The Round Table: A YVote Podcast

The Round Table: A YVote Podcast

By YVoteNewsNews Commentary
Download on the App Store

The Round Table: A YVote Podcast episodes

  • Immigration...We All Got Here Somehow

    At this week's Round Table, Eliza, Inica, Isaiah, Madeline & Olivia spoke with Beth Fertig, Senior Reporter for WNYC Radio for immigration, courts, and legal affairs. We discussed what brought Beth to the immigration beat and what she’s learned covering the biggest, busiest immigration court in the country--especially during the time of COVID. We explored key differences in the immigration policy agenda of President Obama vs President Trump--and what we can anticipate in the Biden Administration. We examined the degree to which immigration has been a political football for years, and talked about what issues are handled through the Department of Justice--meaning under direct Presidential control--versus what needs to be approved by Congress, which has bottle-jammed immigration reform for many decades.  The conversation reminded us of how immigration is a bedrock of this country, and how diverse and dynamic each of the stories are. We’re pleased to be able to share some with you this week.  Thank you for joining us!

    Background Articles

    On immigration courts and why so backlogged now

    On last ditch efforts by the Trump administration and what Biden can do

    29 min
  • Power is more helpful than help
    Our guest Shawnda Chapman noted that entrenched systems of injustice like racism and sexismcan make us feel helpless. Often what we try to do to remedy such feelings is provide help, when what we really should focus on is providing power--the power to determine one’s own life and one’s own destiny. Rather than determining what’s best for girls and “giving” it to them in a paternalistic way, the goal should be to help them live into their fullest potential and make decisions for themselves.
    1 min
  • The hope was that if you didn’t talk about it, it would go awat
    Our guest Shawnda Chapman notds that we don’t have great answers or solutions for many youth who are survivors of sexual violence--when she was growing up, there wasn’t even language for talking about it, only stigma. Many get sent into the foster care system which too often devastates their lives even further. Others get punished, for ex, being sent into the juvenile detention center, which doesn’t help either. If anything, it solidifies one’s identity as “troubled” or “bad,” which one then tends to live into. A lot of behavior that gets criminalized is really, at root, resistance to unfair treatment in schools, violence in communities, family life that doesn’t honor identity. Shawnda notes that what many young women of color most need is someone to believe in them and ask them what they need.
    1 min
  • I definitely think there’s a thing that starts in youth and metastasizes over the life course
    In response to a question from Divya about the distinct problems girls of color face, Shawnda noted how seeds are planted in childhood that have the potential to lead to healthy or unhealthy growth. She cited the degree to which girls of color often don’t get to control their environment--their family context, their economic well being --yet are expected in adulthood to perform as if they’d had equal opportunities. So Shawnda’s desire is to empower girls early and to try to counteract some of the negative thinking and internalization of stereotypes before they can take root in a diminished sense of self.
    1 min
  • I feel like we’re expanding and contracting all at once
    Our guest Shawnda Chapman called attention to the dance of progress and regress at play in our country. She noted that today’s youth are not wedded to fixed concepts of gender and sexuality--even she gets checked on binary thinking by younger thinking--and she loves the expansion of inclusivity. Unfortunately, simultaneously she cites how racial progress has moved in the wrong direction as a result of the current administration giving people license to be their worst selves. Although Shawnda experienced racism all her life growing up in the South, now people are authorized to be racist and sexist in public, which is shocking and frightening. Her hope is that it’s the last dying breath of racism creating space for young people to lead in a very different direction
    1 min
  • People supporting the work of girls vs the work of boys are pitted against each other
    Our guest Shawnda Chapman shared some of the challenges of supporting girls of color, noting that too often false hierarchies around whose needs are greater get created, and how anytime people speak up for girls of color, they get pegged as being hostile and asked “what about the boys?” when the same question doesn’t get asked to those supporting boys of color. TThese narratives are counterproductive and complicate getting support for either boys or girls. Shawnda recommends shedding such binaries--particularly since many youth being served don’t identify with gender binaries overall!
    1 min
  • Those closest to the problems are closest to the solutions
    Our guest, Shawnda Chapman, Director of the Girls Fund Initiative at the Ms Foundation, shared that she once hit her biographical details, fearing that they would make people take her less seriously at the decision-making table. Over time, she recognized that her lived experiences are part of her superpowers--that our experiences, even the toughest ones, need not be viewed as weaknesses as they are often our strengths and that those closest to the problems are also closest to the solutions
    1 min
  • The Opposite of Hopelessness is Power

    At this week's Round Table, Divya, Eliza, Madeline and Olivia spoke with the stellar Shawnda Chapman, Director of the Girls Fund Initiative at the Ms Foundation. This is the second episode in our series on national identity, inclusion, and belonging. We talked about how the intersection of racism and sexism cooperate to keep the experiences of girls and women of color silenced and “invisibilized”--and why they are important to include in public narratives.  We talked about ways in which our national identity and the image of who we are as a people is simultaneously expanding and contracting.  We talked about the depression to prison pipeline, and how what gets characterized as “bad” is often resistance.  And, importantly, we talked about what it means to build power within social justice movements.  Shawnda reminded us that the people closest to problems are closest to solutions, and that our vulnerabilities can be our strength. Thank you for joining us!

    33 min
  • We are in a fight for democracy
    Inica underscored the sheer gravity of this country’s current political climate--“Now we’re in a fight over democracy, with the very fabric of America that is at stake. She underscored that we need to be able to sew the fabric back together and repair what was once considered a melting pot of a country. She spoke about how precarious our current situation is if we continue in the direction we’re going, because there won’t be anything to bind us together. She shared her belief that unity is achievable if we make it so, but we need to be able to look beyond the labels that are tearing us apart as a country and connect with the humans beneath the labels.
    1 min
  • Maybe we need a National Unity Day
    Isaiah noted that he doesn’t really see how we could have one holiday that truly speaks to everyone. He wondered about how close we can get to a holiday that speaks to everybody--he once thought maybe it was the Fourth of July but then read Frederick Douglass’ What To The Slave Is the Fourth of July. Madeline proposed that perhaps we need to start a new holiday, noting that a holiday about unity, combining the joyful spirit of Christmas with the patriotism of the Fourth of July and the coming-togetherness of Thanksgiving--along with a day off from school--would be epic
    1 min

About The Round Table: A YVote Podcast

From the publisher's feed

The Round Table provides a platform for conversation and engagement of civically-minded young people from different parts of the country. We strive to model civil dialogue across various divides--socioeconomic, racial, ethnic, political, and regional. We aim to challenge norms and represent all kinds of diversity--especially of perspective and ideas--enabling listeners to “hear” our thinking.