Let's Give A Damn

Benjamin Perry is a minister at Middle Church and an award-winning writer whose work has appeared in outlets like The Washington Post, Slate, Sojourners, and Bustle. With a degree in psychology from SUNY Geneseo and an MDiv from Union Theological Seminary, Perry has worked as an organizer with the New York chapter of the Poor People’s Campaign and as an editor at Time, Inc. Perry has appeared on MSNBC, Al Jazeera, and NY1, and is the editor of the Queer Faith photojournalism series. He and his spouse, Erin Mayer, live with his best friend and brother in Maine, nurturing a small apple orchard.

NEXT STEPS:

— Follow Benjamin on Twitter and Instagram.

— Check out Benjamin’s website.

— Order your copy of Cry Baby: Why Our Tears Matter today!

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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!

During this Black History Month, we’re bringing you some snippets from conversations we have had over the past few years with incredible Black writers, speakers, professors, preachers, actors, and artists.

“Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.” — Barack Obama

After you listen to the incredible clips in this episode, make sure you listen to the full conversations:

Episode 27 with Clint Smith

Episode 143 with Lisa Sharon Harper

Episode 163 with Eddie S. Glaude Jr.

Episode 169 with Chloé Valdary

Episode 182 with Colman Domingo 

Episode 210 with Joél Leon

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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! Lastly, leave us a 5-star rating and review on Apple Podcasts! Have an amazing week, friends! Keep giving a damn. Love y’all!

Simran Jeet Singh, Ph.D., is the Executive Director of the Religion & Society Program at the Aspen Institute and the author of the national bestseller The Light We Give: How Sikh Wisdom Can Transform Your Life.

Simran's thought leadership on bias, empathy, and justice extends across corporate, university, and government settings. He is an Atlantic Fellow for Racial Equity with Columbia University and the Nelson Mandela Foundation, a Soros Equality Fellow with the Open Society Foundations, a Visiting Lecturer at Union Seminary, and a Senior Advisor on Equity and Inclusion for YSC Consulting, part of Accenture.

Simran is the author of an award-winning children's book titled Fauja Singh Keeps Going: The True Story of the Oldest Person to Ever Run a Marathon (Kokila, Penguin Random House). He earned graduate degrees from Harvard University and Columbia University. Simran is a recipient of the Peter J. Gomes Memorial Award from Harvard University and, in 2020, TIME Magazine recognized him as one of sixteen people fighting for a more equal America. He writes regularly for major outlets, including The Washington Post, Harvard Business Review, CNN and TIME Magazine, and he writes a monthly column for Religion News Service.

Born and raised in San Antonio, Texas, Simran now lives in New York City with his wife and two daughters, where he enjoys running, writing and chasing his kids.

NEXT STEPS:

— Follow Simran on Twitter, Facebook, and Instragram.

— Check out Simran’s website.

— Order your copy of The Light We Give today!

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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!

Welcome to the first episode of 2023! We have an incredible year ahead for you. We're just getting started!

This week's guest is the incredible Nazazin Ash. Nazanin is the CEO of Welcome.US—a new national initiative built to inspire, mobilize, and empower Americans from all corners of the country to welcome and support those seeking refuge here. This organization is led by a truly incredible team and is co-chaired by President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama, President Bush and First Lady Laura Bush, President Clinton and First Lady and Secretary Hillary Clinton, and President Carter and First Lady Rosalynn Carter. 

Welcome.US is only 16 months old but they have already accomplished so much:

— 800 organizations and 221 leaders make up the welcome coalition and council

— The Welcome Fund, in partnership with GoFundMe.org, has raised more than $20M, supporting resettlement agencies and 180 frontline organizations, nearly 70% of which are refugee, diaspora, veteran, or faith-led.

— Welcome.US CEO Council members contributed $179,074,000 in goods, services and funds to resettlement efforts in the U.S. over the past year.

— More than 58,000 Afghans and Ukrainians Welcomed by American Sponsors. Over 130,000 Americans have signed up to sponsor, and Welcome.US is powering Americans’ desire to help.

— 68,000 jobs posted by 224 companies on the Welcome.US Employment Exchange. Plus, nationwide hiring fairs for newcomers.

— 29 organizations are on the Welcome Exchange, and $18.8M in-kind donations have been made to resettlement organizations.

NEXT STEPS:

— Follow Nazanin on Twitter.

— Follow Welcome.US on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

— Become a sponsor! It's such an incredible opportunity. 

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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 can’t believe this is the last episode of the year! We hope you’ll stick around and get more involved in what we're doing and building here at Let’s Give A Damn in 2023. We have so much that we’re planning on rolling out next year.

This Best of 2022 episode features clips from some of our favorite moments during our conversations with the following incredible guests in 2022:

— Episode 219 with Jacqui Lewis

— Episode 222 with Rachelle Lefevre

— Episode 225 with Tyler Merritt

— Episode 227 with Hillary McBride

— Episode 228 with Andy Grammer

— Episode 232 with Frederick Joseph

— Episode 233 with Alok Vaid-Menon

— Episode 236 with Pádraig Ó Tuama

— Episode 243 with Anand Giridharadas 

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 our nonprofit foundation! We can’t do this without you. Oh, and make sure to sign up for our weekly email. Lastly, leave us a 5-star rating and review on Apple Podcasts! Have an amazing week, friends! Keep giving a damn. Love y’all!

Detra Denise is a woman determined to tell her heartbreaking and hopeful story to as many people as possible in as many ways as possible.

NEXT STEPS:

— Follow Detra on Instagram and Facebook.

— Follow Detra’s Story on Instagram.

— Visit the brand new Detra’s Story website.

— Buy her limited edition, 5-pack cigar sampler!

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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!

Tom Fishman is the CEO of Starts With Us. Starts With Us is a movement to foster curiosity, compassion, and courage as daily habits to overcome the polarization, blind tribalism, and dehumanization threatening the social fabric of our communities.

NEXT STEPS:

— Follow Starts With Us on Twitter and Instagram.

— Visit their website and join the Starts With Us movement today!

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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!

Good+Foundation is a leading national nonprofit that works to dismantle multi-generational poverty by pairing tangible goods with innovative services for low-income fathers, mothers and caregivers, creating an upward trajectory for the whole family.

NEXT STEPS:

— Follow Good+ Foundation on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

— Visit Good+ Foundation’s website to learn more and to donate.

— Follow Jessica Seinfeld on Instagram.

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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!

Russell (aka Jolly Good Ginger) was raised by racist and bigoted parents and now educates white people to eradicate bigotry in all of its ugly forms. He shares his message with almost 2,000,000 people on social media. Russell is a damn good human and I can’t wait for you to meet him and learn from him today!

NEXT STEPS:

— Follow Jolly Good Ginger on Tiktok, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitch.

— Watch his TEDx talk on breaking the cycle of white supremacy.

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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!

Anand Giridharadas is a writer.

He is the author of The Persuaders: At the Front Lines of the Fight for Hearts, Minds, and Democracy (2022), Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World (2018), The True American: Murder and Mercy in Texas (2014), and India Calling: An Intimate Portrait of a Nation’s Remaking (2011). A former foreign correspondent and columnist for The New York Times for more than a decade, he has also written for The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and Time, and he is the publisher of the newsletter The Ink.

He has spoken on stages around the world and taught narrative journalism at New York University. He is a regular on-air political analyst for MSNBC.

Born in Cleveland, Ohio, he was raised there, in Paris, France, and in Maryland, and educated at the University of Michigan, Oxford, and Harvard.

He has received the Radcliffe Fellowship, the Porchlight Business Book of the Year Award, Harvard University’s Outstanding Lifetime Achievement Award for Humanism in Culture, and the New York Public Library’s Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism.

He lives in Brooklyn, New York, with his wife, Priya Parker, and their two children.

NEXT STEPS:

— Follow Anand on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

— Buy The Persuaders: At the Front Lines of the Fight for Hearts, Minds, and Democracy.

— Buy Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World.

— Watch Anand’s fantastic TEDx talk — A tale of two Americas. And the mini-mart where they collided.

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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.