Meeting The Moment

For 25 years, MARIA HINOJOSA has helped tell America’s untold stories and brought to light unsung heroes in America and abroad. She was the first Latina ever hired by CNN and NPR in the 1980s, and she’s been blazing a trail of authentic humanizing storytelling about the most vulnerable communities in our country throughout her career.

Maria launched The Futuro Media Group in 2010 with the mission to produce multi-platform, community-based journalism that gives voice to the voiceless by telling stories that are overlooked or under reported by traditional media. She has been covering the issues of identity, immigration, gangs, and family separations at the border for the past decade.

As the anchor and executive producer of the long-running weekly NPR show Latino USA, and as anchor of the Emmy Award-winning talk show Maria Hinojosa: One-on-One from WGBH/La Plaza, she has informed millions of Americans about the fastest growing group in our country.

In this conversation, Maria shares her journey to journalism and her identity, how she evolved from reporter/storyteller to game-changing media company CEO, the current media landscape especially when it comes to the Latinx community and the current nightmare of family separations, plus what new possibilities she sees coming out of this crisis moment in our history.

The immediate years after 9/11 were profoundly challenging for American Muslims, who struggled to find their voice while being targeted for suspicion by law enforcement, media and the public alike. Meanwhile, their community institutions were in their foundational stages and largely unconnected. That pressure cooker environment is part of what sparked a groundbreaking and transformative program to support the emerging leaders of the American Muslim community — the American Muslim Civic Leadership Institute (AMCLI).

As Executive Director of the USC Center for Religion & Civic Culture, BRIE LOSKOTA‘s work and research focus on how religions change and make change in the world.  She is also co-founder and senior advisor to AMCLI and a trainer-facilitator with the United States Institute of Peace’s Generation Change program, where she has trained young leaders from across the Middle East, Africa, South America and Southeast Asia in leadership capacity and conflict management while also fostering a vibrant network among them.

Brie also works with local, state and federal government agencies to ensure more effective partnership with faith communities on issues including public health, mental health and disasters.

In this episode, Edina and Brie talk about the origins of AMCLI, Brie’s roots in Southern California, what she’s learned from more than a decade of training emerging leaders around the world, what it means to be a good ally, and how to leverage difference for new possibilities.

Links to Brie’s work and projects mentioned in this episode:

* Brie’s website

* USC Center for Religion & Civic Culture

* American Muslim Civic Leadership Institute

* The Influential Network for a New Generation of American Muslim Leaders (Religion & News)

* AMCLI co-founder & senior advisor Nadia Roumani

* Hebrew Union College & Rabbi Reuven Firestone

* U.S. Institute of Peace’s Generation Change

* Brie’s acceptance speech for the El-Hibri Foundation’s Fearless Ally Award

In this episode, Edina talks to another mom who has had direct experience with gun violence. Glenetta Pope shares her transformational journey through education, her own experience of losing a loved one from gun violence, and what we can do as moms and leaders to get real change to happen now.

MANAR WAHEED has spent her adult life fighting for the most vulnerable among us – survivors of violence, immigrants, Muslims, undocumented Americans, and now she’s fighting for ALL of us.

As Legislative & Advocacy Counsel of ACLU National, Manar is literally on the front lines of challenging Donald Trump’s ongoing destruction of our federal government, and Constitutional rights and protections. Her journey is one focused on protecting people, building power and harnessing people power to meet this moment.

In this conversation, Manar shares some incredible stories and powerful learnings from her time:

* growing up in Texarkana, TX as the child of immigrants who came from humble beginnings in Pakistan

* working with domestic violence survivors through undergrad, law school, and the beginning of her legal career

* advocating with the government and in local communities for the rights of South Asians in America in the aftermath of 9/11

* serving in the Obama White House Domestic Policy Council where she helped develop and implement President Obama’s executive actions on immigration and helped dismantle a national Muslim registry program created after 9/11

* joining the de facto leader of the resistance to the Trump administration, the ACLU

Since election day, the ACLU has been mounting some of the most prominent legal challenges to the Trump administration. They’re fighting hard on more than 60 critical issues threatening fundamental rights, and they’ve scored a string of major victories.

For 98 years, the ACLU has defended our Constitution in the courts. Now, they’re coupling that legal power with People Power — and taking their fight to the streets with grassroots action to resist the Trump administration’s assault on our communities.

Links to stuff we mentioned in this episode:

* Follow Manar on Twitter (@manaro_77) and her work with the ACLU

* Manar’s blogs on current issues

* Her White House Essay: My Day One: From the Streets of Lahore to the Heart of Texas

* Her MIC.com Essay: Under Obama I Advised Undocumented Immigrants to Trust Police. Here’s What I’d Say Now.

* Attempts to silence Muslims, Arabs and South Asians Won’t Work (Religious News Service)

* ACLU People Power grassroots action campaign – input your zip code to find local actions you can be part of

* ACLU President Anthony Romero’s open letters to Donald Trump

* Open letter following Trump’s inauguration (Jan 2017)

* Open letter on anniversary of Trump’s election (Nov 2017)

* Muslim Americans in the Obama White House (White House Archives)

* Working the West Wing (Politico)

* NBC News profile

REV. JENNIFER BAILEY is one of a growing number of millennial faith leaders at the forefront of helping strangers come together to explore their social and spiritual identities, and visible differences. Growing up in the small, mostly white town of Quincy, IL led Jen to find her sense of self in the black church, which led her to interfaith engagement and service work as a college student in Chicago and later to divinity school in Nashville.

She is the founding executive director of the Faith Matters Network, which is a collective of people of color who train, convene, and amplify voices of marginalized people of faith to chart a new moral horizon.

Named one of “15 Faith Leaders to Watch” by the Center for American Progress, Jen is an ordained minister in the African Methodist Episcopal Church, a public theologian, and an emerging national leader in the multi-faith movement for justice.

She is also an Ashoka and Nathan Cummings Foundation Fellow, and she’s currently working on her first book, tentatively titled Confessions of a #Millennial #Minister.

In this conversation, Jen shares:

* her road to service and intersectional spirituality

* why she pursued the clergy when so many millennials are leaving faith

* and what she’s learning about identity, intersectionality and healing justice as a new kind of faith leader on the front lines of multiple movements today

Check out her incredible TEDx Talk Composting Religion.

Links to all the stuff Jen & Edina talk about in this episode:

Faith Matters Network site & on Twitter

Interfaith Youth Core

Harvard Divinity School

On Being Innovation Lab – Casper ter Kuille, Angie Thurston & Rev. Sue Phillips

Black Liberation Theology founded by Dr. James Cone

Books on Womanism Jen mentions – Dolores Williams’ Sisters in the Wilderness & Jacklyn Grant White Women’s Christ, Black Women’s Jesus

* Lennon Flowers on Episode 2 of MTMpod & The Peoples Supper

Tennessee Immigrant & Refugee Rights Coalition

* Healing Justice is how we can sustain black lives by Prentis Hemphill (HuffPost)

HASAN MINHAJ is one of the biggest Muslim pioneers of American pop culture in the past decade.

From his scathing sketches on “The Daily Show” to his biting, on-point critiques of media and Hollywood at the 2016 Radio & TV Correspondents’ Dinner & 2017 the White House Correspondents Dinner to his upcoming weekly Netflix late night show, Hasan is becoming a household name with his hilarious, ultra-informed comedy that is both political and personal. Plus, his incredible Netflix special “Homecoming King” just won a Peabody Award, which recognizes excellence in storytelling.

In this conversation, we get personal as he traces his comedy steps, examine the palpable shift in Hollywood’s appetite for Muslims since Trump took office and do some predicting about what’s coming next.

Links to Hasan’s work & other mentions from this episode:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

* Hasan on Twitter & Facebook

* Hasan’s greatest hits on “The Daily Show”

* Hasan’s Peabody Award-winning Netflix special “Homecoming King”

* GQ’s International Man of the Year

* 2017 White House Correspondents Dinner

* 2016 Radio & TV Correspondents’ Dinner

* Famous American Muslims expanding what it means to be Muslim in pop culture (mentioned in the intro):

* Civil rights icon Malcolm X

* Athletes Muhammad Ali & Kareem Abdul Jabbar

* Comedians Dave Chappelle & Aziz Ansari

* Musicians Yasiin Bey (aka Mos Def) & Zayn Malik

* Models Halima Aden & Gigi Hadid

* Olympian Ibtihaj Muhammad

* Award-winning actors Mahershala Ali & Riz Ahmed

* CNN’s Fareed Zakaria

As the head of email marketing director for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, AMANDA LITMAN had every right to shut down and unplug after her candidate’s shocking loss to Donald Trump. But instead, just three months later on Inauguration Day, she helped launch an organization called Run for Something, to encourage and support millennials to run for state and local office.

Since then, over 17,000 millennials have signed up. In 2017, Run for Something endorsed 72 first-time candidates in 14 states — and 35 won. In the first few rounds of primaries which have taken place so far, more than a dozen Run for Something candidates have advanced to the general election in November. Plus, their endorsed candidates are nearly half women and/or people of color, and are poised to change the face of public service as we know it.

In this conversation, Edina and Amanda talk about her journey, working for the Obama and Clinton campaigns, what she’s learning about the new candidates and new voters of America, and her predictions for the election season ahead.

Other stuff they mention in this episode:

* When Women Win: Emily’s List & the Rise of Women in American Politics by Ellen Malcolm

* Amanda’s new book Run for Something

* CBS News segment with Amanda on Run for Something’s ads in Florida newspapers after the Parkland shooting

* Amanda Litman on Twitter & Facebook

* Run for Something on Twitter & Facebook

 

 

 

 

Edina speaks with peacemaker Rev. Dr. Gary Mason who became one of the key “persuaders” in the Northern Ireland conflict, leveraging his faith and relationships to bring armed fighters to the table with politicians, where they were ultimately able to create the historic Belfast Agreement that officially ended the conflict.

Host Edina Lekovic talks to one of her original co-conspirators in community transformation, about their powerful “meeting the moment” experience over the past decade.

Aziza Hasan is Executive Director and co-founder of NewGround: A Muslim-Jewish Partnership for Change, which has been transforming L.A.’s Muslim and Jewish communities through the power of relationships among broad political and religious spectrum of Muslims, Jews, and their institutions.

Loss is an experience that we all share and feel ill-equipped to face. LENNON FLOWERS lost her mother to cancer while she was a college student and mostly avoided talking about it for the next two years. Then a co-worker invited her to a dinner with people they knew who’d experienced an acute loss, and they went from strangers to what she calls a “pile of puppies” that night and continue to meet seven years later.

In this episode, Edina talks with Lennon about her journey of co-creating The Dinner Party, an international community of tables where people connect over living with loss, and how it helped inspire a new kind of dinner party specially designed for Trump’s America. Plus, you’ll hear her tips for how to show up for someone facing loss and why she thinks dinner tables are a form of meditation.