Let's Give A Damn

My guest this week is my friend and incredible human, Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis. Jacqui is an author, activist, preacher, and public theologian toward creating an antiracist, just, gun violence free, fully welcoming, gender affirming society in which everyone has enough. Read the rest of her bio here. 

Watch or listen to Jacqui’s Listen, Learn, Lean Into Peace series.

Learn more about Freedom Rising 2024!

Follow Jacqui on Instagram, Twitter, and Youtube.

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✊🏽 Reach out anytime: [email protected].

❤️ Have an amazing week, friends! Keep giving a damn. Love y’all!

My guest this week is the esteemed Tim Wise. Tim is among the most prominent anti-racist educators and authors in the United States. He has spoken to audiences in all 50 states and internationally about systemic racism, inequality, and methods for dismantling racism in institutions from workplaces to schools to law enforcement. 

He is the author of nine books including his most recent essay collection, Dispatches from the Race War, and his highly acclaimed memoir, White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son. 

He tweets (or Xes, pardon how that sounds) here and posts regular commentary on Instagram here.

During our chat, we talk about being a Jewish person raising in the South, how he got into anti-racist work, the horrific war happening in Palestine and Israel currently, Zionism, where we go from here, and so much more.

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📱 Follow Let’s Give A Damn on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Youtube.

✉️ Sign up for our weekly email.

✊🏽 Reach out anytime: [email protected].

❤️ Have an amazing week, friends! Keep giving a damn. Love y’all!

My guests this week are two truly remarkable women. I met Sophia and Patricia at the Clinton Global Initiative 2023 meetings a few weeks ago. 

Read more about Sophia Kianni’s work here. Follow her on Instagram and Twitter. And make sure to check out Climate Cardinals! 

Follow Patricia Velásquez on Twitter and Instagram. Consider getting involved with the Wayuu Taya Foundation.

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📱 Follow Let’s Give A Damn on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Youtube.

✉️ Sign up for our weekly email.

✊🏽 Reach out anytime: [email protected].

❤️ Have an amazing week, friends! Keep giving a damn. Love y’all!

“All that the sun shines on is beautiful, so long as it is wild.” — John Muir

Barbara Jo Jenkins co-authored The Walk West (William Morrow), which became an international bestseller and part of the permanent White House Library. A nonfiction blockbuster, it sold 15 million copies, became a Reader's Digest condensed book, and was chosen as one of the most influential bestsellers related to American culture in the last 100 years. Jenkins' three-year, 3,000-mile walk across America with her former husband became one of the most popular stories in the National Geographic Magazine, (Cover story, August, 1979).  She co-authored The Road Unseen, (Fawcett) a number one mass paperback bestseller and winner of The Gold Medallion Book Award. Jenkins wrote I Once Knew A Woman (Wolgemuth and Hyatt) and Wit and Wisdom for Women (Thomas Nelson).

40 years later, Barbara is ready to tell her side of the story. And, believe me, it’s a damn good story. Her brand new book, So Long As It’s Wild, is out today and you need to purchase a copy as soon as you possibly can! 

Learn more about Barbara Jo (including upcoming book tour dates!) by visiting her website. Also, you should definitely follow her on Instagram. Lots and lots of wholesome words and photos.

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📱 Follow Let’s Give A Damn on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Youtube.

✉️ Sign up for our weekly email.

✊🏽 Reach out anytime: [email protected].

❤️ Have an amazing week, friends! Keep giving a damn. Love y’all!

From their website: “Rise & Shine TN believes every Tennessean should enjoy a free, safe, and vibrant life. Rise & Shine was started as a home for those who want to harness their hope, anger, sadness and fear and use it to build change. This is more than meetings with legislators who won’t hear us. This is more than calls that won’t be answered. This is more than business-as-usual. We draw from our training and experiences as parents, organizers, entrepreneurs, educators, healthcare providers, artists, non-profit experts, small business owners, corporate managers, musicians, native Tennesseans and new transplants who all agree that more must be done to protect our communities.” Donate online and follow them on Instagram and Twitter/X.

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📱 Follow Let’s Give A Damn on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube.

✉️ Sign up for our weekly email.

✊🏽 Reach out anytime: [email protected]

❤️ Have an amazing week, friends! Keep giving a damn. Love y’all!

Flamy Grant is a shame-slaying, hip-swaying, singing-songwriting drag queen from western North Carolina. Her 2022 debut record, Bible Belt Baby, was nominated for Best Pop Album at the San Diego Music Awards, and she is a winner of the 2023 Kerrville Folk Festival New Folk Competition. Both a powerhouse vocalist and an intrepid songwriter, Flamy blends the art of drag with her iconic folk/rock sound to create a memorable musical experience.

Flamy has collaborated with Adeem the Artist, Jennifer Knapp, Semler, and Derek Webb. In addition to playing the New Folk winner's showcase at the 2023 Kerrville Folk Festival, she has played Wild Goose Festival in North Carolina, San Diego Pride's SheFest, and is headlining Blount County Pride in East Tennessee this September.

Much of Flamy’s music centers on the queer spiritual journey, telling stories of resilience and recovery from religious trauma in a world where LGBTQ+ people are frequently ignored by, harmed in, or ejected from religious spaces.

NEXT STEPS:

- Check out Flamy’s website for tour dates and so much more!

- Follow Flamy on TikTok, Instagram, and Twitter.

- Listen to Flamy’s music on Apple Music and Spotify.

- Is Flamy doing a show near you? If so, go see her!

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Reach out to us anytime and for any reason at [email protected]. Follow Let’s Give A Damn on Facebook, Instagram, & Twitter to keep up with everything. We have so much planned for the coming months and we don’t want you to miss a thing! If you love what we’re doing, consider supporting us on Patreon! We can’t do this without you. Lastly, leave us a 5-star rating and review on Apple Podcasts! Have an amazing week, friends! Keep giving a damn. Love y’all!

I met my Natalia Antelava about a month ago in Tbilisi, Georgia, at the storytelling festival she co-founded that I spoke at. At this festival, I spoke alongside Sean Penn, Armando Iannucci, Aaron Rasmussen, Joe Sabia, Sarah Natochenny, and 70 others. I was impressed by her then and I am much more impressed with her now! She’s an incredible human that has gone through so much, been to so many places, and continues to give a damn in very beautiful and meaningful ways. 

A co-founder of Coda, Natalia is an Emmy-nominee and award winning journalist. Originally from Tbilisi, Georgia she started her career freelancing in West Africa. Since then, she had been BBC’s resident correspondent in the Caucasus, Central Asia, Middle East, Washington DC and India. She has covered the Russian invasion of Georgia in 2008, the war in Eastern Ukraine and reported undercover from Burma, Yemen and Uzbekistan. Her investigations into human rights abuses in Central Asia, Iraq and the United States have won her a number of awards. In addition to a career in broadcast journalism, Natalia has also written for the Guardian, Forbes magazine and the New Yorker among others. 

Over the past few years, Natalie co-founded two incredible organizations we talk about at length in today’s conversation—Coda Story and ZEG Storytelling Festival. 

NEXT STEPS:

- Follow Natalia on Twitter.

- Follow Coda Story on Instagram and Twitter and consider supporting them on a monthly basis.

- Check out what happened at ZEG Storytelling Festival last month and consider joining us next year! You most definitely must add Tbilisi to your travel plans.

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Reach out to us anytime and for any reason at [email protected]. Follow Let’s Give A Damn on Facebook, Instagram, & Twitter to keep up with everything. We have so much planned for the coming months and we don’t want you to miss a thing! If you love what we’re doing, consider supporting us on Patreon! We can’t do this without you. Lastly, leave us a 5-star rating and review on Apple Podcasts! Have an amazing week, friends! Keep giving a damn. Love y’all!

It's Megha Desai Day is on the podcast! Megha is a corporate advertising powerhouse turned President of The Desai Foundation. After years working at some of the top advertising agencies—like BBH, Anomaly, and Wieden & Kennedy—Megha decided to join her family's foundation to help them grow and increase their reach in meaningful ways.

The Desai Foundation is an organization that empowers women and children through community programming to elevate health, livelihood and menstrual equity in rural India. They inspire women and children to dream beyond!

NEXT STEPS:

— Follow Megha on Instagram.

— Follow The Desai Foundation on Instagram.

— Learn more about The Desai Foundation on Youtube.

— Watch the Heroes for Humanity Film.

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Reach out to us anytime and for any reason at [email protected]. Follow Let’s Give A Damn on Facebook, Instagram, & Twitter to keep up with everything. We have so much planned for the coming months and we don’t want you to miss a thing! If you love what we’re doing, consider supporting us on Patreon! We can’t do this without you. Lastly, leave us a 5-star rating and review on Apple Podcasts! Have an amazing week, friends! Keep giving a damn. Love y’all!1

If you don’t already know who Matt Bernstein is, where the hell have you been? Living under a rock somewhere? Matt is a content creator, a makeup artist, and a self-described “queer jew with very long nails.” Matt uses a simple and unique design style to create infographics and other images that are meant to raise awareness around LGTBQ+ issues, antisemitism, bigotry, and so much more. Matt is also incredibly gracious and puts up with a tremendous amount of shit from trolls. 

Matt doesn’t like being called an activist (you’ll hear more about this in our chat) but there is no doubt that Matt is an effective builder of community. We have so much to learn from Matt in this conversation and on social media. 

NEXT STEPS:

— Follow Matt on Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok.

— Keep an eye out for Matt’s brand new podcast, A Bit Fruity, which will release soon on all podcast platforms.

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Reach out to us anytime and for any reason at [email protected]. Follow Let’s Give A Damn on Facebook, Instagram, & Twitter to keep up with everything. We have so much planned for the coming months and we don’t want you to miss a thing! If you love what we’re doing, consider supporting us on Patreon! We can’t do this without you. Lastly, leave us a 5-star rating and review on Apple Podcasts! Have an amazing week, friends! Keep giving a damn. Love y’all!

I don’t need to tell you about Rainn Wilson. You know about Rainn Wilson. He’s one of the best fucking humans out there. I’m so glad he’s a friend of mine and a friend of the show. His words and wisdom are needed so badly right now and I’m pumped that we get to hear from him again right here on the podcast. Soul Boom! Spirituality! Happiness! And so much more!

NEXT STEPS:

— Follow Rainn on Instagram and Twitter.

— Buy Soul Boom!

— Watch The Geography of Bliss on Peacock!

— Support Rainn and Holiday’s nonprofit, Lidé Haiti!

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Reach out to us anytime and for any reason at [email protected]. Follow Let’s Give A Damn on Facebook, Instagram, & Twitter to keep up with everything. We have so much planned for the coming months and we don’t want you to miss a thing! If you love what we’re doing, consider supporting us on Patreon! We can’t do this without you. Lastly, leave us a 5-star rating and review on Apple Podcasts! Have an amazing week, friends! Keep giving a damn. Love y’all!