be using this platform that you have post about the people that are missing, and we can work to hopefully find them.

Yulia Laricheva  1:41:15

You know, I was gonna ask you, if you want to talk about anything else that maybe my questions have uncovered, as well. Like if you if you want to bring attention to anything,

Meghan Leinhauser  1:41:26

Yes, I had some notes of the things I wanted to cover. So something I didn't want to talk about was like the true crime of it'll people talking about the cases of people going missing, and speculating and treating them as if they weren't actually real people. In doing my research, I was consuming other media alongside tic tac, I was reading things, I was watching videos, I was listening to podcasts. So it's something I had found when I was doing all of this was that, especially in the true crime space, people like to speculate a lot. And they like to say, was it this? Could this person have been doing this and is that where they got in this situation. And I was really put off by it. Because I was like, these are real people, knowing what their intention was to, like, you don't know that. And if you do not know that all you have is the facts. So putting all the extra extra stuff out there is not going to help the case, it's not going to lead you anywhere. And I just thought it was a bit wrong how people were speaking about that. So but the unfortunate thing is not unfortunate. But people love true crime. And it's a huge, huge community of people. So there's people on Tik Tok that will post about True Crime pieces. And those gained a lot of traction. Because then they kind of lead you on, they'll say, oh, come back for part two. And that gets the more engagement with their videos. So I would see people posting about people who have gone missing or were murdered. But then they have this true Crimea, odd like music going into that like the eerie sound to kind of like set the tone, they would talk about it as if it were a story to be told, instead of someone's life they were talking about. And I found it to be very off putting and then a lot of indigenous creators, were actually speaking out about the fact that they did not like the tone that people would often be talked about, like they loved that people were getting traction and talking about these cases, because shedding light on the use of people who have gone missing or been murdered, obviously helps if you're able to get more leads or for people are seeing that that's always hurts oftentimes helpful. But then if you're going to be speaking about them as if there's some fictional character, then that dehumanizes them and it is your you're happy that they're talking about it. But then if you're going to be talking about it that way, then you would almost rather that they don't. The Tick Tock creator that I was able to speak to during my research. She was voicing frustration in the community that she has on Tik Tok. She, she said, for the most part, she has a great community. But if people start to speculate in her comments, and she posts about, she just presents the facts. And then she always would say that she would post the videos and speak about the people who had gone missing as if she was just speaking to the family. So she was envisioning it as if it would only be the family members watching it. So having that level of respect and actually speaking about them as the real people that they are and the terrible things that have happened to them, instead of saying, Oh, I wonder what that person was doing to get them here. I thought that was refreshing to hear and to see that people were speaking about these cases and not treating it like there was some fictional people ought to be spoken about. So yeah, lots of speculating is something that I came across in my research and it clouds up the space it doesn't help the cases it just kind of creates more jumble jumbles up everything and it kind of takes strays you away from the actual facts and it doesn't help find the people. It just clouds up everything. So that was something that I came across and wanted to speak on. So yeah, it's there's a double edged sword when you do gain traction on Tik Tok, I found because it's such a casual app. People just feel like they can say anything in the comments. I don't know. I know that people can speak behind a screen it on all forms of social media. But I've noticed even just when I'm on my personal account, people will feel comfortable saying anything. They'll comment hateful things as if there's no digital footprint like it's it's absolutely crazy. So that was something that I saw a lot. So when videos would go more viral about indigenous people who had gone missing, there would just be terrifying things in the comment that people would say, and you just wonder why people feel like they are able to say these things. Engagement is good in the videos when they go viral. But then it opens the door to see a lot of pretty vicious things be spoken about as well.

Yulia Laricheva  1:46:21

The story of Instagram deleting MMIIW posts and other stories on May 5 2021 continued to haunt me. I didn't reach out to Instagram since they probably would not discuss censorship. Their explanation, after all, was that it was simply a bug. I did speak to someone who had their MMIIW posts deleted on that particular day. Initially, I interviewed Liz Marin for our next episode, episode three focused on the connection between the extraction industry, banking and MMIP. And I hope you tune into that one as well. Liz is the program director of ceding sovereignty, and it's a collective, and they disrupt colonized spaces through land, body food sovereignty work, they have a focus on community building and cultural preservation. And Liz and I spoke about the effects of the extraction industry on her native land of Alaska. And she brought up the story of her experience of being censored on national MIP Awareness Day, and I really wanted to include it so you can hear it.

Liz Marin  1:47:21

So I already told you about my cousin Tracy and my cousin Linda, and their experiences with their intimate partners. I was like, Well, I have a platform, I'm gonna use it for my family's advantage. And I had posted photographs of my cousin's along with their stories, and I wasn't getting any likes past three. And I was like, What the heck's going on? This is really unusual, especially for it being a trending hashtag day. So I went and signed into my computer and checked Instagram, and my last three posts were gone. And I was like, Oh, that's weird. I wonder if my phone isn't connecting, right? Or, you know, I literally thought it was a user error. Then I tried to post it again. And my Instagram app closed, like the glitchy thing. And I'm like, Okay, this must be just like, there's too many of us on the internet's we're making the app go down. I'll wait a little bit. So I set an alarm on my phone. And I went back to do it again. And my app just so I hopped on my computer, started checking the hashtags. And my computer would not let me search the hashtag MMI w. And that's when I came to realize that I'm not the only one having this issue. So I moved over to Twitter, hopped on Twitter when I had it, and started seeing posts from other folks that their Instagram feeds for not allowing them to even open their app, the same issue I was having. I was in all in a very bad way. Because like, why would Instagram do that to us? And they were like, Oh, well, it goes against community guidelines. That's what I got, like three days later in my notifications, you know, how when you report somebody for posting bolder things? Well, I got one of those saying that I had a ban and I couldn't post for 72 hours because I had been posting violent things while I was explaining the violence that had happened to my cousin about the blood that was found in their apartment, about the traces of blood and a struggle in the back of their vehicle. I was literally telling all the evidence that had been found that it may have been her intimate partner who had murdered her. So yeah, it was it was violence but like you Anchorage Police Department needs to be held accountable. This was something that had they not waited a week and a half to investigate, they may have been able to find actual evidence of her murder. We don't know what happened to her. And we may never know what happened to her because she's just another drunk native to them. And apparently, to Instagram, we are also marjoram natives, I don't know, I could not believe the Instagram kept us from this day of activism, you know. So it's not even just the media ignoring us. It's not people turning a blind eye, because it doesn't bother me has nothing to do with my life. These tools we're using for our activism are literally being turned against us. So then I just started talking with my friends and organizing and telling them we got to fight back, this censorship is only going to keep us down, it's going to gonna get worse. Like, I knew what was going on with censorship was bad, as far as you know, the media and whatnot. But I didn't think it was going to go to like social media being a weaponized against us. So I just couldn't, couldn't keep quiet about it. I went and told my boss and my boss was like, will repost it. So I sent them screenshots of what I was going to post because you know, it does that saved in draft version. So I went ahead and opened up the draft and sent it to my boss who took screenshots and reposted it for us. And found out that like, it wasn't just me and my little circle because of who I am. But it was like, all across the nation, and pretty angry. So we talked to the verge about it. We talked to the Center for popular democracy and found out that it was a huge censorship. And then they came out, of course, with their weird apology, which literally meant nothing. And but that makes me worry, like, what's going to happen in a couple of weeks? Should we move it from May 5, because they build it into their algorithm that our stuff gets deleted? You know, it, it led me to a lot of questions in what's happening, because even now, when you try and search that hashtag, not a lot shows up. So it's like, what are we going to do? Like, how do we work around this? Which is what after a lot of talking and very late nights with my co workers, my friends and family, it's like, we're just going to keep up the in person events and start building locally. And do it so loud that they don't have a choice but to listen to us.

Yulia Laricheva  1:52:49

Liz is from Alaska, and you'll hear more of our conversation in episode three. The next person you'll hear from currently resides in Anchorage, Dr. Charlene, to pick up book is an indigenous researcher. hakapik is the executive director and founder of data for indigenous justice. It's an Alaska Native and woman led nonprofit, which is home to a database for missing and murdered indigenous women, girls and relatives data. Charlene has served in many spaces as an advocate for Indigenous women, indigenous sovereignty, climate, justice, and indigenous rights to health and well being. Charlene is a lifelong learner and both her cultural traditions and decolonizing academia. She earned her BA in American ethnic studies with a minor in Gender, Women and Sexuality Studies, and has an MA in Alaska Native studies and Rural Development with an emphasis on circumpolar health and is currently pursuing her PhD in Indigenous Studies.

Dr. Charlene Aqpik Apok  1:53:49

So you asked about how data for indigenous justice came about. And I'm so glad you asked, because it's one of my favorite things to share, unfortunately, that we had to come about this way. But I love that data for indigenous justice came about as a grassroots and community led effort. And it came out of a place of love for our families and our people. And so back in I think 2018 at the Alaska Federation of Natives, which is the largest tribal gathering in the state of Alaska each year, we had so many families and people who kept saying, hey, this happened to my loved one, this happened to my loved one. And we knew that it was an issue. But again, there wasn't that recognition awareness as much as there is today. And so of our families came together and said, Let's read the names of our loved ones at this rally. And let's call attention to this issue. And so, community organizers came together and they wanted to put the list together, only to find that there was no list and there was no data and there wasn't a way to pull it. And so Oh, with that, they said, well, let's just do it right now, you know, and they started writing down their loved ones names. And that began the database that became the heart work of what we do today, as our community coming together and saying, No, this is our truth, this what has happened to us. And we started writing it down. And after that, I have a background in research. And they gave me that list. And they said, here, you know, you're a researcher, you take care of it, I was like, okay, you know, it was pretty informal. At the time, I was actually working as a researcher. And I just kept it and kept it safe and stewarded it and as I saw, you know, cases, I would kind of add to it on the side. And in 2020, as again, like there's been more rising up of indigenous peoples across the nation in the state of Alaska, I saw a real need and an urgent timing for us to be able to put out the information and to equip our people with the information, they need to self determine change on this. And so we founded that a friend of the Janus justice just in 2020. So we're only three years old now. But we, you know, lead with the intentionality that our families came and shared their names for a reason. And that was to create change. And so that's kind of the short story of how we got started. But it really came from the community and our families who carried this work for so long. Gonna ask

Yulia Laricheva  1:56:29

a follow up question, how are you using the database right now? And what have you learned from that database?

Dr. Charlene Aqpik Apok  1:56:36

Oh, my gosh, that's a big question. So stewarding that is a really big responsibility. And initially, it was to have it and it still is today, is to have a centralized place of information. Because again, there hasn't been one because of lack of accountability to the state and agencies and law enforcement, etc. And so it does continue to be the most accurate database, which I can tell a little bit tell you a little bit about. And so and then I'll answer the question, how it's used our database that data for indigenous justice is more accurate than any of the information that law even law enforcement has. Because in our database, for example, we have cases that are often misclassified. So we have cases where it wasn't considered a suspicious homicide, or a suspicious situation, or there were cases that are maybe misclassified as suicide that the family believes was homicide, et cetera, et cetera. And those are cases where again, we walk in live in our truth of our stories, and that data is represented in our database, because again, that's the aspect of decolonizing data that we operate off of the truthful place from our lived experiences. And so those cases, for example, are all in our database. Whereas at the state, they're classified as something different and not part of the missing and murdered indigenous peoples data that the state has. And then how we're able to use that data. First and foremost, we put out a report in 2021. So in less than a year after we incorporated, you know, we wanted to really make sure that we were sharing out the things that we were learning as we home these cases, when you're so intimately involved with the complexities of each case, you begin to see it becomes very transparent all of the data gaps, and all the ways that we go missing in data. And so I started to see those patterns. And we and we wrote it down. And we myself in the board, we put out the first of all my WG two s report for Alaska in 2021. That was a baseline basically. And so what I tried to do was to high point, the ways that we worked through different areas from anything from basic demographic, data and misclassification of cases to jurisdiction as a high point just to, again, kind of just offer something out that we could work off of as a baseline. And so that report has still been really pivotal for information that we have here in Alaska. It's been cited in legislation. It's been cited in the governor's proclamation to recognize May 5 as MMI WG Awareness Day. It's been used in local initiatives as well as municipalities. And so again, like so many times in our truth as indigenous people, it wasn't being recognized, families weren't being believed. And so, with that report, we're able to say no, this is really happening. And this is a problem in our community, not just the native country, right. This is a problem of all people and be able to document it and that's something like that. I I have to tell people like this isn't us just like writing down cases that are happening happening it is. But in addition to is the documentation of this of our lives and our truth and our stories that wasn't happening before.

Yulia Laricheva  2:00:14

Because I talked to Anitta Lucchesi and she told me about her database. And it sounds like your database is also incorporating a lot of the family stories and a lot of the background like, basically giving a persona to each person that's missing. So they're not just like a name.

Dr. Charlene Aqpik Apok  2:00:31

Humanizing the data is such an important part and props to Annita. So I had heard of Anytus work with sovereign bodies Institute, while she was a student, she still is, and she's finishing a PhD soon to be Dr. Anita, I remember I had reached out because again, I had this database that I was stewarding and caring for. And so I reached out to a Anita and just asked like, lots of questions about what it was like to steward the data, what software is being used, you know, anything from just the functionality to being able to take care of herself and be well in this work. And so I really uplift her, because when their database, that was the first one in the nation. And secondly, like she really was so open and giving with, like, sharing how I could move that forward for us in Alaska. But you know, their work really led the way for us to be able to do what we're doing here in Alaska.

Yulia Laricheva  2:01:30

Yes, it's very important work. And you know, I was going to ask you about it, you know, there are some differences that exist between indigenous data gathering and the Western approach. And I was wondering if he can talk a little bit about the two. And you know, how they're different basically.

Dr. Charlene Aqpik Apok  2:01:47

Yeah, so I shared a little bit one, like a very concrete example of how we steward the data and track it and harvest it based on the foundation of believing our stories. And oftentimes, we see in victimization, right, there's so much victim blaming, there's so much dismissal, and things like that, that even to operate off of the truth of our lives makes a huge difference of how that work is carried out. And so first and foremost, we operate off of the truth in from our lived experiences. And then that means that we have information that's very different than the state. The other thing about indigenous data keeping, I think, is that in Western colonial ways, right, is that actually, this this data, and this information from the get go even census data, right? I often tell people, that's a huge thing that everyone is familiar with, it happens all, you know, it recurs. And just even going back the census, information was never meant to service, it was meant to exterminate us as indigenous peoples. And the lingering of that in the presence of that today, you know, Urban Indian Health Institute talks about it is data genocide. And that is a continuation of data genocide that we still have to navigate today. And why I'm saying that is, western systems of data weren't meant to surface they weren't meant to benefit us. And our data that we keep, and that we store has always meant to be for the benefit of the people. The only reason we gather data and information, you know, as indigenous peoples and researchers continues and has always been to benefit us as a collective. And that is such that there's a vast worldview of one trying to extinguish us as in our existence, to us working to be a thriving healthy people. And so the modality of, of what we operate off of is very different. And, like, viscerally like, as someone who lives in this world, you cannot disconnect the heart from the mind. As an indigenous researcher, I can't just only compartmentalised my mind on something, you know, I do this with my full heart, which, you know, when we were checking in at the beginning, that's why the things that I'll share on this podcast are the same things I'm going to share with the US Attorney General's Office, you know, because through and through, we have to be a whole person and we have to use our heart and our mind the same rod. So it isn't, it isn't effective. Also, like if I only were to try to operate with just my mind, it wouldn't get us anywhere, it wouldn't be a service to our people, you know, we have to lead with our heart and be able to do this. And it also like it isn't sustainable if I tried to do this without heart like, you know, that's not going to serve anyone. So I think like the the ways that we keep data and the ways that we steward data and do research and ask the questions that we ask, come from that place of connecting the heart and the mind and moving forward from there.

Yulia Laricheva  2:04:58

My next question His, what are some ways that data can be decolonized?

Dr. Charlene Aqpik Apok  2:05:05

Oh, yeah, it's being decolonized all the time, right. And I think, again, like one of the things that I try when I do workshops, or if I have the opportunity is try to make visible the ways that we have always been researchers, as indigenous peoples, we have always been data collectors, we have always done this, right. And so sometimes it just takes a little bit for people to understand that we have always done this, and then realize that it's not very different than how we operate even on a daily basis, right, we're always taking in information from around us sorting it, in order to inform the next thing. You know, that's, that's really what it is, we're always analyzing and taking in information. And so first is like making sure that it's relatable, like people are equating and seeing themselves within the data. And again, oftentimes in a colonial system, we see information that we can't relate to, and we're not represented in it for very intentional reasons and purposes. And so when we decolonize data, we make sure that our families, communities, tribal members, indigenous peoples, can look at this information see themselves in that and that's really powerful. How can we do it is we do it in lots of different ways. We, you know, we have a lot of folks in our communities who are starting to use these tools. Sometimes they say, like, we don't have to use, right, the quote about the colonizers tools Will Never Dismantle you know, the colonizers house, but we don't have to use those tools that said, right, like, we can use western systems, Western degrees, methods, research, etc. We don't have to use it in the way that it was intended, we can do colonize it and use it as a weapon right to fight back, and to come back for everything that we've that we was taken from us. And so that's something to like, I think that decolonizing data, and doing indigenous research and having indigenous methodologies and scholarship is incredibly useful. And it doesn't mean that we're complacent and working in a Western colonial system, it means that we're using everything around us, right to serve our people. And there's nothing wrong with that. And there's lots of ways that we decolonize data that we decolonize research, to ultimately, again, serve our people.

Yulia Laricheva  2:07:30

I was going to ask you, what data have you seen in regards to MMIW cases in Alaska, you have this database, and you also talk to so many families? What's happening right now in Alaska?

Dr. Charlene Aqpik Apok  2:07:45

Stewarding the data and being within (right - not sure of this word)? Well, one of the things is, like we say, one of the things we try to do is humanize the data. Because many state agencies, and folks in this in this work, who are non Indigenous don't see the humanity of our family members who have gone missing or murdered. And to work in this work and to steward this database as I do, I do see the full humanity of each and every person. And so the way that that impacts me, and the ways that I carry those stories, I feel very viscerally deeply in my heart. And it's not easy to to see the 700 Plus lines of names that I am fully aware, are deeply loved and miss people in our community, every person in our database, I recognize as a person that was full of hopes and dreams that had a place of belonging in our community that contributed to the wellness, the vitality of us as Alaska native and indigenous people. And every single person then is such a huge loss that we mourn so deeply. And the ways that we know, we've lost these people are unfathomably violent, and it's, it's awful, you know, and so what I see through the data, you know, yes, I have all in my little excels, you know, cells in spreadsheets, but I see loved ones I see people who are more and I see people who their lives, you know, they they live such beautiful lives. And that's another part of this work is we often have to share about the ways that we lost our loved ones as the center In order to be heard, and it hasn't left a lot of room for families to be able to share how their loved ones lived, and how important that is, as part of this story of being able to also say this is part of the data, this is part of our lived experience. This is our story and our truth. And my loved one lived in this beautiful way. And this is their story life, not just like the story of their death, right? That's another shift that I think needs to be made. Slowly but surely, in the stories we tell, and as we do this work on a pathway to justice.

Yulia Laricheva  2:10:41

So it sounds like the database has 700 lines, it does that mean, there are more than 700 names in there? Is it like 1400? Or?

Dr. Charlene Aqpik Apok  2:10:51

Yeah, so all it's hard. It's hard to a kid again, every every question you asked, it answered a long story.

Yulia Laricheva  2:11:01

It's okay, it's a podcast long stories are welcome here.

Dr. Charlene Aqpik Apok  2:11:05

So we, again, I mentioned how the database came about. And then I was slowly adding to it. And in 2021, when we put out our report, the first Alaska specific report is called we are calling to you even that title, you should ask me about the title. That's a different story. But that report is called we're calling to you, and it's on our website. And in that report, when I first did, I was, you know, writing the report with my board, and the co authors and who all know are all indigenous woman, that report was written by all indigenous women. And I was doing the final poll to put into that report, I did the final poll, and it came up as 229 missing and murdered indigenous women and girls here in Alaska. And to share that even today, it kind of still gives me chills, because in Alaska, we have 229 federally recognized tribes here in the state. And that number is so familiar to folks. And that really spoke to me, it's not quote, coincidence, right? I think it was very telling that the number that we had in our database at that time, represents how many tribes we have here in Alaska, and that it really shows that we are all impacted, that no tribe is missed that we all are impacted by this issue. And so that was the first report. And then as I said, we continue to steward the data. And I can give whole presentation on the methodologies of doing that it's a little messy, again, because there isn't adequate systems in place to do this well, but we've been adding on to it by means of I can just briefly say, by either when families come to me and share their stories, we also do Freedom of Information Act requests, FOIA requests. And then social media as well, is a very powerful tool, actually. And so we have quite mixed methodology of continuing to add to that database. And right now, we, you know, I don't have it in front of me, but at my last class, we had well over 700. And so between 2021, and it's 2023. Now, we went from 229 to over 700. And what does that mean, you know, does that mean that we've had that many cases in that much time? Does that mean, you know, what does that actually mean? And what that means is that we've been again, documenting that this is happening. And that also means that, yes, we continue to have disproportionate amounts of homicide and missing folks continually. And we are also doing a better job of actually tracking our own people. And that's really what I think those numbers tell us is that there's a huge difference when again, indigenous peoples are asking the questions and doing the documenting versus the state or law enforcement. You know, that looks very different. And so some of those cases, I often get a lot of questions about Oh, so you know, from 2021 to 2023, you had eczema cases. No, it isn't that clean because again, the the nuances of the data fields are not that clean. And some people also often ask, okay, like, your database is from one of the issues is digitization of data, and many agencies don't have The cases digitized from 2000. Since before 2009, for example, some of them 2013. And so even for FOIA requests, I'm only able to pull from, you know, so far back. And we have people on families in our communities who have come to me with names. So for example, I think of two cases, an elder came to me many years ago and told me the story of some cases from the 60s that happened in their community. And I have those two names in there from the 60s, right, that you probably can't find or do a poll on or there was no media coverage. And so I have those names in there. And that's good. But I don't have data consistently from the 60s. Right. And so there's lots of complexity and nuances to each of the data fields and what that that means. And I tried to delay what that means when I showed the information. And so you can see, the report that we've put out thus far, has quite a bit of information. And we've gotten a lot even in that short amount of time about what we can say we haven't don't have,

Yulia Laricheva  2:16:06

And I was gonna follow up and ask you about the name. How did the name come about?

Dr. Charlene Aqpik Apok  2:16:10

Oh, the title of the report? Oh, my goodness. Yeah. So the, you know, we were writing and there was a lot to put in there that we we couldn't put in there. And there were lots of ways to shape it. Would it be policy focus? Would it be, you know, et cetera, et cetera. And, of course, we wanted the first report to serve our families and our communities, first and foremost. And we're like, what, you know, what should we call this, and I try really hard to make sure that this work is healing center, that it doesn't center violence. And I kind of mentioned that a little bit ago, about focusing on the ways that our loved ones lived versus the ways that they died. And that also means in writing, and the ways that we talk about this issue, we have to be cognizant of our wording. And so the title of the report was really important. And when I was sitting with our leadership and our board at data for indigenous justice, you know, we sit and we share story about where we're from, and stories we heard growing up and our cultural stories. And I remember just really hearing all the stories that we were sharing, and it came to me as we are calling to you. And the reason that we put that title in is we are calling to folks to take action, no matter who you are, whether you're part of the indigenous community or not, but we are calling to you to do something because I truly believe that everyone can be a part of the solution. And as an Inuit person, I'm a new back. So Inuit are in the circumpolar north. And we have a practice of throat singing, where women to women would often be paired together as young children, and then they grew up together. And one of the practices would be throat singing, where you would call and respond back to one another desert singing. And as we have so many women from identifying people in our communities that have been lost, it really felt like, much like the practice of throat singing that was stolen and taken away our voices, right? We are literally missing as Indigenous women, too, we're missing that other woman that we're supposed to be paired with in life that we're supposed to be able to call to, that we're supposed to be able to respond to. And so, us being able to put out that call, we want that response back. We want our women back, we want our sisters back. We want our cultural practices that were stolen, restored, and we're doing that work today. But it was fitting in many ways of we are calling to you asking for that response, both in the ways that we know of our traditional practices and stories, and on the broader work of seeking justice for missing and murdered indigenous women and girls in Two Spirit, folks,

Yulia Laricheva  2:19:21

And you brought up social media, too. And I was gonna ask you how social media helps you with tracking down cases as well.

Dr. Charlene Aqpik Apok  2:19:28

Social media is a really, again, we're being censored because it's powerful, plain and simple. Anytime that we are not being heard or that our voices are diminished or silenced. It is because we are recognized as powerful. And so I think like oftentimes, well, I just won't I won't go down that bonito. But media is such a powerful tool because it connects us. And it's a way that we are seen and heard. And so in data A it is also a very powerful tool. Because let's say, I have a, you know, someone has a family member, let's I'll just give an example. There's an auntie, and her daughter goes missing, let's say, and what is she going to do? First? She's often going to put it on Facebook or social media have you seen so and so? You know, and maybe it's a simple post, like sometimes you see people tagging their family member, you know, hey, Charlene, call me, your phone isn't ringing. You know, we see that a lot in our small communities especially, or people will say, in a small community, they'll post on Facebook, have someone stopped by my, you know, they'll say, have someone so stop by my house, because it's such a good way to communicate, especially in our small communities. And so simply, oftentimes, it's the first tool that people pick up in use when someone has gone missing. Likewise, it's a, it's a tool that is frequently used, where people say the most about their lives, where they're at, what they're doing, who they're hanging out with. And so there's a vast amount of information out there that we could use for this. And we do use and so at data friended, as Justice there happens to be missing pages, there's quite a few actually, even just here in Alaska, where people will post and reshare their loved ones, even if there hasn't been a police report. And that's the important part about saying that is that oftentimes, again, people will use it first. And they'll do it in lieu of, or before they do have a missing persons report before they file anything. So in that way, it is also most up to date. And it's coming directly from the family. Like it's accurate, right, it's the family identifying themselves versus again tried to check the correct boxes in a in a law enforcement form. Social media plays a huge part in data. So what we often do is, in these pages, we can see ones that are most recent, we can see ones for families haven't chosen for lots of reasons, often mistrust of law enforcement as well, to file a police report. And so again, we're gathering and seeing more cases there that are even available to be pulled in any data system. And I'll just also just share personally, my cousin was Samantha Koneko, of barista here in Alaska that many Alaskan Snow was abducted, kidnapped and murdered from a stand up barista stand, a coffee shop here in Anchorage. And the community really came together on trying to find her. And a big part of that was on social media is sharing out the flyers, right and getting that information out. And after all of that, there's a group now it's called seeking Alaska is missing. It was a page that was started then, because we saw how useful social media was as a tool to find and share information about our loved ones. That page was started. And now I think there's over 20,000 members in that page. So you're you have a reach of 20,000 people to get eyes and ears on information, which is again, really powerful. So not everyone is going to sit there and read, you know, the police department's webpage notices. They're on Facebook. So, again, it's a hugely powerful tool.

Yulia Laricheva  2:23:34

I'm so sorry for your loss. You know, as I do these podcasts, too, oh, my voice is starting to like crack because I hear all these stories. And as usual, you know, like, I'm not expecting to hear these stories, but everybody has these stories. And I just want to say I'm I'm really sorry for your loss. And also I'm wondering if they ever tracked down whoever did it. Did they find the Merson?

Dr. Charlene Aqpik Apok  2:23:56

Yeah, so that's a highly prolific case, which again, through social media has a lot of credit to that, but we she was kidnapped or abducted and murdered. And yes, her killer was found. And he was sentenced. And he he ended up committing suicide while imprisoned, but he was sentenced and put in jail and ended up actually that who is a serial killer? Yeah, that's a it's a pretty prolific case. So a lot of folks are, are familiar with, but Samantha was my little cousin and she has a lot of love in our family. And she has a lot of siblings who care so much about her and her parents went above and beyond their any parents should be called to do for a child. And so again, in her story really brought together community here, and I do actually think the police department here did an outstanding job on that and investigation.

Yulia Laricheva  2:25:01

My final question to you is, what are some ways we can create change, to help stop the crisis in America, because it's such a complex issue, there's really not like one thing we can do. So it's so difficult, but I was like, we can do something a is create awareness, because people don't know this is happening unless you're like indigenous, or you follow news or you care, you care, basically. 

Dr. Charlene Aqpik Apok  2:25:25

So awareness raising is still really important. Yes, we've come a long way in raising awareness. We've done lots of rallies, marches, data keeping, et cetera. And sometimes people think that doing a rally doesn't do anything? Well, it does. It does, because it raises awareness and activates people into their power. And so yes, to all the rallies, the marches, you know, I fully support communities still doing what they need to do to raise awareness, because then that translates into an empowered body of people who are going to take that next step into creating solutions, which is the second part of my answer is that I do believe that everyone needs to be a part of the solution. Does everyone need to have the same answer? No, because that isn't going to work. This is a systemic issue, and a require systemic solutions. And that means people like you on a podcast, using what you have available as a platform for this issue. That is the right answer for you. Because that's the work that you do. It's the skills that you have, and you're going to amplify the voices of the people doing work. And I need people with other skills I need I need a bunch of lawyers, actually, I need to have a law degree yesterday, but we need the policy makers we need, we need everybody to be doing their part. And so it isn't one answer, it's the answer is that people need to be doing their part with what they have and where they're at. And everyone has power in their own way. And they need to be using it in the space that they're in. And our spaces are different. Maybe that's someone who does work at the state, maybe that is someone in law enforcement, maybe it is, you know, my neighbor showing up at a talk and educating and learning and that they can use it in their spaces, right to be able to speak to the issue and be a good ally. And so the I always invite people in to be a part of the solution. And people often wonder what they can do. But I asked them, what can you do? What are your skills? What do you have some people have access to funds, you know, get us that hook up with funds, you know, to to get to support the indigenous peoples who are leading this effort, right? So it can look like lots of different things. It could look like people who work in policy, helping draft all these resolutions and the bills that we're we're trying to put forward, you know, so can look like lots of different things. But there isn't one answer, except for that we need everyone to be on board. And you know, policy without humanizing that keeps coming up in our conversation. policy without humanizing is never going to stop violence, and it never has. And so as we continue to share our story, yes, it's hard to hear yes, it's hard to know about the things that are happening in our community. But that is where it's going to affect change is by being able to honor stories and truth. And, you know, it's kind of full circle of this conversation. Because we cannot move forward and have impactful policy that's going to change anything without the humanization of of the data. You know, we've had folks say, policy has never stopped violence in my life. And why is that? Right? So yes, it isn't to diminish the importance of policy, we absolutely need it. But we need it in conjunction and hand in hand, in tandem with humanization of data and humanization of these real lived experiences. So yeah, I think there's a lot of solutions. The other thing is I was just on my that other call prior to this, you know, I really asked people to be creative with their solutions. We think like we we have to use these formulated things or work within the systems that exist. And we know that these systems aren't working. It's evident in 1000 ways. So why are we insist on continuing to use them be creative here, you know, like, let's think outside of the box, what if you're telling me like you can't do this or that that data system is not going to change? Well, then I'm going to ask the next question. What do we need to do, then, you know, to change it. And someone recently told me, you know, as we're working in the intersection of human trafficking data, we have very, you know, there's lots of overlap there. The you're asking questions that are going to take an act of Congress to change I was like, well, then that's what we need. It doesn't discourage me. If the answer is an act of Congress, said, Come on Congress. So, you know, I think being creative and asking the right questions that get at the solution that isn't to dodge, you know, that sort of thing is I see a lot of folks like, they want to ask questions that are easy to answer. And I'm not looking for easy answers, you know, that is unlikely going to get us anywhere. So I think like being creative is really important. And being able to think outside of the box and creating solutions to.

Yulia Laricheva  2:30:41

Thank you for tuning into the show. It's a very difficult effort to find all this knowledge and put it together because so much is out there. And also, so much of the knowledge is not out there as well. And I really wish that I could have included more interviews and more people, but there's only so much time that I have on the show. Throughout the show. I've been actively trying to figure out how I can help beyond Amplifying Voices, you know, beyond amplifying the podcast like what more can we all do collectively, and I'm always looking for new ways to innovate and to amplify the MMIW cause. So if you have any ideas, please reach out on Instagram or on Tik Tok. Send me a DM and I love to brainstorm ways we can create campaigns or just help amplify more voices basically. I think Dr. Aqpik Apok said it best, right? We all do our best, whatever we can. And I really, really take that to heart. And I hope more people get involved, right? Maybe we can create some national or local TV ads. Maybe we can rent some billboards, lots of ideas, and I'd love to hear them from you. And if there are any companies that are you know, they want to come forward and sponsor these initiatives for the people who are doing them. I will gladly connect you to them. And I would love for everything to be you know, indigenous led also hoping maybe we can get some policies and acted as well. You know, how can we shed a light on the missing and murdered indigenous people crisis? And how can we have these cases that are still pending? Or haven't even been opened? How can we get them to be opened? How can we get the FBI to look into them? Our next Episode Episode Three should be out in the few months. These episodes take a lot of research and a lot of interviews. So please be patient. And please, share, share, share these episodes with someone who can find them helpful. Have a good day.

Kae Burke is the Co-Founder of House Of Yes in Bushwick, Brooklyn. As well as the Creative Director of Yes Etc Creative Agency. HOY was recently named the #2 Best Thing To Do in the World by Time Out New York. The venue is internationally celebrated for fostering self-expression and nurturing emerging artists of all genres. Their events lead the way for developing safer spaces and consent culture.

On the show Kae talks about going to fashion school with Anya Sapozhnikova and how they created HOY. Kae also speaks about how the House Of Yes fosters an inclusive culture and how costumes and self-expression go hand-in-hand. As well as how the pandemic has changed the party landscape and we delve into the ways people have started to be more mindful of their consumption. Her new Creative Agency is called Yes Etc and we talk about what it was like to open an experiential agency during a pandemic and where she finds inspiration.

Transcript

Yulia Laricheva 00:06

Hey friends, welcome to another episode of dream nation love. I'm your host, Yulia. And I want to remind you to subscribe to my newsletter on Dream Nation Love on the Instagram page. So just go there and hit the link in the bio and find it. It has a lot of awesome little giveaways every month, like books and fun little information about women diversity and social impact that you are going to love. So please share it with a friend. Today on the show I interview the amazing Kay Burke, who is one of the co founders of House of Yes, along with Anya suborning COVID. But today on the show, I only speak with k has to be so super fun. If you haven't been to one of their events, then you're missing out. They have global events now. So you definitely have to go. Now, I bet you didn't know but how's to be us originally started out as a creative events face and also a circus Theatre in Williamsburg. And I've been in Williamsburg for over 16 years. And I do remember them opening up. So talk about like throwing a good party, right. K is also the creative director of Yes, etc. Creative. And on this podcast, we talk about how K designs inclusive experiences, how the pandemic has changed party culture, and what a person who throws parties for a living does for fun. You know, I was really, really curious. And he told me all about it. So enjoy the podcast and share it with a friend. Have a great day. Okay, welcome to the show. It is so exciting to have you here. Because we've been meaning to make this happen for a while. And you are here in front of me.

Kae Burke 01:44

Well, thank you. Yeah. Thanks for having me.

Yulia Laricheva 01:48

Thanks. I really enjoy the work that you do at the House Of Yes. And I really miss going to the House Of Yes, because I am a mom now. So I don't really have any more fun. So I live vicariously through people's posts.

Kae Burke 02:00

We have a lot of I have to say we have a lot of moms with moms and dads anxieties. There's totally a culture for party moms.

Yulia Laricheva 02:09

As yes, no, there is. But it's like right now she's like, almost 15 months with you have a sleep schedule. And it's a routine. I need a babysitter and all that stuff. But I digress. Back to the house of Yes. Which is doing so much stuff. And that's what I really wanted to talk to you about it. And I wanted to take it way back and and see how early this idea started. Or if it even started. It's such a small age. But when you were a kid, you probably had a dream. What was your dream as a kid?

Kae Burke 02:38

I don't remember. I feel like I wanted to be a dolphin, a mermaid, a unicorn, a dog. I got to those dreams got to come true. Because as a performance artist, dancer, professional, performance weirdo. I got I've definitely dressed up and performed as all those things. And now I also get to have other people dress up and perform as any kind of creature of imagination that they wish. So I think my dreams as a kid ended up coming true. Now that that you mentioned it.

Yulia Laricheva 03:15

I love that. Well, you went to art school. Right? You started this with Anya. Yes. And so you both started it. And you started this out of art school too, as I recall. And then I read a little bit about how agree right? Like you were like, doing all these things you were like, doing still on he was doing still it's all those different work. But what was the exact moment that has to be asked came to fruition that you're like, we must do this. This is going to be a business, right?

Kae Burke 03:40

Oh, yeah.

Yulia Laricheva 03:40

What was the transition from art kid to business person.

Kae Burke 03:44

I mean, that took it really took years. And it's interesting about the creative process itself and the creative process of House of Yes is it was quite organic. It was not a decision unnecessarily. It's a series of choices, that ended up creating a reality, and organically growing and evolving into what it is now. But it wasn't oh my god, we're gonna do this. And here's the business plan. And here's the strategy, not so clear, not so clear cut. It came from, you know, of course me and Anya meeting in high school in Rochester making art together. And sometimes that was music. Sometimes it was scavenger hunts. Sometimes it was sewing. And the sewing actually really sparked a lot of joy and expression and took us into fashion school. So we both ended up going to fit in New York City. And we were young. We moved here at 18. So in addition to going to fashion school, we were also making weird costumes out of trash and going to dance parties, you know, making friends it was we only really knew each other in New York. We didn't have a huge community whatsoever. So it was really going to these dance parties and dressing up like maniac weirdos that started connecting us to these different scenes and serve roles within the city. So once that starts to evolve, we just ended up playing with these different mediums, sculpture and installation grew out of that. Doing more performance art, stilt walking grew out of our costume design and wanting to just be extravagant creatures of the night. And so participating in these parties is what really sparked a lot of choices and therefore opportunities that self propelled into really needing more space when you're creating on such a multifaceted multi dimensional multi genre level. You know, we're making more than just costumes or you know, really started to need more space and especially in New York being a very expensive city even in Brooklyn even what is this I'm talking about? It was still we didn't really come from money broke broke as artists and it was always if you wanted space to create it typically meant you would be in a live work situation. A live work loft because just the way that the city and the real estate works a lot of times those places were illegal.

Yulia Laricheva 06:10

Rubulad I think was a bunch of artists paying their rent through by throwing parties every month in the giant loft.

Kae Burke 06:16

Yeah and Rubulad was some of the first parties me and Anya on your went to that really sparked our community building. Even before we went to Burning Man, you know, on people can sense a Burning Man DNA within House Of Yes, like, yeah, there's Burning Man. But there's also realized and rebuild came from predecessors before that, that were inspired by, you know, spaces in maybe the 60s, 70s, and 80s You know, so there's a there's really like a lineage and legacy to New York underground party culture, performance art culture, and really celebration spaces so it sounds like an honor to still be representing that and hopefully inspiring people for the future who come maybe House Of Yes is their first weird party zone and they make some other expression of their own space. Basically the first House Of Yes. Anya was offered this loft from a friend of ours will attendee who threw parties but danger parties in warehouses back before Bushwick was yeah and of course they were like illegal warehouse raves but really artfully done and really cool. So yeah, this launch became available like on you sign the lease gutted it decorated it and that was the first House Of Yes, I moved in a couple months later and we just we just wrapped it with make art and have some parties do some circus tricks. Have some sewing parties it was rad.

Yulia Laricheva 06:16

Yeah cuz you do aerial right? You still do aerial or you partake in it.

Kae Burke 07:33

You know, I really I used to perform a lot Anya is still performing aerial one of the best aerialists, I'd say in the world and amazing doubles aerialist and yeah, I love aerial for the strength, the confidence the workout, the muscle tone, took me a while to understand from performing aerial for quite a long time. I'm just like, damn, I'm more of a clown. I'm a character actor. I'm a clown. I just, that's my happy zone. And I love working out in aerial, it's always really stressed me out to perform it. So I really like I love to grunt I love to grunt and sweat and climb and feel of your muscles. I absolutely adore that. But when it comes down to being in the spotlight, I'm much more comfortable and expressive on a microphone, or making a total fool of myself is definitely more my joy space.

Yulia Laricheva 08:29

Yeah, I'm used to I started going to Brooklyn, I think in ‘99/98, ‘99. And then I moved to New York in 2004. But I remember there was a space where the Apple Store is now and they had this huge area loft, and they had kung fu in there for a while. But they were teaching aerial classes for a while. So anytime anybody was doing aerial, he just popped in there. And it was like such a cool off. But now everything is Equinox and Apple and it's just it's not the creative space where it was before it just morphed over time.

Kae Burke 08:59

Yeah.

Yulia Laricheva 08:59

My thing is the House Of Yes, was very inclusive. And it's interesting how the culture has changed. And obviously, you've added to that club culture changing. And I was going to ask you, what is your recipe for fostering that inclusive temple of self-expression?

Kae Burke 09:14

How's the House Of Yes is intrinsically inclusive, because our creative culture has been inclusive art and collaboration has been inclusive. That was a part of our we were inclusive before it was intentional before it was a cultural buzzword. And it's actually been a very interesting cultural challenge to maintain the inclusivity while protecting and curating the vibe. There have been times when we've experienced like, wow, there's way too many bros way too many type, a type of person that isn't really tuned in or aligned with some of our values or some of our ways that we dictate that a good time is what we set out to be and so we've had to adjust one point we end up doing costumes mandatory. It's not mandatory any longer. But for while we're like, oh, if we want our parties to be the vibe that we are putting out there that are our highest self, this template expression that we set out to be, then our favorite parties are the ones where everybody's wearing costumes. So they know who hates wearing costumes is angry, insecure, homophobic, transphobic, there's something about wearing costumes that feels like too feminine for certain kind of person, especially especially a male identified person. So that became a good idea for a little bit. And then eventually, that became too exclusive because it wasn't accessible, like wearing a costume to a party is sometimes not accessible to certain people. And it actually wasn't being as as inclusive as we intended. So it has been, I would say, it's been an experiment. And it's the journey that we are still on the path of just getting walking the line between inclusivity and creative curation of the audience.

Yulia Laricheva 10:56

For a while you had like a costume rental car outside too, that if you didn't have a costume, you could rent it, which was so fabulous, because sometimes you're like, you just want to mix up your costume to if you're going yeah, if you can afford it. That's another question of who can afford to dress up? And that's a bigger discussion.

Kae Burke 11:11

Yeah, yeah, it was pretty cheap to like our standards, but different people have different different standards of what they find affordable, too. So we've got to be aware of that.

Yulia Laricheva 11:19

And it's so important to have a space where like women, and LGBTQ people can just feel safe. Yeah, like where you can just really be safe. We go, I'm not I'm gonna actually have a good time tonight. It's not going to be crazy.

Kae Burke 11:19

Yeah, we can do it. Of course, we're dealing with human beings who are unpredictable, and so many levels. So the best we can ever do is create a space that is safer. And as safe as possible. There's, we always say that there's really no such thing as a safe space. Unfortunately, this wild world of chaos and, and all possibilities being possible. It's like, we can at least make it as safe as possible.

Yulia Laricheva 11:54

That's interesting. You talked about costumes, do you think costumes make people like, open up and be their true selves, or like they put on personas with it, I just thought of that. I was like, like, what makes people friendlier when they put on costumes like it just like customs just improve everything.

Kae Burke 12:11

It really does. Different people, even myself, you can have a different, different experience, even in the same costume. So let's say one night really is like a full persona and it influences how you act behave or experienced your night. And then other nights, you might just feel like hot and it feels more like you. It depends on what journey you choose to take with that particular look. I just love, I love people dressing up because it's really them expressing themselves. And I feel like a different persona or an alter ego and a different look. And a different costume is an expression of the self. The self has many ways of expressing, like our ego, or our personality that we've assigned to ourselves is not it's not as clear cut as being one flavor, or one one behavior.

Yulia Laricheva 12:55

Totally. And I was gonna ask you like how has the pandemic changed the party landscape in NYC and globally? I see the house of yes is doing parties and a lot of different places like Aspen and stuff. But how has the pandemic changed the party landscape has been interesting, I feel people have a deeper appreciation for parties and party people.

Kae Burke 13:14

People are definitely more self-aware, I've experienced, there's this interesting thing where people are, to my knowledge really consuming last, like less substances are necessary. A lot of people really have to check themselves before they wreck themselves when depends on it. And they're like, oh my god, like what are these habits and substances and coping mechanisms that we've almost not been aware of until the party stopped? You know, like, oh, wow, like whether substance use continued? Well, even without the rave, a lot of people are being much kinder to their bodies much kinder to themselves, but just practicing a lot more wellness has come into the conversation. A lot of people have cut down their alcohol, of course, people are still drinking and there's lines of the bars and people still like alcohol, I can just speak to speak to more. My friend group and myself included, I've cut back a lot compared to what I was consuming and doing in 2019. Oh my goodness. How can I keep up with that? That's crazy. And so I've just yeah, I've just observed a lot of people being partying and celebrating in a more mindful way.

Yulia Laricheva 14:18

That's interesting. You think it can go either way, in a pandemic, you know, you're either like tuned in to what was happening before and you modify the behavior or you just turn it up a notch and you just go I'm leaning into this and I'm just it's interesting because it was like looking at statistics for pandemics in the in the US and the domestic abuse goes up drinking goes up. And I think it's interesting that we have places like House Of Yes, that can give you a break from everything to that you can still have fun and you can like still have a little bit of alcohol, but you might not have to go like all the way.

Kae Burke 14:48

Yeah.

Yulia Laricheva 14:48

So it's a way for people to get out of the house too because everybody feels trapped.

Kae Burke 14:52

I think that's it. I think people appreciate a night out so much more because they know what life is like without it too.

Yulia Laricheva 14:58

Yeah, and it's special. You're like okay, I'm gonna go out and like, it's a lot harder to make it out the door these days. So you become a little bit more mindful about your time and your flow and your energy. You know, I was thinking also about, Yes Etc, which is your agency that you opened up during a pandemic? What was it like to open an agency during a pandemic?

Kae Burke 15:16

It was great, because I had time to open it. And it's called Yes Etc. And it's our creative experiential agency. So a lot of it was just inspired by the creations work and ideas that we've already been doing for ourselves as a brand and also just tons of these partnerships and collaborations with brands like Hennessy, Virgin Voyages, OKCupid, Perrier, we've done these really cool creative arts activation, customized specific parties that I felt like, really expanded what we could do from an experience perspective. And yeah, I was just like, wow, this is what agencies do. Like we should get paid like an agency, we should do more this more this work, because it's, it's honestly fun, I really taking the essential DNA of House of Yes. And the magic we create and seeing how it plays in different spaces, or different partners, or even in different countries, we've been really lucky to do a couple of pop-ups in 2019, we were in Sydney, Australia, we were starting to plan something in China of all places, which got shut down. But it was Yeah, part of the Yes Etc. It is really to see Etc. It's the extra, it's the expansiveness of, of what has House Of Yes is capable of.

Yulia Laricheva 16:34

Yeah, I remember seeing the Virgin Voyager, the voyage ship in the harbor when it was there. And I was like, That looks amazing. I want to be on it. And then I saw that you were doing work with it. And I was like, whatever it is, it's gonna be amazing. Because it's awesome. Yes. And it's virgin. And those are to like, amazing brands. And it's exciting. And that seems like just such a natural progression, right? Because you're already putting on events, you're already doing production. And you're already creative. So it's just a bigger extension of the work that you're doing. And you have your own space, which a lot of ad agencies don't have.

Kae Burke 17:04

Right, exactly. That's that is like we're our own kind of like Hospitality Group, nightlife legacy space that also is able to pop up and play with other stuff and make it cool and make it more heartfelt and heart centered.

Yulia Laricheva 17:17

Totally. And I was gonna ask you, where do you find creative inspiration you like just seem to be like a magician, like pulling things out of the box? And like, how do they do it? They have like multiple events, like, multiple times a week, on same day, over and over again. But like, how do you find a creative inspiration? How do you like keep going? It's how do you keep the engines turning .

Kae Burke 17:39

Here's the thing, is that you just like a balanced diet, there's no one space that you find or feed your inspiration. So honestly, I would say like other artists, other humans conversations collaborations, like I just think that's one of the gifts of socializing with really intentional collaborative way, like even just being chatting with somebody backstage, and you're just clicking mentally. And you're playing this great idea of ping-pong back and forth and your ideas. When you kind of have like a yes and improv, brainstorm moment with somebody, even if it's spontaneous, right? It's not like you schedule that. Let's have a good idea meeting. We do that too. But let's just say that my inspiration can come from a really spontaneous conversation with a really creative friend, artists collaborator, or a stranger, even at a dance party it or just like, that just sparks a part of your brain. And that's when the concepts and conversation realm but visually, honestly, like, I do find inspiration on Instagram, I'm sorry, I just do visually, I see some really freshed that I'm like, Wow, that's beautiful or weird, or funny. And so now I'm just kind of like collecting and saving stuff that resonates with me, or I'm, like, intriguing for whatever reason, whether it's a flyer or a meme, so. So I do, I do find inspiration there. But, you know, Bushwick and Brooklyn is inspiring. New York City's inspiring. Just go take a walk, and you'll find some inspiration if you're tapped in. Yeah. Pretty ripe with inspiration.

Yulia Laricheva 19:16

Yeah, it's almost like, you can go out any night and find something like it's just there's, there's a serendipity to New York and Brooklyn. And it's like on a given night, you can be anywhere like, you can have the most amazing time I remember once we went out with a bunch of friends, this was in the city and we try to go find a party, and I can't remember whose party it was. But it was like somewhere in Chelsea anyway, we ended up at a different we'd knocked on the wrong door and there was a couple and they were getting ready to go out and they were like, come on, and here's a bottle. She goes What's Next we'll go to your party with you. And we're like, this is totally random. These are like just a bunch of strangers like accommodating us. Like normally they would have been like, hey, six people go away, but they were like, Oh, cool. Come on it like hospitality inclusiveness and the party. be rolled on. That's like the beauty of New York that you meet like minded people and you travel and then you're like, This was somewhere I haven't been. And it's —

Kae Burke 20:07

I totally feel that New Yorkers have this amazing way of either being like, fuck off and putting up the walls, but really, it's actually quite inclusive and kind of like, alright, I really do find traveling and seeing seeing other places being another thing and other people's parties I find extremely inspiring. You just be like, wow, like, that's how their door works. So that's how their ticketing felt. This is how my experience out of bar, that's not how to be asked is, is really inspiring from as a as an experienced designer to a special especially minded artist, it's, it's cool. It's really cool to see, to just experience, experience other spaces and see what I love and like and dislike and bring it back to the homeland.

Yulia Laricheva 20:53

Especially going overseas to what I love is going to different places overseas and going to different parties, because that's like, every place has a different culture and a different world. And you're like I never even thought about it this way. Oh my gosh, if you go to a party in Mexico, it's a little different than going to a party in China or the window party in Abu Dhabi like is just, like people find places to party and their own culture to like to have fun. Yeah, in 2016, you raised funds through Kickstarter. And I was going to ask you, what is your advice for people who are building a creative business, right, like Kickstarter is just a part of the equation?

Kae Burke 21:26

Yeah, absolutely. The the situation that inspired the Kickstarter was really that we had our first the first house of yes, we started in 2007, for down in 2008. And then we had the second house to be asked, which was a warehouse that we renovated and self funded that we had for five years. And we lost that space, five years of running an underground illegal Circus School slash theater slash dance clubs slash after hours spot, slash living situation. So that was has to be number two. And so when we lost that, and decided that it was worth it, to find a house of Yes, has to be three, it was when we finally had partners, business partners, and the space locked in that it was time to launch the Kickstarter. So I just want to be super clear about the story and annoying that when something felt really real. And that there was a need for that ask us when we launched that Kickstarter. So yeah, it was really cool.

Yulia Laricheva 22:30

So you did a Kickstarter, you know, the Kickstarter was like a PR campaign to it. And I think that's a really good thing for people to know, like, you have to have an idea first, and it has to be like, verified, it has to be like, a minimal viable product. And then you do all the fundraising for it. And then you like do a PR campaign for it. So it's, this was like a planned idea. And you put a lot of thought into it.

Kae Burke 22:52

Yeah. Yeah, I think people call like a proof of concept where when you're inspiring people through Kickstarter or fundraising campaign, it's really it's just really powerful. If you if you're like, Yo, I've done, the thing has been done. And now we want to do more of the awesome thing that we did. And here's how you can help us continue. I think it's really tricky. It's hard. It's hard to start from scratch. And people do it. People can do with success, but I do I totally hear you on the beauty of the PR the awareness. Really using a fundraiser is also a way to introduce people to your project, get them excited about about the future of your projects, and how they can participate beyond just giving you money. Like it's really Yes, the money is helpful. It is seed funding, it is tremendous. It is magic, but there's so much value beyond the dollar that comes from fundraising where you build a community like you actually build, we had a we almost had, like, we had fans of the next house of Yes, before, before the third one open, we'd already brought us a lot of a lot of wonderful humans, and like our whole business is based on human connection. So the more humans we're connecting with, the better a lot of our projects and parties are right.

Yulia Laricheva 24:05

And we kept on thinking because you were talking about co-creating where you find your inspiration. And this kind of ties into it as well. Like you've built such a great community. It sounds like the way you build community is in person. Obviously you throw events but like you've grown House Of Yes through literally getting out there every night. Now a lot of people do it differently. A lot of people do it through digital marketing or something else. And yours is like so visceral and people just gravitate like moths to a flame to it because it's a physical space. Do you have any advice for people who want to build a community?

Kae Burke 24:38

Yeah, I would actually say that we have people that love has to be so I've never been there. They live far away and they find joy, connection, creativity through following us on Instagram and even Tik Tok even Facebook. We're still on Facebook a bit but really there is there's some to be said for the beauty of social media, obviously and like how we can really engage in conversations that is collaborative, like a lot of our values being creativity, collaborative, collaborative, co creating and community. Like cool, like those things are all possible. But even in the digital space to an extent, of course we love in real life in real life experiences are paramount and fabulous and what we love to do, but yeah, advice for people building communities just don't be shy, but just get weird and make friends connect with people take a risk, putting a little scary to put yourself out there. And I do. I personally can be a bit shy, or feel shy and work through that shyness, just to sometimes connect with others and ask for what you need. And also, I'd say the biggest advice I can give that worked amazingly, for us has been extremely generous with any resource you have, whether that resources, time, money, advice, expertise, if you can, whatever you can do to be generous is typically how we as humans build our social connections or tribal connections. It's through giving. It's really through giving. And the more you give, the more he gets. I mean, it's classic, but it's really important to remember, that's where actual community comes from. That's beyond audience engagement. I'm talking about like real community that gives a fuck.

Yulia Laricheva 26:17

Yeah, yeah, like real people. Instead of 20 million people were like, the don't care. It's so interesting. I was gonna ask you, when you're not creating events, what do you love to do for fun? You just had a vacay, right?

Kae Burke 26:31

Yeah, I now love surfing. I surfed windsurfing in Mexico for the first time ever. Nailed it, sent it crushed it love it. I'm like, Oh, I gotta go again. So that was that was a shocker. I never thought I'd surf ever definitely was not on my radar of things to do so. So fun, really, is that but as far as what am I Brooklyn in New York, I really just love I love working out whether it's with people, typically with people, I love rock climbing. So anything that's like a bit active and gets my brain away from the screen is really like deeply, deeply enjoyable. And I love going to shows I like any sort of show I went to this one of this like comedy burlesque show and place called wonder Ville, in Broadway and in Bushwick. And it was kind of like, DIY and the most charming way and it was still still inspiring. It doesn't have to be Broadway Manhattan, a big fancy show. Although I love a big spectacle. I love an over produced over over budget and spectacle. As much as I love a grimy DIY community driven, self produced show. So we have just seen live entertainment itself brings me a lot of joy. So that's what I like to do.

Yulia Laricheva 27:48

That sounds fun. Yeah, I always wonder if like, you guys are gonna, if I hate using the word you guys, but I say if y'all ever make it out to Las Vegas, I can see how severe is like doing some kind of a residency or just like, just taking up space in Vegas, because it's so grand.

Kae Burke 28:04

Yeah, but we've had talks and offers, even in 2019, before before the world got super weird. But I felt that too, you know, I just think that the more we can spread joy and change people's lives, the better. They just want to do with intention. That's not just growth, growth for growth's sake, but really understand, like, Where can we be the most impactful, purposeful and useful? And yeah, there's a couple there's a couple things we have done, Vegas, we've done Life is beautiful, one of our favorite festivals, so don't pop ups in Vegas. It's interesting to daydream about a permanent residency in Vegas. I like more like there's some other cities that I feel like I would, yeah, there's other cities I vibe with. I'm like, yeah, it's not about like my other spots.

Yulia Laricheva 28:47

Los Angeles has no places to dance. When I lived in LA, I was like, I just want to go dancing. There's just like, it doesn't exist. There's no dance culture. This was like I left on like, 2016. But maybe it's changed, but it's a place where you don't dance and it's everybody is so pent up inside. And everybody's so uptight. And they just need to dance. They need dancer. Yeah, there's no place there. Yeah, it's there's no good pizza, and there's no dancing and I'm like, Brooklyn has to come over here. There needs to be a Brooklyn. Like Silverlake isn’t cutting it.

Kae Burke 29:16

Like there's an idea is that there's an idea of hey, there's like a Pizza Parlor Dance Party, which is called Pizza Party all the time. That'd be great.

Yulia Laricheva 29:24

Yeah. Yeah, it's so hard to find good pizza and dancing and like just give me pizza and dancing and like I'll be so happy. I was gonna ask you my last question, which is what's your dream is an adult?

Kae Burke 29:37

Oh, my dream is as an adult is just to grow more, surf more, joy. Be happy. There's not much there's not much I truly need or want more than that.

Yulia Laricheva 29:53

Well, that's a beautiful dream and it sounds like you're living it.

Kae Burke 29:56

Yeah, getting just getting there just finding more love more peace from myself and others. You know, there's a lot of ways to go about it. But that's in a nutshell. Wasn't my dream, my my dreams, goals and ambitions.

Yulia Laricheva 30:08

They're beautiful. They're beautiful. Kay, thank you so much for being on the show. And I really want people to come check out the House Of Yes and Bushwick, which is super fun. And maybe we'll speak like in a year or two, like if you're doing something else. It'll be fun to have you on the show. And then just find out what you guys are up to. And then see where the show goes.

Kae Burke 30:27

Yeah, right. It's a ride.

Yulia Laricheva 30:28

Thank you so much again.

Kae Burke 30:30

Oh, my God. Thank you.

Yulia Laricheva 30:31

It's a ride. It's a ride.

Kae Burke 30:32

It’s a ride. So get on the ride.

Yulia Laricheva 30:35

Yes, it's definitely right. So thank you so much for making the time. Maybe I'll see you at the next event with my baby. When she was like old enough to dance. She just started dancing. I can't wait to like start bringing her out eventually.

Kae Burke 30:45

Oh, yes. Awesome.

Yulia Laricheva 30:47

Thanks so much.

Kae Burke 30:48

Absolutely.

Yulia Laricheva 30:53

Thanks for tuning into the show. I hope you enjoyed it. Please share on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook at Dream Nation Love. It's not Dream Nation Podcast. It's Dream Nation Love because I think my single mission in life is to teach people how to love a little bit more. And together we can save the world. So it's Dream Nation Love, share it with your friends, have a great day and go out and make the world a better place.

Y-Vonne Hutchinson is an Author, former international human rights lawyer, and Silicon Valley serial entrepreneur. She is the CEO and Founder of ReadySet, a diversity and inclusion training firm that helps tech giants, political leaders, media outlets, and Fortune 500 companies speak more productively about racism and turn talk into action. Y-Vonne also hosts a podcast called Time To Act about Diversity and Inclusion.

On the show, we talk about her latest book HOW TO TALK TO YOUR BOSS ABOUT RACE: Speaking Up Without Getting Shut Down. This episode is a conversation on race, inequality, and how race is fluid. A candid discussion from a global perspective that leaves the viewer with concrete advice that they can use in their work life.

Part memoir, part actionable guidebook, this book equips employees with a framework to think about race at work, prepares them to have frank and effective conversations with more powerful leaders, helps them center marginalized perspectives, and explains how to leverage power dynamics to get results while navigating backlash and gaslighting.

Transcript

Yulia Laricheva  00:04

Hey friends, welcome to another episode of Dream Nation Love. I'm your host Julia. And today on the show, I've got Yvonne Hutchinson. She's the CEO and founder of Ready Set. And that is an Equity Diversity and Inclusion firm based out of Berkeley, California, previous to running ReadySet. She was an International Human Rights and Labor Lawyer. She did that for over a decade. And she consulted for foreign national governments, the US Department of State, the UN, she's brilliant, and she has a new book out, and it's called How To Talk To Your Boss About Race: Speaking Up Without Getting Shut Down. It's also available on audiobook and it's a really quick read, it tackles really taboo topics like race. And what I really love about it is that she really brings in her law background into it. And she mentions a lot of cases that go towards dealing with race and race at work. I really enjoyed her writing. It's amazing. So you should check it out. It's a quick read. It's a it's a dense book, but it's a quick read, and it's quite enjoyable. So I hope you enjoyed the discussion as well. We talked about a lot of really, really interesting topics, and share this podcast with a friend if you enjoyed it. Also subscribe for the newsletter, which is on Dream Nation Love website, which is dreamnation.io. And also if you go to the dream nation love Instagram page, which is Dream Nation Love, subscribe to the newsletter, I'm going to be giving away a few copies of the book, enjoy the show and talk to you soon. Hi Y-Vonne, and thank you for being on the podcast. Thank you for writing your book.

Y-Vonne Hutchinson  01:33

Oh, thank you so much for having me. And I'm really, really happy that you enjoy that.

Yulia Laricheva  01:38

I have your book right here. It's a really great book. And it's very pertinent. Yeah, because it talks about the pandemic, and it talks about everything that collided in the pandemic. So that's what I really enjoyed about it. Because I'm like, wow, this is like probably the most current book that I've read about race and race relations and, and how to navigate work.

Y-Vonne Hutchinson  01:58

Yeah, I mean, I feel like we're in such a period of transition and change. In the book, I say that it's of its time, but it's also timeless, like these issues have been here since the founding of this country, and they're not going to go away overnight. And so, in a lot of ways, a lot of the things we talk about in the book are timeless at the same time, like you said, it's very much of its time, we're seeing just a fundamental shift in the way that we relate to our work, the way we talk about race in our country, and the collision between identity. And the workplace, or I should say they've always been we've always collided, but I guess the sort of recognition that you can't check your identity at the door when you go to work. And the fact that workplaces are really having to figure out how do we grapple with these sort of deeply embedded societal ills that impact our workers after they walk through our doors?

Yulia Laricheva  02:55

You right, or they just log on to zoom too.

Y-Vonne Hutchinson  02:58

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Yulia Laricheva  02:59

It's like, you know, nobody really talks about which is really interesting is also like, the backgrounds and the houses to peek into during a zoom on a huge conference call that shows societal structures. I'm not gonna mention which company it was. But you can see where like, my boss logs in from his like, amazing kitchen, you know, they're like tiny apartments and you're like, you're burly probably should think a different room just to like, not flaunt it, just to be considerate.

Y-Vonne Hutchinson  03:25

Yeah, I talk a lot about those blurred lines right there. I feel like there's almost this kind of like, artificial sense that we can separate who we are outside of work. And especially with the rise of remote work, the boundaries between personal and professional are even more blurred like you just, it's not like I can strip away my identity when I'm talking to you from my kitchen. Like we're literally in my apartment in my kitchen, with this little zoom background thing that I have set up. So it looks acceptable. But there's no way that I can take my identity out of my home. And I think that's what I think is so interesting when we have these conversations about identity and work because like you're saying the slides are just even more blurred now.

Yulia Laricheva  04:13

Oh, my gosh, I can go on because it's a conversation at itself. So I'm like, Oh, my gosh, there are so many points to talk about. But I want to bring it back to your book. Back to your work. I was gonna ask you my first question is always, what was your dream as a kid growing up?

Y-Vonne Hutchinson  04:28

So when I was a kid, I used to say, and maybe this is still possible, who knows that they wanted to be vice president. I said being the president was too much pressure, but don't want to be the person in front. Too much scrutiny. But I was like, I could be vice president. And then if I decided I wanted to be president, then I could run for president. So that was my dream as a kid. It's still kind of my dream.

Yulia Laricheva  04:53

It's a wonderful dream. Your priorities.

Y-Vonne Hutchinson  04:57

Yeah, it's like those kids who all want to be rested. If they're really missing the vote Vice President is where it’s at.

Yulia Laricheva  05:04

You get the same benefits really.

Y-Vonne Hutchinson  05:06

I get to be around the White House, I can pick and choose what initiatives I want to be.

Yulia Laricheva  05:12

I think that's what Biden did. And I'm pretty sure Dick Cheney ran the place when Bush was —

Y-Vonne Hutchinson  05:20

I'm gonna talk about any specific politician. I'm just gonna say that playbook has been executed before. And I would also like to execute it.

Yulia Laricheva  05:29

You are a Lawyer, and you're much more diplomatic about it than I am. I love it. I love it. That's such a great dream. I would love to see that dream come true.

Y-Vonne Hutchinson  05:38

Me too.

Yulia Laricheva  05:38

It's a wonderful dream.

Y-Vonne Hutchinson  05:40

2040. Lecture, you're right, big enough.

Yulia Laricheva  05:45

You know what we'll make it? We'll figure it out. I was gonna ask you this question, which is like a really open ended question that I think you answered, so lovely in your book, which was its own chapter. It's such a hard question to answer. What is race?

Y-Vonne Hutchinson  06:02

It's funny how that that came into the book actually give a little bit of backstory. So writing this whole book about racism in the workplace, there's a section in which you have to like, we're defining what the terms are. They have it all written and like the chapter is actually done, my editor came back to me, she was like, why fine. I think we actually have to define race. And I was like, no, because it's such a big term. So I just like kind of sit with it and wrestle with it. And I think it's big because race is a socially constructed thing, right? What is it to be Black? Is my daughter Black? Shoot her mother's African American? Her father is Latino and White? Is she bBlack? Is she Latino? What is Latino, there's something like, you can be white Latino you can be. And so whenever you try to whenever I try to come up with a definition to describe something that's socially constructed and malleable, right, because when we think historically, Italians haven't always been white, Irish people haven't always been white. They're definitely white today. But that wasn't the case. I reflect back on the controversy with Whoopi Goldberg. And the view that just happened where she said the Holocaust wasn't about race. And part of what makes that conversation so difficult, is that Jewish identity and race are like racist fluid, not just with Jews with everyone, race is fluid. And so a group can be considered racially constructed one day and not racially constructed the next it serves political purposes. That's why we have the racial categories that we do. In a lot of ways I talked about people's reactions to my race, and how race is determined by path, because it doesn't exist objectively in the world. I'm Black in the US. I'm not Black when I go to Ghana, I'm something else if I go to South Africa, America, and if I go to Jamaica, right, because it's socially constructed, because it's malleable, because it's fluid. I talk about its impact on my life, because it definitely also determined so the kind of life I'm able to lead and how people react to me. So that's how I describe race in the book as the thing that is socially constructed, but has very real world implications. You can say racist made up all day, but when I walk out on the streets, I'm going to be treated like a black woman. If I'm in a store, people follow me, you know what I mean? I've had cops pull me in my mom over, when we've been in a neighborhood that's too nice. The world treats me like a Black woman. There go. I am Black, for the purposes of the world, who I am innately. I'm also Black innately, because that has, you know, formulated my conception of myself, and how I see myself visa vie other people. But it's so hard to read, explain, in part, because it's so cool. It's just, like catching, it's like catching water.

Yulia Laricheva  09:02

And I think your book does such a lovely job of it too. Just sharing your experience as well. Because your experience made me think of my experience because I'm Jewish, and my family survived the Holocaust only because we're white passing because we happen have blue eyes, and blonde hair, where the rest of my family has dark hair and dark eyes. And I don't really know how my mom's side got blue eyes. Like we don't know where it goes. But it's somehow helped us escape the Holocaust. But it's like, I think also like when people hear the conversation about race, they're, they're so nervous. Yeah. Because they're like, oh, which races is gonna be is this going to be black lives matter? What is this gonna be like? But it's so broad, and it's just a conversation about humanity. I think your book answers and I think it's such a nervous topic, especially at work. Yeah. Your book reminded me of all the crappy places that I It worked and all the crap that I've put up with and all the crap that I've seen, and all the stuff that I've spoken out as much as I could about, but also like how taboo it is, and how hard it is to change these systems that you enter, and you have to go in and make money. And there's nowhere to go until you quit and then go to a different place. It's just as bad.

Y-Vonne Hutchinson  10:21

Yeah, I mean, that's part of why I wrote the book, right? Like, I think you hit the nail on the head with, we have to change these systems. I think it's so hard for us as individuals grappling with concepts that like, frankly, our education system, and society doesn't teach us to grapple with. I talk a lot about trying to ignore my blackness early on in my career. And in my childhood, in part because that was the message that I was taught, Be colorblind, racism, that important. And you know, I grew up in a majority white environment, and I wanted to believe it. I wanted to believe I could achieve my way out of blackness. And so I didn't, I say all of that to say I didn't grow up, really learning about how to talk about these things. I we had conversations about race at home, because my parents grew up during the Civil Rights Movement. And they tried to equip me for navigating race in the real world. And a lot of times, I try to push those aside, like, I was uncomfortable for me, I didn't want to admit, that was going to determine some of my outcomes in life. So I think that's fair to say that it is, it's taboo. And it's hard to talk about on purpose. And I wrote this book, in part to try to take away some of that taboo, because it is just a fact of life at this stage. We can't put our heads in the sand and pretend like this is not happening, like race doesn't impact us. And racial violence isn't real. And we also, I also want to give people the tools to say, Okay, if it's real, how do I navigate it? How do I really try to change a system as one person for the better?

Yulia Laricheva  11:52

That brings me to my next question, which is, how can one person create a systemic change at work, which is what you talked about in the book, and you provide tools, and this is probably the most comprehensive guide I've seen in a very long time. And I was like, Oh, wow, I didn't realize like, I could do that. I didn't realize I could, oh, this is a manual. This is a manual on how to like, use your voice.

Y-Vonne Hutchinson  12:16

Yeah, I really tried to make it actionable and practical in that way. Because I feel I felt so many times going to like books and looking for an answer, and not getting really getting something that felt concrete. And that was why I wanted to write this because I wanted to give people concrete tools. When I think about the framework for social change for cultural change within a system. Those tools are definitely part of it. And to answer the first part of the question, but I also think about what is the work that we need to do, my framework is like, start off with a self work. Think about your identity, how that impacts how you show up to places what you may see what you may miss, and how others may hear you, you know, on the basis of that, think about your location and how you can leverage it to think strategically, what is your own power? How do you move from thinking about power as a binary, like if I have it versus if I don't have it towards more of a spectrum in terms of what types of power do I hold, like doing that introspection first. And then the second thing I always recommend is remember, as an individual trying to change the system, like you're not, you shouldn't go at this alone. So it's really trying to, in some ways, it's kind of a switch up, because I really want people to move away from thinking about individualistic approaches to systemic change, which is often what society teaches us to think about, you know, they highlight individuals that change systems, they highlight Martin Luther King, and Rosa Parks, and Susan B, Anthony. And they don't necessarily talk about the machines, the collectives that people who are behind those individuals. So I always say to, after you've done those, that reflection that is all in service of you contributing to a larger hole, and really acting as part of a group to an act, some of the changes that you want to see in the workplace. And then we get more into like the strategic parts of the work as well. And I really wanted to nail that down. Because a lot of this cultural change work, we tend to think of it as a emotional or intuitive, a neat, like we something we innately know how to do we'll know how to innately know how to do this at all anymore, that I'm innately know how to program a computer. Changing an organizational culture is not innate to us either. So really thinking about what are some practical tools that we can use to be more strategic in our culture change efforts?

Yulia Laricheva  14:43

And I think that it's so great in the book, they use examples of like, how Google use the and how it's really interesting to see what's going to happen with Tesla right now. It's, oh, gosh, oh, gosh. Yeah. So it's interesting too. See what change happens and what change won't happen. And I really love that you have a lawyer backgrounds, you're really able to put a lot of cases into context, which I was not aware about. I was like, Oh, my gosh. And then I read the section about Lyft, that you mentioned that Lyft was trying to get all their workers classified as freelance workers. And I remember that happening. But I didn't realize they were doing that just so they don't have to pay them health care. And I was like, Oh, my gosh, that's wild. So you have all these amazing real world examples. You just taught me a bunch of things I do not know about. And I was like, wow, this is fascinating.

Y-Vonne Hutchinson  15:37

Yeah, I tried to ground it in the real world. And I, I usually shy away from real world examples, because I don't want to single people out, like with lift on the worker classification cases. They were opposing EB five Legislation in California, which is legislation that would have pushed rideshare workers to be classified as full time employees. And when you have full time employees, that means you have to pay their benefits, such as health care. So all these and Lyft wasn't the only one that was fighting that particular legislation, a lot of rideshare delivery on demand. Companies did not want to have their workers classified in this way. And they were doing that also during the pandemic, while they were saying their workers were essential workers, which is it going to going to be but but but those examples aside, I think it's super important for us to really ground what we see with real world examples, because quite often the way this manifests how racism manifests at work is incredibly nuanced. And it intersects with a lot of other isms, like classism, sexism, homophobia, and so I think it's really important to say, No, that wasn't just a one off, or no, that wasn't just like somebody who misspoke. These are part of broader systemic issues. And you know, to organizations where we've seen it come up recently, like these, this is a pattern of behavior, too, you mentioned Tesla, I'm also mindful of the lawsuit with the NFL, this is a pattern of these kinds of allegations, these kinds of until there is a defense, there's definitive accountability, and there's an incentive to fix them, these patterns are going to continue.

Yulia Laricheva  17:23

And you go into this really well into your book to just like, what brings about change, financial costs and stuff like that. And that was fascinating. And I was gonna ask you the question of, how does one talk to their boss about racism, which is the title of your book, and it's also like the most intimidating title ever, because you're like, I am gonna get fired?

Y-Vonne Hutchinson  17:48

Well, so that's why I do a lot of lead up to the actual conversation. Like I said, I think the conversation has to be part of a broader strategy of like, how you're actually going to change your culture. And I think every boss is different. And so for me to come out and say, This is everything you have, it might not apply to your boss. But what I tell people generally is, first of all, do that background work, the self knowledge work, finding a group of or like finding a group of people who are doing that work in the company, seeing what conversations have already happened. And then really understand your boss. I think, a lot of times, we who are really passionate about the stuff, we come in with our passion first, which is great, but we don't always serve ourselves. If we're not also being mindful of the motivations of the person that we're talking to the constraints that they may have, what they're empowered to do, and where their biases may be. So I think it's really important to hold that as well. So having knowledge of the person that you want to talk to a mirror and symptoms is really important, too. I also talk about practicing your case for Dei. So really think about what is going to resonate with your boss, not just what makes sense. We've been doing the business case for Dei, for like 2030 years, not a lot has changed. The business case has been in place since the 90s. Right. And so even though rationally we know dei produces better outcomes over time, it's something that's a sticking with organizations or with individuals inside of organizations with that particular case, they don't just go with a case that's rational makes sense. People aren't always rational, you need to go with a case that's going to resonate with the person you talk to whether that's a risk based case, like we don't want to be the next Starbucks or the next Tesla or you know, at this point. If it's a liability case, we don't want to get sued. If it's a social change, like we want to be at the forefront of this, whatever your case is for your company. Think about that. Make sure you're creating a good container for conversation so devote enough time to the conversation as much as possible. Understanding this conversation is an emotionally charged thinking How to de charge yourself emotionally, right. Because when we get to too much of an emotional place, our fight or flight response gets activated. And it can be really hard for us to listen, actively listen to someone, and respond to them in a thoughtful and considered way, which is exactly what you need to do in this conversation. So, practice to do that. Take deep breaths, be mindful, meditate, allow yourself enough time, minimize distractions. So like, if you're on a zoom call, put your phone away, if you're in person, shut the laptop, really focus on having that face to face conversation. Actively listen, show your listening by repeating what your boss says, processing that with your boss in real time, and then know how to navigate fragility. I talk about this a lot in my book, he's like, you could have this conversation perfectly. Quite often this happens. We go in, we're vulnerable. We take a growth mindset, we listen. But all the person on the other side of conversation hears is I'm calling you're racist, you're racist, racist, racist, racist, right? And they respond in a way that can be very emotional, can derail a conversation, that can feel like retaliation or actually be retaliation, we also have to be prepared for that. And we have to know when to take breaks from the conversation and when to walk away from the conversation altogether. And if this conversation, hopefully goes, well, then we also have to know how to follow up. So I talked about all of those things in my book, but that's kind of the basic framework that I lay out.

Yulia Laricheva  21:36

And I love how you add that it's all about creating action. It's not about just having a conversation, it's about carrying through with action and holding people accountable that they create these actions, and you outline everything, and you come to an agreement over actions. And that's how change happens. Because it doesn't happen. We're just talking

Y-Vonne Hutchinson  21:54

less, right. That's right. And, you know, when I, when I wrote the book, and I was talking about this idea actually had a little bit of resistance, I feel like a lot in dei work, there is an emphasis on the conversation, like, we just gotta have tough conversations and things will change. And what I came to with the book is that you cannot have change without conversation, it's more than just a conversation. But a conversation is going to be what opens the door, and what sets you up to take these actions. And so often in my work with ReadySet, I'm the CEO of a TTI, firm, Ready Set. And we've worked with hundreds of companies up into this point. And a lot of that work informs the experience that I bring to the book. But where I feel like a lot of times our initiatives don't go well or we need to like change courses when the communication is actually not there. So it is such an intricate process where you need the action with every action has to be accompanied with intentional, compassionate. And I would say like proactive communication,

Yulia Laricheva  22:59

this book is a part of the work that you do, and you have a company. And I was going to ask you, like, what are some conversational techniques that you can share? That maybe you do already set and that you've also included in the book that can help people start these conversations? And of course, you they should definitely reach out to you if there are more stations? Because I think this is such a difficult topic, that it's not something that you really want to do alone?

Y-Vonne Hutchinson  23:25

Absolutely not. Yeah, I think so. I'll reiterate that. I think it's really important readings that we do this too, is make sure you're talking to the person you need to talk to. So it could be that you need to interrupt someone's behavior, it could be that you want to see a broader shift in your department could be you notice some things in your managerial or reporting relationships, whatever the reason that's motivating you to have this conversation, make sure the person you're talking to is the best person to have this conversation with the person most likely to impact and change the thing that you want to see change. And the person that you want to build a relationship with. We do this a lot already set figuring out who do we need to talk to first? And how do we think about sequencing our conversations? So I will say that first. I already gave a few tips. But something else that we do already set that I do personally in my work is I really try to take a growth mindset with these conversations. I talk a lot about calling people and before calling people out if you are talking to someone you want to build relationship with you want to be in partnership with shame is not the best place to start in the calling people out is in large part driven by shame and public accountability. And I think there's such a place for that particularly where other accountability mechanisms are have failed, and people aren't incentivized to be accountable. Okay. And where there's like power differentials and where like the relationship is actually less important. But here I think it's really important to think about calling in versus calling out. I think it's important to, like I said, use that growth mindset. I often tell stories of my own personal growth, things that I've gotten wrong. I try to be vulnerable and say, nobody has gotten this right. I haven't gotten this right. Here's where I have struggled, here's where I have had to invest in my own growth. Here's what I have internalized, and had to undo, to open the door for people to talk about their struggles as well. I don't think we do these conversations. Well, when we try to come in as experts in the room, I think that can be really alienating and oftentimes disingenuous, this conversation moves so fast, even if we're on the cutting edge of it one day, we probably won't be the next. And we've all been raised and brought up in this white supremacist society. And we're lying to ourselves if we don't think that we've struggled with that, how to push past some of that, and how to do our own personal work. So I think it's so important to model that in the conversation, to model humility, to model growth, to offer partnership. And I also say, give people things to do easy, actionable things that can make them feel like they're successful. I use the example of the Civil Rights Movement letter writing campaigns, to show like how you can bring in allies, but also how you can give people something to do that will make them feel like they're part of your effort. And I know that there's a push against giving people ally cookies, or we're awarding people for doing the bare minimum. But at the same time, you got to set people up for success. So like, really think about what is that tangible? Ask that tangible, realistic ask you have of your boss, or the person conversation with? What can you give them that low hanging fruit? And we do the Set Ready, set? What can you give them to do tomorrow, that can help make things better? And then I talked about moving beyond that conversation to like, your own personal actions and what you know, what are some of the low hanging things that you can do. So that's often like, also how we do it at race. I know I started to go on to the book, but really kind of giving those people those things showing that growth mindset, giving people tangible things to do, where they're going to be successful. Balancing the systemic with the individual. And like checking back in and knowing this is a process doesn't just happen with one conversation.

Yulia Laricheva  27:23

I'm just wondering if you can actually share the letter writing story, because I know it's in your book. Because I think when you see books about race, you're gonna be like, Oh, this is going to be so heavy. And this is going to be not personal. And this is just going to be like, over my head. This is going to be complicated. This book. Yeah, it's such a lovely mix of like personal stories, case stories, and your law background that like, it's a really quick read. It's very enjoyable. Can Can, I'm like, I was like, Okay, this is going to be a really difficult book to read. I'm putting time towards this, because it's going to be really heavy. It wasn't heavy, it was just full of knowledge. And it was it was a delight to read.

Y-Vonne Hutchinson  28:03

Thank you. Yeah, I tried not to make it too heavy, in part, because I think you're sitting with a lot of pain and trauma right now. This is part of it. And I try to hold space for them in the book and see that throughout, particularly at the end. But at the same time, I think sitting in trauma and pain doesn't serve us we have to process it, we and then we have to figure out how to move through it. We don't deny it. But we have to create space for joy, as well to do this work in a sustainable way. It's so easy for us to burn out that we have to do it in a sustainable way.

Yulia Laricheva  28:38

I think you're so right. It just in the joy of it because there's been so much yeah, dress with a pandemic. Yeah, with a race climate in the last two years. And who knows what future is going to be like? I don't know, I don't know which way anything is going, which is another discussion, which is what the hell is happening in the world. And creating joy. It's just like, it's like, oh, I'm, I have joy for a second. And I'm forgetting about like the hellscape that we are going through now that we're in.

Y-Vonne Hutchinson  29:08

Yeah, we can talk about that in a second. Because I think it's so important. But to answer the first question about the story, the Civil Rights Movement story that I use in the book, the story serves to illustrate two points. The first is what I kind of mentioned how you can do something tangible and practical to move the needle. But the second is how we think about engaging our allies. That's a big part of the book is like find your friends. Don't do this work alone, find your friends, and part of it may be converting friends over to your cause. So making new friends making a friend as somebody who might not have been a friend before. And in the book I talked about quite often when we're engaged with a particular cause. We think of the people around us as being for that cause or against that cause and we think of our mission as having to try to convert somebody from being against our costs to totally being for our cause, and then keep the people who are totally for causing gation or cause when reality is as quite as a lot more nuanced. And so I refer to this tool in my book called The spectrum of allies. And the tool basically says, when it comes to people who are potential allies, you have people who are strongly opposed to your cause people who are strongly supportive, and folks in the middle of the half moon, and they that divide up the that that piece into like little pie wedges. And it's like, strongly opposed, mildly oppose neutral, mildly supportive, strongly supportive. And they say your mission and doing this work actually isn't it gets me from strongly opposed to strongly supporting is to get someone one degree over. So always think of how you move that person, one degree or so say all that to say, the Civil Rights story background I talked about is the the voter registration drive in the south during the Civil Rights Movement, and essentially, what the SMCC did, and that was like the civil rights movement, civil rights organization at the time, as I said, Okay, we've got some like white allies. And we've got, we want to register people to vote, and we need to get more people in the middle, particularly more people with power in the middle. How are we going to engage white moderate, so what they did is they had people on campus, white students on campus who are kind of passionate about issues of civil rights, go down and register people to vote. And this summer, I think it was like, I think it may be the summer. I don't remember the time actually to see, I want to say, but I think it was actually earlier this 1965 that had these people go down. But the violence that these kids saw, some of them didn't survive, some of them were killed. They saw the lynching, they saw the police crackdowns, and they saw the fire hoses. They saw justice oppression, and they were also targeted, right. This is the thing that we often forget is that white people who ally themselves with the civil rights movement, or civil rights causes can themselves be harmed, too. So they say it's all the stuff, the ones who were lucky enough to go back to school the next year who survived, went back to their college campuses. And they wrote their parents, and they told them what they saw. They also organize their campuses. So they went from being kind of supportive or like work down with this thing to be really passionate and converting other white people, these parents saw their children being targeted. And they were like, Whoa, these parents in the north, they're like, wait a second, this is affecting my children, I had no idea how bad it was, they start telling their friends. So like, their number one converted, they're putting political pressure on their representatives, they're talking to their congressman, and then they're talking to their friends who may be mildly opposed, or strongly opposed. They're not just neutral, they're on the other side of slack, when they're saying, Do you know what's happening? Do you know what my kid experience, you're telling me that what my kid experiences, okay. And then they're converting those people. And what we saw in that example, is free weekly, you get civil rights legislation pushed through and signed by Lyndon B. Johnson, because you've now got this pressure from these white moderates. And people who were even opposed to civil rights legislation who have now been converted, saying, We've got to do something, all because you engaged a smaller group of people who had more leverage, and were able to bring other people. And so that's the Civil Rights example. And I love that example, because it just illustrates so much.

Yulia Laricheva  33:38

I love that example. And I was gonna say that I've been listening to a lot of audiobooks every time I have a guest, because you know, I have a kid now. So I don't have time to read, like reading is really hard, as you know, like doing anything is really hard with a toddler. So I've been doing audiobooks. And since your book is not available on audio yet, I had to read it. No, it is, is it? I tried to find on Audible couldn't find it.

Y-Vonne Hutchinson  34:01

Oh, yeah, it's totally on Audible. So yeah, books. It's available. It's available

Yulia Laricheva  34:05

on Audible, but I was gonna say I was really looking forward to sitting down and reading every night, I was like, Oh my gosh, I haven't done it. But I really enjoyed reading your book. You're both sitting down and like turning off the TV. And like really being in the story again. And I was like write books instead of multitasking when you're listening to something, just taking the time to really absorb something.

Y-Vonne Hutchinson  34:26

Yeah, yeah. Thank you. I appreciate that. And I think I love the audio book, but I also think having the print version of your hand then you can like see the diagrams, the maps the tools and encourage people to write in the book and stuff because it's meant to be a handbook.

Yulia Laricheva  34:43

Interesting. Okay. So you're available on Audible, okay, just want to plug that in, because I want to make sure that people download the book. It's available on Audible, so please get it and also get the book too because you know what, it's really good to have both and it's nice. It's a lovely, love the size. I'm going to show it right here. Hear? Yeah. And you know what, as you were speaking, it also reminded me of like, how the organizing right now, for people who are in the middle is being limited on social media. So in a weird way, like I was like, before I started talking about race and politics on my podcast, because before I was like, Hey, let me start out early on, feel it out and see how it is like my hashtags. Were going off the wall. Yeah, like I would post something would get a lot of hits, the more race and social economic stuff and woman empowerment stuff. I was like, Instagram just. And I was like, I know, I'm not doing the same engagement stuff that like normally people do on Instagram, because I don't want to be an influencer. I just want to share ideas. I want to share, amplify voices, I don't care to be like a tick tock star. But it's interesting, because it's like who gets to say on social media now, like, when there was a campaign for missing and murdered indigenous women, Instagram canceled that hashtag for quite a while. So it's like, how do we organize in this day and age? What tools do we use? Is it going back to newsletters? Is it going back to a world where we can organize in? You know, the metaverse? How do we do that? While we're being canceled?

Y-Vonne Hutchinson  36:15

It's so tough to because the platforms that we're using, the platforms that are big enough to reach all of us, engage all of us and get us all to act quickly, are themselves pretty problematic, and are built by teams that aren't necessarily diverse, who don't have interests, everybody's interests in mind. There's a lot of work that's been done on some of the biases inherent in Facebook. And I think Twitter's the case to all these platforms have also been weaponized to harass activists, not just to activists, anyone who is like different, who is trying to do some of the social work, it's just super difficult, the tools we use are flawed, we have to know that we have to work around this faucet don't mean don't think it means they're not useful. But I think it just means we have to be intentional how we use them. And we have to be mindful of when the interests of the platform diverge from our personal interests, we can't just assume, like you said, with your engagement platforms always going to amplify our voices and what we do, because a lot of times platforms have an interest in trying to silence this conversation. I also think it's hard because of COVID. And being in person is so hard. But I think you know, I talk a lot about building communities within work, because I think, like people are looking for that interpersonal, those interpersonal relationships. So I think thinking about your personal relationships, and how you can leverage those are important, I think, finding groups outside of the workplace. And I think sometimes like the group, it's not just about a hashtag or a post, it could be about finding a group on these social media platforms, and really thinking about who's got the Facebook group, or who's got, who's in this meetup, who's where I can find a community. And we can start in this space and then go to a different space. And I'll also just say, organizing, moving people, culture change isn't just about going viral. A lot of times you have these community organizations, the social organizations that are doing deep political work, that often don't get that public traction, that are just as important. And I will say to that end as well, starting local, you know, I think one of the things that conservatives have done really well is yes, there's this misinformation engine that is happening on YouTube, Facebook, all of these on all these platforms. But there's also quite a bit of local action happening. If you look at what's happening to our local offices, our school boards, the local conversations are moving to the right, in part because people are being more active there. And I think we can do that, too. We can think locally as well as thinking globally, too. So I would say those are those are some of the suggestions that I would make.

Yulia Laricheva  39:24

This is such a nice segue, because you mentioned globally because my next question was going to be how can one champion anti racism when working abroad, you're a global citizen, I'm just gonna say that and I think you really get to see racism. When you travel, the more you travel the world, the more you understand people and the more you understand how people perceive you, yeah, you just understand the world better. And maybe people don't travel and maybe due to COVID I think that's getting a lot harder to and that's, that's what's sad that people don't get to see the world and they don't get to experience To think it only to see like this myopic view of it. Yeah,

Y-Vonne Hutchinson  40:03

I say in my book, I spend a little bit of time here because of my own history, that racism is a global problem. But I've lived in countries around the world, I've lived in Nicaragua, I lived in Thailand, on the border with Burma, I lived in Afghanistan, I lived in your, I've just lived White, a few places. And in almost every place, I've had to deal with racism. And sometimes a racism comes from different parts of society. Sometimes I'm in a society that's inherently racist. I, you know, talk a little bit about my experience in Brussels, not all Belgian people are racist. But Belgians have a really tragic history with the Congo of violent history. And so walking around as a unambiguously black person in Brussels and Belgium, you know, I felt that and until I opened my mouth, and people realized I was African American and not African, I was treated differently. And even when I did, I was, you know, still not treated well treated very closely. But sometimes it also comes from white communities, that are expat communities, within places, there are countries I would go to, and I would have no problem with a local sewer there. But white people from Europe and America would bring their racism to another country's context. And I would have difficulty there. I say all this to say, it's not just a US issue, and leaving the US will not absolve you of it. And I'll add one, before I answer your question about how do we think about it when we're working abroad, one layer of complexity. While I am a member of an oppressed minority group in the US, I'm an African American woman sent descendant of slaves in the US, I still have a lot of privilege associated with my identity. When I go abroad, and have very real impact. I think there's a lot we can say about imperialism, and what it looks like when people from rich countries go to other countries, and either impose their beliefs and worldview or try to extract resources from those countries, or do both. And I've really had to critically think about my ways, globally, politically, socially, when I go to countries and I see these extractive systems built in these beautiful places where people don't have a lot, right, like, I've been a tourist in Bali, and seeing how the tourists live versus how the locals live. I've seen it in Central America, you know, and, yes, living in Nicaragua, but also vacationing in Costa Rica, and all these other beautiful places I saw in Thailand. And so my identity doesn't absolve me of my privilege, as well. And so I have struggled with that have wrestled with that, too. I think that's important to lay out. Now, to answer your question, how do we deal with it? When we're there, I think we try to, first of all, make sure that our work isn't part of this extractive paradigm. When I was working as an international human rights lawyer, I think there was some of that embedded in it, right? was like, Okay, I'm, as an American, I'm gonna come in and tell you how to do your human rights. And I'm gonna make a huge salary, sometimes, not all the time. Also, people work. Sometimes I wasn't paid that much, while locals who are know the context live there, doing all the hard work, makes substantially less, and you have to listen to me why? Because I'm American with a Harvard law degree, what is that I was never the type of person to engage in like, problematic behavior abroad, like, I'm not gonna, like, go to like, the strip club, or like, whatever. But we also know that humanitarian aid organizations, international NGOs, are guilty of some of the very things that they purport to help solve. So it's like, what am I endorsing what I'm contributing by my presence? I think we have to critically interrogate the actual work that we're doing, and the relationships of the organizations that we're a part of, to the countries that they're in and how they treat people local to those countries. And then we really have to think about, are we part of something that seeks only to sustain itself? You know, I saw this quite a bit in Afghanistan, this whole aid government ecosystem where everybody was making money, and then nothing was happening for the Afghan people, or are we really thinking about how do we empower people locally to take over those jobs? I absolutely think there's a place where humanitarian aid, support international involvement, we have a responsibility to like go into the countries that we've exploited for so long or who suffer because of, but also, we need to empower those people and not dictate what needs to happen and then we need to be able to step away and have empower people decide their own On Face, right, give the resources or whatever, but like have those people at the center and not us. And I also think finally, we need to more so than any one interrupt where we see racism happening, whether that's between people who are we're working with, or when we're out in the street. And we see like an expat treating somebody like garbage, because they do that all the time. People go to these countries to be kings and queens and be treated with a level of deference, which is disgusting in my mind, by other human beings. And so I think we also have a responsibility when we see expats behaving that way to check them right away, because the person who's on the receiving end of that doesn't have the privilege is quite often economically dependent on tourism. Can't always say no. So like, if we see that happening, we have responsibility, say no as well. So those are some of the things that I think that we can do to leverage our global privilege to interrupt the exploitation and the violence that we quite often see in these countries that we go to.

Yulia Laricheva  46:05

Yeah, and I like to add that they're usually women, children, or LGBTQ people as well. And especially in Thailand, I spent some time in Thailand, and it's some places are horrific.

Y-Vonne Hutchinson  46:16

No, I hate to single out one country because because I've seen it everywhere. What's happening in the US is happening. It happens in the US, it happens in Latin America, it happens. And I think there's just a sort of Neo imperialistic idea that we can just go into a place, take everything that's beautiful about it, give nothing back and treat the people who live there, like they're disposable, or like they were meant to serve us in their own homelands. There's a great conversation happening about the term immigrant versus expat. When you look at the way that we, with Western privilege, go into countries and say, Oh, we're not immigrants. We're expats. We're here to benefit your economy, etc. And then the way we treat people who come into our own country, the way we treat immigrants, the way we treat these people, it's so hypocritical it like it actually really, you can tell it really touches a nerve with me, because I think we try to think that we're above this stuff. And we literally have places even in the US, you have places like Hawaii saying like, we don't want tourism like this, but we're not your playcraft. And you have places like Puerto Rico being like, we need to be empowered. It's not happening that far away from home. And I think we really have to be introspective about how we show up these places, whether it's within our own borders in our country or not.

Yulia Laricheva  47:43

It's so beautifully put, because you don't think it's happening in the US. And it is I think the more you travel, and yeah, US is such a complicated space to because it's so it's so diverse. Yeah. And it's so interesting.

Y-Vonne Hutchinson  47:57

I didn't want to pick up on one thing you said, which is like this happening in the US. And I think in part is because the US is so diverse. I think it's also like inequality is embedded into the foundation of our country. And the foundation of these global relationships that I'm talking about, we think about three fifths compromise, which is like more constitution, or we think about how people work. Not everybody was afforded the same rights, the beginning with the US, right? You had white landowners who were protecting everybody else that was like, you know, you don't get the right to vote. And it's kind of been undoing a lot of this has been a process of undoing what's embedded to our very fabric. And we think globally, if you look at the history of colonialism, imperialism, trade, self determination, all these things, a lot of these things influence our geopolitical dynamics today and these relationships today. So just wanted to touch that. Like, this is like, you know what, I mean, doesn't happen. We have a lot of times we're trying to undo the damage that's been done historically.

Yulia Laricheva  49:02

Right. I was gonna chime in on the difference between expats and immigrants. I think immigrants are forced to leave their country where expats have a choice and they usually have money and they choose to leave the country sometimes. Sometimes, sometimes sometimes. So I think that's like a whole entire podcast in itself. But I was gonna ask you, you know, what is your dream as an adult to wrap up the podcast?

Y-Vonne Hutchinson  49:25

As adults? I have a couple of dreams. I was telling my husband part of me honestly, and this is like really personal, but I feel like we're in a time of such instability, politically, globally. With climate change my husband, I've been talking about kids and you know, I was kind of like, I just want to be huge and pregnant, have a bunch of kids and limit a big house and like, not have to worry about these existential threats. Like I love my career. I love the opportunities I've been afforded. I love My work. But I think in so many ways we're in such a chaotic environment right now. I don't think there was ever a time as a black woman, where that was an option that was really afforded to us. I will say that, honestly, I think we've always been expected to work, we've always been expected to work in service of other people's comfort. And one thing that like really resonated with me was hearing Michelle Obama talk about staying at home as a mom. And that being a revolutionary act. One thing I share with people is that, you know, when I started my career, I would be on these panels. And they one of the questions they will always ask is like, how did you deal with conversations about work life balance, and my response to I never got to have that conversation. So I was assumed, like a woman like me would work. I always want to work. But, you know, I was just loved to just have some kids and feel safe and rooted and stable, and know that life, the future is secured. And I think right now, we're in a position where we have to secure it. And in some ways, it sucks. It's a privilege to be in the fight, but it sucks. The future I want is a future where it's secure. And I know that I'm gonna be bringing up my children, and having a family and it's super safe, beautiful place. Speaking.

Yulia Laricheva  51:24

Background, she's like, she's like, to me, for me. It really touches me when you're speaking as a mom who just want to be safe, and enjoying the motherhood and enjoying the family. Because, yeah, like people talk about achieving their career. But it's an achievement, to find a mate that loves you back and supports you. And it's an achievement to create a lovely home to raise a child that is loving and safe and all that. And when you create that, you want to be in it. It's like a beautiful little dream.

Y-Vonne Hutchinson  51:58

We're in the process right now. We're not children anymore. Like we're in the process of building our legacy. You know, I don't know how old you are. But like, for me, it's like, yeah, I'm 14. And some ways that feels like very young. But in some ways, it's like, no, but like, you're fully a grown ass woman. Right? You are now responsible for another human being, you're responsible for what you leave behind. Part of that is our work. But part of that is also thinking thinking about, more broadly, what are we leaving, whether it's for our children, our biological family, or our chosen family? What legacies do we do we leave behind?

Yulia Laricheva  52:39

And also what money right, which is part of the legacy conversation, right? What are the opportunities that we get to have access to? And what are the opportunities that our children get to have access to? Yeah, and I love that you brought that into this conversation. Because it's such a, it's a nice, it's a nice point to end on, because it gives people a lot of things to think about, I think, yeah. Because that's what we're doing this for, like, We're doing this for kids, because because they have to deal with it. Because we, our parents had to deal with it. And now it just doesn't stop.

Y-Vonne Hutchinson  53:12

Even for people who don't necessarily have kids of their own. We're all in some ways responsible for the next generation. Not just like my baby, your your baby, but like what we leave behind. We're responsible for that. And I think it's so easy to move away from that community mindedness. That we as a generation, we as a collective of adults, we as people in the world who have power, are responsible, and it's not just, I am responsible for my baby, you're responsible for your baby, I know all of us are responsible for that next generation coming up.

Yulia Laricheva  53:50

That's so beautiful. And thank you so much for being on the show. And thank you for making the time. I'm excited to share your book out in my newsletter as well and people can sign up on the newsletter to get a few copies of how to talk about race. So just go to dream nation the aisle and find the newsletter sign up and you can win a few copies.

Y-Vonne Hutchinson  54:09

All right, thank you so much for the conversation. You.

Yulia Laricheva  54:13

Pleasure. Thanks for tuning into the show. I hope you enjoyed it. Please share on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and dream nation love. It's not dream nation podcast. It's dream nation love because I think my single mission in life is to teach. People have to love a little bit more. And together we can save the world. So it's dream nation love, share it with your friends, have a great day and go out and make the world a better place.

Alexandra talks about sexual wellness, closing the pleasure gap, non-binary perspectives, and Dame’s three-year-long court battle against the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Their historic triumph over the MTA validates both the existence of the woman-owned company as well as of female pleasure and wellness. This is also a giant win for free speech and anti-censorship.

Ethan Zuckerman is a Professor at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst (my alma mater), where he teaches Public Policy, Communication, and Information. His work focuses on designing and advocating for versions of social media that have positive social and civic impacts. Which means moving beyond existing models of funding and governance.

On the show, Ethan talks about the Metaverse, trust, Facebook vs Apple, making the Metaverse a safe space, governance of online spaces, data ownership, what the biggest piece missing from the Metaverse conversation is, Omar Wasow and Black Planet, and technical barriers when it comes to storytelling access on various platforms.

Ethan founded the Institute for Digital Public Infrastructure to explore the ideas previously mentioned. It’s a research group studying and building alternatives to the existing commercial internet.

Previously Ethan was at the MIT Media Lab working at the Center for Civic Media, researching the relationship between media and social change, and building tools to study how ideas spread in the media, and how citizens can better participate in their civic lives. He is also the inventor of pop-up windows. 

Ethan has many hats but the one that he wears the most is that of a blogger/writer. His work has appeared in The Atlantic, CNN, Wired and others. He also has a Ted Talk about listening to global voices.

Over the years, he’s been a tech startup guy (with Tripod.com), a non-profit founder (Geekcorps.org) a peace Corp for geeks, transferring tech skills from geeks in developed nations to geeks in emerging nations, especially entrepreneurial geeks who are building small businesses. He is also the Co-founder of Globalvoices.org which is a global blogging community.

He’s has written two books: Mistrust: Why Losing Faith in Institutions Provides the Tools to Transform Them and Rewire: Digital Cosmopolitans in the Age of Connection, both published through W.W. Norton.  And is an alumnus of the Berkman Klein Center at Harvard, the MIT Media Lab and Comparative Media Studies at MIT, Geekcorps, and Tripod.

Transcript

Yulia Laricheva 0:05

Hello, and welcome to another episode of Dream Nation Love. I'm your host Julia. And today I get to interview Ethan Zuckerman who's a professor at my alma mater, University of Massachusetts Amherst. Fun fact, I got my start at WFMU, the radio station back in the day. And that's where I really honed in my interview chops and also got familiar with storytelling, you know, spoken word storytelling. And I'm really excited to have him on the show, because he is teaching public policy communication and information. His work focuses on designing and advocating for versions of social media that have positive social and civic impacts, which is kind of like the basis or the shell, right? Dream Nation Love is really focused on social impact, and diversity, and impairment are all these topics that we're going to talk about today. And what's really interesting is that Ethan is working on moving beyond existing models of funding and governance, which is super fascinating. He founded the Institute for digital public infrastructure to explore the ideas I just mentioned. And basically, it's a research group studying and building alternatives to the existing commercial internet. Really, really, really super, super, super awesome stuff. Such an on spot podcast for Dream nation, love, can't wait to get into the discussion. Another fun fact, this is about Ethan, he is the inventor of pop up windows. Yes, pop up windows. And he has had many hats, but the one he wears the most is that of a blogger and a writer. His work has appeared in The Atlantic, CNN, wired and others. And he also has a TED talk, you should check out. He's super brilliant. And honestly, I want to do like 10 podcasts with him because trying to cram all this information into one hour is gonna be really, really tough. Who knows, we might do another podcast coming up in the future. This information is so pertinent right now, because we are in the middle of massive changes online, especially with trust and freedom of speech and all this stuff. So let's get into the discussion. Enjoy the show. And don't forget to share it with a friend after you've listened to it.

Yulia Laricheva 2:08

Hi Ethan. How’s life?

Ethan Zuckerman 2:09

Hi Yulia. I am well. How are you doing?

Yulia Laricheva 2:12

I'm good. I'm so glad to have you on the show. And I'm so excited that you're at UMass because it's a really experimental place.

Ethan Zuckerman 2:19

It's an interesting place. It's a big state university. So there's a lot of different things going on. But it's a university that has a real dedication towards social change and social justice. And it's a good fit for me. So I'm happy to be there.

Yulia Laricheva 2:32

Yeah, it's my alma mater. So when I've been reading your work probably for the last year I haven't I really came across you like, recently. And then I was like, Wait, he's at UMass. Lowell. This makes so much sense because we do a lot of social justice work at UMass Amherst. And a lot of people don't know about that. I wanted to talk to you a little bit about the metaverse and honestly, your career is like 10 podcasts. I don't know if I can squeeze all the questions I want to ask because there's like a podcast I want to do about trust issues, which is like what you've written books about on which is like fascinating, and government and all that stuff. And then your work also in places like Ghana, and in all the tech programs that you've built, I'm going to just try to get it into this hour, I will do my best. And I guess you're into hip hop too?

Ethan Zuckerman 3:21

I listened to lots of different kinds of music, hip hop and some of it but yeah, pick whatever works for you. You get to steer the boat. I'm sitting back and you can take me for a ride today.

Yulia Laricheva 3:31

Awesome. What was your dream as a child growing up?

Ethan Zuckerman 3:34

You know, I think the dream that I probably remember the clearest was wanting my parents to let me loose in the New York City Public Library. I actually lobbied my parents to let me take a year off between high school and college and just go to the New York Public Library and read. And I think for a lot of kids, that would have been an excuse to run wild in New York City. I think for me, I probably would have gone to the New York Public Library and read, I just loved libraries. I loved being able to find out about a topic that I didn't know much about, and read everything that I could find on it. You know, I grew up in a pre-internet age, I was very involved with Apple computers and Commodore computers. But those weren't really information devices at that point, where I was happiest as a kid where libraries were magazine stands were bookstores were book sells. And I don't know if my dream was to be a librarian or to be a researcher, but it was basically to have unlimited amounts of time. Unlimited books and comfortable chairs to sit in.

Yulia Laricheva 4:42

That's the dream, right? It's just access to information I grew up with — I'm 43. So I grew up in the pre-internet age, right? Pre-internet pre in a privacy age. Really, it was really a privacy age. Like if you want to find things out on me it might be on VHS somewhere buried in a friend's house. You know, like there's no information that really exists, which is quite lovely. Now we exist in this new universe that is just so public. And it's getting more and more public every day. And I have seen your TED talk too, which is great. And you talk about being a xenophile versus like, you know, xenophobe. And I think he recorded the TED Talk in 2011. That kind of all ties into like where we are now, which is the metaverse and knowledge and people coming together. My question is, before there were authorities, right? People used to purchase books, and they were written by people who had authority. And now you know, like, even this podcast, right? Like, I have a microphone. I'm not a published authority, but I am a voice in the social impact space and diversity and inclusion. Here we are. Everybody is just able to get knowledge and share knowledge. And how can the metaverse build trust? Because we don't trust each other in real life these days?

Ethan Zuckerman 6:02

Yes. So let me pick up on sort of part of your preamble and see if that pushes us in an interesting direction. And then I'll I promise, I'll get to the Metaverse and trust questions. Something super interesting happened. Round about the year 2000, maybe 2005. The early internet had this idea that anyone could create content, anyone could say whatever they wanted to say. The trick was, for most people, it was actually pretty hard. Most of us weren't comfortable setting up our own web servers. Most of us were comfortable with the sort of publishing software that existed at that point, round about 2000 to 2005, we start seeing a whole wave of companies that make it possible for people to say what they want to say and share what they want to share. It starts with some of the blog companies, it starts with some of the early social media companies, YouTube comes out sort of near the end of that period where people can start sharing videos, things like Flickr, where you could share photos, suddenly, everyone's a publisher, there is a huge upside to this, which is that there are a lot of people who didn't find a platform in the world that you and I grew up in. So I'm 49. So I was born in 1973. Growing up in the 70s and 80s, you were way more likely to have your voice heard, if you were a white male educated in an Ivy League school. And you know more than anything, if you were from the United States, right? If you were a person of color, if you were a queer person, if you were female, if you were less educated. If you were an immigrant, if you were from outside the US, all of those things, made it less likely that you would be heard. And so the great news of the internet is that lots of us found ways to have our voices and the fact that you can have a mic you can have a podcast. That's wonderful, wonderful news. What it does is it puts the gatekeeping in a different place. The gatekeepers used to be whoever was programming television, whoever was programming, the radio, whoever was publishing books for different publishers, whoever was editing the newspaper. Now the gatekeepers are, can anyone find your podcast? Apple is a big gatekeeper on podcasts. Facebook and Twitter are enormous gatekeepers? Do people see your comments? Do they see your points? Those things tend to be algorithmic. We are starting to learn that they don't always have our best interests at heart. Often what's going on on those platforms is that they're looking for engagement. They're looking for clicks, they're looking for likes. They're not necessarily looking for accuracy. They're not necessarily looking for content. That's good for us. That's helpful for us. So what does this mean, as we head into the metaverse, we haven't really talked about what the metaverse is. There's a lot of definitions for it. I think a lot of the reasons people are asking about the metaverse early in 2022 is that Facebook has essentially said they're going to rebrand their company around the metaverse. They are speculating about some sort of a shared digital space that you would access through the Oculus headset and that we're all going to interact with. My guess is that a Facebook Metaverse is going to have a lot of control by Facebook. And if it doesn't, it's probably going to fall apart pretty quickly. What many people are finding is that shared? Metaverse like spaces, give people a whole lot of opportunities to behave badly. And some of those opportunities to behave badly that we can filter out in the world of text. We have a much harder time filtering out in a world of motion. There's a story in The New York Times a couple of days ago suggesting that one of the problems that people are having on these early Meta versus People are virtually groping each other. By the way, it's something that can be really unpleasant. Some people are wearing haptic suits. So if I reach out and touch your chest, virtually, you might well feel that. So it's it's digital, but it actually can be a very physical assault, in the same way that we might filter things out in conversation, if you use certain language, we're gonna mute your kick you out, we may have to figure out how to do that in virtual spaces. Because we know that not everyone's gonna behave well or behave badly. My guess is that Facebook and other people sort of trying to build these spaces are probably going to look for a great deal of control over them, they're not going to want them to be harassment, heavy spaces. And what that means is that they actually are going to take on a lot of that gatekeeping my guess is that you'll see a good bit of control over what you are allowed to do in those spaces, what you're allowed to build in those spaces. And that'll be a real balancing act between companies like Facebook, wanting the spaces to be generative, wanting them to produce new products and new behaviors and new content, and wanting them to be safe and not wanting to be constantly working on problems of abuse, that's going to be a real balancing act for them.

Yulia Laricheva 11:16

I really wonder how it's gonna play out because, you know, they're obviously problems with Facebook and moderators who have stepped up and said, they've been traumatized by things that they've been monitoring on Facebook. And that's just like in the 2d world. So when you get into a 3d world and have to grow when you're really monitoring things in the VR space, that is some serious PTSD beyond just comments and beyond just video posts. And then again, it's like the Rockstar Games now. And for some reason, I was Googling some Metaverse stuff. And I just learned that they're cops now in Rockstar Games, which I really don't recall them being in Rockstar Games. When it first started, there was a place where you can just go and like maraud, and now they're characters that can take on cop roles, and they can arrest you. And I was like, since when is this happening? I don't know how moderation is going to take place in the metaverse because we're dealing with interactions in the real world genocide, in Myanmar, all these things that are kind of filtered into advertising as well in a weird way that you can take out ads for and skew people. So how, how do you monitor that?

Ethan Zuckerman 12:27

I think there have been police in Grand Theft Auto for a long, long time. I don't think I've played for 15 years or so. But certainly if you busted up enough shops, the cops would come for you. So I don't think that's brand new. I think that's been there for a while. Look, one of the things that I often tell people is that I think moderation is one of the great missed opportunities of social media. Moderation. And by the way I have a role in this is in part my fault. So the company that I helped run from 1995 to 1999, was called tripod, it hosted personal web pages. So you could come to us and for free, you could get a little space and build your own web page. Our main competitor was a site called geo cities. Those two companies are sort of widely seen as kind of the pioneers that led to Friendster and all of these other MySpace, so on and so forth. We realized pretty quickly that people were going to break our rules. And they were going to put up pirated software, they were going to put up copyrighted materials, they're going to put up nude imagery, all those things were against our rules. So we came up with a customer service team. And a big chunk of what they did was remove content that violated the rules. And we sort of outsourced it to a bunch of professionals. They were mostly college grads living and working in Williamstown, Massachusetts. These days, people have outsourced that work mostly to people in the developing world, the Philippines does an enormous amount of that work. I would argue that the real mistake is in trying to outsource that work. If you try to make that work, something that happens somewhere else out in the world. That's where things get really problematic. But you actually wanted to have communities that engage in governance. So in the real world all the time, if someone says something that's unacceptable if someone really strays that set of lines, we have a conversation, Hey, you can't do that. I'm not gonna let you remain in my class, or you can't come into this bar anymore, or any number of other things. We govern the spaces that we interact in in the real world. We need to start thinking about how we govern online spaces, and simply saying that this isn't our problem. We should outsource it to someone who for as little money as possible. We'll figure out what we can look at and what we can't look at. That is not a very good solution. This is an opportunity instead for us to say, what sort of conversations do we want to be having? And what sort of conversations do we want to restrict people from having?

Yulia Laricheva 15:14

It gets so delicate. Because then you're starting to get into free speech areas as well. And then you get into the area of free speech. And then also, who has access to the metaverse and what kind of conversations can be had. But on the metaverse, it basically, the metaverse is going to be as large as the world. So even get like a quarter of the worlds users, which is still going to be a lot, let's just say like maybe 10% of the world that's still large and trying to figure out how to police the whole entire world. It's impossible you have, it's so impossible, because I think people are just gonna find new ways to go about it. Like if he can become like a jaguar in the jungle, like people are going to have meetings as a jaguar in the jungle. They're just gonna have like jungle Jaguar communities talking about who knows what.

Ethan Zuckerman 16:01

But what if what if the answer is, you don't have one community with 3 billion people in it. For me, that's the fundamental flaw of Facebook, Facebook says we are one community with 3 billion people. And there's one set of rules that we all follow. My take would be, let's have the jungle Jaguar community and they run their own server and they run it according to jungle Jaguar rules. And if they are violating, you know, state or national laws, maybe their server gets taken down. If they are exchanging child abuse imagery, or they're selling illegal drugs, you know, there's a legal problem preventing them from doing that. But if they're simply having a jungle Jaguar a space where everything has to be proceeded with roaring, you know, they can have their own space, and they can govern their own conversation. And when someone comes in and says, I don't want to play by your rules, they can say go found your own community and have your own rule set. It's a very different model for how social media has worked. But it's probably a much healthier model. Trying to make us all play by one set of rules that Facebook tries to have apply for everywhere in the world, just doesn't make a ton of sense. You have really different people with really different cultural values, the norms, and different conversations and different behavior are acceptable in different spaces. So why do we try to do this with a single set of rules, we try to do it. Because to Facebook, as an advertiser, it's enormously advantageous to be able to say, Oh, we've got 3 billion people here, this is where you want to advertise. But in terms of actually running a community, that's probably not the best way to go ahead and try to figure out how to run a community. So maybe the thing to do is to say, perhaps some sort of a Metaverse is inevitable. But does it really have to be a single space uniting 3 billion people? Or could it be 1000s of different spaces with 1000s of different role sets, that's very much more how I would like to build something like this.

Yulia Laricheva 18:18

I think so too. And I think you know, the pandemic to the world is coming to kind of like this conclusion as well, that everybody's going into their bubbles, and everybody's going into their community. And everybody's just kind of staying small, except for like, obviously, the global elite who are just like partying, and, you know, the world is private jets, and yachts, and it's just as big as it always is. But everybody else is kind of like, staying home being local. But you know, I think it's really interesting that you mentioned culture, because a lot of it is Facebook culture, and like, what constitutes Facebook culture, and what can be Facebook culture? I think I mentioned I was I was sending you an email. And I was like, Yeah, Facebook tried to recruit me aggressively a few years ago. And I was really turned off by their culture and their approach. And I was like, Oh, I don't fit this culture, right? Because I'm a little different. And I brought that up in my interviews. And I was like, you know, I think you guys need me because I'm not your culture. And I'm more of a product builder. Like I'm a little bit more like Mark Zuckerman, because I built communities and I understand technology. And I realized that their culture did not understand who I was because they were programmed to be one certain way. Because, you know, when you're corporate, that's what you do. You're like, Okay, does this peg go into the square, like hole? You know you match things up. And when things are a little, a little different, you have a little bit of a hard time understanding them and quantifying I mean, if it's something that you've never seen before, you don't know how to identify it. So I thought that was really interesting. And I think that kind of makes a lot of sense when you start looking at company culture, and the way they present themselves and the way they monitor everything, which I think is really really interesting, but thinking of diversity and inclusion and being marginalized. How can we build a metaverse? That's an inclusive space for women and marginalized groups? This is a question that my friend Anne Griffin and I were talking about. She's an awesome product manager. And that's one of our main concerns like, you know, when you get to groping somebody in the universe and other threats that marginalized groups face, you know, even being included in such a space, some people might not have enough money to have an internet connection, let alone buy an Oculus. And frankly, I can't wear that thing longer than two, three hours, I want to like I'm really nauseous after a game. So as much as I love it, I can't imagine having meetings there on a daily basis.

Ethan Zuckerman 20:39

First of all, I mean, the notion that a Metaverse is going to be fully absorbed to wearing a headset, so on and so forth. This is a fantasy for tech companies. You know, at the end of the day, Facebook really wants to be Apple, Facebook is really freaked out by the fact that Apple can control how their software operates on the iPhone. And Facebook got really panicked. When Apple said, I'm sorry, you're not going to be able to track users the way that you want to track use. It was tremendously freaky to them. And Zuckerberg, his response has been to say, I want to own the hardware as well as the software. So Facebook started as a software company, it's becoming a hardware company with Oculus. The goal is to have an experience that goes from the hardware on your face to the universe in which it happens, all the software that runs on top of it, in the same way, that Apple's universe goes from the iPhone to the operating system, to taking a cut of the content, the audio, video, video content that goes back and forth on it, just because they want it doesn't mean they get to have it, right. There's no guarantee that because this is how Facebook would like the world to be that this is how the world is going to be. We get a choice around this, we can say we're not going to do it that way. This is not the universe that we want to live in. When you get into questions of safety and integrity. Again, the question really becomes Do you want one world where everyone has to come up with a common standard of behavior? Or do you want multiple worlds with different standards? This is one thing that I think Second Life has actually done reasonably well. The second life is, you know, probably the best-developed Metaverse in the sort of three-dimensional immersive sense of metaverse. Arguably, Minecraft is a metaphor. It's arguably Roblox as a metaverse. But as far as what most people think it Metaverse is will look like Second Life is probably the closest that we've had so far. Yeah, sure, sure. But with Second Life, one of the things that have been very interesting is that they've had to fence off areas as being adult-rated and being PG-rated. And they've, they've sort of said, there's certain behavior that's appropriate here, there's certain behavior that's appropriate there. Lots of people go on Second Life to have cybersex. But if you do it in a PG area, you're gonna get thrown out. And I think the way to try to deal with abuse, harassment, misogyny, racism, is to create spaces that people have control over, you're not going to be surprised. My answer, again, is governance. I think it would be really wise for people to be able to say, Hi, this is a server with zero tolerance for sexual harassment, you come on, and you make demeaning content, gestures, or comments or anything like that, and you're gonna get kicked off, and we've got zero tolerance for it. Other servers might be whatever goes and people might choose to go on those servers in the same way that people choose right now to go on 4chan. But you would have different spaces for different audiences with different rules associated with it. The key is in sort of ensuring that there's actual governance behind it. You don't want to say all these problems get escalated up to the Facebook level or some sort of platform level. Because then you know, whatever control you have won't be real. It won't be genuine. You actually want a lot of those problems to get solved at the community level before they get escalated.

Yulia Laricheva 24:29

That's interesting. But then I also like as you're speaking, I had the thought of like, also like, wow, I would not want my information held by Meta. Say you're having an affair. You're having an affair in the Metaverse... Say you are doing something else [something that is not intended to do] in the Metaverse. I mean, again, we're creating data. With everything that we post, everything that we say. And at the end, there is just so much data and again hacking and then you even have like Neuralink to the side. Right? Then you have like Neuralink which Meta kinda wants to be like eventually. I'm sure there's gonna be some kind of like a merger. That's just like a chip where you're just living in the metaverse, 24/7. You have augmented reality and GPS, like right in front of your eyeballs and whatever it is going to be, but again, and who has all this data? And who has this power? And how many servers are going to be like... Are we just going to be a whole planet of servers at the end? Like — that's it!

Ethan Zuckerman 25:22

There are a couple of different questions in there on the questions of data and control. There are folks like Sir Tim Berners-Lee, who are trying pretty hard to engineer protocols that are significantly different. And basically trying to make it so that you can have protocols where you show up with a small amount of your data. And you essentially say, I'm going to make my data usable for the following purposes. It's not usable for these other purposes. But you're in control of that data, rather than the platform being in control of that data. He has a whole protocol that he's working on, called solid, which tries to give people ownership of their data stores. And then they are sort of exposing parts of that data that you would need to do a particular transaction, right. If you're going to buy something you need to expose your credit card information, you need to expose your shipping information. But those things shouldn't be available. Otherwise, there are architectures that you could do to make a Metaverse that are significantly safer. The truth is, this is so far from what a Facebook Metaverse would look like that you would need a real revolution and how the services worked. You probably already do need that revolution, right? We've already seen examples of cases where adult services have been hacked and had their records exposed. And they have and people's careers they have been incredibly embarrassing to people when they're signed up for something to have an affair with someone or in the case of priests being involved with gay hookup sites, things along those lines. Simply having that data is potentially very dangerous and potentially very harmful. So re-architecting the system so that we have control over our data rather than the platform's having control over our data. That would be a great way to go forward. As far as how immersive these things are. Again, I would want to caution you. I think that just because someone says I want to put a chip in your head, and I want you to be in the metaverse all the time, doesn't mean that people are going to consent to that doesn't mean that the FDA is going to allow us to do that. There are a whole lot of possible barriers between futures that people may desire and want, and the futures that we actually end up with. And I think that this is a great time when we have something as big and weird and scary as the metaverse to really ask those questions. What do we want? And what's the combination of legislation and policy and technology that actually gets us there? Because we have a lot of control at this moment in time to sort of say, yes, let's have that or no, let's not have that.

Yulia Laricheva 28:23

The only thing that really makes me nervous is the fact that legislation when you get to like Congress and Senate like people don't understand technology there. So it's like, well, we really need a change in our governance to where you really have people who are currently involved in the current world where they're not bogged down by legislation, where they actually understand how modern technology works. Or at least a few people just like not everyone, but at least just have like, like three or four people who really understand it, who can explain it to everybody else. Because it's like, impossible not to know how technology works these days, even on a basic level.

Ethan Zuckerman 28:58

So one of the things that I'm starting to see is that there's a lot of legislators who had science and technology advisors who tended to have more of a hard science background, you're now starting to see better technologists sort of coming into these things. I would say that there's half a dozen senators and representatives who I trust, or I trust their staffs to pick apart and understand the technology bill. I think more than anything else, what I'm worried about is that technology, like almost every other space right now has become so politicized and so polarized, that things that might be common sense legislation are much harder to do now. And I think that, you know, we're ending up with these weird moments where Donald Trump and people affiliated with him feel like any sort of content moderation online, constantly. censorship. And that's simply not true. Censorship in the sense of First Amendment rights has to do with congressional laws restricting rights to speech. All these platforms are private actors. Now, whether or not they should be private actors, maybe they should be public spaces subject to much stricter rules about what sort of conduct should be carried on them. That's kind of a different conversation. But for now, they are private spaces. They got to make their own rule sets. And the issue is that those rule sets have become so politicized, and so phenomenally polarized in the conversation. It's an extremely difficult conversation to have.

Yulia Laricheva 30:46

You know, what is the biggest piece missing from the Metaverse conversation that's happening right now? Because this question comes again, from my friend Anne Griffin and, and also her and I have been looking online and I know we're seeing the same info [about the Metaverse]. There's only a certain amount of information that exists about the Metaverse because it's still very early, and people are having the same repetitive conversations, which I'm obviously trying to avoid in this podcast as well, because I'm trying to dig a little deeper. And I wonder what some of the biggest pieces that you think are missing from the conversations are.

Ethan Zuckerman 31:16

So I think maybe the first piece is who actually wants this, it's pretty clear that Facebook wants this and Facebook wants it because they're in desperate need of a rebranding. And because they'd like to be hot and sexy. Again, they haven't been particularly exciting or on the technological cutting edge for a while. It makes perfect sense that Facebook would like to bring this about. The truth is there have been these interactive spaces like Second Life for years, they've been pretty limited. There's about a million Second Life users, you go back about 10 years, there were about a million Second Life users, it is not a community that has radically expanded, it hasn't had a big growth curve associated with it. The Oculus headset certainly has people who are adopting it. But they're sort of adopting it in the way that you were talking about, they might use it for a couple of hours, they tend to get pretty tired wearing it, they might get disoriented, wearing it, it's really fun for gaming, does anyone want to use it for their work environment? I really haven't heard anyone talking about it as becoming a meaningful sort of work environment. So the first question in all of this is who wants to build this and why? And then I think the next question becomes, how does it get governed? Who gets to be in charge of it? And do we want them to be in charge of it, I would say that Facebook has a pretty atrocious track record of taking care of online communities. I think generally speaking, their online communities have had a lot of abuse, they've had very little effective governance. And I think if we were picking people to run a new space, Facebook would be pretty low in my list of people who I would want to run it. So before we have any sort of other additional conversations, let's try to work those two out who is building it and why and who actually gets to run it and govern head. And then of course, there's other questions like who gets to make the money off of it. But I think if we try to work through those, you know, sort of in order, we start finding a lot of questions about is any of this really happening anytime soon? Or is this more sort of fantasy and imagination, designed more for Facebook shareholders than for anybody else? It seems to me like that's a very big part of what we're dealing with at this point.

Yulia Laricheva 33:42

And you know, I often think about the Zuckerberg want to really become the next Apple. And I think about Steve Jobs, and the difference between Zuckerberg and Steve Jobs. And I think there's so different personality wise. And Facebook has a tendency to just kind of absorb everything, absorb competitors, absorb competition, it deals with everything, by buying something up instead of inventing something from scratch. And that's what I think is going to be really interesting because they're not really inventing the metaverse. They're they're kind of buying a space that already existed, which is the Oculus, which was crowdfunded on Kickstarter by people to begin with. And I think about Steve Jobs, and I think Steve Jobs was just such an interesting human in this world. And I have to bring up the fact that he tripped on a lot of acid and spend a lot of time in monasteries and he was really spending a lot of time in his own head and envisioning the future. I don't really know Zuckerberg, I don't know him personally, but I would assume that he's not spending time meditating and taking a lot of acid and walking around barefoot. I think in order to envision the future, I think you have to spend a lot of time alone and I think if they're really think about what you want to give to the world. Instead of what you want to morph into the world and how you want to morph the world to you. You really have to be a creator. A creator, which is such an powerful word, you know, in every right.

Ethan Zuckerman 35:11

I guess in some ways, I'm nervous about any technology about technological futures. That makes it dependent on individual. Great man, right? And they, they always turn out to be white dudes, right?

Yulia Laricheva 35:24

It's always a white savior!

Ethan Zuckerman 35:26

So I'm not particularly thrilled about it, whether it's Steve Jobs, or whether it's Mark Zuckerberg, I guess what I would ask is, I want to see more communities based around the values and the preferences of different people running them. So I had the great opportunity to talk with Omar Wasow, who is a terrific political science academic, but he was a techie before he moved over into academia. And he was one of the founders of a company called Black Planet, which was a social network specifically for African Americans.

Yulia Laricheva 36:01

I remember Black Planet, I spent some time on Black Planet. Oh, my gosh, this is such such a flashback.

Ethan Zuckerman 36:09

At the time that Omar was starting Black Planet there were a lot of different online spaces starting for Asian people, starting for black people, starting for women starting for queer people. And the theory behind it was the Internet is a weird and complicated place, you might want to have a home space where there's certain things that you can take for granted, people are probably going to be other black people, people are going to understand the way you speak and the way that you present yourself. And it doesn't have to be a space for everybody. What's really interesting is that those spaces faded away, because of the business model that we ended up using. Those spaces tend to do really, really well around subscription models, they do really, really well, if you sort of end up saying, Hey, pay five bucks a month and keep this thing going. They do not do well, if the model is let's support everything with advertising. Because if you're gonna support everything with advertising, you simply want the most users possible. And so any restrictions right, Facebook started out as a university based social network, it started out as a place for students at Harvard to rate each other's attractiveness. But then it expanded from Ivy League universities, to all universities to everybody and Facebook had to keep growing to expand the smaller spaces that were designed for one particular audience, those sort of fell away over time. And it would be really interesting to think about potentially going back to those spaces, and essentially saying, No, you know what, I'm going to choose to spend this chunk of time in a space, specifically for professors, and I'm going to choose to spend this space in a space for New Englanders and another one for progressives, people are going to complain that we're going to get isolated at an echo chambers. But the truth is, we are already finding ways to get isolated and an echo chambers, within these giant, so called shared spaces, that are shared spaces without being safe spaces.

Yulia Laricheva 38:20

You know, I think I mentioned I did a drive across the country a few years back, and I kept on going through the US and really seeing all of the US, right, you stop in towns, you stop and have food at the diner and you go from progressive places to really not progressive spaces, you know, basically rural spaces. I kept on thinking about how everything should be about local community, because we're still very, very tribal. We're still a very tribal planet. As much as we want to say that we're global, a very small portion of us is actually global. And, you know, I think you mentioned on your podcast, the word bridge figures, right, like people who reside in multiple cultures and who can bridge bridge multiple communities. And I really think that like in the future, the way you can improve the world is by improving your community first, my friend, I don't know if you know him. His name is Ben Berkowitz. I think he sold the company, but he started this really wonderful little company. So the company called See Click Fix. Yeah, sure. And it was all about focusing on local. Yeah, it was it was focusing on what he was one of my first podcast guests. It was basically empowering local citizens to fix their communities. If you have a pothole if there's somebody selling drugs outside of your window, you notify the SOP and it takes it to your local governments. And it's like in their face, basically, it's it says like a notification, showing that it has to be dealt with. I really like this model. I like this model of civic involvement. And I think about it for the future and how the metaverse can actually improve your current communities and the world because I think the way people are looking at the metaverse right now is this totally separate place to escape, right? It's like a place to dissociate a place to have fun as a place to escape. But I look at it as like, how can you get together in it and like, solve problems? And how can you use the Metaverse to create actual social impact? Aside from having fun, maybe you can have fun while creating social impact. I don't know maybe there's some kind of a gaming thing that can be created around it. But, but I wonder how we can use the Metaverse to actually impact social change and improve humanity.

Ethan Zuckerman 40:32

One of the things about a site like See Click Fix is that those sites are not particularly technically sophisticated. They're pretty simple. They're usually forms that are then forwarding an email to the right person. So the truth is, the sorts of technologies that we need to organize social change are probably not on the bleeding edge of technology. I made an argument some years ago called The cute Cat Theory, that sort of suggests that the tools that you want to use for activism are the same tools that you use to share cute pictures of your cat. Because they are robust. They work for a lot of people. They're user friendly. And they're surprisingly hard for governments to censor because people don't like shutting down the entertainment channels. I'm not sure that Metaverse would be the first place that I would be looking, I think I would be looking at technologies that are already pretty pervasive technologies that are widely used. I will say the first boom of enthusiasm around the metaverse in the late 2010s. There were a bunch of people trying to use the metaverse to do things like call attention to genocide in Darfur. And the problem with those efforts was that what they really showed were sort of the Western imagination of what was going on in Darfur, because there was very little data and very little reporting coming from the ground. And I remember writing a blog piece years and years ago, talking about how I knew that this was going to be a problem. Because I'd gone to this virtual refugee camp in Darfur, and the space for people to sit and contemplate, you know, the horrors was the campfire surrounded by these big thick logs. Now, it turns out that one of the major problems in Darfur refugee camps were that women, it was always women had to walk five miles outside of the camp to collect firewood because firewood was very precious. And routinely women were getting raped and attacked when they went to get firewood. So you have the Star Ferry refugee camp with this roaring campfire. And these enormous logs. And in fact, like one of the most fundamental facts of what it meant to be a different refugee was being misrepresented in that virtual environment. And it was happening because whoever was creating virtual Darfur had not been to Darfur, right? They were they were extrapolating on what they thought a refugee camp would look like. And they assume that a camp would be a campsite. And you know, the answer is, what you actually probably need is better documentation. So I don't know that using the metaverse for these purposes, is really the top priority that I would have. I think there's a lot that we can do with existing technologies to try to make social change. I think what I'm really worried about is is the Metaverse going to make existing disparities, that existing problems, even more entrenched, even harder to combat.

Yulia Laricheva 43:40

That's a really good point. But again, it just boggles my mind when people are creating stories, right? Because in the end, it's storytelling. It's like writing a book writing a movie, you're writing a program, you're writing a movie, you're writing a story. And I think the world is getting a lot better at it. But like using actual people who have spent time there, like making it authentic, as opposed to just like being representative of a concept. I remember that game. I remember the whole entire Darfur experience. And I remember, I actually got a chance to go into it. And I don't remember where it was maybe the conference might have been a VRLA in 2017. It might have been somewhere else, but I do. Remember I was like poking around with it. And I just, I don't it was just very surreal. I wasn't sure what to make of it. I just knew that like, this is not the way to observe a dartboard cam. Let's just say that. Because there's no way you can grasp the experience of being a refugee through VR. There's no way unless you're deprived of food. Unless you are fully in your country. There's no way you can really empathize with being a refugee. I'm I'm a refugee. I'm a refugee from Russia. So I know the experience of leaving a country you know the experience of having nothing and you can't just like tap into it from your couch. And go check dun dun I've been there. I've seen it. I know It feels like cool. I've gained, you know, a new perspective. And I think about that a lot. And I don't know. And I think about the over like, you know, people who are going to be investing in projects to like, how do you get buy in, right? Like, I'm thinking about what I can, like contribute to the world in the next few years. I mean, I have kids now, it's impossible. This this hour is so precious, which is wrapping up soon. But you know, I think about like, I'm like, What can I do? I'm like, maybe I can go to Harvard. And I can get a PhD and like AI, and I can be a female consultant on certain issues for AI consulting, because I don't see myself being represented in the future, especially. I just don't, and I was like, well, maybe I do that. But I don't know what the bigger thing that I will do yet. I just, I'm still trying to figure it out. But again, how do you? How do you? How do you create these authentic stories that are going to live forever? Aside from the, this is all this is so beautiful, this is bookending, our podcast on the same question that we started it on, right? Like, who gets to tell these stories? Who is leaving these records behind? Who's going to be reading these future records? You know, this is we're building a giant virtual library, basically, like, Where are the people gonna come from who are gonna write the stories, who's gonna have access to it?

Ethan Zuckerman 46:19

So one way to think about this is who gets access to those tools to tell a story with, right?

Yulia Laricheva 46:25

Aha. Aha.

Ethan Zuckerman 46:25

There are... There's a wonderful quote from Stephen Jay Gould, where he says "I'm less interested in the size and shape and structure of Einstein's brain than I am in the fact that there are surely many other people out there who were as brilliant as Einstein, but who died working in cotton fields or, you know, working in factories and never had the opportunity to sort of think in the same ways that he had the opportunity to think." And I think similarly, we have encountered some brilliant storytellers over the years, but we encounter the people whose words make it to the printing press and make it into our hands. And there are people who never got their stories on paper and never got them printed never got them shared. One of the things that worries me a little bit of the Metaverse is that every time you make storytelling, technically harder, you limit whose story is going to get told. I thought the explosion of blogging, and sort of photo logging on things like Flickr, were brilliant because many, many people are able to write many, many people are able to take photographs and share them. Those are very low barriers to content creation. I thought when we started doing to YouTube, and even things like Tik Tok that requires enormous amounts of effort and enormous amounts of creativity, but it's probably filtering out some people and some voices. I think when we get into creating virtual reality when we get into creating a space, like a proposed Metaverse, or even something like Second Life, that's another barrier of technical access, it's a barrier of know-how, maybe what we actually need to get better at is amplifying existing voices. And maybe that's the place where podcasting and blogging have more upside in the long run than something like Meta, which requires an enormous amount of technical expertise to be able to make things at.

Yulia Laricheva 46:27

That's so interesting. Yes, I think that's a really good point too. I also look at like what is going to last the the end of the world right, like the black hole is just going to eat everything eventually, right? But like if you visit this planet, and we're gone nobody's gonna know that the internet was here. And if they if they don't know how to tap into the internet, they're not going to know how to access all this information. So you're going to come to this planet and go there is no intelligent life here. Like there's just a bunch of like old computers that I found they look pretty prehistoric I don't know how to operate these things. He you know and it goes back to like having tablets and like you find the you know, you go to an Egyptian pyramid unified hieroglyphics. And you can kind of figure out what it is. But we're, we're smart civilization, we still can't figure out a lot of hieroglyphics. And we can't figure out a lot of ancient civilizations. So it's interesting is like... What do we leave behind for people who are going to find us 1000s of hundreds of years in the future after we moved on to Mars? After the rich people have moved on to Mars. I'm just gonna say that, right?! After they moved on to Mars and Earth is just like a giant server planet. What is going to stay here? We have to figure out something that lets the world know what we did and who you were. Or I mean... That's even thinking that we are somebody... Maybe we need no record of us. Maybe we just disappear, because we're not intelligent enough to really do anything. We're not even intelligent enough to create peace on this planet, like we're just a giant war planet.

Ethan Zuckerman 48:48

Well, we have rather effectively raised carbon dioxide and methane levels. If we managed to melt the permafrost, we're gonna have a real lasting impact on it, at least the geological structure of the planet. I do think these questions of, you know, what we leave behind are really worthwhile in the long run. But I think even more than what's going to survive, I'm interested in the question of who gets to speak up and who we get to listen to, for me, those are really some of the critical questions and the ones where I feel like I might be able to have some influence. Whereas I, there's not a lot that I can do. As far as the eventual heat death of the universe.

Yulia Laricheva 50:47

Right? I also can't forget that Etherium is probably going to be like the way we all go out. It's going to be like the Mayans cutting down the trees for like, whatever purpose they thought they were cutting him down for. We're just gonna be mining Bitcoin and creating, like, just pollution. And that's it. That's I'm pretty sure that's going to be like the future. That's how we're gonna go out. My last question to you is, what is your dream as an adult,

Ethan Zuckerman 51:09

I don't know how different it is. I definitely felt like libraries, I definitely still would love to have unlimited time to read. I think my dreams much more have to do right now with mentoring, I think they have a lot more to do with meeting brilliant students who I get the chance to share what I'm thinking about and what I'm working on. And then a year, five years, 10 years, I get to see what they're doing. And sometimes I can see a little bit of what we talked about or worked on, in what's going on in their work. And a lot of the time they've just gone on in wonderful new directions that I'm listening and learning from them. I think I'm living my dream. And I think it has everything to do with trying to help give people a little shove, and maybe just a little redirection early in their career earlier in their thinking. And then I hope staying on warm enough terms that I that I get the chance to see where people are many years down the road, because that's certainly been the most satisfying work that I've had the chance to do.

Yulia Laricheva 52:11

Well, you're in a good place to do that work.

Ethan Zuckerman 52:13

I'm feeling very good about it. And thank you so much for having me on this conversation.

Yulia Laricheva 52:18

Thank you so much for joining. You know, UMass [Amherst] is 40,000 people. I don't know what it is... When I was going there in like 1999 at 40,000 people, I think it might be more or less around that time. But it's a really big place. And it's really great. And what's wonderful about is that there are five colleges all around it. So you really get this really amazing discourse. And you really get this really great brains stew. As I want to refer to it, right. You get like Hampshire College, you got Smith, you got Amherst College. It's a wonderful little thing. And I just want to thank you for being on the show because it was so much fun speaking with you and thank you for making the time.

Ethan Zuckerman 52:52

Absolutely great to speak with you as well. And good luck finding time between parenting and everything else. And congratulations on being able to produce the show.

Yulia Laricheva 53:01

Thanks so much Ethan. Have a good night. Take care. Bye. Thanks. Bye bye.

Ben Curtis is a magician, award-winning actor, musician, and public speaker. He is also a Creation Coach helping people actualize their dreams. You probably recognize Ben as the iconic "The Dell Dude” from the Dell commercials in the early 2000s. Dell recently brought him back to kick off a new campaign and we caught up. Ben lives in Williamsburg, Brooklyn and we talk about being neighbors.

Alina Zavatsky is a vegan mom, runner, three-time marathoner, weightlifter, and champion of a whole-food, plant-based diet. Alina runs an awesome blog called Vegan Runner Eats and I really love her newsletter. It's filled with useful information for anyone interested in veganism, an active lifestyle, and tips on raising a vegan family. Alina was born in Uzbekistan – a country that used to be a part of the Soviet Union so it was interesting to speak with her about our shared experience of living in that part of the world. We talked about social media, body positivity, staying fit, and raising vegan children.

Jordan Marie Daniel is a Lakota professional runner and Activist raising awareness about Missing and Murdered Indigenous Womxn, girls, two-spirits, and relatives. Through her running, Jordan is representing Indigenous athletes and relatives, and the BIPOC community. She is an advocate for diversity, inclusivity, and justice for Indigenous, Black, Brown folx within these spaces.

She is the Founder of Rising Hearts which was born out of Standing Rock and the fight against the Dakota Access Pipeline. She is also a producer on the film The Sacred And The Snake. Following three Water Protectors – Lauren, Cheryl, and Olive – through their transformative experiences at Standing Rock and beyond.

On the show, we talk about her experience of moving to DC to be an advocate for Indigenous people. We also talk running, running through pregnancy, and MMIW. Jordan is holding a run to honor MMIW on May 5 which is the day honoring MMIW. You can learn more about it by following her insta. I’ll run it and I hope you’ll join us as well.

Don’t forget to follow the podcast on Instagram @dreamnationlove and sign up for the Love Letter a newsletter from Dream Nation Love. The link for that is on the insta and the website as well. The site is www.dreamnation.io

Suzy Batiz is the founder of Poo~Pourri, Supernatural, and ALIVE OS. She is an incredibly inspiring human who’s overcome many obstacles to create her vision. You might have heard her story on other podcasts or read about it in a magazine. Since the story exists on other platforms, on this show, we’re going to focus on ALIVE OS. An 8-week course developed by Suzy showing you how to create the life of your dreams. Think of it as a radical upgrade to your human operating system. Suzy wrote this program and filled it with paradigms, processes, and practices to help you lead a TURNED ON life. From figuring out what resonates with you to make your own ALIVE ideas come true. Helping you propel your dreams into reality. On the podcast, along with speaking about the course, Suzy talks about returning to Poo-Pourri as CEO, manifestation loops, Ayahuasca, raising kids while running a business, alive ideas, and the difference between resonance and dissonance.

Transcript:

Julia Laricheva 0:00 Right. Susie, it's so nice to see you. And I love your little Alive As Shit [neon lights] setup.

Suzy Batiz 0:06 Thank you. It's fun.

Julia Laricheva 0:08 Yeah, I'm in transit. So I'm like, I don't really have a studio because I'm moving around so much. But hopefully, in the summertime, I'm gonna set something up.

Suzy Batiz 0:17 So good. I actually, I brought us all back. I returned to CEO like four months ago and had my offices all redone. And this is my office wall at my office. But the funny thing is, I have a conference room next to my office, but I sit every single day in the conference room, and I never sit here ever. So I had this beautiful background, this gorgeous table desk. And I never sat here. So I thought it’s a good opportunity.

Julia Laricheva 0:46 I love it. Wait, so you're returned to being the CEO, because I just I was reading that you left and you were doing — you were traveling and you were just doing ALIVE OS and you're back.

Suzy Batiz 0:57 I know.

Julia Laricheva 0:57 You can't addicted, you're addicted. You have to.

Suzy Batiz 1:00 Well.. I don’t know. Yes, and. Possibly. You know, I had to return back about four and a half months ago. But it was really — it's really good. It was, it was shocking. You know, I was retired, I was not planning on it. And when I realized I had to return I was like “Oh boy.” I knew I had a choice to either replace the CEO I had or to return back and I am 100% convinced I'm not a good side/passenger driver.

Julia Laricheva 1:32 It's really hard to be a good side/passenger driver.

Suzy Batiz 1:36 It is. It is I'm way better with the steering wheel. So I completely restructured my company redid everything, rewrote every job description and put in KPIs for the first time in my life. It's been really challenging and exciting.

Julia Laricheva 1:52 KPIs are the best though because it's like you have a goal, and you can see it and you're like, these are our KPIs. And if we don't hit them, then we're not hitting our KPIs.

Suzy Batiz 2:01 Yeah, but I've never ran my business that way. It was really fun. It worked for, you know, 14 years without them. But realize there's a time like “Oh, okay, we're big enough. Now, we probably need to get a little more serious here.”

Julia Laricheva 2:14 Yeah. And it's, it's hard to just adjust the gears, right? Because you're in a different mindset. And you already are like “Okay, I'm doing this” and then you're like “Okay, let's shift gears. And let me put on a different hat. And let me get back into this. And let me start working on it on KPIs.”

Suzy Batiz 2:32 Completely. Yeah. I've never, ever used — I don't think I've ever used my left brain so much as I have in the past four and a half months — it is like really exercise. I'm more of a right brained, creative, and it's actually been really fun. It's amazing how much I've learned about my business.

Julia Laricheva 2:50 Yeah, well, you, you know, business is so creative. And I think that's something they don't teach you in school. Like, they teach you the arts, and they teach you theater, and they teach you all this creative stuff. And that's how I came about business too. And you know, and then once you start doing business, you're like, I have a whole new toolset to play with. And it's ultimate creativity because you get to work with creatives, too.

Suzy Batiz 3:11 Yeah, completely. Yeah. It's incredible.

Julia Laricheva 3:15 So I ask every guest “What was your dream as a kid?”

Suzy Batiz 3:20 You know, I grew up in a pretty dysfunctional environment. So I didn't have a lot of truly childhood dreams. Actually, you know, my dream growing up — my plan was to work at the post office or to get a government — like some sort of government job or work at a factory because you make good money, you know. But what I did naturally as a child, which my mentor Gay Hendricks talks about how it gives hints to your zone of genius, is I was always a maker. I always just made things and created things. People call me a creator. You know, like, I love creating and sharing. So I'm in business, not because I love businesses, because I can't stop creating. I just, you know, you know, like, right now, I've been making — I built a sewing factory, my basement, I've been making all these cute little scarves for all my friends and family. And, you know, and they're like, you should do a scarf line, like a clothing line. I'm like “Oh, that sounds like a lot of work.” But right now I'm just making little scarves. They're so cute.

Julia Laricheva 4:18 Yeah, every idea has a new challenge, right? You're — because you get excited about it. And you're like “Yes, I'm gonna make that!” But then you're like “Okay, warehouse storage, distribution.” It just gets into like, another level of difficulty and your time. And, and in a way you kind of built your own factory, right? Like, you built your own factory with Poo-Pourri. So in a weird way it like, your dream kind of came around, but you kind of always want to be a factory owner.

Suzy Batiz 4:46 Yeah, I guess I thought I was going to work in the factory. I thought, you know “Wow, you're really set.” You know if you can get a job in the factory. Which is just absolutely hilarious.

Julia Laricheva 4:56 That's hilarious. So how did you… How did you come around to creating ALIVE OS? Like what moved you to create ALIVE?

Suzy Batiz 5:05 So after my second bankruptcy when I was 38, this was like 2001. Around that I… well it was 1999, I guess. But I was in the stock market crash of 2001. So I went into a really deep depression and started a spiritual sabbatical. Like I went on a spiritual sabbatical for about four years, I decided I'm the worst business person in the world. I don't want anything to do with business at all. And the wonderful part of that journey of being completely flat and what I now call “the luxury of losing everything,” that whenever I lost everything, I was able to really see what I was up to and start this really inside journey within myself and I became happy for the first time in my life. And I had no external, you know — I didn't have a car, or, you know, my cars got repossessed, my house got repossessed, so I didn't have any of the material, things that we contribute to success. But I knew where abundance was inside. I knew that was an internal state of you know, vibration. That it was an energy. And I wrote a course 15 years ago, called Ins — is pretty much 16 years ago now called — “Inside Out: How to create a life you desire by going within.” And it was all based on this book called the "Game Of Life and How To Play It" by Florence Scovel Shinn, she was this amazing metaphysician that taught metaphysics in her basement in 1900, and self-published a book. Like rad woman, right? Imagine a 1900s. Yeah, 120 years ago. She's teaching this metaphysics class in her basement, about how basically how to manifest, how reality works. So I wrote this course and had five women in it. And then what happened was, nobody finished the course, you know, everybody kind of petered off, and I didn't even finish writing it. And I was like “Oh, I haven't created external success, the way people think.” I'm talking about abundance, but I just filed bankruptcy, right? So of course, as things would be a few months later, I had the idea for Poo-Pourri. And I have been on this tangent for, you know, 14 years, and which has been such a blessing. So about three years ago, I had an astrology reading. And this astrologer said “You did something 13 years ago, the world wasn't ready for and they're ready for it now.” I was like “Really?” And she was “Yeah.” And I looked down and my ex-husband had just brought this old binder that he found in some of our, you know, stuff from the attic. And my assistant had put it on my desk, and I looked down and I went “I wrote this course, like 13 years ago.” And she goes “Yeah, you know, you're gonna be teaching about money and abundance and energy.” I was like “Oh, my God, like I wrote this.” So anyway, that went away, you know, that went in my mind for a few months. And one of my coaches at the time was JP Sears. And he asked me a question, and he said, there's a quote from Joseph Campbell “The cave you fear holds the treasure you seek.” So the cave you fear holds the treasure you seek. And he said “What is in your cave of fear that so scary that you can't even utter the words?” Like “What is that dream that's so big, that you thought was absolutely impossible?” And I couldn't even hardly say it. I was not crying. And I said that “I'm a global spiritual leader.” And I still get a little “Oooh” with that. And anyway, I get through that process. And he's like “So what are you going to do? You know, what's your first action step?” And I looked at this binder, and I was like “I'm going to rewrite this course that I wrote 13 or 14 years ago then.”And so I asked 25 women here in Dallas, if they would be my accountability partners, and I said, I'll deliver a course every two weeks. All right, eight courses? And would you be willing to go through this, and be you know, just listen to whatever I write every two weeks, so they did it. And it was incredible. everybody's lives changed. And hmmm… I still didn't — that was like November of 2019. And I still didn't do anything with it. It's still like, okay, the holidays, the New Year, I still wasn't motivated. And then about April, people were having such a hard time during the pandemic, that one of my friends said ”Listen, like you've got this amazing course, it changed our lives. And women especially need to be hearing this right now. So will you take it online?” And that was the first time I taught it was in April of last year, April 2020. So I took it online. gave a lot of scholarships, probably half our class was to black women. And it's just been incredible. So I've taught hundreds of students since. I think I've taught it five times. I wrote an ALIVE abundance course. And the next few months, I'm running ALIVE business. So I'm tackling all kinds of areas, as a long story. But it's interesting to see the manifest — what we call manifestation or the “actualization” I like that word better, or the actualization of how the course came to be.

Julia Laricheva 10:21 Right? You know, like, sometimes things make more sense when you start writing them out on a timeline. Like, if I'm not sure about, like my story or something, I'll just write a timeline, and then I'll see things in it that like I didn't even realize I saw. And it's so interesting to like, just create timelines and just go “Oh, okay, so that how that that fits into it.” And I'm really big into astrology too. I, I helped launch this app, it's called The Daily Hunch. And they use like all your transits. It's a custom astrology thing. And it's like, it's I'm really into astrology, like I'm that passionate about astrology. And I think astrology also shapes who we are. And I think if people are into astrology, they're going to be open a little bit more to manifesting because I try to explain manifestation to a lot of different people. And sometimes some look at me, like, I'm completely nuts, but others are like “Oh, yeah, I totally get it. I'm a manifester. Like, I understand that.” So, it's really interesting to help people understand this concept and help people understand energy and flow, and what it's like to live as a three dimensional human in this plane. Because I think a lot of people go through their life not connected to anything, and they're asleep. You know, so it's, it's hard to, to kind of like wake them up. And I think this is the perfect way to get them to start thinking about, like, how much bigger can their life be?

Suzy Batiz 11:50 So and I think sometimes the others — the whole thing, like, you know, they're asleep. And I think at various times, we all have parts of ourselves that are asleep, you know, we're all multi-dimensional beings. You know, like, I may have a part of me that's asleep, I'm not in a relationship right now, you know, so that's pretty dormant and kind of asleep, and I didn't romantic relationship, you know, but my business, you know, is actually pretty awake, or my spirituality, or my spiritual practice is pretty awake. Or sometimes, like my meditation right now has been a little "weh," you know, did a lot of medicine journeys last year, and I've been trying to get my meditation back. So I think we have varying levels of asleep and awake, you know? And it's like, Yeah, what, what made me awake right now?

Julia Laricheva 12:30 Well, it's also the amount of energy you can put into it, right? Because your business may be taking away more energy. And a piece of that energy can be put towards relationships. But since you're not putting that energy into relationships, then they're no relationships coming up. Because the universe is not getting the signal that you want a relationship. Because to the universe, you look like you're busy, and you don't want it. So, I think all those things are so interesting. And I was gonna ask you, if you remember your very first ALIVE moment, right? Speaking of waking up, and like, feeling alive?

Suzy Batiz 13:07 Well, I, you know, the hindsight is always 2020. Right? So what I do remember, and one of the things that really was the catalyst for this work. You know, while I wrote that I knew that abundance and ALIVE; actually in my course ALIVE actually stands for Abundance Lives In a Vibration of Energy. I knew where it dwells within a being, I knew that it's a state of being within oneself, but I didn't actually understand what it feels like when this evolutionary impulse comes in to your being when that cosmic, you know, Big Bang. And that happened when the idea for Poo-Pourri came about. I didn't quite understand it at the time, but I remember somebody said, like “Hey, can bathroom odor be trapped?” We were in a small house with a, you know, big family. And I remember like this little zing up my arm and it's like the room kind of went high def and I completely saw, I worked with essential oils, oil, floats on water, and I looked and I go “I can do this.” They're like “What are you talking about?” Like it was that moment of just like — I've been plugged into a light socket. I absolutely saw it all. I knew I could do it. It took me nine months in the actual world. But looking back now what I teach about going towards ALIVE ideas are things that turned us on, I can go back and go oh “That's what that was. Right.” And prior to that, I'm sure that I had those moments of insight and before, but one of my teachers, she's passed away now. She was one of my mentors — Barbara Marx Hubbard, used to say that these impulses within us are actually evolutionary impulses. They are evolution itself, telling us exactly what it needs in order to evolve . Isn’t that radical?

Julia Laricheva 15:07 I love that. It's also like a level of survival that you want to live at, right? Do you want to survive? Or do you want to, like survive and thrive? Right? It's like, what level of survival will you be comfortable with? Like, what will it take for you to survive? You know, it's an, I like to think it's also like my future self kind of guiding me. I wrote letters to myself when I was younger. And I wonder if you did anything like that when you were younger? Like if you feel like you have a higher self guiding you towards your goals in a way like you speaking to you from the future?

Suzy Batiz 15:41 Yeah, you know, I'll tell you, I went through astrologically speaking, I had no idea. This is strong, I've never been into astrology really. I'm tell all these astrology stories, but I sort of roll my eyes. They're like “Oh, your 12th house and your 10th house on like… Oh my God.” You know, I remember a shaman down in Peru telling me like 13 years ago, the more complicated it is, the further it is from love. So I've always tried to keep my life pretty simple, right? And this sometimes all the houses and they're on my “Oh, Lord.”But she did tell me that this year, I guess, my Pluto's in transit. And they call it Hades, where you face your actually deepest, darkest fears. So I've been going through that this year. And it has been beyond intense, the most intense time I've had in 20 years. But what I've been realizing is that I'm not even sure about even the word manifesting anymore, I have been more in a place of surrender and watching, I'm not even sure if I'm being guided by a higher purpose, or my own evolutionary impulse or something within me. It's almost like all of that belief that I really, really held so tightly has started unwinding this year. So I don't know if I'm guided by a higher purpose. I don't know. I do like to believe that there is a God. And that is my personal belief. I do actually know it's true. Of course, I don't know if it's true, nobody knows if it's true. So really just been, as I've been down in Hades this year, just really looking at so many structures that I had, that I absolutely thought were true. I'm not even sure I've manifested anything. And I don't even use those words anymore. You know, what I do know is that created a lot of spaciousness in my being. And that spaciousness that I keep creating, things seem to fill it. So we could call that manifestation, but very little of what I've actually wanted, has come in to be, and I actually think we can limit ourselves with manifestation. And trust me, I've been out there talking manifestation for the past, you know, at least five, six years, and on a personal level for probably a good 20. And now I'm rewinding all of that going “Why would you even want to limit yourself with some sort of manifestation? Why wouldn't you be open to and being curious to what life has to deliver? Right?” And, yeah, so it's really fun this year?

Julia Laricheva 18:17 I think so you know, I think once you put it into, like, your heart space that you want something, the universe is going to deliver something even bigger than you imagined. But I think it's just wanting it to begin with, and then kind of like, putting it away and just going okay, like "That'll be nice." And like, let me just focus on my thing, and see what see what the universe will bring. Because I think your imagination is nothing compared to what the universe hasn't started sometimes, for better or for worse.

Suzy Batiz 18:47 YAnd again, I don't even know what I want. Like, why would I even think about what I want. It's like, you know what I want? "What I'm given." So it's really funny. So I was in the camp of Byron Katie. 18 years ago. Do you know Byron Katie?

Julia Laricheva 19:01 Uh huh.

Suzy Batiz 19:02 Her ideas? Okay. So I was in her camp for that for my four-year sabbatical. And I was so loving what is and surrendering and being open and curious. I have spent 18 years and I'm back where I was 18. I went through testing or trust me, I really, I would bet you a lot of money that no one's done more personal development workshops. You know, I've done over 150 hallucinogenic journeys. Like I have you explored this shit, okay. I'm not, I haven't been sitting back being passive, like anybody that knows me knows, like, I've done a lot of work. And now I'm like, for what? I really back when I was 18 years ago, going "Everything's perfect. It's great."

Julia Laricheva 19:47 Well, write down… Like, eventually, like five years down the line, right? When you start making those linear things, you'll be like “Ah, this is what it was all about. Right? Aha okay, this is where it's going.”

Suzy Batiz 19:58 So it all works out.

Julia Laricheva 19:59 It all works out. I was going to say, so have you thought about implementing KPIs in your personal life?

Suzy Batiz 20:06 Yeah, noooo, I'm not even interested. You know, I just… Ugh, like I said, it's been more like, I've been more of a place of surrender and curious, and I've been in many, many, many years. Just kind of like, I don't know, where, let's see, maybe, maybe people always ask me, like, you know, does I went to this lunch, about a month ago, and these this game designer, and we were talking about, you know, is this life a simulation? I'm like, maybe? And they're like, Well, you know, do you believe in a creator? And like, maybe, and I do everyday? And? I don't know, I'm back to I don't know anymore. It's an awesome place to be internally, within me, it frustrates everyone else. But I'm a little like, I don't know anymore. It's really kind of, I feel free, if that makes sense.

Julia Laricheva 20:56 No, it does. You know, I always think that deja vu is some kind of a glitch in the matrix. Like, if it's a simulation, maybe the deja vu is like “Oh, you've been here before you've done this before you're on the right path.” So I try to look at deja vu is like, okay, that there's a glitch in the system. And like, maybe it's a reminder of the matrix, but I was gonna ask you what has been your favorite? What is your favorite drug experience? I love drug experiences as well. So I you know, I think a lot more people should be open to them. Because I mean, now everything is coming to light, right? MDMA research. They're even working on LSD, mushroom therapy, and things or in the last 10 years, things have been so much more open. You know, I Ayahuasca retreats are now popular, where like, 10 years ago, you couldn't talk about this stuff. It was like so taboo.

Julia Laricheva 12:38 At the end of the day, it’s cat tranquilizer, right?

Suzy Batiz 22:43 Yeah. Yeah. So it is really good. I was working on attachment. Like an anxious attachment. It did solve that issue, but I think it had other repercussions. So I'm a fan of any of the naturals, you know, like Ayahuasca, Psilocybin, Sassafrass. Anything that is grown of the earth. I'm way more a fan of and, and again, honestly, just last night, you always people were talking about Ayahuasca and I'm like, you know, I just don't know if I'll ever do any another hallucinogenic journey. As long as I live, I feel good. So again, I don’t know.

Julia Laricheva 23:23 Well, you know, if you have to approach it from a point of like, trying to download information, right? You kind of can't go into it, just like, just as you are, because you're not going to get that much out of it. So it has to be a place where you're really trying to find answers.

Suzy Batiz 23:39 Right.

Julia Laricheva 23:40 And, and I think it's always, it's always interesting what you can discover about yourself and what the plants can teach you. What nature can teach you and like what insight you can and again, it's going back to energy work, right? It's the energy of the universe moving through the earth, and moving through the planets, moving through you, and everything is like one and you kind of tap and it's I kind of call it like going online, right? It's like a different form of an internet. You can come in and you can you have to be ready for the journey. And you just come out with a little bit more information hopefully then than you had before. But I don't think you can just you know, go into it just just fooling around because it's serious stuff. It's very powerful, powerful medicine.

Suzy Batiz 24:28 Yeah, I do believe that there's a lot to be said for opening up space. You know, most of us have filled and filled and filled and you think about Ayahuasca to purge it of you know, you're literally puking up these energies, supposedly, and, but what it does create some space which is really nice. So it is a they are wonderful, I think to stop and kind of expand your consciousness into something much bigger than you

Julia Laricheva 25:01 And you know, you keep on mentioning the word space too, and it makes me think of the goldfish idea, right? You are only going to be as large as a goldfish as like the bowl that you're put in. Right. So if you're in a small bowl, it's gonna be a small bowl for the whole entire life. But if they put you into a big bowl, you're gonna, you're gonna get a little bigger, and you're going to expand and in a way. It's, I like to think about, like, you know, what bowl will fit you? What bowl will you be happy with? And how can you find that bowl? And how can you, how can you create your own bowl?

Suzy Batiz 25:34 Who’s determining the size of bowl?

Julia Laricheva 25:43 Right?

Suzy Batiz 25:36 I remember I did one Ayahuasca journey, and I came out and I was like, “I'm gonna open a company called “What box?” They were like “What?” I go “Yeah.” People always say think outside the box. I'm always like “What box?” Like, “Where's the… who made the box? Where's the box? Where's the bowl? Where is that bowl? Show me.”

Julia Laricheva 25:55 We say what is it? “Squaring the circle.”Squaring the circle, thinking outside the box? Is it's all these metaphorical things we use. But if you're right, you're totally right. And, you know, speaking of inside the box, and outside the box. You know… how does one manifest the life they desire through energy work? Like, you know, how do you manifest this bowl? How do you manifest being a fish? Can you manifest being something else?

Suzy Batiz 26:23 Not sure that you can again, like I said, I'm not sure. I don't know what, what my practice has been lately is the opposite of manifestation. It's the opposite of what most manifesting teachers, you know, most, most of the times you're taught to want this and then you think positive, and you're going to vibrate and be aligned with that. I'm not sure if that's true anymore. Abraham Hicks is going to come and knock me over the head. What I do believe, is that... What I am saying when I believe... what my experiences is... The more I clear internally and create more peace -- this is the better way of saying it within myself -- the more things seem externally to come. So it's the opposite. Because what happens is, when you really think about it, I'm just, I'm just trying to call game on the whole manifesting, manifesting. Because think about this, think about this, I want a million dollars, right? Or a million dollars. What that actually does is in a wild way, it rootes the fact that you don't have a million dollars, right? And they say, Oh, well, you know, you need to really feel a million dollars. Well, you can't feel it, because you've never had it, you can try to imagine what you think it feels like. And so all of this, to me is a lot of work the way I would I preferred to work in the past few years, as let me just keep clearing space within myself. Let me -- anytime I feel like a feeling or emotion I want to kind of be like ”Ooh, what's that?” Ooh, you know, I go into that, I feel that and then that sort of like it's resolved. And then what happens is things start coming in. And I'm like, well, that's cool. Now the trick is, I don't believe you can do that in order to get it because then you're in the same manifestation loop, like, I'm going to clear, so I can have a lot of good shit in my life. Right? Now you're back in the lock again. So it's a really tricky, kind of interesting ninja move. Can I be okay with what is? And can I fully surrender to this moment? And then can I be open to whatever life has to deliver me good, bad, what we label is good or bad, right? And then can I just be present within that experience? And my 100%, you know, track record experiences, I'm blown away by what a life keeps offering that I could have never even conceived within my rational mind.

Julia Laricheva 29:19 Right? It's so interesting. I think about that, too. And I think about every time I do a jump in my career, and whatever I'm building, you know, I try to just spend some time just thinking and clearing space and thinking about what, what I need to eliminate in order to get to the next level. Right? Like, how, how do you like to clear everything? Like, do you have a... Do you have a way to do it? Do just sit there and you're just like ”Okay, this is this is what I'm doing right now? I'm clearing it.” Do you make a list? Like what is your method for clearing?

Suzy Batiz 29:53 Yeah, I think again, it's about being present in the moment. You know, it's like, yeah, right now yeah. If I were looking at clearing [undesipherable], I don't want tension in my jaw, right? That tells me and studying body intelligence that there's some anger. And I'd be like, oh, angry what are you angry about? Those guys you see, that just kind of go into that, like, can I express anger? And can I feel this anger that's present within my body. Or, you know, if I feel a couple of days ago, I had this real big feeling of humiliation, you know, it was just like, I'm so humiliated. And I literally just sat and felt that, like, I'm feeling my belly right now. Felt humiliation, and then I just really got to love, you know, I got to see, when I was a little girl, and, you know, it was just like 'Oh, my God, the one that actually thinks she could do something wrong." And you know, but I just, it whatever arises in the moment, I don't really think now. And there are some things that had been a little more difficult for me to clear on my own. And that's when I reach out to, you know, like my mentor, Gay Hendricks or a therapist, and I kind of go, you know, it's been three days, I haven't been able to clear this energy, I still keep feeling this feeling. So you know, there's some protective mechanisms around me that's not wanting to feel it. So I use them as a spotter, to kind of go, I need to go in here where you kind of hold space, because there's something pretty gnarly. And here, it feels like you know, it never is, but it can feel that way.

Julia Laricheva 31:33 That's interesting. You know, I never thought about going to someone to help with clearing. But like, that totally makes sense, right? Like, if your car has a check engine on you take it into a shop. So this is it's really brilliant. And it's really nice to hear that, you know, coming from you. What else I was going to ask you? You know, like, one question I have, which I didn't even write down is… you built such a huge business with three children, two children, or three children, I forget it.

Suzy Batiz 32:02 Yeah, you know, I'll tell you, I'll answer that question with the story. So I have a senior VP of creative here. She's incredible. She's, you know, just she's been with me, I think eight or nine years. She's in her 30s. And when she had her first baby, two and a half years ago, she told me she was she, you know, she took her maternity leave. And she said, she's ready to come back to work. And I said “No, don't come back to work.” And she said “I want to” and I said “You know, one of my biggest regrets is not being home with my children.” So and I said “You know, I don't believe in the I don't remember that… Sheryl Sandberg, I don't remember, I don't believe Lean In, I don't believe you can have it all. You can't have it all, something is going to sacrifice.” So one of my deepest regrets is that I wasn't in a position where I could spend more time with my children. And the compromise I made for her, she could come back to work if we gave her a big office and put a nanny in there. So yeah, I know we can't do it now. We tried to do it for a few more people afterwards. And there's all kinds of HR laws where you have to be a daycare, it's it got you know, our naivety, let us do it for a year, which was really amazing. You know, the baby's name is Lucy and I was in every meeting holding her. So she was really birthed in a community. But that was a very abnormal environment. So I sacrificed a lot of time with my children that I would trade back all the money I have to have that time back again. That's the real answer.

Julia Laricheva 34:09 I just wanted to give you a hug right now. I want to give YOU a hug. I want to give you a hug. Yeah, it's just trying to figure things out right? and trying to like, it's like, where do you put your energy? Right? Where do you…?

Suzy Batiz 34:24 What's my priorities? Yeah. What are my priorities? Yes. You know, what pretty screwed up priorities. I really thought that success in business and me being successful, was the most important thing to me. And when I look back now, it's like “Girl, you had those priorities all screwed up, like completely screwed up.” And it seemed me like worked out. Well. You know, my children are happy, but I live with the regret of the trade offs. And you know, I had to trade off. I don't believe you can have it all.

Julia Laricheva 35:00 I don't think you can have it all either. And I think it's, um, I think, again, it goes back to survival mode, right? Like, I'm sure at that time you were in survival mode, and you're like “I'm building something for my children, so they don't have to be how I was.” You know, like, I'm sure it all goes back to like,

Suzy Batiz 35:15 Yup

Julia Laricheva 35:16 All of that. And it's, it's this is what we have to deal with all the time.

Suzy Batiz 35:23 And none of my kids are interested in money at all.

Julia Laricheva 35:27 Because they grew up they're all growing up with it.

Suzy Batiz 35:29 They're all, they're all artists. They're just like "I dont even want money." You know, my older son's into Crypto. He ran all the Bitcoin meetings here in Dallas because he thinks we need a new financial system. He will not invest in anything that doesn't forward the movement of Blockchain technology. Even if he can make money. He's just fabulous. M daughter is an artist. My other son is an inventor. Just making stuff. None of them are really interested. Which is really fasc – I love it. I'm like "Yah, keep doing that."

Julia Laricheva 36:00 But they're going to come into whatever they're doing. And, you know, like, it's all gonna work out in the end. You know, and it's, it's interesting, because I see that divide between my friends and myself. You know, I have a story similar to yours. Grew up with I'm a Russian immigrant. I came here with 100 bucks in a suitcase when I was ten with my mom. You know, so it's like... So it's, it's about like this generation, achieving and then doing things. So it's like... How... It's a voluntary discussion altogether. It's like, I won't even go into it, but it's how the drive that you have came from where you were. You know, if you if you had something, if you were born into something else, you'll be like "I'm doing Crypto."

Suzy Batiz 36:40 This is what, This is what. I gonna paint. I'm going to paint.

Julia Laricheva 36:44 You know what, she just needs to get into the Gagosian gallery. And that's it, and she'll be all set. And like, she'll, she'll paint her way through her life, and it's gonna be wonderful. But you know, speaking about, like resonance and dissonance. How does one use resonance and dissonance to transform their reality? We talked about staying away from things that you dislike, and drawing towards things that you like, and again, you know, like, your children are resonating with art. Clearly, this disonancing from money, but but they're still young, who knows? You know, who knows. And the NFT's man, NFT's.

Suzy Batiz 37:26 I don't even... I still don't understand it. I'm like "So there's nothing that I buy and I still have nothing.." Like "Yeah." I'm like "Okay, well, if I buy a piece of NFT art, I... you own it?" "I do." "Yup." "Okay, where is it?" "Well, it's on the internet." "Okay. But what do I do if I want to show somebody that?" "Well, you could projected upon a wall." I'm like "Me, I'm sorry." But if we got a little bit of the Emperor's New Clothes thing going on here, which is pretty fascinating. Um, you know, again, just energy. It's like, Oh, I'm just gonna believe the story. That's not true. Okay." Give me something like —

Julia Laricheva 38:02 But that's what, that's what life is right? Money is a story that is not true. Like, we all chose to believe that money is a thing, before we were trading shells and salt. And now —

Suzy Batiz 38:13 Exactly!

Julia Laricheva 38:13 And now we're like "light."

Suzy Batiz 38:13 You want some of my light? I've got some, I've got a million dollar light, you don't say.

Julia Laricheva 38:21 You've got a billion dollar light Suzy. And you're shining? Yeah. And you know, you're shining in two corners of the universe, they need it because there are lots of girls. And there are lots of boys. And there are lots of everyone else between boys and girls, you know, who need this light and who might be listening and who were in your shoes when when you were little, and they're just looking for a light. They're looking for a light, so they can turn on their light, and they're trying to escape. They're trying to escape that scary place. You need to be like a little beacon, shining your light so they can find you and they can come ALIVE. So this is —.

Suzy Batiz 43:47 Yeah. So speaking of that. Resonance and dissonance, so I called Dr. Bruce Lipton. Gosh I don't know the words, 2017 are coming up. That's probably true. In 2017, and I said "Heey, I have this theory that ideas are alive. Are they ALIVE?" He said "Why do you ask?" And I said "Well I have this theory that ideas are alive. The ideas that seem to turn me on, seem to work out. The one I create with my left brain, logic, like "Oh there's not a dry cleaner on this corner." It makes sense for a dry cleaner here. They just never work out. And umm, I'm just curious about that. I just wonder if ideas are ALIVE since he's a cellular biologist. And he said "Every living thing is a vibration." So everything is a vibration. Everything down to an atom is a vibration of energy. Then he said "Every living thing is seeking more life-force energy." So we are going to be naturally drawn — When you look at a cell under a microscope. It's around looking for more energy. It's within our nature to look for more energy. And then he explained to be resonance and dissonance. And resonance is when you take two energies — and he said this could help you explain what's going on. When you take two energies waves that are the same pattern and same wave length, so they're the same. You put those two together, they equal a bigger pattern than either of them do a part. So it's not 1+1=2, it's 1+1=3, 4, 5, 6. Depending upon the level of resonance. Okay. Then he said dissonance is the opposite. It's when you have two energy waves that are completely different. One is like this. It's not like one is good and one is bad. Or those people are toxic, or whatever. These horrible words we throw out to people. But when they are just different, you are not on the same wavelength. You're not on the same energetic pattern, those two together create less energy together than they do apart. Now check that out. So both those together equal less energy than just one of them do by itself. So he says like noise cancelling headphones. You put noise canceling headphones on and what they do is actually those two negatives — I mean those two cancel each other out and create no energy. Where you can't hear any sound. So... What I realized is — is that the things and — I tried to keep myself in two places of resonance. Things are actually turning me on. And move away from things that are dissonant and dragging me down. And I know that energically. For example I've had a lot of company this week. And it's getting to where I need some alone time. It's starting to become dissonant for me. It was really exciting, I had a great social life this week. And now I'm like coming into my like "Ok I need to get myself into a better state of resonance, because it's becoming dissonant now." This person is still wanting to you know, stay with me, company, and go out and see things. And I'm in a pattern, right now my energetic pattern is "I'm tired, I need rest, I need solitude." So it's just different. It's not that one person is good, and another person is bad. It's just dissonant right now and maybe resonant in another time. So one of the things that we do in ALIVE OS is we do clear a lot of the clutter. We talk about a lot of that intention integrity and we start learning about resonance and dissonance. And we also enter the "cave of fear." But we start looking at those things that are dissonant, that are dragging us down energetically. And energetically it's like draining your bank account every single time. It doesn't light you up. So you are literally getting less energy than you had before, or being at a neutral state. So drop some of that stuff, as we start really focusing on little more on the things that are resonant. And we start turning towards. And once we start turning towards we start being actually lit up, and we get more energy and life force, and life goes on. So I think we are masters in Western Civilization at trying to do self-care so we can try to patch the vast ammounts of dissonance we have in our lives. And try to make it OK. You know, and really the truth is that this is not turning you on. It's actually depleting your life force energy and all of the sudden we end up with a disease and we go "What happened?" Well what happned is that you have been draining your life force energy this entire time. So.

Julia Laricheva 43:55 It's so true. And it's in it's Thursday, and it's four o'clock, and I'm like, I'm very cognizant of our time, too. So I have one more question left for you. You know "What is your dream as an adult?" Now that you're grown up?

Suzy Batiz 44:11 Really, the only dream that I kind of have is "Can I be a curious observer?" Like "Can I be fully expressed in the moment?" No matter what's I think someone wants to hear, can I be fully expressed? And can I just be present to what, what's up right now in this moment, and be authentic with that. If I can live the rest of my life like that? I'm gonna be really happy.

Julia Laricheva 44:43 It's a beautiful dream. I think you're doing it you know, like, every everything you do is towards it. So I'm excited to see what you guys are going to be doing at Poo-Pourri I know there were some there was a Superbowl ad this year, right? There was? Last year?

Suzy Batiz 45:00 No, no, no, no, no, no, we haven't done Super Bowl ad ever. And we a Super Bowl campaign, but not yet a Super Bowl campaign. That's what? Yeah, we have a big campaign coming out in January, which should be fun and shake some things up. So we got a lot of fun things brewing over here.

Julia Laricheva 45:16 Awesome. Well, I'm glad that you're back in the, you're back at it .

Suzy Batiz 45:20 Back in the saddle.

Julia Laricheva 45:21 You're back in the saddle. And I'm super excited about the course i'm going to share all the info on the October 1 podcast and I can't wait for more people to find out about resonance and dissonance and all this wonderful stuff. And I'm also a huge fan of Tesla. And he's got a wonderful quote that I live by that says "If you want to know the secrets of the universe, think

Suzy Batiz 45:43 Think in terms...

Julia Laricheva 45:44 In terms of energy, frequency and vibration.

Suzy Batiz 45:47 That's it.

Julia Laricheva 45:48 I love Tesla. He's like my dream man. He's, he's, he's amazing. But I'm excited to see how ALIVE OS was grows throughout the years. And I'm so happy that you're doing this.

Suzy Batiz 46:00 And we'll see. Yeah, well, thank you so much. It was so fun. I appreciate it.

Julia Laricheva 46:04 Yeah, thank you for making the time. I appreciate it too Suzy. Have a good day.

Suzy Batiz 46:0 Bye Bye.

Julia Laricheva 46:08 Bye.