This introductory episode acknowledges that the conversation around anti-Black racism is happening on stolen and occupied Indigenous land.  Settler colonialism and settler privilege have enabled us to frame the Native American experience in the past tense, as if they are no longer here. The resulting effects of invisibility is exacerbated when groups are excluded from the decision-making process and their population numbers aren't large enough to be considered. The current western structures of democracy require it to be a numbers game. 

There are shared experiences and histories among Black and Indigenous people in the United States. To understand the foundations of urban planning, we must understand that the root of anti-Blackness comes from the transportation of enslaved and stolen Africans to build a nation that was violently stolen from Indigenous people. Given this relationship with one another, where might the liberation of Black and Indigenous communities intersect and where might they be in conflict?

In the Bay Area, space is racialized on land that was originally stewarded by the Ohlone people. In this episode we speak with Jose Garcia AKA Peps 357, Mary Jean Robertson and Sharaya Souza to address the question of solidarity and understand their lived experiences and perspectives when it comes to a built environment that is shaped by western colonialist ideologies and occupies their land. These interviews were recorded in September 2020.