Episode 008 (Bonus): What Are We Showing Up For? Feat. Jaime Sunwoo and Brandon West

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Transcript

Group Chanting: "Black Trans Power! Black Trans Power! Black Trans Power!"

Cathy: This is the sound of 12,000 people just up the road from where I live. If you can't tell, they're chanting " Black Trans Power."

Cathy: We recorded this at the Brooklyn Liberation March. It's one of many, many marches that have been going on here in New York. 

 (clapping continues) 

Cathy: For almost a month now, people in the U.S. and across the world have been pouring into the streets, demanding justice for Black lives. 

Protest Speaker: We got a whole lot of people, you know, you know practicing lip service, but we are going to be a people of action.

Cathy: I've been thinking a lot about what happens next. What exactly is the change we're showing up for? And once we've shown up, what are we committing to? Whether that's today, this year, or for the rest of our lives.

MUSIC: Self Evident theme music (a playful hip-hop beat) begins

Cathy: This is Self-Evident where we challenge the narratives about where we're from, where we belong, and where we're going by telling Asian-America's stories. 

Cathy: I'm your host, Cathy Erway. 

Cathy: And today we're sharing two conversations we had with people who can explain what it means to  defund the police, what kind of world could be on the other side of that change, and what kind of work it takes to get there.

Cathy: First up is a conversation I had with Jamie Sunwoo. Jamie is a multidisciplinary artist who we first met because she's been developing this amazing performance project on the many meanings of spam and the Asian diaspora. We'll link to that in the show notes. 

Cathy: What I didn't know about Jamie until last week was that she spent a year working to help New Yorkers experiencing homelessness and housing insecurity.

Cathy: And what she experienced doing that work played a big role in why she supports defunding the police. Here's my conversation with Jamie.

MUSIC: Theme music fades out

Cathy: So I understand you used to work as a housing advocate. Tell me a little bit about how you got into that line of work. 

Jaime: So at the time it was around 2015, and I was working for my family company. 

Jaime: My mom's a fashion designer, so my siblings and I work with her. And at the time it was in Herald Square.

Cathy: Mhm.

Jaime: [00:02:22] I found out that Chick-fil-A was actually opening there.

Jaime: So Chick-fil-A, every time they open a new restaurant, they'll have people stay outside, and if they can stay all night, then they're eligible to have free Chick-fil-A for a year or something like that. 

Jaime: One of the eligibility requirements was that you actually had to have some sort of valid ID with an address on it.

Jaime: So basically it meant if you're homeless you can't participate, which is really crazy because in Herald Square, there's a lot of street homeless people. It just felt like it was very tone deaf. 

Jaime: And I was working there every day, and I had become familiar with a lot of the homeless individuals in the area. 

Jaime: And it just bothered me, so the homeless individuals that I knew in the area, I told them about it. And we decided, hey this is a great moment to kind of spread awareness that, you know, at the, at the time it was like the peak of, of homelessness in New York City. 

Jaime: So I wanted to also share resources, uh, when I was doing that. And I got in touch with folks from a Coalition for the Homeless, which is an advocacy group in New York City.

Jaime: So I was volunteering with them at night, and I, I was still working for my family company at the time. And I realized this is something that I wanted to pursue. 

Jaime: So I applied for a, what was called a housing advocate position at a company called Breaking Ground. And I worked in Manhattan, and I learned a lot. I was basically a caseworker.

Jaime: I would work with chronically street homeless clients. I would be their point person from when they were on the street all the way to permanent housing, if that's something that they wanted. 

Jaime: So I would complete housing applications for people, gather IDs. A lot of people still needed to gather like their birth certificate and Social Security Card and all that.

Jaime: And then, I would also follow them through if they needed, uh, transitional housing or even a safe haven bed. Or needed to go to a doctor's appointment, needed mental health care, everything. Whether they were in a hospital or nursing home, I would be there. 

Jaime: And so if a client was in the emergency room, then I'm in the emergency room, you know?

Jaime: So it was a very, very involved job. Every client had different needs. So I would kind of meet people where they're, where they're at. 

Cathy: Mhm.

Jaime: And then my longterm goal would be them finding permanent housing. It was a really difficult job that required a lot of patience and understanding and trust. And it was - you had to learn how to multitask and, um, think quickly on your feet.

Jaime: It was extremely demanding. I, I was, you know, at the job for a year. And as I was working, a lot of people didn't make it, you know? They just couldn't do the job. I mean, it was extremely demanding. And at one point I had 35 people to check on. And the thing is you have to check on people at least once a week, right? 

Cathy: So Jamie, that means you had to 35 people to check on at least once a week. Is that right? 

Jaime: Correct. 

Cathy: Okay. 

Jaime: So, and the thing is, you know, I mean, a lot of time you would write "client not found" because you would go to their street location where they're usually at, and if they're not found, then at least you have to try to check in with them.

Jaime: So we had a long list of hospitals that we would call regularly to check whether our clients were there. We would check databases for whether, maybe they were in jail. 

Jaime: If I still couldn't find them, I would, I would call the morgue. And that's how I found out one of my clients had died. And there were a lot of crises like that where I just couldn't get to everyone.

Jaime: I was working over time and because they have a strict budget, you know, I was getting reprimanded for working over time and, and it's just extremely emotional 'cause you feel like you could have done something. 

Jaime: And, and when you have that many clients, it's just so hard to do that. So I just had to leave at that point.

Cathy: I'm so sorry, Jamie. Like what? It sounds like this is just a very grueling emotional job. And what other challenges would you come across though from other outside sources? Whether they be other folks on the street, where their run ins with the police that occurred with these, with some of your clients. 

Jaime: With the police, it was more like, I just couldn't find my clients sometimes, sometimes my clients would get arrested for like, you know, hopping the turnstile or loitering, right? 

Jaime: Like, 

Cathy: Really? 

Jaime: Getting, getting arrested for being homeless pretty much. 

Cathy: Yeah.

Jaime: Or like you, you'd get fined, but then they can't pay the fine. It's, it's all these things. But also there were moments where, for instance, I came home and - I was off duty by then because it was after work hours. 

Jaime: But I did notice in my neighborhood that there was a woman who was having some sort of mental breakdown. And she was kicking and screaming, and she was trying to take all her clothes off in the middle of the street. 

Jaime: And it was clear that she needed some sort of medical attention. So I, I did call  911, and I let them know, hey, like I am caseworker, I'm an outreach worker. And I, I do see this woman in distress. Like, can you bring any EMT to evaluate her? Because EMTs, can kind of do medical and some basic psychiatric evaluations to see if someone needs to be hospitalized. Right?

Cathy: Mhm.

Jaime: So I waited there and then around, you know, like three police cars showed up. There was an officer who took one, look at her, and she was startled.

Jaime: She just kind of froze. And then he just said like, look, she, she just looks like she's on drugs. She's just like this drug addict. And I don't think this is urgent. 

Jaime: Even though I was explaining, hey, like I have experience with this. And I really think she needs to be evaluated, they kind of just shrugged it off.

Jaime: And that officer ended up telling me, like, why don't you invite her over to your house and let her stay on your couch. Which, yeah, it's just like such a callous response, and it was disrespectful to me and disrespectful to the person who was in distress. 

Jaime: And I was in shock, but you know, none of the other officers said anything. And there were so many people I just, and I was by myself.

Jaime: So, you know, I was kind of intimidated to even ask for a badge number at that point. And I did know what precinct they were from, cause it's my neighborhood. 

Jaime: And I called, and I made a filed complaint with internal affairs. And they said they would get back to me. They never got back to me, and that's kind of the runaround.

Jaime: You know, sometimes they could come in - the police come, but then also an EMT comes. It depends on the situation, but in this case she wasn't able to get evaluated at all.

Jaime: And because there were so many police officers, she just ran off, you know? I think there was just this lack of empathy. These things require a lot of patients and police officers 

Jaime: have a lot on their hands and they're not patient. The main takeaway is that we, we needed to deescalate wherever possible. 

Cathy: I mean, do you think that police are well equipped to, to deescalate?

Cathy: Is that something that that's trained to do? 

Jaime: No, not at all. No, not right now. I mean, the thing is like, I think one, there's a lot of things on their plate that I don't think have to be on their plate. And some people argue, well, it's like a deterrent. Like the more you bother people on the street, but they're more likely to go into shelter.

Jaime: And to be honest, it doesn't work like that. Like, You know? Like it's, I just don't think it's effective. I think it makes it, again, harder for people to find their clients who are actively trying to get them resources. 

Jaime: Caseworkers, a lot of the nurse practitioners I worked with, the psychiatrist that I work with, those on the field, a lot of outreach workers wear plain clothes.

Jaime: And the reason is like, things like the police, you know? Police are uniformed, they come, it's intimidating, and they scare people off. 

Jaime: And a lot of the interactions are not benevolent. It's like, you know, why are you here? Can you leave? You know? Can I throw out all your belongings because it's, like, blocking the sidewalk?

Cathy: Sounds like, it's like out of sight, out of mind kind of mentality.

Jaime: Right, but it's not out of sight.

Jaime: They're just going to go somewhere else. And then, you know, what are you going to... and if these systems are overwhelmed and they'll probably be back on the street again, like. 

Cathy: What would you hope would happen in that situation? What would you like to have with that job that you didn't get? 

Jaime: I think there just has to be more resources for people who work in these positions.

Jaime: And, you know, the biggest issue for me was turnover. I was so flooded with clients that, you know, I, I didn't really want to be in a position again where I'm like, oh, did this person die because I, I couldn't, you know, find the time to care for them. 

Jaime: It's not just that I was overloaded. I mean, we worked with nurse practitioners on staff who'd go out in the field to evaluate. Uh, we also had a psychiatrist on staff who could go out on the field with us, so visit street clients and actually evaluate them and prescribe them medication. 

Jaime: There were nursing home caseworkers. There were drug counselors. Right? So there are the resources it's just, they're overwhelmed.

Jaime: I would say every single one of those resources I was talking about, whether it's mental health care, hospitals, medical emergencies, nursing homes, drug facilities, like all of them are just really overwhelmed. 

Jaime: I mean, a lot of people, to be honest, that I met were also kind of jaded. And I felt were not performing at their highest level because they were exhausted.

Jaime: And it kind of scrapes away your sympathy too, when you're just tired. When people hear something like "defund the police," I think some peoples like knee jerk reaction is to think that there's a void, and that's not true. 

Jaime: We have the resources. It's not that we don't have the resources. They're just overwhelmed, you know? 

Jaime: So yeah, it's just fortifying our communities. It's not ending and not having a plan. I think people think that maybe we don't have a plan, but there, there is already a plan set in place. And it's, it is working and it just needs to work better and harder. Faster stronger.

Cathy: Talking with Jamie helped me understand some of the negative experiences that people, especially vulnerable people have with police.

Cathy: Her outreach work was a concrete example of where more resources could go. If we spent less of it on police departments. That kind of change in what kind of people we send to protect and serve communities could lead to a very different world. 

Cathy: But what does it really take to get there? And how do we step up to be a part of that?

Cathy: We wanted to ask someone who's been doing this work for a while and has the lived experience of being a black community organizer in particular. And it just so happens that our producer James lives with a longtime community organizer named Brandon West. 

Cathy: Brandon is a candidate for New York City Council and full disclosure, James has been volunteering for Brandon's campaign. But Brandon also used to work directly on the New York City budget. 

Cathy: Right now, he and a lot of other organizers are putting pressure on the city to reduce New York's police budget by $1 billion in the next year. He's brought a lot of newcomers into local activism along the way.

Cathy: And since he and James are roommates, they've sat down to talk about all of this. Okay. Here's James and Brandon. 

James: So I think one conversation that's getting a lot more oxygen right now is a conversation that points out how disparate our perceptions of the police have been depending on where we grew up and the color of our skin.

James: And those differences have always painted our idea of who the police are and what they're here to do completely differently, but that isn't always talked about. And now it seems to be coming into, like the mainstream conversation. 

James: So I know you had an experience in high school with police being used against the student body, I think might be a good way to put it.

James: So I was wondering if you could just like, tell me that story from high school one more time. 

Brandon: Oh, totally. So I guess the backdrop is I'm living in Brooklyn for like 10 years, but I grew up in Northern New Jersey. I went to Columbia High School in Maplewood New Jersey because my family is from, like, Jersey City and Newark for the most part.

Brandon: So. They moved out of Newark to get to the town of South Orange, which is kind of, like, a mix between, like, upper income, white Jewish community and, like, people who've just moved out of New York and working class black people. So it's like a mixed community. And the high school was just kind of this like very complicated issue where there's like a lot of AP classes and like a lot of people on assisted launches.

Brandon: And at the time I was like in the upper level classes, so my classes were mostly white, but if I was in like gym or some larger class, it would be like, you know, maybe like a third or two thirds Black, you know, depending on situation.

Brandon: So it was mixed worlds. And it was a situation where like we had, you know, officers in the school, and it was the first school where we had that.

Brandon: So that was like a different thing for us. And there was a principal who just had like poor race relations in the school. And we had two cafeterias that were attached to each other, but there are two separate cafeterias. 

Brandon: One was it really dingy where most of the Black students stayed in. And the nice one was a new cafeteria, which most of the white students were in.

Brandon: And I learned this more later, but essentially the principal got a lot of pressure from companies in the, in the town pushed by the fact that students were not leaving restaurants clean enough when they were going out to lunch and they would like leave garbage at like the subway. 

Brandon: The principal essentially wanted to like close lunch in order to dictate to the student body, like this is like proper etiquette when you're out in the community. 

Brandon: So they did that closed lunch, only talked to the Black side. And the kind of like dictate it to them, like manners. And like, it took really long and for whatever reason, it didn't end in time. So no one could eat lunch. 

Brandon: So then someone was, I remember he, they were just like, really angry and like fully knocked over a garbage can.

Brandon: And essentially, the like police officers respond to that as police officers respond to Black people, you know, when they do something like that. It was very aggressive. 

Brandon: And it was like, kind of like shocking to see that in high school. Like it's not like something going out in the world. It's like in your high school.

Brandon: And then the principal immediately left, went to do an announcement and essentially, like, said that they were being attacked by the student. It was a complete lie. And this is a white principal who wasn't from New Jersey. 

Brandon: Like they brought him in to kind of do this. You know, you have this authority figure that's like in your life and you're... you see them, you interact with them and you kind of have this like, you don't have this fear until you've seen and interacted with police violence. 

Brandon: And that completely changes your interaction with that, that body. And if you feel that it's unjust, which was like the case in this situation, it was like, it completely changes your like sense of contract, you know, that like there's fairness in any sense of what's going on.

Brandon: So that's like the first real interaction, and I've had other interactions, like in college with the police. But like, this was like the first time I was like a wake up call in terms of like, we don't have power in this situation. There's nothing that we can really do about it. 

James: I went to a school where police were never there. This was not even a thing that I knew was possible suburban high school and like LA orange County. 

James: You went to high school where there were police. What was the purpose of them? What was your perception of that? 

Brandon: At that age, you never really like thought about it. It was just kind of like, well, these are the rules, this is the confines of the world that I live in, you know?

Brandon: And there was this like, notion that like there is crime, you know, and there is like violence. There would be like isolated incidences, but like in reality of day to day, there was never really like a legitimate need for that.

Brandon:  And it's definitely this like punitiveness in terms of like how, like a white administration was seeing the students. And it kind of was fed into so many other things throughout the time of living there.

Brandon: Just this like sense that there was like racial lines in terms of like the experience that you're going to have. It like lit what was already like a tinder box in terms of like notions of like different experiences and different sense of justice or lack thereof based on presence of police and like how that was connected to the administration and how they were seeing or using that, I guess.

James: Why is that story important? Like why does that experience matter? 

Brandon: It fed into everyone's notion of like what it meant to be part of that school. It like fed into how Black students saw themselves. It fed into how Black students saw like the, the system in terms of how some classes or some like levels were predominantly white in some weren't.

Brandon: And it was hard to go from one or the other. It, there was always this like cloud of race and how everything was being operated and how you're being seen by your teachers. And there was racism within every fabric of the experience. And also like that's the first time you're going to have a experience with police violence.

Brandon: I'm sure some of them, I know some them, maybe you had those experiences before, but like, for me, that was the first time where I like saw it in like a real, real way. 

James: So when we're thinking about the protests that are going on right outside our house that are going on all over the city, all over the country, one of the most consistent demands of these protests is to defund the police.

James: So to you, what does that mean? 

Brandon: Well, for me, defunding the police is - it's very simple. It's also very complicated, but I think it can be both of those things at the same time. 

Brandon: For me, the complicated version is defunding the police means, reducing the police budget and funding social services, programs, alternatives to policing that like involve the community, particularly ones that aren't as punitive and aren't as violent aren't based in systems of racism, like the police is. 

Brandon: I think that like the easy answer is like, if defunding, the police is on the road to abolition, this is not a legitimate system of community safety. It does not work and it can't be reformed. So we need to like take money out of it until we can get rid of it. It depends who you talk to, what they believe,

Brandon: but generally that's what it means to me because I believe in police abolition, but I think there's a long road to getting to that, which involves a lot of like planning and rethinking about how safety is really done and also like changes in criminal justice system that like can mirror that so that

Brandon: you decriminalize things, you need less police, you need less capacity in prisons, so on and so forth. 

James: What do you think when you see arguments over, whether to say "defund," whether to say "abolish," or to not say "reform," these kinds of wording, distinctions that seem to be taken up a lot of the conversation space.

James: Like to you, what's the most critical part of that fun situation?

 (James laughs) 

Brandon: I mean, it's frustrating to say that like, well, "we can't say this, or we can't say that." Like, do you realize what's going on right now? Like, this is like - take a step back and realize that like we're an unchartered territory and we should just let the organizers decide what language we should use.

Brandon: And it's like, anything else. It goes through ups and downs and evolves. I feel. Sticking to like what connects to people is going to work. And then I think that's what the movement's going to do. 

Brandon: Yeah, there's different between like politics and like movement work. And I think that like this is movement work, and it's really complicated and you don't have control over it.

Brandon: And it takes like evolution. And this is coming out of like, Black Lives Matter 2015, which is coming out of Occupy in some ways, which is coming out of like older left movements. Like this is building an evolving thing. 

James: What is the movement here in New York where you are directly involved for you have been involved and you are asking for change? 

Brandon: So there's a lot of different groups who are organizing a lot different ways. The biggest conversation right now is, you know, to defund the police, defund NYPD campaign, and really who's spearheading that is a coalition mainly by Communities United for Police Reform. And I've been working with them in some capacity.

Brandon: I'm doing like essentially two projects that I'm working on outside of my paid job. And one is a group of former staffers who are trying to organize around the mayor with - cause we put out a letter essentially criticizing a lot of things, with mainly how he's been approaching this in criminal justice issues.

Brandon: And then the others has been a Black collective of organizers. It turned into us doing a defund the police dance party up in Williamsburg. They got like 10,000 people to show up. 

Brandon: So like, we're trying to figure out other ways to engage with people right now. It's like the first time there's ever been like this much attention to this before.

James: I was curious and showing some of my ignorance here, but like, you know, back in 2015, during the past five years, the defund objective, like how much was that being pursued as this is the thing we can get, this is the thing we can focus people on and like move people towards? 

Brandon: Five years ago, it was very different in terms of like, what groups were saying. I think before it was more of like justice for Eric Garner, and there wasn't really a super coordinated option of policy strategies. 

Brandon: The message wasn't as succinct as it is now. That led to like organizations being created who became policy focus, and that kind of led to this time being very different to being like really clear messages and clearer strategy. 

Brandon: So that I think is like the difference between like five years ago. But before it was just like, let's just get people to the streets. Alright, we're doing another protest in Union Square. And then we're like, alright, we're going to march, you know.

Brandon: Large marches in the streets weren't really a thing for a long time since that. And that was the whole question is like, how's the police gonna react? But I think nationally, the conversation was more on systemic racism overall, as opposed to like, police and specific policies that can be implemented and leveraging people to do that.

Brandon: That's like this version of it, and I think it's maybe more effective.

James: Right, so like you're describing this process of the movement, just kind of attracting more people and being more forceful. And then people now have aligned around like a really specific policy demand. People are actually saying the words, "defund the police" or "abolish the police." 

James: So why is it the case? Like why is this being spoken seriously about now? 

Brandon: I think it's like the moons are kind of aligning like one part of it is just that, like, people are stuck in their homes. People are upset, a lot of people were without jobs. This is like, the political climate is even worse.

Brandon: We even have more Trump to be frustrated about. People who have not been super thrilled about the democratic primary. I think there's like a lot of like attitude and experiential things. 

Brandon: So I think people were just like upset. I think there's some study that like, this is the most depressed or upset Americans have been in 50 years, just in general, based on like polling.

Brandon: So that's one thing I think also, gives us a lot of like history to happen. And even in the - just last five years about police violence, police murders, people have been really good about recording like interactions with the police. And I've been sharing that.

Brandon: You have pretty like moderate to liberal white people who have never addressed criminal justice issues or racial justice issues that are like posting on their Facebook, these like long diatribes about the experience.

Brandon: And they're like going in on their like aunts and uncles, you know, that they never talked to online. And I'm seeing this. I'm just like, I would love you to be doing something else too. 

 (James laughs) 

Brandon: But like, this is a great start for you. I'm watching you have this argument with someone, you know, that you're never gonna really talk to again, but like the people who have been able to sit with this, you know, and to have seen it as so many times, it's like now people are like, feeling like, okay, this is, this is unjust.

Brandon: I mean, I know five years ago, the crowds were much blacker. And now just as like a general population, it's particularly young people, like everyone's showing up, like everyone is going to these things, you know. And there's like, you  know, others sides to that, pros and cons to kind of that, but like people are showing up because I think it's widely felt.

James: So here in New York, the groups that you were working with are basically getting folks to turn out, to call city council members because city council members influenced the police budget and the police budget is what the coalition is trying to reduce. 

Brandon: Mhm, yup.

James: That's a very direct kind of cause and effect that people actually have a leverage over because we elect the city council members. They are accountable to us, pretty straightforward. 

James: For people looking at this issue in their own communities, if they wanted to take some kind of further action on this -, that like - what would you suggest?

Brandon: Yeah, so I guess there's only like a few weeks left in terms of like leveraging the budget. But I think, I think there's a lot of issues beyond this, that connect to the problem. Like, I think the next steps really are following up with any of the electeds who have like higher aspirations.

Brandon: They can be held accountable because they have future aspirations. So continuing to like. Leverage them and like make sure you come in and watch them and hold them accountable is always important because that will impact sort of the future that they have. 

Brandon: I think the other thing is also, it's important to continue to have conversations with community groups, because a lot of people just don't understand how policing could be different if we just thought about it differently and funded things differently.

Brandon: So I think. Finding groups that do that work and supporting them and trying to broaden that coalition like church groups can be other like block associations is trying to bring more people into that, I think is an important next step. 

James: When you tell me that what I'm hearing is it's kind of like, sorry, but you actually have to work.

 (James laughs) 

James: Because I think that even when we think about civil rights and democracy, we only treated as like consumerism.

James: It's like, Oh, I need to know how to vote. I need to know how to like, spend my vote. And then like, that's, that's my obligation. 

Brandon: Yeah I think a lot of people still don't understand. There's a difference between mobilizing and organizing. 

Brandon: Mobilizing is like getting people who agree with you already and are the same demographic to do a thing in order to like, get to a goal.

Brandon: Like that's a lot of times voting. That's like getting ... the demographic of people who already support you getting as many of them to show up on election day. 

Brandon: And then you, election day happens then you kind of piece out and not talk to them ever again. And people think that's organizing, and like it's not really organizing.

Brandon: Organizing is more, like, kind of like labor organizing, something where it's like you're through directing and you're reaching out to people and you're trying to find like, get them onboard to like an - a process. So you have to like work with them in order to like, find out that outcome, which is like a collaborative thing, like that's base building.

Brandon: And that takes like meetings and like, conversations and like a lot longer process to like broaden that group 'cause you have to put a lot more time into each person to like join that because they're not just joining it for a moment and joining it in perpetuity. 

Brandon: And like that's organizing, you have to think about this sort of, what are you, what are your goals? Like what are the actual like legitimate goals and like, how do those shift power. 

Brandon: The biggest thing is like if politics, his hobby and the no's politics has power changing. And sometimes the like politics is hobby stuff starts to pop up as in things that you can attach to and maybe are self-serving because people come to these things also just be a part of something.

Brandon: And you can kind of like virtual signal in a room with other people - that is like going to the bar after the meeting is like, that's, that's an important part of it all. But also like a really important part is getting the new folks to kind of like, like follow the lead of folks who've been doing it longer, working with other groups who have been doing it longer and also entrenched in the communities that they're doing the work in is like the best way to keep going, because the work is inherently hard. And that's, that's important.

Brandon: There's a lot of easy ways out kind of organizing. And really the key is doing the work. It's not glamorous doing the work that's dealing with systemic issues and bring people along with you. And that means like meeting their needs and making sure that you're considering them. And that means base building and bringing folks into that process.

Brandon: If you're not bringing along  more people with you in the process, then you're not going to get to your goal. You're not going to get to change. And that takes a lot of like patients and a lot of people don't have the time or patience to do that work because you will hate yourself doing it. Like I hate myself all the time because it sucks to do this work, but like, that's the only way to like win in the longterm.

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Cathy: This episode was produced by James Boo and Julia Shu. We were edited by Julia Shu with help from our production intern, Prerna Chaudhary. 

Cathy: Big thanks to Brandon and Jamie for joining us. You can learn more about them by checking out our show notes. 

Cathy: I'm Cathy Erway, and I'd love to hear what you thought of this bonus episode of Self-Evident.

Cathy: You can email your feedback to community@selfevidentshow.com. Until then keep listening to the people who've been doing work for justice. Find a way to take action.

MUSIC: Theme music ends