What Equality Looks Like

What Equality Looks Like has wrapped up projection. Thank you for listening and please join me on a new podcast, Persisting. This is a podcast for progressive activists who believe our country can live up to its promise if we persist in civic engagement and holding our government officials accountable. 

Each week we discuss the topics that matter most because of their impact on our lives and country. We identify the underlying issues, the progressive road forward and concrete actions we can take to make a difference - now. 

I hope you like this episode and subscribe to never miss an episode. 

In the podcast's finale, Terry O'Neill reflects more about what equality means, and how we can best achieve it. 

"Equality, to me, would mean that historically marginalized people would be seen, and heard, and respected, and supported, no less than the privileged and powerful. When I say marginalized people, I mean communities of color, LGBTQ people, people with disabilities, and in particular women within those communities."

This year, despite Donald Trump’s reign of corruption, racism, and xenophobia, and despite a lot of pre-election polling that turned out to be very wrong, white women voted much the same way they did in 2016: half or a little over half voted for Trump, while only 43-45% voted for Biden. Why? And what should progressive, antiracist feminists be thinking about the coming years? 

Alexa Maros is a co-founder of PDX Persist, a grassroots organization headquartered in Portland, Oregon dedicated to achieving big structural change; racial, economic and gender justice; and making government work for all of us, not just those at the top. If that sounds familiar it should. That's the vision Elizabeth Warren laid out when she ran for president. 

Courtney Carter is the founder of Ally2Action, an organization created in the wake of the murder of George Floyd. Carter helped create a 21-Day Journey, inviting allies to become active in the anti-racism movement. Each day you receive a text message linking you to a video, article, podcast episode, etc -- to help learn about the lived experience of Black people in our country. 

On this episode, Courtney and Terry talk about that word, “ally,” and about a new word, “discomfortable," and what’s next for Ally2Action. 

Fifty years after Aileen Hernandez served as President of the National Organization for Women, Christian Nunes has become NOW’s second African American president.

Advocating for the empowerment of women and girls has been Christian’s life work. She expresses a generous and inclusive vision for NOW’s future and is proud of the organization’s long-standing core values of ending racism and homophobia. But she is also mindful that white privilege and white fragility are all too real, not just in American society, but also in the women’s movement. 

Terry and Christian talk about what it means to be an intersectional ally, about the loss of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and about the difference between equality and equity. 

Saru Jayaraman is the founder and CEO of One Fair Wage, a national coalition dedicated to eliminating the subminimum wage for all tipped workers. What many people don’t know is that the federal minimum wage for tipped workers is $2.13/hour. Before coronavirus, tipped workers were already struggling. But the pandemic has created a particular crisis for tipped workers. One Fair Wage has stepped up. In the richest country in the world, there’s no excuse for singling out some workers for a subminimum wage.

As if intentional voter suppression targeting communities of color in states dominated by conservative politicians wasn’t enough, the COVID-19 pandemic has made voting even more complicated and difficult. Even in states free from voter suppression, marginalized groups have had a harder time casting their ballots in primary elections, and will have a harder time in the general election too.

In response to the pandemic, many states are implementing universal voting by mail – but as Barbara explained, while vote-by-mail is great, it is not a panacea – especially for Black, Latinx, and Native American voters, and voters with disabilities.