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Often the only person of color in her childhood classrooms, stand-up comedian Karith Foster spends a lot of her time speaking at universities such as Stanford and Oberlin about taboo subjects in a constructive way. She hates labels and the boxes they can put us in, which is why her take on diversity training actually focusses on “INversity” – meaning inclusion and introspection – mixed with a healthy dose of humor.

In this episode, Karith talks about what it was like to transform a hostile audience in a jam-packed hall at Oberlin into one welcoming of different perspectives. We also discuss her work as an on-air radio personality on the controversial Don Imus In the Morning show following his comments about the women’s basketball team at Rutgers University and her appearance in the documentary “Can We Take a Joke?,” which garnered support from strange bedfellows such as the American Civil Liberties Union and the Charles Koch Institute.

Karith believes firmly that people from across the political spectrum have good ideas, and the fact that “just because you are not on that side does not mean you shouldn’t think it’s a good idea too” is “insanity.” Unsurprisingly, in Karith’s words, she often feels “like a political alien.” We hope she felt right at home here at Sanity!

“It shouldn’t have to take a national tragedy to bring us together. My daughter’s godparents are in Houston and they had to get rescued by canoe. I guarantee you nobody said... ‘who did you vote for?’ That wasn’t the question when people were trying to save each other’s lives. ”

— Karith Foster

Episode Notes:

• Review: ‘Can We Take a Joke?’ The Answer Appears to Be Not Anymore, The New York Times, July 2016

• Policing humor is not funny — keep the offensive comedy coming, The Chicago Tribune, September 2016

• Comedians 'appalled' by humorless college students, Campus Reform, July 2016

• Are Students Humorless, The Chronicle of Higher Education, September 2016

• The High Priest Of Heterodoxy, Tablet Magazine, July 2019

• The art of defying stereotypes | Karith Foster | TEDxLincolnSquare, May 2017

• KarithFoster.com

 

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In our latest episode, Steven Pinker, a Harvard University cognitive psychologist, linguist, and author, sheds light on the quest for human progress, the Enlightenment period, and the importance of maintaining – and burnishing – our democracy. 

Pinker is the author of “Enlightenment Now,” a book that dedicates its pages to the great many advances we’ve made as a society and the reasons world is actually getting better, not worse. Bill Gates calls it his “new favorite book of all time.” It’s not all roses, but Pinker’s belief system — one based on data and fact — is grounding when applied through the lens of examining today’s political polarization. His optimism for the future is both encouraging and informative. Expand your mind and have a listen.

“Progress is a real phenomenon. It’s not a question of having an optimistic temperament or seeing the glass as half full, it’s just a question of being aware of facts. ”

— Professor Steven Pinker

Episode Notes:

• Ideas Beyond Borders

• Why translation matters for the Arab world, The Arab Weekly, Jun. 2019

• 2004’s Time 100: Steven Pinker, Time Magazine, April 2004

• ‘Reason is non-negotiable’: Steven Pinker on the Enlightenment, The Guardian, February 2018

• Meet the Renegades of the Intellectual Dark Web, The New York Times, May 2018

• CNN Holds Morning Meeting To Decide What Viewers Should Panic About For Rest Of Day, The Onion, July 2014

• One thing to change: Anecdotes aren’t data, The Harvard Gazette, June 2019

• Why are we so Pessimistic?, Brookings, June 2019

• Top Harvard Psychologist Steven Pinker: Go Ahead and Get Emotional in Negotiations, Inc. Magazine, July 2019

• StevenPinker.com

 

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Human rights activist Faisal Saeed Al Mutar is a survivor of the Iraq Civil War, of being placed on an al-Qaeda death list by a high school classmate, and of the murder of his brother. Faisal escaped Iraq and eventually made his way to the United States in 2013. A firm believer that education and a free flow of ideas across the world can combat extremism, he founded Ideas Beyond Borders in 2017 in an effort to prevent extremism before it takes root.

Ideas Beyond Borders has established a range of international programs to empower individuals with knowledge often suppressed by authoritarian regimes and dictatorships. For example, they've translated millions of words into Arabic to encourage diversity of thought, including books by Steven Pinker (who also serves on their board), Sam Harris, and others. They’ve also partnered with Arabic & Kurdish Wikipedia and have reached millions online. According to Ideas Beyond Borders, just 0.6% of content on the internet is available in Arabic, and in the past year more words have been translated into Spanish than the number of words translated into Arabic in the past 1,000 years.

Ideas Beyond Borders is changing this, one word at a time.

In this episode we talk with Faisal about his personal journey, the work Ideas Beyond Borders is doing to combat extremism, his thoughts on polarization in the United States and around the world, and his favorite American holiday. (Hint: it’s right around the corner! )

“If we create a new identity that is empowered, that believes in the ideas of diversity and enlightenment in general, then that is the best counter measure to extremism.”

— Faisal Saeed Al Mutar

Episode Notes:

• Ideas Beyond Borders

• Why translation matters for the Arab world, The Arab Weekly, Jun. 2019

• Why Students Protested Event Analyzing Islamism, New Ideal, Jun. 2019

• Faisal Al Mutar Fights Radical Islam with Western Bestsellers, Reason, Sept. 2018

• Faisal Saeed Al-Mutar and Dave Rubin Discuss Politics and Religion, Nov. 2015

• Iraqi refugee works to make life safer for secular humanists, Washington Post, Dec. 2013

 

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Uriel Epshtein is the executive director of the Renew Democracy Initiative (RDI), an organization that seeks to revitalize the political center by educating the American public about liberal democracy. Raised by Soviet Union refugees who lived in Israel before immigrating to the United States, Uriel’s family instilled in him a lifelong passion for reconciling people's perceptions of “the other."

In this episode we speak with Uriel about RDI and it’s spirited efforts to increase civic awareness and education and about the Peace and Dialogue Leadership initiative at Yale, an effort Uriel founded as a student to help bridge the civil-military divide. Connecting West Point cadets with college students at Yale, PDLI’s programming includes an annual eye-opening trip to both Israel and the Palestinian territories.

“It’s really hard to vilify ‘the other’ when you know them on a personal level.”

— Uriel Epshtein

Episode Notes:

• The political center is fighting back, The Washington Post, April 2018

• Garry Kasparov Says We Are Living in Chaos, But Remains an Incorrigible Optimist, The New Yorker, Dec. 2018

• Diverse lineup of thought leaders to discuss future of democracy, The Hub, March 2019

• The Renew Democracy Initiative

• Peace and Democracy Leadership Initiative, Yale and the World
  

 

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For four years, Washington's Secretary of State Kim Wyman was the only Republican to hold statewide office across the entire West Coast. You could say she knows a thing or two about working across the aisle. In this episode, Secretary Wyman shares insight on election security (and what it was like keeping Russian hackers out of WA in 2016), mail-in and paper ballots, her bipartisan reddit thread with Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon, and the uniqueness of overseeing institutional libraries in WA prisons and state hospitals.

“The greatest threat to our election system, quite frankly, is partisanship. People that are counting ballots, people that are charged with overseeing the conduct of elections have to rise above partisanship when they are doing their jobs.”

— Washington Secretary of State Kim Wyman

Episode Notes:

• Washington Secretary of State Kim Wyman Talks Election Security, Voter Turnout, King 5 News, Aug. 2018

• Student Voter Registration Challenge 2018, June 2018

• What We Know About the 21 States Targeted by Russian Hackers, The Washington Post, Sept. 2017

• More States Should Follow Washington and Vote by Mail, The Seattle Times, Nov. 2018

• It Looks Like Any Other Graduation—Except These Graduates Earned Their Degrees in Prison, CNN, May 2019

• Reddit AMA, Secretaries of State Steve Simon (MN) and Kim Wyman (WA), Sept. 2018

  
  

  
  

 

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Did you ever stay quiet in a college classroom in fear of rustling feathers?

If so, the Heterodox Academy wants you to know you’re not alone. Founded in 2015, Heterodox is a non-partisan network of over 2,500 academics across the country that are committed to welcoming a diversity of viewpoints in the classroom. They’re fighting the good fight to promote constructive disagreement (not antonyms!) at institutes of higher learning.

We spoke with their executive director, Deb Mashek, about their important work and about two elements that are critical to learning: discomfort and challenge. Mashek herself is a former college professor and spent 13 years as a Professor of Psychology at Harvey Mudd College. Inspired by the 2016 election, she developed a course entitled I’m Right; You’re Wrong. In this episode, Mashek shares some of her experiences in the classroom and offers a fun take on how secret decoder glasses can help us get in the right frame of mind to understand each other!

“I don’t think learning can take place in the absence of discomfort and challenge. If I’m not challenging your world view...then I’m not doing my job as a teacher.”

— Deb Mashek

Episode Notes:

• Heterodox Academy Campus Expression Survey

• A New Leader in the Push for Diversity of Thought on Campus, The Atlantic, Feb. 2018

• A Movement Rises to Take Back Higher Education, Wall Street Journal, Jun. 2018

• Do universities have a self-censorship problem?, Washington Post , Apr. 2019

  
  

 

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Morris P. Fiorina is a political scientist like few others: he’s an optimist. Fiorina grew up in rural Pennsylvania and worked in steel mills to put himself through college. A professor at Stanford University and a Senior Fellow of the Hoover Institution, Fiorina has spent much of his life studying the American electorate. In this episode, he busts political myths, explains the difference between sorting and polarization and offers a reassuring perspective on today's political climate. 

“Look around you. Do the people you talk to resemble
in any way the kinds of people blathering on TV?
The answer is no. ”

— Morris P. Fiorina

Episode Notes:

• Surprise: Voters Aren't More Polarized than Ever, Only Pols and Media Are, Reason, February 2018

• Polarization Is Not the Problem, Stanford Magazine, May 2018

• Unstable Majorities: Polarization, Party Sorting, and Political Stalemate, Morris P. Fiorina, Amazon Link

• Palo Alto woman sparks furor by berating man wearing MAGA hat, The Mercury News, April 2019

• Is America more politically polarized than ever? Not quite, Chicago Tribune, September 2018

• Independent Politics: How American Disdain for Parties Leads to Political Inaction, Samara Klar & Yanna Krupnikov, Amazon Link

 

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Since the fall, the McCain Institute has used its #MavericksNeeded campaign to stand up against injustice and defend the dignity of all people.

Following President Trump’s latest round of tweets about Senator McCain, the institute released a fact sheet about the Senator’s legacy to set the record straight.

In this episode, we sit down with Ambassador Kurt Volker, Executive Director of the McCain Institute and former US Ambassador to NATO, to discuss Senator McCain’s legacy as well as the work the Institute is doing to get more citizens engaged and In the Arena.

“The media loves to portray the fight, but the reality is far more upbeat.”

— Ambassador Kurt Volker

Episode Notes:

• The Facts About John McCain, McCain Institute

• McCain Institute counters Trump criticisms with fact sheet about senator, The Hill, 3/20/19

• Munich Security Conference Agenda and Attendees

 

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In journalist Jenna Lee’s words, it’s all too easy to feel disgusted reading and watching the news these days. That’s why the former Fox News co-anchor is on a mission to produce a refreshing, customer service-centered alternative: SmatHER News. The non-partisan platform is working to be a source consumers can not only trust, but also enjoy.

After seven years at Fox and a decade in New York City, Jenna moved to Texas with her family and launched SmartHER News. Every morning, Jenna reports the news via Instagram live for thousands of engaged followers. But unlike her days at Fox, Jenna’s new “set” often features her two toddlers, breakfast cooking on the stove, and a coffee mug in hand. It’s an honest take on reporting and real life – and one look at her followers’ real-time comments tells you her authentic style is resonating.  

Jenna joined Sanity to talk about the importance of customer service in news (something she learned while working as a waitress), the humility of starting something new, the excitement of presenting at SXSW, and her vision for creating less toxic, more facts first news.  

“Journalists don’t have a license to practice. They have their integrity. ”

— Jenna Lee

Episode Notes:

• SmartHERnews.com

• Instagram

• American Women Inspire A SmartHER News Revolution @ SXSW

• SmartHER News 3/27/19 Take on Jessie Smullet (“…few, if any of the city's 373 shootings, 60+ murders or 1,500+ aggravated assaults have received even a fraction of the attention of this case.”)

 

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The bright and bubbly Katie Fahey of Grand Rapids, Michigan wanted to do something that captured the energy of the 2016 election that people from across the aisle could actually unite over. Sound impossible? Not to Katie. What started as a Facebook post about taking on gerrymandering in her home state led to hundreds of thousands of Michiganders joining her in the fight. It sounds a like a movie: strangers meeting at warehouses in the middle of the night to make clipboards; three feuding sisters -- an Independent, a Democrat, and a Republican -- reconnecting over the cause; veterinarians doing research in the middle of the night; and thousands of people signing petitions at highway rest stops on Thanksgiving day. Listen to Katie share about how the heck she made it all happen.

“All the things that are built up in our heads — that you have to look a certain way, or have so much money, or have the connections — were kind of dismissed because we were able to break through a lot of that. Maybe not even break through, but just said ‘screw it, we’re going to try anyways.’”

— Katie Fahey

Episode Notes:

• Voters Not Politicians

• A Grassroots Call to Ban Gerrymandering, The Atlantic, Sept. 2018

• Making a Difference in 2018, The New York Times, Dec. 2018